The New York Times front page yesterday sported an article with the oh-so-hip headline “Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?.” This turned out to be impressively stupid even by the standards of articles with clumsy slang in the headlines: Children like Nadia lie at the heart of a passionate debate about just what it… Continue reading Reading Is Reading, but Books Are Not Fungible
Category: Education
Sizzle: No Such Thing As Bad Publicity?
As you have no doubt noticed, my early-morning review of Randy Olson’s Sizzle was part of a concerted effort to get blogs to review the movie all on the same day. It’s an experiment of sorts in using blogs to promote the movie. Unfortunately for Olson, it seems to be an experiment designed to test… Continue reading Sizzle: No Such Thing As Bad Publicity?
Science Blogs: What Are They Good For?
Over at Science After Sunclipse, Blake has a very long post about the limitations of science blogs. Brian at Laelaps responds, and Tom at Swans On Tea agrees. You might be wondering whether I have an opinion on this. Since I’m going to be talking about it at a workshop in September (first talk, no… Continue reading Science Blogs: What Are They Good For?
Academic Poll: Have You Seen This Before?
A few days ago, some colleagues and I were discussing the year that just ended, and the curriculum in general, and the frequent lament about needing to repeat ourselves came up. Due to some quirks of our calendar, we have a lot of students taking courses out of sequence, and as a result, have to… Continue reading Academic Poll: Have You Seen This Before?
The Self-Justification of Elite Nerds
A bunch of academic bloggers have been talking about the American Scholar essay by William Deresiewicz. The always-perceptive Timothy Burke offers some insightful comments about the general problems of elite education. Burke is also a lot kinder to Deresiewicz than I’m inclined to be. Because, frankly, the piece pisses me off, from the very first… Continue reading The Self-Justification of Elite Nerds
Graduation Day
Another year in academia, another graduation ceremony. It poured for a lot of the day yesterday, so everybody was a little nervous coming in, but the weather turned out to be good– clear blue skies, a few puffy white clouds, and temperatures that were a little warm for sitting outside in long black robes, but… Continue reading Graduation Day
Fun With Thermal Resistance
In the last few weeks, I’ve been wrapping up E&M, which has included talking about Faraday’s Law and induced currents. I did the traditional demonstration using a PASCO ring launcher to demonstrate Lenz’s Law, showing that the induced current flows in a direction that creates a field opposing the change in magnetic flux. The ring… Continue reading Fun With Thermal Resistance
Calendrical Mismatch
I’m giving the last lecture of new material in my intro E&M class today, on Maxwell’s equations and electromagnetic waves. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been struck again by the way our trimester system (three ten-week terms, instead of two 15-week semesters) is a lousy match for the standard curricula. Or even new… Continue reading Calendrical Mismatch
Our Long National Nightmare is Over
I’ve written my last lecture for the first-year E&M class, and will be giving it at 10:30 this morning. (Friday’s class will be given over to exam review). The spring term, which had felt like it would stretch into July, is basically over. Oh, and some guy won an election.
Built On Facts
Every now and then, I look at the huge list of blogs and news sources in my RSS feeds, and say to myself “You really need to thin these out…” How can I make any progress, though, when there are always great new blogs being created? The latest new blog to ctach my interest and… Continue reading Built On Facts