Category Archives: Education

Sesame Street’s executive producer on staying relevant after 46 years | Engadget

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Thanks to Netflix, Amazon and YouTube, the competition for kid’s eyeballs is fiercer than ever, but that’s not slowing down Sesame Street. Now in its 46th year, the show is making a bigger and bigger push into social media, with often hilarious (but secretly educational) results. I sat down with the show’s Senior Vice President and Executive Producer, Carol Lynn-Parente, shortly after meeting my new best friend, Cookie Monster, to talk about the show’s digital life and more.

READ MORE: Sesame Street’s executive producer on staying relevant after 46 years |  | Engadget

A Typology of Web 2.0 Learning Technologies [Article] | EDUCAUSE.edu

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This article presents the outcomes of a typological analysis of Web 2.0 learning technologies. A comprehensive review incorporating over two thousand links led to identification of 212 Web 2.0 technologies that were suitable for learning and teaching purposes. The typological analysis then resulted in 37 types of Web 2.0 technologies that were arranged into 14 clusters. The types of Web 2.0 learning technologies, their descriptions, pedagogical uses and example tools for each category are described, arranged according to the clusters. Results of this study imply that educators typically have a narrow conception of Web 2.0 technologies, and that there is a wide array of Web 2.0 tools as yet to be fully harnessed by learning designers and educational researchers.

READ MORE: A Typology of Web 2.0 Learning Technologies | EDUCAUSE.edu

Beyond History Books: Trove of Rosa Parks Memorabilia Opens to Public for First Time | Mashable

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Rosa Parks was more than just the woman who refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus in 1955. Letters and photos that belonged to the civil rights activist offer new insights into her complexities. Parks legacy has been somewhat simplified by the history books.

Her archive goes on display for the first time on [February 4, 2015] at the Library of Congress, after long legal disputes hid the documents from public view for years. Researchers and the public will have full access to Parks archive of letters, writings, personal notes and photographs for the first time. About 7,500 manuscript items and 2,500 photographs from the civil rights activist, including a pocket-sized Bible, letters from admirers and her Presidential Medal of Freedom, are part of the collection.

READ MORE: Beyond history books: Trove of Rosa Parks memorabilia opens to public for first time | Mashable

It Took This Guy Over 7 Hours To Solve the World’s Hardest Rubik’s Cube | Gizmodo

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It Took This Guy Over 7 Hours To Solve the World's Hardest Rubik's Cube

Fascinating to glimpse the different types of Rubik’s Cubes this guy has in his collection. I thought there was only the original! The 17x17x17 cube would be a unique addition for libraries to have available for patrons to borrow. 

Seven hours sounds just about right for the average puzzle enthusiast to solve a standard 3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube. But Youtuber RedKB isn’t your average puzzle enthusiast. Instead of tackling a 3x3x3 cube, he solves this incredibly complex 17x17x17 cube designed by Oskar Van Deventer. In the end it took him about seven-and-a-half hours to get all the colored sides put back in order. READ MORE: It Took This Guy Over 7 Hours To Solve the World’s Hardest Rubik’s Cube | Gizmodo

Disabled Boy Learns to Play Piano With His Eyes Using Virtual-Reality Headset | The Guardian

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Eye Play the Piano is the work of Japanese VR headset manufacturer Fove, working with the University of Tsukuba. The project is pitched as a “universal piano” which children can play using eye movements while wearing the headset.

Through the use of Fove’s eye-tracking technology, the headmount recognises the user’s eye movement. The user blinks on one of the many panels within the interface to trigger the preferred note, which is then conveyed to the piano,” explains the Eye Play the Piano website.

READ MORE: Disabled boy learns to play piano with his eyes using virtual-reality headset | Technology | The Guardian.

E-Book Legal Restrictions Are Screwing Over Blind People | WIRED

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Snip

…For the nearly 8 million people in the US with some degree of vision impairment, the advent of ebooks and e-readers has been both a blessing and a burden. A blessing, because a digital library—everything from academic textbooks, to venerated classics, to romance novels—is never further away than your fingertips. A burden, because the explosion of ebooks has served as a reminder of how inaccessible technology really can be…

READ MORE: E-Book Legal Restrictions Are Screwing Over Blind People | WIRED

Indulge Your Inner Child and Lose a Few Hours To This Online Spirograph | Gizmodo

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We’ve got computer graphics software thats so powerful it can generate images that make it seem like dinosaurs are back. But they still cant compare to the simple satisfaction you get from making a really complex hypotrochoid or epitrochoid with a marker and some perforated gears. So Nathan Friend was kind enough to build a browser-based Spirograph youre probably going to want to immediately bookmark.

The online Inspirograph, as Nathan calls it, lets you swap in gears of different sizes and choose pretty much any color your computers screen can display. And while you dont get that highly satisfying feeling of pen on paper as you make endless loops, its impossible to screw up your design on this version, unless you accidentally refresh the page.

via Indulge Your Inner Child and Lose a Few Hours To This Online Spirograph | Gizmodo

This Font Could Help Dyslexics Read Better | CNET + A Typeface For Dyslexics? Don’t Buy Into The Hype | FastCompany

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This Font Could Help Dyslexics Read Better | CNET
Inspired by his own experiences with dyslexia, Dutch designer Christian Boer developed a font to make reading easier.

and a rebuttal…

A Typeface For Dyslexics? Don’t Buy Into The Hype | FastCompany
Lucida creator Chuck Bigelow argues that dyslexie and other similar fonts are statistically no better than Arial.

10 Amazingly Useful Spreadsheet Templates To Organize Your Life | makeuseof

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Is your life a hotch-potch of missed deadlines, forgotten shopping and reneged commitments? Sounds like you need to get organized. Where better to start than with hard numbers and figures? For this, you might want to take advantage of the many spreadsheets available on Vertex42 that allow you to keep track of your time, belongings, projects and money. Here are 10 of the best.

READ MORE: 10 Amazingly Useful Spreadsheet Templates To Organize Your Life | makeuseof

16 Fun Projects for Your New Raspberry Pi | Gizmodo

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The new Raspberry Pi is smaller, cheaper and more energy efficient—not a bad way to update a best-selling device. Whether you’ve taken the plunge on one of the new units or you want to put the original model to good use, weve collected together some of the most fun Pi-based projects on the planet for you to have a crack at.

Read More: 16 Fun Projects for Your New Raspberry Pi | Gizmodo.

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