Between 1990 and 2000, the over-all mean G.P.A. of high-school students increased from 2.68 to 2.94, which is attributable in part to grade inflation and in part to the fact that students are working harder. Last year, more than a million students took at least one A.P. course. During the nineteen-nineties, the percentage of students…
The educator’s anonymous Web log, set at an unnamed university “in the South,” spun tales of spoiled-rich “Ashleys” with their $500 sandals and $1,500 handbags, eating disorders, plagiarism and drug use, legal and illegal. “At this school it seems like every kid is on multiple medications,” the professor wrote, describing her charges as “barely literate,”…
There was one kid who always sat in the front row–let’s call him Fester–who recognized me right from the start of class because he’d read one of my short stories in a horror anthology. He was a horror fan. His story was also written from a passion, but I could tell that he truly set…
Check out the rather startling difference between the Atari 2600 title Jet Goblins Attack from 1980 and The Legend of Zelda just seven years later: The yellow block in the first screen is Batman. Now compare Goldeneye (1997) to Red Faction 2 (2004). Same seven-year span: We’re on a technological plateau. The next real leap,…
If the new consoles are built with a graphics-first mentality, how easy is it going to be to make games that stretch the boundaries of game logic and player freedom? And if so, can we at least have our damned adventure games back? But there’s another, less-obvious side of that muffin: if a machine is…
As these groups lose their remaining original members, others are on stages around the country are using their names, Porter said. Some groups claim an association with the originals, while others say they own the rights to use their titles. “Imposters bask in reflected glory. None contributed to the respected legacies that they claim to…
—Y! MIndset An interesting Yahoo! search engine that places “Shopping” and “Research” on opposite ends of a sliding scale, which you can adjust in order to change the weightings of of search results. Similar:Google 1407Philipp Lenssen and I had a bit of fun i…AestheticsMy students seem increasingly confused by the difference between journal title vs.…
Researchers and educators blame the gap between books and boys on everything from a built-in fidgetiness to low expectations to a lifelong association of reading with their mothers, teachers, librarians — all female role models. But now more are suggesting that the problem may not lie entirely within the boys themselves. Some educators believe that…
“People buy games for gameplay, not to hear voices,” counters Finlayson. “And technology creates gameplay, not actors. People who play these games understand that, and in fact, some gamers turn the volume down because (they) find those voices distracting. In film or television, the actor’s performance makes the experience. In video games, it does not.”…
Microsoft shouldn’t be hard to understand taking a cold, risky plunge for a taste of abalone many of the thousands of demonstrators in the city square cried – it was their first public forum in years behind failed Abu Ghraib plea internet attack is called broad and long-lasting a high-ranking Uzbek official said on condition…
Something important is happening in the world of journalism:. It’s an evolution from the lecture model, to which we in mass media have become accustomed in the past century, to something closer to a conversation. The shift stems from the collision of technology with media. This evolution is having an effect on all three major…
Rogers’ Predator is one of more than 1,200 UAVs in the US military arsenal; three years ago, there were fewer than 100 in the field. Today drones as small as a crow and as big as a Cessna are searching for roadside bombs, seeking out insurgents, and watching the backs of US troops. They’re cheap,…
Random things that I will not miss about high school: – listening to my classmates whine – my business law teacher parroting back everything I say in the form of a question – never getting any input on anything I turn in – disgusting bathrooms – listening to my male teachers flaunt their “big, tough…
Are you so alienated from nature that you can’t tell when a piece of fruit is ripe? Don’t worry, there‘sa new line of packaging that changes color when the fruit has reached palatability. Are you too tired to measure out coffee and then too impatient to wait eight minutes while your automatic drip machine brews…
Whether there is a subscription requirement or a Site Pass, there is still a wall around Salon’s content — and that means the blogosphere ignores it. Without this persistent cross-linking, relatively few read its words, and as history is being made — or Googled — every day, Salon’s footsteps in cyberspace become fainter and fainter.…
—Top 100 Speeches (American Rhetoric) Full-text of all, and audio versions of most. Part of a good collection of rhetoric links on Metafilter. Similar:The Wedding PresentI’m approaching day 900 in my Duolingo a…Culturexkcd: Pathogen ResistanceThis is just an excerpt. Read the whole …AmusingMore Fake News from the Biased Fake Crappy Bad MediaClearly the pesky reporters whom…
Murdered blogger’s last entry helps find killer (Suspect admits to the deed) Here’s his last entry. —Murdered Blogger’s Last Entry Helps Find Killer (Metafilter) The comments left on Metafilter add much more to the story than those left on the victim’s site. Similar:No space for over-30s as relaunched MySpace erases its pastKeep a local backup of…
An English teacher’s heart will go pitter-pat whenever he or she sees close engagement with the language of the text. That means reading every word: it’s not enough to have a vague sense of the plot. Maybe that sounds obvious, but few people pay serious attention to the words that make up every work of…
Between 4 and 4:45 p.m., the father gives you a great interview. His descriptions of his son are colorful, specific, and heartfelt. His overarching theme is the pride he feels for his son, and his stories all express this theme. In particular the father relates: A) How his son was searching for a purpose in…
Working on ”Drama as Literature” Syllabus (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) I’m working on my goals statement for a 200-level “Major Writers and Genres” course. I’m still working it out — the final version will be less chatty and more infused with academicspeak. The primary research method I teach in a survey course is close reading – the…