Tag Archive for 'Lawrence Tech'

Kevin Kelch

When you visit Prof. Kevin Kelch’s profile on RateMyProfessors.com, you’ll find a dozen comments left by his former students, including:

I took Presentation Media and Adv. Tech & Prof. with Kelch. I loved both classes and did great in them. He isn’t that strict if you do what is expected of you. Actually, he is one of my favorite professors.

He’s a great teacher, I wish he taught more classes I needed. I’d take him every chance I could! He’s fair, to the point and smart.

I thought Professor Kelch was friendly and I got a lot out of his class. He is very clear on his requirements for papers and presentations.

Very clear on what he wants and a very liberal marker!

This is one grouchy man, but I cannot think of anyone more suited to teach the class. Kelch allows plenty of time to get assignments done. He is very anal in terms of grading, but tells you exactly what he wants to see. In fact the entire class period is dedicated to him repeating what he expects in each assignment…over and over.

Very true. Prof. Kelch’s many students through the years knew he would expect nothing but their absolute best in class. In fact, he insisted on it.

Prof. Kevin KelchHe was my colleague in our Technical and Professional Communication program at Lawrence Tech. I was fortunate enough to call him “Kevin.” We’d debate varied topics such as writing styles for the web, our favorite Adobe products and the occasional misfit student. When he labored to form the Media Communications program at LTU, he valued my humble opinion during its foundation, even going so far as to recommend I teach a course or two. And unlike many of my own professors from my days toting a backpack, Kevin’s door was always open to our students.

He was passionate about rhetoric, fiercely dedicated to his craft, well respected and mildly feared.

He will be sorely missed.

Continue reading ‘Kevin Kelch’

Grande Yukon

A newly renovated Franklin Hall, a fresh blanket of snowSince Starbucks still finds it necessary to charge for wi-fi, I am posting this from home, hours after having left Kent. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I pay for a drop of wireless.

I now return to Lawrence Tech, where the wi-fi is deliciously free to use. Today’s YouToo Social Media Conference and Boot Camp at Kent State gave me a much needed boost as I aspire to offer a course in blogging this fall, if not next spring. Of course, I’m still waiting for this spring to arrive. My keyboard is practically frozen as I type.

Rounding out the rest of the day’s highlights:

  • People that never podcasted did so in under 15 minutes.
  • Sage Lewis gave a luncheon sermon that effectively restored my faith in SEO. This was probably a good thing, as former classmate Stefanie Moore and I delivered a primer on SEO do’s and don’ts later in the afternoon.
  • Our day ended with a panel discussion on social media’s impact on the presidential election. Half a million Facebook friends for can’t be wrong, or can they?

I am told that video from throughout the conference will be available online, as will most of the presentations. Brief snippets of mine follow…

Continue reading ‘Grande Yukon’

Good to be back

After nearly a two-year hiatus, I’ve decided to relaunch the “LTU Web Design” blog.

Dino BaskovicI suppose the guilt of presenting at a social media conference back at my alma mater in Ohio got the best of me. Thanks, Bill—the itch to blog is back.

That, and after having registered for one of those fancy ISSN numbers, I feel I owe it to you the taxpayer. Well, at least to my students at Lawrence Tech. They pay some hefty tuition to hear me ramble for three hours each week, so the very least I can do is put my money where my mouth is….

As I did in early ‘06, I’ll continue to focus this blog on web design, social media and communication. My previous foray was probably too formal in retrospect, and a tad preachy. Us web standards-types tend to be a bit into ourselves. Starting with this post, I’ll lose the tie and blog about what makes web design in the modern era so great, and why I have so much fun with it as a practitioner and a professor.

If I do my job well, you may learn something along the way. Heck, I’m still learning as I go.

Until next post, catch me on LinkedIn and Facebook, or this Friday night at Ray’s where I’ll talk more about last year’s massive web crash…

Continue reading ‘Good to be back’