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Digital Directive: The NY Observer Interview

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A few months back I was questioned by a writer from the New York Observer on my role as the Academic Director of the Communication and Media program at the CUNY School of Professional Studies (SPS). The writer was interested in discussing the online nature of my program and what sets it apart from other traditional and internet based learning environments. Well, today I found out that I was prominently quoted in the Educated Observer, a special advertising supplement to the NY Observer, on the work we are doing over at SPS.

A digital copy of the article, and my statements on the programs at SPS, can be found here.

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Digital Scholarship Revisited

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Today I attended a presentation by Professor Kathleen Fitzpatrick on the role that open access and new forms of peer review will play on the future of scholarly communication. Professor Fitzpatrick is Director of Scholarly Communication at the Modern Language Association (MLA) and Visiting Research Professor of English at New York University. She is the author of Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy. Her writings are among the most respected on the subject of scholarly transformation and were a great influence on my research into digital scholarship and the need to reform tenure and promotion standards for technology engaged faculty.

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2013 NYC Marathon: Take that Sandy!

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I am so proud of my wife for finishing her 11th marathon! So far she has completed marathons in NYC, Boston and Berlin. She had been eager to run NYC again because last year it had to be cancelled because of all of the damage incurred during Hurricane Sandy. It is odd to think back to exactly a year ago when instead of cheering her on, we were sitting in a dark apartment huddling around a transistor radio with friend that flew in from Norway to see her run. It was a miserable few days until the power came back on. Also, I had a fair amount of agita because this was the first major marathon in NYC since the Boston bombing earlier this year. My wife only decided to skip that race only because of a nagging training injury. We were lucky.

Fortunately the NYC race was uneventful this year and my wife made it to the NYC finish in slightly over 3 hours and 33 minutes. At first the kids and I were worried that we had missed her in the crowd and then, Continue reading “2013 NYC Marathon: Take that Sandy!”

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New York Cine Radio – The Halloween Podcast

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Tom Seymour and the rest of the guys over at New York Cine Radio asked me to Skype in for their Halloween podcast special and do a small comic book and nerd culture segment. It was a new idea that they wanted to try out and the group thought that I would be the perfect person for the job.

I talked a little about the new Batman: Arkham Origins video game as well as some of the Continue reading “New York Cine Radio – The Halloween Podcast”

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The SPS Bachelor Degree Program Info Session

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Every few months the academic directors at the CUNY School of Professional Studies (SPS) have a formal information session for potential students interested in our online degree programs. The purpose of these events are to introduce these potential students to our programs, our school, and to give them a taste of what will be expected of them if they decide to attend SPS. Well at the session last night while I was presenting I ran into a former New Media Technology student that I taught at LaGuardia many years ago. He is planning on going back to school to get a BA and is applying to the Communication and Media program that I am heading up.

I guess this is what they mean by full circle.

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No more excuses

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The other day I was talking to my old martial arts instructor, Kyoshi Giles, and musing over the fact that only fellow martial artists seem to understand how getting together with close friends to punch, kick, and stab one another over and over can be a beautiful thing. The camaraderie that can be developed by working out with other like minded individuals is not only fun, but also uplifting. I bring all this up because I had just returned from an early morning knife fighting class at the Krav Maga Federation and was feeling pretty good about getting back into the swing of training on a regular basis.

Over the past year or so I had made a number Continue reading “No more excuses”

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Arkham Origins is gonna be sick!!!

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After months of waiting Batman: Arkham Origins dropped tonight. The new Arkham is the followup to the wildly popular Batman inspired video games Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. I just picked up my copy from GameStop. There was a surprisingly small line for the game. It was nothing as crazy as the launch for Grand Theft Auto V, which made me happy and a little sad. I snagged the collector’s edition, and the season pass that has all of the character skins and downloadable content. I never usually get all the extras but this game is gonna be sick.  I thought about

Continue reading “Arkham Origins is gonna be sick!!!”

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West Virginia Road Trip!

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Last weekend the family and I took a trip to West Virginia Wesleyan for my wife’s 25th College reunion. The kids and I were a little pissed that we had to cut the annual family pilgrimage to nerd mecca (aka Comic Con) short this year. In order to make the trip to West Virginia in time for the reunion we could only attend the opening day of the Con, but since Ski’s 25th reunion only comes around once and Comic Cons are eternal, the kids I sucked it up in order to make Mommy happy.

It was also my first, and most likely last trip to West Virginia so we splurged and rented this nice little ride called the Chevy Cruze for the trip down. I haven’t driven much since I got rid of my car a few years back and I have been missing owning one. We don’t really need one in NYC so getting to drive a new car was something I was looking forward to doing. The satellite radio and the GPS made the trip pretty enjoyable.

All in all the weekend Continue reading “West Virginia Road Trip!”

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The SPS Fall 2013 Student-Faculty Reception

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The other night at the CUNY School of Professional Studies annual Student-Faculty reception I had the opportunity to finally meet some of the students in the Communication and Media program. While working with students in an online can be rewarding, there is a special thrill that can come with interacting face to face with the people in your major. The only downside of the evening was that I had to wear a suit. I hate wearing suits.

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GTA 5 Midnight Launch

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I don’t look forward to many games anymore. Maybe it is a sign of me getting older and becoming jaded. But here I am, standing on a line outside of GameStop, waiting to pick up my copy of  Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5). This is the largest grouping of single dudes I’ve ever seen that wasn’t at a sporting event or in front of a gay bar. There were maybe five girls on a line of about 200 people, and I think three of them were buying the game for the kids they brought with them.

Thankfully I am second on line because the weed smell coming off these people is giving me a headache. My son better appreciate me picking this up for him. If I didn’t work with this demographic on a regular basis, or have kids of my own, I might be worried about the future. But once again I digress.

I really want to stay up all night with this game because all of the early Continue reading “GTA 5 Midnight Launch”