Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Wi-Fi Makes For a Quiet School Bus

Students endure hundreds of hours on yellow buses each year getting to and from school in this desert exurb of Tucson, and stir-crazy teenagers break the monotony by teasing, texting, flirting, shouting, climbing (over seats) and sometimes punching (seats or seatmates).

But on this chilly morning, as bus No. 92 rolls down a mountain highway just before dawn, high school students are quiet, typing on laptops.

Morning routines have been like this since the fall, when school officials mounted a mobile Internet router to bus No. 92’s sheet-metal frame, enabling students to surf the Web. The students call it the Internet Bus, and what began as a high-tech experiment has had an old-fashioned — and unexpected — result. Wi-Fi access has transformed what was often a boisterous bus ride into a rolling study hall, and behavioral problems have virtually disappeared.
Click the image to read the article.

Thanks To Keith at BagOfNothing

Big Picture: Carnival 2010

Once more, it is Carnival Season in many countries around the world with a Roman Catholic heritage. Celebrations and parades are put on just prior to the observance of Lent. Over the past few weeks parades and celebrations have taken place throughout Europe, the Caribbean and South America. An estimated 730,000 foreign tourists, many fleeing snowy winter conditions in Europe and the United States, traveled to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for this year's celebrations. Collected here are a handful of images from some of the elaborate celebrations of this Carnival season. (39 photos total)
Click on the image above to see the full collection.