Facilitation - Evaluation - Beyond the Edge - Viv McWaters

Facilitation - Evaluation - Beyond the Edge - Viv McWaters: "“Giving it all you’ve got commonly backfires. There is a paradox that when we are trying hard the result is often disappointing. A healthier climate is one in which we tell ourselves to just be average. Take the pressure off. Avoid the mindset that says “This one better be good!” or “Be original.”�When you try to do your best the effect on your performance is often to jinx it. In all cases there is something to lose. This can provoke tension and easily lead to anxiety.”"

You know I think some of this comes from school. We are trained, demanded to be different yet exactly the same. I had a friend in my high school programming class that did each assignment in a way that was not what the teacher expected so he almost failed the class, even though they all worked. Or on the opposite side of the spectrum you have a teacher that praises an essay that is finally different from the same old-same old even if it is repulsive.
Then there are a all the groups, how many can you identify just by the clothes they wear? Does it really matter if they are a clique in a high school or the consulting group in a major corp?

Johnnie Moore's Weblog: Avoiding presentations

Johnnie Moore's Weblog: Avoiding presentations: "My own hunch is that our education system has a huge amount to answer for. School was an extraordinarily rigorous drilling in the idea we should sit in serried ranks, at the behest of others. Any interaction was to be at the whim, and following the instructions, of the leader."

Need to remember this.

Annals of Education: Most Likely to Succeed: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

Annals of Education: Most Likely to Succeed: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker: "A group of researchers—...—have investigated whether it helps to have a teacher who has earned a teaching certification or a master’s degree. Both are expensive, time-consuming credentials that almost every district expects teachers to acquire; neither makes a difference in the classroom. Test scores, graduate degrees, and certifications—as much as they appear related to teaching prowess—turn out to be about as useful in predicting success as having a quarterback throw footballs into a bunch of garbage cans."

I keep seeing things like this, mismanagement because of mis-measurement. When you spend a lot of time and effort not getting what you really want you have wonder what is causing these perverse effects.
The funny thing is is how different Collage and the NFL is, it makes sense that the one can't predict the other, they have relatively little in common. They may both be called football but are as different as a Trebant and a Porsche.

One interesting segment is that it takes a few years to find out if a person is good at something. That is about the half the time it takes master a subject (~10,000 hours) which is about what you would expect if someone is doing the same thing as they studied in college.

I know plenty of teachers and they all have complained about not learning enough about how to handle classrooms It is odd that isn't it.

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Now on to the actually content of the video that was presented by Dr. Tae. from MeFi
1. School Sucks.
2. Make it meaningful.
3. Don't rely on fixed time periods for subject mastery.
4. Distributed teaching. e.g. get good teachers from anywhere.

Congratulations, Dr. Tae you have just derived from first principles what homeschoolers have known since the 1980's.

I agree with him that sharing knowledge is a good thing, right now do it for free because soon an ecosystem of distributed education will develop and someone will monetize it somewhere, somehow, but get your practice in now.

The Pleasures of Rereading | Newsweek Books | Newsweek.com

The Pleasures of Rereading | Newsweek Books | Newsweek.com: "Most of the 'joys of rereading' pieces you come across tuck in an obligatory apology for indulging in the 'childish' pleasure—this is a bad thing?—of 'obsessive' repetition. You often hear a distinction made between strictly literary rereading, the kind of close study scholars and writers undertake, and the 'comfort' reading relegated to the beach, the bathroom, and the bedroom."

I'll tell you now, that I like rereading. Many people will listen to their music over and over again, and movies will be re-watched time and again.
Some people need the new, and can't stand to go back to something they've done before, fine, enjoy it. That is not me.

We read very quickly and you know what there are not a lot of works out there that are engaging for us. We like going back to the Lord of the Rings, The Belgariad, Harry Potter and the like because they are actually long enough to be satisfying. Short one-off stories are fine but they are like an appetizer good enough for starters but not a meal on its own.

For some people the problem may be their reading speed, The Harry Potter audiobooks run around 24 hours long. Most people can read about twice as fast as a person can talk so that still takes up a huge amount of time for them.

You go back to a restaurant that you like, re-reading is much the same.

Seth's Blog: Direct and useful project feedback

Seth's Blog: Direct and useful project feedback: "In my experience, there are three different ways to structure the project. Each leads to a very different feedback loop.

1. The goal of the team is to please you.

2. The goal of the team is to make a product that they love and are proud of building.

3. The goal of the team is to build a great product."

Actually I think Pixar is in #3. Their films are so often filled to the brim with amazing detail that you are sure that the whole team is adding and tweaking and doing their darndest to make the best film possible.

The Long Tail - Wired Blogs

The Long Tail - Wired Blogs: "The pricing of Nyhedsavisen was simple: it was free. And, as something entirely new: it was going to be delivered to the homes of all Danes – at no cost. Not only the newspaper itself was free, delivery was free as well. It was in effect “double-free”."

This looks sane on the surface, it is essentially the exact same business model as the yellow pages. But newspapers have been dying for some time not just the last year so why this was considered a good idea, I don't know. People still read a lot for news but mostly it is online now and it is so much faster it is practically real-time. They lost so much money it would have been cheaper to give away one of the early ebook readers and sell ad space on that.

Practically killing an industry because you are too proud to see you are wrong is stupid beyond reason.

The courage of D-Day

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