Comments for StartupCafe

Comment on Help an old textbook find a home: BookAdopter.com by Linha

Linha — Sun, 20 May 2012 02:32:07 +0000

JinOctober 10, 2008Prof Wesch,I completely agree that sutednts need to be taught how to read textbooks. I teach at a community college where 50-70% of the student population can’t read college-level text. Granted, I work with a different student population compared with a four-year university. Nevertheless, I find that most sutednts lack basic reading skills that help them actively engage and understand text.However, I don’t agree that the lack of textbook accessibility during high school is to blame. I think that there are several reasons why sutednts can’t read well by the time they get to college. There are many factors that can affect a student’s reading skills such as inadequate phonological awareness training during preschool. In the past, I’ve tutored many sutednts in the K-12 grade range; in my experience, I’ve found that there are a lot of sutednts that lack basic reading skills that should have been mastered in elementary school. Of note, one of the more disturbing things that I found is that some of my college sutednts will brag that they have not read a single book since elementary school. Luckily our school does have several very dedicated faculty members that are teaching reading skills. Interestingly, I’ve also found that my sutednts have a difficult time reading and understanding online academic text. When they have to read an article online, with the help of some sort of collaborative platform (i.e., blog, wiki, I’m going to teach my sutednts about Diigo next week), they will read the comments posted by their peers and not the actual assigned text. Granted, they learn the main concept of the assigned reading, but they are taking the short cut by learning from their peers. Again, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing; but, the downside is that sutednts are not learning to read academic text. Is there a solution to this? I’ve considered teaching my sutednts to use Zotero instead of Diigo. I do like the collaborative nature of Diigo. However, I also think that it is important to force sutednts to buckle down and do some academic reading. If you have any thoughts, please let me know. We’ll see how the next few weeks go in my class.

Comment on Roundtable Discussion: How will the Proposed High Speed Rail Link impact on Startups? by Lilith

Lilith — Sun, 20 May 2012 00:56:44 +0000

another disadvantage to have 3 or 4 co-funders I think is hihger amount of time that you need to discuss company issues.there is a biological example for it. our genetic system composed of 4 letters. you can ask why it isn`t consists of 1 (to have a lesser energy expediture to produce letters) or why it isn`t consists of 20 letters (so we could get hihger information)the reason for not being is somehow obvious (genetic system could not transmit enough massage with only one letter, because the combination of these letters could generate different meanings)but the reason for not being 20, because for a system like cell, it is very energy consuming process and time consuming process to deal with hihger numbers alphabets.in fact there are reasons and mathematical models to show why nature have chosen exactly 4 letters for genetic system which I can give reference for those who want to read it.

Comment on Is Scoble In This Room? Killer SXSW App starts new trend by computer mouses

computer mouses — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:55:24 +0000

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Comment on Help an old textbook find a home: BookAdopter.com by Darrick Jeanbaptise

Darrick Jeanbaptise — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 02:38:50 +0000

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Comment on Recruiting rockstars series: interview with financial-tech startup MarketInvoice by Iain

Iain — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 16:56:00 +0000

An interesting read – nice insight, thanks Charlie and Bela!

MarketInvoice looks good too – I will be passing your details onto someone I know with invoicing challenges.

Comment on WANTED: an entrepreneurially-minded employee who will just shut up and do as they’re told by Bela Hamid

Bela Hamid — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 23:11:22 +0000

Thanks for dropping by and leaving a message Richard. I’m glad you liked the post.

The more employers I talk to in the startup world, the more I find that they’re not entirely sure of what kind of person they want/need to hire, or they have reasons for not asking for what they want. This does not make for a pleasant environment for the poor employee whose expectations have consequently been poorly managed!

Comment on WANTED: an entrepreneurially-minded employee who will just shut up and do as they’re told by Richard Smith

Richard Smith — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 10:28:23 +0000

Love this Bela, a nice fiery piece. There are too many companies that advertise for passionate, driven people, but get a little freaked out when such people arrive, or expect that passion can be switched on and off on demand.
(that’s a rather unpleasant picture, I hope she got out OK)

Comment on Sodash wins Pepsi Co 2011 by Douglas Holmes

Douglas Holmes — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 11:42:01 +0000

Couldn’t happen to two nicer chaps!

Comment on Some changes to StartupCafe by Kate Ho

Kate Ho — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 11:27:03 +0000

Hey Ian,

Completely understand. There might be some interesting going-ons behind the scene here to bring that back. Will keep you posted!

Kate

Comment on Some changes to StartupCafe by Ian Stevenson

Ian Stevenson — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 11:21:37 +0000

I miss getting the events list in my RSS feed. The calendar is good, but without the listing to remind me to look at it, I feel like I’ll miss stuff…