Blurts

When I began working with “personal computers” in the mid-1980s, locating useful information and keeping up with new developments was difficult. The Internet was not available. Books and magazines (Byte, Nibble) were my primary sources and every trip to the bookstore (remember those) involved several purchases.

The one other source was a Saturday morning television called “Computer Chronicles”. I had forgotten this program thinking my earliest experiences were with “Call for Help” and “TechTV”. However, I was listening to a podcast (from the TwitTV network) that interviewed Stewart Cheifet – the host of this program. Stewart remarked that the 20 years of the Computer Chronicles had been preserved by Archives.org. The collection has been organized by date and by keyword. For example, here is the first program describing Hypercard.

While not originally intended for this purpose, this collection offers a great history of the first 20 years or so of the personal computer.

Our three-week stay in Russia is nearly over. During much of this time we have stayed with a group of people who were all friends in Grozny  and had to leave very suddenly because of the Chechen conflict. They are scattered across Russia depending on where they found relatives or opportunities to start new lives.

After observing how they had created this amazing network of acquaintances, Cindy asked how they had found each other again. The response was classmates.com. I cannot say I have ever paid attention to this site, but it makes some sense. This service predates Facebook and offers a way for people to connect. Somehow, the site was identified and became a way to reorganize.

This reminds me a bit of our need to flee Grand Forks in the middle of the night during the flood of 1997. We had difficulty reconnecting and the Internet was much more primitive at that time. I remember using some makeshift site that was established to identify your location and to search for others. Of course, we were able to return within a few months and our Russian friends could not go back.

File this under appreciate your own opportunities.

We explore the local technology options when we travel and the present destination is Volgograd. Electronics stores are common.

Here are the tablet options available in one store.

The iPad 3G is shown below.

The conversion rate for rubles is about 30-31 per dollar so this device would cost approximately $1000. The iPhone and iPad are very common, but buyers do pay more.

I have encountered several posts regarding the general benefits of reading (e.g., Professor Nana). Perhaps this is because it is summer and educators and students have the opportunity to read and so many do not.

This post summarizing findings on the decline in cognitive capacity that accompanies the aging process offers more encouragement.

The findings, published online today in Neurology, suggest that reading books, writing and engaging in other similar brain-stimulating activities slows down cognitive decline in old age, independent of common age-related neurodegenerative diseases. In particular, people who participated in mentally stimulating activities over their lifetimes, both in young, middle and old age, had a slower rate of decline in memory and other mental capacities than those who did not.

I will offer my general warning regarding correlational data, but what could be wrong with the suggestion that we all decrease passive consumption (television) and increase cognitive activity (reading, writing).

This is a recommendation for a blog those interested in education issues might follow. I came across the posts of Daniel Willingham after reading and assigning one of his books. What I like about this blog is the effort to start with research results and consider educational practices that are consistent or inconsistent with what research demonstrates. I prefer this approach to one in which interesting ideas drive practice whether or not research supports such activities.