Mar
29
By asking a question, the child indicates that he has, in fact, formulated a plan to solve the task before him, but is unable to perform all the necessary operations. ~Lev Vygotsky
Mar
25
Saw this picture on Miguel Guhlin and Chris Betcher’s Google+ Pages
Mar
22
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be. ~Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
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Mar
21
Vygotsky addressed the importance of practical actions and repetition in language acquisition with children. To paraphrase Vygotsky, “Repeated Actions Matter.” (p.22.)
It bears repeating that “Repeated Actions Matter.” Routine matters. Scheduling matters. Stephenson wrote “Power comes when you make life predictable.” In a other situations where the brain is healing from an attack (or the body is healing from surgery or a child is learning to speak a language, or a teacher is to have classroom management), routine is needed. To this end creating checklists to follow and an anecdotal record to notate important aspects of medical care, speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy provide a framework for routine.
Technology speeds this process too. We have a series of short videos and chats in face time and Skype which form a collection from which the brain chooses to attach.
There is a lot of adaptation provided by learning and replicating Vygotsky’s work. What repeated actions do you need to see for success in your workplace or with your students?
References:
Vygotsky, L. (1980). Mind in Society. Harvard University Press.
Wong, H. and Wong, R (1998). The First Days of School.
Mar
19
John Kotter’s 8 Steps for Leading Change offers one approach to facilitate implementation of Communitarian Patient Advocacy in affording the costs of an aging population. Kotter’s approach includes leveraging momentum, aligning all processes, structure, centers of influence, technology, and funding to ensure the policy reaches the target audience. Specifically Kotter’s model creates a sense of urgency, with a guiding coalition to develop and communicate the vision. Completing Kotter’s model, empowerment of change agents with increase the coalition, remove barriers and generate short-term wins. These short-term wins will help model that the new policy is a better option. Then the policy can permeate into culture.
New approaches usually sink into policy only after it’s very clear that they work and are superior to the old methods. It is at this time that new policies must remain aligned to the original vision.
Mar
15
You want to know about anybody? See what books they read, and how they’ve been read… ~Keri Hulme
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Mar
14
U.S. officials announced plans Friday to relinquish federal government control over the administration of the Internet, a move likely to please international critics but alarm some business leaders and others who rely on smooth functioning of the Web.
Pressure to let go of the final vestiges of U.S. authority over the system of Web addresses and domain names that organize the Internet has been building for more than a decade and was supercharged by the backlash to revelations about National Security Agency surveillance last year.
“The timing is right to start the transition process,” said Lawrence E. Strickling, assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information. “We look forward to ICANN convening stakeholders across the global Internet community to craft an appropriate transition plan.”
The practical consequences of the decision were not immediately clear, but it could alleviate rising global complaints that the United States essentially controls the Web and takes advantage of its oversight role to help spy on the rest of the world.
U.S. officials set strict conditions and an indeterminate timeline for the transition from federal government authority, saying that a new oversight body must be created and win the trust of crucial stakeholders around the world, officials said. An international meeting to discuss the future of Internet is scheduled for March 24, in Singapore.
The announcement essentially ruled out the possibility that the United Nations would take over the U.S. role, something many nations have advocated and U.S. officials have long opposed.
Read more at this link
Mar
8
acy against him.” ~Jonathan Swift
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More Weekend Ed Quotes
Mar
2
Today is Dr. Seuss‘ birthday (books by this author). He was born Theodor Geisel, in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1904. His mother read bedtime stories to him every night. He’s the author of more than 60 children’s books, including Horton Hears a Who! (1954), One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (1960), Green Eggs and Ham (1960), Hop on Pop (1963), Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! (1975), The Butter
Battle Book (1984), and of course, The Cat in the Hat (1957) which uses just 220 different words. His first children’s book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, which he said was inspired by the rhythms of a steamliner cruiser on which he rode.
Seuss was actually his mother’s maiden name and he took it as a pen name when writing for the Dartmouth campus magazine. Garrison Keillor writes interestingly of this time in Dr. Seuss’ life in The Writer’s Almanac. Keillor describes Seuss’ writing style as “rhyming anapestic meter, also called trisyllabic meter.”
“The meter is very alluring and catchy, and Seuss’s masterful use of it is a big part of why his books are so enjoyable to read. The meter is made up of two weak beats followed by a stressed syllable — da da DUM da da DUM da da DUM da da DUM, as in “And today the Great Yertle, that Marvelous he / Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see.”
Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!
from Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac
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