“You are standing in the middle of a pretty town square in the center of a nondescript English town. Like most any other non-descript English towns, there’s not much to see or do here, but maybe you’ll find something amusing and enjoyable to do. A shiny metal phone booth sits in the center of the…
Blogging is good. So is school. This we know. And when you put them together, they create something even better. This is the main point in Terra Williams and Charles Lowe’s article, Moving to the Public: Weblogs in the Writing Classroom. The article makes the argument that blogging can be an effective classroom tool. I…
I hate it when people say I was exploited. If language really does have power, then calling me exploited turns me into a powerless cog in a brutal machine. I’d rather be called a fool. At least that leaves open the possibility that I am in control of my own life, however irrational my choices…
Nerds serve two masters. They want to be popular, certainly, but they want even more to be smart. And popularity is not something you can do in your spare time, not in the fiercely competitive environment of an American secondary school. —Paul Graham —Why Nerds are Unpopular (Wired) This popular raced through the blogging community back…
On other occasions, students have surfed the Net during class and found Web sites that supplement the discussion – though Jones also jokes that he’s never had his students’ undivided attention thanks to the laptops, cell phones and other gizmos they carry. “There is a real power there, a kind of technological power. But also…
Young people may know that just because information is plentiful online doesn’t mean it’s reliable, yet their perceptions of what’s trustworthy frequently differ from their elders’ – sparking a larger debate about what constitutes truth in the Internet age. Georgia Tech professor Amy Bruckman tried to force students to leave their computers by requiring at…
Collier has never met most of his guild mates in person, but he knows two of them very well. They are his roommates, Adam Traum and Owen Nelson, both buddies he met in art school in Florida a few years back who are now his compadres in the real and virtual worlds. In real life,…
We are currently paying a large amount of money to attend this University and receive an education. If I have paid to be taught something, shouldn’t there be a repercussion for the teacher rather than, or at least as well as, the student when knowledge has not been taught? —Ailee Slater —Grading system gets an…
From a sample of 175,000 15-year-old students in 31 countries, researchers at the University of Munich announced in November that performance in math and reading had suffered significantly among students who have more than one computer at home. And while students seemed to benefit from limited use of computers at school, those who used them…
Dude, you’ve got to read this. A linguist from the University of Pittsburgh has published a scholarly paper deconstructing and deciphering the word “dude,” contending it is much more than a catchall for lazy, inarticulate surfers, skaters, slackers and teenagers…. Kiesling says in the fall edition of American Speech that the word derives its power…
For a librarian who has even a modest sense of either posterity or professional responsibility, entertaining any thoughts about a decline in the importance of books is painful. After all, books are how we speak to one another across generations, and one of the ways we can subvert the limitations of culture, class, gender, and…
The last 200 years have driven centralization and changed the human experience in ways that conflict with evolution. The Internet will reestablish a more balanced, decentralized lifestyle. —Jakob Nielsen —Undoing the Industrial Revolution (Alertbox) Similar:MisSpelled: Premiering Oct 1In this podcast series, I voice a mage w…AmusingOriginal Mickey Mouse Character Enters Public Domain in 2024As a grad…
In the universal, ritualistic adulation, it was no surprise that Google’s latest service received publicity that was as wide as it was shallow. The blogorrhea and avalanche of e-mail was as if a free, magical cure for cancer had been announced by the National Institutes of Health. I like and use Google a lot, but…
The Sims 2 now has a patch that fixes a few bugs. If only real life was debuggable like this. Here’s a few highlights: Fixes a problem with Sims’ jobs not functioning properly when 3 or more Sims go to work in a helicopter. Visitors will no longer kidnap a baby or toddler by leaving…
They reported that the more someone heads a soccer ball, the lower that player will score on tests measuring attention, concentration, and general intellectual functioning. Lezak is unsurprised. “I know what happens when you bat on the brain,” she says. “Given what we know about boxing, it would have been surprising if we hadn’t found…
Minorities who complain of underrepresentation might want to consider this still rather arcane problem. Television doesn’t just represent you; it usurps you. In this respect, to be underrepresented might be seen as a kind of privilege. It means that those bright and literate tv people haven’t really discovered you yet and set you going like…
In August of 2003, I spent $280 on X-rays and $400 on laptop repairs. I was in between fellowships and had no health insurance. I had slid down the steps of my charming two-floor walkup, resulting in an injury to my arm and, more painfully, damage to computer files containing my dissertation-research notes. Those charges…
Santa, enraged, kills Ensign Jones and attacks the Enterprise in his sleigh. As Scotty works to keep the power flowing to the shields, Kirk and Bones infiltrate Santa’s headquarters. With the help of the comely and lonely Mrs. Claus, Kirk is led to the heart of the workshop, where he learns the truth: Santa is…
At home, dads read to their daughters and throw footballs to their sons. In elementary school overwhelmingly female teaching staffs naturally teach in ways that connect better with girls. Fidgety boys are quickly defined as suffering from reading disabilities. In middle school, teachers – still unattuned to the boys’ disadvantages – take no action to…
—MSN Spaces = soylent green (BoingBoing) A good introduction to the online reaction to MSN Spaces, Microsoft’s new blogging service. Note particularly the terms of service that says anything you post using the service becomes a product that MSN can sell without reimbursing you. Similar:C.S. Lewis: "On the Reading of Old Books"Gearing up for teaching a…