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:At the chess club holiday party. Peter looks forward to his Wednesday…GamesThe reluctant wisdom of a science major in my freshman writing class.”There’s nothing left to say,” said a sc…AcademiaMailbag: breaking in again » Raph's WebsiteGood advice from Raph Koster to someone …BusinessChecking…
I’m a happy, responsible, and no-longer-obligated-for-jury-duty citizen. Similar:Carolyn and spider friends performing "Power" from Stage Right's Sleeping B…PersonalOut for a walk during some downtime. Paused to appreciate this beautiful city of #Pittsbur…AestheticsThe girl asked me to read R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) to her. #quarantine #partylik…BooksMy Memories of "Joseph…" [an original cast member reflects on Rice/Webber/Waring's…
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:Children of…
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:10 Rules of Internet – Anil DashA very useful, concise summary of web-en…BusinessShe doesn't have keys or a phone or an ID. Why does my tween need a purse?To stash her Lemonheads and Smarties.…
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:Breaking: Student consults syllabus before asking question about course scheduleNASHVILLE, TN – Vanderbilt University is…AcademiaDo you remember Harry Monster counting with adorable little John-John? Watch this 2 min cl…https://twitter.com/ValaAfshar/status/15…AmusingAnother 10…
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:This actually happened the other day when I was offline.This actually happened the other day whe…PersonalLego goes steampunkBe still, my nerdy heart. Steampunk —…AestheticsFor the record, if I should happen to be murdered…
RT @mykidcancode: Managing Your Preschooler’s Fascination with Apps – bit.ly/lv1ZyR #parenting #technology Similar:How My Mom Killed Facebook Lest you think this is just a compli…CybercultureRussian trolls 'spreading discord' over vaccine safety onlineThe good news is that there are fewer Am…CybercultureCarolyn at about 7yo drew Titania in love with Bottom. #tbt #midsummerArtWhy Study Humanities? What I…
Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments in my trash folder! Similar:I Quit Liking Things On Facebook for Two Weeks.She stopped liking, and started commenti…CybercultureStudents who grew up with search engines might change STEM education foreverThe headline is oddly STEM-specific, but…CybercultureMaking a journalism game to teach myself ChoiceScriptMe: (Making a journalism game to teach m…AcademiaWhy are…
“Bach is not for the weak of mind.” — Miss Renee, my kids’ piano teacher. “I’m in trouble.” — Peter, my son. Similar:Myths about "Learning Styles Persist in SocietyI first heard the formalized theories ab…AcademiaSubtle Stylesheet Tweaks for Mobile SiteOn the mobile version of my WordPress we…AestheticsI was 'raped' in VR – the effects can…
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…