Stephen’s Untold Stories

This makes the concord look like a blimp.

Researchers in Australia’s Outback launched a test flight Thursday of a supersonic jet designed to fly 10 times faster than conventional airplanes.

The test flight was conducted by researchers at the University of Queensland under commission from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, in the remote community of Woomera, about 300 miles north of the South Australian state capital, Adelaide.

The Supersonic Combustion Ramjet, or scramjet, was designed to travel at up to 5,000 mph, or 10 times the speed of conventional aircraft, the University of Queensland said.

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I recently discovered a great blog done by a teacher in south Georgia.

Check out the Cool Cat Teacher Blog

Andy Carvin has a great post about something that happened with a school that got blocked from editing Wikipedia entries.

Here is Andy’s post

And another of my favorite bloggers, Richard Kassissieh, had a great post in which he explains his response to a similar problem in his school.

Here is Richard’s post

Yes, I know it’s a repeat, but most of these are really great!

Wikipedia wallpapers

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Has it really been 10 years since the Palm was created? Here is what the first Palm Pilot looked like. By the way, they don’t call them “Palm Pilots” anymore.

And here is my new Palm TX. It has both WiFI and Bluetooth.

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I hope GA doesn’t do this. We already have enough students who haven’t taken college prep courses taking the SAT.

For the first time, the state is requiring all high school juniors in Maine to take the SAT. The test can help students get a college acceptance letter next year while ensuring their school meets federal and state education standards.

“They are doing everything they can to get us to come in,” said Spencer Luke, 16, a junior at Westbrook High School.

The test is typically taken by juniors and seniors on a voluntary basis at a cost of $41.50. Since most colleges require the exam, state education officials decided to make it free and mandatory. Their goal is to boost the number of students in Maine who go on to college.

At the same time, the test is replacing the Maine Educational Assessment test for 11th-graders. Federal and state officials will use the scores to measure the performance of individual schools.

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I’m not sure I agree with this idea. Sometimes a teacher can only do so much to get students to test better.

Now in what could become a model for the nation, Florida wants to offer a 5 percent cash bonus to teachers who can get their students to deliver the best test results. The idea of test-driven incentives for teachers is now being explored in 20 states.

“Teachers who inspire their students to significant achievement or who perform additional duties should see our appreciation for their efforts reflected in bigger numbers on their paycheck,” said Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

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This looks to be pretty similar to Writely. I haven’t tried this one yet, but it looks intriguing.

AjaxWrite is a streamlined word processor, comparable to Microsoft Word. To keep the program lean, we left out some obscure advanced features; you’ll find the functions you use most often, right where you’d expect them to be. (We’re still working on the spell checker.) You can import and export documents in all popular formats, including documents with graphics. The save function lets you save your work to a drive on your computer. Also, since you run ajaxWrite from your web browser, it is platform independent and can therefore be used with any operating system.

AJAX programming techniques allow web-based software to function smoothly without the waiting around for page uploads that you normally associate with the Internet. The benefits of web-based software are so compelling, we feel that they are the future of the industry. These benefits include:

• Global access, all you need is an internet connection
• Platform independent, you can use it with any operating system
• Automatic updates and upgrades, no more computer restarts or missed patches/updates
• Server side management — all the busywork is done for you

ajaxWrite

This is pretty funny.

We’ve all been in this situation before – the meeting’s in 5 minutes, and your boss asked you to find a statistic online to prove a point. Like that the tobacco consumption in Brazil is decreasing, or that most seniors prefer cats to dogs. Whatever it is, we’re now here to help you create valid-looking statistics in an instant!

eSolutions Data

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This is a bit hard for me to really understand. You see, there is no teacher’s union in Georgia. The very idea of 800 teachers calling in sick just baffles me.

Some 53 Detroit elementary schools were closed this morning after nearly 800 teachers called in sick for classes.

The closings were announced about 15 minutes after the 7:30 a.m. start time at Pasteur, Dixon, Carleton and Barbara Jordan schools. While some children were loaded back on school buses for a trip back home, others had to wait at school for parents or guardians to pick them up.

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I was inspired by the San Francisco Photo of the Day website, so I started an Atlanta Photo site. I may not post a photo a day, but I will post several a week at least.

Here is the link!

Am I the only one who is shocked by this announcement? I seriously doubt it.

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Wikipedia has quite an impressive collection of images. Thanks to Quick Online Tips for these links.

• Featured Desktop Backgrounds
• Featured Pictures
• Pic of the Day

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An impressive list.

Web 2.0 List

Yes, it’s also possible on the MacBook Pro now.

Here is the article

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I took advantage of this on Thursday and Friday. I was quite happy about it!

The hugely popular US college basketball championships got under way this week, with the CBS TV network looking to slam dunk an Internet experiment that could revolutionise sports broadcasting.

For the first time, CBS, which owns exclusive rights to the tournament, is augmenting normal television broadcasts of games by providing live, streaming footage on the Internet — free of charge.

While sport events have been offered online before, they have always been on a “pay-per-view” basis.

The CBS model relies on advertising dollars and is being viewed by industry analysts as a possible watershed in the growing push by media executives to develop “new media” revenue streams.

“Instead of asking the viewer to pay, they’re asking the advertiser to pay,” said John Swallen, senior vice president of research at TNS Media Intelligence.

“So it’s an important opportunity to see whether a new revenue model might work,” Swallen said.

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I wonder if I have what it takes to win one. My fingers are crossed!!

Bloggy Award

Georgia College and State University is taking a very progressive look at iPods.

The campus of Georgia College & State University boasts traditional college fare spacious greens, historic architecture and a steady stream of students with the familiar white headphones of iPods dangling from their ears. But here in the antebellum capital of Georgia, students listening to iPods might just as well be studying for calculus class as rocking out to Coldplay after the school’s educators worked to find more strategic uses for the popular digital music and video players.

At least 100 of the rural school’s employees are turning iPods into education or research tools impressive for a college with only about 300 faculty. But it’s more than simply making class lectures available a practice now routine at many colleges and even a few high schools.

History professor Deborah Vess asks students to download 39 films to their video-capable iPods so she doesn’t have to spend class time screening the movies. Psychology professor Noland White has found a new-age answer to office hours: a podcast of the week’s most asked questions.

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Miramar High School in Florida recently did a 1 to 1 initiative with iBooks. Here are some photos from the setup process.

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