homonym trouble: does your cache have cachet?

For the holidays, a little wordplay fun.

At a public educational gathering last week I heard two educators at two different events toss off references to a minor concept in computing—using the wrong word. You ask, “if they were homonyms, how did you know it was the wrong word?” Okay, well let’s use the loose definition of homonym that allows for differences in spelling and non-identical pronunciation (maybe I’m asking too much). Check out Wikipedia for all the options: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonym.

Cache, pronounced kash, in the way it was meant last week, refers to how our browsers store information from visited Web pages to make future visits to those spots happen more easily. You might know the cache on your browser as the Temporary Internet Files or you might just know it as the cache. As Merriam-Webster notes, it can also refer to a hiding place—where you might store your cache of stolen goods, for example: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/CACHE. Or you might be familiar with geocaching (jee-oh-kashing), where people hide and find hidden objects using their GPS devices, a kind of scavenger hunt.

Cachet, pronounced kashay, is a mark of prestige that an object or person possesses; physically, it was a kind of seal, perhaps like the Seal of Good Housekeeping! http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Cachet.

But here’s the interesting part—both words come from the same French word cacher, which could mean both to press or to hide!

No big deal, but you could gain a kind of cachet if you pronounce the words right the next time you use them.

Filed under: aesthetics, communication, computers , picky grammar

persuasive (not gratuitous) technologies

Can you use technology this well to ignite your students? Well, it certainly is inspiring, and it shows that visuals really can illuminate ideas. It is a mashup of technologies, including even PowerPoint, but not gratuitous technologies added just to show that Rosling is hip or clever–the combination is as persuasive as the speaker, and I know that’s how you really want to use technology, too.

Filed under: aesthetics, cognition, communication, education, learning, presentation, teaching, technology

a new way to view data on TED Talks

A nice weekend visual post–just to make us wonder.

Filed under: aesthetics, communication, computers, innovation, technology , art, science

to see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower

In the Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Blackboard Customers Consider Alternatives,” the main focus is on the academic community’s disfavor with Blackboard’s behavior, comparing it to Microsoft in the giant-monopoly-doesn’t-play-nice-with-others sense. Yada, yada, yada….should we switch to Moodle….yada, yada, yada.

What caught my eye, was a throwaway comment from an IT professional about faculty complaints that Moodle was not as slick or attractive as the commercial Blackboard: “I’m like, ‘Seriously, that’s your complaint? It doesn’t look as slick?’ Apparently that’s a huge deal for people.”

Well, yes, aesthetics, particularly in this century’s visual world, are a big deal. Aesthetics can play a role in a student’s immersion in subject matter; aesthetics can play a role in understanding course organization. Aesthetics attract or repel or cue indifference. The comment above illustrates the oft-cited split between academics and IT professionals, whether it shows itself in language or a sense of aesthetics. That’s, I think, where instructional technology can step in as a liason between the two. It doesn’t matter so much whether instructional technology is housed in IT or in the academic side of the institution; what matters is having someone who can translate bewteen the two and help to introduce the goals and desires of each to each.

Read about aesthetics here, especially the section on Aesthetics and Information.

Filed under: aesthetics