Reflection: Dan Pink Question

So all my posts have been saved as drafts lately. My bad!!! I believe that the 6 senses have an enormous amount to do with education. Design will change our classrooms and our curriculums. Story will help us explore History and LA better. Symphony will help us connect our different classes together. Play will help us to have fun while we learn something new. Empathy will help us feel better, and will help us help others at school. Meaning will give us a reason to go to school, or to wherever we are going. Those are basically my thoughts on how important Daniel Pink’s ideas are to our education: very important!

Portfolio: Meaning

In the Meaning Chapter, I found a lot of religious things. I am a Christian- Disciples of Christ – and am pretty religious. My meaning is a life for Jesus Christ, but this is not a religious post. It is to talk about the portfolio idea of dedicating everything. I almost forgot to do it for a while, but now I’m back on track. It is almost fun to dedicate your work to someone; to do it for someone else. Sometimes it’s a silent dedication, but sometimes it’s like a mission trip for me. Sometimes I want to buy someone’s lunch for them. Sometimes I just say I’ll do everything for them today. It helps my life as much as Being Choosy (see Portfolio: Design). There is not much more to say here. Maybe I’ll dedicate it to you today.

Portfolio: Play

Play- what an interesting chapter. I love video games, board games, whatever, as long as they are still games! So because I love games so much, I decided to- you betcha-dissect a joke. Some jokes are really dumb, but I still try to dissect them. Those are the easiest. But then you get tougher ones, like one I can find no humor in; I’m sorry if I ruin this joke for someone because it’s a classic: Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side!!! No laughs? That’s because I can still find no humor in this joke. Here is a challenge: find the humor in this joke. Tell me it and I’ll buy you a Starbucks. Okay? Good luck…

Porfolio: Empathy

The Empathy chapter was interesting. It has helped me be in the other’s shoes now. I decided I’d do the “Spot the Fake Smile” in Daniel Pink’s portfolio. This is on www.tinyurl.com/ckrj3. I was very pleased with myself because I got about 75% right. I have a secret (that Daniel Pink tells all in his book) that helps tremendously. There is not much I got out of this activity but it still is weird how you can spot a fake smile from a real one by looking at- blahdy-blahdy-blah. It is weird because I have spotted fake smiles among my friends and people I see in public places recently. It is a little discomforting to see it sometimes, but it is still cool J.

Portfolio: Design

Design was a very cool chapter. The portfolio was even better. I decided to Be Choosy as Daniel Pink puts it. As a result I am actually a happier person. I am more optimistic and look for things in the long run. They will get better sometime, I tell myself now in rough times. If not now, then I’m cool with it. Thanks to Daniel Pink, I feel like everyone and everything is happier. Funny what one little thing can do to your life. There is not much to say on this post, so this is really it J.

Reflection: World Language

I think that World Language is a very exciting class. I take Spanish II and enjoy it immensely. I had an awful teacher last year. She hardly taught us anything. But now I have a meaning to actually learn in this class. My teacher is nice and she comes up with creative ways to relay the lesson to us. I now know how to conjugate verbs in the past (preterit and imperfect!). It amazes me how much one class and one teacher can help me learn so much better and enjoy learning another language. Spanish will help me a ton in the future: it may help get a job or give a meaning to my life. That is exciting. Ha-ha I have said exciting a lot now. But it really is.

Reflection: Language Arts

Ah Language Arts, my favorite class. I am not kidding you: it is awesome! Laptops, good discussions, good books, and a great teacher J. I believe that design is important to this class: someone had to design a plan for the class, for the curriculum, the questions that are asked, even this PLJ! It is all one big design. It almost boggles my mind that it is so well designed. And just so you know, I am not sucking up; I am only telling the truth. My LA class used to be very boring: just writing, reading and a little talking. It was dreadful. This class, however, has helped me learn more. It’s so exciting to think about it.

Reflection: Science

So I checked my blog last night and guess what? I’ve been saving drafts not posts!! Phew glad I found that one. Anyways…science. I think that design helps a lot in science. You have to design labs that make sense, make models that have a good design, and organize data tables, another design. Science is one of my least favorite subjects. I really don’t enjoy it. I know it; I just don’t find it interesting. Science is more like a religion to some people. But that is beside the point. Many scientific instruments are designed to a) work as they should and b) look cool. It’s true. Some of those things just look cool. It’s kind of funny. Even Periodic tables are designed cool: they use interesting colors and cool fonts. It’s a business. That is why design is so important to Science.

Reflection: The Arts

This reflection is about, you guessed it, the Arts. I'm going to focus on the musical part of the Arts, mainly orchestra. This is mainly because I am writing my WRP (Wikified Research Paper) on Symphony, one of Dan Pink's six senses, and because I play in an orchestra: one in school, and one outside of school. I play the violin, but also bass guitar, guitar, mandolin, djembe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djembe), piano, learning drums and a few others. This happens to be the same model Djembe I have (left)

I think music is the greatest ever, and I hope it will be my career. My thesis for the WRP goes as follows:

In Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind, his definition of symphony, together with his ideas on how a symphony orchestra's components and functions are important in order to be successful, is accurate because of the Human Element in life, the innovation and improvement factor, and because of how music will be a strong, guiding hand in essentially all life and work in the 21st century

So here's what that said: Dan Pink defined symphony correctly. He also believes symphony will help in the future. My orchestra class is even helping me now. Even with Daniel Pink's stellar definition, there are more parts to it. He forgot about the Human Element (from DOW's "Human Element TV ads), the Innovation factor (or the human mindset to improve what is around them) and, basically, music in general. It is my opinion that music will help a lot in the future. That is why the arts, whether it's music or not, is very inmportant in school.

Reflection: Math

Is math class a Left Brain or Right Brain thought process? In my opinion, it is mostly L.Brain. Just think about it: you look at the problem, take the proper steps to solving it, write it down, box it in. Very textual, very logical. But there is an occasional R.Brain math problem: there is sometimes more than one way to solve a problem. You have to be creative to slove some of them.

On a quick note, none of my posts have been saving lately, so I'm a little ticked because this is for a grade and because I have to re-type all the syuff I've said recently :( so I;m gonna get started on that.

No quote this post.

A-Websta

Portfolio: Symphony

This week in class we are reading Daniel Pink's chapter about Symphony. He defines symphony as "the ability to put together the pieces. It is the capacity to synthesize rather than analyze......to invent something new by combining elements nobody else thought to pair." I completely agree with him, and I am writing my Wikified Research Paper on this chapter in fact. I will write a ton more about this subject in my WRP and not here.

I love classical music. Part of that is probably because I have played violin for a little over 9 years now. I don't have a ton of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn on my iPod, but I bet I have more than most people. Daniel Pink wrote in his portfolio section that in order to get more Symphony training, you should listen to classical music. Of course, being the classical music nerd I am, I am excited. I listen and play classicla enough that I know a few songs that some don't. Have you ever listened to the 4th Brandenburg Concerto, movement #3 by Bach? I find it to be one of my favorite classical songs ever. So I am going to listen to that for my Portfolio reflection this week.

It went good, just so you know. And since I play violin, I was even able to play it. Of course. I was only one violin, but it was good enough. I also listened to some other works and I could tell how these composers thought of the big picture. They combine brass, strings, woodwinds and percussion to get a masterpiece. That is a helpful skill to have in life: to look at the whole thing. Dan Pink was right in saying that symphony is going to be one of the big things in business, in life, and in education. He must've been looking at the big picture.

Here's the quote:

I need to know who put my calculator in Jell-O or I'm gonna lose my freakin' mind! - Andy from The Office

Go listen to some classical music,
A-Websta

Portfolio: Story

At the end of each chapter of Daniel Pink's "six senses" in his book A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future he has a few ideas for the reader. He calls it a "portfolio". My teacher has assigned us to do something from this portfolio each week. For this last week's chapter (I was sick and have now only finished it) we read about story. Story is being embraced by big companies now, he says. If you want to know more about it, I'm not going to give it away and you should read it for yourself. Anyway, the portfolio had a couple different ways to show story. I tried the "mini-saga", which is a 50 word- no more, no less -short story of a sort. I wrote mine about an amazing goal scored by Wayne Rooney of Manchester United. It was scored against Newcastle United.

To start, I wrote down all i knew about it. Next, I found more information. Then, I tried writing a mini-saga. It is really not very good, but it gives enough of a picture to figure out what's going on. Here it is:

The Sun's out and bright. Old Trafford's majestic again. 56 long minutes leave it one-nil to Newcastle. The grass is crisp. The crown is angry, yet silent and waiting. A long ball down to the penalty box, a misjudged header to Rooney. Leg up. Is it his time?

As I said it's not amazing, but it's good enough. This goal is considered Wayne Rooney's best goal ever. To view it, just watch here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gz91h_Cz7k&feature=related

Anyway, so there's my mini-saga.

Catch Ya Later,
A-Websta

Reflection: History

In History, we are starting a big unit on WWII. We have learned about how throughout history, few people have had the power to control their fellow man. But out of those people, who were right-brain and who were left-brain? This is not our question, but it brings up an interesting point. The leaders of anything in the world, from nations to city councils to soccer teams, have possessed the abilities to command the people around them. But are those abilities right-brained or left-brained? Some would say you have to be left-brained: analytical, sequential, logical. This thinking will get you through life and help you suceed. There are others who say the leader should be right-brained: artistic, contextual, empathetic. Both groups of people might be telling the truth, but in fact you need to be both right and left brained. Thomas Edison may have invented the light bulb, but would he have been able to create the New Deal? Probably not. But the same goes to FDR: he got us out of the Depression, but would he have been willing to try over 1,000 tines to create the light bulb? Probably not. Both of these things changed history, and both were done a different way (Edisons was Left, FDR's was Right, in my opinion). You need to have the logical, pattern forming ways of the Left side along with the creative Right to rule your people successfully. In WWII, during battle, the commanders had to be creative enough to out-do the enemy, yet have enough logic to defeat with minimum casualties. In summary, everyone, even leaders, need both sides of their brains to survive and lead their people.

And the quote of the post is:

I just wanted to say that the women in this office are terrible.
- Dwight from The Office

Sincererly,
A-Websta

Manchester United- Simply the Best

Is there anymore to say?



Maybe this...



and this?



The songs might be weird but they all help in pointing out one thing...
MANCHESTER UNITED IS THE BEST FOOTBALL (NOT SOCCER) TEAM ON EARTH!!!!!!!!

Man U Fan For Life,
A-Websta

The Wonderful World of Wikis

The theme of today's class was learning how to make a Wikispace. We will be doing a paper on Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future. This will not be any paper though; it will be done completely done on a Wikispace. We made our own Wikispaces and are gonna start to put everything on it. And when I say everything, I mean everything: research, drafts, final and bibliography. It's going to be intense.

I'm not really sure what to reflect on from today: all we did was mess around with Wikispaces. I guess I just talk about the impression it gave me. Overall, it's a great idea. It's like any Microsoft Word document except that it's not as in depth. One of the cooler bits of Wikis is the Widget button. So many things can happen on this button: feeds, videos, pictures, graphs... it's all there! Wikispaces is a great idea and, thing, for lack of a better word. I will be constantly updating it and will post the final product on this blog.

Here's the quote for this post:

I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.
-J.R.R Tolkien

So 'Long,
A-Websta

Right or Left Brained?

Today we took two brain tests to see what side of our brain we are. One test was in a packet we received, while the other was online (I will give the address later). What these two tests showed was that I am a right brain person, but still use left brain almost as often. My right brain percentage on the Internet test was about 59%. That leaves 41% of left brain. I wasn't surprised by these results: I am musical and don't do things in a logical sequential order.

We also finished the 5 minutes left on the Daniel Pink video (from my post on Tuesday). Not much happened except a wrapup of all he had said earlier. He still said just about everything from his book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future. It is a really good book the video shows him explaining it in person which is very helpful.

Here is the website for the online quiz:

http://www.wherecreativitygoestoschool.com/vancouver/left_right/rb_test.htm

And the quote of the post:

French troops arrived in Afghanistan last week, and not a minute too soon. The French are acting as advisers to the Taliban, to teach them how to surrender properly.
-Jay Leno


Godspeed,
A-Websta

Daniel Pink Video

So I watched a video in class today in which Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future. It was basically him giving a summary of his best-selling book. In his book he talks about when the left-brained- which is the sequential, textual, analytical side -was the ruler of the business world. But he points out how now there is a shift towards the right-brained- or the simultaneous, contextual, big picture viewing side - in the land of business.

My reaction to this video was mixed. I wondered why he would say all this because it's just what he says in his book. But what outweighed that was how smart his thinking is. He shows how those left-brained jobs are being off-shored. It is easy to do that to left-brainers, but not to right-brainers. I happen to be one of those right-brained people, being very musical. I am happy to hear when I'm older it will be harder to outsource my job to India or anywhere else in Asia, which happens to be one of his causes of outsourcing. My class and I didn't finish the video so we are going to conclude it tomorrow. I will have more of an reaction after viewing the whole thing. I have including a short intro to the video (courtesy of YouTube) in which you can go and see. And finally, my quote of the post:

Everything passes. Everything changes. Just do what you think you should do.
-Bob Dylan

Peace to you,
A-Websta

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhKLSTBSgwI