This morning was busy: made chili, rebooted server, had breakfast with dems, bought a lawnmower, and walked the dogs. I don't think I've made chili since we started lo-carbing last Thanksgiving. I've had chili a time or two, but I make the best chili I know. It's easy
Stir fry 2 lbs of stewing beef with onions and peppers (red peppers and some jalapenos or whatever). Season with lots of black pepper, some crushed red pepper, a bit of cumin, cilantro, and salt. Put into the crock pot with a big can of diced tomatoes, a can of pinto beans, dark-red kidney beans, and a can of tomato paste. Add a bunch of water and let simmer for three or four hours. Mmm! Awesome!
I'm really pleased with how my on-line class is going so far. Lots of good participation and relatively few technical problems. The organizers were convinced that students needed a bunch of step-by-step directions to use the wiki. Buzz and I didn't think it was necessary and I think experience has shown that we were right. Essentially everyone in the class has now succeeded in editing a wiki page and posting in the forums. It required only a little bit of remote hand-holding, but that's not a problem. Now that we've got people started, the rest is easy. Several of the students have made observations about the empowering nature of the environment and how useful it would have been for projects they worked on in previous courses. Yes! A couple of students also were worried about meeting deadlines until I pointed out that we are really concerned about meaningful participation and that deadlines can be useful, but aren't an end in themselves. What a shock! They're being treated like human beings! I think this is going to be a great semester! I wish I could open the course site up for everyone to read what the students are saying.