Looking for ways to become a more effective teacher

Compiling a list of helpful links and notes here:
Cal State LA "Active Learning" suggestions
Increasing Student Participation in Class: Town Halls and Post-it Notes
Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) Active Learning Teaching Tips (A list of links)
Teaching Effectiveness Program (TEP) Resources Page from the University of Oregon
How to make a lesson plan from the UofO TEP pages
Increasing Student Participation Hand-out

Christmas Amaryllis

Every year, a little before Thanksgiving, my Aunt Carol and Uncle Marv send all the members of the family a potted amaryllis bulb that blossoms sometime before or after Christmas. This year, our amaryllis unfolded rather late - just this week. Although we had to wait a little longer for it, it was worth it; she came out just beautifully:

new in my life

I haven't posted here for a long time. The main reason is that about 10 months ago, such an important event happened that I devoted an entirely new blog to describing it: my first pregnancy and the subsequent delivery of my beautiful son, "VJ" on October 7.

I'm back now though, because I'm busy doing something that I want/need to keep notes on, but my "baby in progress" blog is not the right place to do it: I'm...

... starting a career search and preparing for job interviews.

So based on my preps for interviews coming up in a few days, I have been referring to a UCLA Career Center site that has lots of useful links to preparing for job interviews (be they phone, conference, or campus visit interviews).
But some of those links are no longer valid. Also, I've been conducting my own search and found additionally useful links that I want to keep track of here.

Also, if I have time, I will try to summarize my own individual experience, including personal advice and notes that I accumulating during the process. For now the additions will be pretty unorganized and unstructured, but bear with me. Hopefully I might organize them sooner or later... Unfortunately, some of these links are password protected on the Chronicle of Higher Ed... but moving on:

+ The Academic Job Search Handbook by Mary Heiberger and Julia Vick of UPenn Career Services
+ "The First Interview" insights from a veteran interviewer, Steven M. Cahn
+ job search experience of a grad student in history.
+ asking the right questions at interviews.
+ "AHA Interviews, redux"
+ Advice from the AHA itself on "Successful Strategies for Interviews at the Annual Meeting"
+ More "Interviewing Strategies" by Melanie Gustafson from the AHA
+ "Advice on Surviving the Job Register," the AHA Job Search/Hiring Center at its annual conference.

I don't think I'll ever beat this score

My all-time best Tetris scores
Today, April 28, 2008

Level: 49
Lines: 391
Score: 557,946

Until today, my best ever was only half of that!
Dec 5, 2007
Level: 33
Lines: 238
Score: 248,922

Family Food Formulas

I've been cleaning out my piles of miscellaneous "junk" lately and found some recipes that my auntie gave me recently. They have to be saved - but the most appropriate way to do it, I'm not really sure. Hence this blog posting, which might alternatively be titled "Family Flashbacks to Food"!

What I decided to do is to scan each of these recipes from my two grandmothers and my wicked-good-cook-for-an-aunt, Marlene, and post them here and on my Picasa web site - for all the world to enjoy. The first recipe, "Annie's muffins," is apparently a hand-me-down from my deceased paternal grandmother, Annabelle Hart Davis, who was famous in the family for making yummy cinnamon roles. She gave this recipe to my aunt decades ago, who then passed it on to me last Thanksgiving.

The second recipe is from my other grandmother, Maria Franco Varian, on my mom's side- who is still alive and very much still "kickin' it." She wasn't much of a cook - as most anyone in the family will tell you. But! she did make some pretty da%*m good lumpia - or Filipino egg rolls. My aunt was saving this recipe to pass on to family members like me also.

And finally, and Just who is this aunt that I keep talking about? It's my Auntie Marlene, who is known in the family for being a consummate chef and homemaker. She gave me her pipin' hot recipe for stroganoff, which she prepared for me, Scott, and the rest of the family a couple of months ago. She claims the secret to the recipe is in the wine sherry...



To see a closeup of any of these recipes, just click on the image.

"Essential Japan" A slide show that I created with Google and Picasa

Look! at these beautiful pictures I took in Japan. I call this slide show "essential Japan" because it highlights images that are often considered "symbolic" or "typical" of Japanese culture.



If you click here, you can see an even better slide show that fills your entire computer screen. This is especially effective (and aesthetically pleasing) if you type the "f11" key on your computer keyboard in advance.

I have created this slide show because I am beginning the process of transporting all of the images that I have uploaded on my Flickr site over the years to a new site that I have just joined: Google/Picasa Web Albums. I am doing this, in turn, because I have become completely disappointed with Flickr's tactics for forcing its customers to renew (and pay some $25 each year) by holding their pictures hostage.

I would love to elaborate on this frustration, but for now, suffice to say that I am going to start trying out Google's Picasa web album site for storing and sharing my pictures with friends, family, and "the public". This web site offers 1GB of storage free of charge, and if customers want to buy more space, they can do so honestly and fairly without their pictures being taken away from them as a way of ensuring their business. So far I am impressed with the sites options - including making these awesome little slide shows that I just embedded here in my BLOG.

This is an explanation for my Dad and his friend Stansfield

Los Angeles

Another way to take things offered on the web that are "open source" (that is "gadgets" or images" offered to the public for open use - and free of charge) is the way that I tried to describe to you in my last email...
There are many sites that have created HTML code that you simply copy and paste into your own blog.

For example, on the following web page
http://www.worldtimeserver.com/clocks/wtsclock001.aspx
users are given the option to use a clock that that website has created as "open source". It gives good instructions on how to do this... and, frankly, I think those instructions are better than any I could try to type here, so I won't try to elaborate.

But, as you can see, if you click on their link that says something like "get html code" - you will arrive at a new page that gives you two options. TO be honest, I'm not sure what the difference between the two options are - but I would just try to copy the first first, since that seems to be the most common choice.
---
OKay, I just paused for a minute to try it out myself, and yes, the first option is the better choice for "blogger," this host site that I use....
All I did to post this clock was to cut and paste the entire HTML code from that page into the box on my blog site where I'd normally type and upload the texts for a new post.

As you can see by this example, you can add text directly next to these embedded free source gadgets... And then voila, What you see is What you get (WYSIWYG)...

Hope this works for you guys!