[Cartoon]: How do you mix business with friendship?

A friend once told me: “I’d rather an enemy I know than a friend whom I don’t trust.” Not the actual words but something along those principles.

Losing my teaching job a week ago, I thought up this cartoon on the way from an interview.

Photo credit: S.J. de Waard via Wikimedia Commons

Speech bubbles created using Phrase It.

I still haven’t gone over the lose because I thought I was doing my best and didn’t deserve it.

Maybe I shouldn’t; I shouldn’t have been working the extra mile.

Maybe!

What I call white and gold, you might call black and blue. Why?

The brain perceives color when light falls on the retina and interprets these colors by sending the light, as electrochemical signals, to the brain. The rods perceive night vision while the cones at the retina perceive color. It’s not so simple as that because vision involves more than just perceiving darkness and color.

It includes, as this BrainHQ.com article describes it, distilling foreground from background, recognizing objects in various orientations and accurately interpreting spatial cues.

A dress was recently posted on tumblr.com (click to see it yourself), the social networking site, and the question was: what is the color of the dress? Is it white and gold, or blue and black?

The question brings up the concept of how the brain interprets color. At least, the following factors determine how your brain interprets colors so you do not go about thinking you must have an eye problem.

1. Time of the day, whether during the day, when the cones are at work, or the night, when the rods are more at work.
2. Surrounding light conditions or illumination.
3. Distance between the eyes and the object or dress, in this case.
4. Medium of perception: air, monitor, cellphone screen or TV screen.
5. Stored memory of past experiences and interpretations.

You can find these explained on abcnews.go.com.

Actually, the dress is not white and gold, but shades of black and blue. The brain at work tweaks colors in varied ways that no color stays true throughout the day.

[Infographic]: Summarized facts on MOOCS, massive open online courses

MOOCS which stands for Massive Open Online Courses provide learning opportunities for millions of people who are working full time or part-time.

The link below is to an infographic that summarizes the essentials of MOOC: definition, providers, statistics etc.

MOOCs.com: Massive Open Online Courses.

Thanks. Pass it on.

Stop! Stop stereotyping boys and girls.

A good teacher should be quick to recognize the fact that gender stereotypes exist. I personally can attest to that being a teacher myself; though presently out of favor.

A recent OECD study, reported by the BBC, has shed more light on that fact.

I can prove it! I'm smarter.

Battleofthesexes by Welleman via Wikimedia Commons

If we tend to label boys as stupid and girls as cleverer, the answer does not lie in the gene. It lies in us, the adults and how we have structured the society. The answer lies in the self-confidence we have imbibed in these young adults as teachers, parents and guardians of their psycho-social, moral and intellectual capabilities.

The answer lies in parental and educational expectations we place on them. These expectations have created a gender inequality in education in Africa because most parents believe girls are good only in the kitchen and for giving birth to babies, so what uses wasting hard-earned money investing in them?

The answer lies in our cultural biases; as noted also above. How many girls are taught leadership education? A girl would be scoffed at if her aim is to be the President of the country in the future.

It is also found in the school system. How are the curriculum developed? What is the aim of policy, educational programs and teacher professional development programs in our schools?

Let’s start making these issues straight before labeling those young adults as clever, stupid, dull, smart, brilliant etc, especially writing gender labels that won’t wipe away easily.

History of distance education on Infographics

I have been busy last week and this doing teaching development practice. On the course, Foundations of Virtual Instruction by the University of California, Irvine, on Coursera.org's MOOC. I found this informative infographic on the history of distance education. I just had to share with you. You can pass it on.

History of distance education. Click to see the complete picture. Credit: Straighterline.com