Group items tagged

good blog on why PDFs fall short on usability by journalists and others who are not looking to print them out

Great article on pay gaps between men and women in same positions but with slightly different levels of experience, college attainment--men except for one earned more, sometimes much more.

How the Golden Years Disappeared by Marc Freedman, Salon, April 2, 2012. This is an excerpt from the Big Shift, a book written by Marc Freedman, the man who started Civic Ventures about 10 years ago. Perhaps the WLStudio takes on this social imperative and this is how we get funding? "The new migration is across time and the life course, as tens of millions (8,000 a day, one every ten seconds, are turning sixty) reach the spot where middle age used to end and old age once began, the new territory where a resurgent purpose gap, and gulf in identity, stands. Opportunity is there as well. The surge of people into this new stage of life is one of the most important social phenomena of the new century. Never before have so many people had so much experience and the time and the capacity to do something significant with it. That's the gift of longevity, the great potential payoff on all the progress we've made in extending lives. Realizing these possibilities will require the courage to break from old and familiar patterns that once were our friends but just don't work any longer. It means considering ideas like "gap years" for grown ups, new kinds of internships and fellowships for Americans moving beyond midlife, remodelling higher education to help retrain people who have been working for 40 or 50 years, even the creation of new kinds of investment accounts to help cover the costs of transitioning to new careers. What we're facing is not a solo matter; it's a social imperative, an urgent one that must be solved as the great midlife migration gathers scale and momentum."

Another approach might be with engage a large or small company to guide their employees through courses that would improve their current job skills. I shared a writing course I found at the Purdue sight with me daughter. She shared it with her supervisor suggesting that their whole team take the course. There may also be opportunities to work with job centers to educate potential employees on specific job skills required by a company. I mentioned online learning at my most recent book club. WOW, they see it as a way to exchange money for a degree. The response was very negative. Now, Judge Judy is offering online access to cases - and you can weigh in on how you think it should be resolved. Online interaction is coming but, there needs to be a clear case made for its value as an educational tool. I have always had a fear about "experts" teaching the courses. It reminds me of cloning.

The new science of social physics which is about the way human social networks spread ideas and transform those ideas into behaviors. Alex Pentland has a new book: Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread: The Lessons from a New Science that explores the patterns of information exchange in social networks, the ways humans are like bees, and how networks large and small can be tuned to increase exploration and community engagement.

Interesting scale of factors for measuring community performance in relation to other communities

article on problems with LA school district not making good use of technology and dismissing its value because it did not change test scores

Interesting article on value of remote video exams

LA Times article by Matt Pearce, January 20, 2013 on infrequent Office MAx customer who received a solicitation from Office Max with his name on it followed, by "Daughter Killed in Car Crash." How did the company get the information and why did it appear on the envelope because the recipient had lost his daughter in a car crash a year before?

Don Kilburn/Tom Vander Ark blog post on how formative assessment made possible by technology is helping GenerationDo-It-Yourself students (and teachers?) remediate while still in high school. Pearson is behind this article (remember Barb McDonald's mention of this in a CPSquare discussion).

from the World Education newsletter. Andy Nash describes the Technology Integration Project (TIP), a six-month PD initiative designed to prepare adult educators to understand, choose, and effectively incorporate technology into instruction. Based on the online World Ed course, Integrating Technology into the Adult Education Classroom, with additional support from a coach and an online learning community.

Interesting article by Jessica Leigh Hester, July 7, 2015 on CityLab that shows impact of "social influence bias" in crowdsourced opinions--good case for crap detection. Don't know how to get around it except look at other review sites, business's website, etc.

newspaper article by Marissa Cevallos, Chicago Tribune writer, August 25, 2010. importance of moving around during the day, cites American Heart Association study on impact of sitting too much,

mentions wage theft experienced by NFL cheerleaders, fast food workers, low-wage workers

a wonderful blog post by Jim McGee, April 1, 2002, on the importance of keeping a knowledge-log--k-log--for being able to retrace one's steps when the final conclusion/work product falls short and one has to start over and for engaging with others about how the thought line developed. Justifies paper printouts and variously named file versions to show stages of idea exploration and development. Our electronic work flow replaces how we used to work with handwritten drafts with all the erasures and column notes, then send them to a graphics person for placing into a graphics format, then circulating for reaction from involved stakeholders, some of them junior staff, then incorporating feedback, final edits, and voila! a product for the client.

very funny list of terms and pictures to illustrate the uniqueness of terms for writers/bloggers by Daniel Dalton on July 25, 2014, BuzzFeed via twitter

an interesting case study of a large company embedding Yammer (ESN) in a 130,000 employee setting. Anna Carlson interviewed Jennifer Hayward from Telefonica, 6/2014.

SeniorNet, an international(?) nonprofit organization run by volunteers out of Ft. Myers, FL to serve adults 55+. Hmmmm.

Depressing article from USAToday by Elizabeth Weise about how the US is now 28th on the list of global gender equality, behind Rowanda and some other third world countries.

great <2 minute video on find your tribe online