Summer Work 2009 One of my summer projects -- which will actually never end, as it's now going to be an ongoing component of my teaching -- is creating a set of images that I can use for teaching. Some of it is going to be scanning art and other book images which I can use, but a big chunk has to do with converting my old slide and print pictures from Japan into digital forms that I can make easy use of in the classroom and (because I own them!) share on the internet for other people to use.

It's been a blast, really, going back into the old collections, rediscovering things I didn't even remember taking pictures of, figuring out what things are, and thinking about what I can do with them as a teacher.

I started out scanning my slides, the ones that I'd pulled out of the collection years ago for teaching purposes, but haven't used in years because of the awkwardness of slide projection in the classroom. I've borrowed Dad's slide scanner, which is producing very nice results. The slides cover our time in Japan in the mid-'80s, a quarter century ago now: they're historical! Once I scan them, I'm annotating them (at least a little, to start) and sorting them so that I can find them again when I need them. Since the semester started, and I've been at work more, I'm using the new scanner I got to scan prints, which cover both my junior year ('87-88) and our year in Yamaguchi ('94-95).

I still have a lot more prints to scan on the first pass, and a lot more slides to look at. In the meantime, if you want a giggle, I've got a set of bad Japanese English examples and if you want to stroll down memory lane, there's the Personal and Family set.  ¶ Tuesday, September 01, 2009