Limit Search Results to a Specific Reading Level?

Today I was reading some of the different posts on lifehacker.com. I stumbled upon a post about limiting search results to a specific reading level. Apparently Google has this option in their advanced search options. I had no idea that they had this. You now also have the ability to click on the more tools option on the left side of the screen to filter reading levels as well. Google has 3 reading level options. The levels are: Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. This is pretty cool if you ask me. Looking at it from a teacher's standpoint I would have to say that I'm impressed but am craving more. How cool would it be to have something like that for school use? Something like this that breaks down the difficulty of the reading for K-12 students or even just elementary students could be very useful in education. It does not limit the search results unless specifically asked to. It does however provide labels showing the reading level of each site found.

Skinny Pop?

When I think of pop (even diet) skinny is definitely not the first image that comes to mind. While I was paging through a recent issue of Time magazine a picture of this unusually shaped Pepsi can caught my eye. It sparked my interest. There was not much information on it in the magazine so I turned to the web. Diet pop tends to be marketed as having the same taste as the regular version and with no calories. Pepsi launched their new skinny can during fashion week in February. I find it to be kind of funny how they decided to release the skinny can during a week that glamorizes ridiculously skinny women. I wonder what this is saying to the consumers, especially women.

Week 4, April 4, 2011

The other day in class we watched another TED Talk. I am a big fan of TED talks. They are very inspiring lectures. The TED talk we watched this time was by Chimamanda Adichie. Her presentation was entitled The danger of a single story. Chimanmanda is a Nigerian writer. In her presentation she talked about growing up in Nigeria and how there wasn't much Nigerian literature. Because of this she grew up reading British books. She also mentioned how her roommate in college was surprised when she found out that Chimamanda grew up listening to American music. The whole point of of her speech was that there is more out there than your view of the world. You can find out so much by looking at another person's point of view.