So We’re Still Here After All

If you’re reading this, that means that the world didn’t vaporize yesterday. It didn’t explode, or implode, or annihilate life in whatever cataclysmic method you may have imagined.

This helps a little to explain why.

It’s beautiful. But apparently, it’s not Mayan.

And if you’re still feeling a little dumbfounded…

Mayan Priest, Carlos Barrios reassures us that rather than an ending, December 21st marked a new beginning, a transformation.

“Change is accelerating now, and it will continue to accelerate.” If the people of the earth can get to this 2012 date in good shape, without having destroyed too much of the Earth, Mr. Barrios said, we will rise to a new, higher level…“Humanity will continue,” he contends, “but in a different way. Material structures will change. From this we will have the opportunity to be more human.”

END OF WORLD CONFIRMED: ‘If you were a betting man, you’d bet on the world ending. I am,” said Professor Malley’.

Featured Website for Instructional Resources: Explania

Explania makes instructional animations for themselves and for companies. Here are a couple of examples of their work that are applicable to the season.

How to Avoid a Stomach Ache at Christmas and New Year. (Screenshot – Click to watch in new window.)

(The videos are supposed to be embeddable on any website but I couldn’t get them to work here. I will acknowledge that the fault could be mine…but then again it could be WordPress, or the embed code. I will try again another time.)

The site is searchable by keyword and there are some nice explanation on several different topics, including different aspects of technology and software.

Then there’s this one…

Is Santa Claus a Myth? (Screenshot – Click to watch in new window)

A Short History of the GIF

Bonus: 20 Animated Gifs that Explain How Things Work

Horrible Histories: Announcing A-Book

Brian Dettmer: The Book Surgeon Talks About His Work

If you are an admirer of this artist’s work, as I am, you will enjoy watching the videos embedded here.

“My work is a collaboration with the existing material and its past creators and the completed pieces expose new relationships of the book’s internal elements exactly where they have been since their original conception.”

Related:

Brian Dettmer’s Incredible Book Sculptures
Brian Dettmer on Wikipedia
Brian Dettmer’s Website

Adventures in Reverse Psychology – Lobbying Genius!

The History of the English Language in 10 Minutes

Originally from The Open University, shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Licence agreement.

Free On-Line Video Learning at the Khan Academy

The Khan Academy has over 3000 videos on K-12 math, science and a few on the humanities. There are also practice exercises as well as activity tracking and other teacher resources.

How it works for students

Students can make use of our extensive video library, practice exercises, and assessments from any computer with access to the web.

1. Complete custom self-paced learning tool
2. A dynamic system for getting help
3. A custom profile, points, and badges to measure progress

Coaches, parents, and teachers

Coaches, parents, and teachers have unprecedented visibility into what their students are learning and doing on the Khan Academy.

1. Ability to see any student in detail
2. A real-time class report for all students
3. Better intelligence for doing targeted interventions

This resource is new to me. If you have any experience with it, please share.

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