The Pulse: Seton Hill’s iPad Experiment

This month’s edition of The Pulse podcast features a conversation with Mary Ann Gawelek, provost of Seton Hill University, discussing how her institution’s iPad experiment — begun in 2010 — has fared. RPP_102_iPads-in-Education.mp3 via The Pulse: Seton Hill’s iPad Experiment | Inside Higher Ed. Similar:Nature walks 2012 and 2018.AestheticsSeton Hill University advertises for “Social &…

Youngest-ever National Spelling Bee competitor says fatigue, stress led to misspelling onstage

“Overall, it was just boring. Really boring! Really boring!” —The Washington Post. Similar:All About Soap — Why Washing Your Hands Fights the CoronavirusPeople typically think of soap as gentle…CultureTom Bissell writes a letter to Niko Bellic about Grand Theft Auto VI haven’t played GTAV, and probably neve…CultureMTV VMAs: Will Smith Family's Reaction Was to Gaga,…

National Headline Contest 2011

Great headlines from winner David Bowman. National Headline Contest 2011. Similar:A crushing backlash to Apple’s new iPad adHave you seen Apple’s “Crush” ad? It fea…AestheticsAdobe steals your colorWhat a horrible situation. The Adobe mon…AestheticsMLA in-text citations: avoid these common errors AcademiaMy college writing students are out making short videos responding to a prompt.While my students…

Reading in the Morning

To qualify for a day at the local water park, my daughter woke up early, and is now happily reading. Similar:Avoid static, wordy nominalization. Prefer compelling verbs.New graphic for a handout I first posted…EssaysRelics (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 4) When a huge hollow sphere traps a Sco…Rewatching ST:TNG The Enterprise-D tr…AmusingThe Interactive Fiction…

Updated Journalism Handouts

I updated the journalism portal of my online writing site, and touched up some existing handouts: News Story vs. English Essay Your English instructor carefully reads your essay to evaluate the depth of your knowledge, the breadth of your vocabulary, and the loftiness of your ideas. Joe Sixpack glances quickly at your news story to…

Stage Right! Homeschool Musicals

My daughter was recently in the Stage Right! Greensburg homeschool preteen production of Once Upon a Mixed-up Fairy Tale, playing Little Red Riding Hood. Here the girls are singing “Astonishing.” My son played Marshal Cord Elam in the teen production, Oklahoma. He’s wearing the vest and white hat. Similar:I didn't mark a single paper or…

The Evolution of Adventure: Make Game – Asio City

In the early 1970s William Crowther worked for the high-tech R&D company BBN Technologies as part of a team developing the ARPAnet; a computer network predecessor to the Internet. Crowther has never shown any desire to court celebrity for his achievements. Aside from a couple of interviews from books, Where Wizards Stay Up Late and Genesis II: Creation and…

How and Why to Make Your Digital Publications Matter

My intuition is that, even for the wary, recalcitrant, or skeptical, the ways individuals connect now online and learn from one another’s connections no longer represent the pathological or aberrant (i.e. the shallow, distracted, lonely, asocial, unprofessional digital generation:  you know the litany!), but “the future.”  Since many are worried about “the future,” those who…

Choosing Our Own Adventures, Then and Now

If you were a kid during the ’80s and read any books at all, you probably read at least one Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA), probably by either R.A. Montgomery or Edward Packard. And if you read one, you read more than one. They were addictive, candy for our brains, but also, they empowered us…

Is it time for a text game revival?

It’s also a cultural climate where audiences are increasingly used to thinking of books as media companions — popular film series like Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games, or TV series like Game of Thrones, all feel richer to fans if they read the books as well as enjoy the films. Designers of text-based…