When I first came into the PSG office for my interview, I sat reading until Lori was able to see me. She came over, and the first thing she did after shaking my hand was ask me how many books I had with me. She told me that everyone at PSG carries at least two. To work at PSG is to see what [...]
In 2009, Barbie celebrated her fiftieth birthday. She has been a veterinarian, astronaut, dentist, five-time United States presidential candidate, chef, paleontologist and Olympic gymnast. And I’m just naming a few of her careers. Yet Barbie learned to talk only recently. A prototype of Hello Barbie was first shown at Toy Fair 2015 in New York, where Barbie displayed her speech recognition technology, made [...]
Globally, nonnative English speakers now outnumber native English speakers 3 to 1. English has become a global language, leading to more nonnative speakers learning English as a second language (ESL). Teachers are turning to apps, both mobile and on the web, to engage this new generation of English language learners (ELLs). Apps can satisfy all kinds of learning needs, sometimes in ways that a classroom [...]
Full disclosure: While I can call myself a golfer, I am not a good golfer. I know the rules of the game, and I understand the overall objectives. After playing for almost thirty years, I can eventually get the ball to do what I need it to do, and I’ve made some great shots, but like most amateur golfers, I can’t make those great shots [...]
New Englanders can agree: this most recent winter was a tough one, requiring constant vigilance of our properties as well as our physicality. With record snowfall in Massachusetts, we’ve had to deal with the many unpleasant aspects of the season: excessive time spent indoors, constant snow removal and the threat of roof collapses—all of which create mental and physical strain. But at the [...]
Can you recall Wally Cleaver’s high school homeroom number from Leave It to Beaver? Do you know the name of the mountain range between France and Spain? What about the name of the only basketball coach to win both an NCAA and NBA championship? If you know the answers (which, by the way, are 221, the Pyrenees, and Larry Brown with the Kansas [...]
In 2016, an academic revolution will take place with the College Board’s implementation of a reformed SAT. The College Board asserts that the changed test puts a “continued emphasis on reasoning alongside a clearer, stronger focus on the knowledge, skills and understandings most important for college and career readiness and success.” Students, teachers and parents alike are wondering what these new changes will entail [...]
Why do we go see action movies? Is it for excellent story lines that just so happen to be supplemented by spectacular explosions? Given that the American Chemical Society (ACS), in a video from their online Reactions series, calls explosions “Hollywood’s go-to distraction from a bad plot,” the answer is probably no. Critics like to poke fun at producer Michael Bay for his reliance on pyrotechnics in [...]
When I say dictionary, what comes to mind? Perhaps you think of the stuffy, outdated tomes pushed into the back corners of a bookshelf in the local library. But did you know that dictionaries are constantly changing, adapting, and adding new words and phrases to their vast word lists? The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is one such publication. The OED makes regular quarterly updates to its dictionaries, and [...]
“It may seem crazy what I’m about to say,” but Pharrell Williams will be releasing a children’s book in September. Williams is working with G. P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of the Penguin Group USA, to create a series of four books. The first is inspired by his platinum hit song “Happy.” The book will feature photos of children all around the world and what they feel [...]