Teaching with iPads: Motivation, Inspiration and Alienation in the Appleverse

Here are the slides for the half-day workshop I presented with my colleagues, Laura Patterson and Christine Cusick. Similar:How We Can Help Students Survive in an Age of Anxiety Today’s students have also lived…AcademiaWhat You Get When 30 People Draw a World Map From Memory Tasked with creating “a piece of art…AestheticsFigured out how to…

Making Writing Socially Engaging: Asking Why New Media Draws Us In

[View the story “Making Writing Socially Engaging: Asking Why New Media Draws Us In” on Storify] Similar:English Teacher Re-Titles Classic Poems As Clickbait In Last-Ditch Effort To Trick Student…Funny and clever. Via Excuse the Bananas…AcademiaHarvard Science Historian Publishes Results of Unprecedented 30-Year Census of Copernican …”Catholic church authorities were disple…HistoryWhen Robert Pinsky Wrote a Video…

Seussical: Stage Right Homeschool Production

My 13yo was Horton the Elephant and my 9yo was the Sour Kangaroo (with attitude). Similar:Added multiple swappable upper storeys. Next I will make slightly fewer variations of a sl…Added multiple swappable upper storeys. …AestheticsA rare win for Dad. CultureScrooge Is My BrotherMy daughter delivered the opening “Marle…CultureThe Child (TNG Rewatch: Season 2, Episode 1)Rewatching Star…

“Scary Things”: An Address to the Class of 2011 — The Goreletter — Michael Arnzen

Mike Arnzen posted his weird and wonderful address to graduation seniors. “Scary Things”: An Address to the Class of 2011 — The Goreletter — Michael Arnzen. Similar:Take my feedback if you want to pass.I won’t be so assertive in the first wee…AcademiaHow Not to Be a Jackass at Your Next Academic ConferenceOkay, I confess, I…

Another Nerdy Lord of the Rings Post

I just got an email from Amazon saying that typos and omissions in my Kindle edition of The Lord of the Rings have been corrected, and I can opt to receive the updated edition for free. However, like a certain similarly magical gift that I’m sure we’re all thinking of right now, this boon comes…

Bacon Starry Night Meme

I’ve no idea where the “Bacon Starry Night” meme comes from. Other than Vincent Van Gogh, and bacon, of course. My wife asked whether there is a bacon “The Scream.”  Not yet, apparently. Similar:Have 40 years of mobile phones given literature bad lines?The X Files did a good job of embracing …CybercultureAppreciating the production values…

The New York Times Makes The Nerdiest Correction Ever – Featured on BuzzFeed

The New York Times Makes The Nerdiest Correction Ever – Featured on BuzzFeed. Similar:Silicon Avatar (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 4) Grieving scientist mom wrecks…Rewatching ST:TNG Riker does some ser…CultureIn defense of the Selfie StickI’m sure there are hipsters, even now, l…AmusingUpdated Syllabus for Journalism 101By the end of the semester you will be…

Helping students engage with challenging texts

Based on the constructivist theory of learning suggesting that students make sense of new information by joining it with information they already have, his guidelines suggest that students begin with a quick pre-read, in which they underline words they don’t know but don’t stop reading until they reach the end. They then would follow up…

Hillary Clinton edited out of Situation Room photo by Hasidic newspaper

Take a look at the photo published above, famously snapped in the Situation Room as the U.S. raided Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. The astute viewer will notice that, like some sort of sexist version of Highlights magazine, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been Photoshopped out of the picture (not to mention Counterterrorism Director Audrey…

io9. We come from the future.

The whole “reality is an illusion” idea has been kicked around by everyone from Siddhartha to the existentialists. It is Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom who is most often associated with the idea that we are living in a computer simulation. His premise is based on a series of assumptions: 1). A technological society could eventually…