Here we go again with the linkageness!

The American Scholar – Reading in a digital age

We need the Internet, we need novels, we need to read.  We also need to sort out quick fixes and deep focus. This article explores our engagement with text.  Set aside some time for the piece; it’s well worth poring over.

From Donald Clark Plan B – What Are Universities For?

“The current University model is based on the 18 year old undergraduate. The whole university experience, for many a drunken meander through a three year degree, where you attend as few boring lectures as you can get away with, crib from your mates, then cram for finals, is as embedded today as it was thirty five years ago, when I attended. Yet more and more older students and part-time students, with a more focussed agenda, are doing degrees. The drunken meander is perhaps a luxury we can no longer afford.

“Another solution to the clearly inefficient system is the use of technology. The Open University has nearly 200,000 students, nearly 20 times more than Sussex, yet none are on the campus. Learning, has to a degree, freed itself from the tyranny of time and location. I’m not saying we should abandon all face-to-face activity, but we can at least introduce a better blend of delivery.”

Lisa Harris Marketing – Online Personal Branding

Your online identity, online brand, online presence, and online reputation are important.  Don’t take just my word for it.  You can find lots of examples in Lisa’s presentation.

From The Situationist – The Situational Effects of Hand-washing

“It turns out that Shakespeare was really onto something when he imagined Lady Macbeth trying to clean her conscience by rubbing invisible bloodstains from her hands. A few years ago, scientists asked people to describe a past unethical act. If people were then given a chance to clean their hands, they later expressed less guilt and shame than people who hadn’t cleansed.”

Various document templates for:

• Google Docs
• Microsoft Word
• Open Office

The template selections for the above tools should further enhance your productivity.  Hope you find something useful.

Nick Vujicic – Look at yourself after watching this:

I’ve seen videos of Nick Vujicic before, but don’t think I’ve linked to any here. Pretty inspirational stuff.  I came across this video through Ian’s Messy Desk.

Spiked – ‘Yes we Lacan’: the revolt of philosophy students

Middlesex University announced in April 2010 that they were closing down the Philosophy department. It has resulted in a huge backlash from students, academics, and even celebrities around the world.  There’s even a website about the campaign to save the department.  And a Facebook Group with over 12,000 members.

Philosophy students at Middlesex occupied the Philosophy building over a week ago.  It looks as though the university has taken legal action and is about to have them evicted.  Whatever the case, this closure has caused upset on many levels and I don’t see the hurt going away any time soon:

“Over the past week the philosophy students have bedded down inside the mansion, waiting for a constructive dialogue to begin with the university administration. They have turned the mansion into a hive of philosophical debate and discussion. Hoiby, who came from Norway to study at the department because of its reputation for research in Continental Philosophy, has found that the occupation has enriched his studies. ‘We’ve got everything in here’, he said. ‘We’re all living on top of each other and we’ve been having some really positive exchanges of ideas. We spend our time doing a bit of everything: discussing essays, doing close-text readings and staying up all night arguing philosophy. This is what university is supposed to be: a place for learning.'”

TED – Dan Meyer: Math class needs a makeover

Students of all ages need to stop and think.  Life isn’t full of problems that helpfully start at Point A and are pleasantly paved toward Point B.  Problems need to be more real in order to get students on a level playing field and ready to question what’s going on.

The whirl of life, inspiration, doing what you want, breaking rules…I found this “Class of 2010 Graduation Song” and wanted to share it here.

Full of hope, full of push, full of win:

“Know who you are, own it, cuz u worthy.”

“Dreams are better as goals, written down.”

“The best job I got right now…I created it.”

“Even if your pants sagging you can make it happen.”

“Be who you are…yourself…no one else.”

Quality.

A veritable banquet of linkageness for the weekend.  As always, enjoy!

Freestyle Mind – Mental Math Tricks to Impress Your Friends

Complex sums aren’t always that complex at all.  You just need to know the tricks to get the answer fast.

PsyBlog – Does Delaying Decisions Lead to Better Outcomes?

Delaying a decision takes a person further away from whatever the ‘default’ decision would be.  Clearly a good thing if the default decision is rubbish, but not such a good thing if the default answer was best.  No wonder some decisions are so tough to make!

Registrarism – The global higher education revolution

Paul Greatrix, Registrar at Nottingham, points us toward an interesting piece about the way HE is changing around the world.  The piece offers “a grim prospectus but a realistic one”.  If the highlights get you thinking, I recommend you read the entire article.

World of Psychology – Off the Internet for 24 Hours
and
Chronicle – Students Denied Social Media Go Through Withdrawal

A study at the University of Maryland has examined how students feel when they give up all forms of media for a 24-hour period.  At first, it sounds as if the students collapsed into quivering wrecks due to their media addictions.  But the report doesn’t exactly report it like that.  World of Psychology explains:

“This study had far less to do with ‘addiction’ and ‘dependency’ than it did to show us that college students are using these tools as important ways for keeping in touch, connected, and informed. Taken from that perspective, that sounds a lot less like ‘addiction’ and more like ’empowering.'”

A different issue was raised in the report regarding students’ use of media:

“Students showed no significant loyalty to a news program, news personality or even news platform. Students have only a casual relationship to the originators of news, and in fact rarely distinguished between news and more general information.”

For further information, check World of Psychology’s more detailed report.

How To Get Focused – 8 Things Everybody Ought to Know About Concentrating

Fact: You have more ability to concentrate than you think.  Scott Scheper gives a huge insight into what is known about concentration and how you can exercise yours much better.

Independent – Why you need to look around the campus

If you do just one thing when deciding which universities to study at, go to open days.  Take in the uni atmosphere and talk to current students about their experience of the place.  This is one of the most important things you can do:

“This is your chance to look behind the scenes. You should try to get under the skin and get a sharper view of how life on the campus really is. Above all, you’ve got to be able to picture yourself there.”

Smashing Magazine – Five Tips For Making Ideas Happen

Is your behaviour proactive or reactive?  Have you stripped your projects down to three primary elements?  Are you self-aware?  Can you work beyond the stage of initial excitement?

Follow Smashing Magazine’s advice and your productivity should shoot up.

Marc and Angel Hack Life – Productivity Advice in 5 Words or Less

Talking of productivity, sometimes you need a quick boost of enthusiasm to get you going.  Here are 101 brief nudges for you.

From Smithsonian – How Our Brains Make Memories

“People tend to have accurate memories for the basic facts of a momentous event—for example, that a total of four planes were hijacked in the September 11 attacks—but often misremember personal details such as where they were and what they were doing at the time. Hardt says this could be because these are two different types of memories that get reactivated in different situations. Television and other media coverage reinforce the central facts. But recalling the experience to other people may allow distortions to creep in. ‘When you retell it, the memory becomes plastic, and whatever is present around you in the environment can interfere with the original content of the memory,’ Hardt says. In the days following September 11, for example, people likely repeatedly rehashed their own personal stories—’where were you when you heard the news?’—in conversations with friends and family, perhaps allowing details of other people’s stories to mix with their own.

[…]

“Perhaps it’s better if we can rewrite our memories every time we recall them. Nader suggests that reconsolidation may be the brain’s mechanism for recasting old memories in the light of everything that has happened since. In other words, it just might be what keeps us from living in the past.”

Academic Matters – The University: Punctuated by Paradox

Universities need paradox.  It’s hard to imagine a university without paradox.  Epitomising modernism and tradition, a university for markets but not of markets, research for all conducted by a tiny few…it’s just the way things are.  But should it be?  And if not, how do you resolve the paradoxes?