travel, Thanksgiving, Facebook: On the way … Sleep you traveling masses … Just for a bit …Traveling Along 74 … Sun At Our Backs … Hello, Asheville! A little rainy on your side of the mountains …. — at I-26 W … Shout out to Pidgeon Forge … Man you guys got rain this morning! — in Gatlinburg, TN … Whew… Made it through the “BEWARE OF FALLING ROCKS” zone near Sieverville .. — at I-40E Tennessee … Hello, Knoxville. Hello, Brantleys — at I 75N … We are almost to Lexington … Goal is to get to Louisville before I – 64 gets bottled up…. Made it to KY … and the Thanksgiving Exodus has started … Shout out to Lexington KY and the Whites! — at I-75 Near Lexington KY. … Almost to Louisville … Shout out to the Bodes … [my FB posts as we traveled :)]
Thanksgiving: Stay Calm …
Thanksgiving, Goggle doodle: Gobble … Gobble
Davidson College, teaching initiative: Interesting story involving Davidson prof and students.
Longtime science blog readers will certainly remember the popular cognitive psychology blog Cognitive Daily, written by Greta and Dave Munger, that had a fantastic five-year run at Scienceblogs. While Dave is still involved in the science blogging community through projects like Research Blogging and Science Seeker, and of course writing his own blogs, Greta has been pushing forward with online science communication in a slightly different way: working with her undergraduate psychology students at Davidson College in updating and improving psychology-related entries on Wikipedia.
Greta’s project is part of a larger effort spearheaded by the Association for Psychological Science, called the APS Wikipedia Initiative:
APS is calling on its Members to support the Association’s mission to deploy the power of Wikipedia to represent scientific psychology as fully and as accurately as possible and thereby to promote the free teaching of psychology worldwide.
All APS Members are encouraged to participate by adding new entries and enhancing existing ones with more complete and accurate information with references. This is an especially exciting initiative for teachers and students who can make updating or creating Wikipedia entries part of coursework.
I spoke with Greta about this project recently:
Why did you decide to include this somewhat unconventional assignment in your class? What might this sort of assignment offer for your students that is different from more standard papers or presentations?
I’ve always had students in my 200-level lecture course write research papers on a topic of their choice as a way to introduce reading journal articles and writing literature reviews. It also introduces them to the search tools in our library. When I read about the APSWI challenge to have students help correct Wikipedia, I thought it sounded like a really neat idea at many levels: taking some responsibility for how research psychology is represented; having a project the students might get more excited about; and having a chance to tap into the service and leadership part that is so important to Davidson College’s tradition. In order to write a good Wikipedia article, the students need the same reading and research skills that my older assignment was designed to teach them, with the advantage of also contributing to the public good.
via Engaging Undergrads with Wikipedia | The Thoughtful Animal, Scientific American Blog Network.
Thanksgiving traditions, turkeys, pardons, President Obama: 🙂
It’s good to have friends in high places. Especially when you’re a turkey. On Thanksgiving.
President Obama will use his executive authority Wednesday to pardon two 19-week-old, 45-pound turkeys a day before America’s annual feast. Liberty, chosen from among more than 100 candidates as the National Thanksgiving Turkey, and its alternate Peace, will be driven to Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens, where they will be on display through Jan. 6, the White House announced.
via Obama to pardon two national turkeys for Thanksgiving – 44 – The Washington Post.
English language, history:
Yesterday, the Open University released ‘The History of English in 10 Minutes,’ a witty animated sequence that takes you through 1600 years of linguistic history. The Vikings gave us “give” and “take.” Shakespeare added another 2,000 words and expressions to the mix. The British Empire (see video above) then brought the evolving English language to new lands, creating new varieties of English worldwide. And so the story continues.
via The History of the English Language in Ten Animated Minutes | Open Culture.
YouTube, Urban Ninjas: Crazy stuff out there …
DANCE ASSASSIN + Urban Ninja 3 Preview
public libraries: Worth reading … “6. Public libraries are one of the greatest equalizers for equitable access to information regardless of race, creed or income level.”
… so, before you read my interview with Molly Raphael, President of the American Library Association, please take a moment to look at 10 important things you need to know about our American libraries.
1. Americans go to school, public and academic libraries nearly three times more often than they go to the movies.
2. There are more public libraries than McDonald’s in the U.S. (total of 16,604 including branches).
3. 59% of adults in the U.S. have a public library card.
4. Reference librarians in the nation’s public and academic libraries answer nearly 5.7 million questions weekly.
5. Public libraries are the number one point of online access for people without internet connections at home, school or work (98.7% of public libraries provide public access to the internet).
6. Public libraries are one of the greatest equalizers for equitable access to information regardless of race, creed or income level.
7. In these times of economic crisis, over 65% of public libraries provide services for job seekers.
8. Americans spend more than twice as much on candy as they do on public libraries.
9. Americans spend $34.95 a year for the public library (and check out an average of more than seven books a year)
10. A public library provides a safe, warm, friendly place for a poor family to read with their children.
Boston College,education, collaborative learning: Wow … a collaborative twist on the Socratic method used in law schools.
Peter Wilson believes (as do many education researchers) that collaborative activity fosters learning. It is for this reason that he assigns students to groups at the start of a semester. But he also knows that when a crew of five divvies up the work each student will dig deeply into roughly 20 percent of the material. “I want them to teach each other before they come back to class,” he says. And so he instituted the regime of the bingo cage and the dice, to spur his students to learn the full assignment. The students arrive early because of his habit of drawing the first numbers 10 minutes before class begins, which he does to get a head start. (There are usually two or three more drawings on the same day, without time for preparation.) The opportunity of a little advance warning, however, scarcely explains Hevia’s reaction to “winning.” “I knew the stuff. I had to know the stuff,” the student from Miami said later. “And I guess I felt happy I could show it.”
via Boston College Magazine » Fall 2011 » Features » Master teachers.
apps, Nouvelle, RSS: I have never used RSS … so I have no idea how this works. Anybody willing to show me/explain RSS.
Nouvelle – An app with the style and substance
Nouvelle provides the most simple and clutter free RSS reading experience.
via App Store – Nouvelle.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ernest Hemingway, famous people: I have never met anyone really famous … but wondered what I would do.
For a fraction of a second, as always seemed to be the case, I found myself divided between my two competing roles. I didn’t know whether to ask him for an interview or cross the avenue to express my unqualified admiration for him. But with either proposition, I faced the same great inconvenience. At the time, I spoke the same rudimentary English that I still speak now, and I wasn’t very sure about his bullfighter’s Spanish. And so I didn’t do either of the things that could have spoiled that moment, but instead cupped both hands over my mouth and, like Tarzan in the jungle, yelled from one sidewalk to the other: ”Maaaeeestro!” Ernest Hemingway understood that there could be no other master amid the multitude of students, and he turned, raised his hand and shouted to me in Castillian in a very childish voice, ”Adiooos, amigo!” It was the only time I saw him.
At the time, I was a 28-year-old newspaperman with a published novel and a literary prize in Colombia, but I was adrift and without direction in Paris. My great masters were the two North American novelists who seemed to have the least in common. I had read everything they had published until then, but not as complementary reading – rather, just the opposite, as two distinct and almost mutually exclusive forms of conceiving of literature. One of them was William Faulkner, whom I had never laid eyes on and whom I could only imagine as the farmer in shirtsleeves scratching his arm beside two little white dogs in the celebrated portrait of him taken by Cartier-Bresson. The other was the ephemeral man who had just said goodbye to me from across the street, leaving me with the impression that something had happened in my life, and had happened for all time.
via The Only Time Gabriel Garcia Marquez Saw Ernest Hemingway | Wired Science | Wired.com.
9/11 museum: Sad … this needs to be done …
The 2012 opening of the Sept. 11 museum at the World Trade Center will be delayed by disputes over redevelopment costs, a person familiar with the construction project said Monday.
The dispute between the National September 11 Memorial & Museum foundation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was first reported in The Wall Street Journal.
They Draw & Cook: Recipes Illustrated by Artists from Around the World, cookbooks, illustrated cookbooks: This seems to be a trend … I noted Maira Kalman had illustrated a cookbook recently … Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual
For the past 18 months, brother-and-sister duo Nate Padavick and Salli Swindell have been delighting us with their beautifully illustrated visual recipes from around the world. They Draw and Cook: 107 Recipes Illustrated by Artists from Around the World collects the best 107 of these lovely and delicious treats, joining the ranks of our favorite quirky cookbooks with an absolute gem of visual and culinary allure. From the playful and facetious to the elegant and sleek, these illustrated treasures offer everything from Chocolate Haystacks to Starving Artist Goo-lash and, of course, Cooooooookies for good measure.
via They Draw & Cook: Recipes Illustrated by Artists from Around the World | Brain Pickings.
college basketball, Kentucky: … And now I am told I have no choice. UK is playing. GO BLUE!
Dennard's Clipping Service 