Do you think, “The Classroom Is Obsolete: It’s Time for Something New”? As I read the following article by Prakash Nair from Education Week, it began to make me wonder just where are we in education. Are we limiting our students’ growth and learning experience? Will technology change the obsolete classroom? Is there a need for those four walls? What are your thoughts? Published Online: July 29, 2011By Prakash Nair The overwhelming majority of the nearly 76 million students in America’s schools and colleges spend most of the academic day in classrooms. The debate over education reform has been going on for longer than anyone can remember. Lost in all this hand-wringing is the most visible symbol of a failed system: the classroom. The classroom is a relic, left over from the Industrial Revolution, which required a large workforce with very basic skills. The classroom is a relic, left over from the Industrial Revolution, which required a large workforce with very basic skills. So where does this leave us? Prakash Nair is a futurist and architect.
Highly Trusting People Better Lie Detectors Contrary to our intuition, research suggests that more trusting people are better than cynics at detecting when others are lying. Humans can be an untrusting race. People are often very cynical about human nature, tending to think that strangers will happily lie to us if there is something in it for them. We intuitive believe that being cynical is an advantage in detecting lies. Or so Nancy Carter and J. The results were as we’d expect: 85% thought low trusters are better than high trusters at lie detection. Is this the right answer though? Liar liar Carter and Weber weren’t so sure, so they measured how trusting 29 participants were and had them watch videos of a staged job interview. In these videos, interviewees had been told to do their best to get the job, but half were told to tell three lies in the process. These videos were then shown to participants who rated the honesty of the interviewees, along with how likely they would be to hire them. What is going on? Social intelligence
10 Infographics for Learning We all love infographics. Why? Well, they help us grasp information in a quick and fun way that appeals to our visual senses. In fact, there’s an infographic here explaining that. Below you’ll find 10 infographics that discuss learning in many different capacities – online, blended, mobile, etc. 1. Knewton published an infographic on “Blended Learning: A Disruptive Innovation” that explores K-12 blended learning models by Innosight Institute and Charter School Growth Fund. 2. Voxy Blog published an infographic titled “Are We Wired for Mobile Learning?” Photo Courtesy of Voxy Blog 3. Rick Man posted an infographic, “Why infographics accelerate decision making,” that identifies the ways we traditionally present information versus the visual way we can present information through infographics. Photo Courtesy of Rick Mans 4. Matthew Bloch and Bill Marsh published an interactive map, “Mapping the Nation’s Well-Being,” on the New York Times this March. Photo Courtesy of the NY Times 5. 6. 7. 8.
How to Promote Visionary Thinking Why we are more creative when mind and body are out of step. Usually we perform best with mind and body in sync. With our thoughts tied to our actions decisions are made faster, we are more engaged and we feel at one with ourselves. If you want to be creative, though, sometimes it pays to be out of sync according to a recent study by Huang and Galinsky (2011). In two comparison groups, participants were told to produce consonant mind-body states, i.e. happy memory plus happy face and sad memory plus sad face. After this participants had to make judgements about how typical words were of a particular category. The results showed that when participants were in a dissonant frame of mind (say smiling while thinking sad thoughts) they were more likely to judge camels, telephones and garlic as relatively typical examples of a vehicle, piece of furniture and vegetable. Participants in the dissonant conditions, then, were thinking more expansively. Image credit: Racchio
Think You're An Auditory Or Visual Learner? Scientists Say It's Unlikely : Shots - Health Blog iStockphoto.com We've all heard the theory that some students are visual learners, while others are auditory learners. And still other kids learn best when lessons involve movement. But should teachers target instruction based on perceptions of students' strengths? Psychologist Dan Willingham at the University of Virginia, who studies how our brains learn, says teachers should not tailor instruction to different kinds of learners. For example, if a teacher believes a student to be a visual learner, he or she might introduce the concept of addition using pictures or groups of objects, assuming that child will learn better with the pictures than by simply "listening" to a lesson about addition. In fact, an entire industry has sprouted based on learning styles. This prompted Doug Rohrer, a psychologist at the University of South Florida, to look more closely at the learning style theory. When he reviewed studies of learning styles, he found no scientific evidence backing up the idea.
The All-Time Top Six Psychological Reasons We Love Music What psychological roles does music play in our lives? Modern technology means it’s never been easier to hear exactly the music we want, whenever we want it. But whatever technology we use, the reasons we listen to music are universal. Music grabs our emotions instantly in a way few other art-forms can manage. It engages us on all sorts of different levels. A few bars of a song can take us back decades, to a different time and place. So what are the universal psychological functions of music? 6. Languishing down at number six was the way in which music teaches us about the world. Psychological research backs up the importance of the information music sends out to others about our personalities. Music is also sending us a message about the state of the world. 5. In at five is identity. One general trend in popular music is towards greater narcissism. 4. The fourth most important function of music is its social dimension. The song that did the trick? 2= Negative mood management 2= Diversion
50 really useful iPad 2 tips and tricks An absolute gem of an article by John Brandon and Graham Barlow from MacLife on 30th March over at TechRadar. This is going to become my iPad manual from here on in. Customised iPads for all iPad 2 tips and original iPad tips - get 'em here! With great new features like two video cameras, a faster processor and a thinner design, the iPad 2 is the world's best tablet device. iPad 2 review It's also fully capable of running the latest version of Apple's iOS operating system and great apps like iMovie and GarageBand. 1. iOS now supports folders. 2. Double-clicking the Home button shows you all the apps that are running on your iPad in a bar along the bottom of the screen. 3. The internet got mightily upset when Orientation Lock was replaced with Mute on the iPad during the last iOS update. 4. If you're carrying around sensitive data, you can now enable a feature that'll erase all the data on the device if someone inputs the incorrect passcode 10 times. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
Backmasking & Reverse Speech What is Reverse Speech? It has been called the discovery of the 7th sense. The research into this phenomenon has been described as being of "Nobel calibre". It has been featured in numerous publications around the world, and in the United States it became a household name in the late 90s. If human speech is recorded and played backwards, mixed amongst the gibberish at regular intervals can be heard very clear statements. The pioneer and 20 year veteran of this field, Australian David John Oates, describes Reverse Speech as another form of human communication. The applications of this discovery are exciting. Although still a new and emerging field, Reverse Speech is already making its mark felt in many areas. Reverse Speech has now come back to Australia, where it was initially discovered.