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:Rare Philadelphia win – for a Whig! For the first time in 159 years, Phi…CultureFacebook’s push of “related articles” to users without checking credibility draws fireThe links under your friend’s post got y…CybercultureGrading writing: The art and science — and why computers can’t do itTech companies and university administra…AcademiaThe Pentagon has ordered Stars and Stripes…

Beatrice the Biologist: How the Brain Works

Beatrice the Biologist: How the Brain Works. Similar:Part of Wright brothers' 1st airplane on NASA's Mars chopper “Wilbur and Orville Wright would be pl…AwesomeAmbiguous language in journalism: Monkey Pox and Camel Privates Amazing lead: A veterinarian prescr…AmusingCan the multiverse explain human history?Where did this idea of parallel universe…CultureMars Is a Hellhole: Colonizing the red planet…

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:Well-chosen wordsWhy is English spelling such a tangle? I…BooksA practical application of close reading skills: Nazi-spottingWhenever I teach a literature class, I p…AestheticsGet Hands-on Writing Experience.AcademiaComputers and Writing 2020…

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:Identity Crisis (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 4 Episode 18) The Case of LaForge’s Disapp… Rewatching ST:TNG An enjoyable …Media"I'm a geek. Deal with it." –my 11yo daughter. #geekgirlproblemsAmusingGawker Media Files for Chapter 11 BankruptcyThis is fallout from losing an…