If you have a few minutes, take a listen to this rather humorous and thought-provoking TED video about the “intersection of human potential, success, and happiness”. The speaker, Shawn Achor, is the CEO of Good Think Inc, a Cambridge-based consulting firm which researches positive outliers — people who are well above average, and author of “The Happiness Advantage”.
“If we study what is merely average, we will remain merely average.”
A reader, Mark, posted a question yesterday in the chat box about screencapture softwares out there. I personally use iShowU to capture such videos as my instructional video on linking your Evernote account (above) to automatically read and download my weekly public Paucis Verbis notebook. Mark also specifically asked about what Dr. Rob Rogers (Univ of Maryland) uses.
Dr. Rob Rogers has started a great series of videos which highlight resources and tools which medical educators may find useful and innovative. This video takes you on a guided tour through making a Prezi presentation. Although I am still torn about using Prezi as a delivery tool because of the excessive motion-based transitions, I do like such features as:
You can look for more excellent videos on the Academic Emergency Medicine Education Masters site. Hey maybe you can next teach people how to use Google Reader, Evernote, Dropbox!
From LifeInTheFastLane.com‘s illustrious Dr. Mike Cadogan. These were the slides from his Social Media in Medicine talk at the recent USC Essentials Conference. It’s time more physicians get involved and join the conversations that are taking place on social media. Join now.
“My lecturing was ineffective, despite the high evaluations.”
“The traditional approach to teaching reduces education to a transfer of information.”
– Dr. Eric Mazur
Dr. Eric Mazur is a Harvard Professor of Physics and Applied Physics who talks about his “confessions of a converted lecturer”. He focuses on the power of peer teaching and the ineffectiveness of the traditional lecture format in a classroom.
This talk is 72 minutes long. Take some time to listen and learn. Dr. Mazur is such an engaging talk that I couldn’t stop watching. Maybe it’s because he looks a little like the comedian Steve Carell.
One size does not fit all.
This is the crux of Malcolm Gladwell’s 18-minute talk. He gave this talk just before his book “Blink” went huge. He makes an eloquent argument for the nature of choice and happiness. There is no one perfect spaghetti sauce that fits everyone. There is no one perfect Pepsi which everyone likes.
If you have not heard of TED videos, I highly encourage you to view them. They are short, inspirational, and professional talks by leaders, scientists, and artists, who focus on bringing together the 3 worlds of Technology, Entertainment, and Design.
Because many of these videos focus primarily on education, TED has just built a new online community of educators called the “TED-Ed Brain Trust“. The mission is to bring together “the expertise of visionary educators, students, organizations, filmmakers and other creative professionals to guide, galvanize and ultimately lead this exciting new initiative.”