Melissa Terras’ Blog: Male, Mad and Muddleheaded: Academics in Children’s Picture Books

Labcoats, suits (but not if you are female!) or safari suits (but not if you are female!) are the academic uniform du jour. The names given to the academics are telling, with the majority being less than complimentary: Professor Dinglebat, Professor P. Brain, Professor Blabbermouth, Professor Bumblebrain, Professor Muddlehead, Professor Hogwash, Professor Bumble, Professor Dumkopf,…

International Studies Association proposes to bar editors from blogging

“I think it’s a really strange proposal in 2014,” said Stephen M. Saideman, a professor at Carleton University in Canada and one of many political science scholars who assailed the policy on social media. “I would have expected it in 2006.” Faculty members, several outside the field of international studies, said the proposal is simultaneously…

Where Professors Send Their Children to College

To understand this story, you have to keep in mind the distinction between a large research–oriented university (where professors teach about 2 courses a semester and spend a lot of their time conducting their own research and supervising graduate students) and a small liberal arts college (where professors teach about 4 courses per semester, spend…

‘Jane Austen, Game Theorist’ by Michael Suk-Young Chwe Is a Joke

When [Chwe] says that Austen was a game theorist, he means for us to take him at his word. Never mind the fact that game theory did not emerge until the middle of the twentieth century. Austen, he claims, was a “social theorist” who “carefully establishes game theory’s core concepts” and “systematically explored” them in…

Komarny

Seton Hill’s #CIO @PhilKomarny is moving on to @robotsNpencils

Seton Hill’s #CIO @PhilKomarny (who inspired SHU’s innovative mobile learning achievements) is moving on to @robotsNpencils. One to watch! Similar:5 myths about Facebook’s Messenger appReal journalism takes a look at that Huf…BusinessThe Nagus (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 11) Quark is named the financial lead…Rewatching ST:DS9 In an episode focus…CultureEx-Pope Benedict says the Selfish…

Conflict Strategies for Nice People

Nothing to do with Christmas… just thinking about the upcoming group projects due in my online J-Term course. I should also probably re-read some Dale Carnegie, which I do every few years. Teams need conflict to function effectively. Conflict allows the team to come to terms with difficult situations, to synthesize diverse perspectives, and to…

Theory Trading Cards

This set of 21 Theory Trading Cards, published by AltaMira Press, is based upon the online trading cards which have been so popular at David Gauntletts website www.theory.org.uk. Being actual cards, these are two-sided and contain more information; and whereas the online cards were only an official set of 12, for the published version, 21 new…

A Word About Group Projects

Okay, students… who loves group projects! Let’s hear it for group projects! (Crickets… crickets…) Okay employers… who puts “Ability to work in a team” at the top of a Forbes Magazine list of 10 skills employers say they seek in new hires? Employers: (cheering wildly) We do! We do! Here are the 10 skills employers say they seek,…

Do television and electronic games predict children’s psychosocial adjustment?

Wow… what a drab, unquoteworthy, unsoundbiteable, graphics-free presentation of findings that will be of tremendous interest to the general public. TV but not electronic games predicted a small increase in conduct problems. Screen time did not predict other aspects of psychosocial adjustment. Further work is required to establish causal mechanisms.. Similar:Inequity and BYODIf we are…

Udacity’s Sebastian Thrun, Godfather Of Free Online Education, Changes Course

Suddenly, something that had been unthinkable–that the Internet might put a free, Ivy League–caliber education within reach of the world’s poor–seems tantalizingly close. “Imagine,” an investor in the Professor’s company says, “you can hand a kid in Africa a tablet and give him Harvard on a piece of glass!” The wonky term for the Professor’s…

Stop trying to figure out if screentime is good for students

Pro-technology response to the NYT “No Child Left Untableted,” skewing almost as much in the opposite direction. Conducting device-focused research makes as little sense as doing research on pens, papers, folders, book-binding, and three-ring notebooks. Where are the papers, studies and statistics on the negative impact of chalk dust, calling for blackboards to be limited?…