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:I came of age playing too many CD-ROM point-and-click adventure games to ignore these stee…I came of age playing too many CD-ROM po…AestheticsThey Should Have Used Another TypefaceHave you ever noticed that the letters “…AestheticsWe Are Hopelessly Hooked [on our Gadgets]We check our phones 221 times a day—an a…CultureTrump Fires Senior Adviser’s Son From Transition…

Beatrice the Biologist: How the Brain Works

Beatrice the Biologist: How the Brain Works. Similar:Actors can't play Hamlet as simply mad in world of mental health awareness, actor saysHow does our 21st century understanding …CultureSuperman Comic about Sympathy and HopeJust in case someone out there could use…AestheticsRobot competition requires science, innovation and teamworkEarly tomorrow my son and I will be carp…EducationTake 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:The overlooked masterpieces…

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:Out & About: Stage Right holds its annual Heart of the Arts Gala Source: Out & About: Stage Right…CultureCarolyn's "waiter with wobbly stack of plates" bit from Hello DollyPersonalWest Side…

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…