Author: Brynn Boyer

Jennifer A. Polack-Wahl, Professor of Computer Science, and Jacob Bowman, junior Computer Science Student, iPhone/iTouch app Short Vowel Mahjong is now free on iTunes.  In the last three days 109 downloads have occurred.  The downloads have primarily been in the United States but they included Australia,  Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, China, Hong Kong, France, Brazil, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico, Korea, UK, and Spain.

This app was made specifically at the request of Heather Howe a Kindergarten and First Grade teacher at Hartwood Elementary. Heather wanted a game that would reinforce short vowel recognition.  Jacob and Jennifer A. Polack-Wahl brainstormed a variety of ideas and decided on a Mahjong style game.  The list of words we used was approved by Heather and included approximately seven different words in each vowel (a, e, i, o, and u).

The app is for anyone who wants to help their children or students to reinforce short vowel sounds or start short vowel recognition.   You do need either an iTouch or iPhone with IOS 4.0 to play the game.  We want to find out how to make it better so we can aid elementary education, we are in it for the kids.

Continue to check out http://hartwood.umwblogs.org/ for more games in education.  Our ice cream Math game is our next to be submitted to the app store.

The University of Mary Washington has been named to The President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. UMW is one of 700 U.S. colleges and universities commended for exemplary, innovative and effective community service programs.

Anthony Bourdain and his popular travel show have explored almost every corner of the world: Tokyo, Melbourne, Kuala Lumpur, Reykjavik, Santiago, even Washington, D.C.

Last night his journeys brought him to Fredericksburg.

University of Mary Washington senior Shelley Hillberry and junior James Sennett attended an invitation-only reception at the home of Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, September 22 to recognize the 16th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

Claudia Emerson, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and the current Poet Laureate of Virginia, will read from her work at Writers in the Library at 7 p.m. Sept. 27, in the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Hodges Library auditorium.
Emerson’s four books, “Pharaoh, Pharaoh (1997),” “Pinion, An Elegy (2002),” “Late Wife (2005),” and “Figure Studies (2008),” were published as part of Louisiana State University Press’ signature series, “Southern Messenger Poets,” edited by Dave Smith. “Late Wife” won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
Her poems have appeared in “Poetry,” “Prairie Schooner,” “Smartish Pace,” “The Southern Review,” “Shenandoah,” “TriQuarterly,” “Crazyhorse,” “New England Review,” and other journals. An advisory and contributing editor for “Shenandoah,” Emerson has been awarded individual artist’s fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia Commission for the Arts and was also a Witter Bynner Fellow through the Library of Congress. She was awarded the 2008 Donald Justice Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Emerson is a professor of English and the Arrington Distinguished Chair in Poetry at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va.
A reception will be held following the reading. Both are free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase and signing at the event.
Emerson’s reading is sponsored by the Department of English and the UT Libraries. For more information, visit http://www.lib.utk.edu/writersinthelibrary/.