Ah, the dangers of playing Words with Friends! I ran across first one word, then a video, then a plethora of vocabulary and writing candy starting at Merriam-Webster's dictionary web site.

1. Top Ten Lists
2. Nominalizations are Zombies
3. Writer's Diet (to catch some of those nominalizations instantly)
4. The Accidental History of the @ Symbol
5. 19 Regional Words All Americans Should Adopt Immediately
6. A classic: I won't hire people who use poor grammar
7. Especially fun (Watch the video on the right. I wish their videos could be embedded!)

Now I need to go shake a tower. It was nice to discover "nerd" is one of Dr. Seus's linguistic achievements!

A glimpse at online gaming/youth culture

Here are some links related to "The Guild" web series about gamers online and in real life. These links come from the guild's press section.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/09/06/dragoncon.theguild/index.html?iref=allsearch√
There are some interesting insights in the next write-up related to how heros aren't chosen - they choose themselves (what ted.com talk was that?!), and being able to tweak their own lines.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=31187

The order that I watched the guild episodes is season 4 and then seasons 1, 2, and 3, in order.

What got me hooked were the two songs, in this order:

1. Do you want to date my avatar?
2. Game on!

Talks I've been to today

Big History by David Christian (TED, March 2011)

The Danger of Science Denial by Michael Spector (TED, Feb 2010)

When Ideas have sex by Matt Ridley (TED, July 2010)

Some Great Presentations on SlideShare.net

• http://www.slideshare.net/jonathankopp/top-10-tips-for-unicef-to-tap-the-social-web-04-march-2011
• http://www.slideshare.net/sxsw2010 (Table of Contents of sorts :-)
• http://www.slideshare.net/princessmisia/most-memorable-quotes-from-sxsw-2011
• http://www.slideshare.net/jimsalinger/16-things-i-learned-at-sxsw

Arg. There's always more than one has time to absorb.  Didn't want to lose these links. Come back later!

L2 English Learning & Teaching - Online Bits

We've been studying approaches to teaching English as a second language in ENG 575/775.
Here are some related bits culled from daily online excursions since January 10, 2011.

1. Jay Walker on the world's English mania 
2. Forbes Interactive Word Birth Chart: How a  Toddler Learns to Talk
   (See Philip DeCamp and Deb Roy's MIT Media Lab Human Speechome Project)
3. Deb Roy at TED.com in February: The birth of a word (20 minutes)
   Go to minutes 04:56-05:50 to see the evolution of "gaaa..." to "water".
   See length of utterances of caregiver speech and compare with each word is acquired in minutes through minute 07:50. The minimum length utterances coincide with when the word is acquired
   We do a subconscious scaffolding - the language learning environment adapts to the learner(!)
   
4. Dr. Patricia Kohl at TEDxRainier: The linguistic genius of babies (10 minutes)
   "the celestial openness of the child's mind", the 8-10 months old sound development critical period:
   going from a citizen of the world to a culturally bound citizen
   "It takes a human being for babies to take their statistics."
5.  S{ubterranean} E{nglish} E{xposed}

 Some available online tools for learning ESL:

1. Oye, ¿cómo va mi ritmo? Bueno para gozar. in Google Translate
   (Here is the actual song on YouTube)
2. quizlet.com:
   
   • Elements of Thinking Flashcards 
   • Quizlet for Teachers
   • Now has voice recognition (in beta testing)
3. voxy.com: "Learn a language from life"
4. Learn English Network
   Teacher's Blog
   
5. 
   

Turnitin

Fierce Memories

Just some notes to myself. This last week I lost a dear friend and teacher. I wrote some things down. If the Eastern Progress does not publish it, I will, here.

A nice tribute to Jim Kenkel by Bob Yates: My best friend is dead

Two more papers by Dr. Kenkel and Dr. Yates I plan to read:
We're Prescriptivists. Isn't Everyone?
Grammar and Literacy: Embedding Outside Sources in Text

Just because:
Old Friends / Bookends tune by Simon and Garfunkel

Some nice comments regarding Dr. Kenkel in Facebook.

Dec. 6, 2010

Symphony of Science
Seth Godin on the tribes we lead
Are we in control of our decisions? (Behavioral Economics)
Photoshop Snowflake Brushes
Beloit College squirrels speak