Archive for February, 2007

About a bird brain

Danwei reports that some researchers at the Shandong Technology University have turned a real pigeon into a remote-control pigeon (if you know what I mean) by inserting some microchips into his brain and controlling him from terra firma.
This is kind of weird as I wrote about Chinese universities yesterday and ‘robot monkeys’ today. […]

Who is there?

Here is María, a Spanish teacher. I’ve been working as teacher since I’m very young. In fact, when I took my first group of students I was 19. Some minutes after I left the office of the school’s director who had hired me, I lost all the confidence in my self that I had been […]

“Will classrooms exist in 20 years?”

Rian posted the recent Washington Post article on Digg. Being no stranger to melodrama he titled it “Will classrooms exist in 20 years?”. It provoked quite a response from the Digg Brain. Example:
“Have you ever met a kid that was home schooled that didn’t turn out to be socially awkward?”
Hell, I went to a […]

Poor web design at Chinese universities

Recently I’ve been visiting some Chinese university websites. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but they’re notoriously badly designed. I don’t know why. Take this for example. Then there’s this, and this.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that the institutions themselves are bad. The BLCU (above) is the place in […]

ChinesePod in the Washington Post

Nick Kolakowski, at the Washington Post, discovers that we’re ‘not your parents’ language lessons’. The man has a point!
I guess the mainstream is starting to see the power of the new social media tools as an educational means.
If you want to know what other media outlets have been saying about ChinesePod, go here.
Ken […]

‘How to kill a brand’

This is the kind of thing that happens when you ignore the Big Brain.
Ken Carroll

ChinesePod forum watch

The forums are going from strength to strength. This morning they hit 1,300 members, a staggering overall increase of 30% since mid Jan! Wow! If you’re not registered, you should be.
Ken Carroll

“The Very Partial Guide to Everything You Need to Know about Chinese New Years”.

Even though I may have complained about the firecrackers going off at 6 am all week, I really did have a great time here during my first Chinese New Years (Spring Festival) in China. From dinners with local friends, old ladies selling vegetables with whom I struck up conversations, my ayi, and of course, […]

New server environment

Hank Horkoff posted about an important issue at the Praxis blog during the holiday - namely the question of server reliability. As you know there have been some, er, slight problems due, amongst other things, to ever-growing traffic. The message:fear not, help is on the way in the form of a new server environment.
Ken Carroll

‘A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers’

This novel was released in the UK recently. I haven’t read it and I’ve never heard of the author, but this review makes it sound interesting. I quote:
The heart of the book is a love story between Z and her English boyfriend, a 44-year-old, ex-anarchist, bisexual vegetarian who lives in Hackney and doesn’t like to […]