This video starts off kind of slow, but it picks up. G33k out.

I recently wrote a tenure review for a Professor at RIT that deserves it.

It was interesting to write. One of the questions was, roughly, “Is the Professor concerned for the individual student?” The question is pretty standard and applies to all majors and programs I am sure, but I had to stop and think about what it means to “care” about your students.

I started to answer the question by addressing the obvious: If a student is struggling, does the Professor help them? Does the Professor give each individual fair warning when they are not keeping up? Is any child left behind, basically. All of which was answered appropriately and accurately.

The students that are left behind are not all the students in the spectrum of the classroom, however. What helps make this Professor special is the attention he gives students that are bored, that want to excel. This Professor enabled students that could do better to do better. Shouldn’t this be recognized more?

And perhaps this is why I like the education I got from RIT. It was project based, which has its down sides, but also lets a student go further than they would with a scan-a-tron test. It has vocational practicalities, of course, learning just a touch what the real world is like … but it also lets the student go well outside of the spectrum of what is expected. It lets them find what they enjoy the most.

For me, personally, I owe a lot to the format of projects and I owe a lot to teachers that enable students to push themselves. I think that allowing students to go as far as they can is just as important as making sure students keep up.

Did this make any sense?

Radio Lab gets tossed around Juice frequently, so I’ll (try to) spare all of the redundant praise.  They’ve put out some new episodes on their podcast recently, and have somehow managed to maintain their quite excellent track record.  I just listened to the episode titled ‘New Normal?’, which reflects on the initiation, spread, and persistence of cultural changes.

It was amazing.

They touch on an idea that’s always philosophised a lot when it comes to the origin of humans: neoteny.  The topic is so interesting because there are a great number of theories, many of which usually end up being a touch fanciful or require an ideal scenario (see the aquatic ape theory).

I’m extremely impressed with how well this episode is put together.  It’s almost like a guided SCUBA dive… you get to see a bunch of beautiful scenery and take your mind places you might not be able to go on your own — at least not without a significant amount of work.  Subscribe to the Radio Lab Podcast.  If you listen to it, I promise you’ll love it.

(more…)

…She (Peanut) is one with the cosmos.

hello darkness, my old friend

http://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html

SNL is not on my list, but I really enjoyed this musical monologue from Taylor Swift.

(h/t Morgan)

h/t Maggie for the find.

I’m chronicling the last 3 months of my life. This is something I wouldn’t do otherwise. Thank you, Colin.

These have been, perhaps, the busiest 3 months of my life. To begin with, on August 4th, 2009 I turned 23 years old. My Michael Jordan year. Since the request was placed by Colin, and the last time I saw him was at my birthday party, I will start from that time. (more…)

Really impressed with this video: Check it out

Ramona Falls “I Say Fever” from Barsuk Records on Vimeo.

**Fixed, thanks for the heads up, Kyle.

I was working on a presentation today and couldn’t find any respectable snail clip art.  So I created these polymorphic beauties in Paint.  I won’t say how long it took me.  To be even less productive, I wrote a post about it.

(Green Morph)

(Brown Morph)

Bladow.

Personal victory. Army Ants on the new wheelie-deal at www.rit.edu

Sucks.

ILikeMeat:

This is bigotry, yet it’s covered by the media as if it’s two groups of people having a rational discussion. I’m ashamed of America this morning.