TLDR 146
Too Long; Didn't Read Issue 146
Published: 2018-04-21 • 📧 Newsletter
Welcome to Issue 146. This week we mind the gap.
Here's what I posted this week:
- Viewing your life as a project - Some of my thinking about goal setting behaviors, learning pathways, and what we can learn from Stoic philosophies.
- Digital Storytelling in Early Childhood: Student illustrations shaping social interactions - This week we finalized a research manuscript and sent it out only to get caught up in the challenges of publishing openly online. More to come on that later.
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Say hey with a note at hello@wiobyrne.com or on the socials at wiobyrne.
🔖 Key Takeaways
- Rap Teaches Rhyme Writing: Flocabulary YouTube channel provides excellent way to teach rhyme writing in rebooted slam poetry, spoken word, and hip-hop class with freshman students exploring, writing, and presenting before final performances next week—bringing semester to close through hip-hop pedagogy.
- Experts Split on Digital Wellbeing: Pew Research and Elon University survey of technology experts finds 32% believe digital life will produce more harm than help for wellbeing over next decade while 47% say more help, but vast majority (92%) of both hopeful and worried recommend government policies, tech company practices, and user norms need to change to mitigate harms and accentuate benefits.
- Internet Addiction or Technopanic: Wired guide examines whether we're addicted to technology through muscle memory of pull-to-refresh, devil of red notification, rush following flood of likes, Instagram envy, FOMO, and endless scrolling by screenlight—helping decide if this is cause for concern or technopanic.
- Screen Time Research Has Significant Limitations: Australia advising on screen time reveals screens have been part of children's lives for over half a century with same questions about effects, but time to move on from acknowledging then ignoring significant limitations that studies have in answering questions about complex relationships between children and screen-based media, requiring knowledge from broader range of fields beyond medical and epidemiological literature.
- Future College Sits Between Physical and Digital: Similar to e-commerce firms, online degree programs beginning to incorporate elements of older-school brick-and-mortar model as online learning extends reach and runs into major obstacle—undeniable advantages as traditional colleges have long known to learning in shared physical space, with future of higher education sitting somewhere between physical and digital.
- Seven Traits Define Productivity Superstars: Harvard Business Review examines traits of super-productive people: set stretch goals, show consistency, have knowledge and technical expertise, drive for results, anticipate and solve problems, take initiative, and be collaborative.
📺 Watch
How to use rap in your classroom
This semester I rebooted the slam poetry, spoken word, and hip-hop club that I ran when I taught middle school. The current iteration is a class of freshman that is exploring, writing, and presenting. Our final presentations are next week, and I'm excited to see my students perform in class.
This video from the Flocabulary YouTube channel is an excellent way to bring us to the end of the semester, and help us write rhymes.
📚 Read
The future of well-being in a tech-saturated world
In light of mounting concerns, the Pew Research Center and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center queried technology experts, scholars and health specialists on this question: Over the next decade, how will changes in digital life impact people's overall well-being physically and mentally?
This new canvassing of technology experts finds that a third of them (32%) believe digital life will produce more harm than help when it comes to people's well-being in the coming decade. However, nearly half of those in this canvassing (47%) say it will produce more help than harm. The vast majority (92%) of both the hopeful and the worried recommend that government policies, technology company practices and user norms need to change to mitigate the harms and accentuate the benefits of digital tech.
The themes from the report are all available here.
The Wired guide to Internet addiction
"You don't need to see the stats to know it's hard to put down your device—the muscle memory of pull-to-refresh, the devil of the red notification on your shoulder, the rush that follows a flood of likes, the Instagram envy, the FOMO, scrolling endlessly by screenlight instead of falling asleep."
This "guide" from Wired discusses the screentime debate, and whether or not we're addicted to these technologies. This is helpful as we decide whether this is a cause for concern, or techno-panic.
Advising on screen time in Australia: Is the evidence up to the task?
Screens have been part of children's lives for well over half a century, and we have been asking questions about their effects for just as long. The types of problems mentioned in guidelines in Australia and elsewhere, are not new, with many often mentioned in 'limitations' sections of published research.
Surely it is time to move on from acknowledging, then ignoring, the significant limitations that studies have in their ability to answer questions about the complex relationships between children and screen-based media. There is a need to Include knowledge from a broader range of fields that would help fill the gaps currently left by the medical and epidemiological literature.
At stake is a clearer pathway to robust evidence bases likely to produce more meaningful and, ultimately, better quality guidance for parents and others involved in raising children with a digital future in mind.
The future of college looks like the future of retail
Similar to e-commerce firms, online-degree programs are beginning to incorporate elements of an older-school, brick-and-mortar model. As online learning extends its reach it is starting to run into a major obstacle: There are undeniable advantages, as traditional colleges have long known, to learning in a shared physical space.
Recognizing this, some online programs are gradually incorporating elements of the old-school, brick-and-mortar model—just as online retailers such as Bonobos and Warby Parker use relatively small physical outlets to spark sales on their websites and increase customer loyalty. Perhaps the future of higher education sits somewhere between the physical and the digital.
Looking for opportunities to dissolve the physical-digital dichotomy.
7 traits of super-productive people
A great post in the Harvard Business Review looking at the traits and dispositions of productivity superstars:
- Set stretch goals
- Show consistency
- Have knowledge and technical expertise
- Drive for results
- Anticipate and solve problems
- Take initiative
- Be collaborative
🔨 Do
The complete guide to remembering what you read
Looking to voraciously read...and remember what you're reading? What if you forgot how to forget?
This comprehensive guide focuses on creating memories from what you read, and then dives into a framework to help you remember:
🤔 Consider
"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving." — Albert Einstein
This week we mind the gap. The physicist's simple metaphor captures a profound truth about momentum and equilibrium—standing still on a bicycle guarantees a fall, just as stagnation in life leads to imbalance. The constant forward motion required for balance mirrors our need for continuous learning and adaptation in education and technology. When we stop moving, stop learning, stop questioning, we lose our ability to navigate the complexities around us.
🔗 Navigation
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🌱 Connected Concepts:
- Rap Hip-Hop Classroom — Flocabulary YouTube channel provides excellent pedagogical resource for teaching rhyme writing in rebooted slam poetry, spoken word, and hip-hop class with freshman students exploring, writing, and presenting before final performances next week—video demonstrates how to use rap in classroom bringing semester to close through hip-hop pedagogy that values student voices and cultural expressions.
- Future Wellbeing Tech-Saturated World — Pew Research Center and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center survey of technology experts reveals 32% believe digital life will produce more harm than help for wellbeing over next decade while 47% say more help, but vast majority (92%) of both hopeful and worried recommend government policies, tech company practices, and user norms need to change to mitigate harms and accentuate benefits of digital tech.
- Internet Addiction Guide — Wired guide examines whether we're addicted to technology through muscle memory of pull-to-refresh, devil of red notification on shoulder, rush following flood of likes, Instagram envy, FOMO, and endless scrolling by screenlight instead of falling asleep—helping decide if this is cause for concern or technopanic about screentime debate.
- Screen Time Evidence Australia — Australia advising on screen time reveals screens have been part of children's lives for over half a century with same questions about effects, but time to move on from acknowledging then ignoring significant limitations that studies have in answering questions about complex relationships between children and screen-based media—requiring knowledge from broader range of fields beyond medical and epidemiological literature to produce meaningful guidance for parents raising children with digital future in mind.
- Future College Blended Learning — Similar to e-commerce firms like Bonobos and Warby Parker incorporating physical outlets, online degree programs beginning to incorporate elements of older-school brick-and-mortar model as online learning extends reach and runs into major obstacle of undeniable advantages to learning in shared physical space—future of higher education sits somewhere between physical and digital dissolving false dichotomy.
- Super-Productive People Traits — Harvard Business Review examines traits and dispositions of productivity superstars: set stretch goals, show consistency, have knowledge and technical expertise, drive for results, anticipate and solve problems, take initiative, and be collaborative—identifying seven key characteristics that distinguish high performers from average workers.
- Remembering What You Read — Comprehensive guide to voraciously reading and remembering what you're reading focuses on creating memories from reading then dives into framework to help remember through five stages: previewing to build mental scaffolding, reading with intention, note-taking to capture insights, condensing information into key concepts, and remembering through spaced repetition and active recall.
Part of the 📧 Newsletter archive documenting digital literacy and technology.