Category Archives: web presence

June 22, 2012
6:15 pm
by: John Sangster

Blogging in the Classroom

In the last week a couple of things have come up regarding the use of blogs in the classroom, and they’ve made me revisit my thoughts on the topic.  This week’s reflections came in large part thanks to one blog post, one TED talk, and one rubric.M… Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, assignment, Blogging, Grad School, instruction, TED Talks, web presence

June 22, 2012
6:15 pm
by: John Sangster

Blogging in the Classroom

In the last week a couple of things have come up regarding the use of blogs in the classroom, and they’ve made me revisit my thoughts on the topic.  This week’s reflections came in large part thanks to one blog post, one TED talk, and one rubric.M… Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, assignment, Blogging, Grad School, instruction, TED Talks, web presence

April 25, 2012
8:14 pm
by: John Sangster

Exposure, Disclosure, and Promotion

Recently in my course on Contemporary Pedagogy we had a guest speaker.  Jon Udell came in to talk to us about “web thinking” and his career working in a collaborative web environment.  In reading a bit of the prolific material that Mr. Udell … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Blogging, communicating science, Grad School, instruction, research, transportation, virginia tech, web presence

April 25, 2012
8:14 pm
by: John Sangster

Exposure, Disclosure, and Promotion

Recently in my course on Contemporary Pedagogy we had a guest speaker.  Jon Udell came in to talk to us about “web thinking” and his career working in a collaborative web environment.  In reading a bit of the prolific material that Mr. Udell … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Blogging, communicating science, Grad School, instruction, research, transportation, virginia tech, web presence

March 21, 2012
1:26 pm
by: John Sangster

How I Roll

I had the opportunity for my course in Communicating Science to give a five minute speech on my research/study topic.  The format for my speech was based on what I learned last fall when watching an introductory video about the center for Communicating Science at SUNY Stonybrook.  At one point in the video, Alan Alda is emphasizing the importance of making it more personal, and this stuck with me.  If you want to see the before/after speeches from Stonybrook, check out the video below.

So how did I apply these ideas and make my own research more personal?  The draft for the speech that I wrote is below, and it’s pretty close to the speech that I actually gave.  It was a unique experience for me delivering five minutes of material with no props, and I enjoyed the challenge!

~

Good evening, my name is John Sangster.  Whenever I attend a dinner party, or meet other parents on the playground, the conversation naturally winds its way around to the question of what I am studying.  There’s always a pause before I respond, because I know what’s going to happen.  So I steel myself for it, take a deep breath, and say “I’m studying transportation engineering, but basically I’m a traffic engineer.”  The pause that follows this is usually longer than the pause that I took before speaking.  Most of the time I’ll get a placating response like “oh, that’s nice” or “hmm, that must be interesting,” but occasionally will be a bit bolder and they’ll tell me what they’re really feeling.  If you think back to the last time you swore at someone, odds are good that you were in your car at the time.  People have a visceral reaction to traffic, and telling someone that you are pursuing traffic for your career is like telling them you’re studying to be a divorce lawyer; everyone knows it’s necessary, but everyone wishes it wasn’t.  Most often I hear that such and such an intersection doesn’t work well, or that travelling on such and such road hits every red light at a certain time in the morning and someone should really fix it.  Every once in a while I’ll talk with someone really bold who will say “so… can I blame YOU for roundabouts?!?”  This, I think, is the funniest of all the responses I get, because yeah, to some degree, you can blame me for roundabouts.

Now… because I want to teach in the future, I’ve been studying all facets of transportation, focusing most strongly on traffic, a strength of mine from my years as a consulting engineer.  The bread and butter of a consulting traffic engineer is the ever-present big box store.  Every time a development is proposed, the local town or county, whoever’s responsible for maintaining the roads, requires a nice big three-inch thick report called a Traffic Impact Analysis Study.  This report tells how many cars will come to the building and leave from it, where they’re all going, and most importantly, how that traffic will change the travel time on the roads.  The amount of increase in delay determines how much money a developer is forced to pay to help reconstruct roadways or add lanes at traffic signals to make it all work.  The thing is, at $115 an hour it takes an engineer a long time to make a three-inch thick report, and between big box stores, gas stations, donut shops, subdivisions, and doctor’s offices, there’s a lot of reports to be done.  This is the kind of stuff I teach my students about.

For my own research roundabouts are the thing.  Well, not just roundabouts, but all intersections that fall into this broad category called “alternative intersections.”  There’s about a half-dozen of these designs in use in some part of the country, and all of them are a bit screwier than the roundabout.  What they have in common is that they increase the amount of vehicles that can get through going straight, by inconveniencing the minor movements, like side streets and left-turning cars, rerouting them in a way that lets more through cars go.  A huge benefit of these designs is that increase the safety of the intersection by reducing the number of conflicting movements that could cause crashes.  The roundabout’s a lousy example of helping the through movement, but it’s a great example of reducing conflict.  Some of the most dangerous traffic accidents are head-on collisions where you make a left turn without seeing the opposing car coming at you and they smash right into your front, or you go through a green light minding your own business and having a nice day, and then someone runs a red light and slams into the side of you in a t-bone collision.  Roundabouts completely get rid of these kinds of conflicts, leaving only fender-bender types of crashes as cars come together at an angle.  BUT… you say… EVERYONE HATES ROUNDABOUTS.  Unfortunately, I agree with you, everyone does hate roundabouts, and in the places around the country where those other alternative designs have been built, everyone hates those too.  So the focus of my research is to figure out how to explain the benefits of these alternative designs to everyone.  I have to convince people within my own industry, and in the general public.  Because the truth is that these designs are safer, and they do work better.  Thank you.

~

What are your thoughts on the speech?  Does it engage you?  Does it stir up some emotion?  How can I improve it?  Feedback, as always, is appreciated!!

Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, alternative intersections, communicating science, Grad School, roundabout, transportation, unconventional intersections, virginia tech, web presence

March 21, 2012
1:26 pm
by: John Sangster

How I Roll

I had the opportunity for my course in Communicating Science to give a five minute speech on my research/study topic.  The format for my speech was based on what I learned last fall when watching an introductory video about the center for Communicating Science at SUNY Stonybrook.  At one point in the video, Alan Alda is emphasizing the importance of making it more personal, and this stuck with me.  If you want to see the before/after speeches from Stonybrook, check out the video below.

So how did I apply these ideas and make my own research more personal?  The draft for the speech that I wrote is below, and it’s pretty close to the speech that I actually gave.  It was a unique experience for me delivering five minutes of material with no props, and I enjoyed the challenge!

~

Good evening, my name is John Sangster.  Whenever I attend a dinner party, or meet other parents on the playground, the conversation naturally winds its way around to the question of what I am studying.  There’s always a pause before I respond, because I know what’s going to happen.  So I steel myself for it, take a deep breath, and say “I’m studying transportation engineering, but basically I’m a traffic engineer.”  The pause that follows this is usually longer than the pause that I took before speaking.  Most of the time I’ll get a placating response like “oh, that’s nice” or “hmm, that must be interesting,” but occasionally will be a bit bolder and they’ll tell me what they’re really feeling.  If you think back to the last time you swore at someone, odds are good that you were in your car at the time.  People have a visceral reaction to traffic, and telling someone that you are pursuing traffic for your career is like telling them you’re studying to be a divorce lawyer; everyone knows it’s necessary, but everyone wishes it wasn’t.  Most often I hear that such and such an intersection doesn’t work well, or that travelling on such and such road hits every red light at a certain time in the morning and someone should really fix it.  Every once in a while I’ll talk with someone really bold who will say “so… can I blame YOU for roundabouts?!?”  This, I think, is the funniest of all the responses I get, because yeah, to some degree, you can blame me for roundabouts.

Now… because I want to teach in the future, I’ve been studying all facets of transportation, focusing most strongly on traffic, a strength of mine from my years as a consulting engineer.  The bread and butter of a consulting traffic engineer is the ever-present big box store.  Every time a development is proposed, the local town or county, whoever’s responsible for maintaining the roads, requires a nice big three-inch thick report called a Traffic Impact Analysis Study.  This report tells how many cars will come to the building and leave from it, where they’re all going, and most importantly, how that traffic will change the travel time on the roads.  The amount of increase in delay determines how much money a developer is forced to pay to help reconstruct roadways or add lanes at traffic signals to make it all work.  The thing is, at $115 an hour it takes an engineer a long time to make a three-inch thick report, and between big box stores, gas stations, donut shops, subdivisions, and doctor’s offices, there’s a lot of reports to be done.  This is the kind of stuff I teach my students about.

For my own research roundabouts are the thing.  Well, not just roundabouts, but all intersections that fall into this broad category called “alternative intersections.”  There’s about a half-dozen of these designs in use in some part of the country, and all of them are a bit screwier than the roundabout.  What they have in common is that they increase the amount of vehicles that can get through going straight, by inconveniencing the minor movements, like side streets and left-turning cars, rerouting them in a way that lets more through cars go.  A huge benefit of these designs is that increase the safety of the intersection by reducing the number of conflicting movements that could cause crashes.  The roundabout’s a lousy example of helping the through movement, but it’s a great example of reducing conflict.  Some of the most dangerous traffic accidents are head-on collisions where you make a left turn without seeing the opposing car coming at you and they smash right into your front, or you go through a green light minding your own business and having a nice day, and then someone runs a red light and slams into the side of you in a t-bone collision.  Roundabouts completely get rid of these kinds of conflicts, leaving only fender-bender types of crashes as cars come together at an angle.  BUT… you say… EVERYONE HATES ROUNDABOUTS.  Unfortunately, I agree with you, everyone does hate roundabouts, and in the places around the country where those other alternative designs have been built, everyone hates those too.  So the focus of my research is to figure out how to explain the benefits of these alternative designs to everyone.  I have to convince people within my own industry, and in the general public.  Because the truth is that these designs are safer, and they do work better.  Thank you.

~

What are your thoughts on the speech?  Does it engage you?  Does it stir up some emotion?  How can I improve it?  Feedback, as always, is appreciated!!

Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, alternative intersections, communicating science, Grad School, roundabout, transportation, unconventional intersections, virginia tech, web presence

February 13, 2012
9:07 pm
by: John Sangster

Provocative

Last week my greatest supporter/critic (my wife) got around to reading many of my blog posts and asked the direct question: “Who are you writing this for?”  She then qualified her question by pointing out that my posts are not only too verbose for anyone to read all the way through, but I’m often inflammatory as well.  I found myself unable to disagree with her assessment, and have spent the week trying to figure out who this blog is actually directed at.  I think at first I intended it as an outreach tool to expand my professional network, but that goal wasn’t enough to get me blogging on a regular basis.  More recently I suppose I’ve been using it as a pressure valve for ideas bubbling up inside me that have to get out.  If I am going to continue making progress with the blog, I think I must stick to the topics that drive me to put virtual pen to virtual ink.

My hope is that future posts may be classified as provocative, which can have both a positive and a negative context.  I won’t promise that they’ll be shorter, and I can’t promise that they won’t sometimes come across as contrarian.  What I can promise is that I’ll continue to provide the most honest reflection I can on the topics that stick in my head.  Lately I’ve been struggling to grasp the plan of exactly where I want to be when I leave grad school, and I’ve been pondering on the relationship between advisors and graduate students, so those are topics that will likely bubble to the surface in the near future.

For a long time I’ve been vexed by this blog, holding onto the idea that it’s a positive thing to work on and promote, while also failing to see exactly how it benefits me.  I hope that by clarifying my own understanding of why I’m writing that I’ll be able to provide better and more consistent content in this space, for myself if for no one else.

Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, web presence

February 13, 2012
9:07 pm
by: John Sangster

Provocative

Last week my greatest supporter/critic (my wife) got around to reading many of my blog posts and asked the direct question: “Who are you writing this for?”  She then qualified her question by pointing out that my posts are not only too verbose for anyone to read all the way through, but I’m often inflammatory as well.  I found myself unable to disagree with her assessment, and have spent the week trying to figure out who this blog is actually directed at.  I think at first I intended it as an outreach tool to expand my professional network, but that goal wasn’t enough to get me blogging on a regular basis.  More recently I suppose I’ve been using it as a pressure valve for ideas bubbling up inside me that have to get out.  If I am going to continue making progress with the blog, I think I must stick to the topics that drive me to put virtual pen to virtual ink.

My hope is that future posts may be classified as provocative, which can have both a positive and a negative context.  I won’t promise that they’ll be shorter, and I can’t promise that they won’t sometimes come across as contrarian.  What I can promise is that I’ll continue to provide the most honest reflection I can on the topics that stick in my head.  Lately I’ve been struggling to grasp the plan of exactly where I want to be when I leave grad school, and I’ve been pondering on the relationship between advisors and graduate students, so those are topics that will likely bubble to the surface in the near future.

For a long time I’ve been vexed by this blog, holding onto the idea that it’s a positive thing to work on and promote, while also failing to see exactly how it benefits me.  I hope that by clarifying my own understanding of why I’m writing that I’ll be able to provide better and more consistent content in this space, for myself if for no one else.

Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, web presence

February 2, 2012
3:44 am
by: John Sangster

Blogging on Fire

I attended a lecture by Gardner Campbell this evening that has energized me to get active, and more importantly, interactive in the blogosphere.    Like pouring lighter fluid on the coals of my intellectual curiosity, I am ablaze with the desire to dive in, learn more, and get connected.  With luck, I can harness this energy…

To paraphrase the words of Dr. Campbell that touched me the most this evening: “if you don’t love what you’re doing enough to think it’d be interesting to other people in a blog setting, then you’re working on the wrong project.”

Ideas for future post topics that came out of tonight’s discussion include:

Taking on the position of Professor of the Public Understanding of Transportation Engineering – explain what it is that I do, and what others in my research field do, in a way that is understandable by all.

Take hold of the reading assignment Apgar test that Dr. Campbell uses at the beginning of his lectures.  How can I hold myself to this standard, and work it into future classroom settings?

Check out the writings of Derek Bruff on incorporating clickers into the classroom setting.  It seems like an artificial way to induce classroom participation, but I’d like to learn more about potential applications.

Get involved on Reddit and look for other ways to expand the outreach of my blog.  Is there any more favored topic to blog about than how to increase exposure?

Look into the research on “path dependency” and investigate how this overlaps with my teaching methods and teaching goals.  Is it possible that I’m training myself for the research world and what I really want to be doing is teaching the freshmen?  If I do achieve a level where I am given charge of teaching graduate students, what strategies can I use to break them out of their boxes and get them learning creatively?  How can I help myself to avoid falling into a path dependency rut?

I need to look into the other activities that Dr. Campbell is orchestrating on campus, in his capacity as the Director of the Professional Development and Innovative Initiatives at Virginia Tech.

For now though, it’s time to go let my brain process these ideas while I regenerate for the new day.

Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, web presence

February 2, 2012
3:44 am
by: John Sangster

Blogging on Fire

I attended a lecture by Gardner Campbell this evening that has energized me to get active, and more importantly, interactive in the blogosphere.    Like pouring lighter fluid on the coals of my intellectual curiosity, I am ablaze with the desire to dive in, learn more, and get connected.  With luck, I can harness this energy…

To paraphrase the words of Dr. Campbell that touched me the most this evening: “if you don’t love what you’re doing enough to think it’d be interesting to other people in a blog setting, then you’re working on the wrong project.”

Ideas for future post topics that came out of tonight’s discussion include:

Taking on the position of Professor of the Public Understanding of Transportation Engineering – explain what it is that I do, and what others in my research field do, in a way that is understandable by all.

Take hold of the reading assignment Apgar test that Dr. Campbell uses at the beginning of his lectures.  How can I hold myself to this standard, and work it into future classroom settings?

Check out the writings of Derek Bruff on incorporating clickers into the classroom setting.  It seems like an artificial way to induce classroom participation, but I’d like to learn more about potential applications.

Get involved on Reddit and look for other ways to expand the outreach of my blog.  Is there any more favored topic to blog about than how to increase exposure?

Look into the research on “path dependency” and investigate how this overlaps with my teaching methods and teaching goals.  Is it possible that I’m training myself for the research world and what I really want to be doing is teaching the freshmen?  If I do achieve a level where I am given charge of teaching graduate students, what strategies can I use to break them out of their boxes and get them learning creatively?  How can I help myself to avoid falling into a path dependency rut?

I need to look into the other activities that Dr. Campbell is orchestrating on campus, in his capacity as the Director of the Professional Development and Innovative Initiatives at Virginia Tech.

For now though, it’s time to go let my brain process these ideas while I regenerate for the new day.

Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, web presence