Author Archives: Robert Basil

Elitism in the classroom

Posted on November 9, 2016 by Robert Basil

Professor Mayhew’s recent take on the topic: Teaching is transactional. The instructor is not feeding information to the students, teaching them that information, but interacting with them. A third element is the text in the class. The text is not … Continue reading →

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Hence, teaching manners matters

Posted on November 2, 2016 by Robert Basil

In a blog post this morning called “A Raging Snowflake,” my good friend Clarissa writes: Remember the Oppressed Tiffany, a very special snowflake whose “narrative was erased by the entire field of academia” when a hapless prof asked her to … Continue reading →

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Battle

Posted on October 16, 2016 by Robert Basil

In the New York Times obituary section recently I came upon one for Jacob Neusner, a scholar (and polemicist) who published more than 900 books in his lifetime. I calculated – on the back of a napkin, as it were – … Continue reading →

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Real Words

Posted on September 21, 2016 by Robert Basil

One of the best pure writers I have ever seen was a psychology student at Kwantlen Polytechnic University named Emily (she gave me permission to use her first name). She could amalgamate and compress numerous, complex source articles into a … Continue reading →

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Good Motto

Posted on August 15, 2016 by Robert Basil

“I have never sacrificed an idea simply because it might go over the head of someone not yet ready to understand it.”  

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Satire and Critique

Posted on August 15, 2016 by Robert Basil

From the very smart libertarian blog “Hit and Run,” presented without comment, except to note that all’s well that ends well (if it does end well): Last Thursday an Ohio jury acquitted Anthony Novak, a 27-year-old man whom Parma police arrested … Continue reading →

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Brainstorming

Posted on July 29, 2016 by Robert Basil

Even when participants are not being paid by the hour, meetings are costly: Notwithstanding smart-phones, no one around the table is really doing something else, at least not with an undivided focus. A poorly planned or run meeting wastes everybody’s time, … Continue reading →

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Rental detectives

Posted on June 23, 2016 by Robert Basil

I’m pretty much an open book to my building manager. If I ever have to move into another rental, though, the services provided by a British data-mining company might unnerve me. Writes Stanley Q. Woodvine in Vancouver, BC’s Georgia Straight, Tenant Assured is a … Continue reading →

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The Hootsuite blog

Posted on May 10, 2016 by Robert Basil

For almost a decade marketers, educators, and students have been using the social media “dashboard” created by Vancouver, BC’s Hootsuite to monitor their social networks, analyze the effectiveness and reach of their messages, “listen” to the many buzzes of the online world, … Continue reading →

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First Draft News

Posted on April 27, 2016 by Robert Basil

FirstDraftNews.com is a beautiful and wide-ranging resource created for journalists “who source and report stories from social media.” What is the best way to search for eyewitness media when a story breaks? What are the most efficient and effective ways to … Continue reading →

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