Author: barboakley

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

We very much enjoyed Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, an eye-opening book on the world of olive oil.  We had a sense that olive oils were often mislabeled, but this book really opened our eyes about how “extra virgin first cold-pressed olive oil” is often anything but—and regulatory bodies worldwide generally avoid doing much about it.  Author Tom Mueller covers far more in his enlightening book—the health benefits of real, fresh olive oil; the growing international marketplace, the history of the oil in athletics, religion, and perfumes; not to mention the sheer beauty of olive trees.

You’ve probably been aware of the importance of both exercise and a healthy diet.  But you may not know that exercise coupled with a healthy diet has a bigger impact on our health, and our ability to learn, than either exercise or a healthy diet alone. But which diet is best? As Extra Virginity describes, the Mediterranean diet, with olive oil as a key component, is an excellent choice for healthy eating. Interestingly, there has long been a “food desert” hypothesis that poor individuals do not have access to reasonably priced healthy food, which is why their diets are so unhealthy.  This hypothesis has been essentially disproven in a recent massive analysis (described here) of 35,000 supermarkets covering 40% of the US.  Unhealthy eating, sad to say, is often a choice. So read this book to help you do your part in making healthier (and tastier!) choices!

Barb Speaking on “Escaping the Ivory Tower: How to Grow Your Public Impact” January 24th, 2018

Barb will be giving a rare speech on a vitally important topic—how a professor, and a university, can have a greater impact in today’s world. Her talk “Escaping the Ivory Tower: How to Grow Your Public Impact” will cover how to break into popular book publishing (writing a proposal, getting a literary agent, what to focus on); outreach to and the impact of media such as newspapers, radio, television, and blogs; the pluses and minuses of using social media; getting into MOOC-making; and the career and institutional impact of MOOCs and online videos.  There will be plenty of time after the presentation for discussion. If you are a professor or doctoral student looking to have a greater public impact, or if you work with an academic institution that is looking to further its outreach, it’s worth flying to Michigan for this one-of-a-kind, career-changing event. (If you already live in Michigan, you’re in luck!)  The talk will be at Oakland University, 242 Elliott Hall in Rochester, Michigan on Wed Jan 24, 2018, from 3:00 pm to 4:30 p.m. RSVP to Leanne DeVreugd at ldevreug@oakland.edu.  

Finding Your First Coding Job—If You Come from a Zero Coding Background

LaunchCode is a nonprofit that educates people who come from diverse, non-computer science backgrounds and helps them find their first coding job. If you’re peeking in the career window, wondering what coders do and whether it’s something you could also do, check out LaunchCode’s “Hello Coding!” course.

The Age of Outrage: What the current political climate is doing to our country and our universities

This deeply insightful essay is an edited version of Jonathan Haidt’s Wriston Lecture for the Manhattan Institute.  Universities play an unbelievably important role in introducing students to new, often uncomfortable, ideas.  Haidt’s essay describes how universities (MOOCs play a role in this as well), are failing in their civic duties—and how universities can get back on track. We’ve pre-ordered The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, which will explore these vital ideas in greater depth.

Study of 10th Grade Biology in India

Inspired by our book A Mind for Numbers, Tanvi Jagtap has come up with a great website set of flashcard tools to make studying easy for 10th-grade biology students in India. Tanvi is now working on raising crowdfunding for the website to increase its scope. You can contribute to the funding for this innovative new website here.

The 15 best books these popular authors read in 2017

Here’s a listing from LinkedIn of top books read by some of LinkedIn’s top essayists and authors (including Barb). If you’re looking for a variety of reading ideas, check it out!

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

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Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Books of the Week

As LHTLers know, we love biographies!  This week, we reread Jack Weatherford’s monumental Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, which is one of our top two biographies of all time (our other top favorite biography is Robert Massie’s Peter the Great: His Life and World).  Coupled with the Genghis Khan biography, we read Weatherford’s sister volume, The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire, which gave great insight into how the Great Khan’s children and descendants affected his legacy. If you like either history or biography–or would like to give these types of books a try, you couldn’t do better than to dig into these titles!

Hit Lit! Top Ten Books & Learning Tools of 2017 for Learning How to Learners!

Here are the books and tools that LHTLers have found to be most useful this year (not counting our own A Mind for Numbers and Mindshift, which of course ranked at the top!)

• TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking

• The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

• My First Book About the Brain (Dover Children’s Science Books)

• 3M Peltor Optime 105 Over the Head Earmuff, Ear Protectors

• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

• Visual Intelligence: Sharpen Your Perception, Change Your Life

• Ego Is the Enemy

• Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

Schools that Don’t Teach

Here’s a disquieting article from the New York Times about the shocking percentages of children in California who lack even the most basic literacy skills. It’s all too easy to focus on the most interesting aspects of what’s folding in education, particularly higher education, while neglecting the vital fact that basic literacy is of paramount importance. (If you’re able to read books and do the assignments on MOOCs, count yourself lucky with your education, and take advantage of it!)

Nearly 5 Million Americans Default on Student Loans

This perceptive Wall Street Journal article by Josh Mitchell shows the increasing personal costs of largely face-to-face education. Sadly, while most universities embrace exorbitant infrastructure spending, few are willing to invest in low cost, high value online learning.   

MOOC of the Week

And on a happier note, we’ve heard great things about The Modern and the Postmodern, by Professor Michael Roth of Wesleyan University.  This course examines how the idea of “the modern” develops at the end of the 18th century in European philosophy and literature, and how being modern (or progressive, or hip) became one of the crucial criteria for understanding and evaluating cultural change.

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

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Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Year

[EMBARRASSING REVELATION (added August 21, 2021):

Walker’s book, as it turns out, is riddled with inaccuracies and misrepresentations, as described in this outstanding analysis by Alexey Guzey (himself an early student of Learning How to Learn). As Wikipedia notes: “Walker failed to disclose that numerous meta-analyses involving over 4 million adults found the lowest mortality was associated with 7 hours of sleep, and that the increased risk of death associated with sleeping more than 7 hours was significantly greater than the risk of sleeping less than 7 hours as defined by a J-shaped curve.” As Guzey concludes: “…imagine that a 20-year-old who naturally needs to sleep for 7 hours a night, reads Why We Sleep, gets scared, and decides to spend the full 8 hours in bed every day. Then, assuming that they live until 75, they will waste more than 20,000 hours or more than 2 years of their life, with uncertain long-term side-effects.”  But there’s far, far more, including evidence for misrepresentation of the institution where Walker received his doctorate (the institution Walker had claimed apparently doesn’t issue doctorates), plagiarism, and, well, just making stuff up if it supports what Walker wants to say.  (Here is Walker’s response to some of the criticism.)

And we were also sad to learn of retraction and problematic research by Dan Ariely, who has studied, of all things, honesty.  Many companies (including some online learning platforms), ask students to sign integrity statements before beginning quizzes.  This approach has often arisen due to Ariely’s research.  Unfortunately, there’s good evidence that Ariely’s data for this research was cooked.  

Now if only Jo Boaler’s problematic research involving mathematics education—which is being used as the shaky foundation that underpins reform mathematics approaches—would be held by Stanford, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and other educational organizations to the level of scrutiny and consequent opprobrium that Walker and Ariely have received.

And we were also sad to learn of retraction and problematic research by Dan Ariely, who has studied, of all things, honesty.  Many companies (including some online learning platforms), ask students to sign integrity statements before beginning quizzes.  This approach has often arisen due to Ariely’s research.  Unfortunately, there’s good evidence that Ariely’s data for this research was cooked.  

Now if only Jo Boaler’s problematic research involving mathematics education—which is being used as the shaky foundation that underpins reform mathematics approaches—would be held by Stanford, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and other educational organizations to the level of scrutiny and consequent opprobrium that Walker and Ariely have received.]

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams,  is one of the most important books we have ever read.  If you read one book to help you with your learning (and life) this year, we think it should be Why We Sleep.

It seems that every question we’ve ever wondered about related to sleep is covered by author Matthew Walker’s masterful discussion of sleep. Walker is the Director of UC Berkeley’s Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab, so he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to snoozing.  Yet Walker is also a masterful writer, full of witty, insightful metaphors that give an in-depth understanding of how and why we need to sleep.  We’d always known that sleep was a vital part of learning–Walker’s book tells why sleep is so important.  Walker shares sleep-related insights by the dozen along the way, such as tips and tricks to help you fall asleep more quickly, why sleeping pills are much less innocuous than you think, and why a tiny percentage of the population needs only 4 hours or so of sleep a night–(and why you’re probably not one of those people). Do not miss this book.  [Hat tip, super-MOOCer Ronny De Winter.]

Helping students build optimal sleep habits

And this article from always insightful Judy Willis at the npj Science of Learning Community gives some great tips on building good sleep habits in young adults.   
Reading Information Aloud to Yourself Improves Memory

You might think you’re just wasting time if you take the time to read aloud whatever you are trying to learn.  Nope–this worthwhile article relates how reading aloud can help reinforce ideas in memory.

The Latest Survey on MOOC-takers from Class Central

It’s worthwhile to take a step back to try to quantify what typical MOOC users are like.  Class Central does exactly that in their latest survey: “Class Central Learner Survey (2017): MOOC Users Highly Educated, Have Experienced Career Benefits”

Making Prescription Medicines Affordable in the United States

Our friend Guruprasad Madhavan of the US National Academy of Sciences co-authored the nuanced, insightful report Making Medicines Affordable, on the challenge of creating affordable drugs. Guru notes on his blog, The Barefoot Engineer: “At a time when total medical expenditures are rapidly approaching 20 percent of the gross domestic product, our report concluded that ‘consumer access to effective and affordable medicines is an imperative for public health, social equity, and economic development; however, this imperative is not being adequately served by the biopharmaceutical sector.’”

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join the private LHTL Hall of Fame group | Follow LHTL on Twitter

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Month

Everyone’s been talking about Walter Isaacson’s latest biography, Leonardo da Vinci, so we had to join the crowd and see what all the hullabaloo was about. (We’ll admit, we’ve previously tackled da Vinci biographies that ended up putting us to sleep, so we were excited to see what master biographer Isaacson would do with Leonardo’s story.)  This is a (More here…)

Barb Keynoting for the SUNY Conference on Instruction and Technology in Cortland, New York, May 22 – 25, 2018

If you’re interested in instruction and technology, you want to set aside the dates of May 22-25 to come to the Elevate Learning: Taking Education Higher conference on Instruction and Technology in beautiful Cortland, New York near the Finger Lakes region of New York State.  (Wine tours, history, and more!)

Barb will be keynoting, and she will also set aside plenty of time during the course of the conference to chat with Learning How to Learners.  Note the sessions related to augmented and virtual reality, the latest trends, apps, and gear for engaging learners, innovation in retention, effectively using data, micro-credentialing, and opening the door to new learners.   Whatever part of the country (or world!) you’re from, whether you’re a professor, a K-12 teacher, or a parent interested in latest insights in instruction and technology, this in-depth conference is for you.  

Are You An Educator Interested in Learning?

You may wish to check out Josh Waitzkin’s The Art of Learning Project, which aims to develop a generation of life-long learners who approach all their endeavors with creativity and passionate resilience. (Waitzkin’s book The Art of Learning, which describes Josh’s path to brilliance in both chess and martial arts, is one of the best books on learning we have ever read.)

What You Can Do to Prevent Alzheimer’s

Lisa Genova’s TED talk on how Alzheimer’s happens, and what you can do to help prevent it (hint–learn!) is well worth watching. [Hat tip, Nichole Charest.] Genova  is the author of the extraordinarily popular national best-seller, Still Alice, about what it is like to live with this devastating disease.

A Perceptive Analysis of the Problem with Learning Styles

“Learning styles” are widely promoted in the educational community–medusa-like, as fast as one set of learning-styles might be discredited, another set seems to arise in its place.  Here’s a readers’-eye view of the problems with learning styles, by the ever-perceptive Pat Bowden of Online Learning Success.

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

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Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Wondering about Green Screen?

Here’s a picture Barb took last week at the great MOOC-making studio at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. It captures the magic of green (and red!) screen in one seamless image.  Notice how the talent in the photograph is standing against a plain green background holding a red placard.  (The person being videotaped is always referred to as the “talent.”) The magic of digital wizardry converts the green background into a bright corridor and the red placard into a picture-filled poster.

Interview with Gayle Allen on Curious Minds

In this interview, Barb has a lot of fun speaking with master interviewer Gayle Allen about a life of learning. (Feel free to rate the interview on iTunes.)

MOOCs on Personal Development

Class Central has developed a great list of top MOOCs on personal development. Take your pick and enjoy!

Getting to know MiríadaX

If you’re interested in learning about a large Spanish-language MOOC provider, this fascinating article by our very own Orlando Trejo, Lead of the Spanish Learning How to Learn, is just the ticket.

NeuroBytes: Modular electronic neurons designed for ages 12+.

Here’s a really interesting Kickstarter campaign to “build your own brain with NeuroBytes”! This looks like one of the most awesome gifts for a kid (or a grownup!) that we’ve seen in a long time. [Hat tip: Massimo Curatella]

Slow and Steady: The Effects of Teaching a One-Semester Introductory Mechanics Class Over a Year

We’re keen proponents of the idea that if you’re a slower learner, it isn’t necessarily bad. In fact, you can sometimes learn more deeply and see further than “race car brain” type learners. In a related vein, here’s an interesting paper by  Michael Thouless, “Slow and Steady: The Effects of Teaching a One-Semester Introductory Mechanics Class Over a Year.” International Journal of Engineering Education 33, 6 (2017): 1842-1855. Nice work!

For Santiago Ramón y Cajal Fans!

Those who have been with Learning How to Learn for a while realize that we are dyed-in-the-wool Ramón y Cajal fans.  Here’s a fascinating look at the impact that Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the artist-scientist father of modern neuroscience,  has had on one artist’s life and work. [Hat tip, Lynda Hoffmann]

Plagiarism Checkers for Online Platforms

Grammarly is a valuable tool in our writing arsenal–we find the professional version to be well worth the cost). To our surprise, Grammarly has come out with an intriguing new tool for plagiarism checking on online platforms. Here is a short video about how Grammarly integrates with Canvas. [Hat tip Sebastian Koelper.]

Now, if only Grammarly would check our bad links (sorry–the jet lag has obviously left us a bit addled!)  Here’s the right link for last week’s wonderful book of the month The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over!

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

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Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Month!

We love The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over!  It has made us much more aware of the tiny “tells” that signal whether or not you’ve captured a person’s attention and interest.  Most people naturally give off “friend” or “foe” signals without even being aware of it. With the information in this book, you can find yourself making friends quite literally with the flick of an eyebrow.  You’ll see others–and yourself–with a new perspective. We only wish we’d read this book decades ago!

Class Central’s Competition

Please enter Class Central’s competition to vote for the best MOOC of 2017.  Whatever MOOC gets your vote for best deserves a chance to win–and winning can’t be done without your help!

Learning2learn App

Here is a Learning2learn app (not affiliated with our Learning How to Learn course) that has been built to help with learning.  We haven’t tried it ourselves, but if you do give it a try, you may wish to leave your comments on the discussion forum, here.

Cajal’s Neuronal Forest

Preeminent Spanish neuroscientist Javier DeFelipe has just published an exquisite collection of the illustrations of Santiago Ramón y Cajal: Cajal’s Neuronal Forest: Science and Art.  Click here for more about Dr. DeFelipe’s book and other great books about (and by!) Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the Nobel Prize-winning artist and father of modern neuroscience.  (Yes, combining two completely different career fields is a great path to excellence!)

MOOC of the Week

The new MOOC Intellectual Humility: Practice is starting on Monday, November 27th.  (Here’s the trailer.) The course description is compelling: “Given the widespread tendency to arrogantly dismiss and marginalize dissent, it seems that the world needs more people who are sensitive to reasons both for and against their views, and who are willing to consider the possibility that their political, religious and moral beliefs might be mistaken. In this third course the Intellectual Humility series, we look at how to judge when we should trust what someone says, examine how disagreements can develop between reasonable people, and explore how to weigh the evidence in religious disagreements.”

Sorry for the bad link last week about a Salty Taste from Kissing a Baby Changes an Entire Career

Here’s the right link.  

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

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Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week: Great Ideas for Pursuing a Masters Degree Online!

When some of the most prestigious business schools in the world began providing free versions of their courses online, Laurie Pickard (whose terrific ideas Barb featured in her latest book, Mindshift) saw an opportunity to get the business education she had long desired, at a fraction of the typical MBA price tag.  Laurie launched a blog site to document her MOOC MBA journey. NoPayMBA.com quickly attracted attention from prospective business students and the media alike. Laurie’s terrific new book Don’t Pay For Your MBA, teaches readers how to put together a career-launching business education using massive open online courses (MOOCs) and other free and low-cost resources. Don’t miss this one! Even if you are interested in something other than an MBA, Laurie’s book will give you great ideas for putting together a program that’s right for you.

Barb in São Paulo, Brazil!

• Barb will be doing a live interview on Facebook today at 4:00 pm Brazilian (1:00 pm Eastern)  time.  
• Next Monday, November 13, at 2 pm Brazilian (11:00 am Eastern) time, she will be giving a lecture that is open to the public, at Rua da Reitoria, 374. Sala do Conselho Universitário – USP. São Paulo-SP. (See here for more information.  The video feed is here.) Barb will try to be there early and stay late in order to meet and mingle with you!
• Next Tuesday, November 14, Barb will give a MOOC building workshop from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, Rua da Reitoria, 374. Sala do Conselho Universitário – USP. São Paulo-SP. (The video feed is here.) All are welcome!

How to Memorize Script Lines Instantly

Here’s another great video from 4 time US Memory Champion Nelson Dellis–this one is how to memorize scripts instantly. (If you would like to join Nelson in helping to support research on memory, please take the Extreme Memory Challenge.)

Barb doesn’t have that good a memory–if asked to remember a list of ten contributing factors of the American Revolution or certain precise steps which a professor demanded be used to solve a problem, she just couldn’t do it. She used a variation of this technique to help, and it worked wonders!

A Salty Taste from Kissing a Baby Changes an Entire Career–and Perhaps a Discipline

Here’s an extraordinary story of career change that has deep personal meaning for us–Terry knows all the key players.  So if you are thinking about a career change, remember that with the right preparation, it is doable, no matter that it may look difficult at first.  (And check out our MOOC Mindshift.)

Change Your Desk, Change Your Life?

This article by Valerie Bishara on Evernote explores what we know from research about the effects of a clean or messy desk on creativity and other life issues, such as healthy eating. It seems to us that we go through cycles.  When we’re on deadline, wrapping up a project, things can fall into disarray for months at a time.  But once the project is wrapped, we sometimes get into a bit of a cleaning tizzy, a la Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. It’s amazing how nice things can look after a few weeks of one Pomodoro a day of tidying!

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join the private LHTL Hall of Fame group | Follow LHTL on Twitter

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Month

It can sometimes be important to step back and look at society’s impact on how we learn and grow.  Bill Browder’s magnificent best-seller Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice tells the story of the impact of highest level corruption on ordinary people’s lives.  (This book has an amazing 5-star rating with over 2600 reviews on Amazon. A free Russian version is available here.) Browder was the co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management, which specialized in Russian investments.  In the course of his work, Browder became a victim of a kleptocratic part of Russia’s economy, where the rule of law can be rewritten on a whim.  The book’s cover notes “A financial caper, a crime thriller, and a political crusade, Red Notice is the story of one man taking on overpowering odds to change the world, and also the story of how, without intending to, he found meaning in his life.” We agree—we couldn’t put the book down.

On a side note, we often think that relentless focus is the best way to learn and be successful. Along those lines, we often tout Cal Newport’s Deep Work.  But as Browder notes, Edmond Safra, one of the world’s greatest investment bankers, could evince an almost gnat-like attention-span.  If you have trouble keeping your focus on just one thing, it may sometimes be an advantage.

That’s part of why we read great books—we often also gain insight in unexpected areas.

A Free List of 560 Free Online Courses from 200 Universities

Our friends at Class Central have just published this valuable listing of free online courses. Check it out! They also have put forth an idea for a MOOC semester.  What do you think? Leave your comments in the comments section.

Learning Glass

We watched this 48-minute video in its entirety to get a better sense of the history and use of the new “light board” technology for writing on a clear surface.  This innovation allows a teacher to look directly at the class while writing. Very much worth checking out if you’re looking for a better way to reach large classes.

Learning Paths on Coursera–the Differences between Coursera, edX, and FutureLearn

Here is a penetrating article by Chris Fellingham on the “learning paths” concept on Coursera. Learning paths help lead you through a series of MOOC to get what you want out of your learning. Chris’s article approaches the topic from an online business perspective, but even if you’re simply trying to get the most from your MOOCs, you’ll find it worthwhile.

Incidentally, if you are trying to discover the differences between the top three MOOC platforms, Coursera, edX, and FutureLearn, this overview article by “super-MOOCer” Patsy Nestor will fill you in.

Extraordinary Book Deal Almost at End

BookBub’s fantastic deal on the electronic version of A Mind for Numbers (the supplemental course book) will end on November 4th.  Get your electronic copy for only $1.99 while it lasts!

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join the private LHTL Hall of Fame group | Follow LHTL on Twitter

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Extraordinary Book Deal

BookBub is running a fantastic deal on the electronic version of A Mind for Numbers (the supplemental course book)  This is a one-time-only offer for $1.99 running only through November 4th.  If you’ve been planning to get an electronic copy of A Mind for Numbers, now is the time!

Tread Carefully When Making Assertions about MOOCs

In this pointed critique in Inside Higher Ed, “The Ostrich and the Trend,” Arshad Ahmad and Barb take on MOOC critic John Warner. Share your thoughts on the debate in the comments section!

How to Improve Your Writing

If you would like to improve your writing, William Zinsser’s On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction is one of Barb’s very favorites. Here’s a terrific “book crunch” by Arthur Worsley that summarizes the ideas.

MOOCWatch #16: MOOC Providers Target Degrees

Class Central is out with an incisive article about how MOOC providers are beginning to offer complete college degrees. We can’t help but think of shopping malls. Ten years ago, no one would have thought there could ever be a challenge to the supremacy of shopping malls.  Nowadays, shopping malls are being boarded up as customers realize how much easier and less expensive it can be to shop online.  Universities pouring tens of millions into new on-campus facilities such as dormitories should beware the portents of empty shopping malls. Smart universities see that investments in online help create the infrastructure of the future.

Memory Champion Nelson Dellis’s Favorite Memory Tools

Here’s another excellent video from Nelson Dellis on his favorite memory tools.  (If you would like to join Nelson in helping to support research on memory, please take the Extreme Memory Challenge.)

Incidentally, here’s the earmuffs that both Nelson and Barb use to help them concentrate.

These 5 Hacks Can Help You Learn Anything, According to a Stanford Professor

Here’s a review of some key insights you’ve already learned in Learning How to Learn about how to learn effectively. [Hat tip Scott Love.]

Taking Coursera MOOCs Offline

Here is a point-by-point article from Coursera about how to take their materials offline, so you can work in deep mineshafts, tunnels, arid deserts or far out at sea.  (Or just if you happen not to have a handy internet connection at the moment!) (Hat tip Pat Bowden of the blog Online Learning Success.]

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

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See all book recommendations at cheeryfriday.com

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book of the Week

This week, we’re into history and biography.  We’ve been reading (click here for more–including a picture of Barb with Santiago Ramony y Cajal’s death mask….)

Finding Truth in History

In keeping with this week’s historical motif, here’s a posting from the ever-thoughtful Farnam Street about finding truth in history.  We would add an old joke from our days working with the Soviets:  “The future is certain; it is only the past that is unpredictable.”

Discovering Your Hidden Potential

Tarcher-Perigee (Barb’s publisher) has started a great new blog on finding Career Clarity.  In this post, Barb describes some of her big leaps—how she did it, what she learned along the way, and the advice she has for others who are considering a major career shakeup. Follow the series if you’re interested in more career inspiration from other authors.

Video Gamers Are Faster Learners, Have Stronger Brains

Here’s information about an intriguing study which found that “individuals who regularly played video games also showed increased brain activity in areas associated with learning.”

Andrew Wiles on the State of Being Stuck

Here’s a great posting from Cal Newport’s “Study Hacks” Blog on accepting the state of being stuck.  (Cal is the author of one our favorite books on being productive: Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World.)

Cal’s  posting is centered around mathematics, but Barb feels it applies equally to her writing.  Sometimes Barb knows what she’s written doesn’t feel right—it isn’t good. So she rewrites it. Still no good. And again.  Days, even weeks, can go by where she’s reworking a section of a book, feeling stuck the entire time.  It’s almost as if she can feel the dissatisfied part of her brain working away under the hood, trying to eliminate the source of dissatisfaction even when she’s not physically writing. And then, mirabile dictu, it feels right!  The feeling of “ah—I’ve got it!” is very much like solving a difficult problem in math. This process relates to the background diffuse mode, working away to help provide our creative insights. And speaking of creativity:

Ignite Your Everyday Creativity: a Review of the MOOC

We often have pointers in our emails to different MOOCs, but we rarely lead you to reviews of MOOCs. That’s remedied this week with this review of the MOOC “Ignite Your Everyday Creativity,” by Pat Bowden on her blog Online Learning Success.  It’s nice to see that MOOC-taking itself can sometimes form a creative challenge.  (Stay tuned for Barb’s upcoming MOOC review of Idan Segev’s “Synapses, Neurons, and Brains.”)

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

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