I do teach a number of very practical courses, but my overall goal as a teacher is not to train students to use any particular software that might be in demand; rather, my goal is to train students to solve problems, deal with the unexpected, etc. Those skills will help them get internships, which in…
Tucked away in this article on how to avoid being a helicopter parent is a little soliloquy on how a student’s use of a highlighter mirrors his or her intellectual growth. (In my freshman writing class, I usually make a big show, in the first week or two, of throwing one student’s highlighter out into the…
I had an epic, hour-long meeting with three student journalism leaders. Synergy! Opportunity! Ambition! Risk! I’m so glad to see their eagerness and their dedication. Looking forward to what another semester will bring.
The Internet, it seems, is contributing to the polarization of America, as people surround themselves with people who think like them and hesitate to say anything different. Internet companies magnify the effect, by tweaking their algorithms to show us more content from people who are similar to us. —NYTimes.com.
It’s hard for me to think of Facebook as the “good guy” in any situation, but I am pleased to learn that FB is adjusting its algorithm to penalize click-bait headlines. A small set of publishers who are frequently posting links with click-bait headlines that many people don’t spend time reading after they click through…
GPAs and majors don’t matter to employers as much as internships, according to a survey conducted by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Of course, you need relevant coursework and good grades in order to land the best internships. Some key findings: Colleges and universities should seek to break down the false dichotomy of liberal arts and career…
Read the syllabus. Read the syllabus. Read the syllabus. Read the syllabus.
I find that re-watching this every year just before school starts is a great way to keep my energy up as I prep my classes.
Students often say they hate group work. I don’t attach a huge amount of points to group work, but I do ask them to collaborate on various projects. Learning how to deal with a team member who isn’t pulling his or her weight, or how to work with a take-charge person who tries to shut…
A US state has passed a law that will give the family of a deceased person access to their Twitter, Facebook and email accounts just as if they were physical assets. Delaware’s “Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets and Digital Accounts Act” grants heirs and the executor of the will the same powers over digital accounts…
[I]t turns out that Twitter is not just a place where scholars take notes publicly at conferences, it’s a medium that does a better job than most of including the voices of African Americans, and that matters. To a large extent what has been happening in Ferguson is the result of white folks’ near-total deafness…
She stopped liking, and started commenting. And maybe what she discovered is what old-timer bloggers remember the blogosphere being like before Facebook. Back in my day, we didn’t need someone else’s algorithm to show us what we were interested in. We clicked on insightful, valuable, and compelling comments to see what else the author had…
Confusing sometimes helps cats, so why not students? I’m afraid your cat badly needs to be confused. Confusion is a powerful force in education. It can send students reeling toward boredom and complacency. But being confused can also prompt students to work through impasses and arrive at a more nuanced understanding of the world. “Common…
Real journalism takes a look at that Huffington Post blog warning you that Facebook Messenger will summon intubation associates who will extract up to a pint of six different bodily fluids. And I, for one, welcome our Facebook overlords. One blog from the Huffington Post published in December has gone viral, making the rounds on…
The play that coined the word “robot,” Karel Capek’s R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), included violent robots, compassionate robots, and herd robots (who are content to be workers until incited by the violent robot leaders). This article explores a wide range of human responses to robots. Our expectations of robots and our response to their designs…
A closed-minded liberal writing a letter to the very liberal Village Voice receives a powerful dose of tolerance. Saving to show my students during a unit on developing an argument. The world isn’t being destroyed by democrats or republicans, red or blue, liberal or conservative, religious or atheist — the world is being destroyed by…
New Kindle Helps Readers Show Off By Shouting Title Of Book Loudly And Repeatedly
I feel a little nerdier than usual when I blog something related to typography, but A List Apart had a good one. Type and typography wouldn’t exist without our need to express and record information. Sure, we have other ways to do those things, like speech or imagery, but type is efficient, flexible, portable, and…
Hoaxes roam the Information Superhighway, camouflaged as factoids. Consider this one: “Amelia Bedelia was a maid in Cameroon.” The “Amelia Bedelia was a maid in Cameroon” factoid had been cited in a lesson plan by a Taiwanese English professor. It was cited in a book about Jews and Jesus. It was cited in innumerable blog posts and…