Stepping Out: Living the Fitbit Life

The New Yorker > June 30, 2014

Stepping Out: Living the Fitbit life
By DAVID SEDARIS

I look back on the days I averaged only thirty thousand steps, and think, Honestly, how lazy can you get?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/06/30/140630fa_fact_sedaris

The New Meaning of Mobility

The New Atlantis > Spring 2011

The New Meaning of Mobility
By Christine Rosen

You can go anywhere, but you can also be found anywhere. The possibility encapsulated in the old form of mobility — the freedom to escape one's past, the chance to start anew — is undermined by the technologies of the new mobility, which make it increasingly difficult for us, even from moment to moment in far-off places, to be free from society, from each other, and from ourselves.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-new-meaning-of-mobility

U.S. Supreme Court protects cell phone privacy

The New York Times > June 25, 2014

Supreme Court Says Phones Can’t Be Searched Without a Warrant
By Adam Liptak

WASHINGTON — In a sweeping victory for privacy rights in the digital age, the Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously ruled that the police need warrants to search the cellphones of people they arrest.

While the decision will offer protection to the 12 million people arrested every year, many for minor crimes, its impact will most likely be much broader. The ruling almost certainly also applies to searches of tablet and laptop computers, and its reasoning may apply to searches of homes and businesses and of information held by third parties like phone companies. ...

Read the full article:
http://nyti.ms/Twhk0n

Feeling impulsive? Head for the forest

Pacific Standard: The Science of Society > June 10, 2014 

Feeling Impulsive? Head for the Forest

By Tom Jacobs 

New research finds yet another benefit of viewing images of the natural world.

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/nature-and-technology/nature-benefits-outdoors-feeling-impulsive-head-forest-82984/

A first-of-its kind study, conducted at Utah State University, finds that people who looked at scenes of the natural world made less-impulsive decisions than those who viewed either buildings or simple geometrical shapes. Much research has found exposure to nature can lower stress; it now appears it also nudges us into making smarter choices. ... 

... "Exposure to scenes of natural environments resulted in significantly less impulsive decision-making," the researchers write. "Viewing scenes of built environments and geometric shapes resulted in similar, higher levels of impulsive decision-making." ... 

Here's an image that I recommended for the back wall of a noisy call center. 

Another nature mural in their entryway could calm agitated customers as they enter the space. 

The DuckDuckGo search engine doesn't track you

DuckDuckGo is a search engine that does not track you and, has more instant answers and less spam/clutter.

https://duckduckgo.com/

Tablet & Smartphone Boot Camp for Parents

Greater Good Science Center, November 26, 2013

Tablet and Smartphone Boot Camp 
for Middle School Parents

By Christine Carter for GGSC Raising Happiness blog

Parents need to provide their kids with much more than batteries for all their devices.

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/raising_happiness/post/tablet_and_smartphone_boot_camp_for_middle_school_parents

High Career Turnover Rates for Women in STEM Fields

Campus Technology, November 22, 2013

High Career Turnover Rates for Women in STEM Fields: Inhospitable Environment a Factor 
By Leila Meyer

Fifty percent of women working in STEM careers leave their field for other occupations in the first 12 years of their career, compared to only 20 percent of professional women in non-STEM fields, according to a new study from researchers at Cornell University and the University of Texas at Austin.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2013/11/22/high-career-turnover-rates-for-women-in-stem-fields-inhospitable-environment-a-factor.aspx

The Science Behind Storytelling & Why It Matters

The Official SlideShare Blog, November 20, 2013

The Science Behind Storytelling — and Why It Matters
By Gavin McMahon

Here's a collection of storytelling rules tweeted out by Emma Coats, former story artist at Pixar.

http://blog.slideshare.net/2013/11/20/the-science-behind-storytelling-and-why-it-matters/index.html

A Major University & How It Works

The New York Times, November 7, 2013

A Major University and How It Works
By STEPHEN HOLDEN

Frederick Wiseman's documentary "At Berkeley" takes viewers into the classrooms and the broad campus life of a well-functioning university.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/movies/at-berkeley-a-documentary-by-frederick-wiseman.html?smid=tw-nytmovies&seid=auto&_r=0

or use Twitter URL if blocked by NYTimes.com paywall

http://t.co/h3ASxkUMxH

http://nyti.ms/HDoj1T

-- A version of this review appears in print on November 8, 2013, on page C10 of the New York edition with the headline: A Major University And How It Works.

... In its refusal to identify anyone by name or job title, this four-hour film — Mr. Wiseman's 38th institutional documentary since 1967 — makes a profound statement about democratic participation. It's not the "me, but the "we," that keeps democracy alive. From the humblest janitor to the most esteemed professor, everyone belongs to the same community and is equally important. The modern university is a complex organism that, to function efficiently, needs every component, including someone to cut the grass. ...

The Two Cultures of Educational Reform

The New York Times > Opinionator > August 26, 2013

The Two Cultures of Educational Reform
By Stanley Fish

Online teaching — its possibilities and its deadly caveats.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/26/the-two-cultures-of-educational-reform/

or use the Twitter URL if blocked by NYTimes.com paywall

http://nyti.ms/1dK5XIh

Butterick’s Practical Typography

On August 26, 2013, TidBITS Editors wrote for TidBITS issue 1188:

Butterick's Practical Typography

Typographer Matthew Butterick, who helped design fonts for Apple, Microsoft, and others, has released an exceptional online book, called "Butterick's Practical Typography," that is a must-read for anyone who works with text. The book revolves around a few simple rules that will dramatically improve your understanding and implementation of typography. While the book can be read for free, you can pay him back by purchasing his fonts or his "Typography for Lawyers" book, making a donation, or just telling people about the site.

http://practicaltypography.com/

NYT > How technology wrecks the middle class

The New York Times > Opinionator > August 24, 2013

How Technology Wrecks the Middle Class
By David H. Autor & David Dorn

Technology is creating jobs — but at the upper and lower ends of the spectrum. The outlook for the middle class may rely on "new artisans" who combine technical and interpersonal skills.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/how-technology-wrecks-the-middle-class/

or use the Twitter URL if blocked by NYTimes.com paywall

http://nyti.ms/1aF4uTQ

What are the secrets to a happy life?

Greater Good Science Center, August 6, 2013

What are the Secrets to a Happy Life?
By George E. Vaillant

In following 268 men for their entire lives, the Harvard Grant Study has discovered why some of them turned out happier than others.

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_are_secrets_to_happy_life

-- George E. Vaillant, M.D., is a psychoanalyst and a research psychiatrist, one of the pioneers in the study of adult development. He is a professor at Harvard University and directed Harvard's Study of Adult Development for thirty-five years. His 1977 book, Adaptation to Life, is a classic text in the study of adult development. He is also the author of Aging Well, The Natural History of Alcoholism, and Triumphs of Experience, from which this essay is adapted.

It's not about the games or educational apps

This was obvious to me since reading "Silicon Snake Oil" by Clifford Stoll while in graduate school.

Slate > Future Tense > April 15, 2013

The Smart Way to Use iPads in the Classroom
By Lisa Guernsey

It's not about the games or educational apps.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/04/ipads_in_the_classroom_the_right_way_to_use_them_demonstrated_by_a_swiss.html

Ten years ago, Stanford's Larry Cuban noted that computers in the classroom were being oversold and underused. In short order, the iPad craze could take the same turn. My lesson from ZIS is that we should make sure we have teachers who understand how to help children learn from the technology before throwing a lot of money into iPad purchasing. It wasn't the 600 iPads that were so impressive — it was the mindset of a teaching staff devoted to giving students time for creation and reflection. Are American public schools ready to recognize that it's the adults and students around the iPads, not just the iPads themselves, that require some real attention?

-- Lisa Guernsey is author of "Screen Time: How Electronic Media -- From Baby Videos to Educational Software -- Affects Your Young Child"

http://www.lisaguernsey.com/screen-time.htm

CHE > You're Distracted. This Professor Can Help.

The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 24, 2013

You're Distracted. This Professor Can Help.
By Marc Parry

David Levy's course at the University of Washington puts technology in its place — in the control of students.

http://chronicle.com/article/Youre-Distracted-This/138079/

Chemical Education Digital Library

On March 22, 2013, The Internet Scout Report wrote:

Chemical Education Digital Library
http://www.chemeddl.org/collections/LivTexts/

Benzene rings and other aspects of chemistry come alive with these "living textbooks." This collection of key chemistry documents and primers is made possible via the Chemical Education Digital Library (ChemEd DL) and its contains eight separate items. They are called "living" because they are updated by their owners and those responsible for their continued success.

Users will find "Practice in Thinking: A Laboratory Course in Introductory Chemistry," "Chemistry Leaflets," and "Wiki: Quantum States of Atoms and Molecules" here for their consideration. The Chemistry Leaflets provide an interesting wrinkle as they were originally published between 1927 and the mid-1940s. Visitors shouldn't miss "Chemical Principles through Integrated Multiple Exemplars (ChemPRIME)" as it is designed so that general chemistry concepts can be presented in an order that reflects the conceptual structure of the discipline. [KMG]

-----------------------

From The Scout Report.
Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2013
http://scout.wisc.edu/

5 alternatives to Comic Sans

Macworld, March 15, 2013

Killing Comic Sans: 5 alternative fonts that protect your dignity
By Clare Brandt

Comic Sans grabbed the collective imagination of millions of Windows users, and it's maintained that stranglehold for nearly a decade. It's time to help this chirpy standby go the way of the Macarena.

http://www.macworld.com/article/2030201/killing-comic-sans-5-alternative-fonts-that-protect-your-dignity.html

Do these remind you of USA Today infographics?

On March 11, 2013, Steven Heller posted to his blog The Daily Heller:

A Year in the Life

Almanach Hachette is one of the great annuals from the era of almanacs. It was the record of the life of France in a year. From the oddest oddities of the year to the relative size of pigs and sheep throughout Europe to the quantity of automobiles on the continent, these books of facts and factoids documented anything and everything.

http://imprint.printmag.com/daily-heller/a-year-in-the-life/

CHE > Running the Zombie Marathon

The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 11, 2013

Running the Zombie Marathon
By Noah J. Toly

We need a new metaphor for the long process from dissertation to tenure.

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Zombie-Marathon/137809/

What is the use of quotations? We are what we quote

The New York Times > Draft > March 2, 2013 

We Are What We Quote

By GEOFFREY O'BRIEN

A good quotation can serve as a model for a writer's own work. 

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/02/we-are-what-we-quote/?ref=opinion

-- Geoffrey O'Brien, the author of "The Fall of the House of Walworth," is editor in chief of the Library of America and general editor of the 18th edition of "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations."

HBR > Just call someone already!

Harvard Business Review > February 4, 2013

Just Call Someone Already
By Dan Pallotta for HBR Blog Network

The way people shun the telephone is getting ridiculous.

http://blogs.hbr.org/pallotta/2013/02/just-call-someone-already.html

... Much worse than the inefficiency of using e-mail to set up phone calls are the missed opportunities and unnecessary misunderstandings that come when we use e-mail instead of phone calls. That happens far more often than is prudent. We use e-mail to avoid conflict. We use it to avoid feeling uncomfortable. To overcome shyness, inferiority complexes, doubts, apprehensions, and all manner of other psychological and emotional problems. In business, we use it to overcome our fear of selling. To make sure we're never caught off guard or put on the spot. Because it's just too much trouble to get up and walk two cubes over to ask a question in person. And we have convinced ourselves that this is all more advanced, more expedient, more productive. ...

4 CIA secrets that can boost your career

Wall Street Journal > February 4, 2013

Four CIA Secrets That Can Boost Your Career
By J.C. CARLESON for WSJ Speakeasy

... spies rely on psychology far more than they do on technology. Instead of gizmos or gadgets, CIA officers use behavioral techniques to elicit secrets from people and organizations ... Here are four examples of lessons from the clandestine world that corporate America can use:

1. Appreciate the power of offensive recruiting.
2. Build a network up and down.
3. Step away from the spreadsheets.
4. "Manipulate" is not a dirty word.

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/02/04/what-the-cia-can-teach-businesses/

-- J.C. Carleson is a former undercover CIA officer who spent nine years conducting clandestine operations around the globe. She is the author of "Work Like a Spy: Business Tips From a Former CIA Officer."

Simply showing up and asking the right people the right questions told a very different story from the imagery, the intercepts, and the analysis. Human intelligence, in this case, made a mockery of the spreadsheets. This isn’t always so, of course. But an overreliance on metrics, spreadsheets, and forecasts can leave number-driven executives blind to the [reality on the ground].

Premature reports of the death of the printed book

Don't Burn Your Books — Print Is Here to Stay
By Nicholas Carr for WSJ, January 5, 2013, p. C2

The e-book had its moment, but sales are slowing. Readers still want to turn those crisp, bound pages.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323874204578219563353697002.html?mod=ITP_review_0

— Mr. Carr is the author of "The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains."

... [A] Pew Research Center survey released last month ... showed that the percentage of adults who have read an e-book rose modestly over the past year, from 16% to 23%. But it also revealed that fully 89% of regular book readers said that they had read at least one printed book during the preceding 12 months. Only 30% reported reading even a single e-book in the past year.

... [T]he Association of American Publishers reported that the annual growth rate for e-book sales fell abruptly during 2012, to about 34%.

... A 2012 survey by Bowker Market Research revealed that just 16% of Americans have actually purchased an e-book and that a whopping 59% say they have "no interest" in buying one. ...

Adjunct Project = Wide range in pay & work conditions

The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 4, 2013

Adjunct Project Shows Wide Range in Pay and Working Conditions
By Audrey Williams June and Jonah Newman

Adjuncts reported earning overall average pay of $2,987 per three-credit course. Instructors at 16 colleges said they made less than $1,000.

http://chronicle.com/article/Adjunct-Project-Shows-Wide/136439/

... Adjunct Project [is] a crowdsourcing effort that started last February when Joshua A. Boldt, a writing instructor in Georgia, put online a publicly editable spreadsheet. Nearly 2,000 entries have already been made on adjuncts' pay and working conditions, and a clearer national picture is emerging.

Now, to increase participation and collect ever-more-comprehensive information, Mr. Boldt and The Chronicle are expanding the project.

The new Web site, http://adjunct.chronicle.com, started this month, allows data to be sorted and compared by department, college, and region of the country. It displays information that adjuncts have reported about working conditions, such as whether they participate in shared governance, are part of a union, and receive health insurance and retirement benefits.

The site is designed to make it easy for many more adjuncts to add information. ...

A remarkable number of women -- in binders?

The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 2, 2013

A Remarkable Number of Women
By Female Science Professor

"Harmless" comments directed at groups of female scientists aren't so harmless in a male-dominated field.

http://chronicle.com/article/A-Remarkable-Number-of-Women/136397/

You can tell you're in a male-dominated discipline in the sciences when a gathering of three or more women working, standing, or sitting together in a professional setting in that field is considered "remarkable."

Three seems to be the magic number. When at least three women are collaborating in a male-oriented discipline or conversing together at a conference, they tend to attract comments, some unwelcome. Recently I have heard male scholars make the following comments ...

Quote of the Day: Complex lifestyles

Our lifestyles have become extremely complex. How can we simply our lives, reduce consumption, lower our impact on the environment, do less harm to other living things, reduce expenses, have fewer distractions, have less maintenance, enjoy more freedom and flexibility, and be able to live in a way that is financially less demanding?

-- John Daido Loori, The Zen of Creativity

Adbusters’ war against too much of everything

The War Against Too Much of Everything
By Jeff Sommer for The New York Times, December 22, 2012

Kalle Lasn of Adbusters magazine is taking on what he sees as overconsumption of all kinds, most recently with a "Buy Nothing Christmas" campaign.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/business/adbusters-war-against-too-much-of-everything.html?hp&_r=0

-- A version of this article appeared in print on December 23, 2012, on page BU1 of the New York edition with the headline: The War Against Too Much of Everything.

Some kids have inflated sense of their science skills

Why Some Kids Have An Inflated Sense Of Their Science Skills
By Shankar Vedantam for NPR, December 21, 2012

A massive analysis of some 350,000 students at nearly 14,000 schools in 53 countries has uncovered a paradox: Students in many countries that are mediocre at science have an inflated sense of how good they are.

http://www.npr.org/2012/12/21/167718275/why-some-kids-have-an-inflated-sense-of-their-science-skills

How to ask great questions

The One Conversational Tool That Will Make You Better At Absolutely Everything
By Shane Snow for Fast Company, December 17, 2012

Great insight moves your career, organization, or business forward. The problem? Most people are terrible at asking questions. Learn from the pros how to do it right.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3003945/one-conversational-tool-will-make-you-better-absolutely-everything

Sidebar: Great Questions At A Glance

• Don't ramble on -- terminate the sentence at the question mark.
• Get comfortable with silence.
• Start with "who, what, when, where, how, or why" for more meaningful answers.
• Don't fish for the answer you want.
• Stop nodding if you don't understand -- ask a follow-up instead.
• If you get a non-answer, approach it again from a different angle.
• Rephrase the answer in your own words.
• Don't be afraid to ask dumb questions.

13 online student retention strategies

Faculty Focus, December 7, 2012

Online Student Retention Strategies: A Baker's Dozen of Recommendations
By Michael Jazzar

Despite the tremendous growth of online education programs, student retention for online courses remains problematic. The attrition rate from online universities is often cited as 20% to 50% (Diaz, 2002). Studies also reveal that attrition from online programs can be as high as 70% to 80% (Dagger, Wade & Conlan, 2004).

With startling percentages of students leaving online educational programs, the question becomes "What should an institution do to encourage, inspire, and retain students in its online educational programs?" The responses will vary; however, there is no denying the importance of the foundation course. The foundation course is a student's first taste of online learning and therefore must provide students with a positive learning experience. To help ensure a successful first experience, I offer this baker's dozen of recommendations. ...

http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/online-student-retention-strategies-a-bakers-dozen-of-recommendations/

Will technology make us more like the Amish?

ASU > CSPO's As We Now Think > December 3, 2012

We're becoming a bit more Amish
By Jamey Wetmore

You would think with nearly everyone walking around with smartphone that the concept of society becoming more Amish sounds ridiculous. With that said, CSPO faculty member Jamey Wetmore says more and more of us are starting to think about the impact technology has on our relations, a concept that is very "Amish."

http://aswenowthink.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/were-becoming-a-bit-more-amish/


Wetmore, Jameson M. (Summer 2007). Amish Technology: Reinforcing Values and Building Community. IEEE Technology & Society, 26(2): 10-21.

http://www.cspo.org/documents/Wetmore-AmishTechnology-v2.pdf


CSPO = Consortium For Science, Policy & Outcomes @ Arizona State University

Building conversational rapport in a job interview

Inside Higher Ed, October 22, 2012

Conversational Rapport
By H. William Rice

Why some good candidates don't connect with those interviewing them, and how to improve your chances of impressing the search committee.

http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2012/10/22/essay-about-building-conversational-rapport-job-interview

The untold history of color

On October 15, 2012, Jude Stewart posted to the ImPrint blog:

Merchandize! Marvelize! Monetize! with Color

The Color Revolution, a new book from MIT Press by the design historian Regina Lee Blaszczyk, explores the long and mostly unknown relationship between color and commerce, from the industrial revolution to the standardization of colors across industries. Exposing the central role that color plays in driving consumer desires, Blaszczyk explains how we came to live in this color-drenched world. ...

http://imprint.printmag.com/color/merchandize-marvelize-monetize-with-color/

The neurochemistry of empathy, storytelling and ...

On October 3, 2012, Maria Popova posted to Brain Pickings:

The Neurochemistry of Empathy, Storytelling, and the Dramatic Arc, Animated

What cortisol and oxytocin have to do with a 19th-century German playwright.

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/10/03/paul-zak-kirby-ferguson-storytelling/

10 Reasons People Resist Change @ HBR

HBR Blog Network @ Harvard Business Review

Ten Reasons People Resist Change
By Rosabeth Moss Kanter, September 25, 2012

Leadership is about change, but what is a leader to do when faced with ubiquitous resistance? Resistance to change manifests itself in many ways, from foot-dragging and inertia to petty sabotage to outright rebellions. The best tool for leaders of change is to understand the predictable, universal sources of resistance in each situation and then strategize around them. Here are the ten I've found to be the most common. ...

http://blogs.hbr.org/kanter/2012/09/ten-reasons-people-resist-chang.html

Teacher as saint or psycho

The New York Times, September 14, 2012

Not So Hot for Teacher
By Elizabeth Alsop

How did fictional educators go from ‘To Sir, With Love’ to ‘Breaking Bad’?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/magazine/not-so-hot-for-teacher.html

Group breaks can raise workplace productivity

The New York Times, July 14, 2012

Communal Breaks: A Chance to Bond

What is one of the most important decisions a company can make? It's where to put the coffee.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/jobs/group-breaks-can-raise-workplace-productivity.html

Top 10 edits to academic book manuscripts

On July 5, 2012, Carol Saller posted to The Chronicle of Higher Education blog Lingua Franca:

The Top 10 Edits to Academic Book Manuscripts

Even after a well-written and well-prepared book has made it past an acquiring editor and through peer review, there is plenty for a manuscript editor to do. ...

Here are the issues my colleagues and I spend the most time on in the main text, in reverse order of how much labor they require. ...

http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2012/07/05/the-top-10-edits-to-academic-book-manuscripts/

B.F. Skinner's daughter corrects misimpressions

The Atlantic, June 2012

The Perfected Self
By David H. Freedman

B. F. Skinner's notorious theory of behavior modification was denounced by critics 50 years ago as a fascist, manipulative vehicle for government control. But Skinner's ideas are making an unlikely comeback today, powered by smartphone apps that are transforming us into thinner, richer, all-around-better versions of ourselves. The only thing we have to give up? Free will.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/06/the-perfected-self/8970/

HBR: Leadership Is a Conversation

Harvard Business Review, June 2012

Leadership Is a Conversation
By Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind

... Building upon the insights and examples gleaned from [our] research, we have developed a model of leadership that we call “organizational conversation.”

Smart leaders today, we have found, engage with employees in a way that resembles an ordinary person-to-person conversation more than it does a series of commands from on high. Furthermore, they initiate practices and foster cultural norms that instill a conversational sensibility throughout their organizations. Chief among the benefits of this approach is that it allows a large or growing company to function like a small one. By talking with employees, rather than simply issuing orders, leaders can retain or recapture some of the qualities—operational flexibility, high levels of employee engagement, tight strategic alignment—that enable start-ups to outperform better-established rivals.

In developing our model, we have identified four elements of organizational conversation that reflect the essential attributes of interpersonal conversation: intimacy, interactivity, inclusion, and intentionality. ...

http://hbr.org/2012/06/leadership-is-a-conversation/ar/1

Why is walking in the woods so good for you?

The Globe & Mail, May 27, 2012

Why is walking in the woods so good for you?
By Alex Hutchinson

The Japanese call it shinrin-yoku - forest bathing. The key may be that it gives your mind a chance to wander and engage in your surroundings.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/fitness/why-is-walking-in-the-woods-so-good-for-you/article4209703/

Teaching Modules: How does the mind work?

On May 18, 2012, Internet Scout Project wrote:

The Mind: Teaching Modules
http://www.learner.org/resources/series150.html

How does the mind work? And what do we know about its various operations? This series from the Annenberg Foundation (originally produced by Colorado State University) offers 35 short video clips that cover current findings on language processing, drug treatment and addictions, and cognitive development throughout the life span. The programs also cover mood and personality disorders, and pain and its treatment. Titles here include
"Hypnotic Dissociation and Pain Relief," "The Frontal Lobes: Cognition and Awareness," and "Social Development in Infancy." Visitors can look over related resources from other Annenberg collections, including a series on "The World of Abnormal Psychology," and another on the workings of the brain (as distinct from the mind). Finally, visitors can view a set of resources, including interactive worksheets and syllabi, designed to complement these videos. [KMG]

-----------------------

From The Scout Report. Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2012
http://scout.wisc.edu/

Dan Roam: When Words Don't Work

I listened to this podcast in the wee hours when I couldn't sleep. Interesting!

Tech Nation with Dr. Moira Gunn
33 minutes, 15.4 mb, recorded May 15, 2012

Author Dan Roam discusses his newest book "Blah, Blah, Blah: What To Do When Works Don't Work" and why he founded The Napkin Academy to better explain how he uses both verbal and visual thinking to understand complex ideas.

http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail5295.html

Dan Roam
http://www.danroam.com/
 

How to write an anonymous peer review

The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 12, 2012

How to Write an Anonymous Peer Review
By Kevin D. Haggerty

Civility is important in evaluating a manuscript for publication, but so is telling the truth when the paper falls short.

http://chronicle.com/article/How-to-Write-an-Anonymous-Peer/131475/

Forbes: The Secret Power Of Introverts

ForbesWoman, January 26, 2012

The Secret Power Of Introverts
By Jenna Goudreau

If you had to guess, what would you say investor Warren Buffett and civil rights activist Rosa Parks had in common? How about Charles Darwin, Al Gore, J.K. Rowling, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi and Google’s Larry Page? They are icons. They are leaders. And they are introverts. ...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoudreau/2012/01/26/the-secret-power-of-introverts/

To teach, show & tell

Harvard Business Review's Management Tip of the Day
January 03, 2012

To Teach, Show and Tell

How many times have you trained a colleague in a task, only to have that person come knocking on your door every five minutes with a question? People learn by watching others, so instead of telling people how to solve a problem, show them. Take them through each step, explaining the reasons behind each. Then allow them to ask as many questions as needed. This will not only give them the foundation they need to do the task, but will prompt you to master the task more deeply as you provide a justification for each step.

http://hbr.org/tip/2012/01/03/to-teach-show-and-tell

Adapted from "The Best Approach to Training" by Richard Catrambone
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/10/the_best_approach_to_training.html
 

The Myth of the Bookless Library

On November 15, 2011, Barbara Fister posted to her Inside Higher Ed blog Library Babel Fish:


The Myth of the Bookless Library

Ten years ago, Abigail Sellen and Richard Harper published a nifty book about how and why people use paper in their workplaces. The Myth of the Paperless Office reported ethnographic observations of people struggling to do things with computers that they were used to doing on paper; sometimes there were good reasons why paper was so persistent. ...

Now we have the bookless library. What is it about the concept of a library without books that is so sensational? ...

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/library-babel-fish/myth-bookless-library

The Best Defense ... for dissertations and theses

Inside Higher Ed, November 16, 2011

The Best Defense ...
By William and Matt Eventoff

... We have worked with students preparing to present research, defend a thesis or defend a dissertation, and have spoken to myriad students about their experiences. What we have learned is that there are lessons a student can take from other disciplines when preparing to defend a dissertation or thesis. Here are six:

http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2011/11/16/essay-offering-advice-defending-dissertations-and-theses

Bootstrapping my way into the ivory tower

By Rachel Wagner for The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 8, 2011

Tenure won't protect you from heating bills, car repairs, or the fact that you can't buy milk until tomorrow, when you get paid.

http://chronicle.com/article/Bootstrapping-My-Way-Into-the/129640/

-- Rachel Wagner is an associate professor of religion at Ithaca College.

... some of us just don't have as much as others. We didn't have parents who paid our way through graduate school or gave us money for a down payment on a house, and we got kicked around financially in other ways. No matter the cause, those of us who don't have money in reserve have an awkward and humiliating place in academe.This ought to be a victory story: Small-town smart girl becomes a tenured college professor. And I am very proud of my achievements.

But let's be honest here. The system doesn't easily support those wishing to improve their lives, especially those raising children in the process. I'd like to think that we still live in a country where dreams come true, where education is open to all who are capable and hardworking. But what I had to do was almost impossibly difficult, and the degree of shame and cognitive dissonance I carry around is palpable.

Without food stamps, housing assistance, subsidized student loans, and Medicaid, there is no way I could have made it through graduate school. Today all of those programs are under threat. To kill those supports is to kill the dream entirely for some people, and to be another voice telling smart young women to just give up and accept the limitations their backgrounds imposed upon them. ...

A leader for 48 years who does what's always worked

Life experience and common sense lead me to agree that some of the classics of parenting, teaching, and leadership will continue to work well forever. The smart leader knows when to make situational tweaks and when to avoid fads.

The photo of Mrs. Brennan reminds me of my favorite great-aunt, who was a ray of sunshine until the end of her life at age 96. Her kindness and motivational skills were enhanced by her happy marriage to my favorite great-uncle. It's easier to be your best self when you have a devoted president of your fan club!

The New York Times, November 07, 2011

48 Years at Helm, Doing What's Always Worked
By Sharon Otterman

In her time as principal of Dyker Heights Intermediate School, Madeleine P. Brennan has outlasted more than a dozen schools chancellors and transformed a troubled school into one of the city's best.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/nyregion/madeleine-brennan-principal-of-dyker-heights-is-honored.html?emc=eta1

... Mrs. Brennan believes that what works remains the same. Consistent rules and consequences. A dedicated, hard-working staff. A calendar stuffed with activities like a Shakespeare fair and an annual musical. Sincere care for your charges.

“Teenagers fascinate me,” Mrs. Brennan said in an interview in her pin-straight office. “They are peculiar ducks, neither fish nor fowl. And you have to love them to really work with them. If you don’t love them, you are up a tree.” ...

... She earns $148,000 a year, but with her pension and 401(k), she would make more by retiring. “I don’t care,” she said. “If you like what you are doing, you can do it for a lifetime.” ...

Quote of the day: Practice slowly

... Time and again students complain to me that, despite the hours they are putting into the violin, they are not getting any better. So I ask them to show me how they practice, and 90 percent of the time they are playing too fast.

The brain functions as a series of tiny sequences, and for it to process complex information -- a complicated Paganini passage, for instance -- that information has to be input in a clean and precise manner. If a violinist tries to practice that passage by racing through it, the brain simply can't absorb all the necessary data, and ultimately the fingers won't learn what they are supposed to learn. So practicing slowly is the key. ...

-- Itzhak Perlman, The Right Words at the Right Time, p. 270

Personal Best: Should everyone have a coach?

The New Yorker, October 3, 2011

Coaching A Surgeon: What Makes Top Performers Better?
By Atul Gawande

... outside ears, and eyes, are important for concert-calibre musicians and Olympic-level athletes. What about regular professionals, who just want to do what they do as well as they can? I talked to Jim Knight about this. He is the director of the Kansas Coaching Project, at the University of Kansas. He teaches coaching—for schoolteachers. For decades, research has confirmed that the big factor in determining how much students learn is not class size or the extent of standardized testing but the quality of their teachers. Policymakers have pushed mostly carrot-and-stick remedies: firing underperforming teachers, giving merit pay to high performers, penalizing schools with poor student test scores. People like Jim Knight think we should push coaching.

California researchers in the early nineteen-eighties conducted a five-year study of teacher-skill development in eighty schools, and noticed something interesting. Workshops led teachers to use new skills in the classroom only ten per cent of the time. Even when a practice session with demonstrations and personal feedback was added, fewer than twenty per cent made the change. But when coaching was introduced—when a colleague watched them try the new skills in their own classroom and provided suggestions—adoption rates passed ninety per cent. A spate of small randomized trials confirmed the effect. Coached teachers were more effective, and their students did better on tests. ...

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/03/111003fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all

Quote of the day: Pascal on persuasion

We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others.

-- Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662)

HBR: 12 Attributes of a Truly Great Place to Work

On September 19, 2011, Tony Schwartz posted to Harvard Business Review's HBR Blog:

The Twelve Attributes of a Truly Great Place to Work

... great employers must shift the focus from trying to get more out of people, to investing more in them by addressing their four core needs — physical, emotional, mental and spiritual — so they're freed, fueled and inspired to bring the best of themselves to work every day. ...

http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2011/09/the-twelve-attributes-of-a-tru.html

YouTube > Ira Glass on storytelling (4 parts)

From the YouTube channel of Public Radio International (PRI)

Ira Glass on Storytelling, part 1 of 4 (5:24)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loxJ3FtCJJA

Ira Glass on Storytelling, part 2 of 4 (4:03)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW6x7lOIsPE

Ira Glass on Storytelling, part 3 of 4 (5:20)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI23U7U2aUY

Ira Glass on Storytelling, part 4 of 4 (2:47)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baCJFAGEuJM

Ira Glass is the founder and host of This American Life on radio and TV.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/about

ERIAL explodes 'Myth of the Digital Native'

This article confirms what I observed during every shift I worked at an academic library reference desk -- well worth reading all the way through.

Inside Higher Ed, August 22, 2011

What Students Don't Know
By Steve Kolowich

A two-year anthropological study of student research habits shows that students are in dire need of help from librarians, but are loath to ask for it.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/08/22/erial_study_of_student_research_habits_at_illinois_university_libraries_reveals_alarmingly_poor_information_literacy_and_skills

Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries (ERIAL)
http://www.erialproject.org/project-details/background/
 

Quote of the day: Malcolm Gladwell on generalists

We need more generalists. Generalists outperform specialists in many tasks.

-- Malcolm Gladwell, writer for The New Yorker and author of the books Outliers, Blink and The Tipping Point

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/may/02/malcolm-gladwell-his-own-words-tim-adams

Many of Gladwell's New Yorker articles are available at his website:
http://gladwell.com/

CC students perform worse online than F2F

The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 18, 2011

Community-College Students Perform Worse Online Than Face to Face
By Ryan Brown

Community-college students enrolled in online courses fail and drop out more often than those whose coursework is classroom-based, according to a new study released by the Community College Research Center at the Teachers College at Columbia University.

The study, which followed the enrollment history of 51,000 community-college students in Washington State between 2004 and 2009, found an eight percentage-point gap in completion rates between traditional and online courses. Although students who enrolled in online courses tended to have stronger academic preparation and come from higher income brackets than the community-college population on the whole, researchers found that students who took online classes early in their college careers were more likely to drop out than those who took only face-to-face courses. Among students who took any courses online, those with the most Web-based credits were the least likely to graduate or transfer to a four-year institution. ...

http://wiredcampus.chronicle.com/article/Community-College-Students/128281/

10 tips for running synchronous web teaching sessions

On July 19, 2011, Joshua Kim posted to the Inside Higher Ed blog Technology and Learning:

10 Guidelines for Running Synchronous Web Teaching Sessions

... Synchronous class meetings are now a necessary component of an online or blended learning program. Online synchronous classes, however, are difficult to do well. ...

1. Web Classes Go Fast
2. Tech Problems Happen
3. Pay Attention to Timing
4. Post an Agenda
5. Take Turns
6. Stress Community and Logistics Rather Than Content
7. Be Inclusive
8. Less Is More
9. Maintain a Firm Hand
10. Continuously Learn

Read his explanations for each item at the original blog post.

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology_and_learning/10_guidelines_for_running_synchronous_web_teaching_sessions

Experience art that is real, not a reproduction

Inspired by the AMC cable TV show Mad Men, two sisters created a blog called Basket of Kisses that later expanded to discuss several other TV shows. If you're a fan of quality TV, you'll find like minds at the BoK blog.

Below is possibly the truest, most profound post I've ever seen on BoK. It expresses why experiencing real art, not just reproduction, depiction, sampling or homage, is SO important for individuals and for humanity.

This piece moved me so much that I couldn't bear to excerpt a paragraph or two as I normally would for this blog. I hope the author agrees that my choice to present her complete post honors the essence of her message. I added boldface emphasis on some of my favorite phrases and a couple of paragraph breaks to give your brain the breathing room it needs to fully appreciate some of the complex thoughts expressed.

On July 18, 2011, Deborah Lipp posted to her blog Basket of Kisses:

Savage Beauty

Yesterday, Roberta, Arthur, and I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the Alexander McQueen exhibit, "Savage Beauty." I feel like seeing this has changed me.

By the first few dresses, I knew that I didn't know fashion at all.

Like most of us, I know fashion because I see it on TV, in magazines, and on the Internet. All of these are textureless, two-dimensional, flattened media. They are facsimiles. Fashion isn't that.

McQueen's collection of stunning, beautiful, startling, repulsive, romantic, fascinating, frightening, inspiring garmets and accessories is real. It is textured, layered, physical, and present. Silk tulle under a red McQueen tartan dress with a heavy leather belt and delicately beaded sleeves: It's tactile, it has immense earthiness.

I've joked that I like fashion shows better than cooking shows because I can see what the fashion looks like, but I can't taste the food. But I'm wrong. Savage Beauty was fashion I could taste.

Fashion, I learned today, is real. It is meant to be worn by a person, and therefore meant to be seen close up, as close as the person wearing it is standing to you. All we see is a representation.

I began to think about art and what is real. As if McQueen wasn't present enough, we walked out of the exhibit, thinking only to decide our next move, slam bang into the European painters section, and there we were among Monets and Rousseaus and Picassos, Klimts and Van Goghs and Renoirs and Seurrats. We were floored. These were real.

Many were so familiar, seen in a thousand print shops and hung from a thousand walls. You know people with these prints. So do I. But these were the real brush strokes, painted by the hands that held the real brushes. I saw, in one painting, that you couldn't actually see the whole sunflowers until you stepped back a bit, so I knew that Van Gogh leaned in, stepped back, leaned in, stepped back. I could feel it.

Art is real. Real paint on real canvas, real terra cotta reliefs, real lace sewn onto real tulle. Like nature, it is there in the being. We live in a world of facsimile and simulation. The digital representation of an imagined setting "based on a true story." We live on the Internet. We consume digital media. We know representations and imitations better than we know originals.

People think that Mad Men is the 1960s. It's not. It's a simulation of the '60s so that stories can be told today. People think The Sopranos is about the mafia. It's not. Those aren't mafioso, they're actors, simulating the mafia, and the mafioso they're portraying are also simulating the mafia – that's why they're always quoting from The Godfather.

I have a tattoo that is based on a photograph of a piece of jewelry. That is, an artist made a piece of jewelry, and a photographer (another artist), reproduced it, and then another artist drew it, and then transferred it to my skin, taking it through four art forms; four layers of interpretation before becoming a part of me.

I want this experience to change me. I want, at least for a day, to experience the real and not the imitation. I want to experience art that is art, not an homage to an imitation of a memory of a real thing.

It starts with the understanding that we have the capacity to be touched so much more deeply than we are normally touched, and to reach for artistic, personal, and natural experiences that give us that.

The Met's Savage Beauty exhibit ends on August 7. Please, if you're anywhere near New York, don't miss it!

http://www.lippsisters.com/2011/07/18/savage-beauty/

PBS Arts video feature on the McQueen exhibit:

http://www.pbs.org/arts/work/arts-from-nyc-01-alexander-mcqueen/

Managing with the brain in mind

On June 20, 2011, Jonathan Becher posted to the Forbes blog SAP Run Better:

Your Brain At Work

... In an article called "Managing with the Brain in Mind," David Rock explores the implications to leaders of treating the workplace as a social system. Employees who feel betrayed or unrecognized -– such as those that are reprimanded, given a pay cut, or asked to work on an assignment that they deem beneath them –- experience it as a powerful neural shock. This experience can be as painful as a physical blow. ...

... We've always known that good leaders have to be more than smart; they have to have people skills as well. Neuroscience provides all of us hard data for the value of these soft skills. Neuroscience suggests that the best leaders are the ones that create an atmosphere that support status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness [SCARF]. ...

http://blogs.forbes.com/sap/2011/06/20/your-brain-at-work/


Managing with the Brain in Mind
By David Rock

Neuroscience research is revealing the social nature of the high-performance workplace.

[Follow the link within the Forbes blog post to reach the David Rock article.]

Quote of the day: introverts and extroverts

Introverts almost never cause me trouble and are usually much better at what they do than extroverts. Extroverts are too busy slapping one another on the back, team building, and making fun of introverts to get much done. Extroverts are amazed and baffled by how much some introverts get done and assume that they, the extroverts, are somehow responsible.

-- Mark Vonnegut, MD (son of author Kurt Vonnegut) in his book Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So

Found on Susan Cain's blog
http://www.thepowerofintroverts.com/

Has the Internet ‘hamsterized’ journalism?

On June 13, 2011, Matthew Lasar posted to the Wired blog Epicenter:

Has the Internet 'Hamsterized' Journalism?

... "As newsrooms have shrunk, the job of the remaining reporters has changed. They typically face rolling deadlines as they post to their newspaper's website before, and after, writing print stories," the FCC notes in its just released report on The Information Needs of Communities.

The good news about this online convergence, the survey observes, is that it allows print journalists to produce short and longer versions of stories, the web versions of which can be continuously updated as the situation develops.

But, "these additional responsibilities — and having to learn the new technologies to execute them — are time-consuming, and come at a cost. In many newsrooms, old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting — the kind where a reporter goes into the streets and talks to people or probes a government official — has been sometimes replaced by internet searches."

Thus, those "rolling deadlines" in many newsrooms are increasingly resembling the rapid iteration of the proverbial exercise device invented for the aforementioned cute domestic rodent. The observation was first made by Dean Starkman in a Columbia Journalism Review piece titled "The Hamster Wheel." ...

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/06/internet-hamsterize-journalism/

"The Hamster Wheel" by Dean Starkman for CJR
http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/the_hamster_wheel.php

I can't shake this thought: Isn't academe also being hamsterized?

How many friends does one person need?

Found via Arts & Letters Daily:

"Forget Facebook – our cognitive capacities max out at three to five intimate friendships. Time to shrink our social networks?"

Los Angeles Review of Books, May 24, 2011

Social Darwinism
By Michele Pridmore-Brown

How Many Friends Does One Person Need? Dunbar's Number and Other Evolutionary Quirks
By Robin Dunbar (Harvard University Press, 2010, 312 pages)

http://lareviewofbooks.org/post/5797806056/social-darwinism

... Our big brains — in particular our species' inordinately large neocortex — evolved, Dunbar argues, in lockstep with our ability to manage increasingly large social groups: to read motives, to keep track of who is doing what with whom, of who is a reliable sharer, who a likely freeloader, and so on. ... The "Dunbar's number" of his title is (drum roll…) 150. Extrapolating from the estimated size of Neolithic villages, of Amish and other communities, of companies in most armies, and other such data, Dunbar argues that this number is, more or less, the limit of stable social networks because it represents the limit, more or less, of our cognitive capacities.

The number is highly debatable, but it turns out that, Facebook aside, the average person has about 150 friends — people he or she might actually recognize and be recognized by at a random airport, 150 people he or she might feel comfortable borrowing five dollars from. As for how many friends we have evolved to "need" in a more intimate sense, that is a different matter. According to Dunbar, most of us have, on average, about 3-5 intimate friends whom we speak to at least weekly, and about 10-15 more friends whose deaths would greatly distress us. These circles can include kin; indeed, the more extended family we keep in close touch with, the fewer friends we are likely to have — precisely because our neocortices can only manage so many relationships. What is perhaps most intriguing is the degree to which the inner circles change over time; close friends can drop through the circles of intimacy if we do not spend time with them, and even out of the 150, especially when someone new captures our attention. By contrast, kin have enough staying power that we can visit and expect to be housed by a cousin we have never met or a great-aunt after decades of neglect. In short, while friendships "decay" if not actively cultivated, kin relationships do not. Or so Dunbar claims. ...

A manifesto for the simple scribe: Writing tips

The Guardian (U.K.), 19 January 2011

A manifesto for the simple scribe:
My 25 commandments for journalists
By Tim Radford

Former Guardian science editor, letters editor, arts editor and literary editor Tim Radford has condensed his journalistic experience into a handy set of rules for aspiring hacks.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/jan/19/manifesto-simple-scribe-commandments-journalists

SciTech Daily inserted the word "science" into the quote they lifted from the article as their teaser:

The classic error in science journalism is to overestimate what the reader knows and underestimate the reader's intelligence ...

How it appeared in the source:

7. If in doubt, assume the reader knows nothing. However, never make the mistake of assuming that the reader is stupid. The classic error in journalism is to overestimate what the reader knows and underestimate the reader's intelligence.

... which really seems to reinforce the 5th commandment:

5. Here is a thing to carve in pokerwork and hang over your typewriter. "No one will ever complain because you have made something too easy to understand."

I think many of Radford's commandments apply to all kinds of writing and to the teaching profession. But I always considered journalism to be another way of educating the masses -- continuing education and distance education -- and not a path to celebrity pundit millionnaire world. Silly me!

The lasting value of place-based learning

The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 8, 2011

In Learning, The Lasting Value of Place
By Joseph E. Aoun

Online education will be part of the future, but on-site instruction brings benefits beyond the obvious.

http://chronicle.com/article/In-Learning-the-Lasting-Value/127378/

... learning happens both inside and outside the classroom, whether physical or online, in the following ways:

• Peer-learning environments
• Exposure to diversity
• Research opportunities
• Campus and community engagement
• Chance encounters

Reality Television and American Culture

The New Yorker, May 9, 2011

The Reality Principle: The rise and rise of a television genre
By Kelefa Sanneh

On January 6, 1973, the anthropologist Margaret Mead published a startling little essay in TV Guide. ... Mead's subject was a new Public Broadcasting System series called "An American Family," about the Louds, a middle-class California household. ... Producers compressed seven months of tedium and turmoil (including the corrosion of Bill and Pat's marriage) into twelve one-hour episodes, which constituted, in Mead's view, "a new kind of art form" -- an innovation "as significant as the invention of drama or the novel." ...

... One of the biggest differences between today’s reality television and its 1973 antecedent is the genre’s status. Having outgrown PBS, it has inherited the rotten reputation that once attached to the medium itself. In an era of televised precocity—ambitious HBO dramas, cunningly self-aware sitcoms—reality shows still provide a fat target for anyone seeking symptoms or causes of American idiocy; the popularity of unscripted programming has had the unexpected effect of ennobling its scripted counterpart. The same people who brag about having seen every episode of “Friday Night Lights” will brag, too, that they have never laid eyes on “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.” Reality television is the television of television. ...

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/05/09/110509crat_atlarge_sanneh

The Myth of the Starving Artist

Inside Higher Ed, May 3, 2011

The Myth of the Starving Artist
By Dan Berrett

First major survey of arts grads finds that, despite low pay, respondents report high levels of employment and fulfillment.

... But if arts graduates exhibited a tendency toward resourcefulness and entrepreneurship, it was not because of help from their institutions, the survey results suggested. More than half of undergraduate alumni said they were dissatisfied with the career advising their art school or college offered, and 43 percent of graduate alumni said the same (it is worth noting that graduates of other, more vocationally minded disciplines, such as law schools, have reported even stronger feelings on this subject). ...

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/05/03/graduates_of_arts_programs_fare_better_in_job_market_than_assumed

7 must-read books on education

By Maria Popova for Brain Pickings, 11 April 2011

What the free speech movement of the 1960s has to do with digital learning and The Beatles.

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/04/11/7-must-read-books-on-education/

Measuring academic libraries & librarians

The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 1, 2011

College Librarians Look at Better Ways to Measure the Value of Their Services
By Jennifer Howard

... At the Association of College and Research Libraries conference, which began [in Philadelphia] Wednesday, presenters took up the problem of how libraries can demonstrate their value to their institutions—and whether conventional attempts to measure return on investment, or "ROI," are any use in that campaign. ...

... Taking a page from the local sage and founding father Benjamin Franklin, who as a young man came up with a list of 13 personal virtues to cultivate, three up-and-coming librarians ... named nine virtues at a panel called "In the Spirit of Ben Franklin: 13 Virtues of Next-Generation Librarians," and asked for the audience's help to pick four more qualities to match Franklin's number. ...

http://chronicle.com/article/College-Librarians-Look-at/126975/

Lesson plan for Benjamin Franklin's 13 virtues
http://www.school-for-champions.com/character/franklin_virtues.htm

For the older learner: Another take on the 13 virtues

http://artofmanliness.com/2008/06/01/the-virtuous-life-wrap-up/

Are virtual classrooms expanding options or shortcutting education?

from WBUR's Here and Now, March 31, 2011

About 200,000 K-12 students in the U.S. attend school every day from the comfort of their homes, while traveling or maybe from the sporting complexes where they train as athletes. That's possible because of virtual schools, where everything students are taught happens online. ...

... are the students missing out on important social aspects of the learning process? We speak with Isaiah Greene, a student enrolled in Ohio Virtual Academy, and Ron Packard, founder of K12, a company that produces online education curricula.

Listen online:
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2011/03/31/virtual-classroom

http://www.k12.com/

4 characteristics of successful teachers

By Maryellen Weimer for Faculty Focus, March 30, 2011

... The researchers studied a group of 35 faculty members who had received a Presidential Teaching Award at a public university in the Midwest. To be considered for the award, teachers had to write a 1,500-word essay describing their teaching philosophies and teaching goals. Using a qualitative methodology (hermeneutics), researchers analyzed these statements with the goal of identifying the factors that made these teachers successful. The researchers found four categories of comments characteristic of all these award-winning teachers. ...

• Presence
• Promotion of learning
• Teachers as learners
• Enthusiasm

http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/philosophy-of-teaching/four-characteristics-of-successful-teachers/

Excerpted from "Qualities of Successful Teaching." The Teaching Professor, 24.1 (2010): 6.

Reference: Rossetti, J. and Fox, P. G. (2009). Factors related to successful teaching by outstanding professors: An interpretive study. Journal of Nursing Education, 48 (1), 11-16.

Abstract at http://www.slackjournals.com/article.aspx?rid=35835

6 reasons Google Books failed

On March 28, 2011, Robert Darnton posted to The New York Review of Books blog:

Judge Denny Chin's opinion in rejecting the settlement between Google and the authors and publishers who sued it for infringement of their copyrights can be read as both as a map of wrong turns taken in the past and as an invitation to design a better route into the digital future. Extrapolating from the dense, 48-page text that accompanied the judge's March 23 decision, it is possible to locate six crucial points where things went awry ...

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/mar/28/six-reasons-google-books-failed/

An extended version of this post will appear in the April 28 issue of the New York Review.

Supportive yet not encouraging

Interviewer: Melissa, what was your mom's reaction when you told her you wanted to go into show business?

Melissa: What was it we used to say? Supportive yet not encouraging ...

Joan: Yeah, and still am. ... No, but it's such a hard business. What I try to do with Melissa, I try to protect her. This is the one business in the world -- it is total rejection. I'm 75 and I'm still rejected.

-- From the documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

Roger Ebert's review

Raise your happiness level before tackling a challenge

On March 22, 2011, Shawn Achor posted to a Harvard Business Review blog:

... In psychological experiments, a "prime" causes a person to experience an emotion; then we see how that new state affects their performance. You can prime people to become more altruistic by giving them something small yourself. When you prime a four year old child to be happy — by asking them to think of their happiest memory — their spatial memory increases dramatically, allowing them to put blocks together up to 50% faster than children at neutral. Doctors primed to be positive come to the correct diagnosis 19% faster when primed to be positive as opposed to negative. Salespeople have 37% higher levels of sales when optimistic. In fact, a meta-analysis of employees at companies reveals that nearly every single business outcome improves when a brain is positive. Happiness is a significant advantage.

In fact, happiness is the single greatest competitive advantage in the modern economy. Only 25% of your job successes are predicted based upon intelligence and technical skills, though we spend most of our education and most companies hire based upon this category. The "silent 75%" of long-term job success is based upon your ability to positively adapt to the world: optimism, social support creation, and viewing stress as a challenge instead of as a threat. ...

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/03/are_happy_people_dumb.html

... [Achor suggests that you] try to raise your level of happiness before tackling a challenge and provides suggestions for happiness boosters:

http://www.shawnachor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=62&Itemid=112

I think this is where supervisors -- including parents and teachers -- can improve performance by priming others with accurate and positive supportive remarks. This does require regular contact with your "direct reports" so that you can accumulate data to inform your future "prime" attempts.

Dashing through a hectic work site saying, "Thank you, thank you, thank you," just doesn't prime someone for success nearly as well as a positive and well-targeted observation about that person's strengths or past successes with other challenging tasks. [Parents, here's another reason why you should cut WAY back on talking or texting on your smartphone while you're supposed to be with your children. You're missing important data collection and "happiness prime" opportunities.]

I've worked in the trenches long enough to see eyes roll when authority figures make pie-in-the-sky pronouncements and prophecies. Most people's BS detectors are at least 60% functional, so if your "prime" attempts have neither accuracy nor depth, they'll figure it out.

Word of the Day: Pessoptimism

The New Yorker, March 14, 2011

Pessoptimism
by Wendell Steavenson

... Last week, an Egyptian activist said that he was worried about the Army's recalcitrance. "I'm increasingly pessoptimistic," he said, echoing the title of a satirical novel from 1974, The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist, by Emile Habiby, an Arab-Israeli writer who served in the Knesset for nineteen years. ...

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/03/14/110314taco_talk_steavenson

Urban Dictionary definition
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pessoptimism

'The New American Pessimism'

On March 10, 2011, Charles Simic posted to The New York Review of Books blog:

As anyone who has traveled around this country and talked to people knows, Americans are not just badly informed, but downright ignorant about most things that affect their lives.

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/mar/10/new-american-pessimism/

An extended visit with a bear in a cave

The New York Times, March 06, 2011

The Ashtray: The Ultimatum (Part 1)
By Errol Morris

Part one of a five-part series on meaning, truth, intolerance and flying ashtrays.

[In April 1972] ... Thomas Kuhn, the author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and the father of the paradigm shift, threw an ashtray at my head. ...

... I had imagined graduate school as a shining city on a hill, but it turned out to be more like an extended visit with a bear in a cave.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/the-ashtray-the-ultimatum-part-1/?emc=eta1

Steve Jobs: Technology alone is not enough

Feisty Steve Jobs talks up Apple's 'post-PC' iPad 2
By Brier Dudley for The Seattle Times, March 2, 2011

Jobs was gaunt but still feisty, defiantly talking up Apple's 90 percent market share for tablet computers in the U.S. ...

... "It's in Apple's DNA that technology alone is not enough — it's technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing and nowhere is that more true than in these post-PC devices," the revered executive explained in a soliloquy at the end of the launch event.

http://o.seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2014381153_brier03.html

Found via Inside Higher Ed

Cyberutopians, welcome to the digital plantation

Found via Arts & Letters Daily:

"To Net prophets like Clay Shirky, there is little about the Web that is not benign. But cyberutopianism is at odds with economic reality. Welcome to the digital plantation..."

An Accelerated Grimace: On Cyber-Utopianism

Clay Shirky's Cognitive Surplus is the latest monotonous revery about the Internet social revolution. Evgeny Morozov punctures that bubble.

Chris Lehmann reviews two books:

Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age
By Clay Shirky

The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom
By Evgeny Morozov

... As for crowdsourcing being a "labor of love" (Shirky primly reminds us that the term "amateur" "derives from the Latin amare—'to love'"), the governing metaphor here wouldn't seem to be digital sharecropping so much as the digital plantation. For all too transparent reasons of guilt sublimation, patrician apologists for antebellum slavery also insisted that their uncompensated workers loved their work, and likewise embraced their overseers as virtual family members. ...

... Morozov, a Belarussian web activist who works with the New America Foundation, sizes up the social media web for what it is—a powerful tool for communication, which like most such tools in modern history is subject to grievous distortion and manipulation by antidemocratic regimes. ...

... as pioneers in the production of mass propaganda, [authoritarians] love mass media, and maintain an intense interest in later-generation digital technologies such as GPS and Twitter location that permit them to plot the real-time whereabouts of online dissidents. ...

... Morozov [has] seen—and chronicled, in this indispensable book—the many ways that the digital world mirrors the inequities, perverse outcomes and unintended consequences that dog all human endeavors in nondigital human history. If only we had spent the past two decades reading books like The Net Delusion instead of embracing the Clay Shirkys of the world as serious public intellectuals, we could have a far more coherent view of our new media revolution—and probably a much saner set of policy options in the bargain.

http://www.thenation.com/article/158974/accelerated-grimace-cyber-utopianism?page=full

Posted March 2, 2011. This article appeared in the March 21, 2011 edition of The Nation.

Treat the patient, not the CT scan

By Abraham Verghese, The New York Times, February 26, 2011

Medical technology often blinds doctors to the needs of the sick.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/opinion/27verghese.html

... the complaints I hear from patients, family and friends are never about the dearth of technology but about its excesses. My own experience as a patient in an emergency room in another city helped me see this. My nurse would come in periodically to visit the computer work station in my cubicle, her back to me while she clicked and scrolled away. Over her shoulder she said, "On a scale of one to five how is your ...?"

The electronic record of my three-hour stay would have looked perfect, showing close monitoring, even though to me as a patient it lacked a human dimension. I don't fault the nurse, because in my hospital, despite my best intentions, I too am spending too much time in front of the computer: the story of my patient's many past admissions, the details of surgeries undergone, every consultant's opinion, every drug given over every encounter, thousands of blood tests and so many CT scans, M.R.I.'s and ultrasound images reside in there.

This computer record creates what I call an "iPatient" — and this iPatient threatens to become the real focus of our attention, while the real patient in the bed often feels neglected, a mere placeholder for the virtual record. ...

... The consequence of losing both faith and skill in examining the body is that we miss simple things, and we order more tests and subject people to the dangers of radiation unnecessarily.

... I find that patients from almost any culture have deep expectations of a ritual when a doctor sees them, and they are quick to perceive when he or she gives those procedures short shrift by, say, placing the stethoscope on top of the gown instead of the skin, doing a cursory prod of the belly and wrapping up in 30 seconds. Rituals are about transformation, the crossing of a threshold, and in the case of the bedside exam, the transformation is the cementing of the doctor-patient relationship, a way of saying: "I will see you though this illness. I will be with you through thick and thin." It is paramount that doctors not forget the importance of this ritual. ...

-- Abraham Verghese, a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, is the author of the novel Cutting for Stone.

How technology has changed the legal profession

The New Atlantis, Fall 2010

The Digital Law Practice
By Sam A. Mackie

Modern computing and communications technologies have taken some of the tedium and inefficiency out of the legal profession. But they have also eliminated time for reflection and deep thinking — and done away with the human touch.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-digital-law-practice

PDF copy also available
Sam A. Mackie, "The Digital Law Practice," The New Atlantis, Number 29, Fall 2010, pp. 157-160.

Technology is the architect for our intimacy

-- First line of Sherry Turkle's 2011 book Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other

We live in a world of Digital Feudalism

On 17 January 2011, Anthony De Rosa posted to his Tumblr blog:

Facebook isn't going away, neither is Twitter, nor Tumblr. No offense to Tumblr but in a perfect world, we wouldn't have any of these platforms. In a perfect world everyone would have their own piece of the web that they own entirely. ...

... We live in a world of Digital Feudalism. The land many live on is owned by someone else, be it Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr, or some other service that offers up free land and the content provided by the renter of that land essentially becomes owned by the platform that owns the land.

In the case of Facebook, the content is your entire demographic profile, your likes, your dislikes, your friends, the products you buy, the videos you watch, the articles you share, it's the most extensive marketing profile known to man, and you've created it for absolutely no monetary gain. ...

http://soupsoup.tumblr.com/post/2800255638/the-death-of-platforms

A modernist take on frilly fonts

NPR's The Picture Show, February 12, 2011

A Modernist Take On Frilly Fonts
By Callie Neylan

In a design class I taught last semester, students asked me about designers whose work was based on something other than the
International Typographic Style (the design philosophy upon which most undergraduate design programs are based). They were seniors and after four years of vigorous study of grids, white space, Helvetica, and left-justified text, some of them had grown weary.

I immediately thought of graphic designer and typographic illustrator Marian Bantjes ... [who] has just published her first book, I Wonder. ...

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/02/12/133282218/iwonder

-- Callie Neylan is a former NPR designer and currently teaches at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Scientists say a deluge of data is drowning research

The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 10, 2011

Dumped On by Data: Scientists Say a Deluge Is Drowning Research
By Josh Fischman

Scientists are wasting much of the data they are creating. Worldwide computing capacity grew at 58 percent every year from 1986 to 2007, and people sent almost two quadrillion megabytes of data to one another, according to a study published on Thursday in Science. But scientists are losing a lot of the data, say researchers in a wide range of disciplines. ...

http://chronicle.com/article/Dumped-On-by-Data-Scientists/126324/

AOL ♥ HuffPo. The loser? Journalism

Op-Ed by Tim Rutten for The Los Angeles Times, February 9, 2011

Whatever the ultimate impact of AOL's $315-million acquisition of the Huffington Post on the new-media landscape, it's already clear that the merger will push more journalists more deeply into the tragically expanding low-wage sector of our increasingly brutal economy.

That's a development that will hurt not only the people who gather and edit the news but also readers and viewers. ...

... The media-saturated environment in which we live has been called "the information age" when, in fact, it's the data age. Information is data arranged in an intelligible order. Journalism is information collected and analyzed in ways people actually can use. Though AOL and the Huffington Post claim to have staked their future on giving visitors to their sites online journalism, what they actually provide is "content," which is what journalism becomes when it's adulterated into a mere commodity. ...

That paragraph is important so I'm repeating it:

The media-saturated environment in which we live has been called "the information age" when, in fact, it's the data age.

• Information is data arranged in an intelligible order.

• Journalism is information collected and analyzed in ways people actually can use.

• What AOL & HuffPo actually provide is "content."

• "Content" is what journalism becomes when it's adulterated into a mere commodity.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rutten-column-huffington-aol-20110209,0,7406565.column

Parents are 1st teachers; home is 1st school

... Some parents forget they are their children's first teachers, and the home is the first school. When our kids come home from school, do they read a book, or do they sit glued to the television or the Internet? Do they see us reading? Do we eat together, or does everybody "grab a bite" and dash out the door? Do we talk and listen? Do we help with homework? Are we active in the PTA? Do we make sure we attend all parent-teacher conferences, or do we use work as an excuse to skip out occasionally? It's easier to be a lazy parent than a good parent, but with parenthood comes responsibility and accountability.

Many parents face daunting challenges -- health and financial issues, single parenthood, or a poor educational background. They need our help.

... That is why business and church leaders, parents and grandparents, friends and neighbors all must become partners in the education of our children. The best place to start: The school you likely drive by every single day on your way to work or the grocery store or the golf course. My guess is the people inside could use your help. ...

Excerpted from We can't afford to cut education

By Barbara Bush for The Houston Chronicle, February 5, 2011

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/7414727.html

Mrs. Bush to parents of children:

• Parents are their children's first teachers
• Home is the child's first school

When our kids come home from school ...

• Do they read a book, or do they sit glued to the television or the Internet?
• Do they see us reading?
• Do we eat together, or does everybody "grab a bite" and dash out the door?
• Do we talk and listen?
• Do we help with homework?
• Are we active in the PTA?
• Do we make sure we attend all parent-teacher conferences, or do we use work as an excuse to skip out occasionally?

We can't afford to cut education

By Barbara Bush for The Houston Chronicle, February 5, 2011

... The education of our children is a partnership — a partnership among the schools, the parents, businesses, churches and the rest of the community.

Right now that partnership is failing. Our schools are in crises:

• We rank 36th in the nation in high school graduation rates. An estimated 3.8 million Texans do not have a high school diploma.
• We rank 49th in verbal SAT scores, 47th in literacy and 46th in average math SAT scores.
• We rank 33rd in the nation on teacher salaries.

... In light of these statistics, can we afford to cut the number of teachers, increase class sizes, eliminate scholarships for underprivileged students and close several community colleges?

... The answer is a resounding "no."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/7414727.html