Learn Difficult Concepts with the ADEPT Method After a decade of writing explanations, I’ve simplified the strategy I use to get new concepts to click. Make explanations ADEPT: Use an Analogy, Diagram, Example, Plain-English description, and then a Technical description. Here’s how to teach yourself a difficult idea, or explain one to others. Analogy: What Else Is It Like? Most new concepts are variations, extensions, or combinations of what we already know. In our decades of life, we’ve encountered thousands of objects and experiences. Here’s an example: Imaginary numbers. Argh. Negative numbers were distrusted until the 1700s: How could you have less than nothing? Instead of just going East/West, we can go North/South too – or even spin around in a circle. Analogies are fuzzy, not 100% accurate, and yet astoundingly useful. Diagram: Engage That Half Of Your Brain We often think diagrams are a crutch if you aren’t macho enough to directly interpret the symbols. So, here’s a visualization: Example: Let Me Experience The Idea Nope. so Prof.
Study: When Human Consumption Slows, Planet Earth Can Heal Despite the oft-repeated claim that the recent decline in U.S. carbon emissions was due to the so-called 'fracking boom,' new research published Tuesday shows that it was the dramatic fall in consumption during the Great Recession that deserves credit for this drop. As nations grapple with the best strategy for decreasing carbon emissions ahead of the upcoming United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Paris, the report, published in the journal Nature Communications, underscores the need for communities to transition away from an economy based on endless growth and towards a more renewable energy system to stem the growing climate crisis. Between 2007 and 2013, the United States—second only to China for the title of world's top polluter—saw carbon emissions fall roughly 11 percent. What the researchers found was that 71 percent of the rise in carbon emissions from 1997 to 2007 was due to "economic growth."
Avoid These Bad Study Habits to Actually Retain Information in School Soft Robotic Fingers Recognize Objects by Feel Design & Development When it’s attached to Rethink Robotics’ Baxter robot, the gripper far outperforms Baxter’s standard gripper, which couldn’t pick up a piece of paper or a CD. In fact, the default gripper often could not handle hollow objects like aluminum cans, crushing them instead. The new robotic hand is further set apart by its ability to perform both a “pinch grasp,” where the object is held by the tip of the fingers, and an “enveloping grasp,” where the object is contained completely within the gripper. Silicone rubber was chosen for the fingers for several reasons, but especially for its mechanical characteristics. The material is relatively stiff, yet flexible enough to bend easily with the pressure available from the gripper’s actuator pistons. The major characteristic Rus and her team were evaluating in a material was its elongation-to-break. The team had plenty of experience creating molds using silicone rubber from past projects in the Distributed Robotics Lab.
10 Ways to Alter Your Consciousness Without Drugs I'm typically not one for altered states of consciousness. I don't do drugs. I've never been drunk. In fact, the only time I can claim to have been synthetically high was when, against my will, I was injected with Fentanyl moments before being put under for surgery (and that high was not a pleasant experience). So, when I purchased a book Get High Now (without drugs) at a book sale, many of my friends and loved ones thought it extremely peculiar. When I set out to make an Instructable along the same theme, they felt I had perhaps come unhinged. This whole endeavor is highly out of character for me. Collected here are are a number of techniques for altering your consciousness. While none of these 10 approaches are as consciousness-altering as being injected with Fentanyl, I can say that they will all make you perceive the world in alternative ways.
Beating the Forgetting Curve with Distributed Practice “If you read the research on how much people forget after training, it’s depressing. Do a search for the ‘Forgetting Curve’. Once we know something like this, we need to change our approach and educate others.”- Connie Malamed (The eLearning Coach)The above quote is from our interview with Connie Malamed. After our inspiring and thought-provoking interview with Connie Malamed, we were left wondering about the interesting human nature that is revealed with the ‘forgetting curve’, and its impact on learning design. We set out on a journey to explore and learn more about this phenomenon.Below are the questions we had in mind when we embarked on our journey: What is the ‘forgetting curve’? One of the most intriguing features of the human mind is that it is volatile in nature (just like the Random Access Memory (RAM) in a computer). These findings have great significance for learning professionals while developing learning interventions. Excerpts from Experts Infographics Presentations Articles
Growing Food For Survival In Small Places Just because you live in an apartment or a small house with minimal yard space doesn’t mean that you can’t grow your own food. For that matter, you may even be able to have a few animals. Chickens or a goat or two may be a possibility right in your own yard. The important things to growing food for survival in small places are organization and creativity. We’ve gathered some tips that may help! Use Non-GMO, Non-Hybrid Seeds GMO, or genetically modified organisms, are genetically fused into some seeds in order to make the plant more disease-resistant. You can order seeds that have been tested and are guaranteed to be non-GMO. Likewise, don’t use hybrid seeds; they aren’t stable. The problem, though, is that only the first generation will definitely have those traits so you can’t use the seeds from them to grow identical plants. Go with heirloom or open-pollinated, certified non-GMO seeds. Save Your Containers You’re going to need containers to plant your seeds and grow your plants in.
Teach For All Makeblock mBot Ranger Kit Review | Into Robotics These days I got an mBot Ranger for free, and I want to say many thanks to Makeblock for this great kit. The normal price for this kit is around $149.99, but it hasn’t yet been released. If you want to play these days with an older version of mBot, you can find them on Amazon. Otherwise, you have to wait until 23rd May 2016 can buy the mBot Ranger kit. Autonomous metal robots are hard to build from scratch unless you own a chassis kit and have degrees in electronics and programming. The good, the bad The good well designed with focus on details;easy assembly;strong and quality components;a lot of room for further extensions; The bad if you want to change the batteries, you need to have with you the wrench included in the kit;the documentation is not up to date;I have some bad experience with the MeAuriga firmware. Inside the box Me Auriga Me Auriga is a compact brick based on Arduino Mega 2560. The main body Programming Control Building robots Building the three-wheeled racing car Conclusion
How to Disagree March 2008 The web is turning writing into a conversation. Twenty years ago, writers wrote and readers read. The web lets readers respond, and increasingly they do—in comment threads, on forums, and in their own blog posts. Many who respond to something disagree with it. The result is there's a lot more disagreeing going on, especially measured by the word. If we're all going to be disagreeing more, we should be careful to do it well. DH0. This is the lowest form of disagreement, and probably also the most common. u r a fag!!!!!!!!!! But it's important to realize that more articulate name-calling has just as little weight. The author is a self-important dilettante. is really nothing more than a pretentious version of "u r a fag." DH1. An ad hominem attack is not quite as weak as mere name-calling. Of course he would say that. This wouldn't refute the author's argument, but it may at least be relevant to the case. DH2. DH3. This is often combined with DH2 statements, as in: DH4. DH5. DH6.
The 27 Principles to Teaching Yourself Anything (aka The Self-Guided Education Manifesto + PDF download “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” —Mark Twain Note: This post is intentionally long. It’s meant to be our compass for learning the skills that matter in the world and throwing theory out the window. Read it. Save it. At the end of this post I’ve even provided two free PDF downloads to further guide you towards learning what matters (one is a list of over 30 of the best online resources for creating your own passion-filled curriculum). Enter the Unofficial Self-Guided Education Manifesto… Last week’s article on The Birth of Self-Guided Education caught like wildfire. When that happens, I know a topic deserves some respect. Many of last week’s comments blew my mind. Living Legends create their own education. The truth of the matter is every Living Legend (whether they dropped out of high school or got a couple PhD’s) took their education and their learning into their own hands. So without further ado… 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.