Group items tagged

Blog post by William Bowen, March 25, 2013, on movement towards online education. He would like more hard evidence to understand impact/success among other effects, tool kits (platforms), new mind-set to attempt online to reduce costs without adversely affecting educational outcomes, what we must retain in terms of central aspects of life on campus such as "minds rubbing against minds." Excerpts: "My plea is for the adoption of a portfolio approach to curricular development that provides a calibrated mix of instructional styles." ... "Their students, along with others of their generation, will expect to use digital resources-and to be trained in their use. And as technologies grow increasingly sophisticated, and we learn more about how students learn and what pedagogical methods work best in various fields, even top-tier institutions will stand to gain from the use of such technologies to improve student learning." Really like this comment for value of MOOCs for post-college graduates: "A quibble. I am intrigued by your comment about "minds rubbing against minds." While there is undeniable worthiness of the thought inside academic communities perhaps underestimated is the lack of such friction after graduation and how MOOCs can provide opportunities outside the alma maternal environments. To take courses at the local U. costs both in inconvenience of scheduling, transportation and monetary costs equivalent to constantly having a new Hyundai. Those requirements wind up as being unreasonable. Since January I have had the great pleasure of thinking about the thoughts of Dave Ward and colleagues from the University of Edinburgh and arguing about points in the forums. More recently, Michael Sandel on Justice from Boston. These opportunities are enormously better than nothing at all, clearly benefiting myself and probably also friends, colleagues and civil society. While these experiences do not provide the intensity of a post seminar argument in the Ree

Very interesting article from the NYTimes on how mindfulness has taken hold in Silicon Valley encouraging tech workers and beyond to take time out, meditate even for a minute, and creating new apps to help you do it. Google has a course on mindfulness that sells out whenever offered. Rebranding mindfulness from groovey discipline to way to clear your head to increase productivity, prioritize to do lists, unclutter your work life.

a view on how mindfulness/meditation is used to manipulate us into complying with dysfunctional or unbearable workplaces

Explains why and how to use mind maps

Post by Dianne Harman, Huff Post, June 6, 2013 on reinvention. Like this conclusion: Every time you reinvent yourself, you're forced to learn something new. And a mind that's engaged in learning is a young mind. So what's your reinvention story?

Linda Stone's blog, April 20, 2012. Runs something called The Attention Project. New terms: conscious computing, email and screen apnea, continuous partial attention Excerpt: "Thirty years ago, personal computing technologies created a revolution in personal productivity, supporting a value on self-expression, output and efficiency. The personal communications technology era that followed the era of personal productivity amplified accessibility and responsiveness. Personal technologies have served us well as prosthetics for the mind, in service of thinking and doing. Our focus has been on technologies as prosthetics for the mind, and human-as-machine style productivity. This has led to burn-out, poor health, poor sleep, and what I call email apnea or screen apnea. We wonder where our attention has gone. Turns out, it's right where we left it - with our ability to breathe fully. We can use personal technologies that are prosthetics for our beings, to enhance our lives. I call this Conscious Computing. We can use technology to help enable Conscious Computing, or we can find it on our own, through attending to how we feel. For advice from a musician on how to do Conscious Computing, I interviewed the organist, Cameron Carpenter. Conscious Computing with the help of passive, ambient, non-invasive Heart Rate Variability (HRV) technology is poised to take off over the next few years. It has the potential to help all of us learn the skills that musicians, athletes and dancers have, that immunizes them from email apnea."

Blog post by Ann Michaelsen, January 27, 2012 "Have you ever sat down in front of your computer, expecting a lot of work to be done in a certain amount of time, only to find that you have done nothing work-related at all? Or that you've done a lot - just not what you planned to do? Many people are thinking about the way we spend our time and what gets our attention in this digital age. Howard Rheingold calls it infotention and I've been learning a lot about it recently thanks to his challenging but rewarding online course, "Introduction to Mind Amplifiers." It's a five-week experience using asynchronous forums, blogs, wikis, mindmaps, social bookmarks, synchronous audio, video, chat, and Twitter. Participation requires a serious commitment of time and attention by every member of the learning group. Believe me, the skill of staying focused on what is important certainly proves to be helpful here! The world demands "infotention" Infotention is a word I came up with to describe the psycho-social-techno skill/tools we all need to find our way online today, a mind-machine combination of brain-powered attention skills with computer-powered information filters. ~ Howard Rheingold"

Kate Murphy talks about how we are now a culture of always doing something, and we avoid any reflective time because we are so unpracticed at it that we dwell on the negative when we do have quiet time without distraction. People will go far to avoid introspection - in experiments they give themselves electric shocks rather than sit quietly alone without anything to do. Research, especially the new neural research, all show that allowing your mind to drift is healthy and productive. Google, for example, has courses for employees in mindfulness, meditation, and "Search Inside Yourself". The research also shows that not giving yourself time to reflect impairs your ability to empathize with others. "Feeling what you feel is an ability that atrophies if you don't use it."

Another example of why reflection is important to well being, creativity, satisfaction with life, and connections to others

Like the "bicycles for the mind" quote from Steve Jobs and the importance of understanding your "tool of the trade" be it a computer or a smart phone.

From Science Daily on how we may form new habits, 8/8/2014, Society for Personality and Social Psychology

Travis Bradberry, December 3, 2015 on behaviors that make you more effective

article by Samantha Whitehorne on October 23, 2015 on what associations are doing to ramp up the meditation, mindfulness, etc. at their meetings to help attendees boost their mental health

Ron Barnett asserts that higher education has three goals to achieve with students: to create epistemological and ontological disturbance in the minds of the students; (curiosity), enable students to live at ease with this perplexing and unsettling environment; and enable them to make their own positive contributions to this super complex world.

Ron Barnett asserts that higher education has three goals to achieve with students: to create epistemological and ontological disturbance in the minds of the students; (curiosity), enable students to live at ease with this perplexing and unsettling environment; and enable them to make their own positive contributions to this super complex world. 

great review of impact of Slack group chat tool on offices and productivity, Annalee Newitz, March 9, 2016.  

taking responsibility for your own learning

Blog post by Lisa Lane in her (Online) Teaching Blog, June 25, 2011 She reviews Pink's book on A Whole New Mind. Excerpt: "Accumulation -> Meaning Pink says the predominance of the baby boomer mentality means that the goal of accumulating meterial goods is changing to the desire to find meaning in life, a kind of "post-materialism"." For each chapter on these aptitudes, Pink provides resources and tips to develop your own brain along the new lines. Thus we go from theory in Chapter 1 to a series of storied examples, then each chapter ends with self-help advice. (It's already pretty light - I find it very funny that there's a "Summarized for Busy People" version available.) But the mental yoga commercial was a distraction from the main idea. What's significant here is that right-brained, big picture, contextual, design-based thinking will likely be increasingly respected in our culture.

Blog post at P2PU, 2.13.13, that references MIT Media Lab's indicators for measuring success--might they apply to WLStudio? See excerpt below. "Finding the Right Metrics It can be easier to think about success in terms of indicators. High-level indicators are essentially aggregates of measurements that give you a quick indication of whether or not the organization is on target with its goals and will allow us to map all projects and initiatives to the objectives - bearing in mind that most projects don't fit nicely into a single goal or objective, but it's helpful to know how each project is contributing to the overall goals of the organisation. MIT Media Lab uses three indicators when they measure success: Uniqueness - have we done something new that helps the field? Impact - Have we reached people? Magic - Did we create epiphanies and enable serendipity? "

Interesting blog post by Jennifer Dunn on Scoop.it, June 25, 2013. It suggests using LinkedIn, conferences, and current contacts as starting points for building your business network. Not so unusual but the point about how you don't have to go a conference to benefit from the circle of like-minded peers it attracts but go to the website or Facebook page or Twitter to circulate and get acquainted with the people who might be valuable for you to know is a good one. Makes me think, also, about how wikis or any record building device given to participants one year at a conference or workshop might be left open for one to go back and view current participants. (ex. BEtreat wiki is still open to me; WLstudio?)

A blog by Kirsten Olson on her new book, Wounded by School. Really like the Learner's Bill of Rights she has here: A Learner's Bill of Rights Every learner has the right to know why they are learning something, why it is important now, or may be important to them someday. Every learner has the right to engage in questioning or interrogating the idea of "importance" above. Every learner has the right to be confused and to express this confusion openly, honestly, and without shame. Every learner has the right to multiple paths to understanding a concept, an idea, a set of facts, or a series of constructs. Every learner has the right to understand his or her own mind, brain wiring, and intellectual inclinations as completely as possible. Every learner has the right to interrogate and question the means through which his or her learning is assessed. Every learner is entitled to some privacy in their imagination and thoughts. Every learner has the right to take their own imagination and thinking seriously. -From Wounded By School

Blog post by Howard Rheingold on September 1, 2009. "Knowing what to pay attention to is a cognitive skill that steers and focuses the technical knowledge of how to find information worth your attention. More and more, knowing where to direct your attention involves a third element, together with your own attentional discipline and use of online power tools - other people. Increasingly, most of the recommendations that make it possible to find fresh and useful signals amid the overwhelming noise of the Internet are social media - online networks that make possible social exchange and relationship. Tuning and feeding our personal learning networks is where the internal and the technological meet the social. "