How Memory Works and How to Improve Yours 
Are Left or Right Brainers Better Learners? 
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 
Infographic: Technology use on College Campuses 
Michael Hyatt needs Community Leaders 
Santa keeps the Christmas on track with Siri 
U.S. teens triple mobile data usage year-over-year 
No Comments » 
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I will be off and not posting, although I haven’t been doing that as of late anyway, but will return after the new year with new resolve to grow my readership and help others as I can.
I wish only the best for you and your families for the coming year. God Bless – Rusty
Infographic: Technology use on College Campuses
Is your campus using technology or is there still a great divide between students and faculty?
See Full image (online colleges): Here
Michael Hyatt needs Community Leaders
I know Michael does not need my help but I thought someone that follows me might think this was a worthy cause. Wish I had the time.
The volume of my blog comments has increased dramatically in the past year. I am so grateful for the robust community that has developed here. People often tell me that they find the comments as helpful as the posts. I agree.
As a result, I read every comment and respond to as many as I can. However, this is currently taking me about ten hours a week.
Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/Photomorphic
I have come to the conclusion that I just can’t continue. As they say in the business world, “it doesn’t scale.” At the rate my traffic is growing, I will be spending twenty hours a week on comments nine months from now.
I need to find another solution, so that I can focus on what I do best: write and speak. In 2012, I intend to produce four audio programs and write a new book. I can’t do that with my current workload.
WHAT SHOULD I DO?
As I have thought about this over the last few weeks, I see three alternatives:
- Disable commenting. The problem with this is that it reduces my blog to a broadcast medium—a monologue. Instead, I want to encourage conversation. The content in the comments provides a rich source of additional content.
- Stop moderating comments. The problem with this is that the conversation can quickly degenerate into ugly rants and personal attacks. It’s like what happens when someone abandons a building. It soon falls prey to vandalism and graffiti.
- Recruit additional moderators. This seems like the most viable alternative. However, I have been stuck thinking I needed to hire someone. I felt like I would lose something in the process.
So what to do?
WHY NOT GET OUT OF THE WAY?
Last week, I was having lunch with my manager, Brian Scheer, and a new friend, Andy Traub. We were brainstorming about some of the audio programs we wanted to create next year.
I became really excited but quickly realized that I would have a difficult time pulling it off unless I could find the margin in my schedule to do so. I then explained the dilemma with my blog comments and how much time they were requiring.
Andy said, “You need to get out of your community’s way and let them do it. By thinking that you need to do it yourself, you are keeping other people from jumping in and helping.”
As soon as he said it, I knew he was right.
So here’s what I am going to do. I want to recruit five Community Leaders to oversee my blog comments. These leaders will take responsibility for answering my reader’s questions, making sure that conversations are civil, and flagging the comments that I need to address personally.
Please note: This does not mean that I will be inactive in the comments. I won’t disappear entirely. It just means that I will be much less involved than I was before. This will free me up to focus on creating the best content I can produce—for you. I think it will also result in even more conversation in the comments.
Would you be interested in becoming a Community Leader here at MichaelHyatt.com?
WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU?
While this is not a paid position, there are four benefits in becoming a Community Leader:
- Contribution. You will be helping real people with real problems. You may be doing this here already, but this will make it official.
- Recognition. I will create a new Community page with a photo and brief bio on each of the Community Leaders. I will also post a new set of Community Guidelines.
- Freebies. I will send you a free copy of every new product I create this next year. In addition, I will give you free admission to my public speaking engagements (subject to availability).
- Access. You will have access to my private email address. I will also follow you on Twitter, so that we can DM one another there.
See full Article (Michael Hyatt): Here
Santa keeps the Christmas on track with Siri
Apple’s advertising runs the gamut from motivational to touching, pragmatic to inspiring. They don’t play the humor card very often, but this latest ad showing Santa using Siri on an iPhone to help him through his rounds is actually pretty funny and appropriate for the season.
Thanks Siri! Thanks Santa! And Happy Holidays to all…
U.S. teens triple mobile data usage year-over-year
Teens have officially joined the mobileData Tsunami, more than tripling mobile data consumption in the past year while maintaining their stronghold as the leading message senders. Using recent data from monthly cell phone bills of 65,000+ mobile subscribers who volunteered to participate in the research, Nielsen analyzed mobile usage trends among teens in the United States. In the third quarter of 2011, teens age 13-17 used an average of 320 MB of data per month on their phones, increasing 256 percent over last year and growing at a rate faster than any other age group. Much of this activity is driven by teen males, who took in 382 MB per month while females used 266 MB.
Messaging remains the centerpiece of mobile teen behavior. The number of messages exchanged monthly (SMS and MMS) hit 3,417 per teen in Q3 2011, averaging seven messages per waking hour. Teen females are holding the messaging front, sending and receiving 3,952 messages per month versus 2,815 from males. Aside from messaging, data heavy activities such as mobile internet, social networking, email, app downloads, and app usage are the most popular mobile activities.
Teens are not focused on making calls via their mobile phones. Voice usage has declined the most among this group, from an average of 685 minutes to 572 minutes. When surveyed, the top three reasons teens said that they prefer messaging to calling was because it is faster (22 percent), easier (21 percent), and more fun (18 percent).
See full Article (MacDailyNews): Here
Study Claims iPad App Boosts Student Math Skills
This has been a banner year for the iPad in U.S. education – with tots to teens and university students using Apple’s magical device to learn.
How effective iPads are as a teaching tool is open to debate.
A small study, carried out by Michelle Riconscente, an assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California, offers some promising results, even with the necessary caveat that it was funded by theMotion Math app with a grant from the Noyce Foundation.
Riconscente studied 122 fifth graders in two Southern California schools to see whether their skills improved using the app. She was specifically looking at skills with fractions, described as “essential for future success in mathematics.”
Their skills were measured on a paper test vs. playing the game with similar questions on the iPad app. Interestingly, there were 34 items on the paper test; the iPad version of the test had 26 of the items, due to the “inability of the computerized interface to render certain question types.”
Her findings?
Kids who used the app for 20 minutes for five days improved on a fractions test by an average of 15 percent compared to the control group. Using Motion Math also improved the kids attitudes about fractions by 10 percent – no small improvement if you remember how tedious they can be. The kids who used the app said they would gladly play it again or recommend it to their friends.
You can download the full report of the study in PDF here, or the summary published on GameDesk.
See Full Article (Cult of Mac): Here
Teachers: Embrace Technology or Students Will Leave You Behind
We ask our students to be good observers, consider the world carefully and to analyze the implications of what they see. As educators, it’s time we do the same.
Our classrooms may appear as we experienced them — a row of windows, a blackboard (OK, maybe they’re white now), inspirational posters. But the kids looking back from those same uncomfortable chairs are fundamentally different. They are like a Bronze Age tribe being asked to use stone axes. It’s time to put down the stone.
It’s true, no matter what we do, our kids will leave us behind — it’s the natural way. But we must provide them with the knowledge they need to improve the world. Our generation is the one developing all the new tools that offer limitless access to knowledge. So, why wouldn’t we offer these advantages — the ones kids can’t keep their fingers off of, even during class — and help kids acquire the skills they need to survive in a connected world?
To be fair, we have begun to transition away from “stone.” Textbooks, for example, are being digitized. But is that sufficient change? The good news is that our children will no longer be lugging twenty pounds of pulp on their backs. Revisions to their reading content can be updated on the fly, not each decade with new printings.
But is that really leveraging the full power of technology? If you think about how we use technology in our adult lives, it’s primarily a communication experience — email, WebEx, text messages and collaboration tools. It’s social, but we’re not letting these collaborative tools into the classroom.
We’d be blind not to recognize and utilize students’ inclination for social interaction and their obsession with mobile technology. This is our opportunity to join them on this side of the millennium. If we don’t, we will lose their attention, and to some degree, their respect. They know we’re teaching them, for the most part, like we were taught — like our parents were taught.
Here’s some typical summer AP English homework: “Read Walden and write a report on Thoreau’s theme.” I’d bet that SparkNotes sees a surge of traffic in the last week of summer. It’s not that Walden doesn’t contain big ideas relevant to today’s kids. But they’ll do better by constructing meaning from it socially — not alone with a text and a Google search for “Walden Thoreau Themes.” They need something tangible to learn by imitation or iteration, which is the way we all learn most everything. They need to see and hear what academic discourse sounds, looks and feels like.
I understand this is easier said than done. The best solutions are still being explored and developed. But there are many online resources that are changing education significantly. Companies are spending capital to develop interactive visions for math and science. curricula. There are some great solutions out there, and it’s just beginning. But it takes the will and desire for change to ensure today’s students are taught in a way that is relevant. If used correctly, the tools of the 21st century leverage the best of the old and build on the successes of traditional teaching.
See Full Article (Mashable): Here
