Poems About Fathers

—Poems About Fathers (Poetry Foundation) Having a father and being a father, I found this page interesting. When my own daughter is a teenager, I might not like “Fifteen” as much as I do now. Similar:Parallel Structure vs. Faulty ParallelismI just touched up a handout on Parallel …HumanitiesDigital Humanities: A DefinitionDoes the world need another working…

Tools for Teaching Basic Programming Concepts

Tools for Teaching Basic Programming Concepts Alice and Scratch. Filing for future reference. Similar:Ice Cream and Sharks Scene: writing classroom.   …AcademiaListening to the Text: The Medieval Speech BubbleFrom a culture where silent reading was …AestheticsSchisms (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 5)Rewatching ST:TNG Riker is having troub…DesignThe girl was cast as Luciana (the younger…

Will you, won't you… Blackwell's Quadrille

Will you, won’t you… Blackwell’s Quadrille (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) “Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?” — Lewis Carroll’s “Lobster Quadrille” I just tried to order an examination copy of a book from Blackwell Publishing, and when I got what looked like an error message on the final screen (or…

Shakespeare hates your emo poems

—Shakespeare hates your emo poems (Threadless) Interesting cultural phenomenon… sell a T-shirt, then create a website that lets customers upload photos of themselves wearing the T-shirt. The result turns the rebellious and snarky T-shirt designs into the uniforms of conformist consumer zombies. Similar:Given a chance to explain his support for a YouTuber who warns about alien…

The civil war in four minutes

—The civil war in four minutes (YouTube) Similar:The magic of words opens a whole new world of funEmily Short’s work is always worth seeki…AestheticsThe Supreme Court could soon change the internet forever — here’s what you need to know There’s a history of case law protecting…CybercultureSurprise: Humanities Degrees Provide Great Return On InvestmentThe conventional wisdom is that…

PLAY-PEN: Games Due for a Lit Course

Modern interactive fiction, much more than its technically limited earlier counterparts, displays an incredible range of literary influences, tributes and styles. For Sherwin’s part, science fiction is an inspiration, but the greater part of his text adventures’ efficacy comes from the unique and anarchic style of his characters’ dialogue. “I have been greatly influenced by…

Deleted Scenes

—Deleted Scenes (StarTrekHistory.com) An awesome collection of painstakingly-restored still shots and script excerpts, from scenes that were filmed but never aired. Similar:Setonian Photo Editor Wins Second Place for News Photo in Pennsylvania Newspaper Associati… Setonian Photo Editor Wins Second …AcademiaJeff Bezos Plan for News: The Washington Post Becomes an Amazon ProductFor the past few months, a…

A Fair(y) Use Tale

—A Fair(y) Use Tale (YouTube) Amazing demonstration of creative repurposing of Disney’s copyrighted material. Similar:Another social media post attacks journalists for doing their jobs — Updated Elijah McCla…If you’ve been following the sad story o…Culture“I don’t know how that Jerz guy thinks he’s going to procure an entire library in the midd…“I don’t know how that…

Mastering podcasts with Audacity

Open source software makes podcasting easy — too easy. Listening to a playlist of first-timer podcasts can leave your ears ringing from sudden changes in playback volume. The problem is audio mastering. Recording sound is simple, but mastering that sound — compressing volume differences, maintaining a decibel ceiling, and similar operations — is anything but.…

Why We're Doing This

We know that pro-am journalism can work only if people are persuaded to give their time, lend their knowledge, pool their intelligence. Those are donations, but not of money. Often they are more critical than money. To succeed in this, we have to persuade several hundred people to donate good work to one big story…

Objections to Turnitin

We should be jumping for joy every time a student plagiarizes, because that means our existence as teachers of composition is validated, as we have something to teach them – citation, research, the need for critical thinking. We should get down on our knees and thank the Internet for making it easier to plagiarize, because…

Who Isn't Afraid of Google?

In this strange, strange tale the Davids are the size of companies like Microsoft and Yahoo, rumoured to be discussing an alliance to take on the search leader. The list of detractors is longer than other search providers, though; privacy experts, advertisers, startups, and Hollywood executives are all frustrated with the company for one reason…

Mixed Reception

This activity is set in a research group that is developing an antivenom for spider bites. In the opening scene, Nelson Pogline, a talented graduate student, dies unexpectedly at a university reception. As a detective, you must use chemistry concepts to determine if this was murder and if so, solve the case. You can interview…