At about 9:00...

At about 9:00...:

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At about 9:00 Sunday morning, a young man knocked on our door and asked to speak with my wife and I. He was looking very serious. I invited him to come in, and I led him to the living room, and I asked my wife to join us. When we were all seated, he asked our permission to propose to our daughter. I said, "absolutely." I told him to make her happy. I told him that means to spend time with her every day, even when it is difficult. Since then, I've thought of all kinds of "wise" things I might have said, but I trust I said the right things. he showed my wife and I the engagement ring he intended to give to our daughter. Early that afternoon he proposed to her, and she accepted. My daughter asked me not to tell anyone until she had a chance to talk with a few key people first. So now the cat is out of the box. (I know that's not the phrase, but all of my geek friends will understand the poetic significance of boxes, cats, and quantum states.)

Resources for Traumatic Brain Injury: TBI Topics

Resources for Traumatic Brain Injury: TBI Topics:

My prototype website, consisting of an unstructured collection of articles can be viewed at http://bit.ly/resourcesfortbi. As I consider how to structure the website to be useful to people with brain injuries and those who care for them, I have been thinking about topics that best summarize these categories of useful articles. Keep in mind that simplicity and some degree of redundancy will be necessary to make the site useful to the widest audience of potential users. I would appreciate topic suggestions, as well as your interpretation of these topics when you read them, and possibly improvements to topic names, and even suggestions about the general format and title of the website. Should it include skills training? Should it include are area for collaborative projects? What kind of discussions should be hosted? Should discussions be public or private?

Please comment. I depend on my social "neural network" as a means to accommodate my new limitations.

Exploring possibilities with TBI
Recognizing limitations with TBI
Living frugally with TBI
Legal concerns with TBI
Medical understanding of TBI
Laughter is good
Understanding how it feels to have TBI
Discrimination
Legal protections for those with TBI
Confidence and TBI
Understanding SSA and SSI
Accommodation strategies
Practical suggestions
Scholarly articles
Literature Review and Bibliography

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What Is Your Learning Style? | Edutopia

What Is Your Learning Style? | Edutopia:

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Mostly my web research is related to brain injury, but information about learning styles presents an intersection between my interest in brain function and my interest in instructional design. I found this quiz interesting from both perspectives.

What Is Your Learning Style?

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This quiz asks 24 questions and will take less than five minutes to complete. Try not to think too hard -- just go with your first thought when describing your daily activities and interests. By the end, you may have some new insights into your learning preferences.

Editor's Note: While the idea that students have fixed, specific learning styles is not supported by scientific research, providing students with multiple ways to learn content has been shown to improve student learning (Hattie, 2011).

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How much time do you spend:

	NONE	ONLY A LITTLE	A FAIR AMOUNT	A LOT	ALL THE TIME
Getting lost in a good book.
Doing crafts or arts projects.
Trying to solve mysteries, riddles, or crossword puzzles.
Writing a journal or blogging.
Reflecting on your life and your future.
Playing sports.
Yearning to spend time with nature.

Big Bad Ideas: Outlawed by Amazon DRM << Martin Bekkelund

"Did she violate any terms? Amazon will not tell. Perhaps by accident? Amazon does not care. The conclusion so faris clear: Amazon closed her account, wiped her Kindle and  refuses to tell her why. End of discussion."(Bekkelund, 2012)

Big Bad Ideas Outlawed By Amazon DRM:

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Big Bad Ideas: The value of argument

Initially I thought of this post as extolling the value of social interaction to healing of the brain. I still suspect there is a connection, but when I reviewed what I had written, the post seemed to lack continuity, and it seemed to be more about relating essay writing (blogging) and aesthetic principles. So I decided to move the post to a more appropriate venue and simplify it at the same time. 

Big Bad Ideas: The Value of Arguement:

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podcasting 101 : Stephen Bates : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

I stumbled across this short video that describes how to create a podcast! 

podcasting 101 : Stephen Bates : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive:



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(The animated image was getting annoying after a while, so I shrank it. I may need to shrink it some more!)

In my opinion, a quality microphone, and a conversational tone are the most important aspects of podcasting. Not that I'm an expert, but I may post some school assignments in which I was required to podcast. My attempts were terrible until I got my daughter Audra to help me. Adding a second person to turn a monologue into a conversation was all it took to make the podcast interesting. Although I have used Audacity, and it is just as powerful as other tools, I think my preferred tool is Adobe's SoundBooth software.

aesthetic meaning and value in the arts

A recent discussion of whether taste in music can be judged brought these previously written paragraphs to mind, in which I talked about the aesthetic meaning and value in various arts.

"reddle" by Klaus Leontjew

Great art establishes a background which can be self-defined, or more commonly is derived from the styles, trends, and historical context of the culture. Having established a background, art builds meaning through imitation, repetition, and contrast with the background. Meaning is constructed by each person who experiences the art as they apply their own unique perspective to the background, and to the similarities and differences of the art with its background. In each person who constructs meaning in the experience, they align themselves with some elements and disassociate themselves from other elements, creating the emotional equivalence of life experiences in a safe context. This individual interaction with art enables people to find meaning in various aspects of their lives that they would have otherwise missed, so art provides an emotional mirror that individuals use to see themselves and their circumstances from a new perspective. 

Art without contrast would have no meaning, as life without pain has no joy, and perfect equality offers no beauty, no life, and no reason for the change that defines and motivates us.

Beauty does not depend solely on contrast, but rather it depends on the relationship between the contrast, the background, and the cultural context. Some of the most awe-inspiring art is very plain and simple. However, subtle meaning can be lost in a loud crass environment where sharper contrasts are generally necessary.

Examine the photograph above. What similarities do you observe in the photo? What contrasts do you observe? Did you mentally "push away" an element of the photo? What did you reject? Why did you reject it? What element did you most connect with?  What message may the artist have wanted to convey? Did you connect with the author's aesthetic idea on some level?  How do YOU feel?

If you learned something from this blog about the meaning in art, please make a comment so I can also learn from you. Now listen to your favorite music, and ask yourself these same questions.

Reference:


Leontjew, K. (Photographer). (2009). Reddle. [Web Photo]. Retrieved from
       http://photodonuts.com/klaus-leontjew