Kelly's Place
Get Rid of your to-do List?? A New Year’s Resolution of Sorts
Now that the new year is well underway, I’m sure you are assessing the success of your New Year’s Resolution(s) for 2017 and being very optimistic about the new one (or ones) you have made for this year. For the past 20 years, I have made and so far successfully kept the same very simple […]
Kelly's Place
Texting. Period
As has been my custom for several months, I begin preparing for my weekly visit to “Kelly’s Place” by flipping–literally–through the digital pages of my Flipboard app. Here I have curated a pretty eclectic array of topics, from today’s top news, jazz, and archaeology to celebrities, design, and student-centered learning. Because my column is about […]
Kelly's Place
New Gadgets for a New Year (Column #1,477)
By now the glimmer has undoubtedly faded from the stuff you found under your Christmas tree and you are being primed to find suitable replacements for these two-week-old, and hopelessly out-of-date presents. So, as I generally do this time of year, I present a treasure-trove of new gadgets that will make our lives complete–until at […]
Kelly's Place
A Year in Movies: A Highly-Selective and Very Biased List
Last week, during the waning days of 2017, I recommended some of my favorite books of the year, and this week, during the first days of 2018, I am presenting a list of some of my favorite movies released during the past year. In doing this, I don’t want to encroach on the fine work […]
Kelly's Place
The Written Word: A Small Selection of This Year’s Best Books
The inspiration for this week’s year-end column is one of this year’s best books–Martin Puchner’s THE WRITTEN WORLD: THE POWER OF STORIES TO SHAPE PEOPLE, HISTORY, CIVILIZATION. As the title indicates, this book is a celebration of writing and storytelling, and is closely related to three other similarly-themed books published this year: IN THEIR LIVES: […]
Kelly's Place
It’s Been a Syzygy Kind of Year
I always look forward to Merriam-Webster’s Word Of The Year for the oppotunity it give us of of glancing back at where we have been and looking forward to where we might be headed. And, this year, I will also been taking a look at what Google Trends has to say about what’s been our […]
Kelly's Place
To See The World in a Paper Clip
While flipping through Flipboard last week, I came across a piece by John Brandon that asks the provocative question, “Are you a divergent thinker?” Based on an experiment reported in a 2011 presentation by popular TED talk speaker, Sir Ken Robinson, that used paper clips as a way of discovering how people think, Brandon focuses […]
Kelly's Place
Evocative Objects Go To The Movies
As my students will hopefully attest, I like to focus on evocative objects in my history classes. These objects are described by social theorist Sherry Turkle as “the things we think with,” and they allow us construct an entire world around them. For instance, a hubcap from a 1957 Chevrolet leads us into a discussion […]
Kelly's Place
Mirror, Bluetooth Mirror…. Who’s The Fairest Of Them All?
Consider this Part Two of a Christmas wish list column I submitted for your approval a couple of weeks ago. By the time you are reading this, Black Friday will have come and gone, but there is still plenty of time to find that perfect gift. Today, let’s add one more item to the list, […]
Kelly's Place
Giving Thanks
Although we should give thanks every day, this is the one week each year when we feel compelled to find things for which to be thankful. So, in keeping with this tradition, I will offer my thanks for some of the these things. My list, of course, would be different if I were to present […]
Kelly's Place
Conversations in a Jar
The inspiration for this week’s column comes from ten-year-old Brock Tierney, a local entrepreneur who sells Mason Jars filled to the brim with folded pieces of squiggly multicolored card stock containing thought-provoking questions–what Tierney calls “Canned Conversation.” While this idea is not entirely new, Tierney is keeping alive an important skill in this fake-news-filled world–the […]
Kelly's Place
Holiday Gift List: Part One
Disclaimer: There may or may not be a Part Two, but stay tuned just in case, because gift lists are always works-in-progress. And this is the time of year, along with the appearance of the ubiquitous All-Christmas-All-The-Time music channels, we turn our thoughts to our various Santa lists. So, this week, I have compiled a […]
