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…BooksMaybe I'll just delete these QUARTER OF A MILLION spam comments.Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments…
A new Emily Dickinson archive is online. Here is the opening of one of her most famous poems. Reading View for Fascicle 23. Similar:How Trump Is Making Journalism School Great AgainThis is an important time to teach peopl…AcademiaTwo classic novels returning to Accomack schools following voteAccomack County Public Schools announced…BooksCoding Bootcamps and the New For-Profit…
My wonderfully geeky tween made these Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde pendants with her Rainbow Loom. Next on her list: making Pac-Man. Similar:Prepping for the “Celebration of Scholarship and Service” #york2025 #medievaldrama #mediev…PersonalThe girl will be Mrs Lovett in Stage Right's Sweeney Todd at the end of July. #3week #musi…Drama#AugustWilson #CenturyCycle Three week intensive course…
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:How hate and misinformation go viral: A case study of a Trump retweetOn Sunday night, President Donald Trump …AcademiaOverheard at Quora: "Why after all these years is Moodle still so ugly?"Moodle is a free course-management tool …AcademiaDesert Bus: The…
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:Hello, there, mini.Hello, there, mini. Let’s restore you fr…TweetsI asked my geekling whether she was ready for bed…I asked my #geekling whether she was rea…AmusingRT @PhilKomarny: A floppy disc… In…
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:Carolyn Gombell Is Not a Real Person: #JusticeforCarolyn Is a Campaign Against Twitter Ref…Fascinating use of social media. To be c…Current_EventsYes, I do feel rather awesome right now.Lost brand-new earbuds. Reached in…
Inside Higher Ed Similar:UNC student newspaper goes viral for coverage of campus shooting As Emmy Martin was locked down Monday …AcademiaWhy Shouting Down Speakers Is Absolutely WrongWilson offers a good explanation of the …AcademiaWhy fake news worksFake news works on our emotions, usually…CybercultureScratchy "Cloak of Darkness" on Scratch”Scratchy Cloak of Darkness” is based on…AestheticsStudents must…
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:Habits for happiness: tips for looking on the bright side of lifeHabits for happiness: tips for looking o…PersonalMy Minecraft-obsessed tween made this blocky foam pig at art camp. Next up: Stage Right summer musical…
Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies poster. Similar:TSA Agent ConfessionIt was May 2007. I was living with a boh…CultureIn 2019, I have a college student who annotates readings like this!I asked students in my online “Dystopia …AcademiaFirst Evidence That Social Bots Play a Major Role in Spreading Fake News Shad and co say bots…
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…