Lee Lorch died on Friday at 98 years of age. And, what a life! I was privileged and honoured to get to know him as a colleague and friend, even though he retired in 1985, five years BEFORE I joined the Biology department, in 1990, as an assistant professor. How could this be? Simply put, […]
Dawn's Blog and General News Items
Sheila Embleton & Diane Orihel: more Bold Vision Conference Nominations
My Margaret Atwood Nomination for A Bold Vision Conference, Charlottetown 2014
It's 150 years since the Charlottetown Conference of 1864. But, what if the Fathers of Confederation had been the Mothers of Confederation, instead? This is the very cool idea behind the A Bold Vision Conference planned for September 2014 on Prince Edward Island. A summer and autumn of celebration is being planned, including this conference, aimed at […]
I'm aiming to break my class out of the cycle of "memorizing & forgetting"
I haven't taught BIOL 4090.40, Plant Ecology for nearly 10 years. It's been shifted from Fall to Winter term, meaning the entire lab. component needed changing because of the different season, and now we're on Moodle, and we have #SoMe (social media), so it was time for a mega-overhaul. AND, it's week 2 of the winter term, […]
Happy New Year: My favourite iPad Apps: Early Adopters and Laggards: Part 3
When to be an Early Adopter and when to be a Laggard: Part 2
Despite my best, most sustainable, low consumerism intentions, I got sidetracked by Christmas stuff this weekend. The good news is, that not only am I recycling (regifting?) blog posts on Twitter, but also, here! Hi, Maddy's Mum here, with blog no. 2... and more thoughts on iPads. Technology is neutral – the situation determines whether […]
When to be an Early Adopter and when to be a Laggard: Part 1
This is an updated repost from the Madeleine Ewins A Day in the Life blog, that I guest-authored in August 2013. Since then, I discovered an amazing book all about Apple design from the early days, to the present, called Iconic. It's by Jonathan Zufi who founded the website, Shrine of Apple. (I'm not kidding! It's […]
Where are the senior women in STEM?
So, here's the thing: I'm a female Biology professor, and when I was an undergraduate (1977-81 UofT), there were more or less 50:50 male to female students in my classes. This bottom-up input of women into Biology has been happening for decades. So, thirty years on, where are the other female Full Professors? In fact, where […]
Figuring out the link between Social Media and What I do as a Biology Prof
Anybody who has given any kind of cursory glance over this website in the last 2 months, will know that webpage construction has rather ground to a halt. The reason for this, is that I have spent a lot of time since mid-September, exploring and experimenting with social media, specifically Twitter. The impetus for […]
Academic honesty is NOT just for students
In the last couple of weeks, there has been a big flap going on amongst profs. about an article, "Who's Afraid of Peer Review", in the journal, Science, one of the top places to publish. Basically, the author, science journalist, John Bohannon (with a PhD in Molecular Biology) wrote a manuscript about a totally faked and fraudulent study, […]
