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Life, tardigrades, and everything

I've been enjoying my last weekend before the semester -- even better, it's a long weekend. I was exhausted on Friday night -- I've been working 10 and 11 hour days getting ready for the beginning of the semester. I think I'm close enough to ready, but there's still a lot to do.

Thank goodness I've had Tom's help getting ready for Organisms: Diversity and Interactions. We've had several productive sessions discussing how to create a more student-centered and co-created learning environment using Drupal. I've often retained control of the front-page of the course and created separate spaces for student writing. I've actually done this primarily for practical reasons: many students come into the class wanting to know exactly what is the voice and agenda of the course and by keeping the front-page reserved for that purpose, its very, very clear. I see the value in blurring the distinction: to promote the students' agendas and to give their voices added importance and value.

I'm still stuck thinking about a topic for Writing in Biology. I'm leaning toward tardigrades, but it will mean finding scopes and cameras. It could work.