Two Interesting Articles on Some Recent Brain Research

This week I am calling to your attention two interesting articles – “Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction” and “Psychologists Discover We’ve Been Underestimating the Unconscious Mind”.  I hope that you find the articles interesting as I did.

Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction

http://ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/pqdweb?did=2193659091&sid=2&Fmt=3&clientId=70192&RQT=309&VName=PQD

The focus of this article is on the topic of digital distractions faced by today’s students.  While the whole article was interesting one section, “The Lure of Distraction”, stood out as it spoke of results from some recent (2007) experiments.  In one experiment, boys (ages 12-14) alternated playing video games for an hour after finishing their homework and watching something action packed on television for an hour, every other night.  The researchers monitored their brain waves as they slept and “found that playing video games led to markedly lower sleep quality than watching TV, and also led to a ‘significant decline’ in the boys ability to remember vocabulary words” (Rictel, 2010).  The article went on to discuss the importance of “down time” for the brain to process new information.  This article could be a good starting point for additional research in the area of technological distractions and what effect, if any, they have on the brains ability to process information.

Reference:

Matt Richtel.  (2010, November 21). Growing Up Digital, Wired for

Distraction :[Business/Financial Desk]. New York Times  (Late Edition (east Coast)),  p. A.1. Retrieved May 15, 2011, from ProQuest Central. (Document ID: 2193659091).

Psychologists Discover We’ve Been Underestimating the Unconscious Mind

http://www.healthcanal.com/mental-health-behavior/17014-Psychologists-Discover-Weve-Been-Underestimating-the-Unconscious-Mind.html

This article served as a preview for a research article that will be published in the June 2011 issue of Psychological Science (a journal for the Association for Psychological Science).  The reason for the research seems to be to create a comparison between conscious and unconscious awareness in the brain.  The findings were quite interesting and showed that we can do some high level unconscious processing while multi-tasking with intentional or conscious tasks at the same time.  I look forward to reading the full paper when it comes out in June.

Both of these articles have value in that they show insight into new research about how the brain functions and how we learn.  Continued research in the areas mentioned by these articles will be interesting for anyone involved in the fields of psychology and education related topics.

-jeff

Three Blogs Worth Following

As someone new to the world of blogs and blogging I really had no idea how much information was available out there in cyberspace.  Searching through the various blogs, I came across several that appear to be useful in some context as I study to become an instructional designer.  Here are three that I found particularly promising.

 “Making Change – Ideas for Lively eLearning”

http://blog.cathy-moore.com/category/instructional-design/

This blog is created by Cathy Moore and looks to be quite promising in its usefulness as a source of information.  The posts are primarily directed toward the effective use and design of elearning in the corporate world but many will have cross over applications for educational settings.  There seems to be good detail on a variety of topics ranging from how to design through how to motivate learners.  The archives contain well-organized sections and the blog can be browsed by category making it more convenient when looking for some specific topic.

“Instructional Design Fusions”

http://instructionaldesignfusions.wordpress.com/

Dianne Rees who, according to the blog is, “a writer and instructional designer specializing in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, health care, and legal elearning and training” created this blog.  The blog is formatted well with quick links to recent articles, top posts, and archives.  While not focusing on education, the blog does present reviews of newer software and technologies (many web-based) that could be useful in just about any field.  Knowing what is out there and available to use could prove very helpful when setting out to design effective instructional plans to reach the target audience.

“eLearning Technology”

http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/

This blog, created by Dr. Tony Karrer, is primarily focused on elearning.  Working in the field of education, I am very interested in online learning and the possibility of adapting it to use as a source of continuing education for teachers.  This blog appears to have much information, specifically related to the topic of elearning, and is well organized to assist the user looking for information.

It is my hope that these blogs will turn out to be useful to others and myself as we look to advance on the journey to becoming instructional designers.