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…

What my classroom looks like during today’s video journalism workshop

Within 3 minutes of being placed into groups, my students were out in the field, practicing news gathering. They have one hour to produce a 2.5 min segment. This is the first graded video project of term. (The other two in-class projects have been dry runs.) Similar:When a Blogger Shares a Too-good-to-be-true Meme Featuring Hilarious…

Vulcans, The Secret Garden, and Venn Diagrams

  Similar:Astaire Unwound (Ceiling Dance from "Royal Wedding")My high school physics teacher, Admiral …AestheticsThat story about the pope requiring Catholics to fast from meat as part of a deal with the… That story about the pope requiring Ca…BusinessThe girl as Gimli, Legolas, Aragorn and Thorin. #proudofthegirl #notentirelysurewhy #still…AestheticsThe Drinks are On Us! and Us! and…

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:STAR TREK's Still as Relevant on the 50th AnniversaryIn situations of change, it is natural f…CultureThe "Best" E-mail Signature Is Actually the WorstI have no particular opinion about how t…BusinessThe dark future of American space exploration: NASA's golden age…

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…

Feature: History Lesson: the treasured past of LucasArts point and clicks

I played more of the Sierra point-and-click adventures than the LucasArts ones, but “The Dig” and “Full Throttle” were probably as important to me as half a dozen of my once-favorite TV shows or movies. (I’ve revisited these games by watching YouTube longplay videos.) There’s a fondness throughout the catalogue for the catalogue. Monkey Island…