Arbitrary Marks

Anyone out there in academia use mind maps for structuring their dissertation ideas? Or even smaller article topics? I’m using paper right now, but wondering whether it’s worth investigating software or web programs to do this.

Relatedly, does anyone know of online philosophy mind maps which display, visually, the connection between authors and their claims on a given topic? I recognize there are some limitations to this approach, but for visual thinkers like me, it’s a useful way to organize topics and questions and see connections.

It’s the last week of my classess–both the ones I’m taking online and the one I’m “facilitating” online. That’s the term that appears throughout the ed-psych readings I’ve been doing and in the sample syllabus I received for the online course.
As a facilitator, the cartoon at left isn’t ironic, then, it’s just a statement of [...]

There’s an interesting discussion going on at Experimental Philosophy, prompted by some off the cuff remarks by Saul Kripke at a conference. In response to a question about experimental philosophy’s rebuttal to one of his thought experiments, Kripke made what appeared to some to be a racially insensitive joke and a hand-waving sort of argument. [...]

Many of you have probably already discovered Scrivener, but for Mac users, it’s a great tool. I’m using it right now for two academic projects: a paper and a conference. The paper is split into multiple sections, with PDF files viewable inside of the program. The conference contains all of the assigned readings and my notes. Below you can see how easy it is to read a PDF and make notes on it at the same time.

Those notes can then be incorporated into a larger document. So far, I’m really enjoying the program and at the end of my 30 day trial period, I’ll probably pay the $40 to purchase it.

The year was 2000 and I was just out of college, working for a subdivision of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Scarecrow Education. Many of the other employees were librarians, with degrees in Information Technology and Library Science. The hot topic in the office? Ebooks.
Ebooks were going to change the publishing business. It would [...]

There’s an article in today’s Insider Higher Ed on a professional development program for adjunct instructors at Valencia Community College, Florida. The opening paragraph of the story asks,
“Professional development programs to share the latest teaching techniques tend to be designed in ways that effectively exclude part timers, who can’t be expected to be on campus at [...]

Since my last post got quite a few of you coming out of the woodwork, I have a question. What topics in philosophy do you think would be most helpful for laypersons to get some introduction to? That is, what baffles you about philosophy jargon, or what ideas do you wish you had more of a framework for?

In addition to being useful for my teaching of intro classes, your responses can shape some writing I plan to do on this blog and elsewhere.

Since I’m back to my near-daily commute to the suburbs of Chicago, at least for the next three months, I’ve been scouting the Internet for substantial philosophy podcasts that I can listen to in my car. (Nothing personal, Krista Tippett, but I want a little more meat!)
I found a recording of a seminar on A.N. [...]

I don’t usually do this–blatantly link to my own comments on a post–but I don’t have time right now to delve more into this, so I thought I’d send some of you over to Common Grounds to read. Esther Meek was my philosophy prof at Covenant Seminary. Although we don’t see eye to eye on [...]

I’m using this long weekend to continue the task of organizing my files in preparation for my PhD studies. Think archive old documents, delete clutter, compress and organize photos, manage links….

In doing so, I found this post by C Wess Daniels to be helpful. I completely revamped my del.icio.us links this afternoon: