December 24, 2009

Lazy American students?

The Boston Globe, December 23, 2009

Lazy American Students: After the Deluge
By Kara Miller

On Monday, The Boston Globe ran an opinion piece entitled "My Lazy American Students."

In it, I wrote about how teaching in college has shown me that international students often work harder than their American counterparts. Though this is emphatically not true across the board, the work ethic and success of Asian, European, and South American students – who have to compete with a classroom of native English speakers – can be astounding.

I also noted in the column that there's too much texting in class, too much dozing off, too much e-mail-checking, too much flirting (I didn't mention flirting in the first piece, but I'll mention it here). Obviously, international students do all these things, but I have noticed them more amongst American students. ...

... By Monday morning, "My Lazy American Students" was the most e-mailed article on the Globe's website. By late Monday, it was the most e-mailed article in the last 30 days, even though it had been online for less that 48 hours. Hundreds of comments piled up on Boston.com; on Wednesday, there were nearly 500. ...

... I never used the word "lazy" in my submission to the Globe; the original title was "America's Work Deficit," which reflected my intention to comment on our entire educational system. But authors do not write headlines, so that decision was out of my hands. ...

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/wellesley/2009/12/lazy_american_students_after_t.html

-- Kara Miller teaches rhetoric and history at Babson College.

Her previous opinion piece:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/12/21/my_lazy_american_students/

December 22, 2009

What does a liberal education mean?

Transylvania University Magazine, Fall 2009

What Is Liberal Education?
By Jeff Freyman, Professor of Political Science

... recent research has found that even people associated with liberal arts colleges like Transy are often confused about what liberal education means. This includes not only current and past students, but professors and administrators as well. ...

http://www.transy.edu/magazine/2009/fall/features/feature3.htm


Kentucky Humanities magazine, October 2007

Channeling Socrates in the Bluegrass
By Jeffrey Freyman

Are the liberal arts still useful in the 21st century? A Transylvania University professor argues that they are -- and that liberal education is endangered by the emphasis on making students not just better, but successful.

http://www.transy.edu/le_seminar/Kentucky_Humanities_essay.pdf


December 16, 2009

How Facebook is making friending obsolete

How Facebook Is Making Friending Obsolete
By Julia Angwin for Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2009

Friending wasn't used as a verb until about five years ago, when social networks such as Friendster, MySpace and Facebook burst onto the scene.

Suddenly, our friends were something even better — an audience. ...

... Just as Facebook turned friends into a commodity, it has likewise gathered our personal data – our updates, our baby photos, our endless chirping birthday notes — and readied it to be bundled and sold.

So I give up. Rather than fighting to keep my Facebook profile private, I plan to open it up to the public – removing the fiction of intimacy and friendship.

But I will also remove the vestiges of my private life from Facebook and make sure I never post anything that I wouldn't want my parents, employer, next-door neighbor or future employer to see. You'd be smart to do the same.

We'll need to treat this increasingly public version of Facebook with the same hard-headedness that we treat Twitter: as a place to broadcast, but not a place for vulnerability. A place to carefully calibrate, sanitize and bowdlerize our words for every possible audience, now and forever. Not a place for intimacy with friends.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126084637203791583.html

December 13, 2009

'Teacher U' is employer-led higher education

The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 13, 2009

'Teacher U': A New Model in Employer-Led Higher Education
By Kevin Carey

Charter schools weren't happy with the teachers they were getting. So, with CUNY's Hunter College, they set up their own master's-degree program.

The research-university model, in which scholarship reigns supreme, was established over a century ago. When the nation needed to accommodate the huge mid-20th-century influx of new students, it converted teacher-training institutes into universities that were organized in the standard scholar-focused fashion. Those universities, in turn, did what universities do: recruit Ph.D.'s, publish, and focus on training people for graduate research.

The problem is that the study and the practice of education aren't the same thing. They are related, but only to a point. And university-based schools of education get no reward for training teachers well. Inevitably, education schools evolved in response to institutional incentives and the research-university culture. Faculty members focused on developing specialized knowledge with little connection to the complex everyday challenges of the classroom. ...

... At the same time, studies examining the relationship between having a master's degree in education and being effective in the classroom (most conducted in departments of economics, not education) nearly always find that no such relationship exists ...

http://chronicle.com/article/Teacher-U-A-New-Model-in/49442/

November 30, 2009

Amy Alkon talks manners in 'I See Rude People'

San Jose Mercury News, November 28, 2009

Amy Alkon talks manners in 'I See Rude People'
By Jessica Yadegaran

Amy Alkon is the manners superhero you've been waiting for. She will shush the teen mindlessly shouting into her cell phone at Starbucks. Sans cape, she will stand up to the bully yelling at the slight pharmacist for asking him to wait in line like everyone else. ...

Q: You say rudeness has to do with our small-tribe psychology. Can you explain?
A: We live in societies that are too big for our brains. Based on the research by evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar, humans can have meaningful interactions with about 150 people. Beyond that, it's difficult to have a connection. ...

Q: Can you talk about your "Verizon Made Me Do It" theory?
A: People like to blame technology for their rudeness. But it's just a medium. In the hands of a polite person, a cell phone never bothers anyone. Mine is always on vibrate in public places.

Q: What do you think is at the root of good manners?
A: Empathy. That feeling that says, 'Am I bothering you?' ... So think about what you're doing that's offending people or stopping them from sleeping. ...

http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_13860850

I See Rude People: One Woman's Battle To Beat Some Manners Into Impolite Society
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0071600213

Amy Alkon's blog
http://www.advicegoddess.com

November 29, 2009

What’s the problem with ‘no problem’?

The un-welcome: What's the problem with 'no problem'?
By Erin McKean for The Boston Globe, November 29, 2009
... As "no problem" has caught on and spread, replacing "you're welcome" in situations ranging from casual personal encounters to business deals, the number, vigor, and shrillness of the complaints in etiquette columns and Internet forums has spread along with it. ...

... Many especially dislike hearing "no problem" in commercial transactions and from folks in customer service jobs ...

Others think the problem of "no problem" is one of self-centeredness. ... If you say "no problem,"you're talking about yourself. If you say "you're welcome," the focus is still on the favoree, where it evidently belongs.

Others just think "no problem" is unnecessarily negative, dwelling as it does on the problem, and not the just-proffered solution. "You're welcome," has two generally positive words, compared with the doubly negative "no problem." ...

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/11/29/the_un_welcome/

The reader comments are interesting.

-- Erin McKean also writes for Wordnik. For past Ideas columns, go to http://www.boston.com/ideas

November 27, 2009

Little acts of social thuggery

Commentary by Amy Alkon for The Los Angeles Times, November 24, 2009

... They're stealing our attention, our time and our peace of mind.

More and more, we're all victims of these many small muggings every day. Our perp doesn't wear a ski mask or carry a gun; he wears Dockers and shouts into his iPhone in the line behind us at Starbucks, streaming his dull life into our brains, never considering for a moment whether our attention belongs to him. These little acts of social thuggery are inconsequential in and of themselves, but they add up -- wearing away at our patience and good nature and making our daily lives feel like one big wrestling smackdown. ...

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-alkon24-2009nov24,0,2649186.story

Found via Arts & Letters Daily

November 25, 2009

Quote of the day: Mistakes

Mistakes are the portals of discovery.

-- James Joyce, Irish author (1882-1941)

November 24, 2009

8 key attributes of effective leaders

Eight Key Attributes of Effective Leaders:
Words of Advice from Top Business Executives

By Linda Livingstone, PhD, Dean and Professor of Management

[At Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business and Management,] the Dean's Executive Leadership Series (DELS) ... features in-depth interviews with today's top business practitioners and thought leaders. Many of these discussions have been on effective leadership. ...

[Follow the link for] eight key attributes of effective leaders along with words of advice from various DELS speakers on why they are so important ...

http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/094/editorial.html

November 23, 2009

Quote of the day: Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy is the homage which vice pays to virtue.

-- Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld, moralist (1613-1680)

November 20, 2009

The importance of silly research

On November 19, 2009, Tom Kuntz wrote for the New York Times blog Idea of the Day:
Today's idea [from BBC News Magazine]: "Frivolous" academic research is serious business, its defenders say. It popularizes science, attracts new funding with the publicity it generates and thereby advances knowledge. Even if monkeys can't write like Shakespeare.

BBC News Magazine
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8270688.stm

NYT Idea of the Day
http://ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/the-importance-of-silly-
research/

November 17, 2009

Reading helps us rehearse life before we live it

The quote was transcribed from the end of this interview (8:30):

WBUR's Here & Now, aired November 16, 2009
http://www.hereandnow.org/2009/11/rundown-1116/#5
Host (Robin Young): In addition to writing your own works, you teach, you started the MFA program at Rutgers-Newark. I heard you tell Liane Hansen that you had real concern that people were just not reading -- they're not reading the greats -- and that part of what you did in constructing this [MFA] program was make sure that people read before they started to write. What would you recommend that people read?

Jayne Anne Phillips: Everything. Reading really can help -- it almost helps us rehearse life before we live it, the way acting a scene on the stage can help us.

And when we read books like War and Peace or Madame Bovary or As I Lay Dying or A Death in the Family, we are learning consciously and unconsciously about the connections between one human and another, and one time and another. If we lose that, we're really losing a kind of connection to the past, the present and the future that we might engage in.

Jayne Anne Phillips is author of the novel Lark and Termite, a professor of English and the director of the Rutgers-Newark Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program.

http://www.jayneannephillips.com/

Books mentioned by Jayne Anne Phillips during the interview:
  • War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
  • Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
  • As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
  • A Death in the Family by James Agee

November 13, 2009

They write worse and worse

Old Books, Old Stories
By Art Scheck, The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 13, 2009

These darn kids nowadays don't write nearly as well as young folk wrote in the good old days.

http://chronicle.com/article/Old-Books-Old-Stories/49079/

The article quoted in the article is available online to Harper's subscribers and through library database subscriptions:

Harper's Magazine, June 1940, pp. 40-45

"They write worse and worse":
A teacher of English answers the charge

By Adeline Courtney Bartlett

http://www.harpers.org/archive/1940/06/0058417

October 30, 2009

The function of criticism

While noodling around on the interwebs, stumbled over this quote:
The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art -- and, by analogy, our own experience -- more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means. ... In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art.

-- Susan Sontag, "Against Interpretation," Evergreen Review, v. 8, December 1964, p. 14?

My takeaway -- Emphasis on critical interpretation puts too much distance between the individual and the art. Suggestions for critical commentary:
  • Make works of art more real
  • Validate individual experience of art
  • Show how art is what it is
  • Don't "tell" what art means

October 29, 2009

Dangers of 'Academic Narcissism'

From Inside Higher Ed Daily Update, October 29, 2009

European Conference on Dangers of 'Academic Narcissism'

Scholars at a conference in Brussels on the future of disciplines heard warnings that "academic narcissism" is endangering the humanities and social sciences, The Times Higher reported. Speakers said that too many academic careers were based more on self-promotion than substantive contributions to field. Sasa Bozic of the University of Zadar, in Croatia, was quoted as saying that the most successful academics are "highly competitive, image-oriented, substance-avoiding, ultra-innovative, quotation-obsessed individualists." Elizabeth Sundin, professor of business administration and management at Linkoping University, in Sweden, said she feared "the suicide of the social sciences."

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/10/29/qt#211901

The Times Higher Article cited above:

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=408839

October 28, 2009

Quote of the day: Knowledge & wisdom

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

-- Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)

October 25, 2009

Origins of the title "Ms."

The New York Times Sunday Magazine, October 25, 2009

On Language: Ms.
By Ben Zimmer

The origins of the title, explained.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/magazine/25FOB-onlanguage-t.html

October 22, 2009

Attention: Stepping stone to happiness

On October 20, 2009, Gretchen Rubin posted to her blog Happiness Project:

Without Attention, We Cannot Go Deeply in Thought or Relations

Q & A with Maggie Jackson, the author of Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age

As a young adult, I understood unthinkingly that attention is the key to getting things done. But until I began researching the fate of attention in our distracted society, I didn't really realize the complexity or importance of this human faculty. Attention is a key to learning, memory, problem-solving, engagement, intimacy and creativity -- all that we strive for today. Attention is now considered a tripartite capacity made up of focus, or the spotlight of the mind; alerting or wakefulness; and executive attention, or the ability to plan, envision, judge. Without attention -- which derives from the Latin for 'stretch toward' -– we cannot go deeply in thought and relations. As a result, attention is our most essential stepping stone to happiness. And controlling our powers of attention is crucial to steering our fate.

http://slate.com/blogs/blogs/happinessproject/archive/2009/10/20/without-attention-we-cannot-go-deeply-in-thought-or-relations.aspx

Extra highlighting for the distracted mind:

Attention derives from the Latin for 'stretch toward' and is made up of

  • focus, or the spotlight of the mind
  • alerting or wakefulness
  • executive attention, or the ability to plan, envision, judge

Think about a parent pushing a small child in a shopping cart while listening to an iPod or using a cell phone to talk or text ...

October 20, 2009

LIFE magazine free @ Google Books

November 23, 1936 - February 27, 1970

LIFE Magazine is the treasured photographic magazine which chronicled the 20th Century. It now lives on at LIFE.com, the largest, most amazing collection of professional photography on the internet. Users can browse, search and view photos of today's people and events. They have free access to share, print and post images for personal use.

http://books.google.com/books?id=N0EEAAAAMBAJ

October 2, 2009

Brain processes facts & beliefs in same way

Fact Impact
By Lisa Miller for Newsweek, October 1, 2009

A new study of the brain shows that facts and beliefs are processed in exactly the same way.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/216551

September 24, 2009

10 constraints to learning in our modern culture

I've quoted from this blog before and I happened to re-read that particular post recently. I don't know why this list didn't catch my attention then, but I'm glad to have rediscovered it because I agree with his list. I might even write a short essay on each item.

On April 5, 2004, Dave Pollard wrote for his Salon blog How to Save the World:

... the top 10 constraints to learning in our modern culture:

  1. We don't allow ourselves (and society doesn't allow us) enough time for wonder.
  2. Our workplace activities and our home routines are often repetitious and stimulus-poor.
  3. We don't do anything together anymore.
  4. We get too much of our life experience second-hand (from books & movies, and online).
  5. We suffer from imaginative poverty -- we won't let ourselves imagine, and now we've largely forgotten how to imagine.
  6. Our lives are too organized and too scheduled to allow serendipitous experiences and hence serendipitous learning.
  7. In this world full of terrible knowledge and awful realities, we are becoming afraid to learn. We cannot bear too much reality, too much bad news, and we don't want to accept the awful responsibility that knowing and learning brings with it.
  8. Everything about the current Western educational system impedes and discourages learning.
  9. The media have addicted themselves, and us, to facts rather than meaning.
  10. We have 'desensitized' ourselves -- we process everything mainly with our left brain, so we no longer really see, really hear, really smell, really taste, really feel.

http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2004/04/05.html

September 23, 2009

Umberto Eco on the lost art of handwriting

The Guardian (U.K.), 21 September 2009

Umberto Eco: The lost art of handwriting

The days when children were taught to write properly are long gone. Does it matter? Yes, says Umberto Eco. ... The art of handwriting teaches us to control our hands and encourages hand-eye coordination. ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/sep/21/umberto-eco-handwriting

- Umberto Eco is the author of Baudolino, The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum. His latest book is On Ugliness.

Found via Arts & Letters Daily

September 22, 2009

Blend of classroom & distance ed can produce better outcomes

Inside Higher Ed, September 22, 2009

Sustainable Hybrids

Case study by South Texas College suggests that courses that a blend of classroom and distance education can produce better outcomes than either one by itself.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/09/22/hybrids

September 21, 2009

The Rural Brain Drain

The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 21, 2009

The Rural Brain Drain
By Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas

... The most dramatic evidence of the rural meltdown has been the hollowing out -- that is, losing the most talented young people at precisely the same time that changes in farming and industry have transformed the landscape for those who stay. This so-called rural "brain drain" isn't a new phenomenon, but by the 21st century the shortage of young people has reached a tipping point, and its consequences are more severe now than ever before. Simply put, many small towns are mere years away from extinction, while others limp along in a weakened and disabled state. ...

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Rural-Brain-Drain/48425/

September 20, 2009

The kinship between talk radio and rap

The New York Times, September 20, 2009

Call It Ludacris: The Kinship Between Talk Radio and Rap
By David Segal

The two forms share more than you think. Just don't tell the practitioners.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/weekinreview/20segal.html

September 19, 2009

'Alpha Geek' Tim Ferriss shares notetaking tips

The hard-blogging author of the bestseller The 4-Hour Workweek is allegedly much cooler than most of us. At least once or twice per month Tim Ferriss posts something I find very interesting. This time, I followed a link in a recent post back to an older post.
I don’t use digital notetaking tools. Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve noticed that some of the most innovative techies in Silicon Valley do the same, whether with day-planner calendars, memo pads, or just simple notecards with a binder clip. It’s a personal choice, and I like paper. It can be lost, but it can’t be deleted, and I find it faster.

If Ferriss makes a good living working only 4 hours per week, his notetaking tips may be useful, so follow the link ...

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/12/05/how-to-take-notes-like-an-alpha-geek-plus-my-2600-date-challenge/

September 18, 2009

NurtureShock: Most of what parents are doing is wrong

On September 18, 2009, Salon Newsletter wrote:

Parents: Most of what you're doing is wrong
By Lynn Harris

NurtureShock says too much praise is bad, teen lying is normal and baby-genius toys could make your kids dumber.

http://salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/09/18/nurtureshock/

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

NOTE: Anyone can get a "free pass" to read Salon articles by viewing an online ad. Just wait for the "Enter Salon" link to appear (usually in the upper right corner). Be patient; there's often a noticeable pause before that happens.

September 17, 2009

How to nurture kids & employees

I've said for a long time that being a good boss is a lot like being a good parent.

On September 16, 2009, Guy Kawasaki wrote for his blog:

How to Nurture Your Kids and Employees

Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman have written a very interesting book examining how people nurture their kids. It's called NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children. I conducted an interview with them about this subject. Interestingly, I think many of their findings apply to nurturing employees too. Check out the interview at the American Express Open Forum.

http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/the-world/article/how-to-raise-your-kidsand-maybe-your-company-too-guy-kawasaki


See also: NurtureShock blog at Newsweek

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/nurtureshock/default.aspx

September 16, 2009

Community colleges: To thine own self be true

Newsweek Web Exclusive, September 16, 2009

Community Colleges: To Thine Own Self Be True
By Kevin Carey

President Obama recognizes the value of community colleges more than many of the schools themselves.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/215469

September 10, 2009

Oral histories go digital @ U. of Kentucky

On September 9, 2009, Campus Technology wrote:

U. of Kentucky Goes Digital with Thousands of Oral Histories

During his time as governor of Kentucky in the late 1960s, the late Louie B. Nunn decided to fund a project for the University of Kentucky Libraries. The endowment was for the collection of non-partisan oral histories, and the result was the University of Kentucky Libraries Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History.

http://www.uky.edu/Libraries/libpage.php?llib_id=13&lweb_id=11

September 8, 2009

The decline of the English Department

The American Scholar, Autumn 2009

The Decline of the English Department
How it happened and what could be done to reverse it

By William M. Chace

... The number of young men and women majoring in English has dropped dramatically; the same is true of philosophy, foreign languages, art history, and kindred fields, including history. As someone who has taught in four university English departments over the last 40 years, I am dismayed by this shift, as are my colleagues here and there across the land. And because it is probably irreversible, it is important to attempt to sort out the reasons -- the many reasons -- for what has happened.

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/the-decline-of-the-english-department/

July 29, 2009

Cutting student services? Think again

Inside Higher Ed, July 29, 2009

Cutting Student Services? Think Again

New study finds link between investing (or disinvesting) in student services and higher graduation and persistence rates.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/07/29/gradrate

July 24, 2009

Never underestimate a good editor's value

Not posted as a political statement, but an illustration of what good editing can do.

Vanity Fair Web Exclusive, July 20, 2009
Palin's Resignation: The Edited Version

If you watched Sarah Palin's resignation speech, you know one thing: her high-priced speechwriters moved back to the Beltway long ago. ... We asked V.F.'s red-pencil-wielding executive literary editor, Wayne Lawson, together with representatives from the research and copy departments, to whip it into publishable shape. ...

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/07/palin-speech-edit-200907

July 21, 2009

Remembering Apollo 11

The Big Picture from The Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/07/remembering_apollo_11.html

Diminishing returns in humanities research

The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 20, 2009

Diminishing Returns in Humanities Research
By Mark Bauerlein for The Chronicle Review

The humanities have become a crazed machine spewing arcane, needless new criticism at the expense of teaching.

http://chronicle.com/article/Diminishing-Returns-in/47107/

Found via Arts & Letters Daily


June 8, 2009

Comfort of opinion w/o discomfort of thought

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the deliberate, contrived, and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

-- President John F. Kennedy, Yale University Commencement, June 11, 1962

May 12, 2009

National Attention Deficit = $650 billion annually

The annual National Attention Deficit may be $650 billion annually.

... according to Jonathan B. Spira, who's the chief analyst at a business-research firm called Basex and has estimated the per annum cost to the economy of multitasking-induced disruptions. (He obtained the figure by surveying office workers across the country, who reported that some 28 percent of their time was wasted dealing with multitasking-related transitions and interruptions.)

That $650 billion reflects just one year's loss. This means that the total debt is vastly higher ...

From Walter Kirn's "The Autumn of the Multitaskers"
The Atlantic
, November 2007, page 3

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200711/multitasking/3

May 8, 2009

Malcolm Gladwell on underdog strategies

How David Beats Goliath
by Malcolm Gladwell for The New Yorker, May 8, 2008

Substituting effort for ability turns out to be a winning formula for underdogs in all walks of life …

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/11/090511fa_fact_gladwell

May 4, 2009

Community college interview questions

Inside Higher Ed, May 4, 2009

What You'll Be Asked

David Lydic shares questions asked by English faculty search committees at five community colleges.

http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2009/05/04/lydic

April 30, 2009

Thinking like a baby may be your best option

Buddhists discovered beginner's mind a long time ago ...

Found via Arts & Letters Daily:
When we need to sort through a lot of seemingly irrelevant information or create something completely new, thinking like a baby is our best option ...

Inside the baby mind
By Jonah Lehrer for The Boston Globe, April 26, 2009

It's unfocused, random, and extremely good at what it does. How we can learn from a baby's brain.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/04/26/inside_the_baby_mind/

April 27, 2009

World's Best Headlines: BBC News

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, April 27, 2009

Precise communication in a handful of words? The editors at BBC News achieve it every day, offering remarkable headline usability.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/headlines-bbc.html

Nielsen Norman Group
To subscribe send blank email to join-alertbox@laser.sparklist.com

April 24, 2009

Quote of the day: Confucius

Learning without thought is labor lost;
thought without learning is perilous.

-- Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)

April 1, 2009

Quote of the day: Frederick Saunders

Pride, like laudanum and other poisonous medicines, is beneficial in small, though injurious in large, quantities. No man who is not pleased with himself, even in a personal sense, can please others.

-- Frederick Saunders (1807-1902), librarian and essayist

March 13, 2009

Growing up on Facebook

The New York Times, March 15, 2009

The Way We Live Now: Growing Up on Facebook
By Peggy Orenstein

... college was my big chance to doff the roles in my family and community that I had outgrown, to reinvent myself, to get busy with the embarrassing, exciting, muddy, wonderful work of creating an adult identity. Can you really do that with your 450 closest friends watching, all tweeting to affirm ad nauseam your present self? ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/magazine/15wwln-lede-t.html

March 12, 2009

Musical training for better brain function

On March 12, 2009, at Daily Health News wrote:

... Researchers found that musicians scored higher on both IQ tests and standardized tests of verbal fluency than non-musicians. The study also showed that trained musicians have a cognitive advantage over non-musicians and are particularly adept at something called divergent thinking.

... [Clinical Neuropsychology Fellow] Bradley Folley, PhD ... explained that it refers to "thinking outside the box," or the ability to come up with novel solutions to open-ended questions. ...

... The Vanderbilt study also showed an association between music training and higher IQ, though that does raise the "chicken versus egg" question of whether music training elevates IQ scores or if those with higher IQ scores are just more likely to study music. ...

http://www.bottomlinesecrets.com/article.html?article_id=47995

March 11, 2009

Paying attention is an important skill

Attention class
By Maggie Jackson, Boston Globe, June 29, 2008

Paying attention is a more important skill than you might think -- and new evidence suggests it can be taught.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/06/29/attention_class/

March 10, 2009

Benefits of 'real world' work with your hands

Practically Minded: The Benefits and Mechanisms
Associated with a Craft-Based Curriculum

by Dr. Aric Sigman (2008)
Commissioned by the Ruskin Mill Educational Trust (RMET)

... There are neurological reasons why working with one's own hands in a "real-world" 3-D learning environment is imperative for full cognitive and intellectual development. ...

Use the link to download PDF of 48-page report with 5-page bulleted executive summary and 11-page reference list.

http://www.rmet.co.uk/PracticallyMinded.pdf

February 16, 2009

Action is the enemy of thought

Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions. Only in the conduct of our action can we find the sense of mastery over the Fates.

-- Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), Nostromo (1904)

February 10, 2009

How's your age-itude?

It is not how old you are, but how you are old.

-- Jules Renard (1864-1910), writer

February 9, 2009

Rejected by 7 different technologies

The premise of this film doesn't appeal to me, but one quote from the film's trailer makes me laugh.
"I had this guy leave me a voice mail at work, so I called him at home, and then he e-mailed me to my Blackberry, and so I texted to his cell. Now you have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by 7 different technologies. It's exhausting!"

-- Drew Barrymore in the 2009 film He's Just Not That Into You

February 8, 2009

Homogeneity => 2nd-rate decision-making

The New York Times, February 08, 2009

Mistresses of the Universe
By Nicholas D. Kristof, Op/Ed Columnist

Research suggests that homogeneity, like the kind in male-dominated Wall Street boardrooms, makes for second-rate decision-making. A greater gender balance could reduce some of the consequences.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/opinion/08kristof.html

February 6, 2009

Use social networking for job searches

"Human resources, recruiting, public relations and technology insights from San Francisco HR"

Some interesting posts so far ...  

  • Social Networking as a Recruitment Diversity Tool
  • How to Use Social Networking for Your Job Search
  • Using Facebook to Look for Candidates or Jobs
  • Using LinkedIn to Find a Job
  • How to Get a Recruiter to Read Your Resume
http://blogs2.hillandknowlton.com/kayemonty/

Found via Guy Kawasaki's blog

February 2, 2009

Technological husbandry or techo gardening ?

On February 20, 2007, Kevin Kelly posted to his blog:

Being Is All Maintenance

There used to be [a] rule of thumb that said: for every dollar you'll spend on gasoline for your car, you will also spend a dollar on repairs and maintenance. ...

... The equivalent for high tech equipment seems to be that for every dollar you spend purchasing it, you spend a dollar's worth of your time maintaining them. ...

... I have found that for me the new constraint in purchasing stuff is not its price (which in general continues to drop), but its maintenance time. Every device I bring into my home demands hours of support time – not counting the time required to learn how to use it. The hours are spent on the phone with tech support, researching manuals online, cruising user forums, or simply tinkering with the tool. ...

... This degree of high maintenance has been a surprise. ... In the official future we never imagining replacing our cool communicators every year with better models, or making sure they were welcomed and played nice with all the other stuff in your lives. ...

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2007/02/being_is_all_ma.php

January 8, 2009

The writer’s 5 point productivity plan

Great tips for "dissertators" -- here's a taste; read the article to get the full flavor.
  1. Wake Up Early (Engage the Process)
  2. Get Dressed & Put On Your Shoes (Establish a Ritual Act)
  3. Use an “Isolation Booth” (Nurture Concentration)
  4. Write Longhand (Go Analog)
  5. Think Progress, Not Completion (Stay in the Rhythm)
http://www.soulshelter.com/2008/03/10/the-lonely-novelists-five-point-productivity-plan/

Be intent on action, not on the fruits of action. Avoid attraction to the fruits and attachment to inaction.

-- Bhagavad Gita


E-mail gives the illusion of progress even when nothing is happening.

-- Bob Geldof, musician and political activist (Band Aid, Live Aid)

January 7, 2009

Twilight of the color photo

The Boston Globe, January 4, 2009

Twilight of the color photo
By Dushko Petrovich

As printed snapshots vanish, we're losing more than shoe boxes full of mementos. 

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/01/04/twilight_of_the_color_photo/

Found via Arts & Letters Daily

January 6, 2009

History depts changing doctoral curricula

On January 6, 2009, Inside Higher Ed Daily Update wrote:

Seeking Purpose in Graduate Course Work

History departments are changing the curriculum for doctoral students, seeking to move beyond teaching professors' favorite books and trashing those they dislike and toward the art of teaching.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/01/06/grad

January 3, 2009

Director uses highlighters & index cards

As a director, Guillermo Del Toro is accomplished at utilizing high-tech special effects in his films. As a communicator, he's comfortable in chat rooms and message boards. When adapting a book to a screenplay, however, he prefers good old-fashioned "low tech" methods that include highlighter pens and 3×5 index cards ... (posted November 16, 2008 by Altaira)

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2008/11/16/30573-del-toro-on-the-virtues-of-highlighters-and-index-cards/

December 29, 2008

Overcoming 'immunity to change'

From the Harvard Graduate School of Education:

... In 2001, [Robert] Kegan and Lisa Lahey (Associate Director of HGSE's Change Leadership Group) published How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work, which laid out a way of seeing into a previously hidden dynamic that prevents change and preserves the status quo. They called this phenomenon the "immunity to change." Kegan and Lahey's research reveals behaviors through which individuals and groups work against their own change goals. The countervailing tension between two sets of equally sincere motivations drives the "immune system" and sustains the status quo. ...

http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/leadership/LP3-4.html

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

Journal of Staff Development, Summer 2002 (Vol. 23, No. 3)

Inner conflicts, inner strengths
Interview with Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey
By Dennis Sparks

The greatest barriers to change come from within; so do our greatest opportunities.

http://nsdc.org/library/publications/jsd/kegan233.cfm

A PDF version of the article can be downloaded from the URL listed above.

December 28, 2008

Treat others how THEY want to be treated

On December 26, 2008, Ivan Misner wrote for his Networking Now blog:

... Most of us are familiar with the Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"), but to network effectively, you've got to be relationship based, so you need to use [what Tony Alessandra calls] the Platinum Rule -- not only with your referral source but with the prospect as well.

There are three people involved in a referral:

  1. Yourself. You need to know how you work best and where your strengths and weaknesses lie.
  2. The referral source. How does this person like to communicate? How does he like to be treated? If you want him to help you, you've got to treat him the way he wants to be treated.
  3. The prospect. How does the prospect like to be sold to? What's the best way to communicate with the prospect?
... If you seek to find out how people want to be treated and then treat them that way, you won’t make the mistake of assuming everyone likes the same things you do. ...

http://networking.entrepreneur.com/2008/12/26/the-platinum-rule-treat-others-how-they-want-to-be-treated/


December 27, 2008

A simple gesture to boost morale

On December 3, 2008, Rosabeth Moss Kanter wrote for her Harvard Business blog:

... Send notes of appreciation to the people on your team telling them specifically what you value about each of them as colleagues. Surprise them with something they might not know that you notice. No form letters. Preferably hand-written notes, to stand out in the impersonal email clutter. ... Some of the best CEOs are known for their hand-written notes. ...

... In organizations and professions where a show of emotion is rare, recipients might secretly treasure the note because it is unexpected. Your own mood will improve as you think positive thoughts. This is scientifically proven. ... It works at home, too. ...

http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/kanter/2008/12/a-simple-gesture-to-boost-mora.html


December 3, 2008

Mission statements about teaching leadership

On December 1, 2008, Inside Higher Ed Daily Update wrote:

Follow the Leader

Carolyn Foster Segal is less than impressed with the promise of her college and many others to teach "leadership." ... If everyone wants to be a leader, isn't that anarchy?

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/12/01/segal

November 30, 2008

Improve your typography skills

Type Tips from The FontFeed

Improve your typography skills with these basic tips and advanced tutorials.

http://fontfeed.com/archives/category/type-tips/

November 26, 2008

Leading people over whom you have no real authority

The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 26, 2008

Managing From the Middle
By Donald R. Boomgaarden

Five rules to help you as a midlevel administrator lead people over whom you have no real authority.

  1. Everyone you work with is important.
  2. Be on a mission.
  3. Stop, look, and listen.
  4. It's not about you.
  5. Be courageous.
http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/11/2008112601c.htm

The explanations that follow each of his 5 guidelines are illuminative. This is my favorite:
... The connections you form with others are critical to your success. How do you form those connections? Talk to everyone, find time to make friends, open yourself up to others, show them who you are, and listen carefully to what they have to say. ...

... When you have even the slightest opportunity to show kindness, perform a small favor, or just listen to a complaint with understanding, seize it. ...

September 30, 2008

Hoods -> Sha Na Na -> Greasers -> The Fonz

Columbia College Today, September/October 2008

Sha Na Na and the Invention of the Fifties
By George J. Leonard and Robert A. Leonard

In 1969, the Kingsmen, Columbia's traditional a capella group, gambled on a new concept. At a Wollman concert, "The Glory That Was Grease," the Kingsmen, outfitted in gold lamé and sporting Elvis Presley hairdos, performed original dances while singing classic Fifties rock 'n' roll. That led to a memorable "Grease Under the Stars" concert on Low Plaza, soon after which they shot to stardom, opening for Jimi Hendrix at the original Woodstock Festival. Renamed Sha Na Na, they became regulars at Fillmore West and East, appeared in the Oscar-winning Woodstock movie as well as the movie version of Grease, which their act had inspired. Their syndicated TV show ran for years, worldwide.

... Contemporary scholars of American cultural history have begun writing that Sha Na Na's greatest achievement was the invention of a new American era: the "Fifties." ... Brothers and founding members George J. Leonard '67, '68 GSAS, '72 GSAS, who conceived and choreographed the Kingsmen's change to Sha Na Na, and Robert A. Leonard '70, '73 GSAS, '82 GSAS, the group's first president and gold lamé singer, report on the new scholarly interest in Sha Na Na. ...

Read the full article at:

http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/sep_oct08/features1

-- Found via Arts & Letters Daily

September 25, 2008

Good IT management requires a different skill set

PBS Previews, September 25, 2008

I, CRINGELY

Leadership: Post-industrial management requires a different skill set.

Bob Cringely offers ideas on what makes for good IT management.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080917_005420.html

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

PBS Previews and PBS Teacher Previews are from the Public Broadcasting Service. For more info or to subscribe, visit:
http://pbs.org/previews/

September 21, 2008

Why are good teachers strange, uncool, offbeat?

The New York Times Sunday Magazine, September 19, 2008

Geek Lessons
By Mark Edmundson

... Why are good teachers strange, uncool, offbeat?

Because really good teaching is about not seeing the world the way that everyone else does. ...

... Good teachers perceive the world in alternative terms, and they push their students to test out these new, potentially enriching perspectives. ...

... Good teachers know that now, in what's called the civilized world, the great enemy of knowledge isn't ignorance, though ignorance will do in a pinch. The great enemy of knowledge is knowingness. It's the feeling encouraged by TV and movies and the Internet that you're on top of things and in charge. You're hip and always know what's up. Cool — James Dean-style cool — was once the sign of the rebel. But the tables have turned: conformity and cool have merged. The cool character now is the knowing one; even when he's unconventional, he's never surprising — and most of all, he's never surprised. Good teachers, by contrast, are constantly fighting against knowingness by asking questions, creating difficulties, raising perplexities. ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/magazine/21wwln-lede-t.html

September 15, 2008

Good leaders inspire

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944), French author and aviator

September 14, 2008

Increase your Facebook productivity

Recommended by Ari Herzog:

Kathryn Pope offers practical advice and tips to increase your Facebook productivity.

http://www.appvita.com/2008/07/31/facebook-friending-the-world/

September 13, 2008

Facebook’s app developers can see 32 elements of user profiles

Link posted by Ari Herzog as a comment on David Pogue's NYTimes.com blog:

... Facebook's application developers are able to see 32 elements from [user] profiles. ...

http://www.ariwriter.com/2008/09/how-you-have-no-privacy-online.html

September 12, 2008

Stop Googling, start questioning

Found via Arts & Letters Daily:

Will we remain obsessed with the diminishing quality of the answers to our online queries, and not with the underlying problem of our poor quality education [and the] lack of critical thought? ...

The society of the query and the Googlization of our lives
A tribute to Joseph Weizenbaum

by Geert Lovink

"There is only one way to turn signals into information, through interpretation," wrote the computer critic Joseph Weizenbaum [the MIT professor known for his 1966 automatic therapy program ELIZA and his 1976 book Computer Power and Human Reason]. As Google's hegemony over online content increases, argues Geert Lovink, we should stop searching and start questioning.

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2008-09-05-lovink-en.html

September 8, 2008

Bringing history online, one newspaper at a time

From the Official Google Blog:

Today, we're launching an initiative to make more old newspapers accessible and searchable online by partnering with newspaper publishers to digitize millions of pages of news archives.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/bringing-history-online-one-newspaper.html

August 29, 2008

Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexandria to the Internet

Today in Salon: August 29, 2008

The road to Wikipedia
By Laura Miller

How do we know what we know? A new book [by two historians] takes a long view of knowledge, from ancient oral traditions to the rise of universities and the Internet.

Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexandria to the Internet
by Ian F. McNeely and Lisa Wolverton

http://salon.com/books/review/2008/08/28/knowledge/

NOTE: Anyone can get a "free pass" to read Salon articles by viewing an online ad. Just wait for the "Enter Salon" link to appear. Be patient; sometimes there's a noticeable pause before that happens.

Another enthusiastic review from Amazon Top 50 reviewer Robert D. Steele includes links to other books with supporting themes.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2KE1ORAJDJNI6/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

August 14, 2008

The human face reveals much

National Post, August 12, 2008

Facial Frontier by Robert Fulford

... In the view of Raymond Tallis, an eminent British doctor and a talented writer, the face of a man or woman constitutes "the most sign-packed surface in the universe." Nothing else we see carries more meaning. Every face displays a pattern of dense emotional responses in the present and an archive of its owner's experience in the past. And each one is both unique and mysterious. ...

... In recent times, however, faces have changed, making them harder to read. We are developing a face for our era. Botox is one reason ... [but] Newsreader Standard is a considerably older face produced by our civilization. It's the universal mask, more or less the same from Tokyo to Brussels, through which we receive information on TV. By tradition, newsreaders show no emotion, so many of us every day spend time looking at faces that are by intention flat and generic, far from what we would regard (in private life) as human. ...

... In ordinary life, what people want when they stare at the faces of others is acknowledgement. We want a sense that we exist. Tallis quotes Hegel's view that humans hunger above all for recognition by other humans. Connection is the key. Knowingly or not, we all yearn for it and may fall to pieces without it. ... 

For more, read The Kingdom of Infinite Space: A Fantastical Journey Around Your Head by Raymond Tallis (Yale University Press).

http://www.nationalpost.com/story-printer.html?id=15a16cb3-076e-41d1-bbd4-f13edbc8b281



July 23, 2008

Too much access to info can stifle scientific creativity

Found via SciTech Daily:

National Science Foundation Press Release 08-120
Research publications online: Too much of a good thing? 

Having research papers and other scholarly writing available online gives researchers access to a great deal of materials without having to enter a library. But how does this impact the new research that they produce? James Evans at the University of Chicago has studied this question and his conclusion is surprising -- despite having greater access to scholarly materials, researchers are actually citing fewer papers. The papers they do cite tend to be newer and are likely to be cited by other researchers.

Full NSF press release available at:

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111928

Survey Finds Citations Growing Narrower as Journals Move Online
Jennifer Couzin, Science, 18 July 2008: 329.

A sociologist argues on page 395 of this week's issue of Science that making scholarly articles available online has narrowed citations to more recent and less diverse articles than before -- the opposite of what most people expected.


July 18, 2008

PhD = Perfectionism hampers Dissertations !

This phrase just popped into my head this morning while making green tea. 

PhD = Perfectionists hate Dissertations!

I e-mailed the above to a friend and she answered: 

See, green tea really is that good for you.

LOL! After still more green tea, I have revised this to: 

PhD = Perfectionism hampers Dissertations!


July 15, 2008

The battle that reshaped children’s literature

The New Yorker, July 21, 2008

The Lion and the Mouse
by Jill Lepore

One way to read E.B. White's Stuart Little is as an indictment of both the childishness of children's literature and the juvenilization of American culture.
... Between 1881 and 1917, Andrew Carnegie underwrote the construction of more than [1,600] public libraries in the United States, buildings from which children were routinely turned away, because they needed to be protected from morally corrupting books, especially novels. ...

In 1896, Anne Carroll Moore was given the task of running ... the Children's Library of the Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, built at a time when the Brooklyn schools had a policy that "children below the third grade do not read well enough to profit from the use of library books." ...

... Much of what Moore did in that room had never been done before, or half as well. She brought in storytellers and, in her first year, organized two hundred story hours (and ten times as many two years later). She compiled a list of [2,500] standard titles in children's literature. She won the right to grant borrowing privileges to children; by 1913, children's books accounted for a third of all the volumes borrowed from New York's branch libraries. ...

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/21/080721fa_fact_lepore

July 9, 2008

3 keys to change at work & in life

For many years, I've said that teaching technology often seems like amateur therapy. When a learner begins a conversation by saying something negative about computers -- "Computers hate me" or "I'm not good with computers" -- you may need to overcome their resistance, some self-esteem issues, "learned helplessness" (thank you, Carol Dweck), stereotype threat, etc.

In this January 2007 Fast Company excerpt from the introduction to his new book, Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change at Work and in Life, Alan Deutschman discusses the framework to successfully change yourself.

http://www.fastcompany.com/articles/2007/01/change-or-die.html

My "take-away" from this article:

  1. Relate: You form a new emotional relationship with a person or community that inspires and sustains hope (in yourself and your ability to change).
  2. Repeat: The new relationship helps you learn, practice and master the new habits and skills that you'll need.
  3. Reframe: The new relationship helps you learn news ways of thinking about your situation and your life.

Deutschman tells stories about the heart patients of Dr. Dean Ornish, criminals in San Francisco's Delancey Street program, and auto workers at a California GM plant that became a Toyota plant (note MacGregor's Theory X and Theory Y re: leadership).

You could also relate Deutschman's 3 keys to most 12-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous and all of its cousins, including for-profit diet counseling programs such as Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig. It's all about the relationship!

Other Deutschman articles in Fast Company, May 2005:

Change or Die

All leadership comes down to this: changing people's behavior. Why is that so damn hard? Science offers some surprising new answers -- and ways to do better.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/94/open_change-or-die.html

What Stage of Change Are You In?

While studying how smokers quit the habit, Dr. James Prochaska, a psychologist at the University of Rhode Island, developed a widely influential model of the "stages of change." What stage are you in?

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/94/open_change-or-die-fasttake2.html

July 8, 2008

Teach deep, strategic computer insights

On February 26, 2007, usability guru Jakob Nielsen wrote for his Alertbox e-newsletter:

Lifelong Computer Skills

Schools should teach deep, strategic computer insights that can't be learned from reading a manual.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/computer-skills.html

Do researchers read the articles they cite?

On July 8, 2008, Inside Higher Ed Daily Update wrote:

CITE CHECK

A scholarly paper finds that a significant proportion of academic citations are faulty, suggesting that many researchers don't read the articles they reference.

http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/07/08/citation

Scroll to the bottom of the article to download a PDF copy of the paper (includes critical responses to it):

Armstrong, J. S. & M. Wright (2008). The Ombudsman: Verification of Citations: Fawlty Towers of Knowledge? Interfaces, 38(2), 125-139.

July 7, 2008

New prof's first year on the job

On July 7, 2008, The Chronicle of Higher Education Career Network wrote:

A primer for new professors on what to expect in the first year on the job.

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/07/2008070701c.htm

July 1, 2008

Quote of the day: David Lynch on creativity

It's good for the artist to understand conflict and stress. Those things can give you ideas. But I guarantee you, if you have enough stress, you won't be able to create. And if you have enough conflict, it will just get in the way of your creativity. ...

... It's common sense: The more the artist is suffering, the less creative he is going to be. It's less likely that he is going to enjoy his work and less likely that he will be able to do really good work.

-- David Lynch, filmmaker, Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness and Creativity, pp. 93

June 30, 2008

Quote of the day: Uninterrupted time

Note to artists and writers -- including "dissertators":
If you want to get one hour of good painting in, you have to have four hours of uninterrupted time.

-- Bushnell Keeler, painter, quoted by filmmaker David Lynch in his book Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness and Creativity, p. 11

Others have said it and my personal experience confirms it: If you want to accomplish a creative task, it helps to block out 3 to 4 hours of time in your schedule on a regular basis.
  • Accept that you must have a warm-up period or ritual. It may not seem very productive but it does contribute to your creative process. Musicians play scales and other warm-up exercises. Choreographer Twyla Tharp describes her morning ritual in her book The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life: A Practical Guide.

  • Why 4 hours instead of 3? I suggest regularly blocking out that 4th hour to accommodate the days on which you really get into the flow of the activity and you don't want to stop.

  • If you're not having a good or great "creative" day, allow yourself to stop after Hour 3 -- use that fourth hour to do something *completely different* that recharges your creative energy for the next day's work.

    An Olympic athlete might perform a cooldown ritual that includes stretching, so think of this as stretching your creativity by using different creative or expressive muscles than the ones you just exercised.

  • Speaking of cooldowns, consider establishing your own cooldown routine in which you leave yourself notes about what you were doing as you finished. This will help you pick up your project more quickly at your next session.

    For my dissertation, it really helped to do this on any of my statistics output or graphics -- What data files did I use and what output files did I create using them? What are they supposed to show? What should I consider changing before running more SAS code?

  • Except for rare occasions when you're close to an important deadline, do NOT work more than 4 hours per day on a dissertation. You need other activities to stay balanced physically and mentally.

June 29, 2008

What the Internet is doing to our brains

The Atlantic Monthly, July/August 2008

Is Google Making Us Stupid?
by Nicholas Carr

What the Internet is doing to our brains.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

June 28, 2008

What is the Internet doing to our brains?

The Observer (U.K.), June 22, 2008

I Google, therefore I am losing the ability to think
by John Naughton

... What's surprising in a way is that people should be surprised by this. The web, after all, was designed by a chap (Tim Berners-Lee) who was motivated to do it because he had a poor memory for some things. Add powerful search engines to what he created and you effectively have a global memory-prosthesis. ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jun/22/googlethemedia.internet

June 26, 2008

Agnotology: The study of ignorance

On June 25, 2008, Inside Higher Ed Daily Update wrote:

PLENTY TO GO AROUND

A new field of research is emerging, devoted to the study of ignorance. Scott McLemee did not know that.

http://insidehighered.com/views/2008/06/25/mclemee

See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology

June 25, 2008

Noise pollution makes us sick and anxious

On June 25, 2008, Salon Newsletter wrote:

Cover Story: Stop the noise!
By Katharine Mieszkowski

When noise pollution is not making us sick and anxious, it is literally killing us. How do we turn it off?

... "The human auditory system is designed to serve as a means of warning against dangers in the environment," explains Louis Hagler, a retired internal medicine specialist in Oakland, Calif. "Noise above a certain level is perceived by the nervous system as a threat." The body responds to that threat with an outpouring of epinephrine and cortisol, the so-called stress hormones. "Your blood pressure goes up, your pulse rate goes up, there is a sudden outpouring of sugar into the bloodstream so the body is prepared to meet whatever threat there is in the environment."

If exposures are intermittent or rare, the body has the chance to return to normal. But if the exposure is unrelenting, the body doesn't have a chance to calm down, and blood pressure and heart rate may remain elevated, Hagler explains. That's why what seems like a mere annoyance can actually have long-term health effects. ...

http://salon.com/news/feature/2008/06/25/noise_pollution/

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

NOTE: Anyone can get a "free pass" to read Salon articles by viewing an online ad. Just wait for the "Enter Salon" link to appear. Be patient; sometimes there's a noticeable pause before that happens.

June 20, 2008

Quote of the day: Bob Geldof on e-mail

E-mail gives the illusion of progress even when nothing is happening.

-- Bob Geldof, musician and political activist (Band Aid, Live Aid)

June 2, 2008

Do cubicles shape character?

Found via Arts & Letters Daily:

The New Atlantis, Winter 2008

The Moral Life of Cubicles:
The Utopian Origins of Dilbert's Workspace

by David Franz

Few arenas can match the business office for its combination of humdrummery and world-shaping influence. Sociologist C. Wright Mills wrote of office workers, "Whatever history they have had is a history without events." The history of office technology seems especially uninspiring ... Max Weber saw the office's methods of organization, its rationality, and its disciplines as hallmarks of modern capitalism, making possible dramatic gains in efficiency and forever altering the economic and cultural landscape. Perhaps even more significant in our time, when millions of American workers spend most of their waking day in an office, is the sense that the organizational technologies of office life provide a kind of moral education, that offices shape character, that they create a certain kind of person. ...

Read the full article or download a PDF at:

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-moral-life-of-cubicles

May 9, 2008

In praise of librarians

Inside Higher Ed, November 16, 2005

IN PRAISE OF LIBRARIANS

As the roles of libraries and their keepers change, Terry Caesar wants academics to appreciate those who care for our books.

http://insidehighered.com/views/2005/11/16/caesar

May 6, 2008

Web users read 20-30% of words

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, May 6, 2008
On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/percent-text-read.html

Strunk and White said it best: Omit needless words!

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

Meanwhile, Nielsen notes that web pages are getting fatter, quoting two interesting observations from WebSiteOptimization:

  1. Over the last 5 years, the average Web page grew from 94 KB to 312 KB: a growth rate of 82%/year.

  2. Despite this obesity epidemic, observed response times for U.S. users with broadband decreased from 2.8 to 2.3 seconds per page (average across 40 big business sites) from 2006 to 2008.

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/average-web-page

Nielsen's comments:

  1. First, let's remember that almost half of the Internet users still don't have broadband, particularly in rural areas. In fact, FarmersOnly.com explicitly decided to design for dial-up access.

  2. While 2.3 seconds is better than 2.8, it's still 130% slower than the 1.0 seconds required for optimal user experience and a true sense of flow while navigating.

  3. In the past, big images were the largest offender, but now response times are delayed by the inclusion of ever-more external objects, code snippets, and "widgets." Keep a lid on it. The biggest contributor to interactivity is still the ability to navigate fast and furiously.

To paraphrase Strunk & White: Omit needless code!

To subscribe to Jakob Nielsen's usability newsletter, send a blank e-mail to

join-alertbox AT laser DOT sparklist DOT com

More info about the Nielson Norman Group
http://www.nngroup.com/

April 25, 2008

A philosopher's 10 modern myths

Times Higher Education, April 24, 2008

In the first in a series in which academics range beyond their area of expertise, philosopher Simon Blackburn proffers his top ten modern myths.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=401547&encCode=53931485BC53187875JTBS737226611

Found via Arts & Letters Daily

April 6, 2008

Multitasking: The brain is not a CPU

More from Walter Kirn's "The Autumn of the Multitaskers" (The Atlantic Monthly, November 2007):

... Multitasking, a definition: "The attempt by human beings to operate like computers, often done with the assistance of computers." It begins by giving us more tasks to do, making each task harder to do, and dimming the mental powers required to do them. It finishes by making us forget exactly how on earth we did them (assuming we didn't give up, or "multi quit"), which makes them harder to do again.

... In the days of rudimentary chemistry, the mind was thought to be a beaker of swirling volatile essences. Then came classical physical mechanics, and the mind was regarded as a clocklike thing, with springs and wheels. Then it was steam-driven, maybe. A combustion chamber. Then came electricity and Freud, and it was a dynamo of polarized energies -- the id charged one way, the superego the other.

Now, in the heyday of the microchip, the brain is a computer. A CPU.

Except that it's not a CPU. It's whatever that thing is that's driven to misconstrue itself ... as a prototype ... of our latest marvel of technology. ...

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200711/multitasking

April 5, 2008

Multitasking is driving us crazy

The Autumn of the Multitaskers
by Walter Kirn, The Atlantic Monthly, November 2007

Neuroscience is confirming what we all suspect: Multitasking is dumbing us down and driving us crazy. One man's odyssey through the nightmare of infinite connectivity.

... Through a variety of experiments, many using functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure brain activity, [scientists have] torn the mask off multitasking ...

... At the most basic level, the mental balancing acts that [multitasking] requires -- the constant switching and pivoting -- energize regions of the brain that specialize in visual processing and physical coordination and simultaneously appear to shortchange some of the higher areas related to memory and learning. We concentrate on the act of concentration at the expense of whatever it is that we're supposed to be concentrating on. ...

... Even worse, certain studies find that multitasking boosts the level of stress-related hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline and wears down our systems through biochemical friction, prematurely aging us. In the short term, the confusion, fatigue, and chaos merely hamper our ability to focus and analyze, but in the long term, they may cause it to atrophy. ...

... multitasking slows our thinking. It forces us to chop competing tasks into pieces, set them in different piles, then hunt for the pile we're interested in, pick up its pieces, review the rules for putting the pieces back together, and then attempt to do so, often quite awkwardly. ... A brain attempting to perform two tasks simultaneously will, because of all the back-and-forth stress, exhibit a substantial lag in information processing. ...

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200711/multitasking

April 2, 2008

The art of doing something well

The Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2008, page D7

Brian C. Anderson's review of The Craftsman
by Richard Sennett (Yale University Press, 326 pages, $27.50)

In The Human Condition Hannah Arendt distinguished ... between man as a worker, thoughtlessly and amorally lost in his labor's object, and man as a maker of society and its institutions, a builder of life in common. For Arendt, the maker had it all over the worker, who was, in her view, basically a drudge.

Richard Sennett, Arendt's former student, thinks that his mentor's division is too sharply drawn, too contemptuous of practical life. In "The Craftsman he compellingly explores the universe of skilled work, where "the desire to do a job well for its own sake" still flourishes. ...

Read the full review at:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120658371177467629.html?mod=2_1167_1

Found via Arts & Letters Daily

March 31, 2008

Quote of the day: Calvin Coolidge

Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshiped.

-- Calvin Coolidge

I wonder if good ol' "Silent Cal" would say the same about technology?

March 30, 2008

Quote of the day: George Santayana

All living souls welcome whatever they are ready to cope with;
all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong,
or deny to be possible.

-- George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952)

March 28, 2008

Curbing bad behavior online

On March 2008, Josh Fischman wrote for The Chronicle of Higher Education's blog Wired Campus:

There is a growing sense that bad student behavior online -- pirating music files, posting drunken photos on their Facebook page, passing along malicious gossip about other students on the Web -- has roots in earlier childhood, when they were not taught that, even online, there are boundaries.

Now [Tanya Byron,] a British psychologist, asked by her government to review how parents and children are affected by new technology, has weighed in with some support for this notion.

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/byronreview/

March 26, 2008

Quote of the day: Miss Peggy Lee

I learned courage from Buddha, Jesus, Lincoln, Einstein, and Cary Grant.

-- Miss Peggy Lee (1920-2002), quoted in the epigraph of Joan Didion's Slouching Toward Bethlehem

March 7, 2008

Teaching technique a tad tired?

The Chronicle of Higher Education Colloquy, February 21, 2008

Read a chat transcript with Barbara Gross Davis, assistant vice provost for undergraduate education at the University of California at Berkeley. She oversees the Office of Educational Development, the campus's faculty-development unit, and eight academic-support services for students. The second edition of her 1993 book, Tools for Teaching, which will be published by Jossey-Bass this year.

http://chronicle.com/live/2008/02/davis/

... Question from Beth Dailey, Nicolet College: Would you talk about alternatives to face-to-face office hours? Have you found online chat and instant messaging effective ways to communicate with students?

Barbara Gross Davis: Actually it is important to have face-to-face contact with students to learn more about them, to help students feel engaged in the course and to make them feel recognized as an individual, particularly in large classes. Online chat and IM are not alternatives but supplements. Online technologies are best for specific questions but do not allow for the sometimes the rather rambling conversations that can produce the best learning.

... Comment from Denise Blumenthal, WGBH, Boston's Public TV:

Are any of you aware of "Getting Results," a free online course for teaching in community colleges? We designed it for adjuncts, but it is really "Teaching 101" for anyone teaching at the college level. It is filled with videos, readings, discussion questions ...

http://www.league.org/gettingresults/

February 28, 2008

What high schoolers don't know

On February 27, 2008, the editorial board of The New York Times wrote:

In [Common Core's recent telephone] survey of 1,200 17-year-olds:

  • Almost one-quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler.
  • More than one-quarter thought Christopher Columbus sailed after 1750.
  • One-third did not know that the Bill of Rights protects freedom of religion and speech.
  • Just 52 percent knew that the novel 1984 is about a dictatorship in which citizens are watched to stamp out all individuality
  • Only 50 percent knew that in the Bible, Job is known for his patience in suffering.

http://theboard.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/is-our-children-learning-maybe-not/

http://www.commoncore.org/_docs/CCreport_stillatrisk.pdf

See Slate.com for the multiple-choice questions.

http://www.slate.com/id/2185486/entry/0/

February 27, 2008

All kids need a human laptop

All children need a laptop. Not a computer, but a human laptop. Moms, dads, grannies and grandpas, aunts, uncles -- someone to hold them, read to them, teach them. Loved ones who will embrace them and pass on the experience, rituals and knowledge of a hundred previous generations. Loved ones who will pass to the next generation their expectations of them, their hopes, and their dreams.

-- General Colin L. Powell, founder of America's Promise: The Alliance for Youth

Starbucks The Way I See It #273
http://www.starbucks.com/wayiseeit

http://www.americaspromise.org/apapage.aspx?id=8152

February 26, 2008

What behaviors satisfy library chat users?

Nahyun Kwon and Vicki L. Gregory (Winter 2007). The Effects of Librarians' Behavioral Performance on User Satisfaction in Chat Reference Services. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 47 (2): 137–148.

Interesting study which analyzed 422 chat reference transaction transcripts and corresponding user surveys obtained from a public library system. Would any of this be useful for other faculty holding virtual office hours? I don't know.

"Satisfaction was statistically significantly higher when reference staff showed the following six behaviors ...

  1. used the patron's name during the reference interview;
  2. communicated more receptively and listened more carefully;
  3. searched with or for the patron;
  4. provided pointers;
  5. asked the patron whether the question was completely answered; and
  6. asked the patron to come back if they needed further assistance. ...

... Furthermore, when examining the behavioral predictors of user satisfaction, five of the 10 RUSA behaviors were found to be significant predictors of user satisfaction. They were:

  1. asking whether the question was answered completely;
  2. offering information sources;
  3. asking patrons to come back when they need further assistance;
  4. searching information sources with or for the patrons; and
  5. listening to questions in a cordial and receptive manner."

Notice that using the patron's name didn't significantly improve user satisfaction. In most F2F reference transactions, you wouldn't know the patron's name. Although there is a place for it in the QuestionPoint system our campus library uses, quite a few patrons do not complete that field.

http://rusq.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/47n2/PDFs/kwon_gregory.pdf


February 24, 2008

What’s better than free Star Trek?

Posted at Get Rich Slowly on 22 Feb 2008:

... CBS is offering every episode of the original Star Trek series for free via streaming video. ... Other classic shows available for viewing include:

• The Twilight Zone
• Hawaii Five-O
• MacGyver

http://www.cbs.com/classics/star_trek/video/video.php

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2008/02/22/daily-links-true-geek-edition/

Quote of the day: Susan B. Anthony

Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.

-- Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)

February 22, 2008

Dalí was above the cliché of Surrealism

The Smart Set, 4 January 2008

The DalĂ­ Shtick
By Morgan Meis

Salvador DalĂ­ was skating on thin ice. It was a shtick and he was doing his shtick. He would open his eyes wide and give the patented DalĂ­ stare. Surrealism. Granted, Andre Breton was never exactly a paragon of personal dignity but at least there was something at stake in the early days. By the end, DalĂ­ was nothing but a parody of the thing he'd created of himself.

But it isn't all crap, and that's the revelation at the heart of the new exhibition "Dali: Painting & Film" (now leaving the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for St. Petersburg, Florida, and then MoMA this summer). Somewhere between the posing and the vamping and the recycling of tired imagery he created something. ...

http://thesmartset.com/article/article01040801.aspx

Lowell Monke: The Human Touch

Education Next, 4(4), Fall 2004

The Human Touch
By Lowell Monke

In the rush to place a computer on every desk, schools are neglecting intellectual creativity and personal growth.

http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/3259156.html

A PDF copy can be downloaded from the website.

February 20, 2008

Good teaching boosts achievement

Time Magazine, February 13, 2008

How to Make Great Teachers
By Claudia Wallis

We never forget our best teachers -- those who imbued us with a deeper understanding or an enduring passion, the ones we come back to visit years after graduating, the educators who opened doors and altered the course of our lives. ...

... It would be wonderful if we knew more about teachers such as these and how to multiply their number. How do they come by their craft? What qualities and capacities do they possess? Can these abilities be measured? Can they be taught? Perhaps above all: How should excellent teaching be rewarded so that the best teachers -- the most competent, caring and compelling -- remain in a profession known for low pay, low status and soul-crushing bureaucracy?

... Even as politicians push to hold schools and their faculty members accountable as never before for student learning, the nation faces a shortage of teaching talent. About 3.2 million people teach in U.S. public schools, but, according to projections by economist William Hussar at the National Center for Education Statistics, the nation will need to recruit an additional 2.8 million over the next eight years owing to baby-boomer retirement, growing student enrollment and staff turnover -- which is especially rapid among new teachers. ... Research suggests that a good teacher is the single most important factor in boosting achievement, more important than class size, the dollars spent per student or the quality of textbooks and materials. ...

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1713174,00.html

February 16, 2008

Sports Illustrated Road Trip to Purdue

Someone at work has a print version posted on their office door.

http://si.cnn.com/2008/sioncampus/01/14/road.trip.purdue/

January 29, 2008

Rethinking remedial education

On Jan 29, 2008, Inside Higher Ed Daily Update wrote:

Rethinking remedial education

In statewide effort, community colleges in California experiment with new models for "basic skills" instruction and student services.

http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/01/29/california

January 28, 2008

Typography's influence

The Boston Globe, January 27, 2008

What font says 'Change'?
by Sam Berlow & Cyrus Highsmith

Typography can subtly or boldly define a company, product, or person. Whether it is Best Buy's big, bold, screaming signs or the sweet, elegant script on a wine label, the type talks to us, the reader. The logos of the presidential candidates are no exception. ...

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/01/27/what_font_says_change/

I wish the type designers had given the names of all the fonts they discuss.

January 25, 2008

He's not as smart as he thinks

Newsweek Web Exclusive, January 23, 2008

He's Not as Smart as He Thinks
By Joan Raymond

Are men smarter than women? No. But they sure think they are. An analysis of some 30 studies by British researcher Adrian Furnham, a professor of psychology at University College London, shows that men and women are fairly equal overall in terms of IQ. But women, it seems, underestimate their own candlepower (and that of women in general), while men overestimate theirs.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/101079

January 20, 2008

Do machines think?

The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.

-- B.F. Skinner, Contingencies of Reinforcement, 1969

January 18, 2008

MS to patent office 'spy' software

The Times (UK), January 16, 2008

Microsoft seeks patent for office 'spy' software
by Alexi Mostrous and David Brown

Microsoft is developing Big Brother-style software capable of remotely monitoring a worker's productivity, physical wellbeing and competence. ...

... The system would allow managers to monitor employees' performance by measuring their heart rate, body temperature, movement, facial expression and blood pressure. Unions said they fear that employees could be dismissed on the basis of a computer's assessment of their physiological state.

Technology allowing constant monitoring of workers was previously limited to pilots, firefighters and NASA astronauts. This is believed to be the first time a company has proposed developing such software for mainstream workplaces. ...

... The US Patent Office confirmed last night that the application was published last month, 18 months after being filed. Patent lawyers said that it could be granted within a year.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3193480.ece

Too cold to exercise? NOT

The New York Times, January 17, 2008

Too Cold to Exercise? Try Another Excuse
By Gina Kolata

Your mother was right about the hat. But bundling up is not advised.

... One mistake winter exercisers make is wearing too much clothing. You don't want to sweat profusely because you overdressed.

"You should feel cool before you start exercising," Dr. [John W.] Castellani said. "You should not feel comfortable."

That means, Dr. [Timothy] Noakes said, that even in temperatures as low as 10 to minus-20 degrees, a runner probably needs to wear no more than a track suit, mittens or gloves and a hat. ...

... No matter how cold the air is, by the time it reaches your lungs, it is body temperature ...

... [Dr. Kenneth W. Rundell said] people with exercise-induced asthma ... should see a respiratory specialist and take medication when they exercise in dry air ... [and] he added, "you might want to use a balaclava," so your exhaled breath can moisten the air you breathe. ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/health/nutrition/17BEST.html

January 17, 2008

Moms key to future of science

The Australian, January 09, 2008

Mums key to future of science
by Verity Edwards

Winning over mothers is vital for educators hoping to recruit a rising generation of science students.

"One of the things we know (that) makes a difference is a mum's view of science and technology," said Martin Westwell, an Oxford academic poached by Flinders University to lead a new centre for science education.

"If mums are interested, we know that kids are more likely to take part in science. You have to increase the value of science," Professor Westwell said. ...

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23024772-30417,00.html

Found via Arts & Letters Daily

January 12, 2008

Google Book Search

Google Book Search: The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly

Google is opening up whole new worlds for Internet surfers and researchers everywhere. But is Book Search a project all about quantity over quality? Campus Technology takes a long, hard look at an effort that is simultaneously visionary and crude.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/57064/

Within 1 hour of drinking cola/soda pop

From Nutrition Research Center Health Update, October 24, 2007

Don't drink cola if you want to be healthy. ...

  • In the first 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system -- 100% of your recommended daily intake. You don't immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down.
  • 20 minutes: Your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. ...
  • >60 minutes: The caffeine ... makes you have to pee. It is now assured that you'll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolyte and water. ...

... Stick to water, real juice from fresh squeezed fruit, and tea without sweetener.

Read the full article at:

http://nutritionresearchcenter.org/healthnews/?p=140

Addendum: A friend questioned 10 teaspoons so I found a quote from "The Sweet and Lowdown on Sugar" by Kelly D. Brownell and Marion Nestle (The New York Times, January 23, 2004):

By itself, that 20-ounce Coke or Pepsi in a school vending machine provides 15 teaspoons of sugars. ...

... Kelly D. Brownell, professor of psychology at Yale, is author of Food Fight: The Inside Story of the Food Industry, America's Obesity Crisis, and What We Can Do About It. Marion Nestle, professor of public health at New York University, is author of Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health.
I first found the article text at:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/sugar012304.cfm

To confirm my hunch about the original source, I entered these words into the search window at nytimes.com

brownell nestle sweet lowdown
In most colas -- and far too many other foods -- High Fructose Corn Syrup replaced cane sugar many years ago. Cane sugar isn't exactly a health food, but some experts say that HFCS is even worse.