When was the last time a champion speller rolled up to a Bee in a Ferrari? Never. If you really want to guarantee your kids make something of themselves one day, youll want to forget board games like Scrabble and focus on building real-world skills. Not only does Robot Turtles teach a love of Herpetology the study of reptiles it also teaches them the basics of computer programming—aka coding.
Read More: A Board Game That Teaches Four-Year-Olds How To Code | Kinja
Browsing toy stores these days is often a constant reminder that they don’t make toys like they used to — because, in most cases, they make them better. It’s row after row of products you wish had been around back in your younger days. This goes double for the high-tech toys including robotics, smart devices and construction kits. Moss is a little bit of each.
The second product from Boulder, Colorado-based hardware startup Modular Robotics began life as a Kickstarter campaign late last year, when it managed to capture more than three and a half times its lofty $100,000 goal. And it’s not tough to see why. The robotics kit promises balances education and entertainment.
READ MORE Moss is a pricey Erector set for robot lovers [REVIEW] | Mashable
Hey, sometimes actions speak louder than fonts. And if you really, really like Comic Sans, then you’re going to love this. In the name of art, a gentleman named Jesse England has designed the “Sincerity Machine,” a Comic Sans typewriter.
READ MORE: Love Comic Sans? Then This is the Typewriter For You | Engadget
When you’re deaf, finding a job isn’t easy. The trickiest part, explains Ryan Hait Campbell, is the interview. “You’re not required to tell an employer you’re deaf until the interview, but sometimes, they’re a little shocked,” says Campbell, who has been deaf since birth. “They don’t know how to handle it.”
Because of things like this, he says, unemployment rates are staggeringly high among the deaf. Hard numbers are tough to come by, but some figures estimate that around half of people with hearing disabilities are unemployed.
But Campbell wants to change this. He’s the co-founder and CEO of MotionSavvy, an Alameda, California-based startup that’s developing a case for tablet computers that can serve as a virtual interpreter for the deaf. Known as UNI, the case uses gesture recognition technology developed by Leap Motion to translate sign language into audible speech.
READ MORE: New Tablet Case Recognizes Sign Language and Translates It Into Text | WIRED.
Lists recently posted resources related to MOOCs, big data, Gamification, The Flipped Classroom, 3D Printing, Mobile Learning and Digital Textbooks. READ: The Latest in EdTech Trends: 70 Resources Roundup | OEDB.org.
MicroBLINK PhotoMath Smart Camera Calculator. From PhotoMath.net “PhotoMath reads and solves mathematical expressions by using the camera of your mobile device in real time. It makes math easy and simple by educating users how to solve math problems.”
PhotoMath from MicroBLINK on Vimeo.
Doctor Who’s latest adventure sees him teaming up with a Dalek and trying to save the universe, but also teaching children some early computer programming skills.
This isn’t a TV show, however: it’s a game due to launch on Wednesday 22 October on the broadcaster’s CBBC website. The Doctor and the Dalek includes voice narration from current Doctor Peter Capaldi, and a new story by Phil Ford, who has written for the TV show.
The free web game is aimed at 6-12 year-olds, and involves freeing a battered Dalek from a ship of Cybermen, then building it back up to full strength through puzzles based on the programming elements of the new English computing curriculum.
via Doctor Whos new web game aims to teach children programming skills | Technology | theguardian.com.
In 2004 a small website appeared that contained a browser-based game called Notpron, which has since been hailed as “the hardest riddle on the Internet.” It consists of a series of 140 puzzles and riddles that get progressively more complex. Completing the game requires knowledge in a diverse range of fields including HTML programming, sound and graphics editing, music apprehension, research skills, and even remote viewing.
Out of the 17 million players that have attempted the game in the last decade only 31 have completed it. That’s just one in every 550,000 players–or, to put it another way, the chances you’ll be hit by lightning once in your lifetime are 41 times greater than they are for you solving Notpron.
To celebrate the games 10th anniversary I asked David Münnich, Notpron’s creator, to go down the rabbit hole of how and why it was created–and what it all means.
READ MORE: The Story Behind The Webs Weirdest, Hardest Riddle ⚙ Co.Labs ⚙ code + community.
The Cybersecurity Lab is a game designed to teach people how to keep their digital lives safe, spot cyber scams, learn the basics of coding, and defend against cyber attacks. Players assume the role of the chief technology officer of a start-up social network company that is the target of increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks. In the game, players must complete challenges to strengthen their cyber defenses and thwart their attackers. The Lab also features stories of real-world cyber attacks, a glossary of cyber terms, and short animated videos that explain the need for cybersecurity, privacy versus security, cryptography (cyber codes), and what exactly hackers are. MORE: Cybersecurity | NOVA Labs | PBS.
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