The financial struggles of North Dakota and the University of North Dakota have provided me an opportunity. The financial struggles have limited hiring at the university and open positions have allowed me the opportunity to continue to teach a course or two after retirement. Moving from professor to adjunct status comes with significant financial limitations, but you shouldn’t retire if money is a significant issue.
I work with graduate students interested in educational uses of technology. The students are fairly sophisticated and so I am always pleasantly surprised when applications I show them are regarded as useful. I do not anticipate they will have my theory and research perspectives, but it is nice when related applications are novel.
I have students blog during the course and use an RSS reader to peruse the posts of their colleagues. A positive reaction to RSS should not surprise me. I have previously written about RSS as a lost opportunity. One thing that happens when individuals who share an interest get together is that certain unique perspectives are shared. This uniqueness is probably the source for the “wisdom of crowds”. I think that making the effort to try out RSS has been lost as active users have begun to rely on Twitter. There are likely unique advantages to the discovery opportunities provided by Twitter and the predictable opportunities provided by a collection of writers you appreciate.