Curious David Redux : Food for Thought

I am over 50 years of age though when with my students I forget and am closer to their age:) I am very impressed by recently released Global Council on Brain Health reports dealing with brain health for adults ages 50 and older. Among those I have so far read are those dealing with nutrition (found here), social engagement (found here), sleep (found here), physical activity (found here), and cognitively stimulating activities (found here).

That most recent detailed report draws upon the expertise of thirteen specialists from four continents and from gerontology, neuropsychology, neurology, neuroscience, psychology, public health and speech-language pathology who met and agreed upon ten best-science-based consensus statements summarizing the impact of cognitively stimulating activities on brain health. The report’s appendices list the participants, provide a glossary with carefully defined terms, share the discussion questions framing the deliberations, clearly explain differences, reveal disclosure statements of potential conflicts of interests, indicate sources of funding, and provide selected references. I find these reports understandable, well-written, full of practical and actionable advice, myth-busting and extremely important. Definitely enriching food for thought.

Curious David Redux: Dropping Off the Net

Once I have tearfully witnessed Commencement, I don my invisibility cloak.  From the perception of many persons used to finding me ubiquitous, I disappear from the Net. Summer is a time for being outdoors, for travel, for gardening, for playing with children, for taking advantage of our living on North Lake and for being mentored by Leo the Great Pyrenees.

Here are prior expressed summer ruminations when Robin the Newf mentored me.

Reading with the Newf

After last semester I pretty much dropped off the Net for a couple of months (due to an unreliable home networking situation) and spent time reading printed books, hard copies of magazine subscriptions and paper newspapers. I highly recommend it. I am convinced that online reading is a different experience. I look forward to reading Naomi Baron’s latest thoughts on this.

Here are books I found well worth my having read:

  1. Michel Faber’s The Book of Strange New Things– praised by several of my favorite contemporary authors David Mitchell, Philip Pullman, and Yann Martel.
  2. John Scalzi’s Lock In: A Novel of the Near Future.
  3. David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks.
  4. Cory Doctorow’s Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age.
  5. Gabriella Coleman’s Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous
  6. Andy Weir’s The Martian

I presently am finishing Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings and am looking forward to reading Ann Morgan‘s The World Between Two Covers: Reading the Globe when it becomes available in the US in May 2015. Before then I plan to read Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven.

Tomorrow, after my classes, I’ll invite my students into my office to take any books I have read. It always pleases me to see them walk off excitedly with some pleasure reading.

What books do you recommend that I read? That I encourage my students to read?

Curious David Redux: Exploring E-book Publishing Tools

DeanaFor the past 40 years I have taught a course called Statistics and Experimental Design required of Carroll Psychology majors. Here is a brief description of HOW I teach PSY205 (click the “HOW” link).

Below is a first draft of an ebook I am writing with the able assistance of some Carroll students. Each hyperlink below is a “module”. Thanks to Alison, Arianna, Tia, and Lizzy (each of who is in graduate school or will be in the Fall) for helping me create this draft. I plan to “publish it” using for the first time Pressbooks software.  I share this work in progress at this time welcoming feedback. I also have made it available to my present students for end of semester review

  1. Still Looking for ways to Improve Courses After 40 Years of Teaching (Part 1 of 2)
  2. Retooling and Sharpening the Saw
  3. What data analysis should I use (you need not enter your real name or email)?
  4. Teaching Tools: SPSS, inStat, starQuiz, Camtasia and Research Randomizer.
  5. On Engaging Students (Part 2): Adventures with StarQuiz and SPSS
  6. Learning by Teaching: Alison and Lizzy’s Guide to Using SPSS Data Analysis for Simple Linear Regression
  7. Two-way Between Subjects ANOVA Using SPSS (Part 1)
  8. Review of One-way Between Subjects ANOVA using SPSS
  9. t-Time: Three Short SPSS Screencasts for PSY205
  10. Something Old and Something New: A brief Introduction to Effect Size Statistics

Curious David Redux: Reflections on Aging

When I was a graduate student, I would religiously read every article in every journal to which I subscribed. Alas, I have fallen out of that good habit.  Perhaps I need to finish reading Charles Duhigg’s books like this one here.

One of my resolutions as I wind up (and wind down!) my teaching career has been to invest more time in reading the scholarly journals to which I subscribe and weaving the knowledge both into my teaching or my life. My research interests across the years have been wide-ranging (impression formation, subliminal perception, the Mozart effect, effects of color on behavior, internet learning tools) no doubt in part due to my Oberlin College liberal arts education. My current research interests now are focused on aging, maintaining brain health, brain fitness training, truth in advertising, and memory —- no doubt because I am older as is evidenced in the photos above!

As I prepare for a research-oriented semester (two sections of Statistics and Experimental Design) and a Research Seminar, an article in the December 2013 issue of Psychological Science intrigued me because of the simplicity of the experimental design and of the data analyses and because of the importance of the results (if replicable). In an article (found here) entitled “Aging 5 Years in 5 Minutes: The Effect of Taking a Memory Test on Older Adults’ Subjective Age” Hughes et al. experimentally demonstrated that older (but not younger) adults felt subjectively older after taking (or even after expecting to take) a standard neurological screening test which dealt with memory! Tremendous implications here for future research on the effects of context on self-perceptions of aging.

I’m doing a lot of reading in preparation for my Fall 2018 courses. Among the books I am carefully reading are:

  1. The Sharpbrains Guide to Brain Fitness (2013). I found the virtual conference that I attended last year of tremendous value (more about it can be found here or in some of my earlier blogs). I look forward to reading the 3rd revised edition when it becomes available. Author Alvaro Fernandez informs me that it might be available in three to four months.
  2. Happiness is a Choice: You Make (2018): Lessons from a Year Among the Oldest Old by John Leland.
  3. The End of Old Age: Living a Longer More Purposeful Life (2018) by Marc E. Agronin. An interview with the author can be found here.
  4. Two Weeks to a Younger Brain (2016) by Gary Small.
  5. Everything written by Carroll alumna Dr. Michelle Braun who kindly met with my research students for an hour last year to share her insights about brain health. Much of her good work can be found here.

What other books should I carefully examine?

 

A Student's Guide to Paper.li: Arianna's Experience

DSCN9015We are currently examining different content curation services as to their strengths, weaknesses, ease of use, and usefulness to students. A very good guide to content curation developed by others can be found here:
Paper.li is a content curation service that quickly creates a newspaper-like publication for you. To start you simply create an account through Facebook, Twitter, or email. I would recommend investing in a “Pro account” because it allows you more options, such as advertisement-free newspapers. To begin creating your newspaper you can search keywords and Paper.li will automatically retrieve articles, videos, and photos from Twitter, Google+, and RSS feeds that are related to the topic you have selected. You can also find your own content. To do this you simply go to settings and drag the blue “Paper.li” button to your “favorites bar”. When you find an article you like you click on the Paper.li bookmarklet and select which newspaper to add the article to.
Once Paper.li has completed its retrieval for you, you can edit the layout and the title. You can delete any content you dislike or find irrelevant and you can add pictures and colors to the background to help liven up your newspaper. Upon the completion of your adjustments, you can select whether or not Paper.li should automatically publish each newspaper you create or whether you would like to save them as drafts until you feel the paper is sufficiently developed. You can also choose how often the Paper.li retrieves updates. You could update your paper each day, or less frequently. This allows for your subscribers to be reading the most up to date material on your topic.
Once you have decided your newspaper is complete and ready for publication, you can share it across several social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and you can email it to individuals. These same options are also available for each article within your newspaper. This feature allows you to promote your newspaper further and increases the likelihood of gaining subscribers. Subscribers are those who are allowed access to your newspapers. You also have the ability to control who can and cannot be a subscriber to your newspapers. Therefore, if you have a newspaper that is strictly for the workplace, you can customize that paper so only select individuals can view it.
One limitation of Paper.li is that each newspaper you create must be upgraded to Pro. Another limitation is that Paper.li occasionally does not find any content to publish. Therefore, some days your newspaper will be full of articles, videos, and images, and other days it will be a blank slate. A third problem I found occurred when creating my own newspaper. On Thursday I manually added all of my own content to a newspaper. Monday the paper had updated and but had only had two videos in it— supplying next to no news to subscribers. It seems as though we are not the only ones who struggle to actualize the potential of Paper.li as 2015 is the first time in six years that the site did not make Jane Hart’s Top 100 tools for learning.
Despite the flaws I’ve noted (which may be due to my inexperience with the tool)  one very nice feature of Paper.li is that they have a video tutorials for just about every question a person could have. These videos exhibit step-by-step instructions on how to complete a tasks. Another beneficial aspect of Paper.li is the timely manner in which their customer service responds to assist your needs. Paper.li has considerable potential as a curating tool. However, it needs some major improvements.
Contact us if you’d like to see one off our early productions.
We welcome any feedback or learning from your experiences with Paper.li.


What Good Books Have You Read This Year?

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“What good books have you read this year?” recently asked my former student and fellow bibliophile, Susan Gusho recently on FaceBook. Susan, who like so many former students, continues to influence me in what I read and how I teach. Though I do not read as much or as widely as colleagues like Hugo Hartig, who since retiring, has often shared his annual reading list on FaceBook, I try to read books for pleasure on a regular basis.
Here are books I have read this year that were well worth my reading:

  • David Mitchell’s Slade House: A Novel
  • Lauren Groff’s Fate and Furies: A Novel
  • Robert Galbraith’s (aka JK Rowling) Career of Evil (Comoran Strike)
  • Carroll Colleague John Garrison’s Glass (Object Lessons)
  • Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest. Alas, I must wait until August for the translation of the third part of this science fiction trilogy.
  • Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman: A Novel
  • Steven Jarvis’ Death and Mr. Pickwick: A Novel
  • Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves: A Novel
  • Ann Morgan’s The World Between Two Covers: Reading the Globe 
  • Naomi S. Baron’s Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World.
  • Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven.
  • Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See (Thank you, sister-in-law Becky O’Connor for giving this to me—and for instilling the love of reading in children and adults).
  • Kazuo Ishhiguro’s The Buried Giant
  • Sian Beilock’s How the Body Knows Its Mind: The Surprising Power of the Physical Environment to Influence How You Think and Feel. 

On my short list of books to read (or finish) over the holiday break—I don my invisibility cloak from Carroll on December 18 until January 19)—- are the following:

  • Brian Selznicks The Marvels
  • Mark R. Schwen’s Leading Lives that Matter: What We Should Do and Who We Should Be.
  • Douglas Rushkoff’s Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now (Thank you, Davis Endries, for calling my attention to this book.)
  • Jonathan Franzen’s Purity: A Novel
  • Oliver Burkeman’s The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking. (Thank you, David Lewis for alerting me to this gem).
  • Martin James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings. (Thank you, Susan Gusho, for sharing from Kansas your book recommendations. You know what I will like.)
  • Maria Konnikova’s The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It Every Time.
  • Roger Angell’s This Old Man: All in Pieces
  • Joan Hustace Walker’s Great Pyrenees (Complete Pet Owners Manuals) (Recommended by Leo The Great)

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Recommend to me some good books and prove to me that I have a reader or two:)

Happy Holidays.


Why Twitter is Rising in Importance in My Personal Learning Program

DSCN8780It’s my research day. I just helped Leo the Great Pyr onto his Central Bark Doggie Day Care bus
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and had a team meeting with Lizzy and Alison, two of my student research assistants. Before I gave them research assignments, I shared with them my Christmas ritual of opening up Jacquie Lawson’s marvelous Advent Calendar App. Thank you, Jacquie, for giving us reasons to smile and be in awe.
While we are working I receive a Facebook communication (and feedback) that Katerina and Tim Miklos, now in England, enjoyed the wedding video that Alison produced with Imovie as one of her research projects with me on Tuesday. I hope in the near future to research and develop with my students global communication tools such as Skype by communicating with Katerina in England, Ben in Hungary, Maren in Madagascar, Andrew in Switzerland, and Hersonia in Mexico. Who else abroad is willing to help us learn together?
I’m monitoring my Twitter feed as I write this blog piece and find 10 ideas, resources, and thought-leaders worth following. The dross is outweighed by the nuggets as I refine my Twitter filters and make better use of Twitter applications. I still am not quite ready to explore Twitter Chats. Just because a technology learning tool HAS capabilities, doesn’t mean that I need them –or that I should change my teaching to accommodate them.
Thank you Teri Johnson and Jane Hart for firmly but gently nudging me into exploring the use of Twitter.
Here are 10 tweets that informed me or guided my personal learning today:

  1. I see that Maria Konnikova has a new book out in January. She writes so well about psychology and pseudo science. I preorder the book and send her a brief note. Thank you, Maria, for your clear thinking, your lucid writing, and your thought-provoking ideas.
  2. Alec Couros recommends a Ted Talk about “Where Good Ideas Come From.” If I can find time, I’ll take a look at that before teaching my research Seminar. Thank you, Alec, for the inspiration.
  3. The indefatigable Richard Byrne alerts me to some free Technology Tools for Teachers.
  4. While I am data mining resources from K-12 I take a quick glance at my Edutopia feed.
  5. A colleague on LinkedIn suggests reposts an article about skills every young professional should have. I see value in sharing this with my advisees.  Thank you, Rebecca!
  6. I see a Mac 911 MacWorld piece about how to incorporate special characters into documents. I’ll need this as i try blog pieces in different language. I snag it (oops, gotta be careful. I own that App and I am starting to use my Dictation software as I write blogs).
  7. Richard Kiker’s use of Paper.li motivates me to return to exploring its utility as a curating tool. I assign that protect to Arianna.
  8. I am reminded and convinced that it is important that I incorporate thinking about climate change—and doing something about it into my life.
  9. I take a quick look at a recent EverNote blog post since I continue to struggle with most best to master its features.
  10. I glance at recent posts from LifeHacker—always fun to read and read one about how there just doesn’t seem to be enough time.

YIKES! Tempus fugit (or as Mrs. Bode, my Howland  High School Latin teacher often punned, Time fidgets!)
Time to protect myself against Internet Distractions.


Banishing Computer Clutter (Part 1)

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I am about to go through all the different applications that I have on this Mac and attempt to winnow them. Then, I need to do the same for all my other machines. Yes, I have done this before and yes I have written about it before (e.g. here). Appluenza is difficult to extinguish!
I call up 1-Password. Increasingly I am relying on such software to avoid the    F-word–the forgetting that seems to be an increasing concomitant of aging.  I am much more interested  nowadays in software or research claiming to enhance, protect, and expand memory. Fortunately this old man can find inspiring older role models in individuals like Roger Angell and his marvelous new book.
I load an application from hell. I bought this particular MAC software several years ago to convert videos to the many different formats existing.  Alas it won’t accept the registration code which somehow is encrypted in a fashion that doesn’t allow cut and paste and which consists of a long string of numbers, letters and hieroglyphics. Customer support is a series of FAQs that don’t address my needs. Humbug. Trash it along with another app that I never have used.
I discover several Apps built into the Mac whose existence I did not know or whose function I never realized. Embarrassing. Annoying. Wasteful. More to learn.
I load my Day One “journaling” software to record my progress. The newly downloaded voice dictation software works pretty well with it. I have all my student assistants using a shared Day One app to help us co-ordinate our work efforts.
And suddenly I am distracted by my Comic Life 3 software!
Time for a Thanksgiving holiday break and playing with the grand-nieces and grand-nephews!
Comic 1
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Revisiting Mac Dictation Software — and Giving Thanks for Friendships

P1050795Across the years I have tried dictation software with mixed results. Oddly enough I was testing this kind of teaching/learning tool  (but in the company of a different dog) six years ago on this date!
Here are some of my earlier misadventures—they still make me laugh!
Right now I am using Nuance’s new Mac upgrade of Dragon Dictate to “write” this short blog.  My motivation needing to assist my business partner Greg Schneider install the software on his machine. Greg is quite facile with earlier versions of this tool. I am so blessed to have him as a friend, business partner, confidante, and annual fishing partner.
Perhaps dictation software tools will overcome my handicap of not being able to type!
Stay tuned for my adventures and misadventures with dictation software —and some initially very short blogs!
And Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who celebrate this American holiday.

Revisiting Curation Software: A Student Guide to the Basics of Scoop.it

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Dog tired as I try to bring the semester to a soft landing, I rely more and more on my student assistants to provide support in my research efforts.
I invited student research assistants Alison and Arianna to investigate the usefulness of Scoop.it.” as a teaching/learning tool. Here are their preliminary thoughts.
Scoop.it is a curating media web tool that allows individuals to find content for any topic imaginable. From these topics, it then creates an organized online magazine format. The components of Scoop.it are users, topics, and scoops. The potential users are anybody that has a Scoop.it account and can share articles about any topic. The topics can consist of anything, your favorite sport, a paper for school, current news events, and multiple endless possibilities. The scoops are the articles that are stored under the topic board/page for that specific topic. The free account for Scoop.it allows users to create two topic boards, connect two social media accounts, and scoop 10 articles a day.
To create a topic, one selects the “create a topic” button that is located on the user’s profile page. Once the button is selected, Scoop.it will then prompt you to fill out information about your topic. One inserts the name of the topic, selects the language, and then inserts a couple of key words about the topic. Inserting these key words allows Scoop.it to search for content that may be germane to your topic.
To find content yourself, a search bar in the top right corner allows one to type in keywords. The search will then produce three tabs related to the keywords; posts, topics, and users. The posts tab finds articles and content that is related to the keywords that were searched. Based on the keywords, topic boards that are created by other users will also be pulled up. If one wishes, one can follow a topic board which is then added automatically to one’s “follow” list. By following a topic board, one will be notified of the new content the user scoops into that topic board.
The topic board is a page that displays all of the curated content on the selected topic. In an organized fashion, the topic board arranges all the content you selected for that specific topic. By default, the content and articles are published in chronological order on the topic board.
When one finds an article that they want to scoop into their particular topic board, there is a scoop.it button on the article. This button allows one to select which curated topic board to add the scoop in, add additional text to the article, share this article with other social media sites, select a schedule of publication for the article, and add tags to the article.
Scoop.it allows individuals to share scoops with other social media sites without publishing the scoop under one of their topic boards. On the bottom right of a scoop is an arrow button that give you options of your other social media platforms to share the article with. Some versions of Scoop.it also provide the embedding code to include in  a blog piece or to a website.
For convenience, Scoop.it has a web based platform and an app for mobile devices which syncs everything automatically across devices and platforms (e.g. desktop, iPad, iPhone, and Android).
There is an education version of Scoop.it that allows for  30 co-curators or groups to collaborate on a project.  One is able to search for topics that may aid in papers, research projects, and class presentations. Teachers can create topic boards for a class and attach additional readings of articles that may enhance understanding of the material for the students. It can be used in conjunction with other learning tools such as SlideShare and PowerPoint.
We welcome any feedback or experience with Scoop.it.