SomethingSoSam. Similar:the history of computer games: from 'pong' to 'pac-man'”in the beginning, there was nothing. we…CybercultureRemember That Class Assignment I Hated? The One That Landed Me My Dream Job?ME (a couple years ago): Okay, students….AcademiaCommentary: The unbearable smugness of the pressMore on how their desire to control the …CultureBlender 3D Flyover of Fantasy Steampunk Spacecraft…
Imagine writing a letter of reccommendation for one of the hundreds of students in your money-saving Massive Open Online Course: I’m pleased to recommend the person who identifies herself as Amy Clayton in my MOOC of 11,389 students, Education and Society. I have known Ms. Clayton since she began the course on May 16, 2012…
Why don’t states require students to take four years of English and math, and three or four years of science? Why isn’t there a class dedicated to teaching the fundamentals of writing? For that matter, why don’t we require more than two years of history or social studies and foreign language? The students want it—69…
“I think this is a clear example of the fact that sensitivity matters as a photojournalist,” says Gutierrez. “If you can’t feel and if you can’t approach this like a human being you’re not going to make pictures that mean anything.” That sense of care works its way up the chain of command at newspapers…
On the topic of massively open online courses, an academic says what many of us who teach online are thinking. Do you really WANT TO SAVE SOME MONEY using INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY? Ok, try this one on for size. Why weren’t you blathering on asking why the heck we all bought Blackboard or if you really…
My wife confiscated my preteen daughter’s blush. To protest the injustice, my daughter tied herself to a pole and wrote this protest note. Similar:Cheerful scene from @pictclassictheatre Jane Eyre (getting great reviews; 11 more performa…PersonalThe Curtains Were Blue: In Which I Fix Another Meme. Above is my response to a meme that …AcademiaMy mom’s Lionel…
Social media networks like Twitter and Facebook have become part of the fabric of news stories — or the story itself — in recent years, notably during the Arab Spring. But in the hours after the Aurora shooting, the abundance of eyewitness journalism and conversation on Reddit turned the news aggregator into a surprising source…
July 20, 1969: astronauts from Apollo 11 visited the lunar surface. The Atlantic. Similar:You’re Just Gonna Be Nice by A. LangeIn a study, over 1000 gamers were survey…CultureHey there, chaotic world in academia and beyond, could you settle down just a bit so I can…AcademiaIf Wishes Were Horses (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 16)…
I’ve taught an online “Video Game Culture and Theory” course about four times now. This fall I’m getting ready to teach my first online section of an American literature survey that I’ve taught multiple times before. Because Seton Hill is a very high-tech school, I have few technical worries, but it will be different teaching…
This book explores the relationship between living, code and software. Technologies of code and software increasingly make up an important part of our urban environment. Indeed, their reach stretches to even quite remote areas of the world. Life in Code and Software introduces and explores the way in which code and software are becoming the…
A certificate of debt, found in a regional archive, attests that Mittenwalde lent Berlin 400 guilders on May 28 1562, to be repaid with six percent interest per year. According to Radio Berlin Brandenburg (RBB), the debt would amount to 11,200 guilders today, which is roughly equivalent to 112 million euros ($136.79 million). —Reuters.com. But…
Because, as we all know, headlines spring suddenly into existence, like Athena from the brow of Zeus. It can’t be the journalists who choose certain stories that fit the public’s desire to read about family tragedy. —MISSING IN IOWA: Grandmother: ‘It’s absolutely no family’ – CNN iReport. Similar:It's not just you — we are all…
There are two varieties of fairy tales. One is the literary fairy tale, the kind written, most famously, by Charles Perrault, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and Hans Christian Andersen. Such tales, which came into being at the end of the seventeenth century, are original literary works—short stories, really—except that they have fanciful subject matter: unhappy…
Yes, the Mars rovers are cute and wonderful, but I do feel bad that my kids didn’t have the space shuttle program to look forward to, as I did. Okay, the dramatic music and the studio lighting on the talking heads may be a notch or two over the top. But there’s no argument from…
The serious-faced TV anchor introduces a live crime report about a destructive Walmart flashmob: “Channel Four’s Emily Turner spoke with our crime analyst about how dangerous these situations can really be.” Emily Turner, looking equally serious, while standing in front of a completely featureless background that doesn’t even have the Walmart logo in frame, says…
Some useful-looking journalism resources. These training modules have been put together to offer ongoing help to journalists in transition states, post-conflict countries, and areas where the media is still developing. The only condition for using these modules is that you let us know if you spot any typos. Many have been written on planes, in departure lounges and in…
We’ve scoured the web in search of the best Blender tutorials out there and compiled a list of 45 of the most epic we could find. This collection includes a variety of tutorials covering everything from modeling and animation, to rigging and VFX. So grab a coffee and savor the Blender goodness! —45 Epic Blender…
What is the nature of news on YouTube? What types of events “go viral” and attract the most viewers? How does this agenda differ from that of the traditional news media? Do the most popular videos on YouTube tend to be videos produced by professional news organizations, by citizens or by political interest groups or…
Computers are pretty dumb, but they’re dumb fast. Computers are near-omnipotent cauldrons of processing power, but they’re also stupid. They are the undisputed chess champions of the world, but they can’t understand a simple English conversation. […] [On SHRDLU:] Every human sentence had to be transformed into a logical syntax that represented its meaning. The…
In the past few days, I’ve read a few of those head-shaking “you won’t believe how poorly college students write” essays, which always make me uncomfortable. They typically quote student “mistakes” out of context — maybe the assignment was to brainstorm or take risks, rather than produce polished gems; maybe the student is not a…