Drool.

For real, I need to quit hearing about opportunities that make me drool.

Like game design internships, for activism and youth in Boston.

Social Movements and Technology

So, researching MRSA (again/still/whatever).

Interesting comment from this article: Officials shut down all 22 schools in Bedford County for cleaning today in an effort to keep the illness from spreading, after students at Staunton River organized a protest overnight Monday, using text messages and social networking sites. On Tuesday, the student organizers led the Bedford County schools superintendent, James Blevins, on a tour of the Staunton River school to show him the state of its sanitation, particularly in its locker rooms.

What would happen if there were a draft? I think we'd see a change from the current apathy. Do you think politicians are afraid of a potential response by the Facebook generation? Heck, Stephen Colbert can get a million people in his facebook group, pretty much overnight. That's a scary amount of response (not to mention insanely cool).

Technology and Education

My cousin posted this link to our extended family's Yahoo newsgroup (yup, my family is THAT awesome).

My post in response:
Its definitely an interesting article. Very much aligned with the things I'm interested in. Actually just heard a really interesting talk by Amy Bruckman at Georgia Tech, who does research on Electronic Learning Communities (http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/elc/index.shtml). They've done some really interesting work with education and wikipedia and whatnot... I'm really fascinated by that group right now.

Wikipedia, however, is still not a resource that can be cited as a legitimate source. Then again, encyclopedias were never really legitimate, citable sources. But creating content is a valuable exercise in mastering new material.

With the MIT education, you pay for the social atmosphere, but also the evaluation (homework, tests, etc).

I read somewhere to compare and contrast multiple renditions of Shakespeare plays (ie videos of several different productions) the best essays were the ones that analyzed the differences between the videos side by side, rather than doing an in depth analysis of one particular production.) Or rather, information is becoming less about what you can FIND because its readily available, and more about how you combine information that is available.

It will be interesting to see where education goes, especially with the public education scenario being like this 20/20 documentary : http://youtube.com/watch?v=Bx4pN-aiofw (if the link doesnt work, go to youtube.com and search "stupid in america"). Our public school system really just prepares people to be drones that fit into society, to make them good "workers" (think manufacturing), but we're moving from an industrial society to an information processing society. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q - If that doesnt work go to Youtube and search for "shift happens")

I think people are scared of the way technology could take education and society rather than a) acknowledging that change is inevitable and currently inadequate in the education system and b)using technology in a positive way.

The government confuses me

I expect to be knee deep in research about MRSA and Legislation between now and Wednesday, when I have to have 5-6 single spaced research pages typed up, properly cited, and turned in. Needless to say, I'm EXTREMELY confused.

At any rate, I'm fascinated by this: govtrack.us provides RSS feeds to track changes on Bills. I think this is very cool. Hooray technology.

It's also amazing what a tiny, tiny bit of legal information does for you. It makes a LOT of news articles make sense - or at least to know when to look more information up to find out what REALLY happened. I wonder how many reporters take a one semester equivalent law class. It seems like it would be crucial to understand ANYTHING they are reporting on - but then again, this is America, and I think I may be setting my hopes too high on that one. Clueless reporter gets information slightly twisted about a fairly straighforward legal matter - America goes wild with misinformation, because even though information is readily available, most people don't go looking for it.

I need to stop going to HCI Seminars...

... because they make me crazy. Crazy in a good way, but I'm pretty much salivating after that last presentation.

Amy Bruckman, from GA Tech. With the Electronic Learning Communities group. What's that? They're doing work with inner city kids? And computer science? And learning? I didn't think it was possible to combine more of my interests. Goo.

And Karrie is trying to get me to do a PHD (and saying so when introducing me to speakers...). By giving research presentations at Accenture Tech Labs and encouraging collaboration with them.

Law papers also make me crazy, but in the not good way. Time to buckle down and do that, so I can re-immerse myself in Social Spaces this afternoon.

Good Search

If you don't use GoodSearch already - consider switching to it, and giving to StudioSTL.

Ears are funny things. For such a tiny body part, they can sure throw off your sense of balance or really screw you up if they're a bit off. Or give you cold chills randomly.

I started learning how to drive stick over break. In one of these cars (Image totally jacked from google images search):


I also finally saw Good Will Hunting. I think if I'd known Matt Damon and Ben Affleck had written it (and that it was a Kevin Smith film) I would have seen it much earlier. I know, shocking that I hadn't seen it till now. Whatever.

My sense of time is all off

I wish I'd known about Operation REACH earlier.
Watch this.
Read this (Are we ready to track carbon footprints?)
And listen to this.

My spring break was spent relaxing and pretending to get stuff done. And listening to music I normally wouldn't, and exploring towns in Kentucky (and their cheeseburgers). It was a good break. Quite calm, but I needed that.

Superuse

Superuse.

Robots

This... is interesting. It has a point. And it never ceases to amaze me how much stuff people who are green-conscious do/buy/live that is... anti-green. Myself included.

Someone wrote a bio of me, and I sound like a robot. Its mostly just funny to have someone else write a bio of you from your resume.

Musings

1. Caffeine - well more specifically coffee- makes me crazy. I hope I can sleep tonight
2. Its funny when people from elementary school friend you on facebook. Particularly people your teachers tried to set you up with.
3. Tea is delicious.
4. Why is someone using Corel WordPad? Honestly, you work at the university, freaking use Word.
5. Hurry up spring break. For reals.

Stupid in America

I dont like when homework assignments stress me out. It's an opinion piece, but it does bring some things to discuss. John Stossel, 20/20.

- GE is revered for quality and standardization - Six Sigma is applicable to many industries, including healthcare, where a Physicians performance can be related to a teachers performance. Healthcare has standards that can be tracked in terms of how different patients are tracked based on diagnosis, insurance, physician, etc. For example, you can break down the data to see if certain providers (physicians) have differing lengths of stays for patients that are Medicare vs patients that are Medicare Risk (the payment structure is different for the two groups).

-Competition is motivation to change, improve, and continue doing what you do well. Money can help things a lot, but only when applied to root causes

-Rar. raaaaaaaaar. I can't put coherent thoughts together about this.

Tagging

I'm going to attempt to start using some tags, because... well it'd be nice if this blog were more searchable. Because lets be honest, most of the things I post here are for me to remember to go back and look at.

So here are some HCI4D links I've been meaning to keep track of or just discovered. Mostly I want to keep track of these to potentially share with people attending the workshop April 5 & 6
Lift Conference
Gaia
Free Rice

IdeaBlob - funding

Giggles

This webcomic makes me giggle, a lot. Thanks to Google reader for the suggestion.

Garfield Minus Garfield

Its beautiful!

So pretty! So cool! Eeep. Houses with photovoltaic cells and wind energy to look like vines growing up the house. Cool interview with Teresita Cochran.

Dear Treehugger blog: You and my RSS feed are breaking up. You post too much.

Renting Green.