Friday, November 23, 2007

Interesting..


When people are bored, I often think of something one of my mom's friends said about boredom, "And you live in this world?" There is so much going on, so much to do, read, see, touch, explore, experience! Here are some very cool things that I've come across lately.

Free Rice

For do-gooding word nuts this is an awesome sight. A test in vocabulary rewards every right answer with a donation of rice. This one will improve your vocabularly too because some of the words are tough! Check it out at
http://www.freerice.com/.

A Vision of Students Today






I came across this thought-provoking video at
Shashi's blog. And I came across Shashi at Twitter, which I'm thoroughly enjoying participating in.

TED

And if you enjoy getting inspired by video online, you cannot do better than to experience the TED talks. I have spent entire evenings watching one talk after the next being inspired and challenged. Check out the TED talks here.

I hope that provides you with some cool things to check out this Friday!

6 comments:

Suzie Ridler said...

Absolutely fascinating, I really enjoyed the video. It's very clear that technology is for the rich to me and to keep up with it the more money you have to got to have. I'm glad I am no longer an institutionalized student. I'd rather be a student of life than online. It makes me think more and more of unplugging more and more of my time online. There is so much to look at, I can get lost here.

Anonymous said...

I work at a public school (jr. high) in an overly-educated university town. I think I would crack under the stress the young teens I see every day are dealing with. We're asking them to live in BOTH worlds--the old school one (so to speak) and the world of technology. We're still teaching them with blackboards and textbooks, yet their lives outside of school look much like what these college students portrayed (if you substitute MySpace for Facebook). Instead of using technology (which is what most of us use in our personal lives) to teach, we punish them for using it during their school day. We're living in the information age, but still asking them to push pencils. I find it horribly depressing and I feel that we're doing them a great disservice. But I take away something different from this video than Suzie did. It doesn't make me want to step away from technology--it makes me glad that I've been able (in my middle age) to embrace it. One of the things I love passionately about blogging is that it flattens hierarchies--it goes against everything that's inherent in a formal education structure. That has many (in the mainstream) screaming with hysteria--but for me it provides a beacon of hope.

(Will check out her blog and Twitter profile. Thx.)

Anonymous said...

Oops! HIS blog. Sorry.

Shannon said...

Wow, fun stuff there Jamie! That pic at the top is gorgeous!

Sandra said...

I'm loving freerice.com .. it can even get a little addictive :)

Vedrana M. said...

free rice is cool, thank you :)