02 MAR 2019 by ideonexus
Reading Wars of the 1990s
WHOLE-language theory holds that learning to read and write English is analogous to learning to speak it -- a natural, unconscious process best fostered by unstructured immersion. In an atmosphere rich in simple printed texts and in reading aloud, small children make a wondrous associative leap from knowing the alphabet to being able to read whole words. Their minds receive print as if each word were a Chinese ideogram. If a word is unfamiliar it can be skipped, guessed at, or picked up from ... 1 
notes
notesSite Words VS Phonics. If English was phonetical, we could focus on one strategy, but because many spellings don't match their pronunciations we must also memorize Sight Words as if they were Chinese ideograms.
10 MAY 2016 by ideonexus
You Need More than Passion to Change the World
You have to go through life with more than just passion for change; you need a strategy. I'll repeat that. I want you to have passion, but you have to have a strategy. Not just awareness, but action. Not just hashtags, but votes.
[...]
But to bring about structural change, lasting change, awareness is not enough. It requires changes in law, changes in custom. If you care about mass incarceration, let me ask you: How are you pressuring members of Congress to pass the criminal justice ... 1 notes
notes30 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Card Sorting Games for Young Children
Dimensional Change Card Sorting Task
In the Dimensional Change Card Sorting Task (DCCS), children are initially asked to sort cards by a single dimension (such as color), and are subsequently required to alter their strategy to sort cards based on a second dimension (such as shape).[18] Typically, three-year-old children are able to sort cards based on a single dimension, but are unable to switch to sort the cards based on a second dimension. However, five-year-old children are able to sort ...
1 Games for very young children to test their cognitive flexibility
24 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
The Mediocrity Principle
The reason this principle is so essential to science is that it’s the beginning of understanding how we came to be here and how everything works. We look for general principles that apply to the universe as a whole first, and those explain much of the story; and then we look for the quirks and exceptions that led to the details. It’s a strategy that succeeds and is useful in gaining a deeper knowledge. Starting with a presumption that a subject of interest represents a violation of the pr... 1 notes
notesP. Z. Myers' explanation for how this principle means we cannot look to supernatural explanations for our origins, because there is no reason to think we are an exception to the rules of the universe.
17 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
The Strategy of Releasing All Data
The response many organizations adopted then
(and continue to pursue AF) is to provide overwhelming
amounts of data to the public. This
provided a two-fold defense. First, it allowed immediate
deniability to any charge of withholding data.
Second, the sheer volume of data available meant
that almost any argument could be made or refuted
with selective referencing and correlation to other
publicly available information. This is a rapid, cheap
response that puts the onus back on the accuser to
... 1 notes
notesInteresting idea: be completely transparent, releasing so much data that any hypothesis can be cherry-picked from it, then hire spin-doctors to do just that.
21 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Understanding Physics is Like Learning Chess
The physicist is like someone who's watching people playing chess and, after watching a few games, he may have worked out what the moves in the game are. But understanding the rules is just a trivial preliminary on the long route from being a novice to being a grand master. So even if we understand all the laws of physics, then exploring their consequences in the everyday world where complex structures can exist is a far more daunting task, and that's an inexhaustible one I'm sure. Quoting Sir Martin Rees: Learning the moves is the beginning, but there is still much to learn about the strategy.
31 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
A Strategy for Allowing Children Access to Digital Media
Knowing full well the need for our kids to be digitally conversant, yet fully aware of the dangers, we came up with a few rules as our boys became preschoolers. First, my wife and I divided digital experiences into categories. Two of the categories involved things necessary for school work or for learning about computers: word processing and graphics programs, web-based research projects, programming, and so on. The boys were allowed to do these as homework required.
Recreational experiences... 1 notes
notesCategorize media into constructive and fun and allow the children to earn "fun digital" time money they can spend on games or other activities.
