Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 61

• Five-Minute Linguist Competition

  By ljd42 on January 31, 2019

  

  You may well wonder what a five-minute linguist might be. I’ll leave you to ponder that question. Before you do that, here are some of John McWhorter’s opening remarks to the third annual five-minute linguist competition: You try to explain… Read More ›

• Computational thinking — but where’s the beef?

  By ljd42 on January 29, 2019

  

  Do we believe what the Wolfram Blog says about computational thinking? Maybe. I’m suspicious of the very title of the post: The Computational Classroom: Easy Ways to Introduce Computational Thinking into Your Lessons. Anything that promises “easy ways” is automatically… Read More ›

• Amherst Railway Society Railroad Hobby Show

  By ljd42 on January 27, 2019

  

  I suppose it would be Amhersteisenbahngesellschafteisenbahnhobbyausstellung if you spoke German, but fortunately we don’t have to do that. What we did have to do was go to West Springfield, not Amherst, since this annual show had outgrown all available facilities… Read More ›

• The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.

  By ljd42 on January 25, 2019

  

  Neal Stephenson is the best. As a long-time fan, I can assure you that this conclusion is an objective fact, not a matter of personal opinion. Your mileage may vary, but I doubt it. Up to this point I have reviewed… Read More ›

• Are you Gen Z?

  By ljd42 on January 23, 2019

  

  What’s Generation Z? I’m just starting to hear that terminology being used. We’re all familiar with the Baby Boomers (I’m near the older end of that generation), and I grew up hearing about the preceding ones, the Silent Generation and… Read More ›

• Welcome, Flicka!

  By ljd42 on January 21, 2019

  

  Please welcome the newest member of the Davidson-Bean household. Flicka was an abandoned cat who has lived on our front porch for two years now, and today’s weather report was enough to convince Barbara and me that it was time… Read More ›

• Three cats

  By ljd42 on January 18, 2019

  

  Three of our cats cuddled up together: do they love each other, or are they just heat-seeking mammals?

• All the King’s Men

  By ljd42 on January 16, 2019

  

  For some reason I had never seen the classic film All the King’s Men (nor have I read the novel, for that matter, although I’ve owned a used copy of it for decades). But I finally got around to watching… Read More ›

• Shell Game

  By ljd42 on January 14, 2019

  

  If you like Donald Trump, don’t bother reading Shell Game, Sara Paretsky’s newest mystery novel: it will only irritate you. For the rest of us, it’s definitely worth reading. For a long time I always read every Paretsky book, but… Read More ›

• Am I related to George R.R. Martin? What does Skip Gates say?

  By ljd42 on January 12, 2019

  

  George R.R. Martin Larry Davidson People have often claimed that I look like George R.R. Martin. I always thought that they were just paying attention to the beard, the suspenders, and the physique — but now I know of another… Read More ›

• Can an introverted teacher thrive?

  By ljd42 on January 10, 2019

  

  John Spencer writes: My dog is also an introvert. I didn’t realize that was possible with dogs, but it is. She likes to have “me time.” If things get too loud and crazy, she will walk into the other room…. Read More ›

• William thinks he’s a hamburger.

  By ljd42 on January 9, 2019

  

  William thinks he’s a hamburger:

• Murder to Scale

  By ljd42 on January 8, 2019

  

  A mystery novel in a model railroading setting? Who could resist? Not I! Murder to Scale, by Debra B. Schiff “with” Mike Blumensaadt, is a good enough story in which the setting plays a major role, not just a background part. When… Read More ›

• Better dead than coed?

  By ljd42 on January 5, 2019

  

  “Andover will go coed over my dead body!” That’s what my AP Latin teacher told us at least three or four times during my senior year. His prediction didn’t quite come true, but it was close: in 1973, the year… Read More ›

• What a nice warm location!

  By ljd42 on January 2, 2019

  

  Douglas thanked me for moving his purple mat so that it’s right next to the space heater: William says it’s not fair for Douglas to be in so many photos, so he wanted to make sure that I got a… Read More ›

• Lethal White

  By ljd42 on January 1, 2019

  

  As everyone knows — everyone, that is, except certain cats — Robert Galbraith is the pseudonym that J.K. Rowling adopted for her Cormoran Strike series of detective novels for adults. Lethal White is the fourth in this series. This is a long… Read More ›

• Happy New Year!

  By ljd42 on December 31, 2018

  

  How many of these languages can you identify?  

• Should you pay attention to what your English teacher says?

  By ljd42 on December 29, 2018

  

  I could answer by saying “no, you shouldn’t” — but my colleagues and friends who teach English would be up in arms. Instead, I can say “yes, but question authority” — i.e., ask for evidence, not just rules that are… Read More ›

• In Prior’s Wood

  By ljd42 on December 27, 2018

  

  Wasn’t it Alan Kay who had said the best way to predict the future was to create it? Yes, it was. Having worked briefly for computer scientist Alan Kay at Atari 35 years ago, I was rather startled to see… Read More ›

• The Kosher Wok

  By ljd42 on December 25, 2018

  

  Yesterday, as is traditional on Christmas Eve, I had lunch with a friend, a colleague, two of her sons, and two former students at The Kosher Wok in Brookline. The four of us — yes, I said four, not seven… Read More ›

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