Interview with a robot

New York times national correspondent Amy Harmon and Brent McDonald have a conversation with the Bina48 about what it's like to be a robot.

View the interview here

Bizarre!!!

play thing or legitimate learning aid?

Having had the iPad for 3 days now, I have found it gets used more as a play thing than a 'work' aide! My children and husband want to play games all the time and have corrupted me by showing me 'labyrinth' and 'angry birds'. This weekend I will need to ensure I discover all the 'teaching and learning' functions and think about how they would apply at school. I haven't created a dropbox account, so that functionality is still unknown.
I will share more when I have more to share :)

Wikiracing

The latest procrastination-tool-of-choice in schools is called “Wikiracing,” it challenges players to connect the dots. The rules are simple: Pick a starting page–”Helen Keller,” for example. Then pick a second target page, the more disparate, the better–”lucky bamboo,” say–and see who can get from the first to the final page fastest, solely by clicking on links embedded within the pages. It turns out, you can get from the deaf and blind author to the popular houseplant in six clicks: According to Keller’s Wikipedia page, the Japanese were especially fond of Keller. The “Japanese people” page leads to the “Japan” page, which contains a reference to the oldest known Japanese folktale, “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.” And from there it’s quick clicking to “bamboo” and finally “Dracaena sanderiana“–the “lucky” variety. Winners are determined by the number of pages visited on the way to the final destination (fewest clicks wins), or players can race against the clock. Other variations require players to begin on different, randomly selected pages and race toward the “Jesus” page…

For rules and description...

LINK