Beth's Blog: Nonprofits and Social Media

Information Pollution

Jakob Neilson's recent
AlertBox had a piece called Information Pollution. The summary:
Excessive word count and worthless details are making it harder for people to extract useful information. The more you say, the more people tune out your message. The title is taken from a chapter about antidotes to information in David Shenk's book Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glue - Give a Hoot, Don't Data Pollute. Be Your Own Filter. Be Your Own Editor.

Cognitive Overload

Michael Gilbert's blog mentions a great piece by A Few Thoughts on Cognitive Overload by
David Kirsh. I've been researching this topic for a few years to prepare training on "Information Coping Skills. I found his article and these others good references.

Molecular Structure of Sugar

Happy Valentine's Day! Did you get a box of chocolate? Ever wonder about what the molecular structure of sugar looks like? Or what to learn more about cultural customs of pickles? The exploratorium's "Science of Cooking is the place for curious cooks. Make cooking an educational experience!

Animals in Khmer

We're learning the names of different animals in Cambodian at next month's culture class. To help learn more about the animals, JungleWalk is a great site.

Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes

As a parent of two Cambodian children, I'm working with other parents to organize monthly culture classes for kids 2-8 years old. We have found a wonderful teacher, a Cambodian named JJ Thou. Harry has learned his numbers from 1-5 in Khmer, both saying, reading, and writing. Sara Botum has learned the Khmer words for body parts. A parent suggested that we sing Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes in Khmer and JJ provided the words. I couldn't resist adding a graphic. I'm contributing crafts lessons plans as I hope to finish a little booklet with a number of project. Here's an example that focuses on the Cambodian Flag.

And, while researching body parts came across this wonderful lesson plan for grade K called "Heads, Shoudlers, Knees and Toes using a cricket from the Center for Insect Science Education and Outreach.

Toxic Powerpoint

A great article on SociableMedia about how to address the symptoms of toxic powerpoint which include:

* Bullet point asphyxiation that suffocates dialogue with an endless stream of text read off a screen.
* Chart attack numbs its victims with numbers at the expense of narrative.
* Intellectual indigestion overwhelms with too much information that has not been digested properly.

The Visual Language of PowerPoint

My strongest learning style is visual and perhaps that why I've always been attracted to using images to make a point in powerpoint and graphjc organizers. Standford scholar Robert Horn who wrote "Visual Language: Global Communication for the 21st Century," offers some great insights to anyone who needs to communicate with words and images in this Q&A.