Every fall semester I need to be “realistic” about my incoming grade 10 students. Where I teach high school begins at grade 10. At the end of grade 9, all students across the country take a massive standardized test and are admitted to different high schools based on their scores. The government is trying toContinue reading “Chapter 3 – Being “realistic””
Category Archives: books
Chapter 2: One problem in education technology that needs debugging
Access to broadband internet needs to be improved across America before any true technological revolution in education is possible. Broadband internet is expensive in America costing an average of $61 per month (BroadbandSearch). Why is internet expensive? According to Segan (2017), seventy percent of American zip codes “have either zero or one option for 25MbpsContinue reading “Chapter 2: One problem in education technology that needs debugging”
A Very Tolkien Christmas
In this spirit of the season, I am rereading Letters from Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien. If anyone needs gift ideas for Tolkien fans in their life, they’ll appreciate this. It’s a beautiful book full of handwritten letters and illustrations all done by Tolkien. For more than twenty years, he wrote individualized letters to hisContinue reading “A Very Tolkien Christmas”
Chapter 1: Parents’ educational technology
In high school, my mom used a slide rule in some of her math classes. She claimed televisions were never used in any classes. Some students had access to typewriters at home to complete reports and big projects; the school also had a few typewriters. She had access to erasable typewriter paper (which I hadContinue reading “Chapter 1: Parents’ educational technology”
Putting the Academia in Dark Academia – Conjure Wife
Be forewarned, Conjure Wife was written in 1943 and presents some unflattering gender roles and stereotypes. The protagonist Norman thinks highlight of his wife Transy specifically because she was “so sane, so healthily contemptuous of palmistry, astrology, numerology and all other superstitious fads.” Multiple times in the story Norman equates science and rationality with menContinue reading “Putting the Academia in Dark Academia – Conjure Wife”
Croeso i Gymru – Bred of Heaven
I’ve developed a serious crush on Wales. It all began when I started reading Bred of Heaven by Jasper Rees. Before that, I rarely thought of Wales. I have no history with Wales. I’ve never been and I doubt I’ll ever visit. But somehow Rees has tugged my heart enough for me to start learningContinue reading “Croeso i Gymru – Bred of Heaven”
What are good additions to an IP? The Lord of the Rings
It feels like so many people get upset when books get adapted to movies or TV. Page to screen often incites a lot of hostility from overly passionate fanbases, but the trend of revisiting old film IPs such as Star Wars or Indiana Jones as created more controversies among fans. When I was younger IContinue reading “What are good additions to an IP? The Lord of the Rings”
Not Enough of a Good Thing – Way Station
Too often I’ll finish a novel and think, “I wish that was just a little shorter. If the editor could have excised twenty or so pages I feel it would be a tighter story.” Very rarely do I feel a book would be improved by more. Way Station by Clifford D. Simak is one ofContinue reading “Not Enough of a Good Thing – Way Station”
He should have put a Ringworld on it
As part of my goal to read all the Hugo Award winning novels, two nights ago I finished reading Ringworld by Larry Niven. It also won the Locus and Nebula Awards so if I ever go down those rabbit holes I already have one in the bank. Like most of these award-winning SF novels fromContinue reading “He should have put a Ringworld on it”
What Makes us Human? Catching Fire by Richard Wrangham
A friend recently recommended Catching Fire by Richard Wrangham. In it, he lays out a convincing thesis that cooking and food processing were instrumental to human evolution. The message boils down to humans have big brains because we have small intestines. We can have small intestines because cooked food is more efficiently digested so weContinue reading “What Makes us Human? Catching Fire by Richard Wrangham”
The Keasy Depot 