Monthly Archives: December 2011

Mechanical Turks and Mirror Stages

I like this essay by John Jones about search algorithms, which he compares to “mechanical Turk” automatons of the 18th Century. It’s a point that’s well-understood in some circles and completely not in others. Witness the degree to which users … Continue reading

Posted in Digital Humanities, Information Technology and Information Literacy, Oh Not Again He's Going to Tell Us It's a Complex System | 2 Comments

On Not Going Back to School

I think I’ll toss in a bit for Kio Stark’s Kickstarter project Don’t Go Back to School, that aims to be a how-to guide for independent learning. What Stark is planning to argue (and enable) connects to one of the … Continue reading

Posted in Academia | 13 Comments

The Movement of Students

For various reasons, I’ve found myself this semester talking with colleagues about the migration of students through our curriculum: the courses where they busily cluster, the lonely cobwebbed courses, the majors and courses that follow regular oscillating cycles of interest. … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Swarthmore | 8 Comments