Dennis G. Jerz | Associate Professor of English -- New Media Journalism, Seton Hill University | jerz.setonhill.edu

For New Acquisitions, UMD Libraries Choose Ebooks by Default

Increasingly book vendors provide options that allow us to purchase e-books instead of print when both are available. We’ve now formally committed to purchasing e-books when given that choice. —UMD Libraries Similar:Updated my "Show, Don't (Just) Tell" HandoutTaking advantage of a summer day in the …AcademiaStudents Don't Read Syllabi, Exhibit 58623https://twitter.com/ConnorMEwing/status/…Academia‘You deserve that’: Commissioner’s wife…

A Message from Hester Prynne (Student Video)

Have I mentioned lately that I have awesome students? For a “Creative Critical Presentation” in my online American Literature survey, English major Tyler Carter created A Message from Hester Prynne, a 9-minute video that explores Hester’s psychology and spirituality, through music, dance, poetry, and cinematography. All the technology Seton Hill offers to its students would…

Scrooge Is My Brother

My daughter delivered the opening “Marley was as dead as a doornail” speech as the narrator in the Stage Right! homeschool production of A Lyrical Christmas Carol. My son played Scrooge. The show was great. During the bows, I was already pretty misty-eyed when my daughter threw her arms around Scrooge and proudly announced, “He’s…

“What irrational person would argue against your claim that hoe is a Gothic punk?”

Dictating student feedback, I said “Would a rational person argue against your claim that Poe is a Gothic poet?” My Mac typed: “What irrational person would argue against your claim that hoe is a Gothic punk?” Similar:That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.AestheticsJournalists write to inform, not to impress.Sometimes when…

iTunes 11: It’s time for Apple’s horrible, bloated program to die.

At the head of the team is a grizzled old engineer who’s been at Apple forever. He’s surly and crude, always making vulgar jokes about iPads. But the company can’t afford to get rid of him—he’s the only one who understands how to operate the furnaces in the iTunes boiler room. Then one morning the…

Senior Tech #1: How To Master Texting

It’s funny because it’s true. Senior Tech #1: How To Master Texting Similar:Zork: The Great Underground EmpireA blogger has started chronicling a jour…CybercultureRebound Rumble, FIRST Robotics 2012 GameIn the FIRST Robotics competition, indiv…CybercultureChurnalism SearchAt the University of Virginia, one summe…CultureEquilibrium (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 3, Episode 4) Grumpy, newly musical Dax halluc… Rewatching ST:DS9 Sisko…

What kinds of local stories drive engagement? The results of an NPR Facebook experiment

We looked at every story we geotargeted during the months of July, August, and September 2012, focusing on the ones that the localized NPR Facebook following liked, shared, and commented on at a high rate. From this group of successful stories, we identified similarities which allowed us to create nine distinct content categories. We…

Let there be light

The Irish have a weakness for puns, and this is as evident in the Book of Kells as it is in Finnegans Wake, although in the former the puns are for the most part visual, for no monk would think to tamper with the Gospel texts…. Thus on the recto of folio 180, a line of…

Author of 80s classic The Hobbit didn’t know game was a hit

The Hobbit stood out from the adventure games of the day in three ways, the first of which was its use of graphics. Many scenes in the game included a colour image that may have drawn at painfully slow speed but still offered a far richer experience than the text-only adventures of the day. The second…

What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2012?

Current US law extends copyright protection for 70 years after the date of the author’s death. (Corporate “works-for-hire” are copyrighted for 95 years after publication.) But prior to the 1976 Copyright Act (which became effective in 1978), the maximum copyright term was 56 years (an initial term of 28 years, renewable for another 28 years). Under those…

“A Mushroom at Last… A Mushroom Forever”

I asked my 10yo why she was moping. “Because I don’t want to be a dancing mushroom,” she said, in a tone that added an unspoken “duh!” Like most of her theater friends, she is on pins and needles, waiting for Stage Right to announce the cast list for next month’s production of Annie “What…

Office Hours in the Pool Hall

My favorite story comes from the week I held my office hours in the Brother Gorch Pool Hall. Named for the Congregation of the Holy Cross monk who spent decades in charge of our student center and sometimes played pool with students, it was the perfect location for office hours the week we discussed William…

The Search for IT Relevence — Featuring Seton Hill IT Guru Phil Komarny

The Search for IT Relevence – YouTube. Similar:Mailbag: breaking in again » Raph's WebsiteGood advice from Raph Koster to someone …BusinessHow to interact with the introverted…My daughter spends a lot of time with he…DesignFacebook Updates News Feed So Your Favorite Friends Rise to the TopNow, News Feed, at its most basic level,…BusinessEffects of Internet use…

I’d Pay to See This

Fan Video Win Similar:The Schizoid Man (TNG Rewatch: Season 2, Episode 6)Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generatio…MediaCode is not literatureA literate programmer describes his atte…CybercultureNarrow ParsersCreating n00b-friendly interactive ficti…CybercultureJon Bentley | My Life in ArtWonderfully weird retro pop art. Jon re…AestheticsMultimodal News Packages (for Student Journalists)A multimodal news package simply means “…AcademiaAdding details to a…

Distributing Candy at Holiday Parade

Similar:Internet hyperlinks do not infringe on copyright, EU court advisedWhile European Union rules say every act…Current_EventsA dinosaur and an octopus are among those doing a speed-writing workshop in my journalism …PersonalVaccine hesitancy morphs into hostility, as opposition to shots hardens What began as “vaccine hesitancy” has …CultureVintage Freebies for DesignersI wish I had time for…

Results of the 18th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition

The 18th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition has ended. Congratulations to Marco Innocenti, whose “Andromeda Apocalypse” took first place! The top three games were: Andromeda Apocalypse, by Marco Innocenti Eurydice, by Anonymous Guilded Youth, by Jim Munroe The winners of the Miss Congeniality contest were: Guilded Youth, by Jim Munroe Escape From Summerland, by Joey Jones…

At Age 11, I Named the Curiosity Rover

Wonderful story! I still remember that chilly December day, sitting in science class. I’d finished a worksheet early and decided to get a TIME for Kids magazine off of Mrs. Estevez’s bookshelf. It was the 2008 Invention Issue, but that wasn’t the only thing that caught my eye. In the magazine, there was an article…

The Myth of the Fake Geek Girl

It’s not surprising, then, that being a woman in geek culture was for a long time a profoundly gender-deviant act. “Girl” and “geek” were a zero-sum dichotomy: to claim space in one, you had to relinquish equivalent claim to the other. Recently, though, there’s been a dramatic change: a sudden surge not only in the…

What Do People Do on Mobile Devices? (Infographic)

A handful of vignettes communicating the point that mobile use of the Web is on the rise. It’s a challenge to teach students everything that will truly benefit them in a changing world, so for now all I can do is touch on how to use CSS to deliver different versions of a website for…

What a 21st-Century English Major Can Do: Screencast Demo of an Inform 7 Text-Adventure Journalism Game

Have I mentioned lately that I have some really awesome students? Here’s a narrated screencast, presenting a progress report on a term project that involves programming in Inform 7 to create a text-adventure game designed to teach student journalists how to cover a campus event. This is what a 21st-century English major can do, given…