~ A record of places on the web I want to remember ~
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Surviving a traffic surge: Three techniques to scale your site fast
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For Young Readers, Print or Digital Books? | MindShift
The implication? Parents and teachers should choose basic e-books like the Kindle or Nook over enhanced e-books, such as the iPad, if they want a more literacy-focused co-reading experience with children. Prompting kids with questions that relate to the text, labeling and naming objects, and encouraging kids to talk about the book’s content from their own perspective all elicit kids to be more verbal, and can lead to improved vocabulary and language development, the study states.
But if “engagement” is the objective, the issue gets murkier. When it came time to measuring “child-book” engagement, based on the child’s direct attention and touch, more kids showed higher levels of engagement for the e-books than the print books, though a majority were equally engaged by both book types. Children also physically interacted with the enhanced e-book more than when reading either the print or basic e-book.
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Can Students Learn Faster Online? – EdTech Researcher – Education Week
Matt and colleagues found no significant differences in academic outcomes between the two conditions: students in both courses did equally well in terms of grades, pass rates, and standardized measures of statistics knowledge. This falls in line with many, many other studies that have showed no difference in student outcomes between online (or distance) and face to face courses, and the website No Significant Differences is a good place to explore this research.
It’s not just that the hybrid course is just as good though; it also took less time from teachers and students. The kids in the hybrid condition had 2 fewer hours of class per week (although they apparently spent an extra 30 minutes per week outside of class). Students learned the same amount with less time investment from students and much less investment in faculty. Its exciting to imagine how gaining efficiencies in certain courses could help students finish school faster and learn more and help universities allocate more resources to more complicated learning tasks. In the radio interview, we discuss more about what this means, how it would not apply to all subjects or learning goals, and why the results are promising.
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Eco-Immunology Charts Pathways of Disease in Nature – NYTimes.com
“When we alter the environment abruptly,” Dr. Plowright said, “we radically change the balance between diseases and the immune system, which can affect the entire web of life, including humans. We are just beginning to understand this.”
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One third of Aussies waste time at work, Ernst and Young study shows | News.com.au
The top time-wasting activities reported were waiting for approval from a higher authority, reading and responding to emails and technology issues.
Despite many Australians now working more than eight hours each day, productivity had not grown over the past decade.
Highly productive workers spent two-thirds of their time on meaningful work, they took longer breaks, spent less time travelling to work and allocated more time to leisure and recreation.
