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The new marshmallow test: Resisting the temptations of the web

The Stanford marshmallow experiment is a famous study that linked the willingness to delay gratification (children were told they could have one treat now, or two if they waited about 15 min) to a range of positive life outcomes. Many of my students who can’t resist checking their phone in class or during one-on-one office [...]

Cyberculture | Drama | Personal | Technology

Sam Shepard Giggles, Doesn’t Google

I wrote my undergraduate honors thesis on the plays of Sam Shepard. I took my first-ever date (hi, Maria) to see Shepard in The Right Stuff.

He’s dressed in country clothes – a checked shirt and a nondescript jacket – and, unlike most writers, he has an outdoors complexion; a lived-in face. But what’s most [...]

Design | History | Science | Technology

Plans for the Little Known Confederate Helicopter

The possibilities of combining Civil War re-enactment and steampunk fantasy role-playing are mind-boggling. Just imagine Rhett Butler steam-flying Scarlet out of Atlanta.

The American Civil War brought about great advances in the use of technology in warfare. Balloons, railroads, ironclad ships, and even a submarine were demonstrated throughout the conflict, and new ideas were [...]

Cyberculture | Games | History | Media | Technology

Photo of William Crowther, 2012

Will Crowther Fall 2012

I just noticed that a few days ago, a Wikipedia user uploaded a photo to the bio for computing history legend Will Crowther. The caption reads “Will Crowther in fall of 2012 in the Shawangunk Mountains.” A bit of Google-fu leads to several photos showing Crowther is still climbing (the hobby he had long before [...]

Aesthetics | Culture | Design | Modding | Personal | SciFi | Technology

Lego goes steampunk

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Be still, my nerdy heart.

Steampunk — which has inspired books, art and fashion — hinges on the idea of a future in which we use steam, rather than oil or electricity, as our primary source of energy. Still confused? Think 19th-century fashion and technology, but applied to a futuristic world. Or check out bing [...]

Academia | Culture | Health | Psychology | Science | Social_Software | Technology

Brain, Interrupted

In most situations, the person juggling e-mail, text messaging, Facebook and a meeting is [not multitasking, but] really doing something called “rapid toggling between tasks,” and is engaged in constant context switching.

As economics students know, switching involves costs. But how much? When a consumer switches banks, or a company switches suppliers, it’s relatively easy [...]

Aesthetics | Culture | Design | Media | Technology | Writing

The History of Typography Told in Five Animated Minutes

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Open Culture.

Academia | Cyberculture | Design | Games | Technology | Writing

Teaching Composition with Interactive Fiction

I’m on a committee that is exploring a multimodal a revision to my school’s freshman writing program. So far I have never seriously tried introducing new media content into a freshman writing course, but this may do the trick. After two semesters of teaching students to read, play, and write IF games, I can say [...]

Academia | Cyberculture | Education | Media | Social_Software | Technology

Multitasking while studying: Divided attention and technological gadgets impair learning and memory.

Fairly early in the semester, I can spot the students who will struggle to complete big assignments, because they are often the same ones who can’t resist the urge to check up on their Facebook friends. Students’ “on-task behavior” started declining around the two-minute mark as they began responding to arriving texts or checking their [...]

Academia | Current_Events | Cyberculture | Education | Humanities | Technology | Writing

Grading writing: The art and science — and why computers can’t do it

Tech companies and university administrators get excited from time to time about the value of software that purports to evaluate student writing. This article does a great job explaining exactly what it is that writing teachers do when they respond to student writing. (We’re doing a lot more than looking for misplaced commas.)

The past [...]