Category Archives: Learning

A video to prompt playtime memories

Posted on December 4, 2019 by

WIRED (which styles itself with all capital letters) just posted this 40-minute video on its YouTube channel, featuring commentary from the chief curator at the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, about the most popular toys each year … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Learning, Popular culture | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Better research using Google’s lesser-known search tools

Posted on September 27, 2019 by

Research is so boring. Except when you find amazing stuff that totally elevates your work. Then it’s actually cool. People like learning new things, gaining new insights, pulling back the curtain to see who’s really pulling the levers behind the … Continue reading →

Posted in Higher education, Learning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The individual vs. society – Joseph Campbell, Gandhi, and JFK weigh in

Posted on June 14, 2019 by

I’m cleaning out my office today, throwing out old student papers and old lecture notes from courses I no longer teach. One of the files I came across was from a one-off class on mythology that I taught in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Books and reading, History, Learning, Life, Political Analysis, WPLongform (posts of 1000 words or longer) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

What’s in a tagline? My blog’s identity: Version 4.0

Posted on April 4, 2019 by

I’m developing a new course at MSOE called “SS 3700 Digital Society.” To say I’m excited is to understate my enthusiasm for this topic. As a political science major who took computer programming classes in the late 1970s using a … Continue reading →

Posted in Higher education, Learning, Life, Popular culture, Science, Teaching, Technology, Writing, blogging | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Gaining clarity from a second look around

Posted on October 23, 2018 by

So about three weeks ago I posted this photo: One of the things I liked about it was the crisscrossed bands of shadows across the lawn. I assumed it came from the sun shining through the mall of trees on … Continue reading →

Posted in Learning, Life, Milwaukee, Photography | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

A “Ha-Ha” Aha

Posted on October 10, 2018 by

In reading a book recently, I came across a reference to something I’d never heard of before: a “ha-ha.” This turned out to be a fun little piece of landscape trivia to learn about. A ha-ha is a feature of … Continue reading →

Posted in architecture, Books and reading, Creativity, Learning, Life, Nature | Tagged , | 6 Comments

YouTube: In the Beginning

Posted on April 12, 2018 by

I’m teaching a mass media course this quarter, and while doing class prep recently, I needed to look at something in the internet archive, aka the “Wayback Machine.” (Wikipedia article here) Have you used this super cool  site before? You … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, History, Learning, Life, Popular culture, Television | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Won’t you be my neighbor?

Posted on February 19, 2018 by

Fifty years ago today “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” the most caring children’s television show ever, made its debut. You’ve probably seen this before, but it’s worth watching again: Fred Rogers testifying before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications in 1969 in support … Continue reading →

Posted in Learning, Life, Popular culture, Teaching, Television | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Unleashing the potential of VR (virtual reality)

Posted on January 10, 2018 by

Virtual reality (VR) is going to shape itself into an art form that is quite different from contemporary cinema. We can’t really predict yet how things will turn out, although my bet is that movies as we know them are here … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Learning, Life, Movies and film, News, Popular culture, Teaching, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Cool Google Docs “Insert Symbol” Feature

Posted on January 6, 2018 by

I was just working on something in Google Docs and needed to insert a letter “a” with a circumflex. I clicked on “insert symbol” and searched for “a,” but none of the options were what I needed. Then I noticed … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Grammar, punctuation, usage, mechanics, Learning, Technology, Writing, blogging | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments