Blogging--It's Good for You Self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off. Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery. A study in the February issue of the Oncologist reports that cancer patients who engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly better, mentally and physically, as compared with patients who did not. Scientists now hope to explore the neurological underpinnings at play, especially considering the explosion of blogs. Flaherty, who studies conditions such as hypergraphia (an uncontrollable urge to write) and writer’s block, also looks to disease models to explain the drive behind this mode of communication.
A Printable Guide To Creative Commons Something you probably see a lot of these days as you browse the internet is Creative Commons licensing. You’ll see many graphics that say something like ‘shared under a Creative Commons license’, or you’ll see a little rectangular graphic with some signs in them. Since we live in an age where most of our information comes from the internet in some way or another, its useful to know when and how it is ok to use something that you’ve found. We’ve already taken a look at some fair use guidelines (which comes along with a brief mention of Creative Commons licensing), but we thought that this handy infographic below gave a great, easy to read and understand version of the different types of CC licenses available. These licenses allow you to easily give others the opportunity to share your work.
Religion vs. Humanism: Isaac Asimov on Science and Spirituality by Maria Popova “The soft bonds of love are indifferent to life and death.” Science and religion have a long history of friction as diametric opposites. But some of humanity’s greatest minds have found in science itself a rich source of spirituality, from Albert Einstein’s meditation on whether scientists pray to Richard Feynman’s ode to the universe to Carl Sagan on the reverence of science to Bucky Fuller’s scientific rendition of The Lord’s Prayer to Richard Dawkins on the magic of reality . Here comes a wonderful addition from the mind of beloved science fiction author Isaac Asimov , found in the altogether indispensable It’s Been a Good Life ( public library ) — a revealing selection of Asimov’s letters, diary entries, and his three prior autobiographies, In Memory Yet Green (1979), In Joy Still Felt (1980), and the posthumously published I. Asimov succinctly recapitulates his philosophy: I have never, not for one moment, been tempted toward religion of any kind. Donating = Loving
The 7 Most Powerful Ideas In Learning Available Right Now Tomorrow’s Learning Today: 7 Shifts To Create A Classroom Of The Future by Terry Heick For professional development around this idea or others you read about on TeachThought, contact us. Let’s take a look at the nebulous idea of the “classroom of the future.” Below are some ideas that are truly transformational–not that they haven’t been said before. And the best part? But therein lies the rub: Tomorrow’s learning is already available, and below are 7 of the most compelling and powerful trends, concepts, and resources that represent its promise. The Challenge of Implementation It’s challenging enough to manage a traditional learning environment where the curriculum is handed to you, and meetings are set, and you’re simply there to manage; adding more ingredients to the mix seems like asking for trouble. The good news is, many of the elements of a progressive learning environment—e.g., digital literacy, connectivism, and play—conveniently, and not coincidentally, work together. 1. 2. 3. 4.
Evangelists of Logic The killing of Dr Narendra Dabholkar does not deter Indians fighting for the supremacy of reason. Here is why In September 2009, the famous rationalist Basava Premananda of Kerala fell severely ill. He had stomach cancer and many of his major organs were close to collapse. He was admitted to a hospital in Coimbatore where he would eventually die a few weeks later. On Nayak’s suggestion, Premananda issued a declaration that he was still a rationalist and believed that his death would leave nothing other than his body—which was to be donated to a medical college—with no soul or spirit to trouble anyone. On 20 August this year, that spirit was thought to have suffered a blow when Dr Narendra Dabholkar, a well-known rationalist and friend of Nayak, was gunned down while out on a walk in Pune, Maharashtra. The assassination was a shock. “It would have been easy to feel helpless after his murder,” says Girme, “However, [Dabholkar] wouldn’t have wanted us to get dissuaded by what happened.
Owen Raising a Skeptic | A Journey in Secular Parenting 5 Critical Mistakes Schools Make With iPads (And How To Correct Them) Over the last few years K-12 schools and districts across the country have been investing heavily in iPads for classroom use . EdTechTeacher has been leading iPad professional development at many of these schools and we’ve seen firsthand how they approach iPad integration. While we’ve witnessed many effective approaches to incorporating iPads successfully in the classroom, we’re struck by the common mistakes many schools are making with iPads, mistakes that are in some cases crippling the success of these initiatives. We’re sharing these common challenges with you, so your school doesn’t have to make them. 1) Focusing on content apps The most common mistake teachers make with iPads is focusing on subject-specific apps. It simply didn’t occur to him use the VoiceThread app to record his students speaking Latin, or perhaps create a collaborative discussion of Cicero. And we don’t introduce a single subject app. 2) Lack of Teacher Preparation in Classroom Management of iPads It doesn’t.
Just ONE Copy of The Daily Mail Could Ruin Your Life This article has been subject to a clarification by the author. You can read the full clarification here . Two years ago Oxford University neuroscientist Prof. Dorothy Bishop established the Orwellian Prize for Journalistic Misrepresentation of a scientific paper in a national newspaper, judged according to the number of factual errors in the piece. The article that won the award was my nomination, a Daily Mail article titled “ Just ONE cannabis joint ‘can bring on schizophrenia’ as well as damaging memory” . A graphical representation of data in a typical Daily Mail story It’s easy to pick on “hacks” for misrepresenting science. Last week the Daily Mail was declared the most read news website in the world . Different headlines are used when articles are posted on social media The actual research states clearly that the “number of daily diet soft drink consumers (in the study) is too small to efficiently examine a dose-response relationship”. The Caveat in Paragraph 19