Yesterday, I performed in a school matinee for Suessical, dashed back to campus to advise with students working on their 20-page term papers for Literary Criticism, served on oral exam panels for four graduating seniors, then went back to the theater for an evening performance. Somewhere along the way, I found myself chatting in an…
I will have to watch for these uses of “slash.” I wonder if it has any relation to the practice of using a slash to denote romantic pairings in fanfic (e.g. Harry/Hermione). Two weeks ago, one student brought up the word slash as an example of new slang, and it quickly became clear to me…
“Hear my voice. Alexander Graham Bell.” That was really quite thrilling. In that ringing declaration, I heard the clear diction of a man whose father, Alexander Melville Bell, had been a renowned elocution teacher (and perhaps the model for the imperious Prof. Henry Higgins, in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion; Shaw acknowledged Bell in his preface…
The Tribune-Review does a great job covering the local arts community. Here is their preview of this weekend’s Suessical. (My daughter plays one of the baby kangaroos, and my wife and I play Whos and various other supporting parts. I also play Judge Yertle the the Turtle and the Grinch’s dog, Max.) TribLIVE. Similar:The Best…
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The MOOC classrooms are growing at Big Bang rates: more than five million students worldwide have registered for classes in topics ranging from physics to history to aboriginal worldviews. It creates a strange paradox: these professors are simultaneously the most and least accessible teachers in history. —Grading the MOOC University – NYTimes.com. Similar:Teacher suspended after…
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In addition to being almost universally wrong, the theories developed via social media complicated the official investigation, according to law enforcement officials. Those officials said Saturday that the decision on Thursday to release photos of the two men in baseball caps was meant in part to limit the damage being done to people who were…
On a scale of 1 to 10, this definitely rates a WTF. Seriously, has no one in GE ever seen The Matrix? Literally any other robot in the history of film would have been a better choice — even RoboCop would’ve made people feel more at ease, because at least he’s a police officer. Agent…
A thoughtful analysis. Problem-solvers in the Information Age must train themselves to ignore floods of true-but-trivial and unreliable-but-accessible information. I see this all the time with students who Facebook their way through my class presentations on the function of scholarly peer review, but then submit pages from content farms in their term paper drafts. According…
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Very insightful…. A reminder that even the much-praised Dove “we are exposing their advertising techniques” campaigns are just that — campaigns, designed to sell a product. (The parent company of Dove also owns Axe, which is blatant in its use of demeaning sexual stereotypes.) Brave, strong, smart? Not enough. You have to be beautiful. And…
The FBI reminds journalists about a few things they should have learned in News Reporting 101. After multiple media outlets (especially CNN) wrongly reported that an arrest had been made in Boston, the FBI is urging media to “exercise caution and attempt to verify information through appropriate official channels before reporting.” “Contrary to widespread reporting,…
First, do not pass on speculation. For much of the day, the New York Post was sharing unconfirmed reports, which were later proven erroneous, that 12 people had been killed in the attack. I actually retweeted BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski, one of the smartest and most conscientious journalists on Twitter, and repeated this tidbit on the official Slate account. In hindsight,…
When I had pneumonia a few years into my current job, I spent 10 days bedridden (or, having been banished to the basement, futon-ridden), and watched the extended Lord of the Rings trilogy over and over, since I needed something that would occupy my mind enough to distract me from my suffering, but I couldn’t…
As I make progress in designing the class text adventure, I’ll post about my process and challenges. Right now, I’m foreseeing the following challenges: how to let students know how far to read/play at any given time (this will be a hybrid class, so there will be less in-class f2f support and motivation) students may…
As digital texts and technologies become more prevalent, we gain new and more mobile ways of reading—but are we still reading as attentively and thoroughly? How do our brains respond differently to onscreen text than to words on paper? Should we be worried about dividing our attention between pixels and ink or is the validity…
Some of my happiest memories of fatherhood include introducing my kids to the Richard Scarry books. Featuring a huge anthropomorphised cast, with recurring characters such as Sergeant Murphy, traffic hound and pursuer of miscreants, and solid, cheerful, lederhosen-wearing Huckle Cat, Scarry’s tales of mishap, derring-do, industry and shopping always feel deeply, richly safe. Some aspects…
Sometimes, I worry that by homeschooling my kids, I’m depriving them of the opportunities to gain confidence, face challenges, and develop social skills. Just kidding. Here’s what my kids did last weekend. Similar:The Xplor Store: The Forgotten Carnegie Science Center Exhibit? (Guest Post by Leigh Jerz…The other day, my wife suggested a Carne…BooksThe Miracle Worker…
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