college Archives

Thoughts
Albums from late High School and Early College I’ve Recently Rediscovered
February 8, 2023
I’ve hit a bit of a nostalgia kick recently, listening to albums that were on heavy rotation from ages 16-20ish.
I don’t know about you, but music is such a huge part of my daily life. These are really bringing back some great memories.
CKY: Infiltrate-Destroy-Rebuild
Green Day: American Idiot
Fall Out Boy: From Under the Cork Tree
HIM: Dark Light
What’s an album from your formative years you’ve recently rediscovered?
Thoughts
How Do We Best Teach Programming to Beginners?
September 24, 2023
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I teach. I tend to take a “learn by doing” approach in my online courses where there are very clear, step-by-step instructions completed via video. However, this format gets pretty tough to execute in other contexts. For example, I teach an online graduate course for the University of Scranton, which is primarily text-based. This course’s goal is to get students with a healthcare background proficient in programming; the assumption is they are at least somewhat technical. After getting feedback, especially this semester, I’m realizing the approach my co-author and I took in creating the course was wrong. This got me thinking: how do we best teach programming to people who have never seen it?
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Thoughts
College is not the Best Time of your Life
April 27, 2015
We are at the end of April, which means a few things. Soon I’ll be able to smoke cigars on the roof of my building. The sun will be out regularly. People will be graduating from high school and college. When I was in school I heard, “Enjoy college. It’s the best time of your life.” When I was graduating, I heard that we needed to savor every moment of our senior year because, “College is the best time of our lives.” And now ever year since I started teaching college, I’ve heard the same things from students. I’m here to tell you something very important: College is not the best time of your life.
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Links
Links Round Up for 02/27/11
February 27, 2011
- Anaheim school district handing out GPS trackers to chronically absent students (engadget): Having trouble with a student? Lojack them. I can’t see anything wrong with this.
- Know Your Way Around Facebook Privacy (web.appstorm): Web.Appstorm published an article of mine that serves as a pretty comprehensive guide to Facebook Privacy. You should check it out.
- MLB Dedicated to Educating on Tobacco Risks (mlb.com): My question is why are US Senators getting involved at all. Dear Representatives, it’s not your job to tell us what to do, or to prevent people from poorly influencing us, or to protect us from ourselves.
- 60 Beautiful Wallpapers for Your Android Phone (android.appstorm): Some really nice wallpapers here. I picked up a few myself!
- Apple to Announce iPad 2 March 2nd, WSJ Reports (bgr): Begin the tablet frenzy 2011. My money is on the Moto XOOM being a better device, but I’m a little jaded.
- 6 Bad Habits to Blame on Technology: Everyone should read this. Fact: It’s no OK to constantly text someone while you’re having a conversation with someone in real life. Get some damn manners.
- If Apple Made Bottled Water (image): “If you’ve been drinking the juice, you’re ready to drink the water.”
- The PHD Comics Guide to TA Office Hours (comic): That attendance graph is 100% true.
- The Likeability of Angry Birds (theoatmeal): Also True. I hate that green bird.
- How The Social Network Saved Mark Zuckerburg (wired): Really good read. I actually think the movie villainized the twins who sued him more.
- What Happens if Yahoo!Â AcquiresÂ You (37signals): This is the main difference between Google and other companies. It’s really a shame what Yahoo! does to great web apps.
- Visualized: Android activations mapped geographically, chronologically, breathtakingly (video, engadget): This, is a very cool video.
- Design and Develop a Complete Website, Part I (webdesigntuts): I think I’m going to do this just to try and change up my design process a little.
Also, I’ve created a Delicious account for Manifest Development. I’ll post tech/web dev/business related links there. Check it out. They also get automatically posted to @manifestdev on Twitter.
Links
Links Round Up for 02/13/11
February 12, 2011
- Poster: Mixed Reviews: These are some pretty sweet posters showcasing the great beverages of great movies. I may have to get 1 or 5.
- Minimalist Task Management with Todo.txt Touch (android.appstorm): I take a look at my new favorite Android app, Todo.txt Touch.
- Comic: The 6 Crappiest Interview Questions (the oatmeal): That’s about right. If there’s a better interview answer for “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” than “Here, working my away up the ranks,” I’ve yet to hear it.
- 10 Great Sites for Finding Great Deals (web.appstorm): Twice published by envato this week, I take a look at my 10 favorite sites for finding awesome deals.
- Comic: Unmatched Parenthesis (xkcd: This bothered me a lot. I wonder if it broke any automatic parsers.
- ‘Oopsies!’: Us Weekly apologizes to Sarah Palin over using fake quotes (foxnews): I heard US Weekly said, “Well, I read it on the Internet, so it must be true.”
- Rdio: I’ve been using this music streaming service for the last 5 or so days have I’ve been digging it.
- Image: Pyramid scheme (lamebook): HA!
- 20 Awesome Android Apps for Students (android.appstorm): Great list! Kinda makes me wish I was still a student, but I suspect I can try some of these out as a teacher.
- Watercooler: The Forecast for Mr. Sunshine (tvguide): I really liked the show- I’m also a big fan of Matthew Perry. PS- they use a quote from yours truly in the article!
Gear | Links | Productivity | Software
10+ iPad Apps for Students
January 17, 2011
With college starting up again after the holiday break and what I’m sure is many students heading back to school with a shiny new iPad, I figured it might be good to offer a list of apps I’d find useful as a student.
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Links
Links Round Up for 11/7/10
November 6, 2010
- Introducing Chalk (by 37signals): Awesome example of the power of HTML5 (and of circumventing the App Store approval process)
- Study of Facebook Users ConnectsÂ NarcissismÂ Â & Low Self Esteem:Â Since 500 Million people are on Facebook, you can pretty much do a study using Facebook that proves anything. Coming next week: My study using Facebook proves that you believe everything you read on the Internet.
- The 4G Forgery: I saw someone a couple of weeks ago advertising “4G Internet…for your computer!” It’s a shame that companies are flat out lying to their customers.
- Throwback Thursday: Tiger’s Talkboy: I definitely had one of these. I definitely miss being a kid.
- Ironic Deaths: None of these are ironic. Their article about the “Wine Rack,” a bra that holds wine, is. See wine racks hold wine, and rack is a way to refer to boobs. That’s ironic.
- Real Examples of Irony: Oh hey. Bad Life Decisions tells us some real examples of irony. Hint: 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife isn’t one of them.
- The Class I’d Like to Teach: This is actually pretty interesting. In many classes we are forced into a page requirement and get very good and stretching 3 pages in 6 or 8 or 10. Here he’s asking us to do the exact opposite, and make us keep only what’s important.
- Reset Your [iPhone/iPad/iPod] Alarm for Daylight Savings Time: If you haven’t done this already I suggest you do, lest you be late to work on Monday.
I officially started the Christmas Season (I celebrate Christmas, and will refer to the season as such) by adding my Deals Twitter List to Tweetdeck. You can check it out here. I also started and subsequently beat Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II this week. It’s as fun as it is short (very). The Challenges help extend game play a little, and I’m usually up for ruthless destruction on easier levels now that I beat the game. If you’re looking for a quick play, I’d recommend it.
Gear | Thoughts
15 Video Games that Will Stick with You
October 20, 2010
Got this from a Facebook Meme, then felt it would be a good blog post.
The rules: Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen video games you’ve played that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.ï»¿”ï»¿
Here we go!
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Links
Links Round Up for 09/26/10
September 26, 2010
- Facebook is not worth $33 Billion: So there was this time in the late 1990s when Venture Capitalists invested billions into websites without any strong models to make money. Good thing nothing bad came from that. (also, what ever happened to valuing a company based on the money it makes?)
- Think You Know Baseball?Â No, You Don’t: This is a shining example about why statistics can be used to prove whatever you want. This guy doesn’t actually tell us anything of substance. “A metric called Win Probability Added (WPA) goes plate appearance by plate appearance to see just how much a player helped or hurt his teamâ€™s chance of winning. Value is added for big plays at crucial moments.” That is a completely made up, BS stat, probably because the guy doesn’t like Derek Jeter. You know what matters? Wins and Losses.
- Degrees that Hiring Managers Want: Toping the list is heath care/nursing. IT is also on there.
- What it Means when You say ‘Literally’: Wrote about this a while ago. This drives me insane….not literally.
- With no Jobs, Grads ‘Gamble’ on Education: This is pretty interesting. I think it was grad school that made be the developer I am. I was also able to get an assistantship, which meant school from free.
- Wait. What Does Your Startup Do?: I get way to many pitches for websites like this. “It’s like a Facebook for orphans.” 37signals said that there is a social network that doesn’t exist today, there is probably a reason. Think about that, because it’s true.
In other news, Facebook was down for the good part of a day and Twitter was hacked. Crazy!
And for music…The Gaslight Anthem. I recommend it all, but if you’re only choosing one, The ’59 Sound is the best.
Links
Links Round Up for 08/22/10 [Back to School]
August 21, 2010
- Wear wristwatch? Use e-mail? Not for Class of ’14: Who feels old? This guy. And I’m only 7 years older than them.
- Active Facebook Users More Likely to Stick With College: Study: This is pretty interesting. Among other things, it cites that kids with more Facebook friends are more involved in extra-curriculars.
- Spend a Semester without Microsoft Office: Some cheap (or free) alternatives to Microsoft Office
- My Back to School Store: I made a back to school Amazon Store with what I think are some important pieces of tech
- 20 Back to School Apps & Tools for Students: Very comprehensive list. I wish some of these things were around when I was a student.
- See all of Lifehacker’s Back to School Coverage: Comprehensive stories on everything from roommates to textbooks.
Aside from that, a couple ofÂ notableÂ news stories:
- 3 Reasons the “Ground Zero Mosque” Debate Makes No Sense: It seriously doesn’t. Remember the 2006 election, when flag burning was a huge but ultimately non-issue? That’s what this is for the 2010 Election. And it’s stupid.
- Facebook Launches Places, Location Check-in, Discovery: Read about the latest Facebook feature that has privacy people up in arms.

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