Weekend reads

One of the nice things about the internet is that it’s absolutely full of good ideas and good writing about education, technology, mathematics, and productivity. Here are some of the articles from this week that have fueled my own thinking, and I think you’ll enjoy them too.

Deeper Thinking about Active Learning (Faculty Focus) by Maryellen Weimer. Our well-justified focus on active learning can often lead to a fixation on techniques and activity rather than actual learning. Very important reminder here that having students do stuff is not the same thing as “active learning”.

“Everybody with Me?” and Other Not-so-useful Questions (Faculty Focus) by Pete Watkins. Instead of asking students during class if they have any questions, give them things to do that show you what they know.

Slow Food? Let’s Try Slow College (CNN.com) by Nicholas Zeppos. The chancellor of Vanderbilt University writes that higher education can’t be dished out in a hurry like a fast food meal. Instead, the kind of higher education that really changes a person takes time and space.

9 Different Ways to Save Stuff in Evernote (Evernote blog) by Pamela Rosen. Evernote is the gold standard for trusted electronic organizational systems, one reason being that it’s so easy to capture stuff with it. Note especially the new integration with Google Drive.

Google Developing Linux Virtual Machine Support in Chrome OS (Android Headlines) by Daniel Fuller. This is a big deal for people, like myself, who are into using Chromebooks beyond surfing the web — it looks like pretty soon, you’ll be able to run full Linux applications on Chromebooks without going into “developer mode” which disables Chromebooks’ security. You’ll be hearing more from me next week about Chromebooks and this item will come up again.

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