Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 04/10/2026How happy that man looks. Guinness should offer to buy the rights to that photo for advertising - I am definitely craving Guinness now. I get just a fraction of that joy when I get to tell students the story behind Student's t-test in quant methods class. Stats helped perfect Guinness! 000
Reposted by Dan IsbellErin J. Wamsley 🧠📈😴 @wamsleylab.bsky.social · 03/10/2026The fiscal year is over. The dying Social, Behavioral, and Economic division of NSF ended up awarding 90 total grants this year, as opposed to ~700-800 in recent past years. Source: grantwitness.org/nsf/analyses... 9488303
Reposted by Dan IsbellDominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Writing something where I will be liberally citing @lilymasonphd.bsky.social's latest and realizing that I can't cite every single thing I would like to because then I'm just reprinting her work. So, I've gotta thread about it instead. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl... 8880283
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Interesting plans to modernize the TOPIK, including AI item generation and scoring as well as home administration (for lower proficiency levels) and improved security. I hope the AI scoring will primarily be feature-based ML models, though - wholly GenAI scoring systems are sub-par.www-koreatimes-co-kr.cdn.ampproject.orgKorea turns to AI to modernize TOPIK national language exam - The Korea TimesKorea’s national Korean language proficiency exam is preparing for a major digital overhaul, introducing artificial intelligence (AI) to draft test... 010
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 28/09/2026ACTFL exams, for one, are available much more readily, though considerably more expensive and rely on English knowledge for directions and questions. But I'd imagine some enterprising test developers could build a Japanese equivalent to their flagship English test. 001
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 28/09/2026and continually kicked down the road. Other 'hot' languages like Korean may face similar issues in testing - outdated admin/delivery makes upgrades a crisis response and opens up markets for competitors (Sejong Korean Assessment, for one). Foreign-made tests are also options... 100
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 28/09/2026The JLPT is not a 'small' test! It probably has more yearly test takers than Duolingo and comes close to TOEFL. I am not so familiar with the business side of things, but it seems like there has been some complacency - upgrading delivery and administration infrastructure seen as too big of a lift 100
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Demand for the JLPT is outstripping capacity to deliver exams, promoting the govt to encourage use of other tests. mnews.sbs.co.kr/english/arti...mnews.sbs.co.krSBS 뉴스대한민국 뉴스의 기준, 중심을 지키는 저널리즘 SBS 뉴스 - 시청자의 눈높이에 맞는, 더욱 품격 있는 뉴스를 제공합니다. 110
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 24/09/2026It's the best Weezer album, no contest. They've got a great catalog, but as an album Pinkerton is in a tier of its own and even on a song by song basis, you have Pink Triangle, Across the Sea, Tired of Sex, etc that hang with anything else Weezer has made. 000
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 24/09/2026I'd be okay with undergrads not majoring in history or linguistics or Japanese if we just made blanket gen ed reqs (with no STEM or business program being exempted) that feature courses from those departments. Hopefully some still would, but we could just stop with the must-grad-30/yr-or-die stuff 020
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 24/09/2026What's happening in Iowa is also instructive - you don't need majors if you have gen ed requirements for humanities courses and you exempt the units providing them from the typical bean counting of majors graduated by legislatively exempting/protecting units providing the humanities courses. 1111
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 20/09/2026That makes the whole endeavor a massive investment of time and effort. Most of my projects involve small teams of colleagues/grad students, and on top of that I supervise loads of grad student research. Maybe it's a me problem, but coming up with and supervising even more projects is beyond me. 120
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 20/09/2026My uni has a program and modest funding for undergrad research/scholarship/creative activity, but it seems to work best when a student can be brought into a physical/bio science lab. Folks in many humanities/soc sci disciplines would have to *come up with new/tailored projects* for mentees. 240
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Without disagreeing, we often also lack the infrastructure/resources to meaningfully bring undergrads into humanities/soc sci research. In many disciplines we lack actual 'labs' with ongoing, large-team projects that trainees can join as well as money to pay them. 1142
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 18/09/2026I don't want this to come across as victim blaming, but this story also highlights why it just isn't worth being on X. The reach isn't worth the Nazi trolling, because you're mostly reaching Nazi trolls. 020
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 18/09/2026I will go out on a limb and say responding to trolling, particularly racist trolling, with some variation of "fuck off" is actually okay. Even if you're a professor.chronicle.comA Carnegie Mellon Professor’s Comments Were Explosive. Are They a Firing Offense?Free-speech wars have become ever-present in academe. And Uju Anya, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, has experienced more than her share. 131
Reposted by Dan IsbellJan Vanhove @janhove.bsky.social · 18/09/2026New blog post: "Cluster analysis: A skeptic’s guide". In which I ask a few questions that social scientists wishing to identify hidden classes in their data ought to address. janhove.github.io/posts/2026-0... 416146
Reposted by Dan IsbellVictor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 16/09/2026Shout out to the student journalists at The Daily Iowan for reporting on the travesty that is Iowa's Center for Intellectual Freedom. With quotes from me dailyiowan.com/2026/09/15/u...dailyiowan.comUncertainty in leadership, curriculum surrounds UI Center for Intellectual FreedomIn the barren walls of his Calvin Hall office, where the Center for Intellectual Freedom resides, interim director and University of Iowa economics professor Luciano de Castro shuffles a stack of pape... 22664234
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 15/09/2026Very good news. The proposed rule has had universities, from the top all the way down to individual departments, scrambling to figure out how to continue supporting international students. Good to be relieved of all that... for now. 022
Reposted by Dan IsbellMatt Bors @mattbors.bsky.social · 14/09/2026It was exactly ten years ago today, on my 33rd birthday, that I posted this comic online. 485297727667
Reposted by Dan IsbellDon Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 13/09/2026A recurrent theme in this excellent story about China’s progress is that people there regard Trump as essential to their success, including his ability to drive scientific talent from the US www.newyorker.com/magazine/202... 361742738
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 12/09/2026I always have trouble recalling typical expenditures, but database/journal subscriptions also cost universities in the millions of dollars (up to about 10 million). Some unis try to resist that via OA policies/agreements. Crazy how AI fees are going to make that look like a small sum. 000
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 11/09/2026Balbir Singh Sodhi was murdered on Sept 15, 2001 in Mesa, AZ (suburb of Phoenix). Those days and months that followed 9/11 were not a good time for this country. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_...en.wikipedia.orgMurder of Balbir Singh Sodhi - Wikipedia 000
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 09/09/2026Imagine looking at these PISA reading results and thinking "what if we keep all the screentime in schools, but have an AI assistant on all the screens?" 011
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 08/09/2026(spoilers: I am not a particularly notable person.) (spoilers: This will go into my bloated promotion dossier supplementary materials.) 000
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 08/09/2026I grudgingly use LinkedIn because it is useful for connecting with people in my field and keeping up to date on relevant industry news. But man, sometimes the slop and spam on that website... 121
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 08/09/2026Nice article on fostering bi/multilingualism among children in the Japan Times: #lingsky www.japantimes.co.jp/community/20...japantimes.co.jpHow to navigate parenthood in a multilingual homeLanguage experts have advice for parents that should be reassuring in its simplicity: read, make friends and have fun. 000
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 07/09/2026New Pew survey on attitudes toward additional language study in the US: www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...pewresearch.orgWhat do Americans think about language learning in U.S. schools?Four-in-ten Americans say it is extremely or very important for children growing up in the U.S. to learn a language other than English. 032
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 07/09/2026We're also like, pound for pound among the least physically dangerous primates, right? Gorillas, chimps, baboons got the raw strength. Evolution got us language, intelligence, and social cooperation. 120
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 07/09/2026Tufekci is the one who was pushing lab leak theories a year or two ago, right? 050
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 07/09/2026Was not expecting this in the middle of a Hanroro (rock/pop musician whose songs are frequently featured in K-Dramas) playlist. Brain was very confused hearing Korean from the start with that melody, but this is very good.youtu.be[Special Clip] 한로로 (HANRORO)_ 잔혹한 천사의 테제 : J-POP REMAKE Vol.2YouTube video by 동네친구 강나미 [Kangnami] 010
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 06/09/2026Being good is also what enabled a lot of the predation - it made them money and (impressionable, devoted) fans, and put them in charge of teams where I'd imagine there's a lot of deference to and desire to protect talent at the helm. 070
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 06/09/2026Dems should play dumb with questions about Piker. Who? Is he running for local office somewhere? Is he working on someone's campaign? What does he do? Twitch? What's that? Is he a major donor? Has he given gifts to a Dem and then, coincidentally, gotten a gov't contract? Is he in the Epstein files? 000
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 05/09/2026Assistant Vice Provost of Academic Technology Integration and Entrepreneurship Post 030
Reposted by Dan IsbellTrevon Logan @trevondlogan.bsky.social · 05/09/2026I can’t wait for the 18 part series in the Atlantic about “The Crisis at Business Schools” which will detail of every instance of academic fraud at the nation’s top business schools, the coverups, lack of accountability, and their implications for business ethics and academic standards at B schools. 524957
Reposted by Dan IsbellDan "Mr. Bones and Me" Greene @dmgreene.bsky.social · 02/09/2026What's the ratio of op-eds about Claudine Gay paraphrasing someone vs op-eds about Ariely just straight up fabricating data 022052
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 02/09/2026It's like all the stuff right-NIMBYs imagined about windmills but real. 000
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 01/09/2026The best part of starting a new academic year is the pile-on of recurring mandatory training deadlines. All at the same time. 120
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026And apps (and textbooks, and classroom instruction) can give lots of give lots of useful opportunities for learning and practice. They won't be enough in the end, but can definitely be a useful start and continued supplement. Just be sure to add in other activities and resources. 010
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026What matters more, for communication and for digesting input to support more implicit learning of syntax, is vocabulary and decoding. Rote memorization and deliberate practice works for establishing those initial form-meaning connections! 110
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026some of those things don't matter so much from a communicative standpoint. I communicate, daily and successfully, with people whose L2 English grammar doesn't match my L1 grammar on things like plurals or articles. And my continued flubbing of Korean particles also doesn't matter much. 110
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026Some purists in language teaching like to point out that you can never really develop mental representations of complex grammatical phenomena (read: syntax) through explicit instruction and deliberate practice, whether it comes from a textbook, teacher, or app. They're probably right! But... 110
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026Part of why apps work is, in my view, because they deliver structured opportunity to get familiar with the forms of a new language. Even if they can get a bit rote at times, or turn into mindless games, but they still give you something that leads to usable knowledge of the language. 110
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026I'm glad about the subtitle for this article - and I'm someone who readily acknowledges that yes, you can learn a language (to some extent) from an app. But to really reach higher levels, you'll need more. And interacting with other humans in a new language is going to be more personally rewarding. 110
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026I was quoted in a new Popular Science article on language learning apps (alongside Luke Plonsky and Gillian Lord, who bring much more expertise to the topic!): www.popsci.com/science/do-l... #lingskypopsci.comCan apps really make you fluent in another language?A green owl can nudge you to practice, but it doesn't replace talking to a person. 120
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 28/08/2026Sad news for #linguistics. Lots of post-grad earnings pressure from (and soon to be on, from federal govt) universities is influencing programs and curricula, with language and linguistics getting pinched at many institutions. (ling/lang refugees welcome here at the University of Hawaiʻi)ntdaily.com‘My program’s going to sh-t’: Linguistics students move forward knowing major is being ‘phased out’A small program at the university, the linguistics department has taken pride in documenting endangered languages and preparing the next generation to research language. 041
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 25/08/2026Not having spent much time in NYC, I had no clue what Bergdorf is - but based on the headline I assumed it was an investment firm or consulting outfit. It's a (fancy) department store? Jeez, does NYT think rich people work in rich-people stores? 030
Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 23/08/2026He was hired to a particular position. If he's wasting his time doing pseudoscience that doesn't pass peer review and blogging to harass fellow academics, it's not out of bounds to get fired for not doing/being able to do the job. People are denied tenure/renewal for much less! 111
Reposted by Dan IsbellEmma Monk @monkemma.bsky.social · 22/08/2026One of the first "outrageous" claims I saw as Jason Arday's media hounding unfolded was that he ran 30 marathons in 35 days! Wow! What a thing to claim! And the newspapers all suggested there was no evidence he actually did it. Well, they clearly didn't look very hard 🙄 🧵 1/26 10628191393