...More than a century after Ivan Pavlov's dog was conditioned to salivate when it heard the sound of a tone prior to receiving food, scientists have found neurons that are critical to how people and animals learn from experience...
Université de Montréal daycare program helps aggressive kids avoid being type-cast
...But the interim director of the daycare warns against labeling kids between the ages of four and five as aggressive or problematic children. "Giving a child a reputation as trouble-maker risks making him feel like that the rest of his life and unable to see himself as anything else."
The program she's introduced at the daycare consists of a series of observation sessions of children that incorporate personalized strategies and approaches for helping those with behavioral difficulties. "This has to be done as soon as the child is in daycare," says Guèvremont. "Once children enter school it's often too late. They get labeled very quickly."...
Conscious vs. Unconscious Thought in Making Complicated Decisions
...When faced with a difficult decision, we try to come up with the best choice by carefully considering all of the options, maybe even resorting to lists and lots of sleepless nights. So it may be surprising that recent studies have suggested that the best way to deal with complex decisions is to not think about them at all—that unconscious thought will help us make the best choices. Although this may seem like an appealing strategy, new research in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, cautions that there are limitations in the efficacy of unconscious thought making the best decisions...
E-Learning can have positive effect on classroom learning, scholar says
...Traditional classroom teaching in higher education could learn a thing or two from online teaching, otherwise known as e-learning, according to a University of Illinois professor who studies computer-mediated communication, information exchange and the Interne...
...Schools in England are already amongst the most scrutinised and accountable in the world, yet now a whole new burden of responsibilities is being heaped on them...(BBC)
09 December, 2008
06 December, 2008
Infants Participate in Complex Interactions with Their Parents
...A new study in the journal Family Process shows that infants appear to be active participants in complex interactional sequences with their parents far earlier than previously thought. Researchers documented the capacity of three-month old infants to share attention with two partners simultaneously.
Triangular capacities were defined as the frequency of babies’ rapid multi-shift gaze transitions between parents, as the infants shifted their gaze back-and-forth between the two adults during a well-established family interaction paradigm. The babies did the same thing in a more stressful procedure in which the two adults challenged them by posing motionless faces following a period of free play....
...A new study in the journal Family Process shows that infants appear to be active participants in complex interactional sequences with their parents far earlier than previously thought. Researchers documented the capacity of three-month old infants to share attention with two partners simultaneously.
Triangular capacities were defined as the frequency of babies’ rapid multi-shift gaze transitions between parents, as the infants shifted their gaze back-and-forth between the two adults during a well-established family interaction paradigm. The babies did the same thing in a more stressful procedure in which the two adults challenged them by posing motionless faces following a period of free play....
29 November, 2008
Special GUI for your eyes only.
...Researches at the University of Washington have recently developed a system, which for the first time, offers an instantly customizable approach to user interfaces. Each participant in the program is placed through a brief skills test and then a mathematically-based version of the user interface optimized for his or her vision and motor abilities is generated. The current off-the-shelf designs are especially discouraging for the disabled, the elderly and others who have trouble controlling a mouse, because most computer programs have standardized button sizes, fonts, and layouts, which are designed for normal users....
...Researches at the University of Washington have recently developed a system, which for the first time, offers an instantly customizable approach to user interfaces. Each participant in the program is placed through a brief skills test and then a mathematically-based version of the user interface optimized for his or her vision and motor abilities is generated. The current off-the-shelf designs are especially discouraging for the disabled, the elderly and others who have trouble controlling a mouse, because most computer programs have standardized button sizes, fonts, and layouts, which are designed for normal users....
25 November, 2008
The fingerprinting of overseas students for biometric identity cards has begun for those extending their visas. (BBC)
Design and the Plastic Mind
...Over the past twenty-five years, people have weathered dramatic changes in their experience of time, space, matter, and identity. Individuals cope daily with a multitude of changes in scale and pace—working across several time zones, traveling with relative ease between satellite maps and nanoscale images, and being inundated with information. Adaptability is an ancestral distinction of intelligence, but today’s instant variations in rhythm call for something stronger: elasticity, the product of adaptability plus acceleration. Design and the Elastic Mind explores the reciprocal relationship between science and design in the contemporary world by bringing together design objects and concepts that marry the most advanced scientific research with attentive consideration of human limitations, habits, and aspirations. The exhibition highlights designers’ ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and history—changes that demand or reflect major adjustments in human behavior—and translate them into objects that people can actually understand and use. This Web site presents over three hundred of these works, including fifty projects that are not featured in the gallery exhibition....
Design and the Plastic Mind
...Over the past twenty-five years, people have weathered dramatic changes in their experience of time, space, matter, and identity. Individuals cope daily with a multitude of changes in scale and pace—working across several time zones, traveling with relative ease between satellite maps and nanoscale images, and being inundated with information. Adaptability is an ancestral distinction of intelligence, but today’s instant variations in rhythm call for something stronger: elasticity, the product of adaptability plus acceleration. Design and the Elastic Mind explores the reciprocal relationship between science and design in the contemporary world by bringing together design objects and concepts that marry the most advanced scientific research with attentive consideration of human limitations, habits, and aspirations. The exhibition highlights designers’ ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and history—changes that demand or reflect major adjustments in human behavior—and translate them into objects that people can actually understand and use. This Web site presents over three hundred of these works, including fifty projects that are not featured in the gallery exhibition....
21 November, 2008
ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN 2008
December 3-5, 2008
Conference Programme Online!
Universite de Montreal professor Frank Vitaro correlates severity of [juvenile justice] sentences with likelihood of relapse
...A new study shows that juvenile delinquents sentenced to either a juvenile retreat, probation or unsupervised community service were seven times more likely to commit criminal acts as adults than youngsters from the control group who managed to avoid the juvenile justice system....
UC San Diego Researchers Report on How to Improve Long-Term Learning
...Combine the aphorisms that “practice makes perfect” and “timing is everything” into one and you might get something resembling findings published in this month’s issue of Psychological Science. Proper spacing of lessons, the researchers report, can dramatically enhance learning. And larger gaps between study sessions result in better recall of facts...
Certain Skills Are Predictors of Reading Ability in Young Children
... A new study in the journal Learning Disabilities Research & Practice reveals that differences found between pre-kindergarten reading-disabled children and their typically reading peers diminish in various measures by pre-first grade, with the exception of phonological awareness abilities....
The Edubuntu community is built on the ideas enshrined in the Edubuntu Manifesto: that software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local language and despite any disabilities, and that people should have the freedom to customise and alter their software in whatever way they see fit.
IBM has announced it will lead a US government-funded collaboration to make electronic circuits that mimic brains.(BBC)
...According to Dharmendra Modha, the lead scientist on the project, '[t]he key idea of cognitive computing is to engineer mind-like intelligent machines by reverse engineering the structure, dynamics, function and behaviour of the brain.'...
December 3-5, 2008
Conference Programme Online!
Universite de Montreal professor Frank Vitaro correlates severity of [juvenile justice] sentences with likelihood of relapse
...A new study shows that juvenile delinquents sentenced to either a juvenile retreat, probation or unsupervised community service were seven times more likely to commit criminal acts as adults than youngsters from the control group who managed to avoid the juvenile justice system....
UC San Diego Researchers Report on How to Improve Long-Term Learning
...Combine the aphorisms that “practice makes perfect” and “timing is everything” into one and you might get something resembling findings published in this month’s issue of Psychological Science. Proper spacing of lessons, the researchers report, can dramatically enhance learning. And larger gaps between study sessions result in better recall of facts...
Certain Skills Are Predictors of Reading Ability in Young Children
... A new study in the journal Learning Disabilities Research & Practice reveals that differences found between pre-kindergarten reading-disabled children and their typically reading peers diminish in various measures by pre-first grade, with the exception of phonological awareness abilities....
The Edubuntu community is built on the ideas enshrined in the Edubuntu Manifesto: that software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local language and despite any disabilities, and that people should have the freedom to customise and alter their software in whatever way they see fit.
IBM has announced it will lead a US government-funded collaboration to make electronic circuits that mimic brains.(BBC)
...According to Dharmendra Modha, the lead scientist on the project, '[t]he key idea of cognitive computing is to engineer mind-like intelligent machines by reverse engineering the structure, dynamics, function and behaviour of the brain.'...
14 November, 2008
Q&A on Technical Assistance for the Assistive Technology Act of 1998, as amended.
...The Assistive Technology Act of 1998 (AT Act) was amended on Oct. 25, 2005, and is administered by the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA). The AT Act provides grants to states to maintain comprehensive, statewide programs (Statewide AT Programs) that are designed to increase access to assistive technology for individuals with disabilities. In addition, the AT Act provides grants to each state for protection and advocacy related to AT (PAAT)...
Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) 14th Annual Conference
Building Learning Systems that Care : From Knowledge Representation to Affective Modelling
...The International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED2009) is part of an ongoing series of biennial international conferences for top quality research in intelligent systems and cognitive science for educational computing applications. The conference provides opportunities for the cross-fertilization of techniques from many fields that make up this interdisciplinary research area, including: artificial intelligence, computer science, cognitive and learning sciences, education, educational technology, psychology, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, and the many domain-specific areas for which AIED systems have been designed and evaluated...
...The Assistive Technology Act of 1998 (AT Act) was amended on Oct. 25, 2005, and is administered by the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA). The AT Act provides grants to states to maintain comprehensive, statewide programs (Statewide AT Programs) that are designed to increase access to assistive technology for individuals with disabilities. In addition, the AT Act provides grants to each state for protection and advocacy related to AT (PAAT)...
Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) 14th Annual Conference
Building Learning Systems that Care : From Knowledge Representation to Affective Modelling
...The International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED2009) is part of an ongoing series of biennial international conferences for top quality research in intelligent systems and cognitive science for educational computing applications. The conference provides opportunities for the cross-fertilization of techniques from many fields that make up this interdisciplinary research area, including: artificial intelligence, computer science, cognitive and learning sciences, education, educational technology, psychology, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, and the many domain-specific areas for which AIED systems have been designed and evaluated...
13 November, 2008
YSDN 16 Words (video)
....Each year since 1985, the editors of THE FUTURIST have selected the most thought-provoking ideas and forecasts appearing in the magazine to go into our annual Outlook report. Over the years, Outlook has spotlighted the emergence of such epochal developments as the Internet, virtual reality, and the end of the Cold War.
6. Professional knowledge will become obsolete almost as quickly as it's acquired. An individual's professional knowledge is becoming outdated at a much faster rate than ever before. Most professions will require continuous instruction and retraining. Rapid changes in the job market and work-related technologies will necessitate job education for almost every worker. At any given moment, a substantial portion of the labor force will be in job retraining programs. -Marvin J. Cetron and Owen Davies, "Trends Shaping Tomorrow's World, Part Two," May-June 2008, p 41 ....
From the New York Times
...When people who believe such things reported them to the police, doctors or family, they said they were often told they were crazy. Sometimes they were medicated or locked in hospital wards, or fired from jobs and isolated from the outside world.
But when they found one another on the Internet, everything changed. So many others were having the same experiences....
...November 11, 2008 (Computerworld) DeepDyve Inc. today announced that it has launched a free search engine that can be used to access databases, scholarly journals, unstructured information and other data sources in the so-called "Deep Web" or "Dark Web," where traditional search technologies don't work.
The DeepDyve search engine enables searches of the Dark Web to more easily find life sciences, patent and Wikipedia data. The new engine indexes 500 million pages, said DeepDyve, which was known as Infovell before changing its name today....
Charter for Compassion
...By recognizing that the Golden Rule is fundamental to all world religions, the Charter for Compassion can inspire people to think differently about religion. This Charter is being created in a collaborative project by people from all over the world. It will be completed in 2009. Use this site to offer language you'd like to see included. Or inspire others by sharing your own story of compassion....
....Each year since 1985, the editors of THE FUTURIST have selected the most thought-provoking ideas and forecasts appearing in the magazine to go into our annual Outlook report. Over the years, Outlook has spotlighted the emergence of such epochal developments as the Internet, virtual reality, and the end of the Cold War.
6. Professional knowledge will become obsolete almost as quickly as it's acquired. An individual's professional knowledge is becoming outdated at a much faster rate than ever before. Most professions will require continuous instruction and retraining. Rapid changes in the job market and work-related technologies will necessitate job education for almost every worker. At any given moment, a substantial portion of the labor force will be in job retraining programs. -Marvin J. Cetron and Owen Davies, "Trends Shaping Tomorrow's World, Part Two," May-June 2008, p 41 ....
From the New York Times
...When people who believe such things reported them to the police, doctors or family, they said they were often told they were crazy. Sometimes they were medicated or locked in hospital wards, or fired from jobs and isolated from the outside world.
But when they found one another on the Internet, everything changed. So many others were having the same experiences....
...November 11, 2008 (Computerworld) DeepDyve Inc. today announced that it has launched a free search engine that can be used to access databases, scholarly journals, unstructured information and other data sources in the so-called "Deep Web" or "Dark Web," where traditional search technologies don't work.
The DeepDyve search engine enables searches of the Dark Web to more easily find life sciences, patent and Wikipedia data. The new engine indexes 500 million pages, said DeepDyve, which was known as Infovell before changing its name today....
Charter for Compassion
...By recognizing that the Golden Rule is fundamental to all world religions, the Charter for Compassion can inspire people to think differently about religion. This Charter is being created in a collaborative project by people from all over the world. It will be completed in 2009. Use this site to offer language you'd like to see included. Or inspire others by sharing your own story of compassion....
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