At lunchtime today, I picked out a bunch of leaves for class tonight: sumac, dogwood, locust, maple, ginkgo, and oak. Leaves are cool. Leaves in the fall have a lot of character: they're dusty, full of holes, and covered with rust spots. I got a staff member to help me press them, so they won't curl up before class. I've also asked students to bring leaves. We'll look at leaves and my model for a while and think about how well the model works -- or doesn't. I've thought of several potential critiques of my simple model of leaf growth -- we'll see what the students pick up on.
Have you ever had someone look at you like you were a bug? I had someone who was talking about having their students use powerpoint to do 5 minutes presentations, but was worried about the amount of time to switch between presentations. I began by asking some questions: Do the presentations really need powerpoint? Will they be showing pictures or video? How many slides should someone show in 5 minutes? That part of the conversation went OK. But then I talked up wikis a bit: I demonstrated the wiki slide show and showed the wiki that was already set up for each course in the Biology Department. I also showed how you can see recent changes and page history to see who contributed what when. As the person left, they looked at me like I was some kind of alien bug, as if to say, "you're utterly crazy if you think I'd ever be caught dead doing anything like that."
I found that in Prometheus, although you can't preview postings before making them, you can go back and edit them after the fact. That's not as good as previewing, but it's a lot better than nothing.