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Read This Blog Post In Less Than A Minute!
I am a slow reader, and I would love to read faster. Not poetry or novels obviously—those we should savor. But lots of non-fiction, and certainly the news. There’s simply too much to read in our busy world, and too little time. That’s why I decided recently—like many others apparently—to try an on-line demo of Spritz. Spritz is a soon-to-be-released app for reading text on small screens—and reading it much more rapidly than we’re accustomed to. Spritz makes use of a technology first developed in 1970, called Rapid Serial Visual Presentation, or RSVP, in which each word is presented briefly in the center of the screen in sequence.
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Smartphone App Calms the Nerves
Science Magazine: Cellphones and other mobile devices have gotten a lot of bad press recently for keeping people tethered to stressful workplaces. But a new study suggests that mobile technology might also help tense people chill out. Playing a smartphone gaming app for 45 minutes can reduce anxiety levels in tense individuals, researchers reported online this month in Clinical Psychological Science. Read the whole story: Science Magazine
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Science Shows How Students Can Stop Sweating Statistics
A pair of psychological scientists review the state of research on statistics anxiety and outline several ways for instructors to help reduce students’ worries.
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The Future of Brain Implants
The Wall Street Journal: What would you give for a retinal chip that let you see in the dark or for a next-generation cochlear implant that let you hear any conversation in a noisy restaurant, no matter how loud? Or for a memory chip, wired directly into your brain's hippocampus, that gave you perfect recall of everything you read? Or for an implanted interface with the Internet that automatically translated a clearly articulated silent thought ("the French sun king") into an online search that digested the relevant Wikipedia page and projected a summary directly into your brain? Science fiction? Perhaps not for very much longer.
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A Study Seeks to Determine What Makes Prekindergarten Successful
The New York Times: The teacher held up a card with a number on it, then looked at the 4-year-olds waving their hands eagerly in front of her. “Anderson,” she said, calling on a small boy in a blue button-up shirt and a sweater vest. “Five,” Anderson said, correctly. “Good boy, Anderson,” the teacher said. Then she turned to the rest of the class. “Are you ready?” she said, and then, “Go!” At that, the children jumped up and down five times as they counted: “One! Two! Three! Four! Five!” This exercise, which held a prekindergarten class in Brooklyn riveted one morning last week, was not an effort to introduce high-impact aerobics into preschool.
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Your Personality Might Not be Suitable for Telework
The ferocious US winter of 2014 has undoubtedly demonstrated the economic viability of telework. In many parts of the country, home broadband connections, VPNs, and cloud-based applications allowed numerous workers to continue working when heavy snows prevented them from getting to the office. In fact, telework is becoming not only an option on snow days, but a common practice among employers across the globe. In the United States alone, telework arrangements have grown by more than 63% since 2006, according to market research company Global Workplace Analytics.
