I grew up with adventure games. Without characters like Zak McKracken, Guybrush Threepwood, Roger Wilco or Dr. Fred, my childhood is hard to imagine. Not only did these characters teach me the first meaningful sentences of English outside of an education curriculum, they fed my imagination, humor and curiosity, as well. I still remember the many…
Lifestyle
The Role Of Reading In The Age Of Constant Digital Distraction
While some people still entertain themselves with the predictable mudfight of “ebook vs paper book”, I find another question far more interesting, namely the role of reading in the age of continuous partial attention. How do we read in the 21st century? What do we read? Or do we read, at all? As Seth Godin…
Lifestyle
5 Reasons Why Books Aren’t Dying Out
Back in the days when I had to take several trains and buses just to get to my workplace, commuters leaning against subway doors with crumpled paper-back novels were a common sight. When I see people sitting in bus stations nowadays, they are mostly staring into their gadgets. The crumpled paperback novel is being replaced…
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3 Things Children Would Like To See In The Future Of The Net And Technology
In 2010, Latitude asked children from all over the world aged 12 and below about their hopes, wishes and expectations about the Internet and technology in general. The results are surprising, not just because the kids were asked to draw their ideas in colors but for the ideas and paradigms they reveal. Here are just…
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Brains In The Cloud: The New Memory
If I think back to my primary school education, learning things by rote was a big thing: From multiplication tables to learning poems by heart, memorizing stuff seemed to be the name of the game. In high school it was all about irregular verbs and periodic tables. Sponging it up. Drilling it. And spilling it….
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Brilliant Tools For Distraction-Free Writing
“Too much of a good thing is not a good thing.” Recent studies show that the brain can only focus on two given tasks at the same time. Also, those tasks mustn’t be too distinct. We are in fact very limited. But it doesn’t stop us from doing too many things at the same time…
Meet detectives Baumgartner & Momsen and learn German effortlessly with special emphasis on idioms and natural language crammed with humor and suspense.
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The Art of Singletasking
Computers and humans have a lot in common. They not only have to be slim and good-looking, they also have to be multitaskers. If you are human and want to apply for a job, don´t forget to mention that you have good multitasking skills. If you are a computer or a new mobile phone ,…
Lifestyle
Top Five Historical April Fools’ Jokes
It’s that time of the year again! While Google, Hulu, Youtube and others are playing virtual pranks on their users, let’s pause for a moment and look back into the marvelous history of April Fools’ pranks. Here is my unordered list of nominees for the top five April Fools’ hoaxes. Ever. (feel free to add…
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Online Education for Children via Skype
When I started teaching online, I was sceptical. I had been working many years in classrooms with blackboards, carrying books and scrawling remarks with red ink into the margins of exercise sheets. How could all that be possibly replaced by a computer? A lifeless machine? What I found is that it can’t be replaced, instead…
Lifestyle
When Distraction is the Norm
Yesterday I read about a little program called Freedom that forces you to disconnect from the Internet. You set a timer to the desired amount of “offline time” and then you’re unable to connect until the timer runs out or you reboot your computer. (This is supposed to make cheating more difficult) A question that…
Lifestyle
Leadership, Business, and Animal Spirits
The Spiritual Core As readers of this blog may be aware, I am a person who has thoroughly read and studied Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. I even wrote a book explaining the terse passages at some length, with less arcane language, though I’d be kidding if I said it was successful; I just…
