Jakob Nielsen: Print publications — from newspaper articles to marketing brochures — contain linear content that’s often consumed in a more relaxed setting and manner than the solution-hunting behavior that characterizes most high-value Web use. In print, you can spice up linear narrative with anecdotes and individual examples that support a storytelling approach to exposition.…
This morning in my mail I found an attractive printing of the proceedings from a January summit on journalism. All in all, this is a good print document that suffered when it was shoveled online. I have no idea what kind of time constraints or “it came to the boss in a dream so do…
Nicholas Carr, in The Atlantic: As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation….…
An amusing post from Language Log, about the ill wind that blows for people who trust their spell checkers too much. As you might have guessed, what Edwards actually said in the debate was “Highfalutin language is not enough.” The word highfalutin should be in any decent spellchecker’s wordlist, but if it is written as…
From Inside Higher Ed, an article about a Facebook app designed for college recruiters: The solution they came up with essentially offers a series of “challenges” to students interested in SUNY Plattsburgh. Each challenge requires them to upload video or photographic evidence that they fulfilled their mission, so to speak — anything from attending a…
Here’s a great idea to annoy your online readers while generating ad impressions. Take a random idea, come up with about 10 examples, find random stock images to illustrate the examples, and put one idea on each page, to force readers to click through each one. Boston.com has a collection posted under the title “Business…
Seton Hill recently unveiled a new home page. The internal pages all seem to be unchanged, so the changes were not radical, but they were welcome. I have a little quibble with this semi-transparent fold-up menu. The menu itself is a good idea, which lets the designers re-use the artwork created for our print and billboard…
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Wired: The U.S. Army Intelligence Center is using a custom game to train interrogators, or “human collectors,” as they are euphemistically known. Known by the staggering title of Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Tactical Proficiency Trainer Human Intelligence Control Cell, the simulation was designed by General Dynamics from the shooter Far Cry. The Army game features…
Inside Higher Ed: 1998 was the last time that John Gallaugher, an associate professor of information systems at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management, used a traditional print textbook. He assigned it to his graduate-level introductory course in information systems. The book cost about $150. He also assigned supplemental reading — trade press articles, online…
My former student Mike Rubino makes a good point about the encrustation of social networking icons that are clogging up the interfaces of content-rich websites. Now, instead of a website having the normal “E-mail this article”; “Print this article”; and the occasional “Digg this article” link, it’s got a slew of other services. You have…
The Smoking Gun has this snarky story… I’ve changed the inline links so that they point to The Smoking Gun, rather than to the photos the article mentions about): A Pittsburgh couple is suing Google for invasion of privacy, claiming that the web giant’s popular “Street View” mapping feature has made a photo of their…
I’ve been making an extra effort this year to create some new worksheets designed to teach basic, stand-alone concepts in my Introduction to Literary Study class. Here’s a new worksheet to help students write a sonnet. Below is the part they’re actually supposed to submit… after that I’ve included the text that explains the assignment.…
Blackboard, a company that sells popular course-management software, recently won a $3.1 settlement against Desire2Learn. According to Slashdot, Blackboard has been granted a patent that covers a single person having multiple roles in an LMS: for example, a TA might be a student in one class and an instructor in another. You wouldn’t think something…
For my “History and Future of the Book” course, I’ve been using a Kindle that my university library purchased on my request. Gizmodo has a good article on the digital rights associated with Kindle e-books. In the fine print that you “agree” to, Amazon and Sony say you just get a license to the e-books–you’re…
Lisa Zyga, Physorg.com: The basis of the 2×4-inch “Digital Tattoo Interface” is a Bluetooth device made of thin, flexible silicon and silicone. It´s inserted through a small incision as a tightly rolled tube, and then it unfurls beneath the skin to align between skin and muscle. Through the same incision, two small tubes on the…
I just noticed that Google Maps has added Greensburg to its street view service. How long has this been available? Here’s a look up Seton Hill’s lovely sycamore-lined driveway.View Larger Map Similar:How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled”I remember the first meeting where I ac…BusinessFree Game Friday: Text-Based Games 2012…
Jenna Wortham (Wired): Wednesday is International Delete Your MySpace Account Day, an online protest geared at uniting users eager to ditch the popular social networking site. Similar:Twitter changes strategy in battle against internet 'trolls'Reducing the reach of abusive tweets is …Business#MyNYPD Hashtag Promptly HijackedSomeone is regretting this PR move. …Current_EventsYou didn’t make the Harlem Shake…
The Lego brick system was patented 50 years ago today. Gizmodo offers this timeline. Similar:Remembering When Ice Cream Was, You Know, Ice Cream – NYTimes.comI’ll be alert, you be alert, for Breyers…BusinessStar Trek Graphic Design: Six journalists and surprising discoveries about their agency lo…After an intense 2 weeks prepping for fa…AestheticsReal college classes have writing…
I just got this e-mail. Scratch is an amazing tool designed to teach programming to kids. My nine-year-old loves it. I’m planning to use Scratch in my “New Media Projects” class next fall. Because of your interest in Scratch, we thought you would like to know about the Scratch@MIT conference that we are hosting next…