Some things I’ve learned in the last month or two while reading the news, basically about science, technology, and sleep.
I love Pixar. They have some of my favorite extras on their DVDs because I love learning about all the background research they did for their movies. I thought this quote from the end of the article was great, “It might seem counter-intuitive, but the best way to get audience to believe in an imaginary world is by faithfully studying our real one.”
I love space. Check out these amazing photos from the Apollo missions. I took a photo of myself “juggling” fruit on the space station a few years ago, here’s a video of some cosmonauts doing the same. And learning about the woman behind not just the software that got humans to the moon but basically invented software to begin with, that struck several chords in me.
Coming off the article about programming and space, it shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows me how excited it makes me to learn about programs to teach preschoolers to code. Brett, if you’re scanning the rest of this post, stop here and read this article. These types of programs make me giddy. I’m excited to see what our kids would do with them.
And while I’m coding with our kids I think we’ll play around with some spinning symmetry and the fold-and-cut theorem. Because learning and discovery is just fun. And it’s all kids do till we teach them to memorize and jump through school hoops.
And an appropriate article to end with before I head off to bed – Why we sleep. Or in my case, why, if I love sleep so much, do I stay up messing around on the internet so often? However, I do like a lot of the gist that my brain has distilled out of my life lately.
I am an educator and PhD. I quilt, belly dance, run, read, and try to grow things. I am a Mormon. I am infertile. I am a daughter, sister, aunt, grand-daughter, friend, wife, and mom.
Brett L. Dennis
Mama g
Giggles
AmandaStretch
Interesting article on teaching preschoolers to code. The thing that saved me from a C in 8th grade metal shop was the unit I completed on programming a robot to move a block from one bin to another. It didn’t use any standard language either, from what I remember. :brett:
(Look like some other interesting articles here. Remind me to come back to one or two…) :brett:
Margaret Hamilton is officially a new hero of mine. And I hope I have lots of discovery play time with my future kids.