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:Spring 2022 Final Grades: Submitted.PersonalCreated a new graphic for an existing handout on writing editorials.The “lead editorial” represents the offi…EmpathySettling in for a jukebox show (not my favorite genre but the Go-Gos are fun).PersonalBoston Bombing Survivor Dances Onstage for First TimeTechnology and…
I’m a happy, responsible, and no-longer-obligated-for-jury-duty citizen. Similar:Vulcan mind-melds from Star Trek: The Original Series, in the order that I can think of th… With Dr. Simon Van Gelder in Dagger …PersonalFULL BLOOM (Aug 31-Sep 2)PersonalThe problem I just learned about calls for tea in the big mug.CultureDani Girl (Oct 1-3, 2015) at the Geyer…
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:‘One 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:Proto iPads and Paper Coexist in Classic Star TrekRewatching the classic Trek episode “The…CybercultureJuror's CreedWhile researching my obligations for #ju…CultureI'm no longer surprised, but still want to document.This is really noteworthy. Today the Pre…Current_EventsIt's…
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:"Look for the helpers" is good for distracting preschoolers from horrors they can't change…”Look for the helpers” is only one part …Culture"I'm a geek. Deal with it." –my 11yo daughter.…
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…
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RT @mykidcancode: Managing Your Preschooler’s Fascination with Apps – bit.ly/lv1ZyR #parenting #technology Similar:Testing out my new greenscreenFriendly advice… If you are practicing…AestheticsLiving Room PhysicsI’ve blogged before about my eight-year-…EducationMaking a journalism game to teach myself ChoiceScriptMe: (Making a journalism game to teach m…AcademiaNational Day on WritingNCTE, the National Writing Project, and …CultureChallenger Disaster: 30 YearsI…
Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments in my trash folder! Similar:GenZ prefers searching with TikTok, Instagram over GoogleEducating myself about how today’s colle…CybercultureBoston Bombing Survivor Dances Onstage for First TimeTechnology and artistry combine in this …CultureAnd the People of the Book of Face Were Deceived “And I looked up and saw a sign, and…AestheticsBoston bombings:…
“Bach is not for the weak of mind.” — Miss Renee, my kids’ piano teacher. “I’m in trouble.” — Peter, my son. Similar:Cry from a Far Planet by Tom Godwin (WAOB Audio Theatre; read by Dennis Jerz)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ0BBIss…CultureEvita in Zelionople CultureMr. Chen Goes to WuhanA Chinese media personality with over ha…CultureDatalore (TNG Rewatch, Season 1, Episode…
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…