Learning Together and Alone: Cooperative, Competitive, and Individualistic Learning by David W. Johnson My rating: 4 of 5 stars Interesting book looking at individual, competitive, and collaborative learning. The framing of the book is more K-12, but I can see applications to higher education. Definitely worth at least a quick look through both by instructors and instructional

I guess I need to figure out a way to better IFTT vimeo things ;-) - Here is a recent ICDE webinar that I attended (probably should be on the IDStuff blog...but IFTTT does not distinguish between work, learn, and life content when I 'like' something on Vimeo. The title of this webinar is "Launch of the study: Models for online, open, flexible and technology enhanced higher education across the globe

A game I was playing concurrently with Zombi was another freebie from the free with Gold program.  This game was the Incredible Adventures of van Helsing III.  I am not sure if it was integral to the game for me to play parts I and II (I didn't), but even if it were, this game stood pretty good on its own. The game takes place in the fictional eastern european city of Borgovia,

A commentary on Tasha Yar's death on TNG. I actually like the chosen punchline, but a close second favorite is "Yar today, gone tomorrow." (original archive here)

Lower Ed: How For-Profit Colleges Deepen Inequality in America by Tressie McMillan Cottom My rating: 4 of 5 stars Interesting book to read. While most of what was in this book wasn't really news for me, it was helpful to add some additional context to the "Lower Ed" field. I think this is a worthwhile read for high school students thinking about college, and for college graduates

The most recent game I finished (right before I headed off to the annual MTA conference the past two days) was Zombi on the XBOX One.  This was originally a WiiU game (a horror game on the Nintendo???) but it made its way to the xbox a few years later.  It's an ubisoft production and it's something I got for "free" by subscribing to Gold (since my membership is expiring soon I thought

I guess this is for all the Star Wars fans ;-) I think I discovered this on Reddit somewhere.

Interesting strip. I don't think we see a ton of poker playing on TNG, but it's something memorable. I do wonder why chess and poker.  Why not go to the arcade or something (yes, I know, these two things are cheap to produce...).  An alternate proposed punchline that I also liked was "I think one thing, say another and do a third." (original archive here)

I'm not really caught up with all my superhero movies (but I am more 'caught up' with Marvel than DC, so that's something).  There is a new trailer out for Venom which looks pretty awesome.  The only thing I know about this character is really what I learned by playing Maximum Carnage on the Sega Genesis about 20 years ago...so that's really a long way of saying "I don't know much". 

Collaborative Learning: Higher Education, Interdependence, and the Authority of Knowledge by Kenneth A. Bruffee My rating: 4 of 5 stars Interesting read. The first part of the book discusses collaboration as a means of nonfoundational knowledge teaching. I felt that a large part of the book (part II) dealt with the philosophy of nonfoundational knowledge instruction (much more so