During play, the screen background was solid black with a white border, with one color line representing each player. We displayed the game score in a horizontal strip at the bottom of the screen. It wasn’t the most graphically advanced program, but it was simple and fun. It looked something like this: […] “Both the…
A few weeks ago, one of my local papers, the Tribune-Review, implemented a little JavaScript magic to try to hide its advertisements from the ad-blocking software I use. That means my ad-blocker didn’t recognize some of the advertising cruft, so it let it pass through the filter, and the news pages suddenly started skipping and…
Men at fortyLearn to close softlyThe doors to rooms they will not beComing back to. At rest on a stair landing,They feel it movingBeneath them now like the deck of a ship,Though the swell is gentle. And deep in mirrorsThey rediscoverThe face of the boy as he practises tyingHis father’s tie there in secret And…
You already know a different way of looking at the familiar. Similar:Big Calculator: How Texas Instruments Monopolized Math ClassMy math education predated the widesprea…BusinessMeet the guys who tape Trump's papers back togetherI tell this old newsroom tale to my stud…CultureMy mentor interrupted me. “Ignore your students from the neck down,” she said.Early in my teaching…
Thanks to Nick Montfort for posting this gem: Posted by Stephen Totilo on 10/8/08 at 12:00 pm. “Lost” creator J.J. Abrams may not have have felt like explaining the smoke monster to MTV News movies reporter Josh Horowitz during an interview taped a few feet from my desk last week. But he both offered to…
Seton Hill recently won a multimillion dollar instruction technology grant, part of which includes funding for a new technology specialist (which will become a permanent job when the grant ends). In helping to write the job notice, I drafted the “you-attitude” paragraphs, with the references to Bioshock and lolcats. Our grant will fund the creation…
I’m saving this for the next time I talk to my journalism students about surveys. Language Log. Do you think surveys asking for people’s opinions about the way things are, rather than verifiable things they have done, are an even more extreme form of stupidity, resulting in nonsense like “43% of employees believe managers may…
In a Ph.D. thesis called “The Paradox of the Guided User,” a dutch researcher examined the productivity of users who were dependent on computers, and users who had a pen-and-paper alternative. The article doesn’t link to the full dissertation, so it’s risky to extrapolate beyond the quotes in the article, so I’ll just repeat a…
That’s the story that’s been set up for the player to experience, and he travels along that path like a tourist on a Disneyland ride. However much choice the player seems to have in between these story checkpoints, the overall path of the game is geometrically equivalent to those of film or theater or books.…
My provost just sent some of my colleagues a link to this article on games and literacy: But doubtful teachers and literacy experts question how effective it is to use an overwhelmingly visual medium to connect youngsters to the written word. They suggest that while a handful of players might be motivated to pick up…
Beautiful, beautiful 1980s introduction to “sophisticated word-processor” technology. Similar:When a Textbook Plagiarizes Your Student's WorkIn a few days I’ll be gearing up to teac…AcademiaStudents must learn how to get things wrong. Only one subject does that. [English.]I invest a lot of energy asking my colle…AcademiaPhoto of William Crowther, 2012I just noticed that a few days…
My student Dani Choynowski, a double-major in new media journalism and theatre, is a very busy woman. She’s getting top-notch grades in two challenging majors, her hand is usually the first one up during workshops or discussions, and she’s always ready with some connection to the world of theater or Harry Potter. Last semester, as…
I just attended an inspiring talk by Benjamin Ajak (one of the Sudanese “Lost Boys”) and Judy Bernstein, who collaborated with Alephonsion Deng and Benson Deng to write They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky, which was SHU’s summer reading book. “Education is the power of the world.” “When I tell my story,…
A journalism student at NYU published a Generation Y-ney piece on PBS’s MediaShift. The first thing I notice when I walk into the class is that there are 14 girls and two boys. Already NYU is dominated by females, but the journalism department is exceptionally estrogen-infested. Professor Quigley begins by explaining how blogs are becoming…
I turned into a bobble-head doll, nodding, nodding, nodding, while reading this excerpt. I’ve already requested it for the library. We are at a crossroads. There are two possible paths before us–one in which we destroy what is great about the Internet and about how young people use it, and one in which we make…
‘Hi YouTube, it’s me, Kiki,” the teenager said to the camera as she swiveled in her chair to jazzy background music. ”And today I’m going to show you how to cheat on a test – the effective way.” She demonstrates her technique, slipping a small piece of paper with the answers in a clear-tubed pen…
>get games Similar:Thank You, Verizon, for this Confusing ScreenA few weeks ago, I had to get a new cred…BusinessChurnalism SearchAt the University of Virginia, one summe…CultureMy copy of Plotkin's Hadean Lands arrived today. Current_EventsHow journalists can prep for a possible violent eventJournalists face a unique threat when co…CultureHow it feels to watch a user test your…
Via Crooked Timber and BoingBoing: Thomson Reuters demands $10 million and an injunction to stop George Mason University from distributing its new Web browser application, Zotero software, an open-source format that allows users to convert Reuters’ EndNote Software. Reuters claims George Mason is violating its license agreement and destroying the EndNote customer base. (Courthouse News)…
Every door on every floor is closed, whether or not students are present. This seems so different from my days as a student, when you always left your door open if you were in, I suppose to signal your willingness to talk and to avoid homework if you could just find the smallest pretext to…
When I first introduced my Seton Hill students to blogging in 2003, before Facebook had mainstreamed social networking into a neatly wrapped package, my students posted a mixture of personal and academic material. Now that even my committed bloggers do most of their social networking elsewhere, I have started pitching the academic blogs as a…