19th
January
2009
When I was a kid in a small town high school, the concept of career direction was vague, and the people who provided “guidance” had one answer to every question. Go to university, young man. So, I did. After all, our academic pyramid placed that at the apex; everything else was a shallow second choice. In retrospect, none of my close friends “made the top”, yet they’re all still out there, somewhere, doing something. Illusions of education. Don’t get me wrong; I came close to choosing “university student” as a career (in and of itself), but financial pressure finally pushed me out of the womb and into the real world.
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posted in education |
26th
December
2008
Boxing Day has come and gone; the stores were shuttered by 6 p.m. With no pressing need for large appliances or replacement electronics, we avoided the lineups and didn’t even think about going shopping until after noon. Truth be told, we were barely out of bed by that point, since the whole extended household is on vacation hours. No matter, the shopping experience didn’t involve standing in a queue, unless you count the time spent waiting for access to a terminal. I was in a good bookstore.
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posted in education |
17th
December
2008
Inconsistent user interface. IUI. Just when you think you’ve got something under control, count on Windows to throw a curve into things. Unlike the Mac world, where consistency is Job One, Microsoft doesn’t have a game plan. Oh sure, the X in the upper right corner is useful, when things aren’t working well, but what about some of the odd choices made at Redmond for tasks that shouldn’t be difficult.
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posted in computing, education, Idol |
12th
December
2008
By an odd set of coincidences, I came into contact with bridges today. Not the historical variety, carrying the world across a stream, but the newfangled, telecommunicational kind that link faces across a distance. One bridge worked. The other never got a chance. I didn’t expect either when the day started, but that’s what gives form to coincidental moments.
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posted in computing, education |
11th
December
2008
Maybe I’d forgotten that things evolve. Perhaps I’d placed such a halo over the head of the last musical director that I figured we’d be in for something worthy of bronze. Instead, tonight’s concert by the bands and choirs and orchestral groups of my son’s school was one of the best in years.
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posted in education, music |
27th
November
2008
I’m not alone in my frustration with impolite motorists. As a pedestrian, I take my life in my hand around here, when I check both ways, cross in the middle of a marked pedestrian path with traffic lights in my favour. In other words, there is no safe way to cross the street unless you are accompanied by a squirrel or in the presence of the police.
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posted in education |
13th
November
2008
My kids laugh at me, because I’ve got the music in me. Put on headphones, some tunes, and the groove oozes from between my joints. Maybe it’s time for a visit to one of their places, where people slam or skank or whatever it is that they do; I can laugh louder and longer. For now, I’m just going to listen to Bob Sinclar and let the rhythm take me.
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posted in computing, economy, education |
27th
October
2008
While my sympathies go out to the family of an eight year old boy in Massachusetts, some stories could only come out of a CNN generation. Over the weekend, the young man was fulfilling the sort of dream that I never had as boy; he was shooting an Uzi at “vehicles and pumpkins” during a regional fair. However, real guns don’t handle like the ones in the standard video game. There are less buttons on the controller and there’s something called recoil.
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posted in education, media |
17th
October
2008
Even an old teacher can be taught new tricks. This evening, I attended (in the sense of a fly on the wall) a presentation where Powerpoint was actually used in an informative manner. By an educator.
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posted in education |
15th
October
2008
I love the learning process; even the simplest question can lead you down into a twisty maze of little passages (or something more along the lines of this famous list:) Read the rest of this entry »
posted in education |
