Author: ubuntucat

Intrinsic motivation doesn’t come out of nowhere

Lately, I've been hearing from a lot of educators about encouraging only intrinsic motivation and eschewing extrinsic motivation in students.I like the idea in theory. In reality, however, students still need to learn, regardless of what their motivations are. If you can't convince a student to be intrinsically motivated, there are essential skills she still… Continue reading Intrinsic motivation doesn’t come out of nowhere

Co-ed Bathrooms

There seems to be a growing awareness about gender identity with more and more news stories about transgender folks. Transgender student wins $75k in school bathroom discrimination suit I'm a Transgender Teen and Which Restroom I Use Is None of Your Business CBS News Poll: Transgender kids and school bathrooms Fear and Loathing in Public… Continue reading Co-ed Bathrooms

Pure Ubuntu 14.10

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. These removal commands were created based on what Kubuntu, Xubuntu, etc. packages were added to a default Ubuntu 14.10 installation. It's possible that the commands might remove some other packages you have since added to the default and want to keep. If that's… Continue reading Pure Ubuntu 14.10

Pure Ubuntu 14.04

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. These removal commands were created based on what Kubuntu, Xubuntu, etc. packages were added to a default Ubuntu 14.04.1 installation. It's possible that the commands might remove some other packages you have since added to the default and want to keep. If that's… Continue reading Pure Ubuntu 14.04

Why I’m looking forward to the Google self-driving car

It's actually been a few years since I first saw a video of the Google self-driving car in action. A friend of mine from high school had the luxury of being in an early test vehicle (a Prius in a parking garage), and he posted it to Facebook with the caption Autobots... roll out!It was… Continue reading Why I’m looking forward to the Google self-driving car

OpenTable should share its list of no-shows

I've been using OpenTable for years now, and I love it. It's great to be able to make an online reservation without having to wait on the phone, say your name twice, hear that there are no reservations actually available.Unfortunately, lately there's been a trend of restaurants calling to confirm when I make an online… Continue reading OpenTable should share its list of no-shows

Google Voice definitely underutilized

After reading a lot about 1:1 iPad programs and there being an "app for" everything in education, I found How To Use Google Voice In Education to be refreshing. Many schools use Google Apps for Education, but I haven't read many educator accounts of using Google Voice.Google Voice wasn't around when I was a teacher,… Continue reading Google Voice definitely underutilized

Moto X gets Kit Kat!

I'm a bit sad that so many of my former Android-using friends have jumped ship to the iPhone, because it's only now that Android is getting really good. I've always liked Android, and I've owned many Android phones, but the Moto X is the first Android phone I would recommend unequivocally to anyone open to… Continue reading Moto X gets Kit Kat!