May 12, 2014

What Happens When We Don't Connect

“What Happens When We Don’t Connect” strays a bit from how the brain is wired and actually focuses more on the need to belong.  Jeremy Rikfin says that connectivity, social learning, and pop social media fulfill our needs for sociability, attachment, affection, and companionship.  He maintains that repressing the need to connect has definite consequences.  Thus, we need to seek ways to help students connect with the world around them.  This article shares ten recommendations:
1.      Connect them through function and purpose, not gadgets.
2.     Use technology to help them establish a context for themselves.
3.     Model how to relate to others who are different from them.
4.     Help them to clarify to whom and to what they’re connected.
5.     Use place-based learning and PBL to help them make new connections.
6.     Help them use social media for recreation, knowledge, and meaning.
7.     Offer digital citizenship strategies.
8.     Encourage them to identify the multiple citizenships to which they belong.
9.     Have them concept map their own interdependence in a given context.
10.  Help them in identifying authentic roles in communities they care about.

Take a look at the video embedded in the article.

What Happens When We Don't Connect

7 Ways to Start Your Week Like a Leader

Early last week I tweeted this blog post  written by Dan Rockwell, the Leadership Freak, and I decided to make this my selection this week given the message it illustrates.  We all know this time of the year is crazy to say the least, but as you read the 7 thoughts Dan provides to set the tone on Monday mornings I think you will find a few strategies to calm some of the waters that come with the craziness of the end of the year.  

Try a few out and see what you think and good luck on the remainder of the year!

7 Ways to Start Your Week Like a Leader