I started this blog with two purposes: teach myself what this “blogging” bru-ha-ha was all about and to see if putting my thoughts about economic news in public might be of interest or use in teaching my classes. Please keep in mind that back in 2008 the economic world was collapsing and we here in Michigan were at ground zero. The textbooks didn’t really have much to say about it. Well it was a rousing success. Students liked it. I liked it. I was hooked. And hooked is probably the right term. I kept going for bigger and bigger fixes. Next it was a self-hosted teaching portfolio & syllabus site at jimluke.com. Then it was trying to create a mini-MOOC (Little Open Online Course?) for my principles courses. Student success rose. Engagement rose. It was easier to manage. Then it was getting the students in on the fun.  I let them blog and write in public for my two gen ed -oriented courses.

All this led to an opportunity this year to take some “re-assign time” to create an Open Learn Lab here at Lansing Community College. By the way, for the non-academics, “re-assign time” is a polite way of saying the school lets you cut back your teaching load by the equivalent of approximately a day a week in return for you devoting 2-3 days per week working on some additional project.  Anyway, I did it. And now we’re doing it.  The Open Learn Lab is modeled after the Domains Of One’s Own programs that were pioneered at University of Mary Washington and now at several (20-30?) major universities.  We’re the first community college.  I’m really excited.

Of course this means I’ll likely be blogging about some teaching, higher ed, and open learning topics now. But I hope to also keep blogging about economics (I still do teach some classes!).  Anyway, here’s the presentation for the “coming out” party informational presentation on campus. Like most of my stuff, it’s Creative Commons licensed, BY-SA (attribution and share-alike).  If you want to download the PPT or speaker notes, click on the little gear.