In the midst of genuine economic and political challenges, Tea Party Republicans have been hard at work generating additional problems. From the debt-ceiling showdown that cost the US its AAA credit rating to the fiscal cliff negotiations that led to layoffs and budget cuts despite a last-minute resolution, these artificial crises have had real consequences. […] … learn more→

“The best vision is peripheral vision.” – Nicholas Negroponte Back when I was a carefree grad student, some 20 years ago, I decided to write a dissertation about apocalyptic discourse. The millennium was then looming on the horizon like a Mayan baktun or a disruptive innovation, threatening to bring about the end of the world […] … learn more→

In Turkey, students are admitted into universities through a nationwide test. After the students take the test and receive their scores, they submit a list of choices of the institutions and programs they want to attend to a nationwide center which places them to one of their choices. This placement is a result of not […] … learn more→

We are living in an era of science denial. An era when well-established facts are disputed, fake experts are interviewed by the media and blog posts trump science papers. It’s an era of vaccine denial, evolution denial, and of course, climate change denial. I’d also add Big Bang denial to that list. Sure, it might […] … learn more→

The evidence that stories are effective and efficient teaching tools is generally based on test results — improved reading, writing, science and math scores. But in terms of teaching sustainability concepts, stories have an additional advantage. To the extent that they describe real-world (or seemingly real-world, or even imaginably real-world) characters and actions, each story […] … learn more→

The Widget Theory of Higher Education is widely accepted, but curiously enough it is never articulated, except perhaps indirectly. However, it can be deduced from the practices that spring from it. The growing application of the unstated theory suggests strongly that it is deserving of exposition. The Widget Theory of Higher Education is that a […] … learn more→

Considering how much attention we lavish on the technologies of writing—scroll, codex, print, screen—it\’s striking how little we pay to the technologies for digesting and regurgitating it. One way or another, there\’s no sector of the modern world that isn\’t saturated with note-taking—the bureaucracy, the liberal professions, the sciences, the modern firm, and especially the […] … learn more→

Global demand for soybeans has soared in recent decades, with China leading the race. Nearly 60 percent of all soybeans entering international trade today go to China, making it far and away the world’s largest importer. The soybean was domesticated some 3,000 years ago by farmers in eastern China. But it wasn’t until well after […] … learn more→

Publicity uses traditional media—newspapers, magazines, newsletters, radio, and television—to get the word out about your product, service, and/or ideas—not by paying for advertising, but by becoming part of the content. There are many ways to get media publicity. Examples include (among many others) an article about your product or service, or that at least mentions […] … learn more→

“A year ago, I could not have imagined that we would be where we are now,” she said. “Who knows where we’ll be in five more years?” ask Ms. Koller, a representative of Coursera, the most utilized of the MOOC options so far. In 2009 I asked a similar question, but from a different perspective. […] … learn more→