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Dr. Christine Mallinson has recently co-authored a new book, We Do Language:
English Language Variation in the Secondary English Classroom (Teachers College
Press, 2014).
The publisher’s website notes, “We Do Language builds on the authors' highly acclaimed
first collaboration, Understanding English Language Variation in U.S.
Schools, and examines the need to integrate linguistically informed
teaching into the secondary English classroom. The book meets three critical
goals for preparing English educators to ensure the academic success of their
students. First, the book helps educators acquire a greater knowledge of
language variation so they may teach their students to analyze the social,
cultural, and linguistic dimensions of the texts they read in class. Second,
the chapters provide specific information about language varieties that
students bring with them to school so that educators can better assist students
in developing the literacy skills necessary for the Common Core State
Standards. Third, the text empowers educators to build their linguistic
awareness so they may more fully understand, respect, and meet the needs of
culturally and linguistically diverse students. We Do Language features concrete strategies, models, and vignettes, as well as classroom materials developed by English educators for English educators. It is essential reading for anyone interested in learning about the role that language plays in the experiences of students, both in secondary and postsecondary environments.”
Professor
Shirley Brice Heath of Stanford University writes in an endorsement to the
book, “Full of advice and support
for walking hand-in-hand with students into imaginative ways of understanding
the realities of language variation, this book is pure joy for teachers and
college counselors. Even more important is the guarantee that when these educators embrace the humanity and philosophy so touchingly illustrated by the authors, the intrigue of thinking deeply about speaking, writing, and reading is sure to follow for students."
To find the book on Amazon, please visit: http://amzn.to/1cZY0fH
]]>The Baltimore Sun’s special education supplement last month featured William D’Eugenio ’14, theatre, and Nyalls Hartman, theatre, as they discussed the features of the Black Box Theatre and the Performing Arts and Humanities Building Theatre.
D’Eugenio spoke about the influence the new facilities had in his decision to apply to UMBC and become a part of the theatre design and production program, saying that “they are built to the standards of today and offer a real broadway style experience. Working with lighting systems that are being used in professional theaters gives me an advantage when applying for jobs.”
Read more of the article, “More than Just Performing: Music, Theatre Students Learn Diverse Skills”
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“The researchers are working on methods for easily modifying software to meet the needs of people with disabilities. Researchers will develop ways to make it easier for people with disabilities to log on to the Web, make user interfaces more accessible, and change the presentation of information on the Web to streamline experiences for people with disabilities, caregivers and service providers. The researchers also will look for ways to leverage help from other people on the Web — crowdsourcing — to increase accessibility for all.
“Authentication or logging into a service is an integral yet mundane part of peoples’ Internet experience,” said Yang Wang, assistant professor at the School of Information Studies at Syracuse. “However, most existing authentication schemes tend to be difficult to use for people with disabilities. We’re very excited about this opportunity to explore new authentication schemes that can provide a much better experience for people with disability.”
The team also will explore ways to dynamically change pointing and clicking actions on Web pages. “For example, if an individual is having difficulty smoothly controlling a mouse, we could detect this and smooth their input,” said Amy Hurst, assistant professor of human-centered computing in the Information Systems Department at UMBC.”
Microsoft Research’s Telepathwords demonstrates how strong (or weak) your passwords are by guessing them as you type.
Not sure if “password1234” is the best password to keep intruders out of your e-mail account? A new online tool from Microsoft Research called Telepathwords can help you figure it out by guessing which character comes next as you type your password (although hopefuly you already know that particular phrase is a poor choice). The better Telepathwords is at guessing what you’ll type, the easier it will likely be for someone trying to attack your inbox or online bank account protected by that password.
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Please note that these are not formal Blackboard training classes. Additional dates and times may be added as demand warrants.
]]>It's been a long time since I last coded on the server-side. In fact, if you've read some of my tutorials, you may have noticed that I use ColdFusion as my application server. While ColdFusion still works great, it definitely doesn't have the panache and coolness of newer server-side technologies like Ruby on Rails. Wanting to be a bit more modern, I've decided to jump on the Ruby on Rails train. Both Ruby and the Rails framework are proven technologies that are stable and widely embraced so I think it's a great direction to head to in my server-side renaissance.
Picking it is the easy part. The hard part is actually learning how to properly use RoR and finding good resources learn from, the latter being the hardest part of it. With so many sites coming and going or not being maintained, it can be difficult to find information that's relevant and useful.
Luckily for you, I've done a lot of homework recently and started to collect a list of current. up-to-date resources that have been recommended to me and look really promising.
Let me share these with you.
You've got to walk before you can run and learning the ins-and-outs of the Ruby language will help you get a leg up. I'm a firm believer that having a good understanding of a programming language will make leveraging complementary technologies (e.g.: Rails) much easier and allow you to build maintainable code from the get-go. I know it may seem obvious but I've seen plenty of cowboys out there that learn something half-assed in a weekend and throw up production code the following Monday.
The great thing about the web is the abundance of interactive tools available for learning. The slogan for Try Ruby is:
Got 15 minutes? Give Ruby a shot right now!
And they hit the mark by providing an interactive editor that takes you step by step through the learning process. You follow some simple exercises, enter your answers in the editor and get immediate feedback.
Like Try Ruby, RubyMonk takes an interactive approach but they've also broken down the learning into skill levels. Each tutorial is listed by which level the content applies to allowing you to scale your learning appropriately. The site even offers an in-progress tutorial on using Rails.
When you first hit this site, you may actually think you've landed in the wrong place or a hipster book club. Don't be fooled. Go ahead and click on the book, then follow the pages. Initially, the imagery and cartoons may be confusing but as you get further along, you'll see it's just the author's eccentric style of writing meant to make his presentation of Ruby topics more inviting. The books is actually very good from what I've seen and a good resource to have.
As you learn Ruby, you'll see how rich the language can be. Being "rich" also means there's a lot to learn and language APIs to get comfortable with. This is where Ruby documentation project comes in. It is absolutely invaluable and you will live in this as you start to ramp up in Ruby. Seriously, bookmark it now.
Affectionately called the "pick axe" book, this is the must-have reference guide for Ruby. It's like the holy grail of the language and the one I found recommended all over the place. The key thing to keep in mind is that it's a "reference" and meant to complement your learning efforts as opposed to actually walking you through the learning process.
Once you feel you have a good grasp of the Ruby language, next it's time to jump into the Rails framework. Currently at version 4.0.x, it's become a mainstay for most startups that want a robust framework to get them up and running quickly. From what I've seen, it's very opinionated about how it does things, focusing on a lot of abstractions to make common tasks (e.g.: database access and interaction) easier.
In terms of learning Rails, this tutorial by Michael Hartl is one of the most complete I've seen and amazingly, he offers it up for free. He does offer some other niceties like screencasts and ebook versions for a cost but unless you want to place the book on your Kindle, reading it online should suffice.
What I love about this is that it covers every major aspect of the Rails framework and is updated with each major Rails version including v4.0.x. It's the reason that I listed it as the first Rails tutorial to check out.
The tutorials in the Rails Guides will give you a solid foundation to work from. Looking through the Getting Started tutorial, it looks to cover the basics well but it does feel like Michael Hartl's stuff is a bit more comprehensive. Nonetheless, it's still a great option to learn by.
Obie Fernandez is a Rails guru and this book is recommended by everyone as the must-have Rails reading material. So I bowed to peer pressure and got it. Can't say yet if it's awesome but enough people I know who are good Rails developers said it's good so I'll go with that.
Sometimes having someone walk you step-by-step through the learning process works better. Thankfully, there are some free courses available that provide a nice walk-through of Ruby on Rails and help make piecing things together a bit easier.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Tuts+ as a great place to crank up my Ruby and Rails education. I also think Jeffrey Way would totally disown me as well!
Jose Mota's course, The Fundamentals of Ruby is a great example of the high-quality courses available for aspiring Rails developers like me.
RailsCasts was created by Ryan Bates and currently lists over 400 instructional videos. Most of them are short and cover very specific topics allowing you to zero in on what you'd like to learn about.
Well that's my list. I think it's a pretty solid one at that. I know there are a ton of other blog posts, newsletters, sites and resources that aren't listed but that's okay. This is a list to get things kickstarted and as with any new thing, it's easy to get overwhelmed with too much information. I actually wrote about how hard it can be to stay on top of emerging technologies and finding time to learn new things in my op-ed, The Learning Conundrum.
I'm trying to keep things nice and tidy so I can focus and set realistic learning goals. I find this list to be short and sweet providing a good balance of reading material and interactive learning. But if you feel like I'm absolutely missing out on a good learning resource, mention it in the comments.
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