Archive for August, 2009
Social Media For Teachers
Dear Class: For the paper that’s due next week, I’d like you to include a section about the perspectives of other students. Therefore, I expect each of you to participate on this site, and discuss the central ideas…by the way, be sure to access the following links as they are the only approved online reference sources. Study smart! Your teacher, Mrs. Drake.
Taking the lead from their students, teachers are integrating social media into the class experience. Using it as a way to drive collaboration, as well as to post instructional and inspirational content, teachers are finding that they can also learn a lot from the online interactions of students. A large percentage of “teaching” actually happens outside the classroom. Teachers encourage students to work as small groups to complete projects and assignments. Social media gives teachers an accountable way to observe the progress on assignments, as well as the dynamics of leadership, participation, problem solving and communication skills.
Technology is emerging to capitalize on this trend. The Social Media Classroom is soon launching a simple open source interface that will feature online teaching tools, blogs, wikis, forums, microblogging, social bookmarking, video-sharing, chat, RSS, and more.
Healthcare 2.0
Imagine being able to go online and have access to instruments that could measure and transmit your health data directly to your physician. Imagine healthcare “loyalty” programs, that give incentives to patients for taking their medications regularly; all recorded, transmitted, tracked, and awarded online. It’s all technologically possible, and in this article from newscientist.com, you can get a glimpse of the probable future. Medical devices from weight scales to asthma inhalers could soon connect directly to the web. Healthcare professionals will have a less intrusive and disruptive way to monitor patients with chronic conditions. Of course, this all depends on whether a great number of patients will feel comfortable with their health data going online. Companies like IBM, Intel, Google, Kaiser Permanente and the UK’s National Health Service appear to be banking on the fact that we will be increasingly insistent – and comfortable with – transparency.
It took how long to print?
I recently read a book titled The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime by Miles Harvey. Maps were actually ripped from library books for a profit. Working in the print world, the one part that really stuck in my mind was how long it actually took to print an atlas in 1663, at a qty. of 300.
Lets see… 1,000 working days for typesetting, 330 working days for letterpress printing, 900 working days for the copperplate printing and 300 working days for binding. Can you believe it?
I wonder how long it would take us today.
What?… an app for the paper industry
Neenah Paper has come up with an app for your iPhone, called Think Ink: Color Unleashed. For all you designers on the go, this app can create color palettes based on four photo options right from your phone. Then when you are all done, you can later create coordinating print options to really make your options bloom. Check it out here.
Disconcerting Discharge
Senior citizens, who often account for a large percentage of medical services, 
are at an added disadvantage after being discharged from the hospital. Specifically, one in five of them will land right back in the hospital between 48 hours and one month following their initial release, resulting in $17 billion of Medicare costs spent on readmissions. Why? Due to a variety of issues including hearing impairments, confusion about the change in care, almost half of seniors reported taking five or more prescription medications, and more than half having two or more prescribing physicians, many elderly patients struggle with their outpatient instructions (e.g. “do I take the new meds in place of my existing meds?”) Overall there is a communication gap between seniors and their physicians around prescription medications. This is further complicated by Medicare prescription drug plans and physicians spending an average of 6-8 minutes per patient due to large patient loads.
Watch this, eat that
Certainly there is no shortage of reasons, blame, whatever associated with skyrocketing obesity rates in America. We’ve become a slovenly society, food is over-processed and cheap and the recession has us smothered in comfort food. The old TV excuse (“the advertising made me want it”) seems almost quaint. Yet …
