21st Century Scholar

Summer is here and it’s time to change things up. While it doesn’t have quite the same ring as, Thursday is TechDay, from here on out, Thursday will be WriteDay. The new theme focuses attention on Pullias’ annual SummerTIME Writing Program, an academic writing intervention to support the high school to college literacy transitions of [...]

According to knowyourmeme.com: Hip is an American slang term vaguely meaning fashionably current. But since the term doesn’t refer to one specific quality (similar to ‘cool’), what is actually considered hip is ever-changing and therefore impossible to define. Thanks to Malcolm Gladwell’s book, the term “hipster” had gone the tragic route of other generational pejoratives such [...]

Today’s post offers follow-up commentary on the IGNITE format I introduced in a previous post. To quote myself: IGNITE is… a [new] format for good ol’ fashioned PowerPoint. Nothing fancy, just some new rules. The parameters are simple: (a) presenters are limited to 20 slides, and (b) the time allotted to each slide is 15 seconds, no [...]

Today’s post is a shameless plug for AERA’s IGNITE session. First, let’s get the facts. IGNITE is not a new software platform or digital technology thingamajig. It’s a format for good ol’ fashioned PowerPoint. Nothing fancy, just some new rules. The parameters are simple: (a) presenters are limited to 20 slides, and (b) the time allotted to [...]

Thursday’s Thursday is TechDay is about internet slang. Yes, that discourse that started out with the mysterious LOL that has now entered the public consciousness. My mother uses it. For those who may not be familiar with formal literacy terms such as discourse, here’s a mini-lesson. Discourse indicates the use of language to proxy social [...]

Today’s Thursday is TechDay offers two options for avoiding the monotony of filling out online forms. Signing into a new website can be tedious. Registering for a conference or buying a book on Amazon are both form-based processes, but how to avoid having to type out your e-mail, address, phone number, and password every time [...]

I’ve been thinking about writing (and reading) in the 21st century and the emphasis higher education has begun to place on pre-K–20 college preparation. But I’ve also been thinking about online writing (and reading), and the public policy dialogue that propagates the separation of paper-based and online literacy education. Perhaps if we—as researchers—begin to put [...]

Today’s Thursday is Techday is anecdotal, an extract (from my classroom observation field notes) about how teenagers in one urban high school are using mobile technology for academic purposes. I’ve posted before about the iPhone as teenage fashion statement, and I’ve also shared stories about students passing a cell phone like a relay baton in [...]

In the age of “paper or plastic,” academe—and the print-based scholarship it produces—has green options. Today’s post is about online peer-reviewed journals, also known as Open Access literature. Online publishing is (of course) paper free, so it’s arguably better for the environment, but there’s more to it than just being green. Read on for an [...]

Personal technology at ASHE this year was notably present. The tablet seems to have entered higher education research at least as a fashion statement. I saw a few people using their tablets to write notes (pen and paper are still the preferred utensils), but just you wait … by AERA, I predict the stylus will [...]