New travel tool: Yapta

I just read a post on Mymoneyblog that I thought speech and debate coaches who are working with tight budgets (and that seems to be true of most programs) could use to save some money.  The program is called Yapta, and its in a beta stage, but seems to be up and running relatively efficiently.  The program not only does what Travelocity or Orbitz will do, which is track prices on flights from one place to another, but it will track the prices on a SPECIFIC flight - so, you can pick your favorite carrier, your best possible flight time and track the prices on that flight. 

The other thing you can do, which is something that even after all these years of extensive travel I had no idea of, is purchase a ticket from the carrier and then get a refund if the price drops before you travel.  I guess that some carriers will provide you with a refund in the form of a voucher for the difference when a price drops on a flight you have already purchased.  Mymoneyblog indicates that Alaska, America West, American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, Southwest, and US Airways provide this service.

This changes tournament travel planning.  The fear of purchasing tickets in advance and then finding out that the prices drop by large amounts afterwards was always something that made me put off buying tickets on any airlines other than Southwest (which obviously is a great carrier for speech and debate coaches - and the name change thing is still a hassle at alot of other carriers, where the ticket only gets refunded in THAT person’s name).  This may make me more likely to buy tickets on other carriers in advance without that feeling in the pit of my stomach that I’m making a huge financial mistake and certainly helps out in traveling to those airports to which Southwest doesn’t travel.

I have signed up for a test flight tracking to see how it works - I will try to remember to let you all know how it goes!

How to Handle Criticism…

as a judge or a debater.  This article from lifehack.com provides some great suggestions for dealing with those post-round discussions in debate, whether you are a judge or a debater.  I guess it also might help me deal with the current barrage of email complaints on the topics produced by the Topic Commitee! 

How can you turn around the detractors and use negative feedback to help? Learn how to distinguish feedback from insults and which of three methods you can use to handle criticism.

read more | digg story

And so it begins…

The intercollegiate policy debate season is a lengthy one.  Some might think it begins with the first tournament of the year, others may say the summer institutes are the real start to the season, but I would argue that today is really the beginning of the next season.  Today the resolutions that will be on the ballot for the 2007-2008 season were posted. 

This year, I have to admit, I have a slightly different view on this process after participating in the summer topic committee meeting for the first time.  It definitely changes your perspective when you actually attend the meeting and see all the interactions that take place during the three days.  And let’s face it, three days is not a whole lot of time to construct a resolution that literally 1000s of people across the nation will be pleased with, but still the people come and try to make it work, only to find that, once again, huge errors have been made by all those participating.  But, I digress…

So, why do I think this is the beginning of the season?  Well, with this year’s ballot in particular, research can begin for the topic today.  Prior to today, we knew we would be debating the Middle East and some sort of constructive engagement with the Middle East, but beyond that, we really had no idea, and all of those were very broad terms.  Now, we have a relatively short list of countries, we have a couple of methods at most (one choice leaves just one method of constructive engagement), and we have a place to go and start doing the research.  For some, this is the best time of the year - no distractions from tournaments, just good, clean research fun!  For some, this is the worst time of year - just the research…none of the fun of debating for months to come.  But, either way, if you want to be successful, you have to get started on the topic now.

The topic committee is certainly not a membership of great reward.  It is an underappreciated, truly unrewarding committee.  I felt like I needed to be on the committee so I could speak from experience in the future, as well as have a better of understanding of how a resolution comes about.  The resolutions are always somewhat imperfect (three days does not = perfection unless you are a divine being), they truly exemplify the phrase, you can please some of the people etc…., and finally, they really can only be good, not great - a great resolution comes along every decade or so at most, and the rest of the time, good is the best that can be done. 

I also never realized the incredibly complicated grammatical challenge of writing a coherent topic that does not risk being hugely mis(re)interpreted by the community.  Debate resolutions are kind of unique in their purpose, and the traditional grammar rules sometimes only serve to complicate the process, but they have to be considered.

There have already been a couple of people posting about their frustrations concerning the list of possible resolutions, and I’m sure I will feel defensive and want to try to explain why their assumptions are faulty or why we considered their concerns, but in the end had to sacrifice some things in order to protect other things and how incredibly difficult it is to spend a short few days trying to predict the ways that a resolution will be utilized during an entire season by both affs and negs and protecting both of those in some ways.  But, in the end, I realize that we just have to let the debates happen for a year and then evaluate what we felt were good things and bad things about them and keep them in the back of our minds for future topics.  We are, after all, a group of less-than-perfect people doing a less-than-perfect job based on a less-than-perfect review of literature. 

I will say that this year I felt like the topic paper had mulled over and considered a number of different things.  It was coherent, comprehensive and well-written.  So, the fact that we did not stray TOO far from the original advocacy for at least a couple of resolutions and the fact that the authors of that paper were present and actively involved in the process makes me feel much better.  I definitely value their opinions about this subject matter much more than the individuals who have now done only a cursory search of the literature and have immediately come to the conclusion that the authors of the paper were wrong.  But, in the end, those people have the right to their opinions and I will do my best to hold my tongue, consider their criticism for future meetings (if I remain on the committee or just choose to participate in the future as a non-member), and try not to let it effect my self-worth.

It definitely shows me the problems with trying to be a representative of a body of people - the bigger the body, the harder the job.  Whose opinions do you try to priortize?  Whose do you choose to discard?  Because at some point, you have to make those choices - over and over again. 

It’s not all about the grade…

According to the book The Millionaire Mind at least. 

I have many students who are completely obsessed with getting an A (or A- as the case may be), as if the difference between getting a B+ and an A- is going to make a difference to someone.  According to The Simple Dollar, the book’s second chapter is summed up with: “It turns out here that great grades aren’t necessarily the key to success, but tenacity and leadership skills are. In other words, if you work hard and are involved in extracurricular activities (particularly in leadership roles) but are a B student, you’re in much better shape to succeed than an A student who coasts and isn’t involved in said activities. In fact, the chapter largely indicates that the B student is preferable here. In other words, don’t be ashamed of your grades - only be ashamed if you’re not willing to work for it.”

I think this is a great message that I wish more students would be willing to embrace.  It seems that often the students aren’t at all concerned whether they are learning the material or able to apply it, but instead are just looking for a way for the end product of their semester to be an A on the report card.  This is seen through constant requests for “extra credit” - usually made because they aren’t grasping or completing the required material in the class.  As if the extra credit will somehow make up for the fact that they have not learned the foundational information.  I have to admit that I have offered extra credit in classes before, but as I read this quotation, it made me realize that revisions or corrections are much more likely to be meaningful than extra credit. 

I have instituted a policy of allowing for exam corrections for 1/2 credit on some exams where many of the students performed poorly.  I make them look up the answers in their notes or book, write the whole question and correct response out, with reference to where they found the answer, for each incorrect answer.  My hope in this is that they learn what they didn’t already know through the process, and those that learned it the first time get more credit and have less work to do in the class.  It seems to work and I wonder if I should do it on ALL exams, no matter what the top or median grade is. 

I read an article the other day about learning theory and it indicated that an experiment with the students in this professor’s class showed that doing the SAME EXACT quiz three times got most of the class to the point where they knew the material.  Now, the question is, for anything other than rote memorization, is this valuable?  Perhaps doing a similar problem/solution activity three times over would mean that they better understood how to solve similar problems?  I’m not sure.  It is an interesting question though.  So often, especially in general education and survey courses, we are speeding through the material and not doing much review or revisiting of material.  I am going to consider ways that I can incorporate more of this into my classes. 

But, getting back to the original point of this entry - I wish students would focus more on asking “what can I do to learn more in this class?” than “what can I do to get an A in this class?”  I always feel like the latter question is an attempt to find the floor instead of the ceiling for what can be learned.  Perhaps I will attempt to spend more time discussing this particular viewpoint, including something about it in my syllabus, etc.  Just to make sure that everyone knows where I’m coming from when I show frustration with the question, “is there any extra credit in this class?”

Tool for speed reading…

Those pesky speed drills - no debaters WANTS to do them and you always wonder, am I really getting any faster from doing these things?  Well, here is a webpage that allows you to check out just how fast you’re able to read (words per minute) - http://www.spreeder.com/ Its a little weird because it only shows you one word at a time, but I just talked to my husband and he has done it and got up to 400 wpm.  How fast can you go?  It makes that time alone doing speed drills a little more competitive! 

In the interest of making sure everyone knows I appreciate clarity more than speed (fast and garbled does you no good), make sure you do some SPEAKING drills along with reading fast.  For a list of speaking drills designed for debate, you can check out:  http://debate.uvm.edu/code/071.html and www.uvm.edu/~debate/NFL/rostrumlib/cxCheshier0402.pdf

These are not comprehensive lists, but will give you some things to try (or tell your students to try).  Speaking drills should be done on a daily basis - it is like the weight training that athletes do - it isn’t what you compete in, but it makes you so much better at what you compete in!  Get training!  Summer is the perfect time to begin this - no tournament pressures, no classes to trade off with, and no reason not to! 

All about balance…

Life is this.  And I’ve been bad at it.  I tend to say yes to everything that comes along in an attempt to be involved and to “help” others out.  In the end, I become a total stress case, and do not accomplish many things on MY list of things to do because I’m always working on OTHER’S things to do.  So, this is an area I need to work on.  I tend to lack focus and I think that lack of focus is a reason I take on these other things instead of being able to say, “No, I’m focused on this right now.”  I think this is a real problem for speech and debate coaches that often leads to premature burnout.  I think many of us tend to be control freaks, so we are hesitant to delegate and when we do delegate, we tend to stay over-involved in the delegated task.  We also tend to be procrastinators.  This means we end up unable to delegate becuase we wait until it is too late to delegate. 

I am going to work hard on focusing on one or two things at a time, completing those tasks and not being willing to take on more until those are done.  The problem with coaching is that you automatically have a number of things going on.  These include:

• Prepping for classes
• Teaching classes
• Grading for classes
• Tournament travel planning
• Tournament travel
• Reconciliation of money spent at tournaments
• Researching for speeches/debate
• Helping students in classes
• Helping students with speeches/debate
• Doing PR for the team
• Serving on committees
• Managing GA/TAs
• Networking with others on campus
• Networking with others via email
• Recruiting new team members
• Home life

I’m probably leaving out some stuff from the list, but geez…no wonder I’m often a total stress case living in utter chaos.  That’s a lotta stuff to do and keep track of.  I feel like there must be an excellent system out there to help with many of these tasks, but I really haven’t settled on one I like yet.  I’ve tried many things and some of them work and some of them don’t.  I will continue to try new things in the coming year.  But, these are the things that I need to put on my weekly to-do list - and figure out when I can do them - and then make sure I can do these things before I take on additional duties!

We’ll see how it goes.  I’ll provide any suggestions here that seem to work well and warn against the ones that really crash and burn!

I am not alone…

Well, in doing some research this morning, I have discovered a few other blogs involving intercollegiate debate.  Tuna Snider (University of Vermont) has the Global Debate blog that tracks debate activities in other countries as well as the US.  Andy Ellis (Baltimore Debate Project) has begun a blog tracking his efforts at fostering debate in urban colleges who previously had no access to intercollegiate debate competition.  Ross Smith (Wake Forest) has started a blog tracing the political debates leading up to the Presidential elections, and it certainly has a strong intercollegiate debate influence.  I have included the links to these in my blogroll and will be following them in an attempt to provide links to resources available on their blogs from this blog. 

I have not done much focus on individual events yet, but will begin that soon. 

Blogging - its an adventure!

Blogging is truly a whole other world.  I have spent a while (probably the last hour and a half or so) exploring different ways to increase participation in my blog, things to include in my sidebar, etc.  Its amazing the number of blogs out there and I’m amazed that someone has not already started a more comprehensive blog on competitive speech and debate.  Considering the outreach efforts of the Urban Debate Leagues to high schools and the increased outreach by CEDA, AFA and other organizations, its amazing we haven’t had someone start a blog that follows a season of competition or provides different resources for new coaches, etc.  So, maybe I do have something here that will be useful to some people out there.

As an example, I attended a workshop at the last NCA on fundraising for speech and debate programs.  It was full of incredibly valuable information about fundraising, development, etc.  But, it was somewhat overwhelming - eight hours with tons of ideas and probably enough stuff to take up my time for years to come.  But, with a more coordinated, long-term effort in fundraising (e.g. a weekly snippet in the blog with guest writers contributing their ideas, recent successes, recent challenges, etc.) it may be something that would seem more attainable. 

I think that blogging is a great way to provide and receive information in today’s fast-paced society.  I hope to be providing a service that some will find helpful in the coming months (years?) with this blog.  We’ll see where it goes….

On a totally different topic, I was just catching up with some past salon.com issues and came across an article about Bush that mentioned a new documentary that debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival a couple of weeks ago.  You can watch the trailer here: http://www.version2.net/PR/Taxi/  It looks good, if depressing.  I will keep my eye out for it in theaters.  It seems like it would make a good movie to discuss/debate!

Mostly quiet…

Not a whole lot of exciting stuff to talk about today.  I spent this morning/afternoon trying to get more of the condo de-cluttered and ready to “stage”.  I did get a great deal on free boxes and packing supplies via freecycle (which I urge everyone to use - its a great resource).  I am beginning to worry about selling the condo…but, we shall see.  I can’t do anything to make the market better - I can only make sure its cleaned up and ready to sell. 

On the debate front, I emailed the organizer for the CIDD Japan tour about the possibility of having them come to Chico.  It could be a great kick-off for my first year and we should have the budget money available in a rebuilding year for the team.  I think the CIDD tours are a really valuable experience for the students and Japan seems like a good country to have visit.  So, we’ll see where that will go…

Well, that’s it for today - like I said, mostly quiet today.

Speaking up and speaking out…

Well, I’ve decided I have something to say.  I don’ t know that anyone will care about what I have to say, but I’ll say it just the same.  My hope for this blog is a few things…

• first, that it will be a place I can send students to find interesting and controversial subjects that will get them talking and thinking
• second, that it will be a place I can talk about my experiences as a(n) (female) intercollegiate speech and debate coach for the purposes of mentoring and sharing
• third, that it will be a place that I can talk about things that I CARE about…and maybe even influence a few others to CARE about those things as well. 

I am not sure where the blog will go, if anywhere, but I will do my best to keep it going, to keep it interesting, and keep it debatable.

I am, after over a decade of intercollegiate debate involvement, what some would call “wishy-washy”.  Debate has truly put me in a position where I have few absolutes in my belief system.  And I think that may be a great position for a blog…as the title says, I think its all debatable and I hope some will get involved in the debate via this blog. 

Its difficult to begin with a blank slate and decide what to do with it…so I will just provide some subject areas I am likely to discuss here.  But, I am certainly open to suggestion and encourage comments to include them.  I consider myself to be a pretty good researcher and any subject that is provided, I will do my best to find the “sides” of the story, present them and get people talking. 

I think the world would be a better place if more people would try to see issues from multiple perspectives, instead of just theirs.  So, that is one goal I will set - to provide the different viewpoints on issues, even if I side with one viewpoint more than any other (I’ll definitely say when I do that…). 

So, the issues:

• feminism
• academia/higher education
• public speaking
• civic discourse
• politics
• First Amendment (freedom of speech)
• intercollegiate speech and debate

Those should keep us busy for a while.  Just to clue you in as to where I’m currently getting info…I love salon.com.  I have just recently discovered the magazine Pink and am really enjoying it so far.  I just read an article about Christie Hefner which made me change my perspective (at least a little) on a woman being the CEO of Playboy Enterprises.  Oh, and there is my love of all things Law and Order.  The original, I just read in this article, is in negotiations to move to TNT if NBC doesn’t renew (what - not renew???). 

In the world of Intercollegiate Speech and Debate, the topic committee meeting for 2007-2008 is quickly approaching.  The topic area is Middle East - we’ll see where that takes us. 

I’m changing jobs next year - moving from Director of Forensics at Pepperdine University to Director of Forensics at CSU Chico.  I’m extremely excited about the new program and the possibilities.  But, I’m dreading the process of selling our condo in a very slow market and having to move across the state…but, I suppose you have to take some bad with the good. 

Well, that should get this blog rolling…I hope that someone reads it!