Category: Teaching

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Yet ANOTHER article on penmanship

Via the NCTE In-Box comes this LA Times article, “Remember Penmanship?” In many ways, this is an article a bit different from the usual lament about handwriting in some interesting ways. Among other things, here’s what I learned:

  • This article quotes a guy who identifies himself as the past president of “The International Association of Master Penmen, Engrossers and Teachers of Handwriting.” What he says isn’t that interesting– you can guess. But the fact that there is such a group and these people are even holding a convention is pretty fascinating to me. There’s not much information about this convention; only that it is going to be this summer in Chicago (roadtrip?).
  • “[A] soon-to-be-published nationwide survey of primary school teachers found about 90% had received little or no formal training in how to teach penmanship.” ‘They didn’t feel they were prepared, or they had little training and it wasn’t something they particularly liked to teach,’ said Steve Graham, a professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville who has studied handwriting since 1979 and who conducted the survey.
  • There is some talk about the new SAT writing test and the ways in which handwriting skills (or lack thereof) figure into that. That’s a concern, but a) I think most students print (which is not what these handwriting people are talking about), and b) I suspect that very soon– in the next couple years or so– the students taking the writing portion of the SAT are going to be able to do it with a computer.
  • The article does a pretty good job of countering the handwriting “alarmists” by noting that there simply isn’t time. Having said that, I do think that students– especially younger students– are learning handwriting skills. As I type this, my third grade son is working on his homework, and a lot of that includes practicing handwriting and newly-learned cursive skills. He just finished one sheet of homework where he carefully wrote out the answers in pretty neat handwriting (I don’t think he’ll have my issues). But now he’s on to another project, and this time he’s printing the answers. When I asked him why, he told me he printed the answers with this project because he could. So, I ask, you like printing better than cursive? “Oh, yeah, of course!”
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Belated Blog Post: Yet more on handwriting

It’s been a super-busy week around here at EMU and it promises to be even more busy next week. Our department is hiring two positions in literature and a department head. The department head position in particular means a lot of meetings and hallway discussions. And of course other business in the department goes on. Counting things having to do with job candidates and other events I either have to attend or things I should attend (and not counting stuff like teaching and office hours), I have nine meetings and/or “events” on my calendar next week. Eek.

Anyway, Nick Carbone sent me a link to the Inside Higher Ed article “The Surprising Process of Writing” by Shari “the Nomad Scholar and not her real name” Wilson. The basic premise of the essay is Wilson thinks her students write better essays when they write them out by hand. She offers a series of explanations for this: “the process of writing in-class in a timed situation seemed to discourage the kind of overwrought, constipated writing that some students produce with a typed paper;” “handwriting encourages students to focus on the writing process;” and, most problematically, “handwriting brings writers closer to their work — which may encourage excellence with particular students.”

Most of the comments on the Inside Higher Ed site basically says “this doesn’t seem right to me,” there was some discussion on the WPA-L mailing list about why this argument doesn’t ring true, and I of course feel the same way. But quite frankly, the explanation as to why Wilson thought her students’ handwritten work was better than the typed assignments strikes me as obvious: the writing situations were different.

The handwritten assignments were in-class writings, and while Wilson doesn’t give examples of any assignments, I would assume that the in-class assignments were a great deal more specific in terms of subject and purpose than the out-of-class assignments. An in-class assignment might be something like “In her chapter in the assigned reading, Smith makes three points about ‘X;’ explain one of them and why you agree or disagree.” Or maybe “Compare these specific Smith and Jones readings.” In contrast, I would guess/bet the out-of-class assignments are quite a bit less specific– “Tell your reader about an important event” or something like that– and there may have been additional burdens, like providing some research.

So what I’m suggesting here is the handwritten assignments were “better” because students had a clearer sense of purpose (answer this question) and they had a clearer sense of audience (no one else is going to read this; this is from me to Wilson, or whatever her real name is). Simple as that.

Wilson writes that she “typed up a student’s handwritten midterm and compared it to two computer-generated essays,” but I don’t think that’s a fair test. If she really wants to make this comparison (and by the way, I think it is ultimately an idiotic comparison because the vast majority of writing tasks our students complete in school and elsewhere are done at the keyboard anyway), why not ask students to complete an out-of-class writing assignment by hand? Why not arrange for one of these in-class assignments be done in a computer lab someplace? That would be a more realistic test, seems to me.

All I know is this: I was teaching a class a few years ago where there was an in-class writing activity– an essay test, if I recall. For reasons not worth explaining, I was able to give students a choice between writing their exam out by hand or using a computer. I thought that maybe five or six out of the 20 or so students might take me up on the computer offer. To my surprise, all 20 students opted for the computer, and when I asked them why, the answer (with a shrug) was basically “this is how I write.”

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Class web site with WordPress/Scary Crash Problem Solved/Future Mac-served CMS Projects?

This is kind of a “three-fer” message, as you can tell from my title here:

First off, I must say I’ve been pretty pleased with my use of WordPress to support the class web site for English 444: Writing for the World Wide Web this term. I’m running it on the computer in my office– an eMac– because no one here at EMU seems capable and/or willing to support software that requires MySQL or PHP (more on that later). While it was kind of a pain in the butt to set up in the first place, that up-front work has been paying off lately because it has proven much MUCH easier to update the content on this site than it is to update a normal web site. I guess that’s something I should have known before, but now I really know it now. This is especially true when I compare my 444 web site to the one for my computers and writing class, in which the web site is still out of date and incomplete (note to self: update computers and writing web site).

The only problems I’ve had in running this stuff myself on my office computer are a couple of power outages and what appeared to be a catastrophic crash/screw-up on my part. It’s kind of amusing in hind-sight, but it wasn’t at the time. What happened was I updated my OS to 10.4.4, restarted, and then went to the computer lab to meet my 444 students. I went to the web site to show students something and it wasn’t there. Instead, there was a scary-looking screen that said that WordPress couldn’t find access the database. So my initial thinking was that my system upgrade had trashed it.

Needless to say, the rest of that class didn’t go great.

But fortunately, my colleague Steve Benninghoff found the answer to my problem here on the WordPress support forums (and not a moment too soon, I might add– in my panic/disgust with the whole system upgrade blunder, I was this close to just figuring out how to just throw all of it away and starting over). And a big thanks to the folks who posted to that WordPress discussion forum; I would have never figured this out with my extremely limited (albeit growing) knowledge of working with the command line on my Mac.

Which leads to my last point: like it or not, it would appear that if I want to do anything that requires MySQL/PHP (WordPress, Drupal, MediaWiki, etc., etc., etc.), I’ll have to do it myself because the folks who should do this, ICT, won’t. I actually can’t be too mad at them because, while the original answer to my MySQL/PHP request was basically a rude “no, security issues,” I ultimately received a more full and polite answer, which was basically “no, thank you.”

Fortunately, my department head seems to on board with the benefits of this sort of work, which means that I will hopefully have something up and running soon. Unfortunately, it looks like one of my new hobbies is going to have to be getting myself a bit more schooled in MySQL/PHP stuff. I’ve been able to get by on minimal knowledge so far, but I’d like to be able to say with a little more confidence that I know what I’m doing, especially if I am going to be forced to be the support person for this stuff in the department.

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Those dangerous teenagers, again….

The other day, there was an article in the Fredericksburg, VA newspaper The Free Lance Star about teenagers and blogs MySpace (we’ll get to that in a second) called “Teen blogs: Too much information?” On the one hand, it is another example of an article in the genre of “the Internet is a scary place for our kids.” Here’s a passage along these lines:

MySpace has been in the news in connection with two recent teen deaths in Virginia. Locally, Courtland High School athlete Baron Braswell II was fatally stabbed Friday at a Spotsylvania County CD release party publicized on MySpace. Afterward, his friends used MySpace to post memorial tributes.

And after 17-year-old Virginia Commonwealth University freshman Taylor Behl was abducted and killed last September, investigators found that she had posted photos and other personal information on MySpace. Her profile mentioned that she was moving to Richmond and hoped to meet “someone who is kind.” Police have charged a 38-year-old Richmond man in her death.

As teenage blogging booms, many parents are left in the dust and in the dark. Some parents of young bloggers don’t even use the Internet, said Staca Urie, outreach manager for NetSmartz, the online safety unit of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

And so forth.

But this article is different in at least three ways. First, the reporter, Laura Moyer, is a really good friend of my wife, and an overall great person. Second, she makes some good points here and tries as hard as she can to be objective about all this, and along the way, I think she makes it clear that she’s not trying to write a typical “teens gone bad” sort of article. Though the headline kinda does that in a way. And third, because she is a friend of my wife and because my wife pointed out to her that I’m a certified “expert” on the whole blogging thing, she called me and ended up quoting me a bit in the article. Here’s what Laura quoted from me in the piece:

But scary possibilities don’t justify yanking minors’ blogging privileges altogether, said Steven D. Krause, an English professor and blog expert at Eastern Michigan University.

Like anyone else, teenagers need to learn what they should and shouldn’t put online, he said. And as they learn, they’ll probably make mistakes.

“I don’t think there’s any question that young people use poor judgment in what they post,” Krause said. “But you know what? They make poor judgments in face-to-face situations, too. Part of the job of teenagers is to do stupid things.”

While teenagers and 20-somethings may use MySpace and similar sites as personals ads, Krause said, blogs are also a powerful, accessible communication tool. He encourages his college students to blog as a way to publish their writings to an audience beyond the classroom.

Like more serious topic-related or news blogs, teen blogs are here to stay, Krause said.

“I think kids must be onto something if it’s getting people this scared,” he said.

Had I been more clever and reflective and such when I talked to Laura, I would have said some other things that she might have tried to include in the article. So I’ll say them now:

  • Blaming MySpace or any other Internet service for the death of this kid is just plain silly.
  • In one sense, I will admit that things like MySpace and Facebook do potentially enable bad behaviors, especially among teenagers, who are not known as an age group to be that reflective. But in another sense, I think it’s just making visible the kinds of stuff that teenagers have been doing in more private (more dangerous?) settings since… well, since there were teenagers, I’m guessing.
  • And really, MySpace isn’t the same thing as a “blog,” in my opinion. Services like MySpace and Xanga seem to me to be geared much more to “meeting” (virtually or in real life) other people. The emphasis on MySpace and its ilk is in the visual and in having “friends,” while my impression of “real” blogs (like on blogger, like, hopefully, this one) is they are more interested in texts and fellow readers (who, yes, maybe are friends, maybe become friends). MySpace is designed to share, I dunno, the surface. Blogs are designed to share reflections and thoughts. Sorta. MySpace has a feel more like a singles bar or a frat party– at least the way I remember such things.

And that is what I mean by saying that these things aren’t blogs. They certainly are some kind of networking/communicating medium, but I don’t see them as one that supports the kind of writing/communicating/networking/reflecting I’d want students to do when I assign blog writing activities.

Or maybe I’m just getting old.

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When textbooks cost too much (which is often)

I came across this post on Maud Newton’s blog, where she’s quoting from GW Bush about fixing interest rates on students loans (apparently, this is a new change in the student loan program), despite the fact that it will potentially (likely, actually) allow corporations and other borrowers to get money with a lower interest rate. Click here for a more complete version of the story. Yet another example why it is clear that the phrase “the education president” was meant to be ironic.

In any event, on an issue that is perhaps a bit closer to my heart (because of my recent failures as a textbook writer) is this Washington Post article (which I found via Maud’s blog), “Swelling Textbook Costs have College Students Saying ‘Pass.'” Here’s a nice quote:

Textbook prices have been rising at double the rate of inflation for the past two decades, according to a Government Accountability Office study. In Virginia, more than 40 percent of students surveyed by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia said they sometimes just do without.

That’s been increasing, said Jennifer Libertowski of the National Association of College Stores; recently, the group found that nearly 60 percent of students nationwide choose not to buy all the course materials.

Sixty percent! Here’s some other fun facts from the article:

  • Textbooks and supplies costs an average of $900 a year, and it doesn’t matter much if you’re attending “Most Expensive and Quaint U” or “Cheap Cheap CC,” the books are about the same and the cost is about the same– but a greater percentage of the bill for students at Cheap CC, who are liable to be paying most of their expenses by working anyway.
  • According to the GAO study on which this article is based, textbook costs tripled between 1986 and 2004.
  • And then there’s this passage: “Students have plenty of conspiracy theories for the rising prices: Greedy publishers who change the cover just to charge more. Self-absorbed professors who assign their own masterpieces or forget to list the books till it’s too late to find a used copy. Overpriced stores.” The article tries to correct some of the “conspiracy theory” here in the next paragraph, suggesting that the profit margin on textbooks is low (at least compared to things like sweatshirts and mugs). Riiight. That’s why no one is making money off of used textbooks or why the price of new textbooks keeps going up for no apparent reason.

Arguably, English studies and composition is “less guilty” in some ways than other fields in terms of the overall cost issues because our textbooks tend to have less expensive “production values” than books for art or the sciences which are routinely filled with hundreds of elaborate color images. But English– particularly first year composition, the one course that just about every college student in this country has to take–is also a cash cow for textbook publishers. I once had a book rep explain to me that the profit margin on the most expensive textbooks (the ones in the sciences and the arts with lots of color printing and such) is actually a break-even proposition for publishers; conversely, because first year composition books are so cheap to make and the volume is so high, the profit margin on those books is quite large.

I’m not saying that textbook companies don’t serve a valuable purpose in the composition community; there’s a lot of textbooks that I have used in the past that I like a great deal, and I also know, that when I started teaching first year composition many moons ago, I learned a lot from the textbook that was assigned to both my students and to me. I do and I will continue to use textbooks in my teaching, though nowadays, I also tend to find out how much students are going to have to pay students before I make the adoption decision.

But I also think that textbook companies don’t do enough to make materials available at a more reasonable cost, mainly because many of these folks still seem to not “get it” when it comes to electronic publishing, and also because they are terrified about doing anything that might cut into profits.

Take my efforts at trying to publish a version of my textbook online. This is a project in which McGraw-Hill has decided to more or less abandon. Based on a review scheme that I think is debatable at best (but that’s another post), they’ve decided that the interest out there is not great enough to justify a publishing run for my book. I’m not happy about that, but okay, these things happen. So, at no cost to McGraw-Hill, I suggested that I make it available electronically. To date, the answer has been a combination of “no” and a non-answer, and as far as I can tell, the main reason why McGraw-Hill doesn’t want me to publish the book I wrote on a web site– a book project that they would continue to own, I might add– is because some people might actually read and/or use the book, and, somehow, this will cut into the profits of the print books, despite the fact that the review process suggested that that many folks aren’t interested in it.

But enough about my problems.

My point simply is this: according to this article, a surprising number of students are already self-opting out of textbook purchases. If the prices keep going up, it seems entirely possible that teachers will seek other options, too.

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Link-a-dink

It’s been a pretty crazy-busy week around here, mostly with one thing or another with various school things that have little to do with teaching or scholarship, including an all day meeting yesterday about NCATE, which I suspect is going to be the bane of everyone’s existence at EMU for the next few years.

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to post here about a variety of different things during the week, but I haven’t had time. And just to complicate matters more, I’ve spent the last couple hours (off and on, and while listening to the radio) coming across even more cool links. So, with little commentary and no sorting, here are all of these things now in no particular order:

Alright, enough of that. Now I’ve got to get back to my to-do list to get ready for a crazy week next week….

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Organizing in the new year

In my new quasi-administrative role as the writing program coordinator, I’ve had to do something that I don’t ever remember having to do before: I’m keeping a calendar.

Oh sure, I’ve sort of kept a calendar/schedule in the past with things like iCal or the Yahoo calendar set-up, both of which email reminders of things. But to be honest, I never felt compelled to keep one of those old-fashioned paper calendars, mainly because I couldn’t see hauling it around with me and also because my week-to-week schedule just didn’t used to be that busy. I mean, I have always had meetings to go to and such, but basically I could just keep it all in my head. As the writing program coordinator, I’ve got more meetings, advising, etc., etc. So I decided it was time to be a grown-up.

My colleagues have been somewhat surprised and amused at my seemingly newly-found anal-retentive tendencies. But the truth of the matter is that my flaky/ laid-back/ non-planned/seemingly easy-going manner has always been pretty much an act. When I have to, I can be as tightly-wound as any other academic.

Anyway, I actually have kind of enjoyed calendar-keeping. I have one where I can organize a month at a time, and I have to say it’s kind of satisfying to see what I’m doing for weeks at a time. It’s kind of, ah, fun. I should have started keeping a calendar a long time ago, even if I didn’t have anything to put on it in the first place.

And, now that I’m in an organizing mood, I’m playing around with the so-called “Hipster PDA.” The creation of Merlin “43 Folders” Mann, the Hipster PDA is really a bunch of index cards clipped together in some fashion and it’s used to keep notes and such. Amazing. And yet, despite its simplicity, there are a ton of different web sitesand links and variations on the original “design” out there.

So far, I’ve just been using my index cards to keep track of attendance in my two face-to-face classes and as a way of keeping track of “to do” lists. And I have to say that if nothing else, it’s very convenient having some index cards to jot things on.

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Book Review List: Any other ideas?

I don’t entirely know why, but I’m really quite behind in planning my English 516 class, which starts tomorrow night. The good news is I’ve taught this class several times now, so getting my act together shouldn’t be too difficult to do. The bad news is, because it is a graduate course in computers and writing and I’ve always placed a pretty high value on “currency” in the course, I inevitably have to make changes and do new research every time I teach it.

Anyway, in that spirit of things, I’m looking for some suggestions. I’ve had a lot of luck with a book review presentation assignment in past versions of the class. Basically, students pick from a list of current books that have to do with “computers and writing” in some direct or slightly indirect fashion, and each of them does a 15 minute or so presentation on the book and then writes a short essay. It’s turned out to be a useful exercise for me as both a teacher and a scholar because, like my students, I learn more about books I wouldn’t have necessarily read otherwise.

So, this is this year’s list of possible books to review; do you have any suggestions?

Bolter, Jay David, and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media.
MIT Press, 2000. (Steve’s comments: Interesting book, very much about "cyberculture"
and fairly theoretical, too).

Carr-Chellman, Alison A. (Editor). Global Perspectives
on E-Learning : Rhetoric and Reality. SAGE Publications, 2004. (Steve’s
comments: Judging from the table of contents, this looks like a pretty interesting
collection of essays about online learning/teaching from around the world).

Gee, James Paul. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and
Literacy.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. (Steve’s comments: This book comes highly recommended
from several friends and colleagues, was favorably reviewed by a student last
year, and we will probably be reading a selection from this book in the class
this term.)

Hayles, N. Katherine, and Anne Burdick. Writing Machines (Mediaworks Pamphlets).
MIT Press, 2002. (Steve’s comments: Hayles is a very theoretical writer, and
the reviews suggest that this book is a melding of "pseudo-autobiography"
and theoretical reading of the way electronic publishing has changed texts.)

Hocks, Mary and Michelle R. Kendrick, Editors. Eloquent
Images: Word and Image in the Age of New Media. MIT Press, 2003. (Steve’s
comments: This is actually an edited collection of essays, but given the way
that it connects with the Wysocki textbook, I thought it’d be nice to include
as an option here).

Inman, James. Computers and Writing: The Cyborg Era. Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, 2004. (Steve’s comments: Inman is a fairly well-known and respected
name in the "computers and writing"
community. Probably a focus on higher ed and theories of writing).

Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. Datacloud: Toward A New Theory
Of Online Work. Hampton Press, 2005. (Steve’s comments: Johndan is an interesting
blogger and scholar in the field, so I suspect this will be an interesting read,
probably leaning toward "technical communication").

Kress, Gunther. Literacy in the New Media Age. London: Routledge Press,
2003. (Steve’s comments: Kress is a great writer and his previous work focuses
on "Language Arts," education, technology.)

Lessing, Lawrence. Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the
Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. Penguin Press, 2004. (Steve’s
comments: Recommended by a colleague, though I’ve picked up this book at store
myself a few times. As the title suggests, the focus here is more on media and
culture and not on teaching).

McGann, Jerome. Radiant Textuality : Literature after the World Wide Web.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. (Steve’s comments: Brand-spankin’ new book which
seems to be as much about "literary theory" as it is about the web.)

Meadows, Mark. Pause & Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative. Pearson
Education, 2002. (Steve’s comments: Highly recommended; the focus seems more
on the uses of "interactive/multimedia" narratives in "writings"
in general– not really about education).

Mossberger, Karen; Caroline J. Tolbert, and Mary Stansbury. Virtual
Inequality: Beyond the Digital Divide. Georgetown UP, 2003. (Steve’s comments:
according to amazon.com, "That there is a "digital divide"—which
falls between those who have and can afford the latest in technological tools
and those who have neither in our society—is indisputable. VIRTUAL INEQUALITY
redefines the issue as it explores the cascades of that divide, which involve
access, skill, political participation, as well as the obvious economics").

Monroe, Barbara. Crossing the Digital Divide: Race, Writing, and Technology
in the Classroom. Teachers College Press, 2004. (Steve’s comments:
Pretty new book that looks like a promising read).

Palloff, Rena M. and Keith Pratt. The Virtual Student: A Profile and Guide
to Working with Online Learners. Jossey-Bass 2003. (Steve’s comments: Highly
recommended, a focus on K-12 and "education," not just English studies.)

Rice, Jeff. Writing About Cool : Hypertext and Cultural
Studies in the Computer Classroom. Longman, 2003. (Steve’s comments: Jeff
teaches at Wayne State and is definitely trying to push the envelope in terms
of hypertext, cultural studies, and teaching writing).

Rouzie, Albert. At Play in the Fields of Writing: A Serio-Ludic
Rhetoric.Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2005. (Steve’s comments: Judging
from the Hampton Press web site, this looks like an interesting and new book).

Selber, Stuart. Multiliteracies for a Digital Age. Southern Illinois
UP, 2004. (Steve’s comments: Selber is a well-regarded "computers and
writing" scholar.
The focus here is almost certainly higher ed.)

Warschauer, Mark. Technology and Social Inclusion : Rethinking the Digital
Divide. MIT Press, 2004. (Steve’s comments: Warschauer is a pretty well-known
academic writer about these issues; this is his latest book on the subject
of the digital divide.)

Whithaus, Carl. Teaching And Evaluating Writing In The
Age Of Computers And High-Stakes Testing. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2005.
(Steve’s comments: I actually read a review of an earlier version of this manuscript,
and it is pretty much about what the title suggests).

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Krause Podcasting (or, it's one thing to write about nothing, but is it okay to talk about nothing too?)

Andrew “Doc Mara” Mara mentioned in a comment the other day that I had a podcast listed on iTunes. That’s true, though as Andrew said, there really isn’t much there. Yet.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been using audio to help me support my online teaching and I think it has been pretty effective. Basically, I’ve attached audio to notes about readings inside the eCollege “shell”– I’d link to it, but you have to have a password and be signed up for the class to get to it and all that. I’m trying to extend this to what I guess really is an “honest to goodness” podcast, one available via iTunes and the whole bit. It’s called “Steve Krause’s English 328 Blog,” and you can find it if you go to the iTunes store, look in the podcasts, then in “Education,” then in “Higher Education,” and then it’s and alphabetic list. Or you can go to Krause’s English 328 Blog and take a listen for yourself– though, as Andrew pointed out, there’s not much there yet.

Unlike the audio I include as part of the online class materials, I’m not quite sure what the point of this podcast is going to be yet. I think I’m going to use it as an opportunity to make some “class announcements,” maybe to give some overall thoughts on the progress of students in class, etc. Maybe my students will catch on and will want podcast for themselves. We’ll see. What I wanted to do for the time-being was simply demonstrate that making a podcast and getting it included in iTunes is surprisingly easy. After I get a better handle on planning my classes, I’ll probably write up a “how to” document and post it some place.

I thought about the idea of including a podcast as part of my official blog space, and I guess I’m still thinking about it. On the one hand, it might be kind of an interesting experiment, and, as far as I can gather, no one else in the comp/rhet blogging world is doing this yet. Actually, I’m not sure there are any academic bloggers who have started to do any podcasting. In any event, what I’m getting at is it might be a worthy experiment because no one else is doing this yet.

On the other hand, I’m not sure if my podcast would be that interesting to anyone. As I suggest in the headline for this post, it seems to me that it’s one thing to “write” in a blog about (basically) nothing/what’s on my mind/etc., but it’s something else to just “talk” about nothing. Blog readers can pick and choose via an RSS feed and/or simply scan the text (my guess is that most of my readers are doing one or both of these things right now). You can’t really do that with audio; listening to a podcast is largely an “all or nothing” kind of commitment.

I dunno. I think I’d better plan my classes for the term that starts tomorrow before I start figuring out how to make people listen to me babble.