Faculty lining up for #SetonHill’s “Go Orientation” — new ceremony hands students from their parents to robed Hogwarts pretenders.

Similar:On the Importance of Nonverbal Feedback in the Classroom [an Anecdote]I don’t generally like teaching with sli…AcademiaNASA astronaut: Russians were ‘blindsided’ by reaction to yellow suitsI posted a while back about the yellow a…AestheticsIn Which I Bow Before the Mistress of Teen SnarkThe Girl: I’m sorry I’m being so… Me:…CultureWaiting for the sound of bagpipes.…

Dani Girl (Oct 1-3, 2015) at the Geyer Performing Arts Center

Vinnie Tresco, Carolyn Jerz, Matthew Hommel, and Kathryn Pretz are in the cast of this playful, intense & inspiring musical. Similar:Back in the MLAAs the humanities decline in the United …AcademiaDonald Trump Is a Broken Man (Assessment by Speechwriter for Reagan and both Bushes)Powerful assessment of Donald Trump, wri…CultureThe Key To Better Work? E-mail Less,…

Advising incoming majors.

Similar:The Daughter's 21st Birthday Current_EventsDeadline seems to have briefly published, then taken down, story that says Pence has teste…Deadline seems to have briefly published…Current_EventsAnd so it begins: the unmarked assignments counterThis little icon will control my life fo…AcademiaA student just booked an appointment to discuss picking up journalism as a second major. E…AcademiaMy parents doing…

To Learn More, This High-Schooler Left The Classroom

Nick Bain, 17, was in class one day when he calculated that only “2 1/2 to three hours” was actually useful instruction. So he decided to go out on his own to learn. —NPR Similar:What Modern Humans Can Learn From The Neanderthals' Extinction“You don’t like to think about a holocau…CultureRobert Morris University to offer video…

Unscheduled Disasters in Journalism: Learn to Deal

In school, we expect our professors to answer our questions, to return our emails, to invite us in for a consultation, to pay attention what we say and read carefully what we write. One of the important lessons of being a student journalist is learning how to deal with the unexpected. Unfair things happen in…

Thoughtful PopCult Analysis of ‘Peanuts’ Deserves Better than a Clickbaity Headline Hating on Snoopy

On a shelf in the slanty room under the stairs, next to her college textbooks, my mother kept a stash of inexpensive Peanuts paperbacks — dozens of them, which reprinted the newspaper strips, perhaps on a yearly basis, maybe more frequently. I spent many a summer afternoon reading through those books, and I remember sorting…

One wild place. (Sunday.)

Similar:Living Room PhysicsI’ve blogged before about my eight-year-…EducationThe Last Outpost (ST:TNG Rewatch. Season 1, Episode 4) Riker shouts from a cliff while Fer…Rewatching ST:TNG after about a 20-year …CultureI’m not making a serious attempt at recreating specific architecture, just trying to conve…I’m not making a serious attempt at recr…PersonalThe girl as the Spanish Soloist…

My laptop hard drive is full & my comfort-food shelf is empty

My laptop drive is full & my comfort-food shelf is empty; however, that package slip was for a new external hard drive and a case of Clif Bars. #winning! Similar:Do you get your news mostly from social media? I check NPR, Drudge, and news.google.com.Do you have a regular news-consumption r…CultureNational Mall site approved for memorial…

Amazon may well be the most evil company in tech

Last week, I had a hardware emergency. A kid in a small-town hardware store spent about 15 minutes helping me find the right nut. I had the troublesome part with me, and used a vise on their worktable and their wrench to twist it in place. The nut cost 50 cents. I asked the kid if…

After a successful piano recital.

Similar:Lining up for Honors Convocation 2016. #setonhillAcademiaCause and Effect (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 18) time loop. Ka-boom. The En…Rewatching ST:TNG A smart, charac…AestheticsHacking the Attention EconomyThe techniques that are unfolding are ha…CultureJournalism has become ground zero for the vocation crisis When scholars of journalism study the …BusinessFigured out how to configure my iPad…

Facebook Should Pay All of Us

The trick is that most people think they are getting a good deal out of Facebook; we think of Facebook to be “free,” and, as marketing professors explain, “consumers overreact to free.” Most people don’t feel like they are actually paying when the payment is personal data and when there is no specific sensation of…

Just wrote the first ending to my in-progress journalism game (created in Twine)

3,486 words, 120 links, 57 lexias, and currently this is the only ending.

How Technology Has Changed The Way We Write

Social media services have put writing tools into the hands of people who probably don’t think of themselves as writers, but there they are, captioning photos and picking hashtags and maybe even pausing just a few seconds to edit before they hit “post.” This radio interview offers a good, informal overview of why people who…

Sesame Street Is Moving to HBO, and the Symbolism Is Crushing

I’ve been fascinated by the rhetoric of headlines surrounding the “Sesame Street moves to HBO” story. * HBO gentrifies ‘Sesame Street’ –VentureBeat * Sesame Street Episodes Will Shrink to Half an Hour –Time * Sesame Street Is Heading to HBO, and Getting Even Bigger –Esquire * This episode of Sesame Street brought to you by…

TARDIS from today’s 3D printing class.

Similar:Auschwitz color photo: 'A 14-year-old girl, not just a statistic'I don’t know what this prisoner did, but…AestheticsMore bits of my summer project – another delightful span of a #neovictorian #steampunk con…AestheticsBack in the MLAAs the humanities decline in the United …AcademiaElevator shaft on a #steampunk #blender3d cruiser, just because. #design #aesthetics #blen… AestheticsThank you, anonymous…

A serious summer activity.

Once classes start again, we will all have less time for the game of life. Let’s do some serious playing while we still can. Similar:The Hidden Subversive Messages of [MGM's Screen Adaptation of] The Wizard of OzWhen I tried teaching The Wizard of Oz i…Books40 Things I Want to Tell My Kids Before They're Too…

Keyboard Shortcuts for Novelists

Use the command-alt functions to add sexual tension, plot twists, or a humorous interlude. —The New Yorker Similar:Is College Worth It? Clearly, New Data SayAmericans with four-year college degrees…AcademiaUnderstanding 9/11: A Television News ArchiveStunning collection of thousands of hour…CultureWhy Shouting Down Speakers Is Absolutely WrongWilson offers a good explanation of the …AcademiaMy Ouya arrived.My Ouya…

Updating Journalism Handouts

Jerz > Writing > Journalism I’ve spent the afternoon touching up some older journalism handouts, seeing which are still in good shape, which need some work, and which new ones I’ll need to create from scratch. I realize I’ve never actually written a handout on the inverted pyramid, writing leads, writing headlines, punctuating quotes from sources… of course there…

Why Teachers, Parents, and Society at Large Have Destroyed Kids’ Love of Learning

I have experimented with rewarding students for embracing complexity, taking risks, and for celebrating their failures. Returning to musical theater after a 25-year break has been a valuable lesson in humility for me, and a reminder of just how scary it is — exciting and scary — to do something new. The truth—for this parent…

Introduction to Twine (Tutorials by Vegetarian Zombie)

I will always love Inform 7, but I chose to develop a journalism training game in Twine (because it will be much easier to teach Twine to my students). To prepare for my game, I spent about 6 hours (during my son’s last chess tournament) roughing out about 20 lexias. Since then, I’ve spent about 6…