"The wind of change is blowing through this continent."

[laurion]

It's been a while since I last updated. Life has been turning itself inside out, and change has come at me from all directions:

• I turned 30 recently. This doesn't yet feel any different from 29, or even 25, or even 21, for the most part. But then again, I live in my skin every day, and so the changes are so small to me as to be imperceptible. Still, because of this, it doesn't strike me as a big change.


• In a few weeks I will no longer be a member of None Of The Above, the A Cappella ensemble I've been with for three years. This was a bit sudden to me, and emotionally, it feels like a breakup. It wasn't my choice, but I'm coming to accept the decision, and it has freed me up to take some ballroom dance lessons, so it's not all bad.


• The biggest change is that as of October 1st, I'll be working at Regis College. After 7+ years without much growth, I'm stepping out of the comfort zone and into a new role. I'll be their new Instructional Technologist, which is sufficiently different from m past experience that I'm sure it'll be a struggle at first. It's also a small cut in pay, which is going to make things exceedingly squinchy for me for a time, but he opportunity for growth and future advancement outweighs the downsides. this is the change that has me the most nervous, although it doesn't hurt as much as I thought it might. Yet.

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Comments

[tpau]

wow... so what is the instructional technologist?

[laurion]

Instructional Technology combines technology and media with pedagogy. They're the ones who work with faculty to figure out how to use Technology constructively in the field of education. I'll be administering their online courseware software, working with faculty on classroom projects, helping students make use of online tools in their research and papers, probably writing some documentation and doing some webwork, helping out in the media lab, etc.

[tpau]

ooh, sounds cool. I totally i didn't know you were switching jobs...

[laurion]

Very few people knew I had a resume in for this. I've been playing it pretty close to my chest.

[tpau]

well, good luck :)

[frozencapybara.livejournal.com]

Happy (belated) birthday, and congratulations on the new job!

Also, congratulations on fleeing Brandeis. I have to admit I'm a tad jealous of your new job - I miss instructional technology! It's a lot of fun - I'm sure you'll love it (and I hear Regis is doing some good stuff these days).

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Happy (belated) birthday! And good luck and congratulations on the new job!

[lisefrac.livejournal.com]

Wow, the new job sounds exciting! Regis College is still in Waltham, right?

[rigel.livejournal.com]

Good luck from me as well!

(Now who will we go to as our staff liason for LARPing? If natbudin ever leaves, we're screwed. ;) )

[doxasticpirate.livejournal.com]

Wow, pretty awesome! Happy birthday and good luck!!

(And, most of all, congrats on finally breaking free of the Brandeis orbit!)

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

Now I'm extra-sorry that I never made it to a None Of the Above performance. I hope you'll join another singing group and I can make more of a point of hearing y'all.

[natbudin.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm not staff. :)

And I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I like organizing LARPs at Brandeis and want to continue doing so, but Life Reasons might force me to leave the area at some point. So I'd like, ideally, to get some other people involved in this whole LARP Conspiracy thing, and make it more organized, so that it could continue happening without my involvement (although hopefully, we won't have to worry about that).

I'd say "are you volunteering?" but I know that you're going to be spending a year in Europe, so I'm guessing not. :)

[asdr83.livejournal.com]

Weston actually

[laurion]

Well, amongst other things, they hired gower, so it can't be all bad. They are definitely on the move at the moment. They just went coed, and they're very small, 50 or so full time faculty, and less than twice that many part time.

[laurion]

Well, the group is still out there, and you can still catch a performance some time. *grin*

I'll let people know if/when I join another group.

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

That's incredibly cool - that's what I had been working toward at Simmons (albeit more on the "media" end than the "technology" end) before I got pushed out of my job there and then fell out of the library/media world altogether.

I am very jealous and I would love to hear about it if your department expands someday. :)

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

Well, big changes all around. Just coincidentally at the change in initial age digit...

Congratulations on finding a job to bring you more Excitement. Good luck.

[laurion]

Hmm. I'll let you know, but the place is small. I will be _the_ Instructional Technologist. The Academic Computing group is three people. In addition to me, there will be the Media Technician guy, and the manager.

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

Wow. When I was in media at Simmons, we had a whole instructional technology arm, with a team of student minions and control over the non-print media collection. Perhaps Regis is smaller, or perhaps they are just starting to really dig into this stuff.

I tried to see if the posting was still online (schools take forever to pull them down), and I think that was one I was going to apply for and then decided I didn't have the technology chops. Which, if you're The One Guy responsible for all of it, I probably didn't. Perhaps someday they will find themselves wanting to expand.

[laurion]

Regis is smaller, plus they don't have an MLIS group pushing some of the media stuff. Mostly, it's smaller. With only 1600 grads and undergrads, and a faculty numbering between 120 and 140 (depending on how much you count the part time faculty), it's a small school.

The posting is still online, or was as of yesterday. I have the technical chops, but I wasn't sure I was qualified, as I don't have an MA, and don't have a strong background in the art of teaching.

[berek.livejournal.com]

Happy belated, and congratulations on the new job!

[tamargrl.livejournal.com]

Hi hi.
Happy, congrats, woo hoo! (My combo of well-wishes.)
Change is scary, but usually good, so I hope it works rilly, rilly well for you.
We talk soon, 'k?

[laurion]

Sure, whenever you like! I'm on IM much of the time, and cell phone enabled...