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:Mr. Spock, weren't you wearing blue and black a minute ago?AmusingHow Literature Became Word Perfect There can be no true distinction drawn …CybercultureBroken on Purpose: Why Getting It Wrong Pays More Than Getting It RightI have recently started managing the Fac…BooksJournalism is now the second draft of historyThe unavoidable truth is that first draf…CultureWorking Towards…

Beatrice the Biologist: How the Brain Works

Beatrice the Biologist: How the Brain Works. Similar:Buzz Aldrin: It’s Time to Put a Man on Mars There are eight U.S. astronauts left o…CultureTrainer and Sea Lion Tango: "He Had It Coming" (Cell Block Tango, from Chicago) AestheticsPennsylvania is one of three states recognized by the CDC for having the most COVID-19 cas…Based on the…

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:''Uh…''And yes, Liz’s…

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:Star Trek: "Wink Of An Eye"/"The Empath"Amusing, if cynical, reaction to some of…AmusingNutcracker dress rehearsal montage. Carolyn plays the Dew Drop Fairy Saturday at 7.PersonalCEO’s brutalist office, for a Zoom-based…

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…