Unnaturally Speaking

In Dragon’s Looking Glass world, inanimate objects speak in tongues; cups, saucers, hammers, and styrofoam are endowed with the gift of speech; and the babble of a brook is literal, not metaphorical. It’s personification (and heteroglossia) taken to an extreme. It strikes me that this peculiar propensity for hearing the cacophony of voices in anything…

A Tree-Mail 'Thank You'

A Tree-Mail ‘Thank You’Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) Sometimes, even for a cyber-guy like me, an old-fashioned, hand-crafted “Thank You” note just makes it all worthwhile. From my former student Kirsten Schubert, who really knows how to make a fellow feel appreciated. You’re very welcome, Kirsten! Similar:Contemptible and Exploitive “Share if You’re Not Ashamed of Me” Facebook…

On Instructional Technology and Face-to-Face Interaction

Similar:LEGO turned itself around by analyzing overbearing parents[C]hildren play to get oxygen, to unders…CultureChatGPT took their jobs. Now they walk dogs and fix air conditioners.“In every previous automation threat, th…Business‘I saw the possibility of what could be done – so I did it’: revolutionary video game The ….. Realising that statistics wasn’t for…CybercultureThe End of…

Princeton faculty approves grade-rationing plan

Under the guidelines, which go into effect in the fall for Princeton’s 4,600 undergraduates, faculty are expected to restrict the number of A’s to 35 percent in undergraduate courses; for junior and senior independent work, the percentage receiving A’s will be capped at 55 percent. —Princeton faculty approves grade-rationing plan (CBS/AP) Similar:People Thought an AI Was…

Primetime Cheating

—Primetime Cheating (Pedablogue) My colleague Mike Arnzen has already created the blog entry I was about to create, so I’ll just link to him. Similar:Prime Stage Theatre Makes A Statement With Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”  For Carolyn Jerz, who plays Viol…CultureRIP Flash: Why HTML5 Will Finally Take Over Video and Web in 2014I am not a fan…

More Blog. Less Talk.

Complaints I often hear around campus (our students don’t read/write) are turned on their head when we see the kinds of writing circulating around the economy of expression called the Web. Not everyone‘sthere yet, but many are; many we don’t realize are our the students in first year writing sitting there bored because of some…

Whatever happened to Dungeons and Dragons?

In the 1980s millions of teenagers world-wide would battle dragons armed with just dice, paper and pens. D&D became part of youth sub-culture but as the game celebrates its 30th birthday, is anyone still playing? —Darren Water —Whatever happened to Dungeons and Dragons? (BBC) Similar:Rip Van WinkleCertain it is, that he was a great favor…AcademiaHow Technology…

Montfort on Narratology vs. Ludology

Colorado-based independent scholar Marie-Laure Ryan, author of Narrative as Virtual Reality and editor, most recently, of Narrative across Media: The Languages of Storytelling, who has offered comments here at GTxA, spoke about the ludology vs. narratology debate, admitting that she was preaching to the converted, not to the heathens… She took on the anti-narrativst arguments…

The PageRank 100 Incident

PageRank 100. Apparently, his little blog achieved a PageRank of 100. And after a coffee, Josh realized what this must mean. He called up one of his friends, a search engine affiniciado who took computer class. Matt arrived quickly, because he too never saw anything like this, and equally quickly Matt checked the rankings for…

Physics Goes to Hollywood

What do films like Independence Day, Armageddon and X-Men have in common? The answer is that apart from costing millions of dollars to make, they all feature in a new course called Physics in Films that is being taught to students at the University of Central Florida. Costas Efthimiou, the mathematical physicist who teaches the…

Articles on the Cherry Sisters

Effie is an old jade of 50 summers, Jessie a frisky filly of 40, and Addie, the flower of the family, a capering monstrosity of 35. Their long, skinny arms, equipped with talons at the extremities, swung mechanically, and soon were waved frantically at the suffering spectators. The mouths of their rancid features opened like…