Tower of Hanoi 河內塔

I am taking a course called Cognitive Training in this semester. In the class, students have to design programs that can potentially help older adults to maitain their cognitive abilities. I say potentially here is because those programs need further examination for their reliability and validity. Besides designing training programs, students have to train themselves in this semester and to examine their learning curve. It's a kind of Learning By Doing.

According to ACTIVE, a longitudinal program of cognitive training in the U.S., three kinds of cognitive abilities are related to older adults' function in daily life. They are memory, reasoning, and speed of process. We chose currently available programs or games that can train us to enhance the abovementioned cognitive abilities.

For training memory, we chose memory card games (卡片記憶); for training reasoning, we chose Sudoku (數讀); and for training speed of process, we chose PS2's Taiko (太鼓達人). We will have to assess our abilities of memory, reasoning, and speed of process next week, and then we start training ourselves in the following six weeks. We will have accept posttest after we finish our traing prcedure and see the post training difference. It seems we will have spend extracurricular time playing a lot of games. I am actually really excited about it.

I found some online games that I can practice with my PC, which will be fun.

Sudoku (數讀)
http://www.counttonine.com/sudokuGame.htm

Taiko (太鼓達人)
http://www.slies.tyc.edu.tw/taigoo/00.htm

Memory Games
http://www.zefrank.com/memory/index.html


To assess the difference of our performance between pre-and post-training, We determine the external criteria: WCST (Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, 威斯康辛卡片分類測驗) and Tower of Hanoi Test and other psychological assessment that I can't reveal here. I will be the tester of Tower of Hanoi so I did some online search for the preparation.

Tower of Hanoi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Hanoi in English and http://ccmp.chiuchang.com.tw/toy/hanoi/hanoi.html in Chinese.

Tower of Hanoi online game http://www.spps.tp.edu.tw/game_online/hanoi/hanoi.html

Even though there are plenty reading assignments in the class, this is the most interesting course I have ever taken. Terrific!!

WONDERFUL EndNote

I have spent few weeks reading and writing proposals, reports and term papers. The most annoying thing happened to me when I was writing is to edit correct citation format because numerous citations and references must be edited in specific format which is APA 5th in my case.

My professors suggested I use EndNote-- an online software for managing bibliographic databases. I found that sometimes old people resist learning new tricks, and it seems that I am getting old. I was resistant using it. I tried to read its user's guide and found it was a almost 600-page online handbook. I thought it was crazy to waste time on it.

I wrote an HR report with EndNote's help to edit citations and references yesterday, and I found I could use it without reading user's guide or online help. It's sooo cool. I could easily manage those annoying format. Bliliant!! So why on earth it has bulky user's guide to expel users away!!

I am writing and establishing my bibliographic databases now, really cool.

Every graduate student should learn it.