May 2009
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Calling John Connor, Robot Teachers?
Saya the robot made her teaching debut in a fifth-grade classroom in Japan this week. This could be an interesting way to teach about technology in the classroom! Saya was developed by Hiroshi Kobayashi at Tokyo University in the mid-nineties, and she now speaks 300 words and displays emotions: sadness, happiness, surprise, and anger.
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Fighting Graffiti with... Grammar?
Fed up with graffiti, an English teacher from South Milwaukee High School is pushing back at vandal’s in her neighborhood… by correcting their grammar. “The use of the verb are allows you to write a COMPLETE SENTENCE. (Without it, you have a fragment, of course - missing the predicate of the sentence. The subject is dogs.)” she wrote. ...
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Don't Stop Daydreaming...
When you daydream people usually think you’re brain is being lazy as you t u n e o u t . . . Not so according to a new scientific study by the University of British Columbia which shows your brain is highly active when you daydream. The findings suggest that daydreaming – which can occupy as much as one third of our waking lives – is an important cognitive state where we may...
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Doodle 4 Google
Even though we didn’t have any entries from DSHA, you can vote for your favorite Doodle 4 Google and help a student win a college scholarship!
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Prof. Development: UW-Stout E-learning for...
Earn 3 semester hours graduate credit learning how to use Moodle through UW-Stout, and take the class online! The coursework will be hands-on and incorporate Web 2.0 tools (blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc). If you’re interested, please take a look at the class description.
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Check Your Sources Online
Here’s a good illustration of why you should check your sources on information found online, especially on wikipedia. (Thanks Dr. Mansfield!) Find out what happens when a Dublin University sociology student posts a fabricated quote to a wikipedia entry as an experiment… Summary: Wikipedia passes, Media Publications fail. Read more: Irish student hoaxes world’s media with...
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Follow DASHER Rugby Online!
Thanks to Ms. Letizia for providing the information… follow our girls online to the Championship! If you want to follow our Rugby Team as it vies for a 6-peat at Nationals this weekend, the brackets can be found at USA Rugby. (from the left frame go to Championships > High School & U19’s and then to Girls Under 19 Brackets) and the actual games may be available at USA Rugby...
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MPD Electronic Citations
An interesting article from JSOnline on the increase in traffic citations in Milwaukee. A consequence of law enforcement mobile laptops is a 64% increase in case filings for the first 3 months of 2009. According to the article, efficiency in writing tickets makes officers more likely to cite violators, and cite multiple violations: In Milwaukee, that means traffic court has been flooded with...
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Students Unplugged: Follow-up
Big thanks to Ms. Lundberg who pointed up a follow-up article to my previous post on Students Unplugged. The students participating in the experiment kept journals on their experience (unplugging their lives). After one-week students had some interesting comments on their fast: “I can’t stand it,” he wrote in his journal on the second day of a one-week attempt to survive...
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Did you know? Texting Costs
While it might be upsetting to know you’re getting charged for something that costs very little for your phone company to provide, it’s interesting to see how it works. Ever wonder why texts are limited to short messages? In order for you phone to operate on a wireless network, it has to phone-home (control channel) to stay in contact: Phone to tower: hello tower? Tower to phone: hi...
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"They can't have disappeared. No ship that small...
I have a free 4GB USB flash drive to the first commenter where the title quote is from… Theories of “cloaking” devices and material seem like Science Fiction? More research in nano-technology has discovered that it could come in handy for cloaking. Newly developed silicon-based materials have tiny nano-holes drilled in them to bend light and hide a very small object! If you...
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Get Through A Semester With Your iPhone
There’s a great article, How to Get Through a Semester with your iPhone, that may help you think about improving study habits for fall or to start your collegiate career on the right foot. There are apps to organize your homework, schedule, take notes, record your lectures, create flashcards, and even research projects!
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Amazing Slow Motion Video of Surfer (BBC)
Great HD video of surfing an ocean wave - with underwater shots!
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Effective PowerPoint Presentations
I didn’t want this to get lost in the comments of my previous PowerPoint post, so here are two great videos on creating better PowerPoint presentations. I’m a fan of pecha-kucha (“chit-chat” in Japanese). What is it? 20 slides, each 20 seconds (6m40s presentation) presented informally and communicated easily (usually with great visuals that illustrate your point). Example...
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Free Comic Book Day Tomorrow
Hello True Believers! Tomorrow, May 2, 2009, is FREE Comic Book Day! Participating comic book stores are giving away comic books FREE to anyone that comes in. So whether you read comics, manga, graphic novels, or sequential art, check it out!
