Vinci Tab II: The Tablet You Won’t Mind Toddlers Playing With

I’m no longer surprised to see toddlers playing with iPads and iPhones, but I have to say that I’d rather have them playing with something that’s actually made for them, kind of like the Vinci Tab II tablet.

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Pencilgate

As I left the school for a well deserved break, it was about 12:30 and I had yet to eat lunch, I came up the teaching director of the school shouting at someone in her office. While this might seem a common occurrence at most school, it isn’t at ours. I have never seen the TD shouting at anyone. The school is a family-owned affair. The TD’s sister is the manager, the grandmother and great-aunt also work there and all of the kids go to this school.

The Best Educational Apps for College & University

As yesterday’s infographic post illustrated, the days of just book in the backpack for students is long gone. Students are hooked up on tech, hooked in with social networks, and downloading a plethora of different apps to do their homework, complete assignments. Here are some of the best student-classroom apps to help get those assignments done like student of the 21st century…

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First Week of the Fall Term 2011 – Mathematics Graduate School

Gradient Flows by Luigi Ambrosio

It’s the second week of school, but with a bank holiday last Monday (09/12/11), graduate school started up slowly. It will take until next week until everyone is finally registered to all of their classes. It took me a while to do so as well, because they changed up the system from a program that you installed on your computer to an online version. The online version is better, but you need to know where to go. I finally registered to my classes last Tuesday. I have three this semester:

Topics in Geometric Analysis: This class is with my thesis advisor and we will be exploring gradient flows in metric spaces. We will be using Luigi Ambrosio’s book of the same title. It promises to be an interesting class. Although, it’s not exactly what I’d like to do in my thesis, it’s getting there. I’d like more measure theory, but luckily, my advisor is doing research in the field. There are six students in the class, but only 4 were registered on Monday. I don’t know if the other two will be registering, my guess is yes. Two of my classmates are the other graduate students of my advisor. We are all going to a workshop in Hsinchu in Differential Geometry  on Saturday. Since I work most Saturdays, it’s not really a problem getting up. It will be a break from the norm, and I have a keen interest in Differential Geometry.

Education iMac Drops Below $1,000: Will You Get One?

I’ve mentioned before that I’m somewhat ambivalent about the all-in-one PCs, mostly because they use laptop parts to get to that svelte size, but Apple has announced the specs of their education iMac, which sits at $999. That’s $200 less than the cheapest consumer model. You won’t get Thunderbolt or a Core i5, but you’ll get a decent computer for that price.

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Danah Boyd: On Sexting Teenagers

Notes from a talk that Danah Boyd gave in 2011 about sexting and teenagers.

The Value of College @ The New Yorker

Good article in the New Yorker about education and what it means to society. If college is a 4-year IQ test, then what’s grad school, especially in abstract disciplines like pure mathematics? I wonder. I fully appreciate being a graduate student in math. It makes your brain work in funny ways, and I like it.

[...] that the two most crucial ingredients in the mysterious mix that makes a good writer may be (1) having read enough throughout a lifetime to have internalized the rhythms of the written word, and (2) refining the ability to mimic those rhythms.
Professor X quoted in the New Yorker

RURO: The Cutest Robot You’ve Ever Seen!

This robot is probably too cute to be used as an effective security ‘bot, but it does have some interesting features for an educational robot. RURO the robot was designed to teach kids about recycling.

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Co-Teachers & Grammar Curriculum

In Taiwan, ESL teachers are usually matched with a Chinese co-teacher. This is true for all of my classes, but I spend most of my time with my K2 classes and I’ve known my co-teacher for over a year. When co-teachers take time off, the class starts to break down. The class doesn’t run as smoothly as before. When there is no co-teacher, the class isn’t as easy to run. This isn’t true for the older classes, but it is true in Kindergarten.

Mega Man Explains Safe Sex

Ah, sex education! Thanks to this 8-bit parody, you won’t have to explain the birds and the bees to anyone. Just link to this video, and they’ll know all about safe sex.

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