I don’t think I have ever seen such a vast selection of cake books in my life! I was thinking about doing one (writing a book), but after looking at all the great books out there all ready….why?!

Check them out here at Zoomii.com.I guarantee you will be impressed! If you know of any other site that might be of interest, please feel free to chime in.

I’m liiking for something like this with antique books. (Wanting to find old cookbooks from 18-19 century.

Following the presentation slide-share in my last post, I think we should all learn to speak better. So, here you go:

Speaking Alltops

Everything you always wanted to know about speaking that my friend and collegue, Joanie, never told you!

The last ten years, my colleagues and I were all down with ppt. The consensus came from the world teaching forum somewhere in this Universe, PowerPoint is the way and we are the follower.

Every year we would have PowerPoint in-services of how you can spruce it up for your presentations. Thank goodness it’s all just about over now…..

The presentation by Nancy Duarte tells it like it is and offers some great resources and advice along with links. A definite must see for any teacher. Bring life into presentations!

Scientists are looking for women prepared to eat a bar of chocolate every day for a year.

This is mainly for the women readers! Absolutely nothing to do with technology. Does eating it while you are typing count?

Need I say more?

I might have gained weight from all the calories…But I am doing so in the name of science! I would have to say that chocolate is the one “in-moderation” rule I let my students to break.

But don’t forget, chocolate can be controversial. Economics, sustainability, ethics can all be taught using this one beautiful fruit of the cocoa tree. You can listen to it here:

 

 

Last week I mentioned  the post of one of my colleagues who wrote on humor and “in-jokes” used to teach in her profession. I promised to carry on her legacy. Here is the post to link movies to food…finally. Sorry it took so long.

The James Beard Foundation recently recognized some great books. Of course, my favorite would have to be:

Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor
by Peter Reinhart
(Ten Speed Press)

Absolutely my idol, and all my colleagues as well, when it comes to writing excellent baking books, he’s already won in our eyes. We will still wait with baited breath till June 8th when they announce the winners. As I was reading down the list of great books, I came across the nomination for slate magazine. It was listed on multimedia writing on food:

Sara Dickerman
Slate Magazine
“A Chef’s So-Called Life: What Movies Get Right-and Wrong-About Life in the Kitchen”

When I went to the magazine, I thought to myself, Eureka, this is what I’m looking for! This is a great homework critique assignment for culinary educators. And fun for the students as well. Hope you have as much fun watching as I did. I didn’t even see most of the movies… yet…

Our campus’ in-service today was enlightening. Not only did it confirm my resolution to become a better teacher by engaging the students more with 2.0 tech, but also gave me ideas (or “idears” from the video of the high school science teacher - I was always teased in high school for saying idears and axed, and years of speech therapy never cured it - I picked up on the phonetics right away).

I can use my reader (RSS) in my daily lecture. I can give students a case study on struggling bakery owners from my baker-to-baker chat line posts, record their answers and build a database of responses from students along side the veterans responses (new wiki maybe?!). I’ve used case studies before, but having to create new situations all the time (just to keep myself entertained and not fall complacent with the same answers) became a struggle keepingcurrent and “fresh”. With technology spilling over in the industry, more associations and journals are utilizing feeds and readers (aggregators) to stay current and assist with maintaining the highest standards for the industry they represent. I’ll post next week on my findings.

The one great opportunity we have as culinary educators is creativity. Creativity is taught in every class. We can teach students creativity by using parameters set by the project, providing the core elements of objectives and then let the students run with it. But how can we pull out the most from within our students inner core when they have never been exposed to whats possible? Here is where the great Prensky takes center stage: Engagement, peer teaching, technology (OK-no youtube)….the list is endless.

During the conclusion, Professor Neal, the director of faculty development for University of North Carolina, opened the floor for discussion and questioning. Someone questioned the proper modality for teaching multitasking. Why is it so hard to teach? We heard It could be a problem with learning modalities or with the students reception of the required demands, or just the  little fact I learned while watching a very interesting video on TED the other day by Sir Robinson on creativity (brain differences between the species!). I found this video to be educational and humorous. I think you will agree with me when you watch it:

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/66

Really loved this video I saw today on teaching:

See it for youself….

 http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=209f470ae8902069192a

Check out this newsworthy visit to the Rhode Island Sim in Second Life. Had a great time riding the subway….I wonder if its going to be sent to SC for our oceanography wildlife habitat off the coast…Maybe that’s why its so close to the water.
This RI sim is so hip, I tinted my hair with pink tips, had to fit in with all my surf bras’-didn’t want to stick out as a 44 yr. old chef wanna be!
The new skate shop has a skatepark on top! How cool is that! (Had to break in to buy a skateboard, not cool, sorry)

Hungry FDA Official Orders Massive Pot Pie Recall 

Well, the government is at it again!

This site, and ones like it, can be added to favorite sites for students. Students should be “familiar with the concepts and practice of the discipline, but also with the culture and in-jokes that will help them fit in when they get into industry or graduate school. I also like to get people to laugh in ways that are relevant to the subject material”, as quoted by a fellow collegue, Hilary Mason (a technology professor).

We need to find some that are relevent to cooking! Any ideas?

How about some great films of our times on food and cooking?

I’ll start a list and post it in a week during before the inservice! Help me out…

 

Tuesday, April 1, 2008 at 7:35 AM

What the ?

Philosophical, maybe….check out this new site brought to you by the folks of google down under…How do they do it!!

The future is now

Posted by Alan Noble, Head of Engineering, Google Australia & New ZealandThe secret is out. Today, in an exclusive launch only for Australians, we’re happy to announce gDaysearch technology, Google’s newest innovation, developed right here in our Sydney R&D centre. Using a system called MATE (Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation), gDay combines Google’s index of historic, cached web content, and a mashup of numerous factors, including recurrence plots and fuzzy measure analysis, to create a sophisticated model of what the internet will look like 24 hours from now.

By clicking “one day in advance” on our homepage, you can search the internet exactly 24 hours in advance.

You heard that right. That’s tomorrow’s footy scores, tomorrow’s celebrity goss, tomorrow’s weather, even tomorrow’s Google announcements - all right at your fingertips. Not to toot our own horn, but this is going to be a very, *very* big feature for Google Australia going forward.