education

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Second Life: do you have one?

So I'm really just talking about the social networking/virtual world site, Second Life. As part of its virtual atmosphere, SL converts users into avatars, also referred to as "residents." SL has so far attracted 7 million registered users, and Sweden recently opened a Second Life embassy, complete with a room dedicated to WWII humanitarian Raoul Wallenberg. During the month of May, Second Life hosted their first virtual job fair ("In World Interviews. Real World... READ ON

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iTunes U Debuts

We've covered free stuff on the iTunes Store before, including educational material, but Apple has decided to make it official: today they introduced iTunes U, a new part of the iTunes Store (launch iTunes U in iTunes). iTunes U is an initiative to provide higher education institutions a mechanism for distributing digital content to students. Many of the original iTunes educational content providers are there: Stanford, UC Berkeley, and MIT (that last one is adapted from MIT OpenCourseWare, a _floss... READ ON

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15 Reasons Mister Rogers Was the Best Neighbor Ever

Back when I was in 7th grade I stood up in front of my English class and delivered a tongue-in-cheek, poorly researched presentation on why I thought Mister Rogers should be the next President. I ate up the first few minutes zipping up my cardigan, and putting on some sneakers, and then I proceeded to mock him roundly. It was a riotous success. Fourteen years later, I'm using this post to repent. The following are 15 things everyone should know about Fred Rogers: 1. Even Koko the Gorilla Loved... READ ON

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The Internet Archive Part 5 - Texts and Education

We've spent the week browsing through the Internet Archive, highlighting the best bits. Today we wrap up by looking at a few final collections of goodies. First up: the Text Archive. The big collection in this archive is Project Gutenberg, which contains over 20,000 books, including The Devil's Dictionary, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and the rather fabulous Alice's Adventures Under Ground: Being a facsimile of the original Ms. book afterwards developed into "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."... READ ON
  1. FIND THESE T-SHIRTS AND MORE IN THE STORE!

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TED Talks - Smart Lectures

Last week we linked to Listening to Words, which collects lectures from many sources. But one of the best sources of lectures on the web is the TED conference, which attracts top-notch speaking talent. Best bets: William McDonough on Cradle to Cradle Design, Ze Frank being funny, Dr. Jane Goodall on her research. Fun tip: when viewing the list of talks, click "visualization" in the left navigation. Thanks to commenter Olivier for the... READ ON

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Listening To Words - Online Lectures

I'm a lecture junkie. I have previously blogged about Little Gray Books, one of my favorite online lecture series. A new resource for finding online lectures has come to my attention: Listening to Words. The site contains a database of lectures (990 of them), which can be searched, browsed by lecturer, or by lecture location. This is a gold mine of spoken word content, people! Get downloading! Best bets: The Fog of War: Robert S. McNamara and Errol Morris in Discussion, Bill Bryson at The Royal... READ ON

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MIT OpenCourseWare - Free College Courses Online

Ever wanted to audit a college course online, without having to pay for it? With MIT OpenCourseWare, you can access 1,550 courses on topics ranging from History to Physics and Women's Studies. (Seriously, there's a ton of content here.) It's all free, and it's all available right now -- all you have to do is make time to do the... READ ON

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Clown College

It's getting to be about that time of year again...college admissions! There are the anorectic envelopes, the bulging ones, kids crying into safety school brochures and missing that field goal on purpose because: why try? If those ides are behind you, or if you loved your alma mater but it left you ambivalent, maybe it's time for...Clown College. Ringling Bros' and Barnum & Bailey Clown College closed its doors in '97 (after pumping out rock stars like Penn Jillette and Steve-O), so if your... READ ON

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Night of The Mass Mailers

Any decent spammer is familiar with the sting of a blighted recipient list--there's the mourning that goes with bouncebacks, the chagrin over wrong pronouns, and over the "ie" vs. the "y" strains of spunky names. In a recent UNC college admissions incident, 2,703 students were incorrectly extended admission due to a "clerical error" that occurred at some point during the mailing. I don't know what mailer they were using, or even if they used one at all, but if you should ever find yourself on... READ ON

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On my Christmas list #3: Mid-century scientific stuff

I collect educational Atomic Age gewgaws "“ so far my menagerie includes a complete electric microscope set similar to the one at left, the famous "Piltdown Man" plastic skeleton, four museum-quality pre-human skulls (my favorite is Paranthropous boisei), and a whole lot of old doctor stuff inherited from various relatives. Reusable metal syringes "“ gotta love... READ ON

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