Whether you are traveling this week to spend the holiday with distant friends and/or family, or you are staying put, we at ProfHacker would like to wish you safe passage: empty, or at least uncongested highways, an empty middle seat or maybe just a seat behind a person who doesn’t jack their seat all the way back into your knees, short lines at the grocery stores, as well as food, fellowship, and a little bit of a break before we head into that last push of the semester.
Just a few days ago, I linked to couple article from Fast Company and Slate on Sebastian Thrun and his thoughts on Udacity. Thrun has himself blogged on the Udacity site where he reaffirmed Udacity’s commitment to accessible online learning and has called for “public discussion about us, our offerings, and the future of higher education.”
While we’re on the topic of online education, in an opinion piece for CNN, David R. Wheeler asked the question, “Will online classes make professors extinct?” The comments section
Creative Commons has announced 4.0 licenses. We at ProfHacker are long-time fans of Creative Commons, so these revisions, which were two years in the making, claim to be more practical and both easier to understand and implement. The Atlantic covers the update here.
GoldieBlox has taken the internet by storm over the last week (or at least it has taken over my Facebook and Twitter feeds). Slate looks a bit closer at both the company and the controversy.
The New York Times looks at the shifting configuration(s) of the American family in “The Changing American Family.” The article looks at both gay and straight marriage, cohabiting families, immigrant families, families with an incarcerated parent, and even voluntary families (families who are not biologically related but identify as family rather than friends).
The New York Times also breaks down “The Essential Thanksgiving,” which unfortunately does not include my personal essential, a can of Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce (sorry, Mom), so take it with a grain of salt, preferably table salt--with iodine. It does, however, include “something orange,” which might be butternut squash or mac & cheese. It doesn’t mention that sweetpotato dish with marshmellows that seems to pop up on dinner tables, at least here in the South. Alternately, if you are a vegetarian, NYT also has your Thanksgiving covered--also recipes for Thanksgiving leftovers if you are lucky enough to have any.
On a more serious note, thank you readers for your support. We appreciate you all year long, but we rarely have a chance to acknowledge it. When we come back after the holiday, among other things, we will feature our annual Holiday Gift Guide (link for 2012), so stay tuned. . .
Last but not least, we have two videos for you. The first is a dramatic reenactment of a YouTube comment battle performed by Shakespearean actors:
The second is the Sesame Street Monsterpiece Theater performance, “Waiting for Elmo""
[Creative Commons licensed image by Flickr user Nietnagel.]
