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Interesting study using Facebook volunteers. The authors analyzed 700 million words, phrases and topic instances from Facebook messages of 75,000 volunteers who took standard personality tests, and found striking variations in language with personality, gender, age. Used an open-vocabulary technique where the data itself drives the exploration of language that found connections not captured with traditional methods. To date, this is the largest study, by order of magnitude, of language and personality.

Some interesting findings based on age and gender

blog post by Jennifer Gilhool, 6.4.2013 "You are connected to work 24/7. You don't need your lap top to be connected. You are connected via BlackBerry, iPhone and iPad to name just a few. These devices no longer provide flexibility. Instead, they tether you to the office. They enable you to work all the time and anywhere. And, now, many companies believe that is the definition of flexibility: "'What flexibility means today is not part time,' the head of work-life at one large organization told me recently. 'What people want is the ability to work anytime, anywhere.' That's true if your target labor pool is twenty-somethings and men married to homemakers. The head of HR at another large organization asked, when I described the hours problem, 'What do you mean, how can we get women to work more hours?'" - Why Men Work So Many Hours, Joan C. Williams, May 29, 2013 Harvard Business Review Why Your Manager Doesn't Want You To Innovate Ron Ashkenas Ron Ashkenas Contributor LinkedIn: Busting 8 Damaging Myths About What It Can Do For Your Career 85 Broads 85 Broads Contributor Someone has taken the "human" out of "Human Resources" departments across America. And, this behavior is not limited to operations in America. I work for a multi-national corporation that cannot seem to wean itself from the 24 hour work day. Colleagues in China often begin their day with a 6:00 a.m. meeting and end it with a meeting that begins at 10:00 p.m. or, worse, 11:00 p.m. To combat this problem, the company leadership agreed to a global meeting policy. The policy provides that global meetings should occur only between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. and that no meetings should occur on Friday nights in Asia Pacific. Further, the policy provides a 10 hour fatigue rule. In other words, there should be 10 hours between your last meeting of the day and your first meeting on the next day. First, if you need a global meeting policy, you are in

Stumbled into this blog post on why kids need to learn to code by Doug Belshaw, November 28, 2013 on Digital Media + Learning: The Power of Participation Love this rationale for why learning to code is important because I believe these arguments apply to adults acquiring greater digital literacy as well--it makes the reasons explicit. Coding is defined as learning to read and write a machine language; some are easier than others just like spoken language is. Reasons to learn to code 1. Problem-solving 2. (digital) confidence 3. Understanding the world (realizing that you can not only change and influence things but build things of value to others) In the comments, readers suggested these additional reasons: design thinking, understanding systems, knowing when to amend or break them and soft skills such as sharing your work, receiving feedback and critique to build diplomacy and negotiation skills.

Jessica Bennett of the NYTimes writes about how emoji are replacing words in emails. on twitter and other social media, even though it might be less time to type in the words. Although use is skyrocketing, communication by emoji is open to interpretation by the recipient. There are now sites, blogs, and a social network (Emoji.li) that uses only emoji for communication. A nonprofit devoted to emoji standardization across platforms (Unicode Consortium) has been formed. Examples: In their short life, emoji managed to find an exceptional cultural range: One Internet wit put out an emoji translation of Beyoncé's "Drunk in Love," and an emoji-only version of "Moby Dick," called "Emoji Dick," was recently accepted into the Library of Congress. Legal experts have even discussed whether an emoji death threat [gun and face] could be admissible in court. "I'm not sure you can really speak of it as a full-fledged language yet," said Ben Zimmer, a linguist, "but it does seem to have fascinating combinatorial possibilities. Any sort of symbolic system, when it's used for communication, is going to develop dialects."

I am certainly out of the loop on this one! A whole new language is developing - back to cave drawings but in a digital format?

Interesting blog post by Debra Donston-Miller on importance of social media metrics, April 4, 2012 1. Quality of fans/followers (organically targeting connections as followers react, reveal interests) 2. Social demographics (language, countries, age...) 3. Most popular pages, posts, and tweets 4. Page views and click-throughs (what gets read and shared) 5. Conversion (buy something, sign up for something, consume something

I like this term "free-range learning" and believe it might be part of the Studio language. "Ms. Morgan borrows the phrase "free-range learning" to describe students' behavior, and she finds that they generally shop around for content in places educators would endorse. Students seem most favorably inclined to materials from other universities. They mention lecture videos from Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology far more than the widely publicized Khan Academy, she says. If they're on a pre-med or health-science track, they prefer recognized "brands" like the Mayo Clinic. Students often seek this outside content due to dissatisfaction with their own professors, Ms. Morgan says." Also this comment: I don't think academe has really come to grips with the very large role peer-to-peer sharing plays in the way students learn. We proved this interesting phenomenon this year in a very large online course that we were in the process of redesigning. One section of the course piloted the redesign, which had dropped the former textbook in favor of all online content, cut out 1/3 of the subject areas covered in the old version of the course and changed the assignment instructions and interaction modalities radically. Despite the fact that all students in the pilot section were fully informed that they were in a different and new course, and were required to go though an extensive introductory module covering all aspects of the new version of the course, including the syllabus, and were required to pass a test covering the course requirements and structure, we still had something like 5% of the students turn in work that was based on the old course assignments and old course structure. Some of them had apparently not read any of the assignment instructions from their own section, and were relying entirely on peers in other sections for information on how to complete assignments.

article by Steven Mintz for the Chronicle of HE, July 22, 2013 Excerpt: "But the most important challenge involves a shift in the way students consume higher education. Instead of attending a single institution, students receive credit in multiple ways, including from early-college/dual-degree programs, community colleges, online providers, and multiple universities. Students are voting with their feet, embracing online courses and undermining core curricula, which served as a cash cow, by turning to alternate providers, and pursuing fewer majors that require study of a foreign language." Fifteen innovations: 1. e-advising 2. evidence-based pedagogy 3. decline of lone eagle teaching 4. optimized class time 5. earlier educational transitions 6. fewer large lecture classes 7. new frontiers for e-learning 8. personalized adaptive learning 9. increased competency based and prior learning results; 10. data driven instructions 11. aggressive pursuit of new revenue 12. online and low-residency degrees at flagships 13. more certificates and badges 14. free and open textbooks 15. public-private partnerships

Once again, Copyblogger offers something very worthwhile! Clear and great ideas about how one's "brand" opens or closes doors. 1. Plan the effect you want to have--get to know your audience to use their words in your message 2. Dress the part--understand what motivates them and choose a website theme that uses brand colors, right fonts, and print materials to make a consistent positive impression 3. Stand up straight and make eye contact--own your look on a couple of social media platforms. Do blog posts, webinars, speaking gigs, and interviews. 4. Speak their language--goes back to #1 a bit; do a focus group to pick up their phrases 5. Direct their eyes to your best attributes--three things--size, color, and placement 6. Be yourself--find a way to make them talk about you; exude confidence in what you're doing.

Copyblogger post by Demian Farnworth on how children's books help you define your business message. December 2013 "As you read: Look at the emotions. What core emotion is behind each story? Is it fear? Joy? Sadness? Anger? Look at the characters. Who is the main character? Is he or she likeable? Who are the supporting characters? Who is the enemy of the main character? Look at the conflict. What does the main character want? What obstacle is stopping the main character from getting what he wants? How does the story end? Look at the language. The short words. The short sentences. The short paragraphs. The repetition and alliteration."

Web site for Digital Competence: European-wide validation for all levels of learning "Objective:  Identify the key components of Digital Competence (DC) in terms of the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to be digitally competent; Develop a DC framework/guidelines that can be validated at European level, taking into account relevant frameworks currently available; Propose a roadmap for the possible use and revision of a DC framework for all levels of learners. Outcomes: (1) a consolidated draft proposal for a DC framework, applicable at all levels of education, including non-formal settings (2) roadmap on how to realise and revise the DC framework. Rationale: With the 2006 European Recommendation on Key Competences (Official Journal L 394 of 30.12.2006), Digital Competence has been acknowledged as one of the 8 key competences for Lifelong Learning by the European Union. Digital Competence can be broadly defined as the confident, critical and creative use of ICT to achieve goals related to work, employability, learning, leisure, inclusion and/or participation in society. DC is a transversal key competence which, as such, enables acquiring other key competences (e.g. language, maths, learning to learn, creativity). It is amongst the so-called 21st Century skills which should be acquired by all citizens, to ensure their active socio-economic participation in society and the economy. Major questions: What are the key components of DC and what kind of knowledge, skills and attitudes people should have to be digitally competent, today and in the future? How can and/or should the development of this competence be validated at European level within a lifelong learning context, thus encompassing formal education, non-formal and informal learning and the world of work? "

From The Next Web (TNW) News by Michael Redbord, the VP of Global Customer Support and Technical Services at HubSpot. Backs up what the Forbes, USNews, and other articles are saying about the ability of liberal arts majors to think, problem solve, see from different perspectives, and translate the technical into common language. Although geared towards recent grads, good advice for any job seekers on applying for jobs, a resume that tells your story, not your lists of accomplishments, and evidence of your investment in yourself.

Nice explication of five things successful learners do by Kevin Daum, Inc. 1. Imagine the outcome (have purpose!) 2. Think of text as a starting point (create additional opportunities for experiental learning--talk it through with others, watch it being done, do it) 3. Learn in your language(visual, auditory, tactile) 4. Make failure fun (test and push the boundaries) 5. Make accountability exhilarating (impact of tests, display your new skills or knowledge)

Continuous acquisition and application of knowledge, skills, and beliefs by individuals, teams, and the whole enterprise is an essential aspect of high performance organizations. However, barriers to this learning are common in organizations. These barriers must be overcome in order for organizations to have long term success. Stephen Gill has identified 12 common barriers to learning in organizations: Program focus; Limited resources; work-learning dichotomy; passive leadership; non-learning culture; resistance to change; not discussing the un-discussable; need for control; focus on short-term, simple solutions; skilled incompetence; blame-not gain language; selective attention.

Really good blog post by Brook Manville, 9/5/14, HBR on how the "thin we" becomes the "thick we" excerpt: To borrow language from the philosopher Avishai Margalit, the web is a "thin we" type of network. Participants tend to belong for individualistic reasons. They have little in common with other members, and they're reluctant to do much for the network. A big goal requires a "thick we" network - a community of people who feel responsible for collaborating toward a shared purpose that they see as superseding their individual needs. Members of a community - as opposed to a simple network - expect relationships within the group to continue, and they even hold one another accountable for effort and performance. When networks develop into communities, the results can be powerful. Look at the accomplishments of Wikipedia contributors, open-source software developers who find and fix bugs in Linux, or doctors who help each another with difficult diagnoses as part of the Sermo social network.

post by Elle Kaplan in Inc. on leading language

The Table plug in uses CSS for formatting the table: cell width and style, font and background color, etc. Here is a site recommended by the TablePress for beginners to learn to code using CSS.

CSS language is needed for the tablepress plug in for our site.

An article view by Jenna Wortham at the New York Times of different online learning sites for mastering computer codes and programming, March 27, 2012. Mentions Codecademy, Girls Develop It, Treehouse, General Assembly, etc. Excerpt: "Peter Harsha, director of government affairs at the association, said the figure had been steadily climbing for the last three years, after a six-year decline in the aftermath of the dot-com bust. Mr. Harsha said that interest in computer science was cyclical but that the current excitement seemed to be more than a blip and was not limited to people who wanted to be engineers. "To be successful in the modern world, regardless of your occupation, requires a fluency in computers," he said. "It is more than knowing how to use Word or Excel but how to use a computer to solve problems." "

good article by Sam Polk, July 2016, on how sexist talk by men about women catapults even worse behavior by men

from the NYTimes

from the NYTimes

Education Week published online 6.10.15 on why districts put OERs to work in their schools. Commercial publishers fighting back saying that curriculum is more than content; C.P.s offer "wraparound support" for their resources to educators.