Culture Desk: My Life in Pencils

Devotees of the Blackwing had been paying up to forty dollars apiece for them after they were discontinued, in 1998. I received a box of twelve Blackwings, and I got hooked. The lead is ungraded, but it is definitely softer than a No. 2, and very expressive. The Blackwing motto is “Half the Pressure, Twice…

Seton Hill Admin Main Stairway (Blender 3D Model)

[portfolio_slideshow] Last night I used Blender 3D to rough up a model of this stairway, the site of hundreds of group photos over the years. Similar:Why the Weather Channel's Hype Has Lost Me for GoodAfter the break, we’ll tell you how impo…BusinessHacking the Attention EconomyThe techniques that are unfolding are ha…CultureAdam Savage’s 10 Commandments Of…

When Teachers Demand to Be Co-Creators, Not Consumers – EdTech Researcher – Education Week

I’d like my students to be co-creators, too. The richest exchanges on day two of the Hewlett Open Educational Resources Grantee Meeting came from those who challenged the fundamental premises of the meeting. In designing the meeting, Berkman staff imagined three groups: Learners, Facilitators (teachers, librarians, coaches, educators, etc.), and Builders. They assumed a kind…

Context for Hayles, My Mother was a Computer (Ch 3 & 4)

My undergraduates are working their way through N. Katherine Hayle’s My Mother Was a Computer. They told me that they benefitted from the notes I wrote the other day, so I’m continuing the effort.   In Chapter 3, Hayles reminds us that the “worldviews of speech, writing, and code” are not merely theories, they are…

Woodward and Bernstein: Could the Web generation uncover a Watergate-type scandal? – The Washington Post

Yale journalism students say they could have easily broken the Watergate scandal themselves, simply by Googling for keywords. “This is Yale,” Bernstein said gravely. “That somehow the Internet was a magic lantern that lit up all events,” Woodward said. “And they went on to say the political environment would be so different that Nixon wouldn’t…

Creepy Treehouse

The canonical definition of “creepy treehouse” was written by Jared Stein in 2008. Here’s an excerpt: n. A place, physical or virtual (e.g. online), built by adults with the intention of luring in kids. Example: “Kids … can see a [creepy treehouse] a mile away and generally do a good job in avoiding them.” John…

This is why 12-year-olds aren’t excited about Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram | ZAGGblog

This is why 12-year-olds aren’t excited about Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram | ZAGGblog Similar:Royalty: For the Irish, it’s like having a neighbour who’s really into clowns and, also, y…When I lived in Canada, I had friends wh…AmusingDigital Humanities: A DefinitionDoes the world need another working defi…AcademiaOne in a Billion: email tips – Google Search In the…

Context for Halyes, My Mother Was a Computer

Hayles is an established authority on a humanities-centered approach to human-computer interactions, and My Mother Was a Computer (2005) is her third book on the topic. At times she writes with the expectation that her readers already know some foundational topics that she may have spent more time introducing in her previous books. In the…

The Next Time Someone Says the Internet Killed Reading Books, Show Them This Chart

Looks like this blogger presented the chart as an implicit argument about the quality of literature being read today, rather than the quantity. We were a civilized civilization. This was before the Internet and cable television, and so people had these, like, wholly different desires and attention spans. They just craved, craved, craved the erudition…