Weekly Reader

Yik Yak is an Anagram for Hot Mess
"When I first heard about Yik Yak, it was being referenced in an article about cyberbullying at Chicago high schools. Recognizing that anonymous posts via the mobile app were hurting students via threats and intimidation, Yik Yak blocked access within defined electronic geo-fences. It was actually a classy maneuver." -- Eric Stoller, Student Affairs & Technology, 9/18/14

What Makes a Good Course?
"I’m teaching a one-credit class this semester in the Preparing Future Faculty program called College Teaching. In it, we are talking about, well, unsurprisingly, college teaching. Last week was our first class and we started by discussing what makes a good professor or teacher. The students had read the first chapter of The Courage to Teach, and they wrote about an experience or person who shaped their attitude towards education. We were in the right mind-space for talking about good teachers." -- Lee Skallerup Bessette, College Ready Writing, 9/18/14

Why Do People Who Love Libraries Love Libraries
"Why do people who love libraries love libraries? This has been on my mind a lot lately. Whenever I find a patron who is passionate about their library I try to decode those tangible and intangible qualities that made the experience so powerful for them." -- Brian Matthews, Ubiquitous Librarian, 9/19/14

Ed Tech's Next Wave Rolls into View
"In my 25-plus years as an early-stage venture capitalist investing in education technology, I have been fortunate to fund several successful and important companies. This experience has given me a unique perch from which to notice emerging patterns in the ed-tech world. While pattern recognition is imprecise at best, I subscribe to the analysis made in the Malcolm Gladwell book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking: You know it when you see it. I think we are about to embark on the third, and probably most transformative, wave of ed-tech companies and new learning technologies." -- Roger Novac, The Chronicle, 9/15/14

Why I Don’t Talk Much about Gender or Race & Why I Support the Ada Initiative
"I rarely talk about gender or race issues. Not because I am not interested but because I am afraid that I may say things that are viewed negatively by a socially acceptable norm. As a person who grew up in one country with one culture (the Confusian culture that is notoriously preferential to men to boot) and then moved to, live, and now work in another country with a completely different culture (just as discriminatory to women and minorities I am afraid) and who often has opinions that are different from those held by the majorities in both societies, I am acutely aware of various disadvantages, backlashes, and penalties that can result as a consequence of a minor slip and the pervasive social norm of inequality applied to women and racial/ethnic/gender minorities reinforced in everyday life." -- Bohyun Kim, Library Hat, 9/10/14