Seriously: What is Amazon? A retail company? A media company? A logistics machine? The mystery of its strategy is deepened by two factors. First is the company’s communications department, which famously excels at not communicating. Three requests to speak with Amazon officials for this article were delayed and, inevitably, declined. This moves discussions of the…
Tween: “My friends say Bieber’s a jerk now.” Me: “It’s hard when your idols fall.” Tween: “That’s why I don’t have any. Except for you.” Similar:Desert Bus: The Worst Video Game Ever CreatedPenn and Teller are involved with this s…BooksCarolyn Gombell Is Not a Real Person: #JusticeforCarolyn Is a Campaign Against Twitter Ref…Fascinating use of…
A new Emily Dickinson archive is online. Here is the opening of one of her most famous poems. Reading View for Fascicle 23. Similar:Blender Griffin, Part 3Okay, that’s enough work for one evening…AestheticsWhat do students need to know about rhetoric?I love giving the “what is rhetoric” lec…AcademiaSons of Mogh #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode…
My wonderfully geeky tween made these Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde pendants with her Rainbow Loom. Next on her list: making Pac-Man. Similar:Blender 3D UpdateHoly ray-tracing, Batman, it’s a Blender…AestheticsMy Kids Loved Narnia but Were Unimpressed by Turkish DelightAmerican kids today would have little id…AmusingBasic details for #medievalyork city walls for a forthcoming scholarly theatrical…
Have you heard the story about the lady who spilled coffee on herself and won millions of dollars from McDonald’s? Have you looked up the details on the story, or do you just know the story as a TV show punch line? Stella became a symbol for frivolous lawsuits and fodder for talk show hosts,…
Reporters have been sometimes fired for willful misconduct, such as repeated instances of plagiarism or fabrication. Reporters who’ve suffered that fate, such as the New York Times’ Jayson Blair and The Washington Post’s Janet Cooke, were guilty of gross journalistic malpractice. But firing a reporter over an unintentional mistake is “extremely rare,” said Scott Maier,…
I’m getting ready to introduce my freshman writing students to college-level research, so I found it helpful to read this brief introduction to the internal problems Wikipedia creates for itself. When a major news event takes place, such as the Boston Marathon bombings, complex, widely sourced entries spring up within hours and evolve by the…
“Does size matter?” — student journalist, making a person-on-the street video interview about the new iPad. Similar:What kids do when Dad won't hand over the iPod So I’m not being selfish… this is …EducationRT @DDeClaudio: Who do you think controls the news…RT @DDeClaudio: Who do you think control…TweetsProto iPads and Paper Coexist in Classic Star…
RT @joningold: Thing is, the freedom of the parser is a sham – not because it *doesn’t* understand everything but because no-one plays as t… Similar:Carolyn Gombell Is Not a Real Person: #JusticeforCarolyn Is a Campaign Against Twitter Ref…Fascinating use of social media. To be c…Current_EventsWhat kids do when Dad won't hand over the iPod…
In the Nightly Noodle Monthly, former North Adams Transcript journalist Isaac Avilucea posts this passage, which he says was removed from a sports feature that got him fired. But there’s a reason she’s not at MountGreylock anymore, choosing to transfer to a school with somewhat inferior academics and athletics. Part of it has to do with the stuffy social atmosphere that…
I just did the thing where you look everywhere for your glasses but you can’t find them because you are already wearing them. Similar:Tweet: For an anatomy project, my #geekling made a Vulcan…For an anatomy project, my #geekling mad…TweetsMaybe I'll just delete these QUARTER OF A MILLION spam comments.Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments in…
Inside Higher Ed Similar:Thesis Reminders and Transitions: Touched up and created an infographic for a web page tha…Touched up and created an infographic fo…AcademiaClose reading is hard to do in a state of normalized outrage.So this “Muslim ban” thing… is a ban o…Current_EventsMy #AugustWilson #Steampunk NightmareToday is my last official day teaching a…AcademiaThe dangers of…
I can’t quite understand a world in which people will pay $4 for a cup of coffee… So I have no particular interest in coffee-shop culture, but the unrelenting advance of automation is worth noting. But note the word “could” in the headline. The Briggo coffee kiosk knows how to make a perfect coffee because…
EL231 “Digital Storytelling” (Dec 18-Jan 22) Unit 1 (Dec 18-22) mostly experiencing digital stories (reading, watching, listening, playing, whatever), and reading articles & discussing them online. (We take a break Dec 23-Jan 1: no classes, no homework.) Unit 2 (Jan 2-7) trying out 4-5 tools for creating digital stories, and learning two in a little…
First of all, I’m always wary about any news article with “could” in the headline. Second, Wired produces a lot of paragraphs without actually giving away anything about the radical new teaching method (which is simply a motion from the “sage on the stage” model to the “guide on the side” — the current state…
Neil Gaiman tells us why books matter: When you watch TV or see a film, you are looking at things happening to other people. Prose fiction is something you build up from 26 letters and a handful of punctuation marks, and you, and you alone, using your imagination, create a world and people it and…
In the publications office with student journalists. I’ve heard them saying “affirmative” and “negative.” The editor just said “Make it so.” Similar:Maybe I'll just delete these QUARTER OF A MILLION spam comments.Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments in …CybercultureLoved seeing A Comedy of Errors @setonhillLoved seeing A Comedy of Errors @setonhi…TweetsHello, there, mini.Hello, there, mini.…
Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies poster. Similar:No, this Jeopardy! contestant was not making a white supremacist hand gestureConspiracy theories, knee-jerk tribal th…Current_EventsLittle ThingsI recently came across an abandoned stas…AestheticsBirthright, Part 1 (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 16) Worf learns his father m…Rewatching ST:TNG The Enterprise-D vi…EthicsBattle of Agincourt — 600 Year Anniversary…
Thanks for the link, Dana. Experts say part of the appeal of learning through gaming is that students don’t see failing at the game as the same type of failure as getting an answer wrong in class or on a worksheet. Ms. Joyce has witnessed this. “They are not embarrassed. They are just more determined…
One household notifies the authorities that their son will no longer be participating in state-mandated high-stakes testing, citing the impact it has on the child. Here is an excerpt from the letter, as published by Education Roundtable. Students – who mature at vastly different paces – should not ever be measured by a mass-produced blunt…