Sinister Dexterity

by jason on 2011/05/28

This site is probably going away soon. Maybe. To be replaced, or rather subsumed, by something else. Details will be posted as they become available.

Social Reading

by jason on 2011/03/06

This has to exist already—an app that lets you read literature as a social activity. I am imagining an AP English classroom where the students all have tablets. The teacher enters a code and unlocks the semester’s reading list. The students then begin to competitively read against/with each other, in a networked fashion, unlocking achievements as they make their way through the text. There are waypoints/savepoints where the students are quizzed on their comprehension before being allowed to proceed. It could either be a first-person-reader or the students could form study groups/teams. There could be some Survivor-style intrigue and machinations built into it—reading as a RPG experience—with opportunities for co-op or solo. There would be a dashboard/leaderboard that would show the stats of the class’ progress. Students could create video essays and post them to the group or they could type it out the old-fashioned way. Achievements might unlock bonus content or give the winner special privileges.

Cheating would be an issue. And not every student would want to play or necessarily benefit from this kind of interaction.

It’s weird to think of reading as a social activity instead of something private.

Science Online 2011

01.11.2011

I am heading up north to the Science Online 2011 conference. I will be on two panels. I’ll have more to post about those in the next few days, but in the meantime, the program listings are below. I am hoping for a good conference, and my thanks go out to Anton, Bora and my [...]

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Carnival of the Blue No 43: Deep Type Flow

12.06.2010

The December edition of the Carnival of the Blue is out at Dr. Alistar Dove’s Deep Type Flow. Al is an Australian marine biologist living in the United States, where he is currently Senior Scientist at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. Also, signups for 2011 hosting slots are now open over at the Carnival of [...]

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