Formation continue? Oui, monsieur!

Que de choses! D'abord, moi.

1. J'ai été acceptée à l'École d'été Montréal numérique de l'UQAM, pour sept jours et demi d'une Formation intensive proposant l'exploration des dimensions géospatiales de l'histoire et du patrimoine. C'est à la fin d'août. Je suis quand même bien versée dans les Humanités numériques, mais je n'ai pas joué en géo-histoire numérique depuis ma maîtrise, en 1993-95. Les technologies ont un tantinet évolué depuis et je ne suis plus du tout à jour. SPSS et SIG, c'est une chose, mais je n'y a pas touché depuis 20 ans. De plus, il y a de nouveaux outils informatiques, sans doute, et il y a de nouvelles approches avec lesquelles je ne suis pas familière. Avant tout, je ne suis pas du tout au courant des projets d'Humanités numériques en français au Canada, parce que je suis loin de tout dans mon Ontario anglophone. J'ai vraiment très hâte. J'obtiendrai en plus un certificat qui me donnera peut-être des points de mérite à la fin de l'année. Mais je n'y vais pas pour cela.

2. Je tente aussi d'apprendre le langage de mise en page Markdown, qui permet d'écrire en format .txt (le seul format informatique à être complètement universel), ce qui permet de mettre en page un texte avec des commandes texte qui peuvent être traduites par un nombre infini de programme et être converties en html, tout en créant un texte parfaitement lisible avant la convertion. Dans une optique de conservation des fichiers à long terme, il est avantageux que j'emploie cette méthode, parce qu'il est impossible de prévoir ce que seront les programmes de traitement de texte dans 20 ans, mais il est très peu probable qu'aucun d'entre-eux ne lise les fichiers .txt. D'ailleurs, j'ai rédigé ce présent texte en Markdown et utilisé l'engin de conversion de Squarespace pour en faire du html. C'est bien, hein? Après Markdown, je compte apprendre le MultiMarkdown, qui offre plus de fonctions. Une chose à la fois.

3. Je continue à travailler sur mes notes visuelles et l'emploi de la pensée visuelle en enseignement. En ce moment, je travaille à l'augmentation de mon vocabulaire visuel, c'est à dire à la banque d'icônes et de dessins servant à exprimer graphiquement idées, concepts et faits. On avance lentement.

Mais je ne suis pas la seule à apprendre!

Mon chien Igrec va à l'école lui aussi. Les cours d’obéissance (qui ne s'appellent plus cela, par ailleurs, mais de l'entrainement canin) ont commencé hier et déjà ce que je tentais de lui montré est rentré dans son tout petit cerveau sec comme une balle. Il s'assoie toujours à ma commande gestuelle et presque toujours à ma commande verbale. Il répond aussi très bien à la commande « Regarde moi » et tient mon regard un gros 6 secondes. Après 24 heures seulement, je suis impressionnée. Nous travaillons très fort à lui donner une routine et des journées structurées. Depuis hier, je dis toujours « pipi » lorsqu'il urine et « caca » s'il défèque, et continuerai pour au moins une semaine, dans l'espoir qu'il associe mes mots aux actions et le fasse ensuite sur commande, dans la cours plutôt que dans la maison. On touche du bois.

Emmenez-en des projets!

So many things in the last few weeks! Also: woof!

Short version: my son is great, my husband survived Easter (while we survived my parents being with us for a week!) and we have a dog.

Long version: Wow. What a month or so!

1. My son is smarter and smarter every day. He is such a hoot and a love bug, so this is wonderful. He told me. He told me that he loved me more often than ever. He's great.
   
2. Lent and Easter were difficult. It is the most busy period of the Christian year and this year coincided with the end of the academic year, Chaton's birthday and so many other things, my head is still spinning. I was supposed to go to Chicago for the PCA, but there was no way we were going to afford it. I stayed home. My parents were there. It helped but I was ready to strangle them by the second to last day. Oy. I was able to work while they took care of Chaton. Mamou was out of the house most days and nights, of course. Chaton is great.
3. And we got a dog. On the day my parents left, we got a dog! We had put ourselves on the SPA waiting list weeks ago, but on Easter Friday, I got an email from my sister-in-law telling me that the breeder she got her miniature schnauzer from had a dog returned to her that needed adoption urgently. The old lady who had gotten him could no longer take care of him. We got into contact with her and arranged to meet the dog on Easter Monday. We dropped my parents at the train station and we drove to somewhere deep on the South shore of Montréal. The dog is a 10-month-old male, salt-and-pepper miniature schnauzer, dumb as a door nail but adorable. He was originally named Cognac but we dropped that name right quick the second we imagined my four-year-old son calling “Cognac!” out loud in the street. We named him Igrec (as in Y in French) and he already answers to it. Or at least to my tone of voice when I call him. He is completely fused to me. He follows me everywhere and cannot bare to be separated from me one second. Honestly, he thinks I'm his mother.

And there lies the problem. We saw a vet last week and she confirmed what we suspected. My dog is developmentally delayed. Although he is physically 10 months old, he reacts, behaves and has the reflexes of a 5-month-old. The reasons are unclear, but they could be a combination of lack of stimulation and bad nutrition when he was with the old lady. He could also be naturally dumb, but it's impossible to tell. We know that he did not get much exercise before and that the old lady fed him mostly treats and tried big-breed adult kibble. In fact, he would not eat much at all during the few days he was back at the breeder and it took a couple of days before he ate at our house as well. He only ate his proper enriched puppy kibble when I held it in my hand. The vet suggested I mix the kibble with a light coating of wet dog food, which I did, and boy is he eating all his food now, licking the bowl clean every time. That's good.

This leads to the biggest problem with Igrec: he is not yet clean. He still goes everywhere in the house. He's better now that he is eating regular meals and having regular walks. His bowels are much more regular and predictable (to a point), but the peeing is not yet predictable. He does not understand he can't pee in the house, does not ask for the door; just squats without notice and wets my floors. We have puppy mats: he sleeps on them. It's going to be a challenge. The old lady never really scolded him for not using the pee mats because she believed that a 10-month-old dog being still technically “a puppy” meant that it was normal for him to wet the floor. Not surprisingly, he was the first puppy she ever had, She only had had older, fully house-trained dogs before. Yeah. So we are (I am) walking him four times a day. We are also engaging his brain as much as we can so we can bring him up to speed. Hopefully, we can overcome the delays. As I am writing this, we are outside and he is eating leaves. And grass. And dirt. Just like a 5-month-old puppy would. He is duuuuuuuumb.

He is also really cute and adorable and a great addition to the family. Even the Chaton is warming up to him. Chaton still does not like being sniffed or licked, but they do play a lot. I got rid of most of the squeaky toys (the few remaining are outside) and we got a Kong. Chaton likes to throw it and say “ping pong!” and the dog runs like hell to get it. He almost always returns he in time for my son to throw it again. Igrec has the attention span of a gnat so if the Kong or ball leaves his sight for even a second, he's already forgotten it. Thankfully, Igrec does not have the instincts of a gnat, at least in terms of other dogs, and runs behind my legs if he does not like any particular dog's vibe. In terms of humans, he's completely brain dead. But what a charmer. I got two girls to what him for a few minutes while I got something at the café and they were so ecstatic to help and pet “the puppy!!!” He cried for me the whole time.

We are starting beginner obedience training next week, because he needs it, and we will certainly do all the classes from there on up. He needs it. If I can't get him to stop peeing everywhere before the end of the summer, we are going to potty training class too.

The only darker spot in sight is that Mamou is away in Seattle until Friday night and Chaton and I are leaving for Québec on Thursday morning. Gillian is coming to puppysit on Thursday night, but she is working on Friday and will have to leave him in the morning. In short, Igrec will be alone for most of a 24-hour and getting only two walks in the meantime. Instead of seven or eight walks. Yeah. I'm expecting the neighbours will be angry with us. I also expect some set backs in terms of development. Knock on wood and Gillian is a saint.

We will survive. Somehow.

Visual Thinking Process, some realizations

First, I am loving the things and thoughts this approach is bringing up from my brain.

Second, I've been using some of the most popular tools and stuff in the last year or so, and have come up with a few favorites.

a) To my utter surprise, I prefer to use the Sharpie Pen, in either black or blue. This is indeed surprising since I prefer to write with fountain pens. Not only does it create nice writing to look at, it is much kinder to my hands. I don't cramp up with fountain pens. However, with sketchnoting, ink must dry super fast and fountain pens are not very good at that. I tried many gel pens, even the Uniballs (several different models) preferred by so many of the sketchnoting gods. Those are indeed nice, and I would use them in a pinch, but I like them less then the Sharpies Pens. I also like much less the regular fine-tip Sharpies, because even if they have colour, they tend to bleed. Bleeding bothers me because I like to use both sides of paper. Bleeding makes me angry.

In a similar vein, I have found that I do not need an expensive copic marker for shading. Many gods of sketchnoting prefer those, understandably, but I do not take those notes in order to publish them. I will never be a professional sketchnoter. At most, I need my sketches to be clear enough to be used in class. As such, I have found that a 50¢ Crayola pip squeek marker in "kitten grey" is quite enough for the little shading I'll be doing.

b) This leads me to paper. It is true that the form factor of the small Moleskine (Modo i Modo) sketch notebook is wonderful for sketchnoting. I was quite surprised by the realization I preferred to work on a smaller size. In watercolour, we learn to work big; but here, the small size forced one to compress one's thoughts further and make the sketch better. The Moleskine paper is strong. Ink rarely bleeds through (except the regular fine-tip Sharpies) and they take a line well. I'm not convinced by the paper's colour, however. It's a beautiful creme that makes text look great. I'm not sure that it makes sketches look good. It certainly makes the sketches harder to scan. I have to work on the sketches more in Pixelmater, because I have to tone down the creme to make the sketches pop out. I would rather have done my sketchnotes directly on white paper, so I don't have to go through an entire additional step in edition. I have a couple small sketchbooks by ScoutBooks I got as freebees from Squarespace. The paper is pure white. I'll try those and see if I like that type of paper better. I'll then look into getting notebooks of a similar size with similar white paper.

Graphical Epiphany applied

So I've been thinking a lot* about using a more graphical approach to my slide presentations and seminar discussion prompts. As the previous blog entry showed, I had a sort of epiphany about this a few days ago. Yesterday, I went to a Departmental Seminar series conference where I tried taking sketchnotes (sorta). The conference was not as interesting as I had hoped. I was expecting a presentation of three relatively new concepts in academic history (big history, deep history and history of the Anthropocene) and instead got a manifesto for the return to the longue durée. Since I never gave up on the longue durée, it was not as useful as I had wanted. But I took notes. I had issues with my pen, and I killed the English language in places, but I took notes!

Then I thought about trying to work more on my Sketchplanations-inspired discussion prompts. What is interesting about what Jono Hey is doing is that he takes one idea, one concept, or one set of info and distills it all into one graphic or a three to four set of graphics. That is a spectacularly difficult thing to do, I find. He has done hundreds by now and he was a UX guy long before that, so graphics are not a foreign language to him. I am a wordsmith by nature, so thinking in images is much harder for me. Words come out easily. Images come out with some difficulty. The more so that I am not used to doing it much. I'm getting better. I still kill English, but I'm better.

Very basic anthropological concept discussion prompt ('shoped)

*Yes, this means thinking about this rather than marking or writing the things that have deadlines, I know.

Today, I had a Graphical Epiphany

My friend @wendywoohoo, my favorite UX genius, was at the IA Summit 2014 conference in San Diego this past week, where a host of UX geniuses discuss information architecture, user experience and web design. I alway look forward to Wendy going to conferences, because she live tweets all the presentations and posts links to wonderful visual notes by attendees. Following those links into glorious web ratholes today, I found what I was looking for this past year in terms of a graphical design approach to my seminar discussions. I aim to apply this in all my upcoming courses. If I find a way, I'll retrofit my old courses as well.

I had an epiphany, people! Here are the results.

De mascottes et de stéréotypes

La région d'Ottawa est une des régions les plus bilingues du Canada. Elle est aussi l'un des endroits où la résistance au fait français est très intense. Depuis quelques mois, on remarque aussi que la région d'Ottawa est bien dotée en personnes (surtout, mais pas inclusivement, des hommes) qui aiment associer leurs équipes sportives préférées avec des mascottes à fortes connotations ethniques négatives. Après les Amérindiens, on s'en prend aux Canadiens-français. L'équipe d'expansion de la CFL de la ville, les Redblacks (en principe aussi Le Rouge et Noir), s'est donné "Jos Mufferaw" comme mascotte, un gros "lumberjack" à la mâchoire carrée, à la chemise carreautée et à la tuque fière.

Joe Mufferaw dans toute sa splendeur...

Le problème, majeur, est que ce personnage est basé sur une chanson folk de Stompin' Tom, elle-même inspirée de la chanson "Jos Monferrand" de Gilles Vigneault, chanson basée sur l'histoire vraie de Jos Montferrand, alias Jos Favre, qui s'est battu contre la discrimination envers des Canadiens française dans l'industrie du bois en Outaouais. Sans surprise, les Franco-Ontariens et les Québécois de la région sont plutôt outrés. Pour leur part, les supporters de l'équipe choisissent de n'y rien comprendre. Je dis "choisissent" en raison des conversations (comme celle incluse au bas de cette entrée) qui pourrissent les médias anglophones depuis deux jours. En somme, les médias et autres anglophones estiment que Jos Mufferaw n'est pas un symbole canadien-français, mais une légende locale basée sur le passé bûcheron de toute la région et que toutes les ethnicités de la région ont produit des bûcherons et que donc un bûcheron ne peut pas être un stéréotype canadien-français. Cette affirmation est répétée ad nauseam, malgré l'abondance de preuves du contraire, non seulement sur Montferrand lui-même, mais sur le stéréotype du gros bûcheron mal dégrossi canadien-français, comme le "lumberjack" dans Bugs Bunny, par exemple.

Il s'appelle Blacque Jacque Shellacque

Bien sûr, le problème majeur avec l'argument que Mufferaw n'est pas Montferrand et que ce premier n'est qu'une légende même si le second fut un personnage historique, est que la mascotte s'appelle "Jos Montferrand" en français. Donc, malgré l'égosillage des Anglos qui tentent d'expliquer aux Francos qu'ils ont tort de s'offusquer, le fait est que la mascotte est encore une fois un stéréotype canadien-français et une usurpation historique.

Ce serait comme si une équipe de sport américaine se choisissait une mascotte d'allure amérindienne stéréotypique inspirée de Crazy Horse, l'appeler "Curly" (parce que Crazy Horse avait les cheveux frisés) mais appeler cela un hommage. Comme si Chief Wahoo des Indiens de Cleveland est un hommage. Comme si Aunt Jemima est un hommage, ou Uncle Ben. Ce n'est pas parce que cette fois-ci, la mascotte est blanche que cela n'est pas moins insultant. Je fulmine contre les Braves d'Atlanta, les Indiens de Cleveland, je ne suis battu contre les Redskins de Nepean. Je vais me battre contre l'usage insultant de "Joe Mufferraw".

La meilleure session d'enseignement de ma carrière

Cette semaine marque l'avant-dernière semaine de cours de la session. La semaine prochaine, mes étudiants font leurs présentations, je n'ai donc rien à préparer en tant que tel. Il y a trois semaines d'administration ensuite, mais c'est la vie.

Ce qui m'énergise est que cette session fut, sans conteste, la meilleure session d'enseignement de ma vie. La session d'automne avait été la meilleure jusqu'alors, mais celle-ci est complètement éclipsée par la session d'hiver.

Mes étudiants me disent qu'ils ont beaucoup aimé ce cours sur la culture matérielle canadienne, malgré les difficultés que la pédagogie inversée comportent. Quelques-uns m'ont affirmé que c'était le seul cours auquel ils avaient hâte pendant la semaine. Une autre aujourd'hui s'est dite galvanisée dans ses choix universitaires. Franchement, je m'attends à ce que les évaluations étudiantes remplies aujourd'hui soient stellaires.

Un des avantages des classes inversées est que l'apprentissage se fait par l'application et la démonstration, plutôt que par l'explication et l'induction. Aujourd'hui, afin d'expliquer comment faire une présentation de type Ignite, j'ai fait une présentation de ce type pour introduire le thème de l'atelier d'aujourd'hui sur le consumérisme. 20 diapos, 15 secondes chacune, pour un total de 5 minutes pile. La dernière diapo de ma présentation disait:

Ma présentation a tellement bien marché que quelques étudiants ne s'étaient pas rendu compte de ce que je venais de faire. La plupart avait compris et plusieurs ont dit avoir apprécié l'exemple et avoir calmé leurs craintes.

En effet, comme travail de fin de session, ils ont à mettre sur pieds sur exposition muséale virtuelle, basée sur deux objets de notre vie quotidienne de leur choix, analysant un thème émergeant de ses deux objets et élaborant sur ce lien en ajoutant d'autres objets. Mon exemple est tiré d'un cours similaire d'une collègue de McGill datant de 2001: en associant une cannette de Pepsi et une flute de champagne en cristal, il est possible de monter une exposition sur l'évolution des rituels autour de l'alimentation depuis 150 ans, les autres objets choisis permettrant ainsi de montrer comment ces rituels anciennement formalisés ont été presque complètement déconstruits depuis trente ans, entre autre à cause de la restauration rapide.

J'ai très hâte à la semaine prochaine. Je sais que la plupart des étudiants réussira leur présentation et que presque tous écriront un très bon travail d'analyse. Il y aura des échecs, partiels pour la plupart, mais tous semblent relever le défi que je leur propose.

En attendant, je me donne une belle 'tite tape dans le dos.

Thoughts on _The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities: Exhibits, Oddities, Images, and Stories from Top Authors and Artists_, Jeff and Ann Vandermeer, eds.

Promised as a sequel of sorts to The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, edited in 2003 by Mark Roberts and Jeff Vandermeer, The Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities (2011) is a collection of disjointed writings by a host of well-known Anglophone genre authors. I was very much looking forward to reading it, having loved the first volume and kept it in my library since. Nevertheless, I had not heard of the publication of the volume until I noticed the cover during one of my regular Amazon perusal sessions. I bought it and quickly realised why it had not made the splash the first volume had.

Thre book is, unfortunately, a disappointment. Where the first volume was coherent in format, presenting the histologies of vastly divergeant (and very imaginative) mock ailments; this collection is anything but. I used the word "disjointed" earlier and it is a apt description for the ensemble of texts that can be found here. After a humourous introduction, presenting the biography of Dr. Lambshead's subsequent years since the original 1922's publication of the Pocket Guide, we are presented with a sequence of descriptions of objects that were once part of Lambshead's collection. These descriptions follow a familiar catalogue format: artefact name, author of description, date of artifact creation, creator, provenance(s) and current location, accession number, followed by the object's history, uses and effects, usually illustrated. Unfortunately, after a few of those very enjoyable segments, follows several short stories, very loosely related to Dr. Lambshead (who is mostly inferred, not seen), short stories of very unequal quality. Then the catalogue format returns, followed more or less strictly, and other artifacts are introduced.

Were it not for the short stories, this book might have been, at least, coherent and more enjoyable. The Pocket Guide's entries had not been of equal quality, far from it, but the ensemble was what had made the book into such an interesting literary creature. Here, however, the Vandermeer failed in creating something of equal value. Even if both volumes share many of the same authors, the feeling is much different.

The most striking of these differences is in tone. In The Cabinet, it was clear from the introduction that I was missing entire levels of humour that are really just a bunch of inside jokes, mostly at the expense of Michael Moorcook, Naomi Novik and especially Caitlin R. Kiernan. I am certain that these passages are extremely funny to those who personally know these authors and the others mentioned, but I do not (even if I do know a whole bunch), neither do most of the book's readership. One recognizes there is humour. One cannot share it.

I purchased the epub version of The Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities. If I find a used or highly discounted dead tree copy of the book, I may purchase it, so that The Pocket Guide won't be alone on my shelf. I will not, however, ever buy a full price copy. That would be a waste of money.