Things We Believe
I received a great gift at the end of 2025 from my friend, Lynne. To celebrate my retirement, she gave me a Storyworth memoir. Each week for a year, Storyworth…
Obsession, Learning, and Teaching
I didn't write a single blog post during the Fall semester. My blog post from the end of July gives a little bit of a hint about the reason. In…
Making Meaning in Gen Ed via Thematic Pathways
We are continuing to work on The Four Tools of Clusters at Plymouth State University. Thematic pathways in the General Education program is the tool that is the most challenging…
Understanding the Habits of Mind
A major goal of our Tackling a Wicked Problem class is to introduce students to our General Education program's Habits of Mind, which are the learning outcomes of the program. Understanding…
Edward Tufte: Visualizing Data
I went to a one day course in Boston at the end of October led by Edward Tufte, the author of many books on data and information visualization. I have long…
Making Things and Drawing Boundaries
If you read my About the Author page, you will see that I have a BA, an MS, and a PhD, all in Computer Science. What you won't see is…
Cluster General Education
I apologize for my silence for the last several weeks. The start of the semester was a particularly busy time with multiple days dedicated to chair responsibilities and University Day…
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…
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…
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…
We Are STILL Playing a Game
I recently wrote a blog entry in response to Caroline Bender's question about the Scrabble game we were playing online. Since we have different motivations for playing Scrabble, Ms. Bender…
Popular Culture and TIA
I just finished watching the five episodes of the BBC miniseries The Last Enemy. Ann had recommended it because it is about computers and privacy and also because Benedict Cumberbatch (of recent…
Zero Views
Recently, my favorite NPR show, On the Media, had a story about an interesting blog called Zero Views. The blog celebrates "the best of the bottom of the barrel" by posting…
Original Research–Good or Bad?
I recently rewatched Julia, the 1977 film starring Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave. It is based on a chapter in Lillian Hellman's memoir, Pentimento: A Book of Portraits. That chapter tells…
Increase Your Probabilistic Inference Skills
The latest salvo in the "games good for you" vs. "games bad for you" debate has been fired. For now, it seems that games are good for you. Researchers at…
Mad Men Mixed Media
Mad Men is one of the most interesting shows on television right now. The characters continue to reveal layers of complexity into the show's third season. The early 1960's setting…
New Ways of Thinking
A year or two ago, in one of my classes at the InterLakes Senior Center, a man asked me how he could get a copy of the information he finds…
The Post In Which I Get Philosophical
Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I am an agnostic. So it might be a surprise to learn that this post was inspired by a sign on a church. …
FaceBook Profile Pictures
The BBC is sponsoring a very cool project to get people excited about science. It's called So You Want To Be a Scientist. Over 1300 people submitted ideas for scientific questions…
Pattern Recognition and Pseudo-Security
One of my favorite shows on NPR is On The Media. Each week, the hosts examine a variety of topics related to the media, mostly in the US. I hear…
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