Essex student blogger up for two UK Blog Awards

Business Management student and journalist Rhys Stevenson has been nominated in two categories of the UK Blog Awards.
University of Essex News

Essex student blogger up for two UK Blog Awards

From Mozart to Metallica: The Best Music to Boost Learning

Do you listen to music while you study?

For many, the idea of hitting the books without Dave Grohl’s thumping drums or James Hetfield’s shattering vocals for company is almost unthinkable.

For others, the sound of silence – actual silence, not the Simon & Garfunkel dirge – is essential in order to swot up effectively.

Whatever your preference, psychological studies have shown that playing music as you study allows your brain’s right hemisphere to “have fun” and avoid boredom during particularly tedious tasks.

As you might expect, though, certain genres of music are reportedly better than others when it comes to boosting your concentration levels to help complete that big assignment.

Lyrics Can Hamper Learning

If you’re mad for Morrissey’s melancholic melodies or a fan of Flavor Flav’s lyrical dexterity, bad news – pesky scientists have found music with lyrics can actually hinder your concentration levels.

According to eggheads, the part of the brain attempting to focus on the academic task – reading a book or cracking a maths problem – is the same part of the noggin listening to words in a song.

As a result, boffins advise listening to something devoid of lyrics to prevent your brain from trying to concentrate on both.

However, if music without lyrics is like drinking tea without sugar, it’s recommended you listen to tunes with lyrics unlikely to have you singing into your hairbrush as you attempt to study.

The Mozart Effect

While he may not be to everyone’s taste, scientists also found people perform better on learning and memory tests after listening to a particular Mozart sonata.

Not only that, but the Austrian composer’s music can improve creativity and clarity and integrate both sides of the brain to promote more efficient learning.

Good job, Wolfgang.

But at the end of the day, whether it’s Ride of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner or a cover version by Wagner from X Factor, if a particular piece or genre of music works for you, stick with it.

Here at Anglia Ruskin, we’re doing our part by inspiring our students with a weekly Spotify playlist (#sundaystudysongs) to make hitting the books that little bit easier.

Let us know what you’d like to hear on next week’s playlist by getting in touch with us via Facebook or Twitter – we’d love to hear your thoughts.

Distance learning blog

From Mozart to Metallica: The Best Music to Boost Learning

Watch Episode 1 of Years of Living Dangerously, The New Showtime Series on Climate Change

Ever since Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth came out to critical accolades, Conservative scorn and a handful of Oscars, there has been no shortage of well meaning documentaries about the perils of climate change. Most feature a Hollywood celebrity or two, a liberal amount of liberal guilt, and a distinct sense of preaching to the converted.

The new Showtime series Years of Living Dangerously might have plenty of those first two elements but none of the third. In the first episode of the series –which has been released for free on YouTube (above) – Don Cheadle asks, “Is there a way to discuss climate change without politics or religion getting in the way?” Producers James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Weintraub try valiantly to answer that question in the affirmative.

The series features a variety of celebrities — Schwarzenegger, Matt Damon, Jessica Alba – and celebrity reporters – Lesley Stahl, Chris Hayes, Mark Bittman – who investigate different facets of the topic.

In Cheadle’s segment, he tracks down an unusual figure in the heated, tiresome climate change debate – an Evangelical climate scientist. In a fascinating scene, she talks to the devout denizens of Plainview TX, trying to convince them that the drought that caused the closing of the local meatpacking plant – the town’s biggest employer – was the result of something other than divine will.

Meanwhile, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman traces the origins of the Syrian civil war to – you guessed it – climate change. He crosses into that war torn country (briefly) to discover that the seeds of the conflict were sown by the government’s indifferent response to a long-running drought.

But the most entertaining segment is Harrison Ford exploring the causes of Indonesia’s rapid deforestation. Apparently, palm oil – that anonymous ingredient in everything from cookies to chocolate bars – is such big business that it’s turning Borneo into a burn-scared moonscape. Who knew?

Ford’s charisma and gravelly baritone can turn the most inane line — “That’s a lot of cars” – into something with almost Talmudic profundity. It makes for some riveting viewing. The show ends with Ford chomping at the bit to interview Indonesia’s utterly corrupt Forestry Minister. That meeting, which occurs in a later episode, promises to be a 60 Minutes-style smackdown. You think Mike Wallace was daunting? Try Indiana Jones.

Years of Living Dangerously premieres on Showtime on April 13.

For a more academic introduction to this subject, see Global Warming: A Free Course from UChicago.

via Kottke

Related Content:

Free: Watch the First Episode of Silicon Valley, Mike Judge’s New HBO Series

How Climate Change Is Threatening Your Daily Cup of Coffee

A Song of Our Warming Planet: Cellist Turns 130 Years of Climate Change Data into Music

Jonathan Crow is a Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hollywood Reporter, and other publications. You can follow him at @jonccrow.

Watch Episode 1 of Years of Living Dangerously, The New Showtime Series on Climate Change is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don’t miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs.

The post Watch Episode 1 of Years of Living Dangerously, The New Showtime Series on Climate Change appeared first on Open Culture.

Open Culture

Watch Episode 1 of Years of Living Dangerously, The New Showtime Series on Climate Change

Naming a field: “CS Ed Research” isn’t going to work

Last month, Steve Cooper organized a remarkable workshop at Stanford on the Future of Computing Education Research.  The question was, “How do we grow computing education research in the United States?”  We pretty quickly agreed that we have a labor shortage — there are too few people doing computing education research in the US.  We need more.  In particular, we need more CS Ed PhD students.  The PhD students do the new and exciting research. They bring energy and enthusiasm into a field.

We also need these students to fit into Computing departments, where that could be Computer Science, or Informatics, or Information Systems/Technology/Just-Information Departments/Schools/Colleges.  Yes, we need a presence in Education Schools at some point, to influence how we develop new teachers, but that’s not how we’ll best push the research.

How do we get there?

Roy Pea came to the event.  He could only spare a few hours for us, and he only gave a brief 10 minute talk, but it was one of the highlights of the two days for me.  He encouraged us to think about Learning Sciences as a model.  Learning Science grew out of cognitive science and computer science.  It’s a field that CS folks recognize and value.  It’s not the same as Education, and that’s a positive thing for our identity.  He told us that the field must grow within Computing departments because Domain Matters.  The representations, the practices, the abstractions, the mental models — they all differ between domains.  If we want to understand the learning of computing, we have to study it from within computing.

I asked Roy, “But how do we influence teacher education?  I don’t see learning science classes in most pre-service teacher development programs.”  He pointed out that I was thinking about it all wrong.  (Not his words — he was more polite than that.)  He described how learning sciences has influenced teacher development, integrated into it.  It’s not about a separate course: “Learning science for teachers.”  It’s about changing the perspective in the existing classes.

Ken Hay, a learning scientist (and long-time friend and colleague) who is at Indiana University, echoed Roy’s recommendation to draw on the learning sciences as a model.  He pointed out that Language Matters.  He said that when Indiana tried to hire a “CS Education Researcher,” faculty in the CS department said, “I teach CS. I’m a CS Educator.  How is s/he different than me?”

We started talking about how “Computer Science Education Research” is a dead-end name for the research that we want to situate in computing departments.  It’s the right name for the umbrella set of issues and challenges with growing computing education in the United States.  It includes issues like teacher professional development and K-12 curricula.  But that’s not what’s going to succeed in computing departments.  It’s the part that looks like the learning sciences that can find a home in computing departments.  Susanne Hambrusch of Purdue offered a thought experiment that brought it home for me.  Imagine that there is a CS department that has CS Ed Research as a research area.  They want to list it on their Research web page.  Well, drop the word “Research” — this is the Research web page, so that’s a given.  And drop the “CS” because this is the CS department, after all.  So all you list is “Education.”  That conveys a set of meanings that don’t necessarily belong in a CS department and don’t obviously connect to our research questions.

In particular, we want to separate (a) the research about how people learn and practice computing from (b) making teaching and learning occur better in a computing department.  (a) can lead to (b), but you don’t want to demand that all (a) inform (b).  We need to make the research on learning and practice in computing be a value for computing departments, a differentiator.  “We’re not just a CS department.  We embrace the human side and engage in social and learning science research.”   Lots of schools offer outreach, and some are getting involved in professional development.  But to do those things informed by learning sciences and informing learning sciences (e.g., can get published in ICER and ICLS and JLS and AERA) — that’s what we want to encourage and promote.

I was in a breakout that tried to generate names.  Michael Horn of Northwestern came up with several of my favorites.  Unfortunately, none of them were particularly catchy:

• Learning Sciences of Computing


• Learning Sciences for Computing


• Computational Learning and Practice (sounds too much like machine learning)


• Learning Sciences in Computing Contexts


• Learning and Practice in Computing


• Computational Learning and Literacy

We do have a name for a journal picked out that I really like: Journal of Computational Thinking and Learning.

I’d appreciate your thoughts on these.  What would be a good name for the field which studies how people learn computing, how to improve that learning, how professionals practice computing (e.g., end-user programming, computational science & engineering), and how to help novices join those professional communities of practice? 

I can’t remember the last time I learned so much and had my preconceived notions so challenged in just two days.  I have a lot more notes on the workshop, and they may make it into some future blog posts.  Kudos to Steve for organizing an excellent workshop, and my thanks to all the participants!

Tagged: computing education research, public policy
Computing Education Blog

Naming a field: “CS Ed Research” isn’t going to work

Download 35,000 Works of Art from the National Gallery, Including Masterpieces by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Rembrandt & More

As a young amateur painter and future art school dropout, I frequently found myself haunted by the faces of two artists, that famously odd couple from my favorite art history novelization—and Kirk Douglas role and Iggy Pop song—Lust for Life. Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, above and below respectively, the tormented Dutch fanatic and burly French bully—how, I still wonder, could such a pair have ever co-existed, however briefly? How could such beautifully skewed visions of life have existed at all?

Van Gogh and Gaugin’s several self-portraits still inspire wonder. My younger self had the luxury of seeing these particular two up close and in person at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC: Van Gogh’s gaunt and piercing visage, Gauguin’s sneering self-parody. Now, thanks to the wonders of digital technology, my older self, and yours, can view and download high-resolution photos of both paintings, and over 35,000 more from the museum’s vast holdings, through NGA Images, “a repository of digital images of the collections of the National Gallery of Art.”

There you’ll find works by another obsessive Dutch self-portraitist, Rembrandt van Rijn, such as the lush 1659 painting below. You’ll find paintings from the heroes of the various Renaissances and French Impressionism, from movements modern and colonial, pastoral and urban. The collection is dizzying, and a lover of art could easily lose hours sorting through it, saving “open access digital images up to 3000 pixels each […] available free of charge for download and use.” The purpose of NGA Images is “to facilitate learning, enrichment, enjoyment, and exploration,” and there’s no doubt that it satisfies all of those goals and then some. You can peruse the Gallery’s most requested images here.

Browse the various collections, including one devoted to self-portraits. Conduct advanced searches, if you’ve more knowledge of the Gallery’s many treasures. Use the “lightbox arranger” to sort, store, annotate, and save your own personalized collections for future viewing. You are the curator! And the lucky beneficiary of the National Gallery’s beneficence. While I can tell you from experience that it’s nothing like standing face to face with these paintings in their in-real-life dimensions, textures, lines, and colors—despite the throngs of disinterested tourists—it’s at least a close second. And for students and educators of the visual arts, NGA Images offers an opportunity like no other to view and share great works of art often hidden away from even the museum’s visitors. Enjoy!

Related Content:

Where to Find Free Art Images & Books from Great Museums, and Free Books from University Presses

The Getty Puts 4600 Art Images Into the Public Domain (and There’s More to Come)

Google Puts Over 57,000 Works of Art on the Web

Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness

Download 35,000 Works of Art from the National Gallery, Including Masterpieces by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Rembrandt & More is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don’t miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs.

The post Download 35,000 Works of Art from the National Gallery, Including Masterpieces by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Rembrandt & More appeared first on Open Culture.

Open Culture

Download 35,000 Works of Art from the National Gallery, Including Masterpieces by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Rembrandt & More

Selfie Method

What you need:

A Facebook profile with a selfie profile pic of a hot girl and an american name.

An afilliate program (adult sites works well)

An HTML or other page you can manipulate the Title and Description Tags

Lets Go:

Set up your html page with a name like something.com/marys_hot_videos.html

Set the Title to what you would like to appear in facebook post title.

Set the Description to what you would like to appear in facebook post description

Place some descriptive text, picture and link your offer in the body of this webpage

Optional:

Cloak your URL

Set up a Facebook profile with a selfie pic of a hot girl and an american name.

Type Add Me or Add Friends or Find Friends in the search box on Facebook, and click the “See More Results for ..” link at the bottom of the search box.

Click the Goups Tab

Subscribe to all groups that have 10k or more members.

Once accepted. Post your selfie once an hour to all the groups with a note that says Please Add Me. Thank you.

Soon you will have tons of followers.

Once you have 1k followers you can begin to post your url from above into your own timeline.

Once you have 4k follower you can create a fan page and post your cloaked offers there.

Rinse and Repeat to make real money. This method has been put in action and made $175 in the first week up to $750 on week 9, working 2 hrs a day.

Selfie Method

April 2014

• Fundamentos de la escritura en español (CC) – Tecnológico de Monterrey on Coursera – April (6 weeks)


• Principles of Written English, Part 3 (CC) – UC Berkeley on edX – April 1 (5 weeks)


• Evaluating Social Programs (CC) – MIT on edX – April 1 (4 weeks)


• Cryptography I (SA) – Stanford on Coursera – April 1 (6 weeks)


• Developing Your Musicianship (NI) – Berklee on Coursera – April 1 (6 weeks)


• Pattern-Oriented Software Architectures for Concurrent and Networked Software (NI) – Vanderbilt on Coursera – April 2 (8 weeks)


• Giving With Purpose: How to get the most out of your charitable giving(CC) – edX – April 2 (7 weeks)


• DNA: From Structure to Therapy - Jacobs University on iversity – April 5


• Everything is the Same: Modeling Engineered Systems (SA) – Northwestern University on Coursera – April 6 (8 weeks)


• United  State Health Policy (CC) – Harvard on edX – April 7 (13 weeks)


• Data Analysis for Genomics (CC) – Harvard on edX – April 7 (TBD weeks)


• Introduction to Biomedical Imaging (CC) – University of Queensland on edx – April 7 (10 weeks)


• Applying Principles of Behavior in the K-12 Classroom (SA) – University of Houston System – April 7 (4 weeks)


• Hypersonics (CC) – University of Queensland – April 7 (9 weeks)


• The Data Scientist’s Toolbox (SA) – Johns Hopkins University on Coursera – April 7 (4 weeks)


• Getting and Cleaning Data (SA) – Johns Hopkins University on Coursera – April 7 (4 weeks)


• Inquiry Science Learning: Perspectives & Practices 4 – Student-Centered Inquiry (Rice “CPE credit”) – Rice on Coursera – April 7 (4 weeks)


• Introduction to Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage (SA) – École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne on Coursera – April 7 (5 weeks)

• New Models of Business in Society (SA) – U. of Virginia on Coursera – April 7 (4 weeks)


• Medicines Adherence: Supporting Patients with Their Treatments (NI) – King’s College London on Futurelearn – April 7 (2 weeks)


• Exploring Quantum Physics (SA) – U. Maryland on Coursera – April 7 (8 weeks)


• The New Nordic Diet – from Gastronomy to Health (SA) – University of Copenhagen on Coursera – April 7 (4 weeks)


• R Programming (SA) – John Hopkins on Coursera – April 7 (4 weeks)


• Re-Engineering Your Science Curriculum (SA) – Exploratorium on Coursera – April 7 (4 weeks)


• Justice (CC) – Harvard on edx – April 8 (12 weeks)


• Street Fighting Math (CC) – MIT on edx – April 8 (7 weeks)


• Climate Change in Four Dimensions (NI) – UCSD on Coursera – April 8 (10 weeks)


• The Chemistry of Life (CC) – Kyoto U on edX – April 10 (13 weeks)


• Competitive Strategy (SA) – Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München on Coursera – April 11 (6 weeks)


• Community Journalism (NI) – Cardiff University on Futurelearn – April 14 (5 weeks)


• Innovation and Enterprise (NI) – Loughborough University – April 14 (6 weeks)


• Kitchen Chemistry: Chemistry Without a Laboratory (NI) – University of East Anglia on Futurelearn – April 14 (6 weeks)


• Design Thinking – Macromedia University on iversity – April 14 (4 weeks)


• Genomic and Precision Medicine (SA) – UCSF on Coursera – April 14 (7 weeks)


• The Dynamic Earth: A Course for Educators (NI) – American Museum of Natural History on Coursera – April 14 (4 weeks)


• Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (SA) – Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München on Coursera – April 14 (10 weeks)


• An Introduction to Population Health (CC) – University of Manchester on Coursera – April 14 (6 weeks)


• Performance Assessment in the Virtual Classroom (SA) – University of California, Irvine on Coursera – April 14 (5 weeks)


• Vehicle Dynamics I: Accelerating and Braking –  Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg on iversity – April 15


• The Do School Startup Lab – The Do School on iversity – April 15


• The Fascination of Crystals and Symmetry – University of Hamburg on iversity – April 15


• Algorithmen und Datenstrukturen - Universität Osnabrück on iversity – April 15


• Sectio chirurgica – ‘Anatomie interaktiv’ – Universität Tübingen on iversity – April 15


• Introduction to Bioethics (CC) - Georgetown on edX - April 15 (6 weeks)


• Internationales Agrarmanagement - Hochschule Weihenstephan-Triesdorf on iversity – April 15


• Engineering Software as a Service (CC) – UC Berkeley on edX – April 18 (8 weeks)


• Better Leader, Richer Life (SA) – University of Pennsylvania on Coursera – April 20 (10 weeks)


• The European Union in Global Governance - Universität Passau on iversity – April 21 (6 weeks)


• Core Concepts in Data Analysis (SA) – Higher School of Economics on Coursera – April 21 (8 weeks)


• Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society (SA) – U Penn on Coursera – April 21 (8 weeks)


• English Composition I: Achieving Expertise (SA) – Duke on Coursera – April 21 (12 weeks)


• Healthcare Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SA) – Duke on Coursera – April 21 (6 weeks)


• Marriage and the Movies: A History (SA) – Wesleyan on Coursera – April 21 (5 weeks)


• Technology and Ethics (SA) – Ohio State on Coursera – April 21 (7 weeks)


• Warhol (SA) – University of Edinburgh on Coursera – April 21 (5 weeks)


• Modelling and Simulation using MATLAB® - Hochschule RheinMain on iversity – April 22


• Logic: Language and Information 2 (SA) – University of Melbourne on Coursera – April 22 (8 weeks)


• Functional Programming Principles in Scala (CC) – Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne on Coursera – April 25 (7 weeks)


• Beyond Silicon Valley: Growing Entrepreneurship in Transitioning Economies (SA) – Case Western Reserve on Coursera – April 28 (6 weeks)


• Comprendre les Microcontrôleurs (SA) – École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne on Coursera – April 28 (7 weeks)


• Epigenetic Control of Gene Expression (NI) – University of Melbourne on Coursera – April 28 (8 weeks)


• Getting a Grip on Mathematical Symbolism (NI) – Loughorough University on Futurelearn – April 28 (3 weeks)


• Good Brain, Bad Brain: Drug Origins (NI) – University of Birmingham on Futurelearn – April 28 (2 weeks)


• Identity, Conflict, and Public Space (NI) – Queen’s University Belfast on Futurelearn – April 28 (6 weeks)


• Introduction to Guitar (NI) – Berklee College of Music on Coursera – April 28 (6 weeks)


• Introduction to Music Production (NI) – Berklee College of Music on Coursera – April 28 (6 weeks)


• Introduction to Systems Engineering (NI) – UNSW Australia on Coursera – April 28 (9 weeks)


• Jazz Improvisation – Berklee College of Music on Coursera – April 28 (5 weeks)


• Malicious Software and its Underground Economy (NI) – University of London on Coursera – April 28 (6 weeks)


• Mathematical Biostatistics Boot Camp 2 (SA) – Johns Hopkins on Coursera – April 28 (7 weeks)


• Ser más creativos (SA) – UNAM on Coursera – April 28 (6 weeks)


• Songwriting (NI) – Berklee College of Music on Coursera – April 28 (6 weeks)


• Sports and Building Aerodynamics (SA) – Eindhoven University of Technology – April 28 (6 weeks)


• Start Writing Fiction (NI) – The Open University on Futurelearn – April 28 (8 weeks)


• Understanding the Brain: The Neurobiology of Everyday Life (SA) – The University of Chicago on Coursera – April 28 (10 weeks)


• Tropical Coastal Ecosystems (CC) – University of Queensland – April 28 (7 weeks)


• Engaging India (CC) – Australian National University – April 29 (10 weeks)


• Algorithms: Design and Analysis, Part 1 (SA) – Stanford on Coursera – April 29 (6 weeks)


• Maps and the Geospatial Revolution (SA) – Penn State on Coursera – April 30 (5 weeks)


• The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Nubia (NI) – Emory on Coursera – April 30 (8 weeks)

April 2014