Friday, February 24
I guess I really am too nice; or maybe just anti-boundary
This post on the new legal writing blog, which links to an article about how students are using email to "erase boundaries" between student and teacher really interested me.
An example of what one of the professors cited as going "too far" were student email comments like "I think you're covering the material too fast, or I don't think we're using the reading as much as we could in class, or I think it would be helpful if you would summarize what we've covered at the end of class in case we missed anything."
What's the problem with that? It seems like good information to know. Isn't the idea to help students learn?
I didn't even think that the example that was repeated as really outrageous, a student asking for advice about what kind of notebook was appropriate for the course, was that bad. If you don't care, why not just say, "I don't care; just use your judgment." That helps the student understand what is left to his or her judgment. Feeling offended when asked to speak about a lowly subject like notebooks seems more bizarre to me than the student comments.
I do agree that sometimes students, like most of us, use email inappropriately. But I guess that I don't think that the "boundary-blurring" discussed in this article is such a bad thing.
This post on the new legal writing blog, which links to an article about how students are using email to "erase boundaries" between student and teacher really interested me.
An example of what one of the professors cited as going "too far" were student email comments like "I think you're covering the material too fast, or I don't think we're using the reading as much as we could in class, or I think it would be helpful if you would summarize what we've covered at the end of class in case we missed anything."
What's the problem with that? It seems like good information to know. Isn't the idea to help students learn?
I didn't even think that the example that was repeated as really outrageous, a student asking for advice about what kind of notebook was appropriate for the course, was that bad. If you don't care, why not just say, "I don't care; just use your judgment." That helps the student understand what is left to his or her judgment. Feeling offended when asked to speak about a lowly subject like notebooks seems more bizarre to me than the student comments.
I do agree that sometimes students, like most of us, use email inappropriately. But I guess that I don't think that the "boundary-blurring" discussed in this article is such a bad thing.
Paper chair
This chair looks cool -- it's a huge roll of paper that your kid sits on, pulling off more paper as needed. But it would become progressively less cool the more you used it....
This chair looks cool -- it's a huge roll of paper that your kid sits on, pulling off more paper as needed. But it would become progressively less cool the more you used it....
Our Disappeared
I was talking to students yesterday about the meaning of the word "disappeared," which is a term used to describe the phenomenon in many countries of a person disappearing, presumably taken somewhere by the government. And then I was reading this article about a federal district court judge ordering our government to release the names of the Guantanamo Bay detainees, and one of the activists lobbying for release of the name pointed out that those detainees are "disappeared." I don't know why I hadn't thought of that.
I was talking to students yesterday about the meaning of the word "disappeared," which is a term used to describe the phenomenon in many countries of a person disappearing, presumably taken somewhere by the government. And then I was reading this article about a federal district court judge ordering our government to release the names of the Guantanamo Bay detainees, and one of the activists lobbying for release of the name pointed out that those detainees are "disappeared." I don't know why I hadn't thought of that.
Romance in Madison
In case someone (i.e., Jo) didn't read the comment, I wanted to share what my friend Rebecca pointed out -- there's a very romantic hotel in Madison, the Canterbury Inn, "a 'literary' bed and breakfast, situated atop an independent used and scholarly bookstore and cafe in the heart of downtown Madison, Wisconsin." The rooms have names like "The Wife of Bath's room," and the bookstore specializes in rare and out-of-print books. It sounds like a real treat!
Other spots in Madison that I'd consider romantic would be the Arboretum (in the right season), the Olbrich gardens (ditto), one of the many beautiful little restaurants tucked away in the spoke-streets that span out from the Capitol, and any spot where you can sit and stare out at one of the lakes (which includes many spots).
Gee, I'm almost convincing myself Madison is really romantic!
Monday, February 20
Sundry random items
I have not posted in so long that I have too many clippings, and they refuse to be tamed.
First, perhaps the most bizarre. The Conglomerate reports that Madison was named the most romantic city in the U.S. As much as I wish this were true, since it would be another reason for my friends Jo and Kris to consider Madison a good option should they return to the states (and especially because I could say, sure, you've left the most romantic city in the world, but you're in the most romantic city in the U.S.!), it's just not true. Don't get me wrong, I like Madison almost as much as the next person, though admittedly not as much as most UW-Madison alums, who seem ga-ga over the place. But for one thing, I don't think it's...mysterious enough to be very romantic. I know, I know, supposedly it has the most restaurants per capita (though I never have found a good study proving that), yada-yada. Take a look at the tourist bureau's website: enough said. Pleasant place, not that romantic.
Second, the Bush administration's new energy policy push, particularly the renewed interest in nuclear power and the proposed nuclear power subsidies. Tentatively, having not explored all of the data, and incompetent to truly understand all of it, I think I support the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, in particular its goal to "form an international partnership to see spent fuel reprocessed in a way that renders the plutonium in it usable for nuclear fuel but not for nuclear weapons." The fast reactor design, if it could be developed safely, seems a sensible way to dispose of much of the nuclear waste we've created already. There have been problems with some of the fast reactors created in the past, but I guess that one still operates in France on a small scale, mainly investigating "transmutation of nuclear waste" (according to Google).
In other environmental news, South Africa has decided not to kill elephants, for now. On this subject, I must speak up for my son, who would surely say, "No! No hurting those elephants. Elephants are my favorite! They have big flappy ears and they have long trunks!"
Speaking of killing no-longer-so-endangered, but now inconvenient, animals, I'm not sure whatever happened with Wisconsin's controversial, and perhaps illegal, wolf-killing policy. Meanwhile, fear of the leaping carp grows here in the Great Lakes region.
I can't seem to get worked up about impending drought in France and Spain.
Still, though, have you heard that this is the warmest year in 1200 years, according to a recent study? Greenland's glaciers have heard, and are "melting and on the move." And in view of the overall recent success of the environmental movement, I think it's good news that the evangelical Christians have joined in on the side of the environment in the global warming...debate? Is it still a debate? Situation.
In a similarly encouraging sign, some religious leaders are supporting pro-science arguments in the political fights over whether to teach the theory of evolution in U.S. schools. Even the new Pope says that science and faith can coexist, though admittedly his position is somewhat vague.
In politics, less encouraging news. The anti-homosexual movement in the U.S. continues, even grows, with activists now attacking teaching about homosexuality in sex ed classes.
It disturbed me to learn that Fox News edited out applause and a standing ovation that Rev. Joseph Lowery received in response to comments, during Coretta Scott King's funeral,
mentioning failure to find WMD in Iraq. (Thanks Blogora.)
Speaking of the Blogora, it recently offered this interesting summary of two rhetorical approaches regarding the nature of legal argument.
Speaking of legal argument, our government now argues that some detained people have no constitutional rights. At all. Which helps explain what seemed to me a bizarre reaction to the release of more Abu Ghraib pictures: anger. The article quotes "Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman telling The Associated Press [that airing the photos] 'could only further inflame and possibly incite unnecessary violence in the world.'" Which is true, but it seems bizarre to make the focus of the anger on the people showing the pictures, rather than the people who did the bad stuff and took pictures of it.
In happier news, the U.S. government has decided to investigate its immigration courts, in response to severe criticism of the the immigration court system by several U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal. I am sincerely pleased.
In the entirely-too-full-these-days category of "news about science that we got wrong," sorry, it turns out the birth control patch is not really so safe. Oh, and Teflon causes cancer. That's crazy talk; next thing you know, they'll be saying that modernized agricultural and food delivery policies that have made food so inexpensive and plentiful in the U.S. may be responsible for declining mental health.
And now for the crescendo of random sundriness:
"Man coughs up nail after 35 years"
"Rats understand cause and effect"
Sharks sense electrical energy with special cells that evolved into our heads and faces.
Shark attacks have dropped because people fight back more often these days.
Science seems to disprove some Mormon beliefs, about the genetic background of Native Americans.
And "students learn more from teachers who hand-wave." What?
Goodnight!
I have not posted in so long that I have too many clippings, and they refuse to be tamed.
First, perhaps the most bizarre. The Conglomerate reports that Madison was named the most romantic city in the U.S. As much as I wish this were true, since it would be another reason for my friends Jo and Kris to consider Madison a good option should they return to the states (and especially because I could say, sure, you've left the most romantic city in the world, but you're in the most romantic city in the U.S.!), it's just not true. Don't get me wrong, I like Madison almost as much as the next person, though admittedly not as much as most UW-Madison alums, who seem ga-ga over the place. But for one thing, I don't think it's...mysterious enough to be very romantic. I know, I know, supposedly it has the most restaurants per capita (though I never have found a good study proving that), yada-yada. Take a look at the tourist bureau's website: enough said. Pleasant place, not that romantic.
Second, the Bush administration's new energy policy push, particularly the renewed interest in nuclear power and the proposed nuclear power subsidies. Tentatively, having not explored all of the data, and incompetent to truly understand all of it, I think I support the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, in particular its goal to "form an international partnership to see spent fuel reprocessed in a way that renders the plutonium in it usable for nuclear fuel but not for nuclear weapons." The fast reactor design, if it could be developed safely, seems a sensible way to dispose of much of the nuclear waste we've created already. There have been problems with some of the fast reactors created in the past, but I guess that one still operates in France on a small scale, mainly investigating "transmutation of nuclear waste" (according to Google).
In other environmental news, South Africa has decided not to kill elephants, for now. On this subject, I must speak up for my son, who would surely say, "No! No hurting those elephants. Elephants are my favorite! They have big flappy ears and they have long trunks!"
Speaking of killing no-longer-so-endangered, but now inconvenient, animals, I'm not sure whatever happened with Wisconsin's controversial, and perhaps illegal, wolf-killing policy. Meanwhile, fear of the leaping carp grows here in the Great Lakes region.
I can't seem to get worked up about impending drought in France and Spain.
Still, though, have you heard that this is the warmest year in 1200 years, according to a recent study? Greenland's glaciers have heard, and are "melting and on the move." And in view of the overall recent success of the environmental movement, I think it's good news that the evangelical Christians have joined in on the side of the environment in the global warming...debate? Is it still a debate? Situation.
In a similarly encouraging sign, some religious leaders are supporting pro-science arguments in the political fights over whether to teach the theory of evolution in U.S. schools. Even the new Pope says that science and faith can coexist, though admittedly his position is somewhat vague.
In politics, less encouraging news. The anti-homosexual movement in the U.S. continues, even grows, with activists now attacking teaching about homosexuality in sex ed classes.
It disturbed me to learn that Fox News edited out applause and a standing ovation that Rev. Joseph Lowery received in response to comments, during Coretta Scott King's funeral,
mentioning failure to find WMD in Iraq. (Thanks Blogora.)
Speaking of the Blogora, it recently offered this interesting summary of two rhetorical approaches regarding the nature of legal argument.
Speaking of legal argument, our government now argues that some detained people have no constitutional rights. At all. Which helps explain what seemed to me a bizarre reaction to the release of more Abu Ghraib pictures: anger. The article quotes "Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman telling The Associated Press [that airing the photos] 'could only further inflame and possibly incite unnecessary violence in the world.'" Which is true, but it seems bizarre to make the focus of the anger on the people showing the pictures, rather than the people who did the bad stuff and took pictures of it.
In happier news, the U.S. government has decided to investigate its immigration courts, in response to severe criticism of the the immigration court system by several U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal. I am sincerely pleased.
In the entirely-too-full-these-days category of "news about science that we got wrong," sorry, it turns out the birth control patch is not really so safe. Oh, and Teflon causes cancer. That's crazy talk; next thing you know, they'll be saying that modernized agricultural and food delivery policies that have made food so inexpensive and plentiful in the U.S. may be responsible for declining mental health.
And now for the crescendo of random sundriness:
"Man coughs up nail after 35 years"
"Rats understand cause and effect"
Sharks sense electrical energy with special cells that evolved into our heads and faces.
Shark attacks have dropped because people fight back more often these days.
Science seems to disprove some Mormon beliefs, about the genetic background of Native Americans.
And "students learn more from teachers who hand-wave." What?
Goodnight!
Friday, February 3
More pun-in tending headlines?
Boy, that has to be the worst example, too. But it does identify the subject I'm interested in: whether headlines have gotten "punnier" since so many people started receiving notification about the news via email and blogs (especially blog aggregators).
It could be that rather than any increase in the use of puns or other humorous plays-on-words in headlines, I'm just noticing these more since I started reading most of my news this way. Or, maybe this sort of headline has always been very common in science news headlines, and that's why I sense an increase, because I've been reading more science news in the last few months than ever before.
But I don't think either of those explanations totally explains the phenomenon, because I often notice that the headline on the feed is "punnier" than the real headline.
In any event, consider a few examples of punny headlines, from the last week or so:
From eurekalert, "Detection of hot halo gets theory out of hot water" (about the measurement of hot gases around a spiral galaxy; the gases were expected to be there but had not been measured before) (this one is just an ordinary punny headline)
From CNN, "One small step for trash is giant leap for ham-kind" (about the "SuitSat," which is quite nifty, especially since it's so efficient and eco-friendly, recycling the spacesuit itself as well as containing some spacetrash rather than just blowing it out into space). This example also illustrates another interesting phenomenon, where the headline on my RSS feed at Bloglines is not exactly the same as the actual headline. On Bloglines, it was "Recycled spacesuit is giant leap for ham-kind" instead. Actually, here I guess the feed headline was less punny, sort of disproving my theory rather than supporting it.
But this one CNN is an example of the punnier-by-feed phenomenon. The "real" headline, the one you'd get if you were browing the website itself rather than getting notice of news by feed, is "Drinking joins smoking as cancer risk." (If you haven't read the story, don't sweat it too much -- the bottom line is basically, all things in moderation.) The notice I got on Bloglines was "Don't drink to this latest cancer finding." Not all that funny, actually, but more interesting than the first headline. Made you think a bit, guess at what the story would say.
I suspect that, if these types of headlines are actually more common by feed, that's the real reason -- it's a way to get the reader to notice the story and click through to it. It's just interesting to me that the regular headlines weren't already performing that task well enough -- isn't that sort of the idea of a headline in the first place?
