Peabloggy

Researchers in New Zealand, using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology to compare the brains of people with dyslexia to the brains of non-dyslexic individuals, have discovered an interesting phenomenon. It seems dyslexic individuals try to read using the right side of their brains, whereas typical readers use the left side of their brains to read.

As a southpaw, I’ve long relied on the W.C. Fields adage, “If the left side of your brain controls the right side of your body, and the right side of your brain controls the left side of your body, then left-handed people must be the only ones in their right minds.” (For more interesting facts about being left-handed, visit The Left-Handed Site - be sure to check out the “The World Is Against Us” section.)

Now that this research has come out, I propose a new line of research on the following potential cure for dyslexia. All individuals with dyslexia should be taught to do everything left-handed. In fact, for convenience, all right-handers should be converted to left-handedness. My hypothesis is as follows: once a person is forced to use his or her right brain for all physical activities, this would essentially “free up” the left brain for non-physical activities like reading. If my cure works, we could immediately begin the process of banning right-handedness from our public school systems altogether.

(Now that I think about it, I brush my teeth with my right hand. I bet that’s the reason I got behind in the reading for my statistics class this semester! From now on, it’s lefty all the way. Please, if you see me doing anything with my right hand, remind me. My education may be at stake here.)

I know what you’re thinking: my solution is just too simple. My response? Friends of the guy who invented Silly Putty probably thought the same thing…

You heard it here first.

(Skeptical? Well they were skeptical about the guy who discovered the Slinky, too. Everybody’s a critic.)

- Peter Beddow

Update: For some serious information about dyslexia, you can travel here, here, here, or even here.

A poem, like a certain smell, can evoke memories that nothing else can bring about. Robert Frost’s birthday was on March 26 (he died on January 29, 1963, 10 months before Kennedy was assassinated - had he won his courageous battle against old age, Mr. Frost would be 133 and still writing). Recently I’ve been remembering the sundry times when his poems have influenced my life.

Mr. Robert Hill, one of my favorite professors during my undergraduate studies at Middlebury College, studied under Robert Frost when he lived in nearby Ripton, Vermont, and he had some interesting stories to tell about the great American poet. Whether they are true or folklore, I thought they were worth sharing.

—-
After collecting end-of-term papers from his class, Frost stood in the front of the room, held the stack in the air and said in a growly voice, “Anything here worth reading?” The class collectively held its breath, too intimidated to speak.

Eyeballing the students, Frost said, “Okay, then,” and he dropped the entire stack into the wastebasket.

—-
On another occasion, Frost opened the class by saying gruffly, “Let’s play a game. Does everybody want to play a game?” No response.

He continued, “It’s called ‘Confusion’.” He walked up to a student in the third row, and, leaning in, he looked directly at him. The class hushed as the student trembled.

“Are you confused?” he asked the young man.

“I guess so,” the terrified student replied.

“I’m not,” Frost exclaimed, straightening up. “I win.”

- Peter Beddow

As Camilla mentioned in her previous post, election season has arrived (and earlier than ever!) The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) has released a set of proposed changes to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Before getting into lengthy debate about the politics of NCLB and stumbling too far into well-marked anti-Bush/anti-NCLB territory (in which many will find they already have enough people agreeing with them) it may be a good idea to take the time to understand, from a solution-based perspective, where we (as a nation, not party members) ought to go from here.

It seems to me that it’s unhelpful to look backward and complain about a law unless we can simultaneously look forward with practical optimism. The CEC should be lauded for stepping out and making this kind of discussion possible.

- Peter Beddow

It’s not too soon to plan your ‘08 voting. Surely you’ve heard the debate on which way candidates voted on the decision to enter the war in Iraq. But have we heard much talk on what the presidential candidates stance on strengthening education is?

This week the Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation announced that they are stimulating the education debate for the next presidential election to the tune of $60 million. Called ED in ‘08, the non-partisan effort wants to focus on three areas , improving curriculum standards, effective teaching, and giving more time and support to students. How can you argue with that?

Camilla Meek

NPR story

Has anyone read Leadership is an Art (2004) or Leadership Jazz (1993) by Max Depree?

I attended a seminar today keynoted by Charles Lauer, long-time publisher of Modern Healthcare. During the talk, he referenced these two books as two of his favorites. He has also written a few of his own, featured on his Web site, which look interesting as well.

If you have read either of these — or any by Lauer himself — please share your thoughts.

~Kristen Hayner

This post is mostly for students that are either currently in the Human Development Counseling (HDC) program, students that thinking about applying for HDC, or students that are in another Counseling program and are going to go on to earn licensure in the state they are in.  Most states, including TN, require counselors to pass the NCE. 

This exam was created by The National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC), which is under the American Counseling Association (ACA).  The exam entails 200 multiple choice questions that are to be completed within four hours.  There are many study guides put out to help counselors study for this exam, because it covers a incredibly large amount of information. 

I completed the NCE on Saturday.  It took me 3 1/2 hours.  I began preparing for the exam a month in advance.  I used the Encyclopedia of Counseling by Rosenthal, as well as the $24.99 book with practice questions put out by the NBCC that you can order online.  Before taking the test, I felt that even if I had prepared for a year, I wouldn’t be ready for it.  However, after taking it, I believe I was ready.  Of course there were questions I was unsure about, but overall, I felt confident about my answers.

Peabody’s HDC program is CACREP accredited.  The NCE is based on CACREP areas.  I believe this program helped prepare me for this important exam by covering all the 8 CACREP required areas through out our coursework. 

I want to encourage those of you already in the program, to begin looking into the exam and preparing for it.  I also want to encourage those of you who are considering Vanderbilt’s Peabody HDC program, to set up a meeting with Gina Frieden, the director of the program.  Investigate the program and see if it is a good match for you.  I graduate in three weeks, and I am able to say that this program was a great match for me.  I am very glad I chose Vanderbilt.

 ps- I’ll keep you posted on how I did on the NCE.  I will not get my results back for another 6 weeks!

-Anna Oparah

With federal regulations requiring Adequate Yearly Progress reports from state departments of education each year to ensure that no students are falling through the cracks, assessment has become one of the hottest issues across the country in schools, state governments, and universities. Recently, Steve Elliott of Vanderbilt spearheaded The Consortium for Alternate Assessment Validity and Experimental Studies (CAAVES) to investigate validity issues related to the alternate assessments of seven states: Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Nevada, and Wisconsin. Also involved is a company called ThinkLink Learning, which specializes in generating formative assessments for K-12 students. ThinkLink was founded by Vanderbilt in 2000.

The No Child Left Behind Act requires states to administer statewide assessments to all students, even those with the most significant cognitive disabilities. The assessments must yield data that is valid and reliable, reflecting the extent of a student’s achievement during the course of a school year. CAAVES is arguably the largest study to date to investigate the complex issues related to the development and evaluation of these alternate assessments.

The members of CAAVES first convened on December 11-12 in the Wyatt Center at Vanderbilt. Primarily, the meeting was dedicated to bringing the major players together and discussing the strategic issues related to conducting a study of this magnitude over the next 4-5 months. During those two days, I was surrounded by dedicated scholars from all over the country, and in the short time they had together, much was accomplished.

This is a wonderful learning opportunity for me as a student. I’ll be sure to post progress reports over the next few months (the next meeting is in June) to let you know how the CAAVES project is going.

- Peter Beddow

Continuing the string of technology-related posts, I’m curious about our community’s thoughts on Facebook and its effects on campus life.

I’ll be honest here: I’ve looked at the Facebook profiles of complete strangers, who happen to be friends of friends. (Come on, who hasn’t?) I’ve never actually seen them in person, but I think it might feel strange to meet someone you already know something about from a Facebook profile. What are the effects this has on our campus? Are they good or bad? Does it make us more connected, or does it make us get a little weird?

On one hand, I think Facebook acts as a unifying force. It humanizes us to each other when we might normally interact on a purely academic or professional basis. Vanderbilt professors, undergrads, masters students and Ph.D. candidates all have Facebook accounts. But when do our Facebook habits begin to cross the line of valuable privacy? Is there even such a line anymore?

I don’t know. I haven’t really decided what I think about the whole thing. I hid my Facebook wall for a while because I felt weird knowing that people could see conversations I was having with friends. An old roommate gave me a hard time about it, so I put it back up - now it’s visible just to my friends. But some people are okay with making daily plans via their Facebook wall, visible to an entire network of thousands of people. We all assume that no one will really read it. But I’m not so sure.

And, it’s a killer way to procrastinate. Am I the only one who updates my profile when I have a to-do list that stretches from here to New Zealand?

One thing I am sure of: Facebook isn’t going away, and technology will continue to afford us more - not less - opportunities to share personal information quickly and efficiently over the Web.

- Rachel Bowers

The other day, a nice young man came to my office and observed me Googling — for about 2 hours.

And when I say observed, I really mean asked me a million questions about why I search the way I search.

He had prearranged the meeting and had also set up a file the day before on my computer to capture screenshots of my browser — had to use IE though I am normally a Firefox girl — every few seconds. And he works for Google to study just how the average user and the high-traffic Googler differ in how we search for items.

He concluded that I search out hubs of information, meaning that, if asked to research an answer, I typically go to a source first before randomly Googling and continuing to do so. He also laughed that, at times, I wind up with quotes around single words.

“It does nothing, I know, but when I am shortening a search phrase, it’s sometimes easier to just keep the quotes rather than delete,” I said.

I thought this an interesting concept for Google. It seems as though the intelligence and power behind the most-used search engine would have the ability to track the sort of stuff they need simply by matching IP addresses with search terms over a period of time. Though this guy was interested in asking why I searched the way I did, not just what I searched or how I found an answer. He wanted to know why I deleted things and added things, clicked on some links and didn’t click on others — even if my reasoning was completely irrational. In fact, following a 3-4 minute search for a random fact, I told him, “At this point, I would just give up and call because there has to be a person on the other end of a phone number who can help me.” He took copious notes on all of it.

How do you Google? What are some tricks that you have found that lead you to the places for which you are searching? And do you get fed up like me and just find a human touch at some point?

~Kristen Hayner

PS — I am supposed to receive a gift card in the mail for my time. I look forward to it.

Monday was the 30th anniversary of the introduction of Apple’s first computer designed for out-of-the-box personal use. It was called the Apple II. Here is a picture of the computer as you would have seen it on April 16, 1977:

Now, as of April 16, 2007 - Peabody College alone has more than 40 Apple computers (mostly iMacs) available for student use at any given time, and most classrooms are equipped with Power Macs with LCD projectors. Additionally, many of my student colleagues own Apple laptops that they’ve purchased using their Vanderbilt discount from Apple (now it’s just called “Apple” - they dropped “Computer” earlier this year.)

What about the Apple I, you ask? Well, the very first Apple computer did not include a case, so by itself, it was quite ugly. You see, back in the day, the user was required to build a box for the components. Here’s a picture of the original Apple, at its current home in the Smithsonian Institution:

On a similar subject, I just learned that a biologist from Vanderbilt has spearheaded an astonishing new foray into the “technology for all” movement. To wit, one school bus in Arkansas (Bus 46) is being equipped with WiFi, iPods, and laptops so some students can learn during their 3-hour commute to and from school each day. Essentially, the school bus is being turned into a classroom. The bus will reportedly include web-based learning modules and students will earn class credit for completing them.

I am not an old man by any means, when I took the bus to school, my experience was more like this:

–Peter Beddow