Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
The Trouble With Online College
Courses delivered solely online may be find for highly skilled, highly motivated people, but they are inappropriate for struggling students who make up a significant...
From ACM Opinion
Many Hands Make Fractals Tactile
Human beings are born with an innate capacity to learn languages. Yet while mathematics is the language of pattern and form, many people struggle to acquire even...
From ACM Opinion
Opening the Doors to the Life of Pi
For those of us who have been intoxicated by the powers and possibilities of mathematics, the mystery isn't why that fascination developed but why it isn't universal...
From ACM Opinion
Google's Little Nemo Tribute: Maybe The Best Google Doodle Ever
Winsor McCay (1869–1934) was one of the first important creators of both comic strips and animation, and a pretty fair political cartoonist to boot.
From ACM Careers
Follow a Career Passion? Let It Follow You
In the spring of 2004, during my senior year of college, I faced a hard decision about my future career.
From ACM Opinion
Is Algebra Necessary?
A typical American school day finds some six million high school students and two million college freshmen struggling with algebra.
From ACM Opinion
The Trouble With Online Education
"Ah, you're a professor. You must learn so much from your students."
From ACM Opinion
Can We Fix Computer Science Education in America?
The tech sector is set to grow faster than all but five industries by 2020. Out of those fields, half of which are related to healthcare, tech pays the best with...
From ACM Opinion
God and Man in Tennessee
Earlier this month state senators in Tennessee approved an update to our sex-education law that would ban teachers from discussing hand-holding, which it categorizes...
From ACM Opinion
Research Bought, Then Paid For
Through the National Institutes of Health, American taxpayers have long supported research directed at understanding and treating human disease.
From ACM Opinion
Welcome to the 'knowosphere'
Here's my take on what I've begun calling the "knowosphere"—a word intentionally echoing the more allegorical "noosphere," the "planet of the mind" of Vladimir....
From ACM Opinion
Why Books Are Better Than E-Books For Children
Do you read to your children from your iPad or other device, or encourage them to use an e-reader to read to you?
From ACM Opinion
The Last Person
There is a concept in telecommunications called "the last mile," that part of any phone system that is the most difficult to connect—the part that goes from the...
From ACM Opinion
The niversity of Wherever
For more than a decade educators have been expecting the Internet to transform that bastion of tradition and authority, the university. Digital utopians have...
From ACM Opinion
How to Fix Our Math Education
There is widespread alarm in the United States about the state of our math education. The anxiety can be traced to the poor performance of American students on...
From ACM Opinion
Education Needs a Digital-Age pgrade
If you have a child entering grade school this fall, file away just one number with all those back-to-school forms: 65 percent. Chances are just that good that...
From ACM Opinion
Teaching to the Text Message
I've been teaching college freshmen to write the five-paragraph essay and its bully of a cousin, the research paper, for years. But these forms invite font-size...
From ACM Opinion
The Lessons of 10 Years of Talking Tech
It’s a special week in America. All over the country, families are gathering in warmly lighted homes. They’re sitting down to fancy feasts at decorated tables...
From ACM Opinion