Just for fun, post #100

Shugo Tokumaru "Katachi" from Kijek / Adamski on Vimeo.

Google Calendar

I've been trying out Google Calendar for awhile now, and am really liking some of its features. It's fast, easy, and syncs with my iPhone. It sends me daily emails with my agenda for that day, and automatically sets alarms. It's easy to schedule repeating events or multiple days for work on the same assignment. I'm still working to figure out how to organize it by course, and I wish it had a wake-up alarm!

New research on studying: what works, and what doesn't

If you're serious about studying, you need to read this new TIME magazine article Highlighting Is a Waste of Time: The Best and Worst Learning Techniques

Here's an excerpt:

"In contrast to familiar practices like highlighting and rereading, the learning strategies with the most evidence to support them aren’t well known outside the psych lab. Take distributed practice, for example. This tactic involves spreading out your study sessions, rather than engaging in one marathon. Cramming information at the last minute may allow you to get through that test or meeting, but the material will quickly disappear from memory. It’s much more effective to dip into the material at intervals over time. And the longer you want to remember the information, whether it’s two weeks or two years, the longer the intervals should be.

The second learning strategy that is highly recommended by the report’s authors is practice testing. Yes, more tests — but these are not for a grade. Research shows that the mere act of calling information to mind strengthens that knowledge and aids in future retrieval. While practice testing is not a common strategy — despite the robust evidence supporting it — there is one familiar approach that captures its benefits: using flash cards. And now flash cards can be presented in digital form, via apps like Quizlet, StudyBlue and FlashCardMachine. Both spaced-out learning, or distributed practice, and practice tests were rated as having “high utility” by the authors."

Books for your new year

If you can locate the newest version of The Elements of Style (illustrated) by Strunk / White / Kalman, you can re-read the best book about writing ever published and see for yourself how much better it is with 57 illustrations of sample sentences from the text. It's actually kind of fun to read.

Also worth a look:

The Revenge of Anguished English, More Accidental Assaults Upon Our Language, by Richard Lederer

Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds Ingenious, Tales of Words and Their Origins, by Michael Quinion

The New York Times Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused & Mispronounced Words, Words We Know (until someone asks us what they mean), edited by Laurence Urdang

Good times!

The freezer method

Passing along something to try when you've got a deadline, especially for writing.

First, mentally move your work deadline back 48 hours. Complete the final draft and "put it in the freezer" by putting it aside completely.

Then, 24 hours later (note that this should also be 24 hours before you'd normally be completing it) sit down with it again and read it as if seeing it for the first time. Missing words that your spell check program didn't catch? Punctuation? Proper formatting? And so on.

All good?

Why educate yourself in the sciences?

Science silliness

Strategy for those Monday surprises

Today was just the most recent in a string of Monday surprises this year, by which I mean assignments which were NOT due suddenly were. A bad moment under any circumstances, right?

But because I am now applying my new strategy, I was ready when my first period teacher announced that we'd had enough time to work on it, and today we were turning in the assignment. First period, and on a Monday! My partner and I had worked yesterday on the assignment, emailing drafts back and forth, so that we were ready and turned it in, and for a major grade too, which counts as 70% instead of the daily grade (30%) we all believed this was.

Our grade was the only 100, and the highest grade in the class - compared to the average 60.

But the real point here is my new strategy, which is this: do everything you can, complete all assignments possible, AS IF they are due tomorrow - or, especially, on Monday.

The strategy works because you finish everything without putting it off - you know what I'm talking about here - just because you have more time and therefore just because you can. It forces you to assume that you MUST knock it out.

The bonus is that you keep your time open for the new incoming assignments, because there will always be incoming.

There really ARE apps for all that!

First, a top five list - notable for a different flashcard application (I still like Quizlet a lot), another graphing calculator to try, and Evernote which I actually like and use. I'm planning to try the project app soon. Here's the link.

Next, here's a list from Lifehacker for the Mac Student

Continuing our Apple/Mac theme, here are 8 more.

And this' year's updates list from AppStorm here.

Know what doesn't work very well? Those big paper calendars that lie flat on your desk. Seems like it would be handy to write on, easy to see for reminders, etc. The reality? That's where I put stuff down or spread my work out on the desk, covering it up.

Sweatpants?

Sweatpants - at least a certain kind - are a great solution to the first decision of the day: what to wear. Nike makes them without elastic at the bottom, which makes them look more like pants and less like you're on the way to workout. And with the deep side pockets, back pocket with velcro, and the heavyweight fabric you just look like you're wearing COMFORTABLE pants. 

They're also a good solution for your mood, because who doesn't feel better wearing sweats?

Here is your illustrated guide to a PhD

Matt Might's illustrated guide to a PhD explains it visually. But to understand you need to take a look at the full explanation here

Strange but interesting

Big Bang Flash Mob fun to start your Thanksgiving break

Taking the longer view

Here are some ways I've been looking at the future:

This is the last time I'll see these particular trees in my back yard turn colors. Next year at this time I'll be living somewhere else, and see different trees lose their leaves.

I just placed my order for my cap and gown. Four years from now I'll have my college graduation to look forward to.

Ten years from now I will have become what I set out to be, working and driving (I hope) a paid-for Mustang GT.

How awesome is that?

Sometimes you just get lucky...

But sometimes you just don't.

This is the first year of a new curriculum in our district, and so far we've heard from the teachers that they are using tests they haven't seen before.  What does that even mean? is what we're wondering, until we sit down with the test and begin to understand.

And not only that:  a new grading system, weighted grades on a 70/30 split, and a much-dreaded (by the teachers!) cumulative semester exam that will be 10% of our grade. This test is SO ominous, apparently, that we are encouraged not to miss ANY days of school so as not to lose our test waivers. (Which means a lot of us are showing up sick for school, including tests, but that's another post for another day.)

The good news? This will be the first year my class will NOT spend most of the second semester preparing for the four TAKS tests we've taken every year since the third grade.

I know someone who chose to go to a college that doesn't give grades, just some kind of annual evaluation by professors about strengths and weaknesses, growth and development, etc. He said he was tired of all the intensity and competition at his big, crowded high school. I understand, I really do.

What would I choose for myself if I could choose something completely different?

Classes smaller than 35-40,  for one thing; hallways that aren't so crowded that we experiment with one-way routes (like that works any better!); and no 45-minute classes with a 5-minute bell schedule. If I never hear another bell that will be just fine with me, or see another clock on the wall stopped at some impossible time.

It's still a little strange to think that now is the time when I can make a different choice about what I want next for myself.

When one essay is not enough

I wrote a pretty good essay last May, for my English class as practice for the Common App essay. It earned me an A-, which was high praise from that teacher.

But. After rewriting that essay over the summer, I came to a place where I was happy with the writing but not happy with the essay. It wasn't what I wanted to say about me. It said something, a lot actually, just not what I think is most important for someone to know about me.

So I've started over, and my weekends have become these essay islands located between each week's homework flood. I sit down at the dining room table and outline, or jot down random thoughts: what is it that I want readers - strangers who will decide my fate - to know about me if this is ALL they will know? No pressure, right?

I'm trying to think of four or five words that describe me. Some I'm considering: optimistic, determined, independent.

I'm also thinking about whether I want to show (by telling a story that reveals these things about me) or tell (laying out my thoughts and opinions)...

Quotes or no quotes? Funny or serious?

Sometimes I'm tempted to just use the essay I spent so long polishing, but then I think about how I'll feel if I don't get in to the college I'm applying Early Decision to. What if a better essay - a truer essay - would have made the difference?

500 important words.

There's gotta be an app for that, right?

I want what I once had. Yes, I am now that old, that I can write something like that.

I used to have a Palm Pilot - this was grade school, 5th grade I think. Probably my mom's old one or something. But here's the thing:  I had this great program for homework and studying, and I didn't appreciate it then. I want one like it now.

Using a stylus, you pecked around on the screen's drop down boxes, selecting options in ever increasing detail. Homework? Which subject? Worksheet, read pages __-__, study for test, project, paper, or other? Due date? Need more than one day? Want reminders? and so on.

Then you could set up a whole other set of reminders under "Need to take home" and "Need to bring to school"

And it populated a calendar as well as a To Do list.

How awesome is that?

It was called "Shadow Warrior" or something and it could be customized.

I am on a mission to find one like it.

Lessons from college visits

You don't know until you stand on the campus, eat in the cafeteria, and talk to some students.

Some colleges are just what you thought they'd be, but in my experience there are usually some surprises, not all deal-breakers, but some sure are.

One college I thought would be perfect turned out to feel like a small private high school, even though the campus wasn't all that small. It's just that the buildings, and all the rooms in the buildings, just felt small and kind of dark. I think it must have been all the big shady tress, but I just didn't like the feel. Great food, though. Gulag style dorms.

Another college I thought would be too big felt just right, a combination of the campus layout and the town it was in. I could see myself living there.

This is going to be tough, but try not to make your decision based on your tour guide, because their experiences may not be what you'll experience.  But I have to say that's really hard to do, because you wonder if all the students are like this one person, who may be annoying or just, well, not like you or your friends.

One of the whole points to going away to college is going away, right? Going away from your high school groups, whatever they were, and going away from your past in a lot of ways. Something new, different and even a little bit foreign might be a good thing. Right?

New element on the periodic table

High-school chemistry students, beware. Japanese scientists say they have created one of the elements still missing from the periodic table. The elusive element 113—an atom with 113 protons—has to be manmade because it doesn't occur naturally on Earth. On Wednesday, researchers at the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science announced the successful creation of the element for the first time. If the atom withstands scrutiny, it will be the first element discovered by an Asian country, giving Japan naming rights. So far, only American, Russian, and German scientists have had the honor. There are about 20 synthetic elements, the first of which was created in 1940.

Read it at CBS News

September 26, 2012 4:19 PM

I'm going to need a bigger backpack.

Just when you think you've got your routines down, your desk set up, all your studying ready to go...then, boom! AP Chemistry lands in your life.

Worth it? Yes - just take a look at any college's AP credit page, and then think for a minute about just how big a classroom (auditorium?) would have to be to hold the 300-550 students in an intro chem class.

Bigger backpack. More pizza.