February 2011
Test-Taking Enhances Learning →
Test-taking enhances learning. I didn’t say it. It comes from a recent Alertbox post from Jakob Nielsen. He is a big name in the web usability world, and
not an educator. But I thought…
January 2011
The Elements of (a vigorous) Style
Adam Haslett on Stanley Fish’s How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One
In 1919, the young E.B. White, future New Yorker writer and author of Charlotte’s Web, took a class at Cornell University with a drill sergeant of an English professor named William Strunk Jr. Strunk assigned his self-published manual on composition titled “The Elements of Style,” a 43-page list...
Removal of Dams Will Open Up Fish Spawning →
The Department of Environmental Protection has secured a landmark agreement that will open up a large stretch of the Raritan River for fish spawning as compensation to the public for harm to natural…
New York hires a 'chief digital officer'
After a high-profile search that began over six months ago, New York City has hired new media entrepreneur Rachel Sterne as its first “chief digital officer.”
It’s the latest major move made by the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, himself a billionaire entrepreneur, to shove the establishment-heavy Gotham into the 21st century.
Sterne’s job won’t involve...
Have You Seen A Time Traveler? →
Regular readers of my blogs will know that I am fascinated by time travel. I would like to believe it’s possible, but so far, no proof. It has long been asked: If at some point in the future time…
Okay, who took the Moon rocks?
If $5 million worth of moon rocks happen to be junking up your home, could you give New Jersey State Police a call? Detectives will arrive at, well, warp speed to reclaim state property — and solve a 35-year-old mystery…
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/01/investigators_scour_nj_in_sear.html
Something About Alyssa →
Alyssa, uploaded by Bryan Brinkman..
Has the world changed?
Happy birthday iPad. It is year to the day since Steve Jobs introduced the iPad to the world at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Did it change the world? Your world?
It’s In The Stars →
All my life I have been a Libra (Libran?). And now, I might be a Virgo. An astronomer claims that a shift in the Earth’s alignment has changed zodiac dates and added a 13th Zodiac sign which is being…
Happy Birthday Lego →
On this day in 1958, LEGO patented their building bricks.
Lego (trademarked in capitals as LEGO) construction toys are manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund,…
The Science of Mindfulness →
Recommended listening: Opening to Our Lives — Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Science of Mindfulness from Being Scientist and author Jon Kabat-Zinn has changed medicine through his work on meditation and stress….
Koan 13 Bells and Robes →
Ummon asked, “The world is such a wide world, why do you answer a bell and put on ceremonial robes?”
One thing I found attractive about studying Zen (including the koans) is that you don’t need to…
WatchPhysics professor Michio Kaku explains what effect NASA’s discovery of a galaxy that could be 13 billion-year-old, almost as old as the big bang its self, could mean to science.
msnbc video: NASA may have found oldest galaxy
The Web Means the End of Forgetting →
The Right Word →
“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” — Mark Twain
Library of Congress 2011 Summer Teacher Institutes →
It’s getting late - applications are due February 4 - but The Library of Congress is still accepting applications for
its 2011 Summer Teacher Institutes in Washington, D.C. The five-day institutes…
Virtual Life After Actual Death →
What happens to that online material when we die? READ ON
Writing Workshops for January-February →
The Writing Center is beginning its writing workshop series for the Spring semester. The following workshops are being offered in January and February 2011…
Why You Are Here
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat. “We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
Three More Open Everything Projects →
Here are three open education resource projects worth exploring. I categorize these here under my larger umbrella of “open everything” because
many people think only of open source software when…
Getting Help Preparing for the College Writing... →
There are a number of things you can do to prepare for the PCCC College Writing Exam. Perhaps the most important thing is to prepare early. Doing one of these suggested preparation…
Saints and Poets
“Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their individual lives. They waste their years in vain efforts to be...
Lying in Bed Just Like Brian Wilson →
“Well, I’m lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did.” So, I posted online as my “status” this weekend that I had a Brian Wilson kind of day. Never got out of my robe. Ate junk food. Sang harmony with myself in my room…
Moon Lore →
Far from the scientific side of the Moon, eclipses and solstices is the lore and legend of of favorite satellite. It’s the stuff that was once passed on to children and published in places like The…
Winona Ryder & Gen Xer's
After being a subject of Generation X desire for the better part of two decades, actress Winona Ryder announced Tuesday that she had finally conceded to having intercourse with every interested member within that age group.
Ryder, 39, believes members of Gen-X are now finally mature enough to “handle her.” “Fine,” Ryder said in a statement addressed to the 71 million...
A Story About Rooms With Phillip Levine →
The word stanza means “room.” The origin is late 16th century from Italian. A poem divided into stanzas is a house of rooms. It’s not a great hall with space not formally separated by…
Bell Sound Meditation →
By way of the Being blog, I discovered the guided practice of bell sound meditation as taught by Arthur Zajonc. They suggested this practice as a weekend contemplative meditation that can be as brief…
WCCC Visiting Authors Series - Gerald Stern →
The Warren County Community College (New Jersey) Visiting Authors Series continues on Wednesday, January 26th, with a reading by Gerald Stern. Gerald Stern was…
Proposed Changes to NJ Endangered Species List →
Proposed amendments to the list of endangered wildlife species, and the list of nongame wildlife native to the state, were scheduled to be published in the New Jersey Register on January 18, 2011. …
WCCC Visiting Authors Series - Gerald Stern →
The Warren County Community College (New Jersey) Visiting Authors Series continues on Wednesday, January 26th, with a reading by Gerald Stern. Gerald Stern was…
“I am circling around God, around the ancient tower, and I have been circling for...”
– via TIFERET Journal
WatchCritics’ Picks: Rosemary’s Baby A.O. Scott looks back at a movie probing themes of paranoia, persecution and motherhood.
“Summoned from a fresh page
Of winter, and finished with a stovepipe hat,
The...”
– The Bitter End by Daniel Anderson
The Fifth Taste
Sweet. Salty. Sour. Bitter. That’s the usual 4.
I don’t know what to think about “the fifth taste.” It’s called umami - taken from the Japanese word for “good flavor.”
“Umami is actually a scientifically verified fifth taste, just like sweet, sour, salty and bitter,” says cookbook author David Joachim. While hard to describe, some have said it’s the taste that gives certain foods...
second wave of Next Generation Learning Challenges...
Today marks the official launch of the second wave of Next Generation Learning Challenges grants. Wave 2 will provide up to $10 million in investment capital in an effort to develop tools and applications to help students master seventh- through ninth-grade math and literacy competencies. Subject mastery in these areas is critical to college and career readiness, and this round of funding will...
