Rantings

Scholastic recently chose to censor a book (or more accurately ask an author to alter her book-which is a form of censorship) because one of the characters, wait for it . . . has, gasp, “two mommies.” The School Library Journal has the background story. Normally I would stop at passing this article around and …..

A couple of weeks ago I gave a talk as part of a lecture series here at The University of Texas at Dallas. The series is part of the events commemorating the 40th anniversary of the University, and as such I thought it would be a good opportunity to take a stab at looking at …..

This morning on Twitter I engaged in a brief dialogue about the University and the ethics of doing research work outside the University context (i.e. in corporate America). This was prompted by danah boyd’s explanation of why she works for Microsoft. I might have much more to say about this later, but for those who …..

So as most of the readers of this blog know, we launched a new major here at the University of Texas at Dallas: Emerging Media and Communications. (Sorry the website is not as informative as it ought to be, yet. We have been busy getting the program structured and have not had time to work …..

“During the course of this long volume I have undoubtedly plagiarized from many sources–to use the ugly term that did not bother Shakespeare’s age. I doubt whether any criticism or cultural history has ever been written without such plagiary, which inevitably results from assimilating the contributions of your countless fellow-workers, past and present. The true …..

Not surprisingly, given my inclination to think about ways that technology can help education, this week I have received more than a few emails from colleagues pointing to an article at The Chronicle of Higher Ed about a professor at SMU, Jose Bowen, who likes to encourage what he calls, Teaching Naked, or more descriptively …..

I have finally returned from my end of month traveling and am getting back to work on my current project (more on that later). But for now I wanted to join an ongoing conversation, about what was one of the most productive academic conferences I have been to: THATCamp. First, let me say mad props …..

No secret to the readers of this site that I am a bit of an evangelist for Creative Commons. And those who follow the work of danah boyd know that she filed her dissertation under a creative commons license. Despite the fact that the CC license is easy to use, some institutions have been weary …..

One of the things I consistently tell grad students is that they need to start developing an online profile now, their future, and the future of the profession depends on this. While already established faculty (read ones with secure full time jobs) can afford to ignore the developing intellectual landscape the coming generation of scholars …..