Posts Tagged ‘flash cards’

Wednesday Wild Card: Optical Illusion Flashcards

First, I stand by my assertion that things which challenge our perceptions are great tools to develop critical thought. As I wrote in a post more than a year ago in my own opinion, optical illusions are a fun way of testing our own cognitive prowess and our perceptions of the world. I think they teach us that things are not always what they seem and that our eyes can deceive us — and regularly do. I also think optical illusions can be a great teaching tool for your critical thought toolkit, helping to introduce children to the universe of ‘things not always being what they appear to be.’

Second, since posting that, a double-digit percentage of my traffic has come from Google searchers looking for optical illusion resources. I sometimes feel I ought to provide a bit more than some old links.

Thus, while it isn’t much, I used MS Word, PDFCreator, and a free dingbat font called “Use Your Illusion” and put together a small collection of “flash cards” for parents to download and print. Please don’t ask for help in using these — they are just what they are. (And, no warranty included.) Click the link below. Open the PDF file. Print on white paper. And cut into equal quarters. Enjoy.

Click here to download the file.

As I alluded above, this was a free font I found online and I’m fairly certain these are not copyright. If they are, please contact me and let me know. I’ll take them down. Until then, enjoy.

Full text from October 1, 2008 by Brad
Filed as: Critical Thought Toolkit, Reasoned Education

Sunday Reading: Freakonomics

Sundays? What Have I Been Reading About Parenting?

Don’t know how many of you skeptical parents out there have picked up a copy of the pop-sociology book, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Levitt and Dubner. It came out a few years ago. I ignored it previously, but stumbling across it again I spent the weekend picking through my own gratis version, and (as I kick off a slightly skewed variation on this experimental little blog) I thought I’d note to my tiny audience that therein contains an interesting (perhaps awkward) chapter or two between its covers leaning into the territory of skeptical parenting. I couldn’t help but cringe at some of the assertions being made based on (what seemed to my little eyes) highly subjective correlations in the authors’ data. And that said, it is a pop-reference book meant to appeal to a weekender audience. But the authors seem to spend a lot of text convincing us to be skeptical of broad assertions and suspect of researched analysis, then dropping bombshells of their own and expecting the reader to nod enthusiastically.

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Full text from April 27, 2008 by Brad
Filed as: Encounters of the Mind, Skepdad thoughts

skep/dad’s “free time” the first

I have gaps in my attendance here. And the fact that this is a parenting blog, such a statement should be fairly self explanatory. I’m a busy guy. I’m in demand (or so I’m told.) And I’ve got a little girl who yearns for my undivided attention. So here are some “free time” moments that I don’t have the “free time” (except on a lunch break) to flesh out much further at the moment.

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Full text from March 6, 2008 by Brad
Filed as: Skepdad thoughts

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THE SKEPDAD BLOG is a place for rational, science-minded fathers to express their thoughts, opinions, and ideas about bringing up kids to be critical thinking adults in a world filled with superstition, mysticism, and pseudoscience.

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MINIBLOG: Purity - We watched a documentary last night on TLC about the Purity Movement. Nothing like a good old fashioned biblical excuse to wrap one’s daughter in a bubble of ignorance and second class gender roles like a “sign this contract with your dad re: sex” to set society back a couple centuries. It’s as if they’re [...]
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MINIBLOG: Brain Games - I’m researching. (Or that’s what I’m calling it.) I picked up one of those “intelligence” and “brain training” games for my PSP last week. How smart will I become thanks to this five dollar exercise? Look out world: I’m about to release unlimited potential of my hitherto confined mind. *sigh*
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MINIBLOG: Drinking Skeptically, October 22 - If you haven’t made plans to attend the Edmonton Skeptics’ Pub Night tonight, there’s still time. See you there.
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TWITTER: skepdad thinks you should check out the second edition of the Skeptical Parent Crossing, Blog Carnival... >> 15 hours ago
Brad adds: As of October 2007, I'm soliciting interest for skeptics in the Edmonton, Alberta, Canada area who are interested in forming a skeptical society to contact me. Please do so through this blog or via Facebook (through the Edmonton Skeptical Society Group).

Or visit our new website: www.edmontonskeptics.org
There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.
- Robert Oppenheimer