Interesting. Sexuality. Vision. Cognitive Daily. Shiny Mud Balls | Science and Education. Kyoto Professor Taps into the Essence of Play October 5, 2001 At elementary schools, kindergartens, and preschools all across Japan, kids are losing themselves making hikaru dorodango, or balls of mud that shine. Behind this boom is Professor Fumio Kayo of the Kyoto University of Education. Kayo is a psychologist who researches children's play, and he first came across these glistening dorodango at a nursery school in Kyoto two years ago. He was impressed and devised a method of making dorodango that could be followed even by children. Once Kayo teaches children how to make these mud balls, they become absorbed in forming a sphere, and they put all their energy into polishing the ball until it sparkles. The dorodango soon becomes the child's greatest treasure.
Kayo sees in this phenomenon the essence of children's play, and he has written academic papers on the subject. Kayo first became interested in dorodango in May 1999. Why would a lump of mud shine? How to Make Shiny Dorodango. 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong. Diet Coke + Mentos. Official: Powerpoint bad for brains | OUT-LAW.COM. By John Oates for The Register. This story has been reproduced with permission. Humans just don't like absorbing information verbally and visually at the same time – one or the other is fine but not both simultaneously. Researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia found the brain is limited in the amount of information it can absorb – and presenting the same information in visual and verbal form – like reading from a typical Powerpoint slide – overloads this part of memory and makes absorbing information more difficult.
Professor Sweller said: "The use of the PowerPoint presentation has been a disaster. It should be ditched. "It is effective to speak to a diagram, because it presents information in a different form. The theory of "cognitive load theory" suggest the memory can deal with two or three tasks for a period of a few seconds – any more than that and information starts to get lost. © The Register 2007.