Regular readers may remember that, way back in kindergarten, I couldn’t follow what my teacher was demonstrating when she taught my class how to tie our shoes the classic way: “Tie a knot, then the bunny runs around the bush and jumps down into the hole.”

I clearly remember thinking “What are you talking about? I don’t see any bunny!”

So my kindergarten teacher came to my house after school — I lived across the street — and showed me [more...]

We’ve all been to school.

So we all have a pretty good idea of what to do to be a good student.

Take really good notes during class lectures.

If you’re taking several classes, study each topic separately.

And make sure that you [more...]

Almost 26 years ago, in a research paper that I wrote about the future of education, I predicted that, in the future, people would connect computers to their brains.

One result would be quantum leaps in many fields, including education, entertainment, medicine, philosophy, arts, psychology and interpersonal communictions.

Regular readers know that, a couple of years ago, researchers finally [more...]

I remember that — back in the 80s, when I was working on my advanced education — the whole college textbook market seemed to me to be a huge scam.

Every semester, I would buy several new textbooks for up to $75 apiece.

At the end of the semester, the used-textbook salespeople would offer me between nothing and $8 for each of my used textbooks.

Then I’d [more...]

If you knew that you were going to die soon, how would you spend your time?

Randy Pausch was a highly successful professor of computer science and human-computer interaction and design at prestigious Carnegie Mellon University.

But then he was told that that he was going to die of pancreatic cancer.

So he got his affairs in order.

Provided for his [more...]

How much do you know about the supposed recent discovery of faster-than-light neutrinos?

How much do you know about the emotional life of bees?

Have you heard about a new virus (created by scientists) that could theoretically wipe out 60 percent of humanity?

Or an Earth-like planet that could [more...]

I’ve always assumed that the people who read my Web site are “smarter than the average bear.”

For those of you who aren’t baby boomers, that’s a reference to Yogi Bear, a cartoon character from my childhood.

Anyway, along with my belief about this site’s readers, I’ve also always believed several other things about intelligence and the human brain.

As an intelligent person, you probably [more...]

I don’t get that cable channel, so I’ve never seen the TV show, Mythbusters.

But I occasionally read stories about it, describing how the show’s hosts do tests to either confirm or disprove popular myths and old-wives’ tales.

From what I’ve seen, I think it would be really fun to work on that type of show; getting paid to entertain and educate people by making messes and having fun. [more...]