I am excited to announce that after eight full years of service to Pratt Institute, I have been awarded a sabbatical for the Fall of 2015. It is amazing that I have been teaching at Pratt for this long, but this “semester of rest” also feels long overdue. My plan is to use this semester Read More
A Major Post, Higher Education, Pratt InstituteMy review of the Encyclopedia of Theoretical Ecology was just published in the Quarterly Review of Biology. It is a short review so I only give a very brief synopsis of this book, which is pretty remarkable in its scope but also pretty inconsistent in its delivery. I am excited to have this on my Read More
A Major Post, Ecological Modeling, My publicationsFor years now I have been guiding my students through a variety of concept mapping activities. Almost every one of my classes involves at least one concept mapping assignment, and I now require that proposals for a variety of term papers and projects be presented in concept map form. I also created this guide to Read More
A Major Post, Concept Mapping, Information Design, Lesson Ideas, Teaching ToolsAs you can probably see, this new thematic presentation of my site is nearly finished. I have a lot of cleaning up to do, but my former student and generous web designer Olivia Hu has gotten the basic platform of this theme up to an amazing level. Thanks so much to Olivia for all her Read More
A Minor Post, Web DesignIf you have read my posts on Open Information Environments, you know that I think that we should no longer be teaching (or expecting) our students to memorize things. With all of us carrying around smartphones or tablets that allow us to look up anything anytime pretty much anywhere, our brains are free to be Read More
A Minor Post, Cultural Evolution, Education, Higher Education, Information Literacy, TeachingAlthough my tenure and promotion was secured back in May, today is the day that I am officially a tenured Associate Professor. As today is also the first day of classes (although I do not teach until Wednesday), it is a little bit hard to stop, breathe, and appreciate this milestone. When one of my Read More
A Major Post, Higher Education, Pratt InstituteToday I gave a brief presentation entitled “Information: Legalize It?” to some colleagues at Pratt Institute. As part of the day’s educational technology “gathering” taking place in the Faculty Technology Studios, I spoke about how I have instituted what I call the “Open Information Environment” in all of my courses. Check out my longer post Read More
A Major Post, Educational Technology, Higher Education, Information Literacy, Pratt InstituteUnfortunately Olivia and I have had to pause on the implementation of the new theme for this site. Some technical problems were making live development really difficult, so I am back — for now — to the old theme.
A Minor Post, Web DesignI study cooperation. I can say this honestly only with some caveats. I am very interested in what allows cooperation to evolve in biological systems, as cooperation seems to defy the Darwinian imperative to serve the needs of self-replication and yet is unexpectedly prevalent in nature. In particular I am interested in human cooperation, which Read More
A Major Post, Activism, Art & Design, Books, Collaborative Art, Communication, Cooperation, Emotion, Empathy, Environmental Justice, Play, Public Art, Social Diversity, Social NetworksNPR Morning Edition “In Time Of Drought, Arizona’s Alfalfa Exports Are Criticized” There are so many interesting aspects to this story. First and foremost, it illustrates that “tragedies of the common” are entirely, well — common — in modern economies. The rules of resource use dictate whether that resource will be over-exploited: if there are Read More
A Minor Post, Climate Change, Cooperation, Deserts, Ecosystem Services, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Radio & Podcasts, Resource Consumption, Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture, Water Supply