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Games Based Learning through Text Adventures

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As I make progress in designing the class text adventure, I’ll post about my process and challenges. Right now, I’m foreseeing the following challenges:

how to let students know how far to read/play [...]

Aesthetics | Books | Culture | Design | Education | Humanities | Personal

Richard Scarry unfinished manuscript to be published

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Some of my happiest memories of fatherhood include introducing my kids to the Richard Scarry books.

Featuring a huge anthropomorphised cast, with recurring characters such as Sergeant Murphy, traffic hound and pursuer of miscreants, and solid, cheerful, lederhosen-wearing Huckle Cat, Scarry’s tales of mishap, derring-do, industry and shopping always feel deeply, richly safe. Some aspects [...]

Current_Events | Drama | Education | Personal

What about Socialization?

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Sometimes, I worry that by homeschooling my kids, I’m depriving them of the opportunities to gain confidence, face challenges, and develop social skills.

Just kidding.

Here’s what my kids did last weekend.

[...]

Academia | Business | Culture | Design | Education | Essays | Ethics | Humanities | Literacy | Rhetoric | Writing

New Test for Computers – Grading Essays at College Level

Imagine writing an essay for a college, and, instead of sparking personal feedback from an expert who spends five or ten minutes per page writing personalized reactions and tips for improvement, your work was never actually read by a human being who could recognize, appreciate, and encourage your accomplishments. Imagine that your essay was instead [...]

Art | Culture | Drama | Education | Essays | Humanities | Literacy | Personal | Rhetoric | Science

Why scientists should care about art

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My artsy daughter loves stories about science far more than she loves science; she has won “Best Display” for her age group in a science fair. When my son was 5, when given the choice he would invariably ask me to read him a nonfiction book rather an a fiction book; he has won “Most [...]

Design | Drama | Education | Home | Media | Modding | Personal

More split-screen acting

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Academia | Amusing | Culture | Current_Events | Design | Education | Ethics | Modding | Rhetoric

It’s MOOAs, Not MOOCs, That Will Transform Higher Education

The administration at my small school is very productive and effective. I don’t see it showing the kind of bloat that my colleagues at other schools lament. My interest in this satirical piece is cultural, rather than personal.

So if we could find a way to put administration online, to create Massive Online Open Administrations [...]

Cyberculture | Design | Education | Technology

FIRST Pittsburgh Regional 1st Time to the TOP – 3955 – YouTube

“The Big Tickle” was the only bot at the the Pittsburgh regional FIRST Robotics Competition that tried climbing all the way to the top rung for 30 points. The crowd went wild every time our bot did its thing. We got picked by the seventh-ranked team to join their alliance in the quarter finals. Though [...]

Academia | Business | Cyberculture | Education | Rhetoric | Social_Software | Technology

Don’t hide your online self when applying for college or career

Great advice.

[I]t is common to hear students applying for college or a job say before doing so, they plan to take down their online profiles or change their name to something unidentifiable. Innovative educators know this is not the best strategy. Instead our job is to support young people in creating a responsible digital [...]

Cyberculture | Education | Games | Media

Video games ‘teach dyslexic children to read’

Playing games which require children to follow fast-moving events, track moving objects and pay attention to all areas of the screen teaches them to draw meaning from written words, researchers explained.

Dr Andrea Facoetti of the University of Padua in Italy, who led the study, said: “Action video games enhance many [...]