We are moving!-->studyleaks.blogspot.com

Dear IBL-Insider blog readers,
I am moving my blog entries to the http://studyleaks.blogspot.com/, where myself, my colleagues and students write together about the life at the University of Applied Sciences in Amsterdam/ Hogeschool van Amsterdam, so be sure to check out the new blog entries on the link above.

See you there!

Cheers,
IBL-Insider

What makes your day?

I am quite a happy person and little things such as a new episode of Pretty Little Liars, Grey’s Anatomy, Modern Family or 90210 make my day. What makes my day even more is breakfast with my sons and hubby or seeing them after a long day at work. I can even think of smaller things such as a good coffee that I regularly buy at the café/bar of the Frajlemaborg building. And there is this other thing, that students might not think is so important to me, but it is. When students do well on their assignments or exams.

January is a time of the resit exams and deadlines and all the teachers are head over heels busy grading the exams, reports, assignments, theses. Busy time. Busy even though we do not teach. I try to grade everything as soon as I can as I know how nerve-wrecking waiting for the exam results can be. When a student does well, I cannot describe how proud I feel and I cannot wait to tell them how well they did and how they made my day. This is something students do not realize: we do not want our students to fail, we want them to learn and do well! We care. We care about those who try hard, who put effort and who want to succeed. It is a shame that many realise that studying does pay off after taking the same exam 4 times. It is too bad that students do not pay attention to our suggestions of starting to study throughout the semester and not leaving everything till the last minute, to take notes while reading a textbook etc etc.

The moral of the story is that a student doing well is not only a reward for the student, but us teachers. It makes us feel that we do something right, that it is worth spending hours on preparing the lectures, consultations, making exams, grading. It gives us a feeling of helping people become what they want to be, achieve, prepare for the cruel big world which is full of challenges, obstacles and disappointments, but also full of joy, rewards and valuable experiences.

It is worth smiling about all day, is not it?

London trip and email is not dead!

I have been to London many times and although it would be nice to be going to new places every time, there are cities that you want to go back to. This year, next year, every year. London is one of them. This week I attended a training on alumni and social media which is why I had a few days to embrace yet again the city of double-dekker buses, old looking black cabs, amazing shopping and, not to forget, the English politeness.

It rains there as much if not more than it does in Holland, but there is no cold wind that can blow you off the bike path here in Amsterdam. It is busy, so busy that if you manage to get into the tube in the rush hour, you will be squeezed and pulled in all directions. Yet it is one of my favourite places to go to. Every time.

The training was very insightful and quite intense. Referring to my previous post, I do not adopt the latest technology quickly, which is my deliberate choice. However, lately I have become a lot more interested and active with social media. It is amazing how much is it out there to do: to include into your post, link it, add the tag, newsfeed, like it button, create a fan page, link your twitter to your facebook etc etc I have to say I was overwhelmed by it all and the 52 notes I made during the training seems to be too much to use all at once.

What was interesting to hear was that email is by far not dead and still should be widely used to communicate to the target audience. When I find 3874634 emails of promotions, special deals and notification that I won a lottery, I get nothing but annoyed. The only exception would be amazon, who was a pioneer in sending the “You might also like this” emails. I do sometimes quickly browse through their emails.

So what realistically are the chances of one email, that is in the same category, to be noticed out of the bunch? Flashy images, catchy phrases-they all do it, they all use it. Besides, our private email addresses are full of numerous promo emails, most of which go straight to the trash folder unopened.

This brings me back to the issue of information overload and how much more effort do we have to put in to filter the constant stream of messages every day. It is exhausting and yet we do it.

Too Tech or Not Too Tech?

I should stay more up-to-date with all the tech developments. On many things such as iPhone, iPad and twitterring I am way behind. So here you have an example of the last group of the product diffusion curve called laggards. Or should I label myself as a late majority? I refuse to buy a smart phone as for me the simple function of the phone is to call people, not browse websites, check your mail, watch videos or play games. And the blackberry-texting addiction? I cannot be bothered. Can you believe that only today, one week before 2010 is over I made a twitter account and I already get annoyed by spam links and strange follower requests.

When is it too much? Too much typing, too much texting, too much obsessing over mobile devices and computer screens. Where is the borderline? Information is good. Unfiltered information in bulk is exhausting, confusing and time-consuming. Do we become time-efficient or do we spend more time checking emails, twittering, screening numerous articles on the subject of our school report that is due tomorrow?

Do we release our stress online or does it bring even more frustration into our daily lives when we forget our password, our internet is down or the latest episode of Dexter would not stream?

Now blogging. Is it good? Is it useful? Is it insightful? I read a few blogs on management and other business topics and some of them I do find very interesting. Certainly, the purpose of them is to start a discussion, gather feedback or just to educate readers about little things or big things or what we thought were big things although they are really fads.

What am I going to make out of this blog? Basically, this will be the record of thoughts and experiences about what it is like to be part of the international department of the Hogeschool van Amsterdam/the University of Applied Sciences that might trigger the readers to share their experiences and opinions, agree or disagree with me. I teach at HvA. You, reader, might be searching for a university to go to, or you are part of this school or have been part of it in the past. And even if you are none of the three categories mentioned, you are more than welcome to stay. Co-creation and crowd-sourcing is what will keep this blog alive.

For now wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy Birthday to the IBL-Insider blog!