Students wage war on Twitter - for organelles! Cast your vote soon...

Campaign poster by @CellWall01

Our biology students are engaged in a deadly, high-stakes battle right now, on Twitter.  They are raking muck, slinging mud, and making bold campaign promises, all in support of candidates whose jobs are vital to our national, global, and personal security -- the organelles within our cells.

In the end, only one will emerge triumphant -- the most valuable organelle, or MVO.

You can snoop on this heated contest -- and even contribute comments, or ask tough questions of the microscopic candidates.  The whole conversation is taking place on Twitter, at the hashtag #CatFootMVO.  (You can only see the thread if you have a Twitter account.)

Tech celebration: A syllabus that students actually WANT to read...

Much of life's important information is boring.

Think of it : mortgage documentation, employment contracts, bylaws, user agreements, instructions... and the humble syllabus.

We bury the small rules that govern our lives in small print, or even worse - in print that is legible, but unreadable. And this is no small matter, either - recently, several people signed away their rights to their firstborn child into eternity - so they could use free wifi.

But does it have to be this way?

Taylor Johnson, (who teaches AP English), tried something which suggests that there might be a better way.

First, she asked her kids for feedback about her official syllabus, and decided she wanted to make something more engaging. And then she began to tinker.

She had a simple goal: to make her syllabus "clear, concise, and visually appealing."

She rummaged around on her computer, eventually opened up Comic Life, and created something that looked like this: