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:The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months “I have always understood the Nazis,” …BooksThe Search for IT Relevence — Featuring Seton Hill IT Guru Phil Komarnyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGh6MasSU…AcademiaAdding a media project to a semester-long paper assignment is like adding a jetpack to a d…AcademiaHow The NY Times Is…

Beatrice the Biologist: How the Brain Works

Beatrice the Biologist: How the Brain Works. Similar:Boys And Girls Memorize Words DifferentlyGirls were more likely to memorize words…CultureNow Is the Perfect Time to Memorize a PoemPowerful writing, by Matthew Schneier. …AestheticsChallenger Disaster: 30 YearsI was a high school senior, watching on …CybercultureFact check: Trump utters series of false and misleading claims at coronavirus briefingNot…

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…

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. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gr6jlrndSU Similar:This is manageable. Far better than some semesters.This is manageable. Far better than some…PersonalReady to teach another set of students what research is (and what it isn’t).AcademiaProfessional or college…

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…

Almost Flat Design

Apple, Google and Microsoft have very different design aesthetics. Almost Flat Design | Matthew Moore Design. Similar:Overwhelmed? Start a new to-do list with "1) Breathe; 2) Make 'to-do' list" Felt momentarily overwhelmed by the da…CultureMore modeling in #blender3d. Very happy with reflections and lighting. (The teacup is a po…DesignSupport the arts in your community! #augustwilson…

Why You Never Truly Leave High School

It’s also abundantly, poignantly clear that during puberty, kids have absolutely no clue how to assess character or read the behavior of others. In 2005, the sociologist Koji Ueno looked at one of the largest samples of adolescents in the United States, and found that only 37 percent of their friendships were reciprocal—meaning that when…

Surviving the Next Apocalypse: a Modest Curriculum

Obviously, given this surge in student demand, we need to make survivalist education another distinctive feature of our educational mission, and we must scramble to build institutional capacity in “apocalypse preparedness.” The admissions office already has brochures: “Where would you send your child: someplace that prepares them for a 20th-century job, or a community that…