I just discovered a cool poster-creating applet called Wordle. In their own words: Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source… Read More ›
Month: December 2008
How many college recommendations?
I just finished sending off 104 college recommendations this week. How many? Yes, 104. And that was in addition to 21 “early action” recommendations that I sent out earlier in the fall. But before you conclude that that’s a ridiculously… Read More ›
In praise of Micci
A completely unsolicited testimonial: Barbara and I noticed that our 28-year-old gas furnace was behaving erratically, sometimes turning off and on in rapid intervals, and sometimes turning off altogether. We called Micci Fuel Co. to come look at it and… Read More ›
Dorchester Community Gardens
We tend to think of Dorchester as “inner city” — which indeed it is…or not, depending on one’s definition (see below). But most of us don’t think of urban gardens in connection with Dorchester. A useful antidote is Dorchester Community… Read More ›
Fred the Footrest
My major Hanukkah present from Barbara was a footstool in the shape of a genuine replica of a stuffed bear: We named him Fred the Footrest. You have noticed that William is loyally guarding Fred in case any hunters should… Read More ›
Chinese food in Elmira
We had lunch today at Beijing Garden, a reasonably good Chinese restaurant in Elmira. Why were we the only customers using chopsticks? Why was everybody covertly looking at us? And why wasn’t this restaurant open yesterday (Christmas Day)? I guess… Read More ›
What do I need to do to get an A?
“What do I need to do to get an A?” asks one of my students in an honors math course. I wish I had a magic recipe. I can say with reasonable confidence that it’s possible to get a B… Read More ›
More about the Ashmont Grill and Tavolo
I’ve written a couple of previous posts about the Ashmont Grill — two years ago and five months ago. Since the latter post, Barbara and I have visited several times, mostly for the Monday Night wine club, which I highly… Read More ›
Donovan's in Savin Hill over the Bridge (well…almost over the bridge)
The Savin Hill neighborhood in Dorchester is conventionally divided into two parts, at least by real estate agents. The “better” half, according to some, is “Savin Hill over the Bridge,” namely the portion to the east of the bridge that… Read More ›
David Handler's Berger & Mitry series
David Handler, best known for this Stewart Hoag series and other novels, has also written six books (so far) in his Berger and Mitry series: The Cold Blue Blood (2001) The Hot Pink Farmhouse (2002) The Bright Silver Star (2003)… Read More ›
Kindle for textbooks?
One of my students asked me why his textbooks aren’t available for Kindle. Currently the typical Weston student’s backpack weighs 42 pounds*; Kindle weighs only ten ounces! Aside from everything else that’s available for it, imagine replacing your math book,… Read More ›
Obedience
Obedience, by Will Lavender, is a fascinating but flawed novel. Not flawed like Strip Search, which I reviewed the other day; this novel is worth reading. But it’s flawed nevertheless. It shares with Strip Search the characteristic of a great… Read More ›
Where are my model railroad pix?
One of my students asked me why I haven’t yet posted any photos of the model railroad I’m building. One answer is that it’s still in such an early stage that I don’t have much to show yet. Another answer… Read More ›
Strip Search
Strip Search, by William Bernhardt, is an irritating novel. Why do I say that? Well, it’s not just because Bernhardt portrays math teachers as weird and psychotic, though that’s certainly a major part of it. And it’s not just because… Read More ›
Misreading Larry Summers
Continuing yesterday’s theme… There has been renewed interest in Larry Summers’s supposed sexist remarks. When Senator Obama (I almost said “President Obama”) announced that he would appoint Summers to be his senior White House economic advisor, bloggers and others revived… Read More ›
And they say that girls can't do math…
So why is it that the top two mathletes on Weston High School’s Math Team are freshmen girls? And a year young for their grade, at that? Check out the situation from ten months ago. But it’s only two data… Read More ›
Obama and the Achievement Gap
Now that we’ve elected an African-American intellectual to the highest office in the land, can a reduction in the achievement gap be far behind? For many years we’ve been observing that black male students see very few role models for… Read More ›
iPhone games
Having been an enthusiastic iPhone user for the past four months, I’m not surprised that many of my students want to play games on it (at least those students who don’t have iPhones themselves; this is Weston, after all). That’s… Read More ›
Turn your iPhone into an ocarina.
I recently installed an unusual application on my iPhone: Ocarina. This program turns your iPhone into a four-hole ocarina, with the holes outlined on the iPhone’s touch-sensitive screen. But the really cool thing is that you actually blow into your… Read More ›
Teaching spreadsheets in high school math classes
Should high-school math classes be teaching Excel? Or, more generally, should we be teaching spreadsheet use — and Excel just happens to dominate the market? We have been exploring these issues at Weston High School. Certainly the right point of… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 