April got away from me with the end of the semester (earlier than usual with a new academic calendar for us), so early May has been spent catching up all over the place.
Looming summer means more time to read. In preparation, I browsed the new-to-me Literary Hub on grading breaks.
Ask a Ninja is back!
Long read The Department of Everything: Dispatches from the telephone reference desk – excellent reflections on the importance of knowing how to find information and how to frame answerable questions.
An even longer read on the hidden house in the IBM ascii character set and where it came from/what it means: Why is there a “small house” in IBM’s
Code page 437?
A really interesting discussion of the considerations of alternative grading in a six-week asynchronous course, specifically a Discrete Structures course. The compressed timeframe seems to call for daily work and mechanisms to ensure students aren’t falling more than a day or two behind, at the risk of never catching back up. Perhaps my favorite part of the write-up was footnote 3 on the challenge that asynchronous online courses are marketed as being ideal for “busy working adults” but still require a significant amount of time, which may not always be as clearly marketed or understood.
If you are a substack person, there is a Guide to Pittsburgh Substack Newsletters.
Been playing the demo of Word Play after watching the developer’s video about creating it (which made me wonder if I should try Balatro, which I guess everyone else has played). I like the gimmick of the game of being able to add rewards or change game features after each round. Entirely agree that this would be great on mobile.