Tag Archives: news

Odds & Ends (03/01/09)

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BBC News: “Primary eudcation ‘too narrow‘” – article arguing that early education focusing too much on math, English, and testing is leaving kids with a deficient education.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized – the video does a pretty good job of breaking down how our economy got the way it is today.

iSerenity – room too quiet (or has an annoying noise in the background)? Use iSerenity for soothing ambient noise?  I particularly like the Library Lullaby.

“My Top Tips for Teaching Teens” by Alan Sitomer – examines issues such as teaching teens to “bounce back,” change their attitudes, set goals, never give up, etc.  Well worth reading.

Last, but definately not least, two sites that highlight the Inauguration of President Obama.  The first is “The Big Picture” from The Boston Globe which has photographs of the event and from around the world.  The second is from Gigapan and has one large photograph that you can zoom or pull out to get the whole effect of the swearing in of President Obama.  Yes, it’s a little late in the scheme of things, but it’s still useful!

Baby Lewis

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Just saw the new baby giraffe at Riverbanks Zoo on the news – TOO CUTE!  Hard to believe that at 10 days old he is nearly as tall as I am!  Next to cats (of all types), the giraffe is my favorite animal.  They are so weird looking, but cute and fascinating.

I love the fact that Riverbanks allows you to feed the giraffes – which lets you get up close with them.  When we took the biology classes there last year, the giraffes were the crowd favorites.

If you haven’t visited Riverbank’s website, I encourage you to do so.  They have a live webcam – today they are featuring the Koalas.  The last time I watched, they featured the penguins.  I wonder if they’ll feature the giraffes soon now that baby Lewis has arrived?!

Odds & Ends

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For the first time in MONTHS, my RSS reader is finally empty!  Here are some of the items I found interesting:

CNN.com: “Parents of truant kids can face jail time” – “While students have always suffered the consequences of playing hooky, parents in DeKalb County, Georgia, are facing one of the more aggressive anti-truancy programs in the country, one where punishment can include time behind bars.”  On the one hand, it’s about time parents are held accountable for their kids…on the other, now the schools get to deal with students who don’t want to be there and will most likely cause disruptions in class.

BBC News: “Google Earth Revives Ancient Rome“ – “Google has added a new twist to its popular 3D map tool, Google Earth, offering millions of users the chance to visit a virtual ancient Rome.”  

Kevin Jarrett over at “Welcome to NCS-Tech!” blog shared the following – “TestToob.com – student-generated scientific video community.”  I am linking you to his post so you can see what it’s all about since I I haven’t registered on TestToob.com to explore it myself.

Ken Rodoff over at “The why of it all” blog shared “this is your student on myspace,” a music video from a young woman cautioning kids about what they post on myspace – that it could come back to bite them in the end.

Awesome video shared by Mike Sansone over at the ConverStations blog: “We Are the World – And a Small World it Becomes.“  The post and video refer to Playing for Change: Peace Through Music.

Also, just saw a commercial for TNT’s “The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice,” and while I found the previous two movies to be kinda corny, as a librarian I loved Noah WIle’s line in this new one: “I think its only fair to warn you that I am in fact a librarian!”  Go on over to TNT’s website and watch the preview – you know you want to!  *grin*