Monthly Archives: June 2009

Scalable Sound Sensing for People-Centric Mobile Phone Apps

Using the microphone on a cell phone,SoundSense software picks up sounds and automatically classifies sounds as “voice,” “music,” or “ambient noise.” The architecture and algorithms are designed for scalability. SoundSense uses a combination of supervised and unsupervised learning techniques to … Continue reading

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Computers Make Great Students

“A computer, for instance, can remember everything and work at blinding speed, so it gains a huge advantage by not having to wait for the teacher. And when data appear “in the wild”–or generated for free on the Web–it can … Continue reading

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Education’s Dirty Little Secret (DI)

Direct Instruction (DI) is the dirty little secret of the educational establishment. This method … is the opposite of the favored methods of today’s high-paid education gurus, and contradicts the popular theories that are taught to new teachers in our … Continue reading

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People Don’t Gain Insights about Ourselves from Videos of Us

People do not read insights into ourselves from watching a video of our own body language. Outside observers watching the same video make revealing insights into our personality. In other words, “self-perceivers do not appear to pay as much attention … Continue reading

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Bigger is Faster in Lexical – Visual Word Recognition

People are faster at processing words referring to big things than we are at processing words that denote small things, reported Sara Sereno and colleagues. This study considers “semantic size,” lexical access in visual word recognition – namely, the real-world … Continue reading

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Personal Force and Intention in Moral Judgment

Using one’s own bodily strength made killing someone less morally acceptable , according to 600 students, than dropping the person through a trap door in front of a train in order to save five others, J. Green and team reported. … Continue reading

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MIT Replaces Large Letures

The physics department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technolkogy has replaced large introductory lectures with smaller classes that emphasize hands-on, interactive, collaborative learning. Attendance is up and the failure rate has dropped by more than 50 percent. Also, students taking … Continue reading

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aLEAP Toward Automatic Learning Analysis with Tablet PCs Abstract

Here’s a summary update of my development of a behavior analysis tool to monitor automatically learning efficiency with Tablet and other mobile PCs in school. Please let me know if you have similar interests. A Learning Efficiency Analysis Paradigm (aLEAP) … Continue reading

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Teachers Provide Technical Support in School Revisited

If teachers use some of the same procedures that technical support services provide callers, would teachers help students increase learning rates more? I asked this question in 2006. I think now the answer is a qualified, “Yes.” Writing about NESI … Continue reading

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Read Tablet PC Reviews before Deciding "Which One"

Be sure to check out Tablet PC Reviews for authoritative comments about variations among Tablet PCs. A useful stop for those assembling a short list of hardware to submit for approved purchases. Yes, they’ve been around for awhile and have … Continue reading

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