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Martin Burrett

How Much Is Left? The Limits of Earth's Resources - 3 views

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    Superb interactive timeline about our natural resources and when they will run out. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/PSHE,+RE,+Citizenship,+Geography+&+Environmental
Lucy De Palma

Straight Hair Is Knottier Than Curly Hair: Scientific American - 78 views

    • Lucy De Palma
       
      How much adverising is used? Is it distracting? What is being advertised?
    • Lucy De Palma
       
      Who is publishing/sponsoring this site? What is their background/reputation
summitlibrary

What's So Hard about Research? | Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network - 77 views

    • anonymous
       
      So many of my middle school students would come and ask, "Is this what you want?"  Then, they would get frustrated when I responded, "Well, what do you think?  Is that the best answer you can come up with for the question?"  
  • Many students were very uncomfortable with the idea that they would be making the decision about what form their project will take, and continually tried to get a stamp of approval.
  • Students today are accustomed to instant gratification, and therefore can be overwhelmed by tasks that require time-consuming research.
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    • anonymous
       
      I'm finding that I am becoming more like the students and wanting that instant gratification as well!  We are becoming scanners more than readers.
  • They do not stop researching and begin another activity because they got distracted;  in our experience, they are more likely to spin themselves in circles making no progress for an entire class period because they do not want to go through a cognitive process that will take “forever.”
  • · When students are given a research prompt by their teacher, students often do not care enough about the topic to really persevere.
    • anonymous
       
      Use this strategy to help students become more invested: STRATEGY: I'm going to show you 30 seconds of this video and I want you to write down 3-4 questions you think this video is going to answer. Turn and talk to a neighbor to share your questions. After looking at the video clip, have students determine if their questions were answered and what questions they still need to answer. THEN, students are invested and have things they WANT to know about the topic.
  • There are very few things in life that our students have to wait for today
    • anonymous
       
      I am sad to say that I am just as bad as the students in that I want to know things immediately and not have to wait.
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    NetTrekker PD article for discussion
Yariv Cohen

Build a Paper Rocket - Scientific American - 25 views

    • Yariv Cohen
       
      Many of these are suggestions - please feel comfortable being creative and using any other idea that comes to mind.
Clint Heitz

The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens - Scientific ... - 25 views

  • The matter is by no means settled. Before 1992 most studies concluded that people read slower, less accurately and less comprehensively on screens than on paper. Studies published since the early 1990s, however, have produced more inconsistent results: a slight majority has confirmed earlier conclusions, but almost as many have found few significant differences in reading speed or comprehension between paper and screens. And recent surveys suggest that although most people still prefer paper—especially when reading intensively—attitudes are changing as tablets and e-reading technology improve and reading digital books for facts and fun becomes more common.
  • Compared with paper, screens may also drain more of our mental resources while we are reading and make it a little harder to remember what we read when we are done. A parallel line of research focuses on people's attitudes toward different kinds of media. Whether they realize it or not, many people approach computers and tablets with a state of mind less conducive to learning than the one they bring to paper.
  • Both anecdotally and in published studies, people report that when trying to locate a particular piece of written information they often remember where in the text it appeared. We might recall that we passed the red farmhouse near the start of the trail before we started climbing uphill through the forest; in a similar way, we remember that we read about Mr. Darcy rebuffing Elizabeth Bennett on the bottom of the left-hand page in one of the earlier chapters.
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  • At least a few studies suggest that by limiting the way people navigate texts, screens impair comprehension.
  • Because of their easy navigability, paper books and documents may be better suited to absorption in a text. "The ease with which you can find out the beginning, end and everything inbetween and the constant connection to your path, your progress in the text, might be some way of making it less taxing cognitively, so you have more free capacity for comprehension," Mangen says.
  • An e-reader always weighs the same, regardless of whether you are reading Proust's magnum opus or one of Hemingway's short stories. Some researchers have found that these discrepancies create enough "haptic dissonance" to dissuade some people from using e-readers. People expect books to look, feel and even smell a certain way; when they do not, reading sometimes becomes less enjoyable or even unpleasant. For others, the convenience of a slim portable e-reader outweighs any attachment they might have to the feel of paper books.
  • In one of his experiments 72 volunteers completed the Higher Education Entrance Examination READ test—a 30-minute, Swedish-language reading-comprehension exam consisting of multiple-choice questions about five texts averaging 1,000 words each. People who took the test on a computer scored lower and reported higher levels of stress and tiredness than people who completed it on paper.
  • Perhaps, then, any discrepancies in reading comprehension between paper and screens will shrink as people's attitudes continue to change. The star of "A Magazine Is an iPad That Does Not Work" is three-and-a-half years old today and no longer interacts with paper magazines as though they were touchscreens, her father says. Perhaps she and her peers will grow up without the subtle bias against screens that seems to lurk in the minds of older generations. In current research for Microsoft, Sellen has learned that many people do not feel much ownership of e-books because of their impermanence and intangibility: "They think of using an e-book, not owning an e-book," she says. Participants in her studies say that when they really like an electronic book, they go out and get the paper version. This reminds Sellen of people's early opinions of digital music, which she has also studied. Despite initial resistance, people love curating, organizing and sharing digital music today. Attitudes toward e-books may transition in a similar way, especially if e-readers and tablets allow more sharing and social interaction than they currently do.
Kris Cody

The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens: Scientific A... - 103 views

  • prevented them from zooming out to see a neighborhood, state or country
    • Monica Williams-Mitchell
       
      This explains, in real terms, why I've had so much struggle with online reading! Very interesting article.
  • Because of these preferences—and because getting away from multipurpose screens improves concentration—people consistently say that when they really want to dive into a text, they read it on paper
    • Kris Cody
       
      This is backed up by a recent article: Faris, Michael J., and Stuart A. Selber. "E-Book Issues In Composition: A Partial Assessment And Perspective For Teachers." Composition Forum 24.(2011): ERIC. Web. 31 Mar. 2013.
  • Surveys and consumer reports also suggest that the sensory experiences typically associated with reading—especially tactile experiences—matter to people more than one might assume.
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  • When reading a paper book, one can feel the paper and ink and smooth or fold a page with one's fingers; the pages make a distinctive sound when turned; and underlining or highlighting a sentence with ink permanently alters the paper's chemistry.
  • discernible size, shape and weight.
  • Although many old and recent studies conclude that people understand what they read on paper more thoroughly than what they read on screens, the differences are often small. Some experiments, however, suggest that researchers should look not just at immediate reading comprehension, but also at long-term memory.
  • When taking the quiz, volunteers who had read study material on a monitor relied much more on remembering than on knowing, whereas students who read on paper depended equally on remembering and knowing.
  • E-ink is easy on the eyes because it reflects ambient light just like a paper book, but computer screens, smartphones and tablets like the iPad shine light directly into people's faces.
  • the American Optometric Association officially recognizes computer vision syndrome.
  • People who took the test on a computer scored lower and reported higher levels of stress and tiredness than people who completed it on paper.
  • Although people in both groups performed equally well on the READ test, those who had to scroll through the continuous text did not do as well on the attention and working-memory tests.
  • Subconsciously, many people may think of reading on a computer or tablet as a less serious affair than reading on paper. Based on a detailed 2005 survey of 113 people in northern California, Ziming Liu of San Jose State University concluded that people reading on screens take a lot of shortcuts—they spend more time browsing, scanning and hunting for keywords compared with people reading on paper, and are more likely to read a document once, and only once.
  • When reading on screens, people seem less inclined to engage in what psychologists call metacognitive learning regulation—strategies such as setting specific goals, rereading difficult sections and checking how much one has understood along the way
  • Perhaps she and her peers will grow up without the subtle bias against screens that seems to lurk in the minds of older generations.
  • They think of using an e-book, not owning an e-book,"
  • Participants in her studies say that when they really like an electronic book, they go out and get the paper version.
  • When it comes to intensively reading long pieces of plain text, paper and ink may still have the advantage. But text is not the only way to read.
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    it is difficult to see any one passage in the context of the entire text.
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    it is difficult to see any one passage in the context of the entire text.
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