Teacher Becomes the Student: Textbooks

Temple's bookstore website makes it easy to pull up all of your textbooks at once and see the total cost, as long as the professor submits their text requests. The good news for me is that I have the same text for both classes. The bad news is that it costs $178. As a member of the Temple Textbook Affordability Task Force, this is interesting information. Language acquisition is hard and I don't blame an instructor for choosing the best text despite the cost, but I do think a wider community needs to examine alternatives.

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Credit Reports and FICO Scores

I'm in the process of tidying up my finances. Suze Orman's The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous and Broke has been a fantastic resource because it gives clear, straightforward advice in language I can understand. Orman's first rule, and she is very insistent on this, is that you have to know your FICO score, also known as your credit rating. You probably know that this score is used to determine your eligibility for mortgages and car loans. According to the New York Times it is also often used by employers to decide if you are a good job candidate. So even if you're not shopping for a loan, it is a good idea to know your score. BUT, before you check your score, you should check the information your score is based on--your credit reports. You actually need to look at 3 credit reports, one from each of the major agencies (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion). But you only need to go to one website to get started. AnnualCreditReport.com allows you to obtain one fr...

Teaching Tools

I've added two new teaching tools to my regime this semester. 1. Skitch . Skitch is both a desktop application that lets you capture images easily, and a website that allows for easy image sharing . I'll use it this semester to capture images that we can discuss in class, and to take pictures of the blackboard at the end of class (to capture interesting brainstorming sessions). I can upload the pic via email, straight from my phone, and the students will have access right away. I can use the image capture software to circle parts of the reading, charts, graphs, etc. and bring those to the surface for discussion. 2. Slideshare . This program allows you to upload PowerPoint presentations to the Web. I uploaded all of my slides for the semester to one page where they can be accessed from any computer. It allows me to worry less about carrying the slides on a USB drive or having to upload them to the course Blackboard page, which sometimes doesn't open. It also makes fo...

Wipeout

Tom over at I Hate Paper turned me on to this ABC show Wipeout . I don't wanna like it, but it's really fun to watch. I'm watching it on Hulu, which ABC wasn't really partnering with very much, but they seem to have stepped it up. Since I'm interested in both the business and content sides of popular culture, I thought I'd use my new love of Wipeout to do some exploring. Wipeout is a collaboration of Endemol Entertainment and Pulse Creative . Endemol was founded in Amsterdam in 1994 but its website says it is now owned by a "consortium consisting of Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, Mediaset Group and Cyrte Group." Its credits include Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Deal or No Deal, Big Brother After Dark (?), and Gay, Straight or Taken. Pulse calls itself a boutique agency and it has only 4 other shows to its credit. It is really a branding agency and it merged with Insite Media Group in 2007. Wipeout is distributed primarily by ABC , which is o...

Dustin Kidd

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