The Adventures of a Digital Sensei
Last night was the end of the semester for the Spring 2014 LaGuardia New Media Technology capstone class. Over the course of the semester we covered a great deal of material and developed some interesting final portfolios. This semester we even had one student with limited mobility participate remotely in a mixed hybrid/traditional format. I am amazed when I realize that this would not have been possible a few years ago.
Today I had the honor of being on stage and congratulating the 2014 graduates of Communication and Media program. As an Academic Director at the CUNY School of Professional Studies (SPS) I have many responsibilities. However none of those responsibilities are as fulfilling as helping the students in my program achieve their goals. Many of my students are working professionals with families and demanding job responsibilities of their own. So it is especially great to witness them overcome the challenge of working while going to school.
Another year has gone by and another group of New Media graduates are ready to move on to the next stage of their journey. After 13 years of teaching this never gets old. My students are the absolute best part of the job.
To all of the New Media Technology graduates, past and present, congratulations! Your old professor is proud of each of you. Be bold and do big things, because I still have my eyes on you!
President Gail Mellow holds a publishing reception every year to acknowledge faculty at LaGuardia Community College for their academic and creative accomplishments. Once again I was happy to be counted among the scholars from the Humanities Department. The main article that I was being recognized for writing this year was one that was especially dear to me.
The peer reviewed article was highlighted in the Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy on the need for the academe to expand the definition of scholarship include the contributions of faculty engaged in digital media. I had invested a fair amount of blood, sweat and tears in researching this article and it was a great feeling to have it pay off.
I spent a wonderful weekend in Maine with my wife to support her Marathon fixation. She is trying to qualify for the Boston and New York Marathons again. She ran her second fastest marathon ever with a time of 3:23:05. She even won an award for finishing 1st in her division!
It was our first trip to Maine and our first weekend Continue reading “32nd Annual Sugarloaf Marathon”
Happy Birthday to my amazing son! It is so hard to believe that you have been in my life for only 13 years. I am so proud of the man you are becoming. I love you and your sister with all my heart. Just take it a little slower on the skateboard!
p.s. Don’t forget to call your Grandma and wish her Happy Mother’s Day. Yo son, don’t get me jacked up!
Follow up to yesterday’s skateboarding adventure:
I spent the afternoon at the hospital with my son as we waited to get him cast for a fractured wrist. His sister had a similar accident last summer on her skateboard and after that incident I seriously considered banning the activity from the house. The problem is that all of his friends are skate fanatics, much in the same way that me and my boys were into basketball and martial arts at his age.
The fracture was minor and he is fine. However I still feel bad. I know boys will be boys, and Continue reading “But you will never break his spirit!”
I am always amazed at the diversity of my friends. For the past few days my Facebook feed is populated with pretty much Easter, Passover, and 4/20 updates. The few remaining posts are all anticipating the upcoming Game of Thrones, Mad Men, or The Boondocks episodes. One thing that I found extremely funny is that some of my friends seem to be religious potheads. Talking about “Praising” in one thread and then talking about “blazing” in another.
The majority of the weekend was taken up with birthday activities for the wife so I had to wait until Sunday evening to finally upgrade my old 2009 17 inch MacBook Pro with a new 1TB solid state drive (SSD). I love the design of the MacBooks of this era because the internal component are easily accessible. The upgrade took all of about 2 hours, and that included the data migration. I did the same for my 2007 MacBook Pro a few months back but it was far more difficult to install the SSD due to the construction of the case.
I decided it was time to upgrade since the price of SSDs are dropping as their Continue reading “Mid Year Technology project: 2009 MacBook Pro Upgrade”
