Cartoons: Zika, academic testing, and Trump (again)

The 2016 Summer Olympics start today with the lighting of the cauldron by someone not Pelé. Here's cartoonist Nate Beeler's take on the event.

***

Nate Beeler, The Week

***

And school starts soon. Cartoonist Marshall Ramsey calls it "testing." Former venture capitalist and education philanthropist Ted Dintersmith and Education Fellow at the Technology & Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard (whew!) Tony Wagner co-wrote an article about academic testing and what it does not accomplish: Opinion: America desperately needs to redefine ‘college and career ready'. Is it old-fashioned or misguided to wonder what happened to learning for the sake of learning?

***

Marshall Ramsey, The Week

***

Then there's Trump...again. This time he's insulted the parents of Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq. Trump claims to have sacrificed as much as the Khan family did; the twitter-verse weighed-in.

***

David Horsey, The Week

***

Meanwhile, Paul Ryan, Republican Speaker of the House, responds.

***

Mike Luckovich, The Week

***

-- Marge

DIY: Seedbombing and guerilla gardening

My thought was to offer a few ideas for indoor gardening (more about that later), then I discovered Greenaid. Quoting the introduction at the sponsoring organization's site Commonstudio,

As cities become the pre-eminent human habitat, new questions are emerging about how we can better empower urban dwellers to feel more connected to their everyday surroundings.A growing movement known as “guerilla gardening” hopes to spark these larger shifts in consciousness and action, and a tiny but powerful tool known as the “seedbomb” has been used by guerilla gardeners for decades to transform the forgotten niches of the urban landscape.  Made from a mixture of clay, compost and seeds, these green “pixels” can be thrown or planted virtually anywhere, creating more vibrant places worth caring for.  Greenaid is Commonstudio’s multi-year initiative focused on making seedbombs more accessible to the general public by channeling the power of social enterprise.

A couple of their projects are seedbomb vending and D3 (Dream it, Design it, Do it).  To offer seedbombs to consumers and potential bombers, they put up some prototype vending machines in the Los Angeles area.

***

Greenaid, SeedbombVending, The Commonstudio

***

With the D3 project, a program for K-12 students, Commonstudio asked: "How might we build creative confidence in young people by channeling their interests through the lens of design?"

***

D3 methodology, The Commonstudio

***

If bombing and other green guerilla offensives are not your thing, how about a vertical green garden in your apartment or flat?

***

Flora Grubb, Vertical Garden, Inhabitat

***

If you like avocados and want to make use of the seeds, here's how:

***

AlissaSueK, Growing Avocado Plants From Seed, Instructables

***

-- Marge

Virtual worlds: education, training and collaboration

As an explorer of virtual worlds, I like to keep up on what's happening.  Despite rumors that Second Life is dying and the metaverse has had its day, the number of virtual worlds is growing. Here's a list (2015) of the Top 10 Virtual Worlds.

Karl Kapp's post "3D Virtual Worlds are NOT Dead, Dying or Disappearing (Mar 2012)" agrees that the number of virtual worlds is growing.  In his post he discusses uses for virtual environments and lists some.  Writing about virtual worlds as suitable environments for work is Aliza Sherman at GigaOm in her article "Virtual Worlds: Immersive Training, Collaboration and Meetings (Jun 2011)".  She states:

Are virtual worlds really viable environments for work? According to a survey by Unisfair, a global provider of virtual events and business environments, usage of virtual environments is growing for marketing, training and collaboration. Surveying 550 marketers nationwide, the study revealed that 60 percent of respondents plan to increase spending on virtual events and environments this year.

The breakdown of virtual activities outlined in the survey include training (42 percent); customer engagement (36 percent); internal collaboration (34 percent); lead generation (29 percent); and networking (8 percent). Nearly half of the respondents predict an increase in “hybrid” corporate events within two years.

This article on IBM's developerWorks page talks about the company's use of Virtual Spaces to enable immersive, global collaboration.  In the summary it states that

Globalization and a challenging business environment are placing new demands on today's enterprises. Organizations that are in an increasingly distributed environment are striving to provide guidance and enablement for teams working across disparate time zones.

Other uses for virtual worlds include:

• Immersive education, such as what is described at Media Grid, and
• Health care training and eduction, such as CliniSpace.

Note: This post contains dated material.

-- Marge