Are standardized tests biased against students who don't give a sh*t?

Beware… Salty language. In The Know: Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don’t Give A Shit? Similar:For New Acquisitions, UMD Libraries Choose Ebooks by DefaultIncreasingly book vendors provide option…AcademiaAn English professor tries to help ChatGPT write and revise a sonnetShortly after my online AmLit survey beg…AcademiaThe Trouble With Online EducationI’ve taught an online “Video Game…

Scratch Stats

Scratch is a kid-friendly programming sandbox, designed by MIT in order to introduce kids to computer science concepts. I’ve been using it with my own children for a couple years, and am currently using it as a gentle introduction to development, for an upper-level class designed for the “New Media Journalism” program. Similar:Notes on Teaching…

The Poynter Institute's Seminars

 I’m teaching a “New Media Projects” course, which aims to explore the connections between communication with words (linear, narrative) and communication with programming (interactive, procedural). Out in the wider world, The Poynter Institute hosted this session this week. I’m glad to see the profession moving beyond digital cameras and blogging. Programming for Journalists / Journalism…

Free cloze test generator

There were a lot of spammy hits out there, so here you go, semantic web: I just found a free cloze test generator that I rather like. It doesn’t seem to be able to save an interactive test, or score the test automatically, but it’s still a time-saver. I’ll be using as part of a close…

Challenging the lecture-homework paradigm

While discussion has always been a big part of my pedagogy, I very much enjoyed this item from an engineering professor about what happened when he pushed the lecture out of class time, and spent what used to be a lecture period as a lab. In my American Lit class, I’m not planning to record…

Study Says Brain Trauma Can Mimic A.L.S.

The mind boggles… Lou Gehrig might not have had Lou Gehrig’s disease. —NY Times Similar:Darkest Hour (2017)I’m not a huge fan of war movies, but my…CultureFrisbee is a brand name, but how newsworthy is that?What would you do? Today I wrote 192 …AcademiaTheatre Crowd Mustn't Be Bitter The en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try seem…CultureAlphabet in Motion: How Letters…

U.S.S. Requin Tour

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Why Does College Cost So Much?

Our technology story rests on three strong pillars. First, like many personal services, including much of health care, the law and banking, higher education remains essentially an artisanal industry. These are industries in which technological progress has not reduced the number of labor hours needed to “produce” the service. By contrast, labor productivity in basic…

Yahoo! mail no longer serves mobile version for my iPad

The very efficient mobile phone version of Yahoo! Mail, m.yahoo.com/mail, no longer works for my iPad. A purple screen with a spinning animation just hangs. What gives? The full web version is way too busy for a touchscreen. Similar:Riding on Square WheelsStan Wagon, a mathematician at Macaleste…DesignSynchronous Online Classes: 10 Tips for Engaging StudentsEvery time…