They will tell you it is too dangerous, that you'll say something stupid and never be hired. They'll say it is too fast, too superficial, too full of snark to be of any value to…
Christopher LongAugust 14, 2013
The CBO is Cambridge Books Online, the electronic books platform for Cambridge University Press (CUP). This is the platform into which Mike Chaplin and a team of programmers working for CUP will build the Socratic and…
Christopher LongAugust 6, 2013
As my book, Socratic and Platonic Political Philosophy: Practicing a Politics of Reading, goes officially into editorial production on the print side of Cambridge University Press, I have started to work with Mike Chaplin on…
Christopher LongAugust 4, 2013
Last week humanities scholars from around the world descended upon Lincoln, Nebraska for DH2013, the annual international conference of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations. It was my first time at the DH conference and…
Christopher LongJuly 26, 2013
New affordances in dynamic modes of digital scholarly communication have enabled authors to tailor the content of our texts to the forms in which they appear in public. The diversity of ways it is now…
Christopher LongJuly 19, 2013
I began blogging in earnest shortly after my arrival at Penn State in 2004, but it was not until June 2007 that I created this blog, the Long Road, to reflect on my experiences share…
Christopher LongJuly 15, 2013
NANJING, China - One of the challenges we face in higher education in the United States is how to ensure the academic success of the many new international students from China our universities are welcoming…
Christopher LongMay 21, 2013
As many of you know, I have long been experimenting with how to use twitter effectively in academic contexts. Many are skeptical of twitter's ability to add substantive value to academic conversations because of its…
Christopher LongApril 7, 2013
As we begin to articulate the contours of the Public Philosophy Journal, some account of the meaning of the public philosophy the journal intends to practice may help us continue to cultivate the community on…
Christopher LongFebruary 20, 2013
If, as Michael Bérubé suggested today in his Chronicle of Higher Education article "The Humanities, Unraveled," the situation in the humanities is "a seamless garment of crisis: If you pull on any one thread, the…
Christopher LongFebruary 18, 2013
The Long Road at the BWVision On Saturday, January 19, 2013, I joined administrators, staff and members of the Penn State Board of Trustees for the Blue and White Vision Council Seminar at the Nittany…
Christopher LongJanuary 24, 2013
6/365: Grandparents Clock Originally uploaded by cplong11 Today is Mack Brady's birthday; he would have turned 9. His father has recently written eloquently, even in his grief, about the theological questions the senseless death of…
Christopher LongJanuary 16, 2013
Statuesque Originally uploaded by Targuman When the Collegian asked me to comment on the scholarship established in honor of Mack Brady for the article they published today, they could not integrate all I had written.…
Christopher LongJanuary 7, 2013
Even as I press to finish an article on dogs and wolves in Plato's Republic for a volume entitled "Plato's Animals" edited by Michael Naas, it is worth returning for a moment to our ongoing…
Christopher LongDecember 31, 2012
Villemard 1910 - En L'An 2000 - At School Originally uploaded by amphalon As the debate over Massively Open Online Courses, also known by their unfortunate acronym: MOOC, rages on, I thought I would begin…
Christopher LongDecember 19, 2012
Words do things. What they do, depends on the manner in which they are said, written and received. What they did, and failed to do, last night is something that requires some reflection. That is…
Christopher LongNovember 29, 2012
As we pulled into our driveway after running errands preparing for her Monster High birthday party, DancinGirl, who was generally excited about the day, announced that she has been thinking a lot, recently, about death.…
Christopher LongNovember 11, 2012
Today, the girls and I, along with my colleague, Dan Letwin, and his son, Nick, took to the local streets to canvass for Barack Obama as we did four years ago. A lot has changed…
Christopher LongNovember 4, 2012
On Thursday, October 25th, at 4:30 PDT, I will read a paper entitled, Plato and the Politics of Reading at the University of San Francisco. One of the main points of the paper is that reading is fundamentally a…
Christopher LongOctober 20, 2012
Consider this an invitation to continue along a path we have traversed together over the past three years. This path, which began in the wake of my 2009 Summer Faculty Teaching and Learning with Technology Fellowship,…
Christopher LongJune 25, 2012
As spring rolls into summer, it is time for another appraisal of my digital research ecosystem. For a brief history of my reflections on digital scholarly research, I invite you to take a ride on…
Christopher LongJune 5, 2012
DancinGirl has fallen in love with words. Actually, she has always loved to play with words, singing, rhyming, mimicking. But now her love of the verbal has exploded into literacy. She is reading voraciously; book…
Christopher LongMay 29, 2012
Villemard 1910 - En L'An 2000 - At School Originally uploaded by amphalon My most recent blog post over on the Wonders and Marvels blog considers what Plutarch has to teach us about teaching and…
Christopher LongMay 17, 2012
Jane McGonigal Originally uploaded by Joi At the 2012 Teaching and Learning with Technology Symposium at Penn State, I had the honor of introducing Jane McGonigal, Creative Director of Social Chocolate, and game designer extraordinaire.…
Christopher LongMarch 24, 2012
LITCHFIELD, SC - Vacation can be a time for moments of insight and tenderness. One such moment came this week for me at a restaurant here in South Carolina called Studio Café. (You can see…
Christopher LongDecember 30, 2011
Facebook Originally uploaded by laikolosse A number of recent changes to the social media technologies I use daily force me again to reflect on the habits design decisions cultivate in us. The decisions made by…
Christopher LongOctober 16, 2011
Student Panel at LASTS11 Originally uploaded by LAUSatPSU On Wednesday, September 28th at 4pm eastern, we in the Liberal Arts Undergraduate Studies office will take another step out into the great technological unknown by recording…
Christopher LongSeptember 27, 2011
West End of Bloomsburg, PA Originally uploaded by colecamp I have long had the vague idea that newspapers need to recognize that the core of their business is the business of their communities. Sometimes the…
Christopher LongSeptember 14, 2011
Dear DancinGirl: Do you know why I call you DancinGirl when I write about you here? It is because, from the moment I met you, now almost six years ago, you were dancing. At first,…
Christopher LongAugust 30, 2011
The Wind is Beautiful Originally uploaded by cplong11 Nicolas Carr's article in The Atlantic, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, considers the impact new media technologies are having on human cognition. Although he recognizes the reciprocal nature of…
Christopher LongJuly 13, 2011
St. Andrew's Preschool Originally uploaded by cplong11 It happened without warning, without any hint that the end was at hand. Suddenly, there it was: May 27th, the day after the last day of the preschool…
Christopher LongJune 10, 2011
STONE HARBOR, NJ - Just midway through my week vacation, I am beginning to learning the art of relaxation. As a faculty member, when the semester of teaching is over, a span of summer begins…
Christopher LongJune 1, 2011
This summer John Dolan, Director of Digital Media and Pedagogy, and I are heading up a summer digital research project in the College of the Liberal Arts. For a description of the project, check out…
Christopher LongMay 19, 2011
Aristotle, of course, famously said: "For it is by way of wondering that people both now and at first began to philosophize ..." (Metaphysics, I.2, 982b13-4). Tonight, ArtGirl began to philosophize. She wondered so eloquently…
Christopher LongMarch 26, 2011
I first met Ruth Canagarajah in an honors course I taught a few years ago. She already struck me then as a thoughtful, engaged and creative student. She wrote an excellent paper for that course…
Christopher LongMarch 1, 2011
Deliberative Democracy Flash Forum Panel Originally uploaded by cplong11 This image captures a poignant moment in the Flash Forum in Response to the Arizona Shootings held by the Center for Democratic Deliberation on January 21…
Christopher LongJanuary 22, 2011
Final Edits Originally uploaded by cplong11 In the months since my last posts on using Mendeley, Zotero and the iPad for academic research, my experience has been more fully informed by practice. This fall I was…
Christopher LongDecember 27, 2010
CpL Holding the Book Originally uploaded by cplong11 Today I received a box, and in that box were six objects with a certain degree of heft, a solidity I did not quite expect. The objects…
Christopher LongNovember 17, 2010
Little Girl by a Little Girl Originally uploaded by cplong11 Today is DancinGirl's birthday and it has been a day of well, dancing. And on Saturday, at her princess dance party, we will dance some…
Christopher LongNovember 11, 2010
On Sunday, ArtGirl stood in front of the mirror looking at herself. I noticed two things: she seemed bigger to me and she was not holding her favorite stuffed animal, Jelly Dog. It was then…
Christopher LongAugust 26, 2010
In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud writes: With every tool man is perfecting his own organs, whether motor or sensory, or is removing the limits to their functioning (43). The passage touches on something I…
Christopher LongJuly 27, 2010
Four Running 2 Originally uploaded by cplong11 My father taught me to appreciate the subtle joys of photography back before everything went digital. In our basement darkroom, we used to develop the black and white…
Christopher LongJuly 22, 2010
Mendeley on the iPhone Originally uploaded by cplong11 I am happy to report that Mendeley has developed an iPhone app that brings us a step closer to the digital research model I hope to implement…
Christopher LongJuly 20, 2010
It is widely recognized among educators that student engagement is a key to academic success. Disengaged students erode the social dynamics in the classroom, have a negative impact on their peers and drop out at…
Christopher LongJuly 8, 2010
Cole Camplese and I were invited to be part of this year's Learning Design Summer Camp at Penn State. The presentation topic that was proposed to us was strong in and of itself, but when…
Christopher LongJuly 2, 2010
MYRTLE BEACH, SC - She is uncertain, but brave and increasingly confident. The waves are not huge, but to her six-year-old self, they must be daunting. Even so, we venture out, her to test her…
Christopher LongJune 16, 2010
It seems that my quest to close the digital research circle has been joined by a few fellow researchers. The idea is compelling and would not only save both time and paper, but would offer new…
Christopher LongJune 3, 2010
Last month in a post about closing the digital research circle, I wrote about using the iPad to read, take notes on pdf files and integrate those files into a bibliography program. We are still…
Christopher LongMay 21, 2010
Despite the fact that I have never voted for Arlen Specter, I have come to respect some of the values he stood for over his long career in the Senate. As a Republican, he remained…
Christopher LongMay 18, 2010
Today is ArtGirl's birthday and I am feeling the need to mark the moment with a few reflections about some of the things I admire about my daughter.She questions with assiduous tenacity and refuses to…
Christopher LongMay 11, 2010
I have been looking for a way to close the circle of my digital academic research. The idea is to do rigorous philosophical research without paper, taking full advantage of cloud computing, the syncing of…
Christopher LongApril 15, 2010
It is already clear to me that the iPad does not replicate the experience of the iPhone even though many of the apps serve the same functionality. The iPad is much less intrusive in collaborative…
Christopher LongApril 8, 2010
ORLANDO, FL - My first visit to Disney World surprised me. Before I had two girls, I never thought I would be interested in visiting a place that stood, in my mind, for all that…
Christopher LongApril 3, 2010
Over the past few days I have been thinking more intensely about the meaning and nature of academic transformation. In the wake of the TLT Symposium at Penn State last weekend, I traveled to Orlando…
Christopher LongMarch 30, 2010
Upon reading the 2010 Horizon Report from the New Media Consortium, I was struck by how the key trends in technology they identify might help us meet challenges they articulate. Let me mention a two…
Christopher LongFebruary 6, 2010
It is impossible to put the rich complexity of a unique human life into words, but sometimes, the articulation of a single idea can capture something of a life that might otherwise escape notice.
Christopher LongDecember 23, 2009
The Rock Ethics Institute has taken a lead in cultivating a real dialogue about the Penn State's energy future. On November 18, 2009, Nancy Tuana, the Director of the Rock Ethics Institute, moderated a roundtable…
Christopher LongDecember 15, 2009
After talking to trusted people, thinking things over and otherwise working through the transition I am making to Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies at the College of the Liberal Arts, I have decided to embrace…
Christopher LongDecember 13, 2009
One of the more important of the many unexpected benefits of producing the Digital Dialogue is the feedback I have received from friends who listen. In a strange way, the podcast offers me some distance…
Christopher LongDecember 2, 2009
This Thanksgiving we decided to participate in the spirit of the National Day of Listening. My cousin, Marjorie, and I sat down with our mothers, Janet Filing and Barbara Almstead, to ask them about their…
Christopher LongNovember 27, 2009
Dear Hannah: Today is the day we have been talking about since the summer - finally, it's your birthday! Today we celebrate you and the way you have celebrated us everyday since you arrived four…
Christopher LongNovember 11, 2009
One of the most difficult things for new Graduate Students to manage effectively is their time. This is in large part because graduate study has built into it large segments of unstructured time that can…
Christopher LongNovember 9, 2009
Twenty years ago today, I can remember the buzz that spread among my American student colleagues at the Institute for European Studies in Vienna when we learned that the Berlin Wall had fallen.Just two weeks…
Christopher LongNovember 9, 2009
We woke this morning in a cold, dark house as our power had gone out early in the morning. As we made our way downstairs, we began to realize that the power outage was only…
Christopher LongOctober 16, 2009
One of the great privileges of my summer faculty fellowship has been the opportunity to work with creative and thoughtful educators and designers who were able to help me think more holistically about my identity…
Christopher LongSeptember 25, 2009
Late in his career, Heidegger affirms the longstanding criticism of his reading of the Greek 'aletheia' as unconcealment. In his 1964 lecture The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking, Heidegger writes:The natural concept…
Christopher LongSeptember 5, 2009
Dear Chloe:Today you begin a great and wondrous journey. Today, you begin Kindergarten and with it, the formal education that will open you to a world of ideas and experiences that will shape the person…
Christopher LongSeptember 3, 2009
In the wake of the Specter town hall I blogged about here, I have been thinking about the underlying political ideology of those who are so angry about health insurance reform. I would characterize those…
Christopher LongAugust 23, 2009
I recorded the following video at today's town hall meeting with Senator Specter in State College at the Penn Stater hotel. It captures something of the anger and passion of the event. It illustrates too an…
Christopher LongAugust 12, 2009
10:03: As this comes to a close, I am feeling at once hopeful and depressed. A life of anger and hate is difficult. It is painful to see it and to have it seep into…
Christopher LongAugust 12, 2009
I begin with this picture because it captures something of the exhilaration we experienced in two very different ways over the past two days.On Saturday we visited three local farms as part of the 2009…
Christopher LongAugust 10, 2009
I just completed Life with Chloe and Hannah episode 15, which focuses on the first half of our summer in and around State College, excluding the 2009 Stone Harbor experience, which was captured in LwCH…
Christopher LongJuly 25, 2009
Today WPSU.org published a blog post of mine in which I advocate for the passage of a strong, comprehensive healthcare reform bill prior to the August recess.I outline three basic goals the bill should achieve:…
Christopher LongJuly 23, 2009
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. The event itself seems, from this distance, to have marked the end of an era of tumultuous creativity and violence in American culture and politics.
Christopher LongJuly 20, 2009
The social web is frequently moving, often inane and continuously ongoing. Its voices reflect the beautiful diversity of the human experience. This week another voice was added to the discussion; it is the voice of…
Christopher LongJuly 15, 2009
Over the weekend we celebrated the Fourth of July in local style here in State College. The day began with a wonderful children's parade of bikes through town to the local Central Parklet, where we ate…
Christopher LongJuly 7, 2009
I have finally processed the footage from this year's vacation in Stone Harbor and produced a video available here:http://gallery.me.com/longc2#100144In the video you will see much splashing in the pool, reminiscences of last year on the…
Christopher LongJuly 6, 2009
Read my latest blog post on the WPSU.org website in which I respond to a letter I received from Representative Thompson. He wrote me a letter after I called his office to encourage him to…
Christopher LongJune 30, 2009
Yesterday we were all at the State College Summer Music Festival doing some listening and dancing. The Centre Daily Times was there to cover it. Front page, above the fold, pretty impressive:
Christopher LongJune 28, 2009
As his wife, Martha, lay dying at the age of 34, Thomas Jefferson and she took turns copying out by hand this passage from the Laurence Sterne novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy,…
Christopher LongJune 28, 2009
On this Father's Day, I felt compelled to see a project to completion. Much of my academic life involves projects that take a long time to complete. Last week I spent an entire day trying to…
Christopher LongJune 21, 2009
Today saddens me. Although it is not clear what the ultimate outcome of the events that have unfolded in Iran over the last week will be, still, today's violent response by the Iranian government to…
Christopher LongJune 20, 2009
Over the past few days, I have been powerfully moved by the voices from Iranians struggling to be heard that have been delivered to me through Twitter as I monitored the feed from #iranelection. In…
Christopher LongJune 15, 2009
As mentioned early this week, I have been anticipating the election in Iran to see the extent to which the new possibilities for peace emerge as the structure of global politics shifts in the face…
Christopher LongJune 13, 2009
I admire the White House's strategy to press forward on substantive health care reform now and I hope Washington is able to resist the temptation to water down the public option in such a way…
Christopher LongJune 11, 2009
I have been asked to continue to blog for WPSU on local politics, so periodically I will be draw your attention here to my posts there.My latest post concerns the manner in which policy decisions…
Christopher LongJune 10, 2009
Today is the anniversary of the death of Mohammed in 632 CE. The schism that opened in the Muslim world after his death continues to play out in the contemporary political tensions between Sunni Muslims…
Christopher LongJune 8, 2009
Something more than "mere words" is at stake when the President of the United States, Barack Obama, goes to Cairo, Egypt and makes a speech offering a new beginning to the relationship between the United…
Christopher LongJune 5, 2009
STONE HARBOR, NJ Last night's violent storms have given way to one of those crisp, clean, beautiful days at the New Jersey shore. Now, however, it is time to sweep the house, pack the swimming…
Christopher LongMay 30, 2009
STONE HARBOR, NJ Today is my 40th birthday: I feel the curvature of the arc of my life, the contour of its trajectory. As it begins, I hope, to press toward its apogee and ultimate…
Christopher LongMay 28, 2009
Here is episode 13 of Life with Chloe and Hannah. I have collected the video I took a few months ago at the Tussey Ski Area when they are dancing on the deck. I admire…
Christopher LongMay 20, 2009
Although I fancy myself someone who takes advantage of the web, I must admit that I find myself repeatedly going to the same sites all the time: the New York Times, Slate.com, the Centre Daily…
Christopher LongMay 18, 2009
In less than a week, we will be going to the polls again here in Pennsylvania. Although this primary lacks the national interest of last year's Presidential primary, it remains nevertheless important to local politics.…
Christopher LongMay 13, 2009
The title of this post comes from George Vaillant, the director of one of the longest running longitudinal studies of physical and mental well-being that has ever been undertaken. My attention was drawn to him…
Christopher LongMay 12, 2009
Yesterday Alan Levine, aka cogdog, gave a presentation on 50+ Ways to Tell a Story using Web 2.0 technologies. The presentation was excellent as it introduced us to a variety of tools available online for…
Christopher LongMay 6, 2009
In that moment of silence before the crying starts, when your heart stops, you can only hope it is not too bad, not that bad.Today on the "tickle bed" Hannah fell into the headboard and…
Christopher LongApril 20, 2009
Over the last few months, I participated on an Educational Technology Services "hot team" that focused on researching the educational significance of grassroots video. If you don't know what grassroots video is, check out our…
Christopher LongApril 15, 2009
As I grow older, I realize more and more that a life is made up of lives, that an individual life involves phases linked yet distinct. With the approach of my 40th birthday in May,…
Christopher LongApril 2, 2009
After listening to this week's New Yorker comment podcast entitled "Economy vs. Environment" by David Owen, I was struck by three things. First, economic prosperity is dirty. Owens says that "the principle source of man-made…
Christopher LongMarch 26, 2009
