Please, please, someone out there, build me a better, more joyous Blackboard!   Every time I open it, I think "This is software for the panopticon."

http://tcrn.ch/8ZFp2B.

Collaborating around platforms that some call "accessible", others "retro", others just "old"

I don't know how many of you have had direct experience using "clickers" - also known as classroom response systems, polling systems, audience response systems, etc. If you're not familiar with them, think of the "ask the audience" lifeline on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? used in a lecture on campus. It's a system designed to make the lecture setting into a more engaging and interactive environment for both students and instructors.

I bring it up because our English department is about to begin using them in a 200-student lecture, and I'm part of the team that's making that a reality. We had a demo for faculty and graduate students yesterday, and it was well-received in general. But there are a couple of types of resistance we met, and that's really what I'm thinking about at the moment.

In my blog entry yesterday, I offered an introduction to the Emergence online game I've been working on with Tim Lenoir, Casey Alt, and Harrison Lee.

Last week, I attended an extraordinary one-day conference entitled Face-off to Facebook that took place at George Washington University. Along with Duke professors