Is the Professor Who is on Summer Break Happy?

On Saturday morning, while my husband and I waited for the first World Cup match of the day to begin, we sat with our coffee and watched the recently released documentary by Michel Gondry, the filmmaker who made the sweet and funny films Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Be Kind Rewind, and the action adventure movie The Green Hornet.

His new movie, Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? isn't like any of these, however; it's an animated documentary (which sounds antithetical) about Noam Chomsky. Though it's not really about Chomsky, per se, but rather an 88-minute long interview of sorts where Gondry attempts to get at the heart of how Chomsky thinks and what he thinks about.



I'm writing about Gondry's movie here on this blog because not only is the film thought provoking--covering topics of education, linguistics, meta-cognition, philosophy, and scientific inquiry--and about a man, perhaps one of the greatest thinkers of our time, who wrote in his book Manufacturing Consent that "Education is a system of imposed ignorance," but also because Gondry, a whimsical thinker and filmmaker, represents us, the audience, in this dialogue with Chomsky: someone who respects the man, but doesn't always understand or agree with him.

It's the perfectly thoughtful kind of brain candy you all might want to chew on while you're on summer break.

The movie is available for instant streaming on Netflix (and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is available on DVD from the MCC Library)--let us know what you think!

More Canvas Videos For You!

Our own Meri Winchester has been creating Canvas tutorial videos for her YouTube channel, and she's just completed three more. Here they are!

Creating and Using Rubrics in Canvas


Basic Discussion Set Up

Discussion Settings in Canvas 

More Excellence in Teaching

Our third installment of the Excellence in Teaching Showcase brings us ideas from Stephen Mujeye (CIS) and Sarah Ruthven (ART). Stephen wrote them up for us to show off to all of you!

Stephen Mujeye, Instructor of Networking in Computer Information Systems wrote about pedagogy, and the teaching strategy was using technology as appropriate and available. The assignment was to teach students how they can use Group Policy in Server 2008 to set the homepage site on all network computers. The instructor was going to demonstrate a similar policy in Group Policy and then a volunteer students would be selected to lead others in setting and changing the homepage site for all computers.

Stephen's lesson is a great way to get students involved in peer-to-peer instruction, and as we all know, teaching something is a great way to master it.

Sarah Ruthven, Instructor of Art History wrote about pedagogy and the teaching strategy was holding students accountable to performance expectations. The assignment was an Art History I research assignment. The assignment included annotations and three Canvas discussion boards for each preparation step of:

1. Theme and Images
2. Topic Statement
3. Organization

The assignment would be graded for completion and comments will be provided to students by the instructor.

Sarah's lesson is a great way to informally scaffold an assignment and keep students on track.

For more information about either of these assignments, contact Stephen or Sarah, and stay tuned for even more from MCC faculty members on how they exemplify Excellence in Teaching.

Canvas Tips on YouTube

Meri Winchester, MCC Instructor of Digital Media, has started creating helpful Canvas tutorials and adding them to her YouTube channel.

We'll be sharing them here, and you can also visit her channel so see what else she's posting!