Education successes!

Moments during the Graduation Ceremony for 2010

Classroom Hero Cultivates Global Citizens

When students at Homestead Middle School enter Adewale Alonge's agriculture class, they often aren't enthused. They come from families of mostly Hispanic migrant workers. They've likely spent hours in the fields near Miami, Fla. watching their parents work. Agriculture is something they know, too well. It's something they want to escape from.

As an immigrant from Nigeria, Alonge knows how difficult it is for them to think past their circumstances, about a life beyond the next harvest.

But in his classroom, a few plants can quickly become a field of dreams.
Read More...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/21/classroom-heroes-agricult_n_772173.html

Classroom Hero Cultivates Global Citizens

When students at Homestead Middle School enter Adewale Alonge's agriculture class, they often aren't enthused. They come from families of mostly Hispanic migrant workers. They've likely spent hours in the fields near Miami, Fla. watching their parents work. Agriculture is something they know, too well. It's something they want to escape from.

As an immigrant from Nigeria, Alonge knows how difficult it is for them to think past their circumstances, about a life beyond the next harvest.

But in his classroom, a few plants can quickly become a field of dreams.
Read More...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/21/classroom-heroes-agricult_n_772173.html

Vera Rubin and the Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are won, but I was rooting for astronomer Vera Rubin, now 82, whose quiet, unassuming demeanor might seem incongruent with her extraordinary career in science.

http://news.discovery.com/space/always-a-bridesmaid-vera-rubin-and-the-nobel-prize.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1

Vera Rubin and the Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are won, but I was rooting for astronomer Vera Rubin, now 82, whose quiet, unassuming demeanor might seem incongruent with her extraordinary career in science.

http://news.discovery.com/space/always-a-bridesmaid-vera-rubin-and-the-nobel-prize.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1

Students fined for being late for class
We might be changing out named to five dollar bills if the trend in Salt Lake City continues... A school will be allowing students to choose between a $5 fine or 30 minutes of detention for being late to class. The fees will go to pay the teachers who need to watch the kids in detention.The idea itself seems interesting -- but how about a dual policy that fines boring / ineffective teachers and reimburses the students for wasting their time.Pros: students learn early that money will buy you out of most any trouble.Cons: less advantaged students end up serving detention and the wealthier peers simply pay the fine.STORY: Students at East High School will be charged $5 for being late to class
Related Articles from DetentionSlip Utah
Students fined for being late for class
Mother Doctored Photo of 13 year old student
School claims Jesus was a vampire

Students fined for being late for class
We might be changing out named to five dollar bills if the trend in Salt Lake City continues... A school will be allowing students to choose between a $5 fine or 30 minutes of detention for being late to class. The fees will go to pay the teachers who need to watch the kids in detention.The idea itself seems interesting -- but how about a dual policy that fines boring / ineffective teachers and reimburses the students for wasting their time.Pros: students learn early that money will buy you out of most any trouble.Cons: less advantaged students end up serving detention and the wealthier peers simply pay the fine.STORY: Students at East High School will be charged $5 for being late to class
Related Articles from DetentionSlip Utah
Students fined for being late for class
Mother Doctored Photo of 13 year old student
School claims Jesus was a vampire

Roombots: autonomous, mobile, evolutionary self-assembling furniture

Roombots are autonomous, roving furniture segments that cruise around your house, looking for each other and spontaneously organizing themselves into furnishings that evolve based on how you use them. It's a project from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. This project intends to design and control modular robots, called Roombots, to be used as building blocks for furniture that moves, self-assembles, self-reconfigures, and self-repairs. Modular robots are robots made of multiple simple robotic modules that can attach and detach (Wikipedia: Self-Reconfiguring Modular Robotics).

Connectors between units allow the creation of arbitrary and changing structures depending on the task to be solved. Compared to "monolithic" robots, modular robots offer higher versatility and robustness against failure, as well as the possibility of self-reconfiguration. The type of scenario that we envision for the Rolex Learning Center is a group of Roombots that autonomously connect to each other to form different types of furniture, e.g. stools, chairs, sofas and tables, depending on user requirements. This furniture will change shape over time (e.g. a stool becoming a chair, a set of chairs becoming a sofa) as well as move using actuated joints to different locations depending on the users needs. When not needed, the group of modules can create a static structure such as a wall or a box.

Roombots: Modular robotics for adaptive and self-organizing furniture (via Beyond the Beyond)

Long-exposure photo of Roomba coverage
Concept for swarming "display blocks"
What happens to junk left behind in foreclosed homes?

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/8bYK2xityP4/roombots-autonomous.html

Roombots: autonomous, mobile, evolutionary self-assembling furniture

Roombots are autonomous, roving furniture segments that cruise around your house, looking for each other and spontaneously organizing themselves into furnishings that evolve based on how you use them. It's a project from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. This project intends to design and control modular robots, called Roombots, to be used as building blocks for furniture that moves, self-assembles, self-reconfigures, and self-repairs. Modular robots are robots made of multiple simple robotic modules that can attach and detach (Wikipedia: Self-Reconfiguring Modular Robotics).

Connectors between units allow the creation of arbitrary and changing structures depending on the task to be solved. Compared to "monolithic" robots, modular robots offer higher versatility and robustness against failure, as well as the possibility of self-reconfiguration. The type of scenario that we envision for the Rolex Learning Center is a group of Roombots that autonomously connect to each other to form different types of furniture, e.g. stools, chairs, sofas and tables, depending on user requirements. This furniture will change shape over time (e.g. a stool becoming a chair, a set of chairs becoming a sofa) as well as move using actuated joints to different locations depending on the users needs. When not needed, the group of modules can create a static structure such as a wall or a box.

Roombots: Modular robotics for adaptive and self-organizing furniture (via Beyond the Beyond)

Long-exposure photo of Roomba coverage
Concept for swarming "display blocks"
What happens to junk left behind in foreclosed homes?

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/8bYK2xityP4/roombots-autonomous.html

FontPark Is a Searchable, Sortable Database of Over 70,000 Free Fonts [Fonts]

FontPark is a great big database of free fonts.

Fonts are available for personal and/or commercial use, and will work on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

FontPark Is a Searchable, Sortable Database of Over 70,000 Free Fonts [Fonts]

FontPark is a great big database of free fonts.

Fonts are available for personal and/or commercial use, and will work on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

ADVICE FOR TEACHERS...

After countless discussions with some of the newer teachers about some general concepts, someone has collected a list of a few of the suggestions (for life?) to pass along.

Click the image above for 50 tips, alright?

ADVICE FOR TEACHERS...

After countless discussions with some of the newer teachers about some general concepts, someone has collected a list of a few of the suggestions (for life?) to pass along.

Click the image above for 50 tips, alright?

Exciting Economics!

This effort explored applied microeconomics...

 

Our participants were able to raise HUNDREDS of dollars for both

the Alberta Children's Hospital

and the Calgary Humane Society.

 

All this success, in the midst of a macroeconomic challenge, eh?

AMAZING EFFORT, EVERYONE!