Slices of Cake

Yesterday, as I drove the back roads that meander through the green mountains of Vermont, I spied the first leaves turning from green to gold. Everything is still green in the valley where I live, but the turning leaves at that higher elevation remind me that I need to turn my mind seriously to the coming fall semester. This fall I teach again a course I love, a Jane Austen & Film first-year seminar. I last taught this course in fall 2001, and used a class server to share drafts and house handouts and links. Since then I have added blogs, course management tools and digital stories to my classes. Now, I work on retooling my course to use the new technologies I’ve learned and used in other courses, so I must make hard choices about what stays and what goes from my old syllabus.