The MOOC Honeymoon is Over: Three Takeaways from the Coursera Calamity

The honeymoon with MOOCs is over. The reality check has finally arrived which was inevitable. MOOCs will not solve all the woes of higher education. It is unfortunate it had to be a class on how to design an online course; it was the Fundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Application [FOE] offered through Coursera…

How Patriotic

Similar:Context for Hayles, My Mother was a Computer (Ch 3 & 4)My undergraduates are working their way …AcademiaShakespeare did not leave his wife Anne in Stratford, letter fragment suggests It has long been assumed that William …CultureThe Most Unexpected Workplace Trend Coming in 2020: the Return of the Liberal Arts Major On LinkedIn each year author…

Beatrice the Biologist: How the Brain Works

Beatrice the Biologist: How the Brain Works. Similar:Nature walks 2012 and 2018.AestheticsAm I a Bad Father Because I Let My Daughter Eat M&Ms in Her Mashed Potatoes?[poll id=”2″] AestheticsObamacare's broken website cost more than LinkedIn, Spotify combinedMuch of the criticism of Healthcare.gov …CultureOn Stephen Hawking, Vader and Being More Machine Than HumanIn one version of…

A Wealth of Words

People with similar vocabulary sizes may vary significantly in their talent and in the depth of their understanding. Nonetheless, there’s no better index to accumulated knowledge and general competence than the size of a person’s vocabulary. Simply put: knowing more words makes you smarter. And between 1962 and the present, a big segment of the…

MSNBC Airs Un-Edited Sandy Hook Father’s Testimony After Critics Complain

NBC aired doctored versions of a 911 call in the Trayvon Martin case, which led to an apology and several people losing their jobs in April. On Monday, MSNBC aired a video that seemed to show a grief-stricken man being heckled by pro-gun lobbyists while talking about his recently murdered son. via The Hollywood Reporter Similar:Technical and Literary…

Pinkalicious — “Buzz Off”

My daughter plays the Bumblebee in “Buzz Off,” which both ended Act I and opened Act II in last weekend’s Stage Right! production of Pinkalicious. Similar:Office Hours in the Pool Hall My favorite story comes from the week …AcademiaIn February 2000, I was blogging about "The Heist" (Sorrels); the "Instant Muse Poetry Gen… In February…

Make Games in the Classroom with Inform 7

I’ll blog pretty much anything that has to do with Inform 7. Text-based games, or interactive fiction, have continued to evolve since the days of Zork. Many works can be powerful for play in the classroom: Emily Short’s “interactive epistolary” First Draft of the Revolution, Andrew Plotkin’s physics-grounded Dual Transform, Peter Nepstad’s historically grounded 1893: A…