Yet another example of how I am constantly amazed by people’s ability to distill down difficult topics and concepts and present them in an understandable and entertaining manner. Jorge Cham of Piled Higher and Deeper intersperses comics inspired by life as a grad stud with interviews at various universities and research institutions. This week he traveled to CERN to interview Particle Physicist Daniel Whiteson about the Higgs Boson and how the LHC is attempting to find it.
The combination of visual and audio information presented in such a unique and entertaining way gets me excited to learn about a new topic. I recommend watching the video in full screen to get the entire experience.
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Don’t forget to vote in this weeks poll. What sort of posts do you want to see on this blog? More like this one? Your opinion is important to me!
This past week has provided a plethora of Cool Stuff to share! I’ve enjoyed shifting through stories and videos to select my favorites. Thanks to everyone who shared a link to something extra Cool with me this week!
Be sure to keep you eyes on the night sky again this week/weekend. The Lyrid Meteor Shower should peak April 22.
We’ve seen that the planets have inspired lots of things: research, space travel, videos, etc; here is a movement from an orchestral suite written in the early 1900s that is intended to convey astrological ideas and emotions associated with the planets on the psyche.
Another great study involving the usefulness of kelp. This time to detect radiation!
In the very first CSS, I had a story about a twister on Mars. Now another has been spotted that puts the previous 800 meter tall dust devil to shame. The new sighting was over 20 KM HIGH!
I was going to wait a bit until I talked more about this topic, but I’m excited to get it out of my brain onto a post! Earlier this week, I talked about how the Khan Academy has the potential to revolutionize education by allowing students to view video lectures at home and focus on mastering the concepts with help from teachers in the classroom. I’ve already watch a handful of videos myself and have found them very helpful and educational.
I’ve been watching videos though the Academy iPad app and have loved how convenient it is. I was able to download videos so that I could watch them during my bus ride (with no internet) back to New Mexico. I felt like could have been in a ‘The Future is NOW’ ad. I can’t help but smile and shake my head in amazement and the products we have available to us.
What’s even more amazing is the dedication that Apple and other companies have to the educationsystem. My friend Cornelius received a refurbished iPad as part of a larger donation to Teach for America. He currently uses it as a teaching tool at …. Hopefully we can convince him to write a guest post in the future!
What I’d really like to share with you today is Apple’s iBook2 announcement from January 2012. I was nerdy enough to watch the keynote speech the day this initiative was announce and was completely blown away and inspired by what they’ve created. I have long complained about the antiquity of textbooks, and it seems like the creative, talented people of the world are trying to insight a paradigm shift.
No heavy backpacks. No expensive, out-of-date texts. No boring walls of text.
Why did this take so long?! Actually, I’ve already purchased two e-books as required texts for my graduate classes, but this announcement still got me all riled up in a tizzy. After my initial, giddy reaction, I began to spread the good news like it had been passed down from Steve Jobs on high (and he only needed the one tablet). I could see no flaw in the design and expected everyone to be just as excited as I. Most were. But then, gradually different criticisms emerged.
eTextbooks are only available though iBooks 2 on the iPad
iPads are too expensive for most schools
Teachers will be reluctant to adapt new learning platforms
Students already have limited contact with print media. Too many ‘gadgets’ will actually prevent advancements in certain areas of their education.
Just a new way for students to be distracted in the classroom.
I believe many if these issues will be addressed in the years to come. Even just allowing access to the texts on a Mac computer will placate many naysayers. I’ve seen predictions of the Retina Display coming to the next generation of MacBooks, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that jump is announced alongside the new lineup of computers in the Fall. Certainly, there will need to be a transition period and different platforms will most likely attempt similar version (Kindle), however it is important to remember that initially teachers were not assigning schoolwork that required the internet or even word processors, but those are not integral parts of the classroom.
I’m already growing impatient with the current stale, lifeless textbooks I’m using this semester. After watching that first keynote, I turned my focus back to my studies. Assigned reading in my Statistics textbook.
I felt like my brain was moving in molasses in an attempt to learn the concepts. I had seen the future and now instead of reading and retaining information, all I could think about was how I could transform the text into an entertaining, interactive experience. I eventually got the chapter read, but it was very clear to me that hey, I could do this! And so, it is now that I announce, nay declare, that I, Meridith, will one day author a completely awesome eTextbook.
Until then, I’ll have to manage with the current system.
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Perhaps, if selected, I can convince the Hi-SEAS program to compile the joint experiences of the 6 Astro-Nots and 2 alternates into an iBook. I can easily envision a healthy collection of reports, media, and blog entries that would serve as content.
Can’t get to ahead of myself. Still one more week until the first announcements!
Questions of the Day: Do you think such a radical change can occur in the public school system? Are you a supporter? What do you think are the biggest challenges to this idea? What would you want to see in an end report/book from the 120-day Hi-SEAS food study?
Sweet Tea, Science 