"Redesigning the entry experience"

Redesigning the entry experience is about providing an inviting experience for clients entering a physical setting. http://www.freshtilledsoil.com/redesigning-the-entry-experience/ Can we apply this kind of design thinking to our students'entry experience into our online courses? Do our students find our course site "friendly, inviting and welcoming"? Or do our students experience the "deer in the headlights" sensation that Jeremy Sabath describes in his piece? I wonder if thinking about the "course" as an architectural space would be useful....

Microaggressions or... not

I had a good time paying attention to the #critlib session on microaggressions. Storify's here http://goo.gl/SR7Bg8 I do get that we tend to operate off of stereotypes in the worst possible ways, but could there be times when we simply should NOT be offended? I am now working with librarian who also has short gray hair and similarly-styled glasses. We're almost the same height and appear to be roughly the same age. We're both caucasian. Students mix us up. #notmicroaggression, right? If students mix up two staff members who look alike, is it possible that they really do look alike?? If you look like a student, should you be offended if someone thinks you're a student? How can they tell you have a different status? Even if you are sitting at a service point... What's the indication that you are a librarian and not a student assistant? I think there's a possibility that this might not fall under the heading of microaggression. Or.... ?

OCL4Ed is starts June 18, 2014

"Learn about the concepts of open educational resources, copyright and Creative Commons open licenses to achieve more sustainable education for all." http://wikieducator.org/course/OCL4Ed/Start_here/ I signed up to take a look and see some of the design changes that have been made. I plan on looking around more tomorrow. Also coming up soon: Coursera's Copyright for Educators and Librarians. Starts July 21, 2014. Kevin Smith is involved, so this is bound to be a good course.