Treadmill Desks -- Work It!!

Completed desk upgrade to treadmill workstation in my office cubicle by Joe Hoover, from Wikimedia Commons

Local NPR Station WBUR had this story on Morning Edition today (Monday, November 19, 2012):

Can You Move It And Work It On A Treadmill Desk?

It's tempting. The research cited in the story is solid. Check it out!


Others report success with a treadmill desk.

In fact, the New York Times ran a story back in 2008.  
Mutual of Omaha was one workplace using them.

Here's DIY build instructions.

Too much sitting can lead to bad things, like cancer. (Or maybe not cancer, but definitely health problems.)

Reread the March 2012 study of how sitting too much can lead to... um... death.

Ask the boss for a real working desk... or a walking meeting!

Playworks

"Go outside and play!"

How many times did you hear this growing up?

Do parents even say this anymore?

There is a foundation now dedicated to helping make play happen, especially during the school day.

Playworks, based in Oakland CA, provides supporting research in their promotion of play.  See their page "Why Play Matters."

They also have a free online book of activities.

While play should be a spontaneous thing, promoted by those doing it, it is better to protect and promote active, outdoor recess than not.

Love Your Child and Let Them Go -- Mind and Body

Back from hiatus...

Yesterday, a piece on NPR's Morning Edition neatly summarized a beginning of the school year lesson for us all.

As heard on Boston's NPR station WBUR, "'Children Succeed' With Character, Not Test Scores" pretty much made the argument for why brain science supports what resiliency studies and character education have been saying already: love 'em up and let 'em go, they'll be better for it.

Paul Tough* make this argument in How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character.  His interview is a clear, cogent, loving, and well-argued.

He is, also, a parent of a toddler.

Being allowed to fail, and knowing you are an okay person who has others to watch your back, is an important part of growing up.

Experiencing individuation from your parents is another significant part of the growing up process.

[Don't believe me?  Watch the current cycle of America's Next Top Model: College Edition and see what Victoria does in Episode 2.  Her "closeness" to her mother is psychologically unhealthy. 
It is the antithesis of what Tough argues....]

Character-building failure is not encouraged in the high-stakes testing model of education we are experiencing now.

I've had that, and a company of supporters to help me through...

I guess that makes me, Henry Ford,  Thomas Edison and Mattie in True Grit,  among others, great company!

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
Henry Ford

*Anyone besides me notice the fabulous appropriateness of his name??

Video Games as Museum Exhibit

(Credit: CBS)

On Sunday, March 18, 2012, CBS Sunday Morning reported on a new travelling exhibit from the Smithsonian Institution "The Art of Video Games."

According to reporter Rita Braver the games are important as art --
"how they look" --  and "how they engage the imagination."

The "interactive nature" of video games is what fascinates me.  

As I explained in an earlier entry about "Learning and the Brain," the nature of gaming creates powerful learning conditions.  Conditions that could be used in a classroom or a museum exhibit.  How can we take what we know about the brain and learning and combine it with what works in games?

Also of interest: Braver reports that women comprise 40% of gamers.  How do these games more successfully differentiate instruction than many classroom curricula?

Technology's historical development also is displayed.  What does the change of technology over time tell us about the changing nature of material culture?  About how humans interact with digital technology?  What is shaping whom?

I'll hope to see the exhibit when it's at the Brooks Art Museum in Memphis in the summer of 2015.  Until then check out the video coverage below!

"The Inner Chimp"

Serendipity is the harmonic convergence of unexpected events or objects at an expected time (or place) to the benefit of those witnessing the event.

Serendipity happens.

Like yesterday (March 10, 2012). I was driving back from the fencing club -- a usual occurence for a Saturday afternoon -- and tuned into the local public radio station (WGBH) into the middle of an RadioLab episode, something I occasionally do. The episode was one I had never heard before: "Morality."

In particular, it was the segment "Chimp Fights and Trolley Rides," an interview with neuroscientist/philosopher Josh Greene about whether or now morality is biologically and evolutionarily based.

Greene argues "yes."

It seems that there are some basic, emotional decisions which correspond to activity parts of the brain corresponding to the instinctual, primate parts that have helped us as a species survive.

This emotional part, in the words of host/commentator Bob Krulwich, is the "inner chimp."

Based on his brain scans of people making moral decisions of varying degrees of complexity, Greene has found that different centers of the brain "light up" in response to different types of questions. For really complex questions that involve a "moral calculus" -- such as deciding to sacrifice one for the good of the many -- brain activity is fast, furious, and wide-spread. As Greene and Krulwich described it, the brain is "at war with itself." The frontal lobe, the area that develops later in a person's life, registers more activity when the decision-maker is counting how many others would be affected by the choice. It's "the thinker" vs. the "the inner chimp."

I love the term "inner chimp." It seems so right.

Later in the episode, the RadioLab team discusses actual primates -- with an interview with primatologist Frans de Waal at the Yerkes Center -- and their consistent moral behavior. Chimps and other primates are social animals with moral systems, as de Waal's examples show. (Click here for a 2005 article, too.) Empathy is a significant part of being a primate -- and it seems to be the moral core of the "inner chimp."

The research into what works in the brain when also is fascinating. And the issue of how people make decisions based on their emotionally-held beliefs is one of current importance.

Now, the serendipity:

1) See above. Although I have been a fan of Robert Krulwich since about 1990, I don't catch RadioLab often and this episode I had not heard before.

2) Although this episode was broadcast in 2007, on the day that would have been my mother's birthday had she not passed away earlier in the year, this episode coincides with a my current inner discourse about education and how to help adolescents grow up. More on that in a future post.

3) Joshua Greene is now a professor at Harvard, the site of my own cognitive science training. You can read much more in depth about the moral dilemmas Greene poses for research at his homepage.

4) Today's newspaper published a piece that connects to this RadioLab episode. More on that next post....

Fascinating stuff, serendipity!

Below is an embed for the podcast of the RadioLab episode "Morality":




image credit: Chimpanzees at Gombe Stream National Park, 2010, by ikiwaner, at Wikimedia Commons.

Get Outside!

The recent issue of ASCD Edge has an article "It's Time to Learn Outside," excerpts from Will Sterrett's Insights into Action: Successful School Leaders Share What Works.

The piece makes arguments for the benefits of getting outside the classroom and combatting "Nature-Deficit Disorder." This term comes from Richard Louv, who argues "growing gap between human beings and nature, with implications for health and well-being" (Last Child in the Woods, 2008. p. 26).

It also contains a helpful list of "Action Items." My favorite is this: "Get Outdoors, Anytime, for Any Reason- You don't have to have a specific nature-based unit in place to benefit from the outdoors. The bottom line is, students benefit individually and the classroom climate benefits as a whole from time spent in nature."

Point: getting outside helps learning and teaching.

Check it out here.

Sitting Too Much?

So, this blogger has been sitting working a lot lately.

(This accounts for the absence of posts -- many apologies!)

Then, on a "study break" from doing work, but while sitting at a desk, I see a link to this article:

Sedentary Behaviors Increase Risk of Cardiovascular Disease Mortality in Men

It's a longitudinal study that concludes: "Men who reported >10 h·wk−1 riding in a car or >23 h·wk−1 of combined sedentary behavior had 82% and 64% greater risk of dying from CVD than those who reported <4 or <11 h·wk−1, respectively." (from the online abstract)

While not male, I have been more sedentary than usual over the past year....

Ooops!



Citation:
Sedentary Behaviors Increase Risk of Cardiovascular Disease Mortality in Men
WARREN, TATIANA Y.1; BARRY, VAUGHN1; HOOKER, STEVEN P.1,2; SUI, XUEMEI1; CHURCH, TIMOTHY S.3; BLAIR, STEVEN N.1,4
Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise:
May 2010 - Volume 42 - Issue 5 - pp 879-885
doi: 10.1249/MSS.0b013e3181c3aa7e

Digital Textbooks

With Apple's announcement last week about their publication of digital textbooks, the topic of how the next generation will read their textbooks has returned to the media.

In particular, coverage by NPR's On Point (via Boston's WBUR) explored the question in January 24, 2012's  "The Digital Future of Textbooks."   This piece explored the role of the iPad as the tablet textbook.

Most intriguing to me were the discussion comments on the piece's webpage.  In particular, the comments of one Tom Riley, who worried, "We should likewise not underestimate the primacy of tactile experience in long term learning. ...  You are much more likely to remember something you have written than something you have tapped or typed.  Contact with a machine such as a tablet or smart-phone satisfies a manipulative impulse, but so much of the user's role is preprogrammed.  Anyone concerned about the vitality of the upcoming generation's engagement should be concerned with the intricacy (tactile and otherwise) of the interactions in which they engage."

Mr. Riley is against the tablet as textbook as he believes it will both decrease learning and increase social alienation.

So right, and yet, so wrong.

His argument about the importance of movement to learning is so right.

His belief that typing or tapping limits memory is so wrong.

For one thing, studies have shown that Web browsing (which involves tapping or typing) stimulates memory.  See the Cathleen's Brain July, 2011 entry for more.

For another, tablets such as the iPad have haptics built in.  This means that there are more movements possibile, depending on the app.  And more apps are being build every day.  Here's a graphic from one app programming framework Sencha Touch:

Enhanced Touch Events

 (from Sencha Touch's homepage)



Note that the fingers and the hand are doing a variety of broad movements.
Remember that this type of movement can stimulate mirror neurons and a variety of brain activity (more on that later!).

Finally, the point of most Web 2.0 digital media is to promote social networking, which the better iPad and mobile device apps do.

BUT, there is the question of digital textbook itself.

Here is where the concern is both right and wrong.

Right, because if all a kid does is interact with the digital textbook, then, yes, socialization with other human beings will be limited.

Wrong, because these tablets can promote social networking, which means person to person interaction, through a digital interface, if the app is created correctly.

A greater concern for me is the promotion of the tablet device as a textbook when they could be so much more!

Textbook as a concept is Web.0.  It implies that knowledge is static and that the kid's head can be filled with predetermined knowledge.   One researcher's review of the literature on textbook use posited "Students view textbooks as references rather than learning tools."1  And, indeed, despite the presence of cool interactives, the Apple iBooks 2 demo looks just like a textbook!

(And the content is provided by Pearson Education,  a textbook publisher.)

Why isn't this learning device programmed for the user to have a constructivist experience where they determine for themselves, with the aid of others, the answers to meaningful questions?   An interactive learning experience could be a webquest, a Wiki, a Ning community, or other form of interaction with an experienced guide ... but not static content on a digital viewer, a textbook.  That's the same old, same old.

We need to break away from the concept of textbook.  Period.  

 


1  M. W. Klymkowsky, Teaching without a Textbook: Strategies to Focus Learning on Fundamental Concepts and Scientific Process, cellbioed September 21, 2007 vol. 6 no. 3 190-19, doi: 10.1187/cbe.07-06-003.