When is Failure Really Failure?
If you are involved in higher education in any way, you have heard about Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). I first heard of them back in the Fall of 2011…
Whistle-blowers
Two whistle-blowers are in the news today: Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden. Manning is the Army soldier who was convicted yesterday of 17 of the 22 counts against him. He…
Unconventional Play
My aunt sent me a link to a Forbes Magazine online article about Words With Friends, Zynga's Scrabble rip-off. (An aside: I got sidetracked by the fact that Zynga's business…
Gamification and Education
A trending buzzword in today's digital culture is gamification. According to most sources on the Internet, the term was coined in 2004 by Nick Pelling, a UK-based business consultant who…
Software Controls Users
I'm often surprised that some of the most valuable lessons I learned back in the late 1980's have not become standard practice in software development. Back then, I worked for…
A Possible Return
I have been away for an entire academic year. It was my intention this year to find time to regularly write entries about various technology and society issues. But it…
Communicating for Change
The university where I work, like most universities, is facing significant challenges from multiple fronts. To meet these challenges, we're finding that we need to change the way we do…
The Olympics, Technology and “Reality”
The 2012 Summer Olympics are nearly over. I haven't watched them much, mostly because I can't stand the way they are covered by NBC and its affiliates, especially in prime…
Health Care, RFIDs and Politics
Quite a lot of people hate "Obamacare" which is otherwise known as the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act. And there are indeed things to hate about the law. For example,…
Email: Buried Alive
I became the chair of my department a little over a year ago and within a few months, I found myself completely overwhelmed by email. Emails started to get buried…
Prometheus or Misogyny on a Space Ship
I went to see Prometheus last week with some good friends. I had been eagerly anticipating the film, both because it has a great cast and because I LOVED the…
Interaction Design
I'm reading an interesting book by Janet Murray called Inventing the Medium: Principles of Interaction Design as a Cultural Practice. She is articulating things that I've thought for a long…
Magical Thinking
You probably haven't noticed that I've been away for awhile. But I have. In fact, this is my first post of 2012. I have no excuse other than to say…
The Problem with Educational Technology
I don't think anyone would accuse me of being a Luddite. I began to learn to program in the late 1970's when I was in high school, majored in computer…
Software Development and the User
I've been thinking about software usability a lot lately, mostly because I encounter so much software that isn't particularly usable. There are two pieces of software that I use a…
Play, Standardized Testing and Wall Street
A student from my Creating Games class came to my office today to talk about the keynote speech from a conference he had recently attended. The speaker was lamenting the…
Qwikster Part II
Although it is not a personal email written by founder and President of Netflix Reed Hastings, I was happy to receive the following email this morning. Perhaps "the Netflix team"…
Quikster
Like all Netflix subscribers, I received an email from Netflix founder Reed Hastings this morning. I will post my comments on their blog but I also decided to post the…
Technology in Education
I just got back from a three day workshop on academic technology. As a computer scientist, I was intrigued by the idea of this workshop but I was worried that…
Tumblr Review–Part 2
It has taken me more than a month and a half to write the second part of this review. I think it's because I said in my last post that…
