Stanford to offer new undergraduate majors integrating humanities, computer science

Training humanists who can code like a techie and engineers who can dream like a poet. Well played, Stanford! “We’re also seeing students who want to balance their academic passions with pragmatic considerations about their career development, and this kind of program addresses that need. The intellectual landscape is changing, and the workplace landscape is…

Khan Academy Gets Rare Partnership To Close Wealth Gap In College Test Prep

“We think we can make the playing field more level by making the best-in-class tool and making it free. We hope that beyond individual students, these tools become adopted by after-school and college readiness programs.” With a huge influx of donations from Silicon Valley’s most notable philanthropists, Khan Academy quickly evolved from a YouTube lecture…

Vulcans, The Secret Garden, and Venn Diagrams

  Similar:Churning Out More Non-profit Arts PromosAs part of my volunteer work for a local…AestheticsAssassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of AustriaOn 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinan…CultureMy Minecraft-obsessed tween made this blocky foam pig at art camp. Next up: Stage Right summer musical th…AestheticsSarah Polley: ‘It took me years to see how responsible Terry Gilliam was…

Facebook Puts a Downer on Upworthy

Facebook Inc. changed its newsfeed algorithm. You’ll never believe what happened to Upworthy’s traffic next. —Bloomberg. Similar:Virtual debates about homelessness in Sim City hold up a mirror to real lifeBack in 2009, the story of Alice and Kev…BooksBooby Trap (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season Three Episode 6) When LaForge gets absurd with a hologr…Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year…

Beyond Usability and Design: The Narrative Web

We see narrative everywhere. It’s a primitive urge, a way to tie cause to effect, to convert the complexity of our experience to a story that makes sense. We want to see narrative everywhere. Stories are fun, exciting, comforting. This isn’t just a matter of bedtime stories and art. The saga of the Great Browser War, the…

Dennis G. Jerz | Associate Professor of English -- New Media Journalism, Seton Hill University | jerz.setonhill.edu

My Anti-Linkbait Pledge: Cynical Overhyping vs. Simply Being Online

When I find something interesting that an online friend has shared via a linkbait site, I hereby pledge that I will link to the origin of the story, rather than a third-party site that republishes it without commentary. The people who share and like and respond to Upworthy and similar linkbait websites are just responding…