Ok, folks, it’s the midpoint of the semester.

It’s been a very rocky start to this semester, I’ll admit. First, a mea culpa. Much of that is on me. This course so far hasn’t been up to my normal standards.  It’s not an excuse but here’s why.  I made a critical mistake. Note to self: don’t make 3 major innovations in the pedagogy/design of a course at the same time again! I like what we’re trying to do in this course, course-design-wise, but it’s been a lot rougher on my workflow-wise than anticipated. In addition, I had no clue what the election and political developments would do to me work wise this year.  While this course demanded a lot more time on my part to find readings, etc. than anticipated, it happened just as I was getting asked to speak at a LOT of events this year, including a talk/panel discussion in London (yes, that London) about “Open Education in a Time of Trump and Brexit” at an international conference.  Bottom-line, apologies aside, I pretty sure we’re ready to rock now. I have readings and posting up to date AND postings prepared for coming weeks. So we should be able to get back on schedule and reach some interesting conclusions.

So what’s to do?  In particular, what do you need to do?  There are 8 weeks left. The way to think about what you need to do is to think of working on two parallel, sometimes connected tracks. There’s the weekly discussion topics track and your blog posts-book project track. They all come together in the last week with your final exam which is actually an extended reflective blog post. So a brief summary of what you need to do from here is:

Weekly Discussion

• Each week, typically on Wednesday, I will post a handful of links to articles that you should read. If you want to look ahead, the complete list (there may still be a couple changes in the last two weeks) is posted on the Topics, Readings, Schedule Plan page.  That page can also be found on the menu/tab bar under What to Do or Required Readings.  You need to read those links.
• React and discuss those links and those topics.  You have your option of how to react and discuss. You may:
  • click reply/comment on the post where I’ve listed the readings.
  • enter your own new post on this course hubsite by posting on the home page at the top.
  • writing a blog post on your own blog and categorizing it as “ECON 260” (tip: you can do this and make a blog post do “double duty” and count as both on of your required blog posts and as the weekly discussion participation)
• I will be paying closer attention to your discussion participation when recording points from here on.

 Blog Posts- Book Research Project

• You need to select and begin reading and researching your book.
  • see the Book Suggestions page for more information on choice.
• Don’t leave this task to the last week before deadline. Start reading now and researching on the Web what you read.
• Be sure you know how to create a post on your own blog. See the instructions in the How-To tab of the tab-menu bar.
• Write the first three blog posts on your blog.  See Your Blog Posts and Assignments.
• Write your Book Research blog post by the end of 14th week. See What to Say in Your Book Research Project.
• Write your final exam reflective blog post during the last week.

That’s it.