Bradley Dilger’s talk from this morning’s Computers and Writing town hall. Reading code means language awareness — knowing how to read code, and where to find it, but also the different forms it comes in. We think first about markup and source code, but we need to consider standards, specificiations, documentation, APIs, and other texts…
Based on the constructivist theory of learning suggesting that students make sense of new information by joining it with information they already have, his guidelines suggest that students begin with a quick pre-read, in which they underline words they don’t know but don’t stop reading until they reach the end. They then would follow up…
Comments on: A vane Osama bin Laden shown in new videos – CBS News. Similar:No focus, no fights, and a bad back – 16 ways technology has ruined my lifeInsightful, funny list. (This guy is a g…AmusingThe Case for Slow Journalism: When to Unplug from the Endless News CycleOften when I see people in my…
Dear internet, It’s not a “motherload of intelligence,” it’s a “mother lode of intelligence.” Dictionaries are fun! That is all. Similar:The Decline of Wikipedia: Even As More People Than Ever Rely on It, Fewer People Create ItI’m getting ready to introduce my freshm…CybercultureI sometimes snark at the @Turnitin interface, but…I sometimes snark at the @Turnitin…
“Arrogant” doesn’t begin to describe this pompous drivel. Be forewarned that the following email you’re about to read from this lifeguard-cum-BMW intern will make you angry. Meet the workplace prototype for the next 10 years: welcome to Generation “I.” — An Incredibly Arrogant Email From A Young Neighborhood Pool Lifeguard To His Former Boss (Deadspin link…
The essential problem of man in a computerized age remains the same as it has always been. That problem is not solely how to be more productive, more comfortable, more content, but how to be more sensitive, more sensible, more proportionate, more alive. The computer makes possible a phenomenal leap in human proficiency; it demolishes…
Julie Meloni put together this panel. When she invited me to submit a paper, I had already committed to another panel, so I offered to chair. I started with the joke about how the computer programmer died in the shower. (He read the instructions: “Wash, rinse, repeat.” I also invoked Cory Doctorow’s urgent plea, in…
These are my rough notes, nearly liveblogged (posted as soon as I had access to WiFi in the lobby). Paul Rogers and Andrea Lunsford, “Writing Lives in a Digital Landscape: Investigating the Boundaries between Extracurricular and Academic Writing in Higher Education” Stephanie Moody, “Virtual Relations: Exploring the Literacy Practices of a Romance Genre eCommunity.” Wendy…
Hidden? Sure, but certainly not accidental. I didn’t notice it when I was a kid, but it sure jumped out at me when I watched the Schoolhouse Rock videos with my kids. And even small details are pro-girl. The nameless character who shows up in a mini-skirt and platforms in “Interjections!” is unbelievably excited not…
Fascinating discussion of the evolution (and violation) of the emerging blogosphere convention for citing links, in the late 90s. A few years ago, I was exploring what happened to the canonical first blogs, a short list of frequently updated web pages that Jesse James Garret identified as weblogs, and I mentioned in passing that I…
Researchers at Princeton University employed volunteers to learn made-up information about different types of aliens – and found that those reading harder fonts recalled more when tested 15 minutes later. They argue that schools could boost results by simply changing the font used in their basic teaching materials. —BBC Similar:Imma Let You Integrate QuotationsIn the…
Like the labor-activist plays of the 1930s, where characters never face any problems that can’t be fixed by joining the Communist Party (or, at least, a union), Wired knows of no problem that can’t be solved by a geeky application of technology. Students in Seton Hill’s New Media Journalism program are doing pretty well on…
I have seen a lot of very talented people fail because they couldn’t, or didn’t, write. And some much less talented people (I see one in the mirror every morning) have done OK because they learned how to write. —Michael C. Munger, Chronicle Here’s a tip that does a good job explaining a concept I’m…
If you could recommend a game as a community-building activity for your school, what would you recommend? I thought about some of the arty Jason Rohrer games, but maybe those would be more appropriate for a “How can games lead to deep thoughts” pre-discussion, something I might use to get buy-in from the non-gaming community…
There were a lot of spammy hits out there, so here you go, semantic web: I just found a free cloze test generator that I rather like. It doesn’t seem to be able to save an interactive test, or score the test automatically, but it’s still a time-saver. I’ll be using as part of a close…
In the history of print, we got erotic novels 100 years before we got scientific journals, and complaints about distraction have been rampant; no less a beneficiary of the printing press than Martin Luther complained, “The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no measure of limit to this fever for writing.” Edgar…
I’ve been on Seton Hill’s summer reading committee for the past couple years. (My suggestion a couple years ago of Little Brother did not make it, and I was rooting for another colleague’s recent suggestion of Ender’s Game. This year we considered The Kite Runner and The Last Lecture, but rejected them as downers. So…
Roger Ebert recently posted this thoughtful essay, which is ostensibly about film criticism, but is also about how an intellectual activity benefits culture at large when the talented amateurs get access to power that was once the privilege of elite professionals. Another thing not everybody knows is that some of the best critical writing on…
“I shouldn’t be saying this, but I think I’ll love you always, baby, always,” Adam cried into the email. –Shexmus Amed The winner from Adam Cadre’s “Lyttle Lytton” contest (an awful-first-line contest, named after the author who famously penned “It was a dark and stormy night”) My favorite was actually: There was only one man…
Today’s schadenfreude comes from WSVN. Several people had the chance to catch this error. It’s not any one employee’s fault, but the school’s reputation won’t exactly be helped. Further, the school missed the opportunity to make the experience into a teachable moment, and instead apparently chose to make no comment. (It’s never too late, FCC…