Pre-Grade Your Paper

It’s not really a grading tool, but it might be worth introducing into the writing process.  I’m running a paper workshop tomorrow… I might give it a shot. PaperRater.com is a free resource, developed and maintained by linguistics professionals and graduate students. PaperRater.com is used by schools and universities in over 46 countries to help…

Building a Better Teacher

But what makes a good teacher? There have been many quests for the one essential trait, and they have all come up empty-handed. Among the factors that do not predict whether a teacher will succeed: a graduate-school degree, a high score on the SAT, an extroverted personality, politeness, confidence, warmth, enthusiasm and having passed the…

Gotta Keep Reading – Ocoee Middle School

Suggested by a colleague. If only we could get our students this excited about our summer reading titles!  Similar:My meeting was cancelled, so I spent the morning assembling a cabinet for a Little Free Li…AcademiaCollege Seniors Confident about Their Work Ethic, Written & Oral Skills; Employers Disagre…According to the NACE 2018 Job Outlook, …AcademiaSeton Hill's #CIO…

The Silver Lining

A fan-produced Kings Quest sequel is shut down. What a way to treat your brand’s most loyal followers. Recently, however, ownership of the Sierra IP changed hands and became the property of Activision. After talks and negotiations in the last few months between ourselves and Activision, they have reached the decision that they are not…

The Internet Bible: The Fall of Eve

Via Similar:The Formation of LoveRelationships start with a period of cou…CultureI’m a 12-year-old girl. Why don’t the characters in my apps look like me? I found that when an app did sell girl…BusinessPeter vs. the PenguinsFor the past hour, Peter (who is not yet…AmusingI asked my geekling whether she was ready for bed…I asked my…

Doyle Redland Says Goodbye

I’m still mourning the loss of Herman T. Zwiebel.  And now this? Similar:NYT: G.W. Bush is "super-overexposed" and "so far to our right" — so they omitted his pre…The quotes in my headline are accurate, …AmusingBeautiful, meditative video shows how books are madePretty sure you can’t do this to a Kindl…AestheticsTeacher suspended after pro-Trump yearbook…

"By Their Sidewalks You Will Know Them"

There are no sidewalks where I live, but if there were, my sidewalk, and my conscience, would be clear. Here’s the first stanza of a five-stanza poem by TImons Esaias. Originally there were eleven CommandmentsMoses, perhaps confused by the unfamiliarsnow, ice, and sidewalk,botched one, and left it out. Similar:In Pittsburgh, science gets playfulImagine: sharing a…

The ABCs of Adventuring

Thanks for this find, Mark Sample (via Twitter). The ABCs of Adventuringby Admiral Jota, Dylan O’Donnell, G. Kevin Wilson, and Dan Shiovitz.A is for Adventure, the first of them all;B is for Brass lantern, so you don’t take a fall.C is for Compass, an unseen one you keepD is for Drinking, eating and sleep.E is…

What Makes a Great Teacher?

Gripping story of an effort to use data to predict teaching excellence. As Teach for America began to identify exceptional teachers using this data, Farr began to watch them. He observed their classes, read their lesson plans, and talked to them about their teaching methods and beliefs. He and his colleagues surveyed Teach for America…

Why Google Has Become Microsoft's Evil Twin

Google Buzz combined the openness of Twitter with the “whoo-hoo look at me!” aspects of Facebook. The result? A total face plant. —PC World Similar:The Last Outpost (ST:TNG Rewatch. Season 1, Episode 4) Riker shouts from a cliff while Fer…Rewatching ST:TNG after about a 20-year …CultureRemember That Class Assignment I Hated? The One That Landed…

Critical Code Studies Working Group — Colossal Cave Adventure Annotation

This week, I’ll be facilitating a week-long collaborative annotation project, as part of the Critical Code Studies Working Group online conference, on the source code to Crowther’s original Colossal Cave Adventure (a classic text-only computer game from the 1970s). According to Donald Knuth, designer of the “literate programming paradigm,” Colossal Cave Adventure is the “ur-game…