I’m only 31 years old, but I’ve seen more bad presentations than I care to remember. I just stumbled across this fantastic presentation guide. My intuition tells me this may become required reading for some of my future classes before they present.

http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~pueschel/teaching/guides/guide-presentations.pdf

I just finished watching JK Rowling's 2008 Harvard University Commencement Speech. She is amazing.  I can't claim to be a huge fan of the Harry Potter movement, mostly due to the fact that I've not read the books or seen the movies, but I've always been impressed when hearing her speak.  The title of her talk is The Fringe Benefits of Failure.  Personally, I know that I must remind myself routinely that failure is not a bad thing, and I feel strongly that this is something that we must inculcate in our students.  One of my favorite quotes from Ms. Rowling's speech is this:

Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.

If you have a minute, take a look at the video or transcript.  

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.

I just ran across a quote about writing from William Strunk’s The Elements of Style:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

Communication (in this case via the written word) is a vitally important skill for everyone.

Welcome to my website. I’m currently re-doing the whole thing using WordPress 3.0 and will be using it as a course management system for my fall 2010 courses. More to come soon…