Standardized testing rewards standardized thinking, while excluding creativity, resilience & other “soft” skills. I have started gong out of my way to remind students in my classes that I am not comparing their papers to a “correct answer” in the back of my book — I want them to learn a habit of mind that…
It’s a good day when one’s nerdiness is an asset to a colleague. Similar:Bother (a minor Turnitin.com grademark bug)That whole thing should be a link — the…AcademiaIn Which I Bow Before the Mistress of Teen SnarkThe Girl: I’m sorry I’m being so… Me:…CultureIt's Friday night in July, and I'm jamming with my fall course preps.The…
I’m a happy, responsible, and no-longer-obligated-for-jury-duty citizen. Similar:This is Ralph. Ralph is a concept, created by you while reading this.AmusingDaughter made a Rainbow Loom Marty McFly. Note vest jacket and hover board.PersonalFriend I hadn't seen for about 20 years delivers a vintage nerdy gift.During the original run of Star Trek: Th…MediaThe ballroom of my #steampunk…
Keep a local backup of anything important you’ve entrusted to online services. There’s no guarantee that, years from now, those services will honor the terms you agreed to. Backed by new investors, including singer Justin Timberlake, Myspace (after dropping the capital ‘S’) has been rebranded as a music-streaming service, with a new sleek interface, and…
Penn and Teller are involved with this story. Worth a read. The only record of the game’s existence was a handful of review copies that had been sent out to journalists in the weeks before the publisher went bust, in 1995. The game remained a curious rumor until September, 2005, when Frank Cifaldi, a freelance…
Judge: Apple conspired to fix eBook prices. #ethics #books The Federal lawsuit claimed that Apple, led by then-CEO Steve Jobs and senior vice president of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue, conspired with HarperCollins, Hatchett, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster to drive e-book prices up from the $9.99 price point Amazon had established. –readwrite.com Similar:Amusing Reference…
RT @spj_tweets: How TV could suffer the fate of newspapers: @alanmutter shares the second installment of his two-part blog – http://t.co/l… Similar:Maybe I'll just delete these QUARTER OF A MILLION spam comments.Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments in …CybercultureFormer student: "I remember sometimes being annoyed with all of our blogging assignments, …A third alum in the last…
RT @DepressedDarth: Dear J.J. Abrams, If the new Star Wars is bad, you will forever be known as Jar Jar Abrams. Sincerely, Star Wars fans Similar:Fake News Is Not the Real Media Threat We’re FacingConservative talk radio predates the Int…CultureUtility Tactical Waist Pack Pouch Military Camping Hiking Outdoor Hand Waist Bag: Sports &…Really. These things…
I really like MailChimp’s “Social” plugin, which not only publishes a WordPress blog entry to Twitter and Facebook, but also collects responses from Twitter and Facebook users and collects them as WordPress comments. Today I installed a different plugin, Twitter Tools, which is really just a single tool — it lets you create a WordPress…
Habits for happiness: tips for looking on the bright side of life. At bedtime, in order to avoid a nightly litany of complaints, I ask my glass-is-half-empty-and-I-hate-the-pirate-glass-and-there’s-a-bug-in-it tween to list three good things, two neutral things, and one sad thing about her day. Sometimes if she needs to share more than one sad thing, I…
While researching my obligations for #juryduty Thursday, I came across this “Juror’s Creed.” The gender-specific reference to men, the instruction to reflect upon the virtues of democracy, and the instruction to respect the judge’s education all hint at a historical context for the creed. Institutions never put their creeds into writing unless they feel those…
Spent a productive work day doing nothing but optimizing my blog. Added a very nice plugin for displaying thumbnails of related posts. Similar:How Technology Has Changed The Way We WriteSocial media services have put writing t…CultureAs I was preparing to take this screenshot, two more papers came in.I still have odd jobs to tie up,…
RT @mykidcancode: Managing Your Preschooler’s Fascination with Apps – bit.ly/lv1ZyR #parenting #technology Similar:Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers: Four MovesThe confirmation bias describes the very…AcademiaReally enjoyed Prime Stage Theater’s video presentation of Mockingbird.Obviously I would have preferred to see …AestheticsIn March, 2002, I was blogging about…In March, 2002, I was blogging about …BusinessThe right — and…
Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments in my trash folder! Similar:How iPhone Apps Steal Your Contact Data and Why You Can't Stop ItNothing really new in this article, but …BusinessKindle App Vs. iBooks. (Spoiler: They’re Virtually Identical Now!)I noticed with interest that Kindle now …AestheticsIn defense of the Selfie StickI’m sure there are hipsters, even…
“Bach is not for the weak of mind.” — Miss Renee, my kids’ piano teacher. “I’m in trouble.” — Peter, my son. Similar:Why I disagreed with my students who said, "That was easy!" “That was easy!” Today th…AcademiaAnother 10 sq cm of #steampunk #neovictorian control panel. Not the end product. Just prac…AestheticsPeople with autism…
While I am uncomfortable with the whole “classroom as marketplace” metaphor, since it’s pretty much gamifying without the fun, I am nonetheless interested in this strategy for encouraging students to collaborate by having them attach a value to the artifacts they present to the class for sharing.. We shop for everything from apps to ideas.…
The researchers found that each singer’s heartbeat was linked to the song’s melody – i.e. the speed and structure of the music. They also found that when the choir sang together, their heart rates tended to increase and decrease at similar times. “As soon as the singing begins, (the hearts) start following each other,” Vickhoff…
We live in an elegant universe. The cosmos is like a string symphony. Genes are selfish. There is an endless battle between thermodynamics and gravity. Do you love these statements, or hate them? The reading world gets pretty divided over whether or not it’s okay to apply metaphors and similes to descriptive science writing. It…
Literature majors and students otherwise drawn to literature courses can be an introverted bunch. Students overall can at times resist course projects that fall outside the expected parameters of a given discipline. Yet my class proved my assumptions wrong. Many of the students were nervous, to be sure, but overall they seemed to enjoy the…
Let’s start at the end point: what you’re doing right now. You are pulling information from a network onto a screen, enhancing your embodied experience with a communication web filled with people and machines. You do this by pointing and clicking, tapping a few commands, organizing your thoughts into symbols that can be read and…