Instructional Design, electronic text display, styles and formatting

Please further my MA research by taking these online surveys (10 questions each).  They are found at:

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB229WAV6RUQB

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB229W5VBNT5A

My graduation date is March 22, 2010 for a master’s degree in Adult Education with the University of Phoenix.  I cannot do my action research project without your input, since my Lyme disease rendered me unable to continue teaching!  I will be happy to post the results of my research into optimal styles and formatting, but I need you to spend five minutes with the surveys.  Thank you in advance for your help.

Internet security, identity theft, Computer safety, Charles Jeter

Here is information on an important cyber-security free educational series done by my son (he has the P.I. license, the genius I.Q. and the computer instructional design job with ESET).  Charles wrote the text and was on the PowerPoint production team, and it has been presented to the San Diego Chamber of Commerce and now to UCSD and other forums.  We want to train as many people as possible about their own security, since id theft, for one thing, has escalated exponentially since last year.  Your pc is a target.

Charles wrote:  Here’s the event information for Securing our eCity.

http://www.securingourecity.org/news.php <- list of events

Directions and event poster… Sign up online!

http://www.securingourecity.org/register.php?id=156966

The statistics about cybercrime and data breach are shocking.

.ESET, a local San Diego antivirus software company, recently started a not-for-profit grassroots educational effort to secure our San Diego eCity against this threat through education. It’s a Neighborhood Watch style educational program for the community targeted at preventing cybercrime.

SOEC website: www.securingourecity.org

For a direct link to the on-demand training: Securing Our eCity Training Presentation

We also give each attendee 12 things they can do right away to keep from being a victim, along with a how-to guide for creating easy to remember yet hard to crack passwords. The password guide was developed and donated by one of our security professionals who lives in the UK.

Check it out. If you happen to have some contacts whom you think could help us make a difference feel free to forward my email and contact information. I’ll follow up with you in a few days.

Teaching, knowledge, parenting

Wisdom is the godly, practical use of knowledge.  Knowledge is power.

Parents translate the world to their children.  The world is confusing and untruthful.  What to do?  How to do it?  What is meaningfull and what needs to be ignored?  One challenge for parents is believing they have to learn all the information all at once. 

Parents learn and then teach learning strategies:  they create structure!  Structure is a major task for every adult.  It’s easy for us to be overwhelmed by the masses of data confronting us, even as adults.  Yet we must create meaning and power for our children.  If they cannot read, for example, they should just write “victim” on their foreheads.  They are powerless in a hostile world. 

Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock and Power Shift, detailed his worldwide, 25 year study of the power dynamics found in knowledge. Knowledge, in his book Power Shift, is one of three sources of power in the world.  Violence and money are the first two sources of power. 

Parents and children cannot afford ignorance.  The power shift now is to manipulation of information sources and conclusions drawn from data.  Imbedded commands, for example, can make weather data look like man-made global warming when in fact, a report of 500 experienced weathermen  indicates that global warming is merely a natural cycle–not man-made. 

Global warming has impacted whole populations long before our life styles included cars, etc.  Thus, we can choose to forfeit our liberties to lazy thinking, or we can look carefully into high impact issues for ourselves.  Unfortunately, the same media which has informed us also anesthetizes us into passivity. 

Who has not been hypnotized by television?  If we are in a habit of passivity, why should we bother to dig deeply for truth and then act on it?

Parents and teachers are the ones to interpret the meaning behind the flood of data which overwhelms everyone in this dementedly hasty world!  Without building meaning, there is no wisdom to be found in the constant stimulation of random data which batters our conscious minds from dawn until midnight.

Where do you find your wisdom?

education, career change

A Master’s Degree student in one of my classes posted this comment:  [Considering the contents of this video]  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY
It states that today’s learner will have 10 – 14 jobs by the age of 38.  There’s also some other “WoW” stuff shown in this video.  With that knowledge, how do we efficiently prepare these young people for a “career?”

Marie L. Woolley                         
So do not fear, for I am with you…..
Isaiah 41:10

I posted this response:
The Bible seems like a good start!  The basic issues and answers to life are there.  (I had to try transcendental meditation, Buddhism, Unitarianism, hypnosis, humanism, etc. before I came to that conclusion.)

Naturally the critical thinking and problem solving skills come to mind, along with the ability to find and critique information which is useful.  I would say also that young people need to learn how to meditate, stop and enjoy the benefits of silence.  There is so much stimulation that one gets used to automatically skimming the surface of life…must have noisy distraction bypassing my thought life…need it, need it…massaging my feelings…love it…love it…

We self-distract because the media has shortened our attention span.  Reading, on the other hand, lengthens the attention span. 

When did speed and noise become essential to deep thought?  Never, of course…but this nation pursues both in some sort of irrational adrenalin addiction…see books by Dr. Archibald Hart.  One which comes to mind is Healing Life’s Hidden Addictions.

Harmonizing right and left brain thinking comes to mind also.  I once read a piece about the fact that the only time the EEGs (Electroencephalograms) of the right and left brain hemispheres are in unity are during prayer and meditation.  Harmony of thought and feeling, in my opinion, is just as necessary as the usual life skills which we teach.  How, exactly, does one deal with fear or anger or depression if not via that harmony?

 
If I am angry, I have to do a thought-check just prior to my feelings going amuck.  It turns out that greed, selfishness or simple misguided thinking (misinformation, spiritual lies or warped priorities) are the root cause of much of my personal stress. 

When I was confined with undiagnosed Lyme disease for 6 years, how did I avoid the suicidal depression which overcomes so many in that disabled position? It was via spiritual search and rescue operations prompted by radio and online sermons…a union of right and left brain processing. 

I suggest that excesses of either thought along or feelings alone cause dysfunction.
I submit that we need to stand guard at the door of our thought, rejecting wrong ideas which may be a short-term comfort but are in fact long term disasters.

Is it true to say that our convenient computers, calculators, and technology short-cuts in general are ways to save ourselves the labor of figuring our change, analyzing our data, etc?  If so, I could argue that achieving the end product without analysis may be a short cut which facilitates our life style without damaging it. We do not need to know how the vegetables were grown and transported to benefit from eating them. 

However, we do need to know how to figure our change in our heads.  That involves abstract thinking: recall, application, analysis, judgment.

Since I came from the punch card era–when computer CPUs took up a whole temperature-controlled room and lots of engineering time–I see that our short cuts can own us. While they are simplifying our thought life in order to find the bottom line sooner, they simplify our learning process.  They dumb us down, setting us up to be willing victims. 

The key question is this: Was the trade-off a good one?  Is it good to merely speed up life without doing the grunge work (basic skill building or spiritual work, for example) of making it a worthwhile life?

The issue, then, as I see it, is that the foundational math concepts and logic skills have somehow been lost in the rush toward functionality.  It is the old battle between the urgent but unimportant against the long term important item which seems like it can wait at the bottom of the priority list. 

Then, horrors, the long term important skills or chores (like building higher order thinking skills or buying disability insurance) suddenly loom large and ugly:  CRISIS MANAGEMENT.  Attached is a little chart I invented which might be useful for priority setting and time management

A simple priority system for you and your child might look like this:

Finding the most important thing to do first: 

List important tasks on the left side of your paper. 

Make five small columns to the right of the list. 

In them, give the task a number from 1 to 10, with 10 being the most important.[1] 

It works like this:

Assign points to each column for each task. 

If you’re weak there and really working on planning and scheduling, you may want to assign points for that job like this:  (A) God’s priority 20, (B) Important long term 10, (C) Urgent this week 6, (D) Total points 36.  Leave the priority column blank until the end. 

If you have food management well organized, have plenty in the refrigerator and pantry, and can throw together healthy meals without much effort, you might assign it points like this:  (A) God’s priority 20, (B) Important long term 6, (C) Urgent this week 2, (D) Total points 28.

If you want God to be Number One in your life, your day is ruined if you’re not up early to meet with Him, you’ll probably give that points like this: (A) God’s priority 30 (B) Important long term 10, (C) Urgent this week 2 (D) Total points 42.

Spending birthday money doesn’t look so important now, but you have a burning desire to get to the store while the sale is still on.  Those points might be (A) God’s priority 1, (B) Important long term 3, (C) Urgent this week 10, (D) Total points 14.

What do you need to do in order to overcome that natural laziness which makes you ignorant of life’s challenge and reward?

It’s not a sequel, that has yet to be written.  However, to let you know the current scene with our 42-year old ex(?) addict who moved into her 67-year-old father’s back shed, counseling is ongoing for everyone.  Prayers are a blessing for all if you choose to offer them.  Since God is the Provider, the Teacher, the Savior and giver of every good gift, we can thank Him in advance for his grace, peace, wisdom and mercy in what could be a very difficult situation.

A 68-year-old friend recently moved his 42-year old daughter into his 12X12 storage shed in the back yard.  He gave her bathroom and kitchen privileges, but not residence in the house, since he will be married in three months. This arrangement is “temporary.”

Daughter, M., gave temporary custody of her daughter, his 7-year old granddaughter, to a neighbor, because M. has been evicted for not paying eight months of rent on the apartment she has had for ten years. He has paid rent, food and transportation for most of those years.  M. continues to assert that the house is rightfully hers when father dies, and should not go to the new wife.

M. has been diagnosed via legal challenge as disabled, and expects retroactive government support payments in three months.  Dad is a Christian, but M. is not.  Dad has worked with a counselor and his daughter for years, but cannot help her become more balanced in her life style.  She also says she is “not ready” for the gift of Christ, with the rule-following and self-sacrifice which that implies.

When does a child accept the fact that rules are a necessary discipline for our own good?  I suggest you begin early to teach that.

Discipline begins with good parenting:  eating your vegetables before you get dessert or fruit.  Age one or sooner.  Stress Free Discipline requires parents to discipline their child through rewards of time with the parents in educational activities or games.  Every step in the right direction is rewarded with positive family time, building family interdependence.  Punishment is the most boring time possible in a corner or doing chores or early bedtime.

M. has a history of drug use, but now says she is clean, without proving it.  Her behavior does not indicate being drug-free, according to a nursing home administrator friend.  Daughter has been diagnosed as bipolar and is taking lithium, although we do not know how consistent that is. 

She worked for 18 months for the U.S. Postal Service, but was fired, perhaps for attitude problems, since “Nobody tells me what to do.”  Her 24-year old son was discharged from the Navy for the same problem, but he has found a positive life purpose, a security guard job, and is supporting his common-law wife and child.

The key issue is this: what is the difference between Christian charity and being an obstacle to an event which the Lord is using to change a person?

Is Dad gradually removing support which should have been withheld years ago, or is he enabling M.’s continuing freedom from accountability?  What do you think?

Teachers use the following activities to bring a learner’s thought up to college level.  You can do it now, even if your child is two years old.   

Intelligence is measured by how many words you know, because words are ideas.  A two-year old child may have a vocabulary of 12 words or 2,000 words, according to Dr. Piaget. 

Your child will be smarter and more able to compete in this difficult global economy if you raise him or her to know many words and ideas.

Here are the basic ways teachers teach thinking skills to your child. 

1: Recalling information

Every idea or concept—simple or complex—begins with recall of facts.

In order to develop this thinking skill, teachers use activities like the following:

Look at books, tapes, charts, newspapers, magazines, diagrams, records, models, people, films, television, or listen to the radio for ideas.

Then show, explain, locate, demonstrate, recognize, discover, restate, identify, inquire, match, illustrate.

For example: Using a children’s book, look at a page and ask your child to identify small things, such as anything red—or round—or covered with fur, etc.

If your child cannot focus well enough to recall facts, take away the streaming media (gradually) until the attention span is longer.  T.V. and other media shorten a person’s ability to focus for long enough to master learning the higher order thinking skills. 

Brain pathways must be built by exercising them.

2: Application

Every higher concept must go through steps one and two before going on.

Look at this diary, scrapbook, photograph, collection of objects, stitchery, cartoon, map, mobile, model, sculpture, illustration.

See if you can organize similar objects together, apply a code to the puzzle, construct something like it, sketch it, paint or draw it, solve it, choose something in the kitchen like it, and experiment with it.

For example: Look at this collection of tools, and see if you can circle the ones which belong in our garage.

3: Analysis (taking apart the known)

Make a graph, survey, questionnaire, commercial, report, diagram, or chart.

In order to do that you will have to categorize, take the data apart, sorting and classifying, dissect, analyze, separate, compare, contrast and describe.

For example, in order to create a graph of the side effects suffered by grandfather because of his fourteen different medications, you will have to take each medication separately, listing the side effects by category, then compare side effects by checking off the ones your grandfather has. One young lady recently confronted her grandfather’s doctor with a graph listing the medication names on the top line, the side effects down the left side, and the problems her grandfather suffered in each cell of the spreadsheet. Of twelve medications, grandfather had dizziness, insomnia, constipation, and nausea caused by eight of the medications.

4: Synthesis (putting together the new)

This requires Steps 1, 2, and 3, and then one can…

Consider a story, poem, play, pantomime, news article, cartoon, new game, invention, radio show, product, recipe, magazine, puppet show, pantomime…

And add to it, create, imagine, combine, plan, suppose, modify, predict, hypothesize, design, invent, explain, infer, improve, compose or originate a product from this.

For example, taking a recipe for pancakes, modify it to make muffins.

5: Evaluation (judging the outcome)

Looking at an editorial, a panel evaluation, court trial, or a self-evaluation survey,

Justify, debate, solve, recommend, judge, criticize, consider, weigh, appraise.

For example, ” Using steps 1-4 and the rubric provided for your teacher for this project, decide what grade you should receive.”

If you will spend twenty minutes a day on one or two of these activities, your child will be able to think far ahead of his or her competition in school and the workplace. 

Does your nine-year-old leave after you tell him to stay home?  It is a common event.  The problem here is that parents think their leadership skills are good when in fact those skills are ineffective and obsolete. Group dynamics can help the whole family.

Group learning has a big impact.

Knowles and Bradford state that “groups can induce learning in individuals of a kind and depth that an individual teacher cannot, by himself, induce (Knowles & Bradford, 1952, 12).”   To expand on that idea: group learning often has more impact than a nagging parent, lecturing or coercing a child into following rules.

The interaction between your child and your family may be more productive with group activities like role playing, buzz groups and reflection, listening teams, and personal summaries of group action.  These are big challenges for your leadership.

Play “You be the parent, I’ll be the child.”

Ask neutral questions when in doubt about who did what:  questions like, “What happened?”  “Could it have been done better?”  “What could be changed so everybody wins?”  “How could we share so it is fair to everyone?”

According to Knowles and Bradford, “One of the primary educational objectives of the leader, in fact, is to train members to take over functions that once were reserved as the exclusive prerogatives of the ‘leader.’

Parents are really training children to be independent first, but then to form interdependent family teams of lifelong learners.

Why should parents give up their power as children grow more mature?

A child’s judgment is only trained through experience in making judgments and seeing results.  Sometimes children learn from other people’s experience, sometimes only from their own experience.  Children grow as parents explain the consequences of behavior. 

“If you bite your playmates or do not share being the boss, they will not want to play with you.”

The next step is a well disciplined, self-governed child.

Knowles & Bradford put it this way: “The more mature and self-directing a group becomes the more effective it is an instrument for producing change in individuals.”

Ideas for development of parent leadership skills are clear. The goal of parents is to raise children who are self-reliant, lifelong learners, choosing to work as a family team with their parents.

The team dynamic created as children grow toward self mastery and interdependence will provide functional group dynamic skills useful in the world of work.

Few parents welcome change in their habitual methods, but positive family dynamics reward those who do make positive changes.

Knowles, M. S., & Bradford, L. P. (1952). Group methods in adult education. Journal of Social Issues, 8(2), 11-22.

The problem is that emotional upheaval between parents prevents them from changing or improving their discipline styles.

Feelings are playing ping-pong with their thoughts.  Feelings are in the driver’s seat, not in the back seat.  Feelings are designed by God to support and motivate action after it has been thought through. 

After thinking through the problem, getting useful ideas into your head does not mean you have mastered the techniques which save you stress while enhancing your family interdependence.

What does it take to master stress-free techniques?

It takes getting help and practice, using personal reflection and supportive group activities.

Why do people resist change?

Kotter and Schlesinger (Kotter & Schlesinger, 2008, 130) offer four basic reasons that people resist change and several methods for overcoming resistance in their article illustrating change in the world of management. The most common reasons they cite for resistance are

1. A desire to keep something of value
2. Misunderstanding of the change and its complications
3. A belief that the change does not make sense
4. A low tolerance for change in general (Kotter & Schlesinger, 2008, 131).

If you write down your reasons for not wanting to change your child discipline, you will probably find out that the above four reasons keep reappearing on your list.  Are you willing to look carefully at your reasoning?  Are you uncomfortable enough to make positive change?

How can people overcome their resistance to change?

Couples, like the managers cited in the article, can determine which form of resistance they are facing and choose to overcome it with a number of techniques.

Some of those techniques are: education and communication, participation and involvement, facilitation and support, negotiation and agreement.

This research, in the hands of a sensitive and experienced mentor or counselor, can help guide couples to gradually gain skill in making functional changes in their family dynamic.

Resources:

Kotter, J. P., & Schlesinger, L. A. (2008, August). Choosing strategies for change. Harvard Business Review, 86(7/8), 130-139.