Searching for Learning Effects from Video Games: Some Simple Guidelines

Submitted by juneahn on Oct 27, 2009, 12:24 PM

There is a lot of attention today on educational video games. But what should scholars think about when trying to examine the learning effects of games? I offer a few simple guidelines.

How to Outlive the Profession of English: Research and Methods (Syllabus)

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Jul 22, 2009, 11:19 AM

I've said before that we need to rethink everything about how we teach and how we learn, about the basic structures of all of our professions. Next Spring, I'm teaching our graduate "Research and Methods" course, typically the place where the most conventional, traditional "standards" of a profession are inculcated and reinforced. I believe that, given our declining numbers, this is the slow death of our profession and doom for our graduate students. So I volunteered to teach "Research and Methods" for a digital Age. Here's my first stab at a syllabus. I'm happy for comments.

"Research": How Peer Review Counts and Doesn't

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Apr 20, 2009, 07:08 AM
At the panel on Participatory Learning at the HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition Showcase, Mimi Ito talked about the way peers will beat up on one another, policing one another's behavior, coming up with rigid hierarchies of what counts and doesn't and then publicly humiliating and abusing those deemed, by the narrowest of standards, to be dweebs, dorks, nerds, or other outcasts, a practice now made even more public and vicious by the Internet.  We knew she must be talking about the horrors of cyberbullying . . . but then she delivered the punchline:   "I'm talking about academic peer review," she deadpanned.

New Criteria for New Media

Submitted by jonippolito on Apr 09, 2009, 12:24 PM
Academia's goal may be the free exchange of ideas, but up to now many universities have been wary--if not downright dismissive--of their professors using the Internet and other digital media to supercharge that exchange. Yet in a signal that digital scholarship is the future, the latest issue of MIT's Leonardo magazine showcases the recently approved academic guidelines of the University of Maine's New Media Department as a model for other universities to consider.

Playing in Lisa Spiro's DiRT (Digital Research Tools)

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Feb 03, 2009, 07:34 AM
In his interview for the current HASTAC Scholars Forum on Digital Humanities, NEH's Director of Digital Humanities Programs, Brett Bobley, mentioned the excellent list of digital tools that Professor Lisa Spiro and her team has prepared. It's been on my to-do list to blog about this remarkable list for a long time and this is the nudge I needed. What I love about the list is that she gives a function or a desire and then you link to the tools that can make that goal a reality. Here's her list, but mostly you need to go to her website to check out this tools wiki and all of the other goodies available there. The URL to her DiRT WIki (Plant seeds. Grow ideas): http://digitalresearchtools.pbwiki.com/Thank you, Lisa, for this wonderful service to scholarship! Now, my next stop is to go to the HASTAC Scholars and contribute there. C'mon everybody. Join this important and useful discussion that could make a difference to your future.
hard drive visualization
hard drive visualization

New Website of Interest

Submitted by mwriceny on Jan 19, 2009, 09:19 AM
"Ranking America" has been named a "best of the web" research and education website by Intute.

Digging Into Data

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Jan 16, 2009, 09:49 AM
Today, a new, international competition called the Digging into Data Challenge was announced by four leading research agencies: the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) from the United Kingdom, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) from the United States, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) from Canada.  The Digging into Data Challenge encourages humanities and social science research using large-scale data analysis, challenging scholars to develop international partnerships and explore vast digital resources, including electronic repositories of books, newspapers, and photographs to identify new opportunities for scholarship. 

WHAT GOOGLE EARTH DOESN'T SHOW YOU

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on May 26, 2008, 09:32 AM

WHAT GOOGLE EARTH DOESN'T SHOW YOU
Independent Weekly, May 21 -- Duke sociologist Gary Gereffi, Duke
technology consultant Shawn Miller and Duke historian Trudi Abel are part
of a movement of alternative mapmakers who are seeking to revolutionize our
understanding of