Tag: LEARNING

Remember how we thought in the mid-'90s that the 2000s would be all about holographs and virtual worlds? But didn't we collectively agree that virtual reality jumped the shark around the time CNN opened a Second Life news bureau, but apparently academe never signed on. The New York Times has a charming story today on how university professors are using interactive, digital visualizations to ...

A group of Memphis-based Teach For America candidates is testing wireless headsets in the classroom. A mentor located in another room provides feedback and support to the teacher through the headset, just like an NFL coach does to a quarterback. Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Memphis TFA branch will study how teachers who wear the headsets adjust to leading a classroom ...

Just because your young daughter types "CU L8R" when she texts her friends doesn't mean she won't be able to spell real words when she grows up. In fact, one new study claims that, contrary to popular belief, texting will actually improve her spelling skills. The study, conducted by researchers at Coventry University, examined 114 9- and 10-year-old children who did not already use cell phones. ...

Share There's a good chance that young children growing up in today's world will learn how to use an iPad before learning how to tie their shoes. That's the takeaway from a new study by online security firm AVG, which found that 58-percent of kids between the ages of 2 and 5 know how to play a "basic computer game," while a full 63-percent know how to turn a computer off and on. Most young ...

The Web is teeming with the unrealized ideas of both students and established designers who set out to produce astonishing renderings and prototypes for unusual products. Unfortunately, due to the lack of time, money, or technology, many of those products never progress from the planning stages to the mass market. But that doesn't mean we can't salivate over them, nevertheless. As our ...

Say what you will about the iPad ("Ugh, I can't video Skype on it!"), or about e-books in general ("Overpriced hooey!"), but, readers, please calm your vitriol for a moment. The real advantage of this hand-held tech is not the fact that you can download your latest Patricia Cornwall novel wirelessly, nor that you can smite some sows with bitchin' birds in full HD. Portable devices like these are, ...

The Web is teeming with the unrealized ideas of both students and established designers who set out to produce astonishing renderings and prototypes for unusual products. Unfortunately, due to the lack of time, money, or technology, many of those products never progress from the planning stages to the mass market. But that doesn't mean we can't salivate over them, nevertheless. Like them or ...

Mom and Dad might consider it a stretch, but researchers claim that you can actually sharpen your mind and vision by playing video games. According to an AP report, researchers at educational symposium Games for Learning have claimed that people who play first-person shooters have better vision, attention and cognition. Daphne Bavelier, a University of Rochester professor who led the research, ...

Thanks to those imagineers at Walt Disney World, you no longer have to be an engineer to design a theme park ride, or be a nerd to have fun doing math. A new interactive feature, developed by Disney and military contractor Raytheon, and called Sum of All Thrills, opened yesterday at Disney's Epcot park. Both of the parties involved hope it'll teach kids that engineering and math can be fun and ...

Throw away those old, heavy textbooks, kids. But don't get too excited. There will still be plenty of studying, just in a less back-breaking way. With many school systems crunched for money, there's a move toward digital learning in the classroom. According to The New York Times, classrooms may be devoid of traditional textbooks within the next five years. As previously reported, California is ...

In another step towards self-awareness, researchers at University of California, San Diego have developed a robot that teaches itself facial expressions. The realistic Einstein bot formerly required individually programmed facial movements, but through a trial-and-error technique UCSD has dubbed 'body babble,' the AI experiments with its mug until it achieves a real expression. Linked to facial ...

Determined to make us jealous that our kids' childhood experiences are more marvelous than ours, SMART Technologies will tomorrow unveil the SMART Table, a primary education "interactive learning center" (we'd rather call it Surface Jr.). It'll be available Spring of next year, and will work out of the box with learning applications that can be operated by any number of kids and all their ...

In what is sure to be seen as yet another argument for college students not to attend class (or college, for that matter), England's venerable Oxford and Cambridge universities launched a service earlier this week that allows lectures, videos and podcasts to be downloaded from the iTunes store. The goal is to make the elite institutions more accessible to people across the world (particularly ...

We've spoken before about schools dolling out iPods, iPhones, and generally going high tech. In fact, luring kids in with flashy gadgets is becoming less the exception, and more the rule (Duke, MIT, Abilene Christian University, and Drexel University have all gotten in on the trend). Colleges seem to be encouraged by the potential for innovative education applications and a constant line of ...

Not that robots with emotions are anything new, but a project going on in Europe could perfect the art of crafting mechanical people that can "learn when a person is sad, happy or angry." The Feelix Growing project is getting even more advanced with software that gives robots the power to understand how a person is feeling based on feedback from cameras and sensors. The bots look at a human's ...