When I was University of Michigan, I used to get all of my teaching done in one semester and then basically have 8 months until I had to teach again. That time could be spent on other projects. In some ways, that's a fantastic job, paid R&D way beyond Google's famous 20%. However, it leaves you with a big chunk of time to organize into something productive, and frankly can be a rather lonely pursuit, particularly if you focus it on trying to get into top tier academic journals as Michigan desires. Lots of analyzing and writing down that track.
At Eastern Michigan, my current academic home, the emphasis is almost entirely on teaching with some afterthought given to writing and analyzing.
Well, I like analyzing and writing, but I also need interactivity. In some ways, blogging is the perfect thing for me since it's a writing medium that you can twist to your own ends. So, this summer, I have a few exciting projects:
- Michigan Innovators: I actually have that URL. This will be podcasts with tech entrepreneurs in SE Michigan. We have quite a few.
- Learning Remix Reboot: We have a dedicated server for this now. I'm going to move the architecture more toward something like django integrating over multiple blogs.
- CASOS social network analysis institute: We've been doing a lot of networking in our class blog system. We've shown that contributing more to this network leads to higher overall academic achievement. The next great frontier seems to be how students connect.
- Muscle Ventures optimization: This is a hobby site devoted to fitness that earns revenue. I've been using it as a playground to learn things. I'm going to tie Google analytics in there.
- BudGibson.com hubbification: This site links to the others and acts as the nerve center. I'll include links to some of my now much less active projects like MichiganMuscleBoy and TheCommunityEngine.
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