60 Second Story

We need more stories in our lives, yet we don’t have much time for them. Most digital cameras and webcams allow you to take one minute of video and audio at resolutions suitable for the web. The solution: 60 second stories, of course. We are pleased to announce the 60 second story competition. 60 second…

The Medium is the Moral

It has been more than 40 years since Marshall McLuhan wrote that the “medium is the message,” a lesson that Duke University has had to relearn the hard way concerning its iPod giveaway this academic year to some 1,650 first-year students. Almost immediately, the “iPod First-Year Experience” was dubbed a trendy gimmick, and the university…

Extracurricular Blogging Roundup

Extracurricular Blogging Roundup (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) Grades are in, and the semester is winding down. Things are fairly quiet on blogs.setonhill.edu, but that doesn’t mean the site is dead. Our admissions director, Mary Kay Cooper, continues to maintain her Training for the Ride of a Lifetime fitness blog, and she has also recently started the Seton…

The Beeb Shall Inherit the Earth

America’s entertainment industry is committing slow, spectacular suicide, while one of Europe’s biggest broadcasters — the BBC — is rushing headlong to the future, embracing innovation rather than fighting it. Unlike Hollywood, the BBC is eager and willing to work with a burgeoning group of content providers whose interests are aligned with its own: its…

Hiring is Obsolete

The main cost of starting a Web-based startup is food and rent. Which means it doesn’t cost much more to start a company than to be a total slacker. […] Most startups fail. It’s the nature of the business. But it’s not necessarily a mistake to try something that has a 90% chance of failing,…

'The Phantom Professor'

No one at Southern Methodist University knew — for sure — who The Phantom Professor was. The professor’s blog, like those of many untenured academics, was anonymous and the university was never named. —Scott Jaschik —‘The Phantom Professor’ (Inside Higher Ed) A professor blogs anonymously, venting about the campus crime and the wealthy socialites in her…

Google's War on Hierarchy, and the Death of Hierarchical Folders

Given the dominance of Hierarchical folders over the last 40 years, this is a major development in the history of information management. Implicit in Google’s product offerings is an declaration of war: Hierarchy is doomed, and Search is going to kill it. —John Hiler —Google’s War on Hierarchy, and the Death of Hierarchical Folders (Microcontent News)…

Horizontal Classrooms

We edubloggers talk and write about this a lot, this idea that the tools of the Read/Write Web necessarily change the relationships and construction of the classroom. When audience moves from one teacher to many readers, when assessment moves measuring correctness to measuring usefulness, when we ask for long lasting contribution of ideas instead of…