MetaFilter posts tagged with education

Expeditions to the Polar Regions

netbros — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:01:49 -0800

The Polar Discovery team has documented science in action from pole to pole during the historic 2007-2009 International Polar Year, and covered five scientific expeditions. The science projects explored a range of topics from climate change and glaciers, to Earth’s geology, biology, ocean chemistry, circulation, and technology at the icy ends of the earth. Through photo essays and other multimedia, they explain how scientists collected data and what they discovered about the rapidly changing polar regions. From the awesome folks at WHOI.

cosmolearning

pahool — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:45:05 -0800

cosmolearning has a ton of college courses and documentaries aggregated in one place. And it was started by a couple of teenagers. I'm impressed.

Learn.Genetics

netbros — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:35:03 -0800

grumblebee's post about cell size and scale the other day was quite fascinating. Pulling back to the home for that site, the Genetic Science Learning Center at the University of Utah delivers educational materials on genetics, bio-science and health topics ranging from stem cells to gene therapy, and from epigenetics to heredity. Explore the neurobiology of normal and addicted brains and the genetic contribution to this chronic disease.

Goodbye, "Leih Hou Ma," Hello "Ni Hao Ma!"

zarq — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:57:09 -0800

"Chinatown" communities across the United States (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco) are undergoing a shift in linguistic identity, as recent immigrants are more likely to natively speak Mandarin (the official spoken language of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan,) instead of Cantonese. Also see these anecdotal reports about similar changes in Vancouver and Oakland, CA. Good news for the tri-literate: signs like this may soon become commonplace. :) The Language Atlas of China The PopUp Chinese Podcast and Arch Chinese site provide basic Mandarin lessons. Also see: Mango, ZhongWen and LiveMocha

Living Life to the Full - a free, guided introduction to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

KMH — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:53:16 -0800

A free website that helps you learn to diagnose and work through negative though patterns. Having seen so many posts on AskMeFi about depression, anxiety and related topics, it seemed almost a duty to share this. It's a free website (well, you have to register but it's anonymous and no cash changes hands) that's run by the health service here in the UK. It takes you through a course of small modules which help you to identify unhelpful thoughts and feelings and use simple forms to analyse and develop new ways of thinking using the well-known CBT method. I've often wanted to post this in an answer on AskMeFi, but realised it made more sense to post it once for everyone! CBT is not a magic wand but it can help in addition to other types of therapy. Even though the guy who introduces the modules on this website has a nice, calming voice, probably seeing a real life doctor and counsellor is best!

Freely available education resources -- The OER Commons

cog_nate — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:44:06 -0800

The OER Commons exists to help educators "find free-to-use teaching and learning content from around the world." Thousands of primary, secondary and post-secondary activities, labs, lecture notes, assignments and other educational materials are available by searching or browsing the OER site.

Get your Saturday morning on

Rhaomi — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:27:21 -0800

Saturday morning cartoons were once a staple of American television, but by the year 2000 they had all but disappeared. Of course, the Internet never forgets. Case in point: Cartoon Network Video -- a free, searchable, ad-supported service that provides hundreds of full-length episodes of classic shows like Dexter's Laboratory, Cow and Chicken, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Johnny Bravo, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, and The Powerpuff Girls, as well as current offerings and scads of shorter material. Too recent for you? Then give Kids WB Video a whirl -- it does the same thing with the same interface, but for older programs like Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, The Smurfs, Scooby-Doo, Thundercats, and the original Space Ghost. If you're in the mood to learn (and don't mind some live-action), PBS Kids Video has educational fare such as Arthur, Wishbone, and Zoom. And don't forget about Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, The Magic Schoolbus and Schoolhouse Rock! Now if only we had some Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs...

Knowing who you're writing for and why you're writing might be the most crucial factor of all

blasdelf — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:31:54 -0800

Before the Internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn't a school assignment. — Clive Thompson describes the results of the Stanford Study of Writing, mainly that young people today write far more than any generation before them.

Advertising in the public interest

Rhaomi — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 09:54:54 -0800

"What if America wasn't America?" That was the question posed by a series of ads broadcast in the wake of the September 11th attacks, ads which depicted a dystopian America bereft of liberty: Library - Diner - Church. Together with more positive ads like Remember Freedom and I Am an American, they encouraged frightened viewers to cherish their freedoms and defend against division and prejudice in the face of terrorism (seven years previously). The campaign was the work of the Ad Council, a non-profit agency that employs the creative muscle of volunteer advertisers to raise awareness for social issues of national importance. Founded during WWII as the War Advertising Council, the organization has been behind some of the most memorable public service campaigns in American history, including Rosie the Riveter, Smokey the Bear, McGruff the Crime Dog, and the Crash Test Dummies. And the Council is still at it today, producing striking, funny, and above all effective PSAs on everything from student invention to global warming to arts education to community service.

Additional resources: A-to-Z index of Ad Council campaigns - Campaigns organized by category - Award-winning campaigns - PSA Central: A free download directory of TV, radio, and print PSAs (registration req'd) - An exhaustive history of the Ad Council [46-page PDF] - YouTube channel - Vimeo channel - Twitter feed

College for $99 a month

cogneuro — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:38:05 -0800

Will universities go the way of newspapers and the music industry? Says so right here. ITTET will students continue to pay huge tuition for college when they can get the same education on-line at a fraction of the cost? Quality inexpensive on-line courses are here (previously 1, 2, 3 and others). A learner can pay the big tuition bucks and take Psych 101 in a classroom with 300 other people and an overworked contract lecturer, or DIY on-line. Article argues that on-line courses will undermine the business model for universities, with potentially "catastrophic" results. Virtual beer pong extra.

Back to self-school

escabeche — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 19:30:24 -0800

The autodidact course catalog. Twenty-two professors at Johns Hopkins propose reading lists for courses of self-study, from "Society Can Be Dangerous To Your Health" to "Higher Mathematics in Nouns and Verbs" to "Biochemistry and Human Evolution (with Rather a Lot about Mitochondria.)" If you're not going back to school this week, why not take on one of these syllabi instead?

Afro-centric public school opening in Toronto

modernnomad — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:10:01 -0800

Despite a reputation as an effective multi-cultural city, Toronto continues to have difficulties successfully integrating its communities of African heritage. In response to significantly higher than average high school drop-out rates in those communities, some academics suggested the creation of "black-focused public schools" [PDF] as means of re-engaging black youth with education. Needless to say, this caused debate, controversy, and even anger, but the first afro-centric public elementary school will open this month.

The New Liberal Arts

srboisvert — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 02:27:37 -0800

The New Liberal Arts book is out. 47 pages of free pdf about things the various authors think will help prepare you for modern life. Earlier discussion about the planning phase of the book.

Cemented

plexi — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:22:50 -0800

This fall, law students are competing for half as many openings at big firms as they were last year in what is shaping up to be the most wrenching job search season in over 50 years.

“Had I seen where the market was going, I would’ve gone to a lower-ranked but less expensive public school,” [a second year law student at Penn] said. “I’m questioning whether law school was the right choice at all."

21st Century College Gender Gap(s)

l33tpolicywonk — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 20:43:21 -0800

Linda Sax's The Gender Gap in College argues there is a qualitative difference between how men and women experience college: on engagement, self-confidence and achievement. The growing gender imbalance in college admissions may also result in higher rejection rates for female applicants which, Kenyon College Dean Jennifer Delahunty Britz argues, is a paradoxical result of the women's liberation movement. Women represent 58.7% of college graduates in the US.

Learn, Money Back, Guaranteed

jabberjaw — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 23:23:47 -0800

You can rank U.S. colleges by subjective, random methodologies. Or, you can rank colleges by what really matters: how much money you'll make after you graduate. Spoiler: Ivy Leaguers make more money.

Please Call Me Hararie

netbros — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 09:54:40 -0800

Japanese Element Symbols is an introduction for non-Japanese to the Japanese language through Kanji symbols, its alphabet, elements of Japan's culture, and what to expect on the culinary front.

"Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future."

Keter — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:12:08 -0800

Imagine you're living in China, trying to work your way out of the family date farming business (which garners approximately $450 annually). You do all the right things. You apply for (and receive) Communist Party membership. You study literally to the point of collapse, and despite coming from coal-town origins, you score high on your gao kao ("high test," more-or-less the only thing that matters in getting into a Chinese university). Your already-poor family goes deep into debt to send you to college, and you even manage to come out with a degree. Classic rise-up-by-your-own-bootstraps tale, right? However, finally, when you go to apply for a job—your state-sanctioned educational, occupational, and political records are inexplicably, awfully gone. What has happened to that plain manila folder (!) that serves as your only legitimate, official history in Chinese society? Probably stolen and sold so a party official's child can get everything you worked so hard for. And then, of course, your family is detained by party officials when your parents demand to know where the hell your life went. Of course. Then again, local corruption by local officials in China isn't terribly surprising. It's had some time to evolve. This just isn't what you normally think about when you think "government corruption."

stand and deliever; the untold story

Prunedish — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 05:13:22 -0800

Interesting article about the movie Stand and Deliever In 1988, the movie stand and deliver told the story of Jaime Escalante (information about him is here) and what happened in the class of '82 at Garfield high school. Essentially it is movie about a teacher who dares to challenge and believe in students to do what they, and those around them, think is impossible to achieve. What is interesting about the untold story it explains how the system would end up turning its back on the man and ideas who helped create a different and arguably successful teaching program and beliefs.

Scientific literacy.

binturong — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:44:41 -0800

Americans like science. But they think much less highly of American scientists than American scientists themselves do. Most scientists also rate media coverage of science as only fair or poor. Yet public knowledge of some scientific facts is .... not that bad (Section 7). A Pew Research Report reveals all.

building nothing out of something? or...

kliuless — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:21:22 -0800

Rebuilding Something Better by Barack Obama: "this week, I'll be talking about how we give our workers the skills they need to compete... Part of this goal will be met by helping Americans better afford a college education. But part of it will also be strengthening our network of community colleges..." BONUS -Zakaria: A Capitalist Manifesto -Cowen: Vaticanomics -The X-shaped recovery -Debt, Class Warfare and Entrepreneurship -America's Fiscal Train Wreck and Cassandra's Curse -Skidelsky: Economists clash on shifting sands -Skidelsky: The World Finance Crisis & the American Mission -Skidelsky: The Lost Continent -Obama: A New Moment of Promise in Africa -Sullivan: Barack Obama keeps his cool

Building A New Culture Of Teaching And Learning

peregrine81 — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:44:29 -0800

Dr. Tae describes the way the US system of education is failing and how to fix it.

The Size of Things

nola — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:13:16 -0800

Welcome to the Universe - III: The Size of Things . . .we take a breif trip through the Solar System and beyond to see the size of the Universe. A youtube video by AndromedasWake about the scale of the Universe.

Decentralized User-Generated Cellular Education

Miko — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:39:23 -0800

"The Public School is a school with no curriculum. At the moment, it operates as follows: first, classes are proposed by the public (I want to learn this or I want to teach this); then, people have the opportunity to sign up for the classes (I also want to learn that); finally, when enough people have expressed interest, the school finds a teacher and offers the class to those who signed up." A project of Telic Arts Exchange.

One Laptop Per Child: Vision vs. Reality

russilwvong — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:19:46 -0800

One Laptop Per Child: Vision vs. Reality. Three researchers at the University of California, Irvine evaluate the progress of the One Laptop Per Child initiative (Wikipedia). The vision is being overwhelmed by the reality of business, political, logistics, and competing interests worldwide. As of June 2009, fewer than six hundred thousand OLPCs have been shipped, while 10 million netbooks were sold in 2008 alone. From Communications of the ACM.