Daily Rituals: How Artists Work
18th January 2018
Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!
Book of the Week
This week, we opted for some light reading with Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, by Mason Currey. This is basically a compendium of workaholic work habits of a number of famous writers and artists. Since we’re sort of workaholics ourselves, it was an intriguing glimpse into the psyches of kindred spirits. In one way, the book was a little unsatisfying, because most of the descriptions of people work habits were very short. On the other hand, the brevity of the entries is part of what made it such an intriguing book—Currey breezed through the lives of dozens of creative people in a way that allowed us to quickly glean key ideas from a lot of different people. It was gratifying to learn, for example, that many writers are bothered by noise, just as we are. We’ve seen reference to Daily Rituals in so many books that we figured it was time to read the book ourselves, and we’re glad we did.
Audible version available here. (This is a nice book for listening. Two free audiobooks may be possible through this link.)
Can You Lend Us Your Insight Into Future Courses You Might Like to Take?
We are considering the creation of new MOOCs based on a neuroscientific foundation, as with the Learning How to Learn MOOC. If you might like such courses, please take a moment to fill out this short survey and let us know what you think.
What’s Next After Accomplishing a Big Project or Learning Goal?
Scott Young has written an excellent blog post on the strange feelings that can arise with successful completion of a learning goal or project—and how best to move forward.
Universities Must Adapt to a Fast-changing World
This thought-provoking article, “Who are the right partners for professional skills?” by Chris Fellingham, describes Coursera’s shift to encompass more usable skills—and the need for universities to be able to learn to keep up with the changes in today’s fast-paced society. “Education Bubble” explains why necessary changes are not ooccurring in academia—increasing detrimental effects as the academic bubble pops.
A Library of Free Videos Made by and for Teachers and Students
Next Vista For Learning provides a library of free videos made by and for teachers and students—there are over 2,000 videos on a wide variety of learning-related topics. Check it out! [Hat tip Mike Petty.]
A Review of Double Your Learning Power
It can provide worthwhile perspectives to look back on the past, at how today’s neuroscientific insights provide solid support for seemingly old-fashioned recommendations for learning. This nice comparative review by James Bowen of the 1986 book Double Your Learning Power, by Geoffrey A. Dudley, illuminates how much we knew then–and how what we know now helps us understand even better why the recommendations of yore were valuable.
Barb Keynoting in Cortland, New York, May 22-25, 2018
Don’t forget, Barb will be keynoting at the Cortland, New York SUNY Conference on Instruction and Technology May 22 – 25, 2018. She’ll also be giving a workshop on using Camtasia to help move yourself slowly and easily in the online world (just as she did!). She’ll set aside plenty of time during the course of the conference to chat with Learning How to Learners. To get on the conference mailing list, sign up here.
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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