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I am about to print some business cards (you know, the do-it-yourself kind), and I am trying to figure out what titles to give myself. “Student” just doesn’t sound worthy of a business card. Maybe “PhD student,” but even that doesn’t seem to justify a card.

So I’m back to nothing for a title. But I taught French and Computer Science in the public schools for seven years! Doesn’t that count for anything? Still, if I just wanted “Teacher” under my name I would have stayed at Redlands High School. So what else can I put on my Office Depot brand, premium matte, ivory business cards? I got a master’s in educational technology while I was a school teacher. Does that make me an instructional designer? I don’t think so. I need job experience. Maybe I can get a $6/hour job at USU doing instructional design work to feel worthy of the title. Nah, I’d rather have extra time to go fly fishing. Besides, the one job I’ve had at USU only lasted a day!

<sidenote>
I got one of those $6/hr computer jobs at the start of Fall semester because I felt guilty about not working. (In the past I have almost always worked at least part-time as a student.) That night I was at the used CD store and couldn’t bring myself to buy anything because I knew buying a $6 used CD represented an hour’s worth of work. So I quit my job the next day, opting to spend the extra time studying instead. I haven’t felt guilty about spending money ever since.
</sidenote>

OK, time to make a decision. Here are my top three idea for my business card:

Tom Caswell
Instruction Designer Wannabe

Tom Caswell
Nearly-matriculated PhD Student

Tom Caswell
Unemployed by choice

Forget it. I’ll make business cards later.

I’ve been following some of my classmates blogs, and it looks like most INST 7150 folks are starting to get serious about final project ideas. Here is some background on my project and the quickie version of what I want to do: I used to enjoy helping friends and family with various computer questions and issues. This included everything from saving a file to starting a new website. It didn’t take long before I started getting the same questions over and over again, kind of like Groudhog Day. So I want to put together a collection of resources to answer some common computer questions that I keep getting. I am not sure anyone will ever look at them, but it will make me feel better to have something to refer people to when I am too busy to help. Here are some examples of the questions I want to include in my collection (I realize that many are specific to the PC):

• What is System Restore and how do I use it?
• What is spyware and how do I get rid of it and then prevent it from coming back?
• What is the difference between XP Home and XP Professional?
• What are cookies?
• What are Windows updates?

Would you consider answers to these types of questions reuseable learning objects (RLOs)? Is this too generic an idea? I know sites similar to what I am describing already exist (www.pchell.com, www.computerhope.com), so is there something I can do to improve on what has already been done? OK, enough for now; it’s bedtime.

This is the all-time best question to ask people (especially children) who don’t speak English very well. It’s great for when you are in a foreign country and someone is trying to practice their 3 sentences of English on you… especially if you are in a hurry to get somewhere. This question produces some of the best puzzled looks I have ever seen.

If I had a nickel for every blog I’ve started, I’d have about 25¢. I closed down my other blog because it had RSS issues. I tried “untweaking” the tweaks, but it was quicker to start a new one. Besides, blogs are cheap.