Brain… Well Manicured Writing 5 Apr 2011 What is it about a torn fingernail that demands to be torn, bitten, or sanded smooth? Why can't a loose tooth or burned palate be ignored? We seem…
Academic Writing… Bilingual Brain Advantage 4 Apr 20114 Apr 2011 During the decade politicians were banning bilingual education, I was in graduate school studying linguistics, including language acquisition--even bilingual language acquisition--and wishing we could all have bilingual (or trilingual) education.…
Creativity… Friday Flick: Infinity Elephants 18 Mar 201119 Mar 2011 Meet Vi Hart "mathemusician" and infinitely creative. (I wonder what she was like as a kindergartner.) Here's one of her math doodle games.
Brain… “Let Silence Do the Heavy Lifting” 17 Mar 201118 Mar 2011 "Let silence do the heavy lifting." -- Susan Scott Lauren Owen quoted this in "10 Ways to Avoid Death by Meetings," suggesting we "give people some time to respond. As…
Books… Learning Overload 15 Mar 2011 No solitude today. Interestingly enough, it was an exhibit on brains which left my brain too saturated with vivid imagery, rapid delivery, random information, and crowd noises to process what…
Brain… If You Build It, They Will See It 14 Mar 201114 Mar 2011 Some people go to all the trouble of designing and producing buildings, only to make them ugly. Why not hire an architect who understands proportions? Select beautiful colors for the…
Brain… Need a Nap? 10 Mar 201112 Mar 2011 I'm on spring break! Before I tackled various maternal, domestic, and academic projects, cleaned my upholstery, and attended a workshop on how to pay for another graduate degree, I napped!…
Change the World… You Can’t Want It More than They Do 2 Mar 2011 A dear friend often reminds me: "You can't want it more than they do!" How often have I campaigned for someone's results so relentlessly, I've forgotten whose fight it was.…
Change the World… Stories from College Drop-In Steve Jobs 1 Mar 201110 Mar 2011 “You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have…
Brain… My Students’ Best Advice 28 Feb 2011 My students are in finals week. I asked for advice to pass along to future students, and they all said, DON'T FALL BEHIND! They sound even more adamant than I…
Brain… What We Learn from Watson 23 Feb 201125 Feb 2011 My interest in IBM's Jeopardy-winning Watson was initially syntactical. It has taken decades to teach computers to understand and speak a human language almost as well as your average three-year-old.…
Brain… Writing into the Darkness 22 Feb 201125 Feb 2011 Author and herb farmer Tom DeBaggio died yesterday. He put us on notice over a decade ago, describing his early onset Alzheimer's as "the closest thing to being eaten alive." …