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:Google engineers mined the text adventure game "Zork" for AI image promptsYouTube commenter Bob Hepple writes, “Tw…AestheticsSeriously, Fuck You, "Kindle Unlimited"I’m just quoting the f-bomb in the link,…BooksA WWII Propaganda Campaign Popularized the Myth That Carrots Help You See in the DarkYet another widely held cultural myth fa…CultureMy college writing students are out making short…

Beatrice the Biologist: How the Brain Works

Beatrice the Biologist: How the Brain Works. Similar:The Challenger disaster, Jan. 28, 1986On this day in 1986, the Challenger spac…EducationCan the multiverse explain human history?Where did this idea of parallel universe…CultureSTEM Needs a New LetterCreativity alone does not foster innovat…ArtQuebec teen discovers ancient Mayan ruins by studying the starsThis sounds like the plot of a…

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:Drumhead (#StarTrek #TNG…

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:We're Teaching Books That Don't Stack UpOur provost sent this link to English fa…AcademiaShe was nervous about the dog misbehaving during "Tomorrow," so I told her she could pract… https://youtu.be/718e4XsNvGY…

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…