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Welcome to TL;DR #146 (April 21st, 2018)
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Too Long; Didn't Read (TL;DR) newsletter #146

TL;DR is a summary of all the great stuff from the Internet this week in technology, education, and literacy. Welcome to Issue #146. This week we mind the gap.

Here's what I posted this week:

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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 initiaitve
  • Be collaborative

MAKE

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: 
Previewing
Reading
Note-Taking
Condensing
Remembering

CONSIDER

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

― Albert Einstein

Too Long; Didn't Read (TL;DR) #146

Thanks again for reading. Please feel free to share with others you believe would benefit. If you like what you see here, subscribe to get it hand-delivered to your inbox. 

To send me feedback, comments, or concerns, about this or anything...please feel free to reach out (wiobyrne@gmail.com) or connect on Twitter. 

To review past issues please click here or on Medium. Follow along on Instagram and let me know what you think. 






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W. Ian O'Byrne · 1261 Discovery Drive · Ladson, SC 29456 · USA

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