Students fail at writing.

Approximate Reading Time: 2 minutes Students failing because of Twitter, texting – Canada – Canoe.ca “Thirty per cent of students who are admitted are not able to pass at a minimum level,” says Ann Barrett, managing director of the English language proficiency exam at Waterloo … Continue reading

Fun with Google Docs (Part 1)

Approximate Reading Time: 4 minutes OK, this is just too much fun. It also has the potential to shift how we work together in some interesting and fundamental ways. This is the first of a multi-part post outlining my experiences with Google Docs in the … Continue reading

Teaching Introductory Programming: We’re Doing It Wrong (still)

Approximate Reading Time: 3 minutes I just read Mark Guzdial’s excellent post on some of what’s wrong with how we teach introductory programming courses. Question Everything: How We Teach Intro CS is Wrong The notion that we should be modeling expert behaviour when teaching programming is … Continue reading

All Videogames, All the Time?

Approximate Reading Time: < 1 minute Now, I’m a big fan of Serious Games, but I’m also quite sure that this is one of those cases where more is not necessarily better. What is important is balance. I suppose it may be difficult to make sure … Continue reading

On Schools of CS using only “useful” laguages…

Approximate Reading Time: 4 minutes This is an older post I’ve been hanging on to, and since I have forgotten why I was hanging on to it, I no longer see any reason to keep it private. This stems from a post Mark Guzdial did … Continue reading

In Class Laptop Use Shown to Lower Test Scores…

Approximate Reading Time: 3 minutes Intellagirl posted a note about this article today and I was curious, so I read it too… She suggested that the article had entirely missed the point, and she is absolutely right! The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 16, 2009 … Continue reading

What’s the Difference Between a College and University?

Approximate Reading Time: 3 minutes OR: Growing Pains: How to Evolve from a College into a University And, in particular, how to become a university of which everyone can be proud. I’ve been pondering this question as I am now at an institution (which I … Continue reading

How to avoid the 70-hour work week.

Approximate Reading Time: 4 minutes Warning: what follows is another rant. So here I am working at a new job. I really like the institution (for the most part). I really like the faculty (for the most part). I really like the job (for the … Continue reading