Field of Rainbows [Copyeditor's Make Mistake's Sometime's]

—Field of Rainbows [Copyeditor’s Make Mistake’s Sometime’s] (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) The caption should read “photographer’s shadow.” The mistake doesn’t come close to overshadowing the power of this great photo. Similar:Trump Fires Senior Adviser’s Son From Transition for Sharing Fake NewsTrump senior adviser’s son, who used a t…Current_EventsShakespeare on EclipsesPrepping for tomorrow’s first meeting of…AcademiaAP Style tips…

Nabokov will play you, fool

Maybe tomorrow I’ll think this is cute. In the meantime, I trust no one named Vladimir. God help me if I dream about this… —Karissa Kilgore —Nabokov will play you, fool (Sugarpacket) One of my students vents her frustration at being completely fooled during her first encounter with Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire. Similar:Journalists Verify ClaimsConfirm what…

Did You Learn Anything?

“To use the Minute Paper,” Angelo and Cross write, “an instructor stops class two or three minutes early and asks students to respond briefly to some variation on the following two questions: ‘What was the most important thing you learned during this class?’ and ‘What important question remains unanswered?’ Students then write their responses on…

Teaching Without Textbooks

Here’s the dirty secret that you’ll never see printed in a publisher’s glossy promo material: Every textbook on the market is a crashing bore to read. All the publishers will assure you that they’ve added special features designed to attract today’s young people and that the prose is lively and engaging. Yeah, right. The colorful…

Darth Vader being a smartass

—Darth Vader being a smartass (YouTube) Similar:UChicago College Admissions, Indiana Jones Mystery PackageWhat we know: The package contained an i…AcademiaSupport the arts in your community! @geyer_pac Hello Dolly!AmusingMy mom’s Lionel train set (a gift from her father in 1948) had been in storage for 35 year… My mother wants me to thank John at …AestheticsLeonard Nimoy,…

XYZZY Awards 2006

—XYZZY Awards 2006 (IF Wiki) The XYZZY Awards are the Oscars of the Interactive Fiction community. I’m usually watching the kids on the weekend when the awards ceremony is held, but I always enjoy reading the transcript. The winner of Best Game is The Elysium Enigma. Similar:Fox News, accused of manipulating news images, relabels them as…

Edible Chess

Chess pastry cutters handmade in brass by Biggles to celebrate the first year of Ms Sophie Sarin’s “Thursday Chess Club”. Each piece can be made into biscuits. Not only do you have the satisfaction of taking a piece, but you can eat it as well! —Edible Chess (Biggles) They are advertised as “one of a kind”…

Herding the Mob

Today we harness the masses for everything from choosing the next pop star on American Idol to perfecting open source software and assembling Wikipedia articles. But perhaps the most widespread and vital uses for group input online are in scoring systems. In addition to eBay feedback, these are the customer ratings that Amazon.com and Yahoo…

Career Crisis #2 (of 2)

Caring is easy. Keeping students engaged and operating at full capacity over a two-hour block is difficult. Serving every student the highly specific smoothie of success and failure — just enough success to encourage them, just enough failure to challenge them — is difficult. —Dan Meyer —Career Crisis #2 (of 2) (DY/DAN) A response to the…