Content rules. It did ten years ago, and it does today. People don’t use things they don’t understand. Writing for the Web is still undervalued, and most sites spend too few resources refining the information they offer to users. Jakob Nielsen —Growing a Business Website: Fix the Basics First (Alertbox) Similar:"What Teachers Make" Sequence of AssignmentsEvery…
Rather than the familiar panels consisting of three 15-20 minute papers, a pitcher of water, and a brief Q&A (time permitting), these meetings were structured as “electronic poster sessions.” Multiple presenters stationed around the perimeter of the room in front of easel displays and laptop computers demonstrated their projects and spoke to anyone who stopped…
Half-Life 2 Mod: Week 6 – Switchable Chandeliers, Automatic Sliding Doors, Railings, Carpet (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) This was a tremendously productive weekend. After helping two fellow interactive fiction fans finish a proposal for next year’s MLA, I tackled a few things I had been meaning to get to for a while. The first picture shows the…
The complex choices facing leaders in the Middle East have long confounded observers. But two graduate students at Carnegie Mellon University are hoping their video game based on the conflict will help players find solutions _ and raise capital for their new company. Asi Burak and Eric Brown, along with a team of fellowr students,…
“It must be true. I read it on the internet.” Au contraire, mon frere. Internet hoaxes have been around for as long as the internet itself, and we never run out of people willing to fall for them. —10 Best Internet Spoofs Similar:Diaper Money Camaro Comes Home Four Decades Later“While my dad has always spoken…
6. Adventure Microsoft (1972) —Top 10 adventure games of the 20th century (Adventure Classic Gaming) What the hell? Microsoft didn’t even exist in 1972. Similar:Media Bias Chart version 10 — Left / Center / Right; Fact vs Fabrication; (Ad Fontes Medi…The very useful “media bias chart” is on…CultureA Career-Aligned Major Isn’t EnoughI’ve taken over teaching the…
All code operations, despite their metaphoric faculties such as “call” or “return”, come down to absolutely local string manipulations and that is, I am afraid, to signifiers of voltage differences. Formalization in Hilbert’s sense does away with theory itself, insofar as “the theory is no longer a system of meaningful propositions, but one of sentences…
As children, we spend much of our time in imaginary worlds, substituting toys and make-believe for the real surroundings that we are just beginning to explore and understand. As we play, we learn. And as we grow, our play gets more complicated. We add rules and goals. The result is something we call games. Now…
Your pictures fill my weekday world at five. The yellow crime tape flutters at the scene Of yesterday’s event. You’re there, on screen, Square-jaw’d Slick Goodhair, you’re reporting live. But first, “Are you depress’d? Or weak, or dumb? This pill, this car, this show, this boy, this chick, This beer, this low-carb pizza on a…
Fine example of a WW II Enigma cipher machine in a very good condition and a great history; full functional. Year of construction 1941 by Manufacturer Chiffriermaschinen Gesellschaft Heimsoeth and Rinke, Berlin. The Enigma machine is placed in an oak woodwork case. Three high-quality, all-metal, matched rotors and an Umkehrwalze ?B?. The rotors are continuous…
Still unconvinced of my suitability, he reminded me that the job involved backbreaking work and that the average person could not hack it. He warned me that I would leave the job daily with various aches and pains. I countered that I worked out regularly and that I was not afraid of a strenuous job,…
Universities and colleges, including my own, have made retention a priority, encouraging faculty members to rethink what they do in order to foster student success. However, this is only half the effort needed, and may come too late for many students. Like the musical Chicago’s Velma Kelly, colleges and universities cannot be a one-person act…
Professor June Entman says her main concern is that students are so busy keyboarding they can’t think and analyze what she’s telling them. […] Student Cory Winsett says if he must continue without his laptop, he’ll transfer to another school. —Law Professor Bans Laptops in Class (AP) Similar:The school mocked. I turtled.Draft: “As my classmates tormented,…
The 10-year-old winner of a children’s poetry competition had to hand back her prize money after newspaper readers noticed that her poem was the work of a well known writer. “It’s a mini drama for her. She did not realize it had been written by someone else,” a member of the competition jury said Tuesday.…
Because I was away at a conference all week, I didn’t have much time. I had already found some good trees and begun work on the ceiling of my test room, but I figured I had played with that test room enough. But in about four hours today, I created this room from scratch. The…
The decline of handwriting and the rise of e-mail and text messaging has been highlighted in a new survey of media consumption in the digital age. It suggests that half of written communication is by e-mail, 29% by text message and just 13% by pen and paper. —E-mail and text ‘replace writing’ (BBC) But take a…
Calling All Bloggers (CCCC 2006 Chicago — Day 3) Mike Edwards and Clancy Ratliffe led a very productive special interest group on weblogs. The project I had agreed to work on last year, seeking NCTE support for proposing some sort of official statement about the professional and pedagogial value of weblogs, fizzled. The NCTE had its…
Imagining a Transformed Reality: On the Web, Over the Airwaves, Around the Globe (CCCC 2006 Chicago — Day 3) In this panel, three experienced comp instructors from the University of Arkansas, Little Rock report their experiences getting students to think outside the box. The presenters asked everyone to pull their chairs into a circle, and in…
Changing Literacies/Changing Mindsets: Communicating Across Digital Difference (CCCC 2006 Chicago — Day 3) I had written a different session down in my conference planner, but I’m glad I want to this one. Sally Chandler brought two of her undergraduate students from Kean University, and together they presented what they learned about the nature of research with…
The History of the Future of Writing (CCCC 2006 Chicago — Day 3) These are rough notes, typed as the presenters were speaking, and lightly edited back in my hotel room before being posted online. Helen J. Burgess Washington State University. “Whatever Happened to My MOO?” Administered Appalachia Moo, had fun building and coding, “absolutely no…