Group items tagged

I have a simple rule of three for third millennium learning spaces: • No more than three walls so that there is never full enclosure and the space is multifaceted rather than just open. • No fewer than three points of focus so that the "stand-and-deliver" model gives way to increasingly varied groups learning and presenting together (which by the way requires a radical rethinking of furniture). • Ability to accommodate three teachers/adults with their children. The old standard size of about 30 students in a box robbed children of so many effective practices; these larger spaces allow for better alternatives.

Schools are full of things that our descendants will look back on and laugh out loud at: ringing a bell and expecting 1,000 teenagers to be simultaneously hungry; putting 25 children together in a box because they were born between two Septembers; assessing children based on how well they work alone; and so on.

If you are a hiker or camper, you may have heard about Vestergaard Frandsen’s LifeStraw. It’s a hollow stick equipped with a series of filtering membranes. You put the end of the stick in a river or puddle ─ or a toilet, for that matter ─ and suck on it. By the time the water hits your lips, it is clean and safe ─ its filters are fine enough to trap virtually all bacteria, viruses and parasites. The product has a bigger cousin called the LifeStraw Family. You hang it on your wall, pour dirty water in the top, open the tap and clean water comes out the bottom. No power or replacement parts are required. Each unit cleans about 18,000 liters of water ─ enough for a family for three years. The market cost of the unit averages out at a penny per ten liters of water purified. Vestergaard Frandsen will distribute the LifeStraw Family for free. It is helping to sponsor a traveling campaign through the western part of Kenya set for April, 2011, that will reach 4 million families. The campaign bundles various products ─ each family that attends will get insecticide-treated bednets to protect against malaria, AIDS tests and counseling and a free LifeStraw Family.

Infographic World - 12 Interesting Infographics Infographics can be

Many of the most valuable conversations around technology and many other fields happen on Twitter. If you’re not there you don’t really exist, especially if you’re just getting started in your field.

Facebook calls this “frictionless sharing”, which is their euphemism for silent total surveillance.

What most people don’t know is that the Like button tracks your browsing history. Every time you visit a web page that displays the Like button Facebook logs that data in your account. It doesn’t put anything on your wall but it knows where you’ve been. This even happens if you log out of Facebook. Like buttons are pretty much ubiquitous on mainstream websites so every time you visit one you’re doing some frictionless sharing. Did you opt in to this? Only by registering your Facebook account in the first place. Can you turn it off? Only by deleting your account.