endless forms, most beautiful

gjmueller:

Technology in the Classroom: Assets and Liabilities

It is my contention that as educational and classroom leaders we have a responsibility to set clear expectations, which is Job One of all good leaders. I’d like to share one practical strategy we used to do just that in terms of communicating our expectations for using technology in the classroom.

First we gathered all our small group facilitators (we use clinicians, basic and social scientists and student fellows) for an hour-long event in which we asked them to work together to do three things: 1) identify the assets of these tools; 2) identify the liabilities of these tools; and 3) establish some reasonable ground rules to maximize the assets and minimize the liabilities.

dangurewitch:

Recently it came to my attention that the word “YOLO,” an acronym standing for “You Only Live Once,” has become popular with the kids (as in “Fine, I’ll do another shot - YOLO!”). I did some research and I found out that YOLO is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of hip 2012 lingo. Get ready to feel really old, because I had never heard of any of these, but apparently they’re being used everywhere:

YOLO: You Only Live Once

YOLOLO: You Only “LOL” Once

YOTROLOLOO: You Only “Trololo” Once

YOLOLO NOHOMO: You Only “LOL” Once, and I don’t mean that in the gay way

YOWO SOSOPOLOS: You Only Wear Orange So-So Polos
“You’ll never win the fashion competition. YOWO SOSOPOLOS.”

YOWO SOSOPOLOS SOHOMO: You Only Wear Orange So-So Polos, and I do mean that in a very gay way
“You’ll never win the fashion competition, sweetbuns. YOWO SOSOPOLOS SOHOMO.”

YOYOKO ONOSOCO: You’re Only Yoko Ono, So Chill Out
“You don’t have to create world peace by yourself. YOYOKO ONOSOCO.” (Must be spoken only to Yoko Ono)

YOHOHOHO BOSODOCOCOA: You Only “HoHoHo” But Once, So Drink Our Cocoa (Must be spoken only to Santa Claus)

YOLOMOFO HELLOMOTO: You Only Live Once, Motherfucker (Must be spoken only by Samuel L. Jackson in a Motorola commercial)

YOYOYO OSO YOYOSOLO OWO LOCO PO-PO: You Only Yo-Yo Once, So Yo-Yo Solo, Obviously Without Crazy Police Officers

(via popculturebrain)

rayax:

We humans are not the only living beings capable of love, morality and co-operation. Many living creatures are known to perform seemingly selfless acts in order to protect the genome of their close members or even an entire tribe. Altruism operates as a crucial mechanism in animal evolution because it allows adaptations to occur at a group level. Of course, there are always the few selfish individuals in a group but it is evident that altruistic groups generally beat selfish ones- unity always wins.

In many social insects such as ants, wasps, bees and termites, workers devote their entire lives to the queen, without which they stand no chance of breeding themselves and passing on their genome. Vampire bats tend to roost in the same place every night, get to know each other and will disgorge blood for a hungry neighbor if the favor is likely to be re-payed. Moreover, Vervet monkeys will come to the aid of others who have helped them in the past. The point is that such mottos of “family first”, “Help your friends and they’ll help you”, “Safety in numbers”,”Care for the sick and elderly” are all universally accepted in nature.

In fact, Some living beings even tend to go beyond their own species. Dogs are known to occasionally adopt orphaned cats, squirrels or ducks. Dolphins tend to assist sick, injured or struggling animals, their extended evolutionary kin.

Evidently, altruism and basic aspects of morality are hard-wired into almost every living creature as a result of its evolutionary benefits.

(via lookingforether)

Monkey’s all acting ape-like

discoverynews:

Baboons Can Recognize Words

Baboons can learn to tell the difference between real four-letter words and nonsense combinations of letters. And once they figure out the patterns, these monkeys can guess with impressive accuracy whether a new word is real or fake.

Because baboons can’t actually read, a new study supports the theory that the brains of our primate ancestors held the necessary hardware for understanding written words long before humans evolved. Only after we starting writing and reading about 5,400 years or so did we apply our object-recognition abilities to letter symbols.

By the end of the training period, which included about 50,000 trials for each animal, all of the baboons had learned to recognize at least 81 words at an accuracy rate of about 75 percent, the researchers report today in the journal Science. One animal learned more than 300 words.

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image: Baboon eyes, Corbis