NY times reports that there is no evidence of improved educational performance with having computers at home. "Economists are trying to measure a home computer’s educational impact on schoolchildren in low-income households. Taking widely varying routes, they are arriving at similar conclusions: little or no educational benefit is found. Worse, computers seem to have further separated children in low-income households, whose test scores often decline after the machine arrives, from their more privileged counterparts."

Dennis Littky writes about a new approach to education in the lastest issue of Interactions magazine. (Subscription required). "The school was broken down into advisories, with a teacher and a group of students who spent four years together. Each adviser, parent, and student developed an individual learning plan. The school had broad goals of reading, writing, applying math, empirical reasoning, communication, and personal qualities. Every student would have his or her own way of reaching those goals with high standards. The teacher—also acting as adviser—would help the student identify his or her interests and then find a mentor and workplace to help make the learning real." Sounds like "Gurukul" to me.

Glad to have worked with some very talented illustrators and animators. Here is a sample of our work at PebbleRoad.

Dennis Littky writes about a new approach to education in the lastest issue of Interactions magazine. (Subscription required). "The school was broken down into advisories, with a teacher and a group of students who spent four years together. Each adviser, parent, and student developed an individual learning plan. The school had broad goals of reading, writing, applying math, empirical reasoning, communication, and personal qualities. Every student would have his or her own way of reaching those goals with high standards. The teacher—also acting as adviser—would help the student identify his or her interests and then find a mentor and workplace to help make the learning real." Sounds like "Gurukul" to me.

Interesting study suggests that interrogative self-talk is actually more motivating than declarative gumption that business leaders profess. "Why is interrogative self-talk more effective? Subsequent experiments by the scientists suggested that the power of the "Will I?" condition resides in its ability to elicit intrinsic motivation. (We are intrinsically motivated when we are doing an activity for ourselves, because we enjoy it. In contrast, extrinsic motivation occurs when we’re doing something for a paycheck or any "extrinsic" reward.) By interrogating ourselves, we set up a well-defined challenge that we can master. And it is this desire for personal fulfillment - being able to tell ourselves that we solved the anagrams - that actually motivates us to keep on trying."

A good article on how to test the content of a website. Angela Colter lists few methods to test the decoding and comprehension of content. Seems like her preferred method is moderated usability testing. To find out whether people understand your content, have them read it and apply their new knowledge. In other words, do a usability test! Here’s how to create task scenarios where participants interpret and use what they read: Identify the issues that are critical to users and the business. Create tasks that test user knowledge of these issues. Tell participants that they’re not being tested; the content is.  

Vinod Khosla on Will we need teachers or algorithms? We have focused so much of our education system on children attending primary school, then middle school, then high school, all with the objective of attending university. This is a progression that still remains unchanged and largely unchallenged. Yet, this system is completely linear and, most tragically, unwaveringly standardized not only through instruction methods, but also through testing. Worse, it is mostly what I call "fixed time, variable learning" (the four-year high school) instead of "fixed learning, variable time" to account for individual students’ capabilities and status. Vinod goes on to discuss decentralization and gamification as two trends to watch out for.

  "We need to work openly, with more transparency." "We need to rethink how we work and make some fundamental shifts." I hear C-level executives say things like this all the time.   They peer into the future and recognize the need to move their workforce into a Future of Work mentality and practices. Yet, when it comes down(...) The post The Future of Work Change Matrix - A Tool for Real Change appeared first on VINJONES - Kevin D. Jones.

Everyone talks about how bad mediocrity is.  About how we shouldn’t tolerate it.  About how it is a cancer to your organization, let alone your life. I agree with them all. I’ve even written about it before. Although I’m with you, I don’t care any more.  Is it a cancer?  Can it destroy your company?(...) The post End the Celebration of Mediocrity appeared first on VINJONES - Kevin D. Jones.

You have three choices. Choice #1 You can throw anything up on the wall and make it work.  Put it together, make it functional.  It may look ugly but you don’t care.  It needs to do one thing and one thing only - work. Done. That’s what I did with my monitor stand.  I put a ream […] The post How To Take Charge of Your Toxic Company Culture - WX appeared first on VINJONES - Kevin D. Jones.