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Month: July 2008

Synaesthesia, migraines and creativity

It was only about two weeks ago that I found out I’m a bit weird. I was listening to an episode of BBC Radio 4’s All In The Mind (listen), part of which was dedicated to synaesthesia. I didn’t realise that something I experience all the time actually qualifies as a mild form of the condition!

But what is synaesthesia? Nature defines it in the following way:

An unusual ‘mixing of the senses’ in which a stimulus in one sensory modality (for example, a sound) elicits a percept in another modality (such as visual perception of a colour).

All In The Mind explained that this definition can be widened to include something both I and my mother experience: conceiving of time as being physically and spatially located. It’s difficult to explain this in words, and my perspective and view on time changes depending on the period I’m ‘looking at’. To give you some idea, however, here’s something like what I ‘see’ when I think of the period of human history:

The above is a very quick and rough sketch – what I actually see is a lot ‘thicker’ and 3D. As you can imagine, this has its benefits and is probably one reason why I’m a History teacher! :-p

I didn’t think anything more about this until I listened to one of the series of TED Talks entitled A Journey to the Center of the Mind by Vilayanur Ramachandaran. Towards the end of his (fascinating) talk, he mentioned that ‘creative’ people (artists, poets, etc.) are eight times more likely to experience synaesthesia than ‘normal’ people. He explained the condition as probably being due to a malfunction in the gene that ‘trims’ ‘the connections that exist initially between all parts of the brain.

So I wondered… perhaps there’s a link between synaesthesia and migraines? After all, I experience ‘aura’ when I have a migraine – something like a less extreme version of the picture below, usually starting with patches of coloured light:

Sure enough, when I looked it up I found several references, including this one. Now I’m no painter or poet, but I am fairly good at metaphors and making links between (often fairly diverse) subjects.

I’m firmly of the belief that, especially when it comes to the brain, things cannot be studied or considered in isolation. Although I want to do further research, I’m fascinated at the possible link between synaesthesia, migraines and creativity (in the form of associationism). Perhaps, like autistic people who are fantastic mathematicians or artists, migraines have their associated upsides…

Do you experience synaesthesia? Perhaps you see numbers or days of the week as being certain colours or, like me, conceive of time in a sensory way. Do you also get migraines? I’d love it if you could share your experiences! 🙂

(Image credit: My Brain on MRI by CaptPiper @ Flickr)

Help me fill in the gaps.

I need your help.

As I’ve already mentioned several times here already, next year I’m going to have the role of E-learning Staff Tutor at my school. This involves having a reduced timetable and spending time raising what I would term the ‘digital literacy’ of the teachers in my school.

To do this, I need examples of folks within their discipline who are using educational technology and Web 2.0 tools successfully. Whilst I could point people towards/use the International Edubloggers directory, there’s the problems of a) not everyone (including me) is on there, and b) I don’t ‘know’ them – and therefore can’t introduce others to them. Plus, I much prefer recommendations! 🙂

Below is a list of the subjects taught in my school.* Next to them I’ve filled in the names of those that teach that subject who I follow on Twitter. I may have missed some out if I’m not entirely sure what they teach or if they’re a consultant.

I’d like to leverage the ‘power of the network’ to fill in the blanks so I can expand my network and make it more ’rounded’. In turn, I hope this will become a valuable resource for those in similar positions to me! Individuals in italics have been suggested in the comments section.

If you’ve got an individual to add to the list, please give their name, location and blog/wiki/Twitter/whatever URL. 😀

If I’ve got something wrong – your name(!) or your subject, please let me know ASAP so I can change it. :-p

So they don’t feel left out, there’s a host of primary school teachers doing amazing things, such as Al Upton (Australia), Amanda Rogers (USA), Brian Crosby (USA), Clarence Fisher (Canada), Doug Noon (Alaska, USA), Graham Wegner (Australia), John Johnston (Scotland), Jo Rhys-Jones (England), Lisa Stevens (England), Mark Ahlness (USA), Mark Warner (England), Steve Kirkpatrick (England), Tom Barrett (England), Wendy Goodwin (USA). Even members of Senior Leadership Teams around the world blog! For example, Chris Lehmann (USA)

The edublogosphere is also full of those hard-to-define characters who have job titles/roles such as ‘E-Learning Director’, ‘Technology Specialist’, ‘Digital Curriculum Co-ordinator’, and so on. Don’t worry – I’ve got something for YOU coming in the near future! 😀

*There are some subjects taught in my school because it’s a specialist Engineering school that you don’t tend to find much elsewhere. These (Catering, Construction, Engineering) I’ve left out – but I very much welcome links if you can find them! 🙂

(Image credit: Bullseye by raspberreh @ Flickr)

Update: RSS feeds from above blogs collated thanks to Grazr here: http://elearnr.edublogs.org/links/ 🙂

5 productivity tips/hacks I’ve come across recently.

I’m always on the lookout for ways in which I can be more productive and increase my creative outputs. Time is precious when you’re a teacher, husband and father! Whilst I recommend you subscribe to blogs like Lifehacker and Lifehack.org directly, I’d like to share with you some of the tips and ‘lifehacks’ I’ve found useful recently:

1. FriendFeed

If you’re not using FriendFeed yet, you should be! I’ve been using it for a couple of months and find it very useful. It’s like the river of news and updates you get on Facebook (or at least last time I checked). The difference is that it’s people in the edublogosphere so it’s things related directly to professional learning. The quality of links, recommendations, etc. I get through FriendFeed means that I actually check my feed reader less often now (and use Feedly instead of Google Reader when I do…)

2. Firefox Extensions

I’ve already blogged about Stylish and Feedly, but it’s amazing how much Firefox extensions (addons) can improve your productivity. Take a couple recommended by Lifehacker recently:

  • Tree Style Tabs – allows you to hierarchically organize tabs in a vertical manner in your sidebar. Much more useful than it sounds!
  • Picnik – allows you to capture and edit screenshots online.
  • Zemanta – adds features when creating blog posts like related articles, suggested tags, links to Wikipedia articles, etc.

It’s worth trawling through the Mozilla Firefox addons site and/or doing a Google search for recommended extensions. There’s some great one out there! 🙂

3. How Priorities Make Things Happen

I know from experience that I work much better and in a more focused way if I’m working to a deadline. In fact, I purposely don’t start things until, for example, I’ve only got 24 hours left to complete it. Otherwise, I procrastinate and then, when finished, endlessly tinker to make things ‘just right’.

In a Lifehacker post about a book entitled How Priorities Make Things Happen, this is put into a more structured and easy-to-understand (and follow) form:

The easiest way to make a goal meaningful is to use ordered lists and a high priority one bar. These two simple tools force you to make tough decisions early. An ordered list simply means putting your goals in priority order, most important at the top, least important at the bottom. Divide that list in half: the top are things you must do, or die (Priority 1). The rest are things you hope to do, but can live without (Priority 2). Make your priority 1 list as small as possible: set a high bar. The smaller your list of must do’s, the easier they are to achieve. You will face waves of conflicting emotions as you decide what is truly important, but once you settle on priorities the hard decisions will be behind you.

4. Share Your Secrets To Be The Change

I’ve always shared pretty much everything I’ve ever produced – from my university essays/theses to resources I use in the classroom. Others have been flabbergasted by this approach, finding it strange that I should give away for free what I’ve put so much work into. I have the opposite approach – I get back so much more than I give. I’m sure others reading this have found the same.

It’s for the above reasons that I found Share Your Secrets To Be The Change, a post on Lifehack.org, to be so affirming. I especially liked the bits about sharing ‘making your life happier’ and making you into a ‘hero’. Knowing that I’ve got an audience certainly makes me more productive.

5. Top Ten Modern Life Survival Skills

It’s all very well these websites that show you how to start a fire using a Coke can and a piece of chocolate, but how many of us will actually ever need to do that? Really useful ‘modern survival skills’ can give you more control over your life; ergo more time and therefore productivity.

A post on Lifehacker entitled Top Ten Modern Life Survival Skills includes this gem:

Ever notice how putting your hand on your clock radio tends to clarify and boost the signal? You can use that same body-as-extended-antenna trick to locate your car in a stuffed parking lot. Hold your remote opening fob against your skull, hit the alarm (or beep-beep locking button), and you’ll locate your vehicle from farther away.

Have YOU got any productivity tips/hacks you’ve come across recently you’ve found useful? Share them in the comments section! 😀

(Image credit: branching out by shapeshift @ Flickr)

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