Facial Transformations

This is just way too much fun - from Bulldog Curiosities.

More predictions for the year ahead in online learning

Link in title goes to Predictions for 2006: E-learning Experts Map
the Road Ahead - ELearn Magazine by Lisa Neal.

"Who, in 2002, envisioned the popularity of podcasts, wikis, and blogs? Yet for all the emphasis on how content can be created and disseminated, there has been too little focus on the quality of the learning experience. That's why my prediction for 2006 is that people will realize that technology, no matter how innovative, is just an enabler. New technologies only succeed if they help people learn. Read on for more predictions from some of the most thoughtful and opinionated people in the e-learning field." Lisa Neal

Learning Increases Passion: When you know more you appreciate more

Learning music changes music. Learning about wine changes
wine. Learning about Buddhism changes Buddhism. And learning
Excel changes Excel.

If we want passionate users, we might not have to change our
products - we have to change how our users experience them.
And that change does not necessarily come from product
design, development, and especially marketing.

It comes from helping users learn.

Robin Good's - Kolabora News
Issue #70 - January 19th 2006

Great article.

Two of my favorite subjects joined together.

It does make sense that the more you now about something the more likey you are to become pasionate about it. It also makes sense, to me, that sometimes people are passionate due to misinformation.

Online, mobile and just-in-time learning opportunities can have a huge impact on not only "traditional" learners but on the world as a whole.

Personally, my vision for this has expanded over the past year due to the incredible leap technology has taken. I am now envisioning a future where I can go into a grocery store and under each food item find a some buttons that allow me to instantly access information about nutrition, calories and cost per serving. Ideally, I'd like to be able to plug my Blackberry into it and be able to search for recipes and cost comparisons also.

It may not be entirely necessary but it would increase the likelihood of actually going grocery shopping. Who knows, I may even develop some level of passion for it.

Drug Addiction:Why the Brain Loses Control - Nora Volkow

From George Siemens. Link in title goes to page of links to video or lectures about the brain. Most are quite long (as university lectures tend to be lol) But IMO well worth the time. The one on drug addiction is excellent once you get used to Nora's accent. Very cool stuff.

I'd post more on this but Lost is on and I'm addicted lol

Revenge Replaces Empathy in the Male Brain

New York Times Syndicate
E.J. Mundell
January 18, 2006

The Germans have a word for it: schadenfreude, loosely translated as "taking joy in the misery of others."

It's what many folks feel when movie villains get blown away or a nasty co-worker gets fired.

Now a new brain-imaging study suggests that schadenfreude might be a distinctly male phenomenon.

If what is reported in this article is true then the "very real and somber implications" include not only the capital punishment debate but also our entire justice system.

My First Video

I decided to test out Google's free video upload program. The process was quick and quite painless. It took the stated 3-4 days for the video to go through their checkpoints and become searchable.

The quality is not great but I suspect that the reason for that has more to do with the Windows MovieMaker software that I used to edit than the Google interface. Please take into consideration that this was my first day with my new Panasonic PV-GS150 camcorder, it was pouring rain and it was also the first time I tried to edit with Windows MovieMaker. The whole process, from getting out of my car to uploading to Google maybe took 2 hours.

I gotta say that this is huge boon for online education. I can now incorporate as much video as I want on my Moodle sites and not have to worry about how much space it being eaten up. Very cool!

Free blogs, free videos, what's next?

Fuel for Recovery - pdf

Linked from Daily Dose. The article refers to research linking increased levels of omega-6 and omega-3 to lower rates of relapse regardless of of past levels of drug use.

There have been many studies on the impact diet has on mood disorders including depression and anxiety. And probably just as many demonstrating the positive impact omega-3 has on aggressive behaviour and ADHD.

More later on this...

Complex Trauma

I spent 3 days in early December at a workshop on Complex Trauma. The presenters were John Briere Ph.D. and Bessel van der Kolk MD (link in post title). I'm working on a PowerPoint of the highlights and will post... eventually.

One of the most interesting points made by van der Kolk was that Complex Trauma responds best to present centered therapies that involve the body as opposed to cognitive restructuring or the retelling of the story.

van der Kolk suggests that yoga and theatre sports present better and safer therapeutic approaches to Complex Trauma (most notably traumas of abondonment and interpersonal traumatic experiences that occur prior to verbal ability) and suggests EMDR as a preferred treatment for PTSD or simple traumas.

I happen to agree whole-heartedly with Dr. van der Kolk's opinion but still wanted to know why these approaches work. I was pondering this today when I happened to come across this article, and this article. Both explore the Mirroring Neuron and cite research around the lack of this mirroring "ability" in autistic children.

So, I'm thinking that children that are abandoned emotionally and/or physically may not go through the mirroring stage and therefore not engage those particular neurons. As a child brain develops unused neurons get pruned but attachment and mirroring at a later age may allow for partial re-growth of those neurons.

If this is kind of how it works, then activities like yoga and theatre sports that involve the active mirroring of another person could work because the activities are stimulating the mirroring neurons. Just a thought...

Go Daddy Rocks!

I'm not usually one for commercialization or promoting the commercialization of anything but I gotta say, Go Daddy is a very cool company.

Why? Well let me tell ya... They called me.
Simple as that.

Ok, a bit more to the story. I have a couple of domain registered at Go Daddy. One is related to my MA project, the other is... will eventually be, my own site.

A week or so ago I was trying to assign a hosting package to one domain and the Web Site Tonight feature to the other. But I messed it up, got it backwards actually. (sigh, am not as geeky as I may first appear). Anyway, I gave up trying to right the wrongs I had created. I decided to take a breather and go back another day to fix it.

And then this morning, outa the blue, a rep from Go Daddy called me. He said something like "Hi Jamie, I'm calling to help you fix your account options. It looks like you are having some trouble".

I kid you not! Way too cool. Then he very patiently walked me through all the steps needed to make everything right.

If I could just get this kind of service from my bank and my mechanic I'd be set lol

So, I am a fan of Go Daddy and they have, through that one phone call, built a huge surplus of social capital with me.

NUVVO - Free online education portal

This is pretty cool. Took me all of 5 minute to sign up and start creating an online course. Minimal free mb's though and no glossary feature. But still a bargin and a really nice look to it.
If you want to you can charge for your course(s) and the site deducts 10% and sends you the rest. I kinda like that idea.