photo credit: clydeorama I achieved a personal milestone yesterday with the successful defense of my PhD dissertation (What is the link to picture above? I “scored” a personal “goal” yesterday). Even more exciting than the “Congratulations” from the chair as I re-entered the room was the word that my work required no revisions and it […]
As you may or may not know, I’m in the middle of looking for a job. One of those positions is an Educational Developer at the University of Guelph. In preparation for the interview, I was asked to prepare a 15 minute talk on “The Future of Educational Development in Higher Education” (a topic that […]
photo credit: kbaird In my dissertation, I take some time to talk about the use and adoption of recently-available technologies (specifically digital cameras to take pictures of birds, nexrad radar to predict migration and the Internet to share bird sightings) by birders. I call the products of these technologies (so, the digital pictures, radar images […]
photo credit: @andrewghayes I’m back from Buffalo, having attended a two day research symposium organized by the North American Association of Environmental Education (NAAEE). Held before the annual NAAEE conference, the research symposium is meant, as I understand it, to be an opportunity to talk meaningfully about “meaty” research issues and meet with a cross-section […]
photo credit: kenschneiderusa In my dissertation, I write a bit about the ethical alignments that underpin birders’ behaviours (I asked birders what rules, if any, they followed while birding). Along a continuum from human-centred (anthropocentric) to nature-centred (biocentric), the birders I spoke with shared “rules” that ran from one end to the other. Here’s an […]
photo credit: G A R N E T York University’s Faculty of Graduate Studies provides students with a list of formatting guidelines ((If you want the direct PDF link, here it is)) (requirements more like it) to assist graduate students with the preparation of their dissertation or thesis. The rules and regulations are somewhat convoluted […]
photo credit: mikecogh With my dissertation all done but the crying defence, thoughts inevitably turn to answer the question, “What’s next?” I know that the sooner I have plans in place, the happier Gavan I am. I have, in fact, been thinking about this since early in the year, anticipating that I would be done […]
photo credit: MattSh ~ Roads Less Traveled Bill Gates is quoted today in a post on TechCrunch as saying that higher education needs to be less “place-based”. The post goes on to suggest that Gates thinks that “technology is the only way to bring education back under control and expand it”. An interesting assumption here, […]
I found and have been following fellow Faculty of Environmental Studies grad Adrian J. Ivakhiv’s blog immanence since early this year. Lots of smart stuff being discussed there, especially the conversations surrounding nature, relational objects and the possibility of enacting different ways of knowing the world. From there, I discovered other engaging conversations and people […]
This post is the conclusion to one of my draft PhD dissertation chapters. It doesn’t represent a final thought or particular endpoint: these are ideas in progress. It also explains why the post just sort of starts without any introductory context. I’m always interested in hearing your opinion of my ideas, too. photo credit: Explore […]