About

This site started out as a part of my shift from on-site to on-line teaching. I used my website in my courses for about a dozen years, but I thought since I was now teaching on-line full time it was time to upgrade. It’s now a web log with some resources. Obviously, too, it’s a way to get people to buy my book, which came out November, 2009. If you do read it, let me know what you think.

At this point (January 2010) I plan to write three posts a week. On Monday and Wednesday I’ll post my ‘thinking out loud’ about education and class, broadly defined. On Friday’s I’ll post a music video, just for fun. Occasionally I’ll add a page I developed for my online students and you can read my Curricula Vitae if you are curious.

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I was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital. I grew up in Houston, as a part of what we half-jokingly call the Cajun Diaspora. At a certain point during the Reagan administration, I had to leave, so after I finished both my B.A. and my M.A., I served in the Peace Corps, Philippines, from 1987-89. I didn’t want to return to the United States, so I moved to Paris, France, where I lived for three years or so.

I moved back to Austin, Texas, and (eventually) began a Ph.D., which I completed in 1999. I spent a year at Temple University and then at Eastern Illinois University where I worked until May of 2006. I now work exclusively on-line and full-time for the Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online and teach a class a year or so for the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. I can be reached most easily via email: jamesraywatkins [that 'at' symbol] gmail.com

(updated January 2010)