Imprimis: Link and Tidbits, 28 January 2011

Our links this week focus in large part on how the humanities should be handled: what emphasis to put on them, what skills they provide, and how we can use technology to teach them.

• First, a blog rec: Open Source Education: Shakespeare. The author states his hopes that his blogging project "will become a place where together we can explore what Shakespeare continues to mean to us in an era of Web 2.0."
• Duke University professor Cathy Davidson talks about the need to change the way we teach in order to integrate technology into the classroom. She also suggests that innovative technology might help bridge the gap between the STEM disciplines and the humanities.
• On the other side of the techno-debate, a Yale student suggests that banning the Internet in classrooms might not be such a bad idea.
  
• Another professor, this time from Bowdoin College in Maine, weighs in on why the humanities are important: "Reading and writing a lot in college is not an 'English major thing' or a 'government major thing;' it's an 'educated person thing.'" Cass says: Quite right, and that certainly holds true after you leave college, as well. The need for those skills doesn't dissipate when you receive your degree.
• 50 responses to the question "Why is it so important for young people to receive a good arts education?" Cass says: I have two answers: because cultural literacy is important if you want to interact with your society, and because the arts teach creative and critical thinking skills that other disciplines do not. What's your answer?

At the ASC, we have another Actor-Scholar Council today, this time on The Malcontent. Paul Menzer, head of the MBC MLitt/MFA program, will be moderating, and our attending actors today are Ben Curns (Malevole), Patrick Midgley (Ferneze and Guerrino), Alli Glenzer (Maquerelle), Miriam Donald (Bianca and Maria), and John Harrell (Mendoza). There's still some time to ask us a question on Facebook if you'd like to hear it in the podcast.