Where a nerd can be a nerd. (Thanks for sharing the photo, Jill Morris.) Similar:Hypertext as a Teaching Tool — Brown University Poetry Classroom 1974This short film documents an early attem…AcademiaInfinite Scrolling: XKCD's Creative Insight on a Common Interface IndignityAmusingLEGO turned itself around by analyzing overbearing parents[C]hildren play to get oxygen, to unders…CultureTolkien v. Orwell:…
“More people will learn about your institution from Wikipedia than from your own site,” the panelist said. “And in a crisis, more people will learn about what happened from Facebook and Twitter than from your own press releases.” That was a sobering assessment to many of us in the room. —It's Not What You Say;…
Millions of high-school students might wish math did not exist, but, alas, it does, at least as a human creation. The question, however, of whether math exists independent of humans is a much deeper one, and PBS’s Mike Rugnetta gives a fun, brief overview of the age-old philosophical debate in the video above. via Does…
A fascinating text from an alternate history. “Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops,” Eisenhower wrote. “My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery…
The Learning Games Network, a non-profit spin-off of the MIT Education Arcade and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Games+Learning+Society Program, today launched Quandary, a unique game that encourages players to think ethically as they lead a human colony struggling for survival on fictional planet Braxos. The game’s goal is to provide an engaging experience for players aged 8-14…
Picture books are so unpopular these days at the Children’s Book Shop in Brookline, Mass., that employees there are used to placing new copies on the shelves, watching them languish and then returning them to the publisher. “So many of them just die a sad little death, and we never see them again,” said Terri…
Ready to mash up gaming and teaching at Computers and Writing 2013. Press X to Teach. Similar:Serious reading takes a hit from online scanning and skimming, researchers say The brain was not designed for r…BooksAve atque valeWhat is a liberal education and what it …AcademiaAnecdotal evidence reliable? One man says “yes”.AcademiaDon’t Text While Parenting —…
Set phasers to “nerd”! This summer I’ll be schooling the kids on classic Star Trek and Babylon 5. Similar:Your Brain on ShakespeareAmusingThe House of Quark (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 3, Episode 3) Quark accidentally kills … Rewatching ST:DS9 On a slow night…MediaA Christmas Carol (WAOB Audio Theatre)Marley was dead. (I voice the narrato…BooksYesterday it was…
Similar:When an Eel Climbs a Ramp to Eat Squid From a Clamp, That’s a MoraySomewhere today a headline writer is wea…AwesomeDestroying trust in the media, science, and government has left America vulnerable to disa…From The Brookings Institution (non-prof…CultureIt's a Didactic Day in the Neighborhood: Mister Rogers and Educational IdeologyI recently lamented that my kids are…
[W]hen Japanese and American fourth and fifth grade children were asked why they shouldn’t hit, gossip or fight with other kids, 92 percent of the American kids answered “because they’d get caught or get in trouble.” Ninety percent of the Japanese kids asked the same question responded, “because it would be hurtful to someone else.”…
Teens often work on laptops with track pads, making interactions that require precision — such as drop-down menus, drag-n-drop, and small buttons — difficult. Design elements such as rollover effects and small click zones are also problematic, if they’re usable at all. Small text sizes and dense text make reading difficult. Combine these elements with…
As a plucky new faculty member I wrote a critique of an early design for the online journal Kairos. My article was snarky in form (I invoked Mystery Science Theater 3000) but serious in intent (“The overdesigned Kairos site perpetuates the myth that online rhetoric is necessarily complex and arcane,” with the earnest bold text in the original). They hypertext…
It’s rather hard to believe it took them so long. DC Just Announced Plans For Choose Your Own Adventure Style Digital Comics. Similar:Scammer tricks YouTuber who exposes scams to delete his anti-scammer channelThis one is hard to unpack, and painful …Current_EventsWhy Doesn’t Ancient Fiction Talk About Feelings?Not a day goes by without The Girl remin…BooksThe…
Chris Person posts a link to this very clear critique of news reporting that blames violent video games and movies for real-world violence. One Author Breaks Down the Reality of Violent Games in the Media. Similar:Loved part 2 of Romeo and Juliet @thepublicpgh #pptplaytime (Next week: Tartuffe)CultureCockatoos start sipping from Sydney’s drinking fountains after mastering…
It’s your resume, only better: Everyone has a resume. But a blog allows you to highlight the skills on your resume, times ten. For example, if you’re a writer, you can flex your writing muscles and post examples of your creative writing. Even if you’re a tax accountant, you can write your thought-provoking opinions on…
The iPad Mini and the ChromeBook are just loaners, but it was fun to arrange them this way. Similar:Girlhood 2014They don’t even seem to want to watch Fr…CultureThe Declaration Of Independence, 240 Years Later (NPR)When in the Course of human events, it b…CultureSources tell Seton Hill University's Dennis Jerz that TV news websites emphasize self-prom…Sources…
Last year, NASA announced that the Curiosity rover had found preliminary evidence of an ancient streambed, indicating that water once flowed freely on Mars. After a few more months of study, that preliminary announcement has been confirmed – Curiosity has found the remains of an ancient stream. —Forbes. Similar:Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of AustriaOn…
The New Mexico landfill or “Atari Dump” where the game console maker buried its mistakes — the biggest being the game E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial — will be dug up by game developer Fuel Industries, which hopes to make a documentary about the project. Also known as the “Atari Graveyard” or the “E.T. Dump”, the desert…
Below is a snippet from “Texty Cloak of Darkness,” which aims to use prose conventions to emulate game-state changes and alternate endings (in a medium designed to be linear). Since our encounter, such as it is, has already begun, it may as well happen in a place. The foyer of the opera house is where…
Earlier this week, the Computers and Writing folks discussed the decline in the use of the word “computer” in MLA job ads. The decline is more than offset by a rise in related terms, so the discussion appropriately focused on the value of “computers” as an umbrella term. (In our daily lives, we increasingly use…