#1 Make progress and achievements visible
#2 How my self-directed learning habits helped save a bird
#3 Visit before you visit the Willowwood Arboretum
#4 Making time for making
#5 A musical interlude
#1 Make progress and achievements visible
I have spent a lot of time the past few years writing and speaking about gamification. I've taken on the grumpy cats who claim it isn't suitable for learning or the workplace or wherever. Usually their arguments stem from fear of the unknown and/or bad experiences or examples of bad design. And I'll write more about all of this other times, but the key thing today, as I tell people who come to my sessions is that whether or not you gamify anything, we can all benefit from some of the key concepts. One of my key takeaways is always "Make progress and achievements visible." Showing people where they are, where they are going, and the giving them mileposts does magical things to their motivation. It's not about badges, it is about the meaning that the learner can attach to that badge. It is a symbol of success and success breeds success.
Here's my personal example of the week. I just completed one full year of using my Fitbit activity tracker. I have mine set with a goal of 5 miles of walking each day, which for me comes close to 12,000 steps, a bit more than the suggested 10,000 steps. Every day for the last 365 days I have met that goal. How do I know? Because I can see it on the Fitbit dashboard on my phone or computer. I have gotten badges and stars and other nice-to-haves, but it is the visibility of my daily progress that keeps me hooked. But, hey, it is pretty cool to know that I have walked the equivalent of transversing India (1,997 miles). And it's not just me. In the coming weeks my mother, who is 83 years young, who uses a walker, will complete one full year of meeting her daily goal of 2 miles (which is a more modest, but equally impressive for her capabilities). She knows she needs to exercise to keep up her stamina and strength so that she can continue to live independently but it is easy for any of us to take a day off, which leads to a couple of days, and then .... But making the progress visible has helped her to stay the course. As of today, she has walked 1.7 million steps over the past 50 weeks. Trust me gamification, but whatever name, works.
The next morning I crept into garage and peeked in the box and guess who was peeking back up at me. Phew, still alive ... but also still on one foot. I started thinking about who I knew that knew about birds. See it is always good to build a network of people who know about a lot of different stuff. I also headed to the Internet. It wasn't hard to find out the basics of what they eat and figure out that while I didn't have wild bird seed I did have rice (uncooked) and popcorn. OK, we could put a dish of food in the bin with the water until we could get to a store for seed. Oh, and I learned that I should splash my finger around in the water so the bird would hear the sound and know there was water.
I kept reading, and learning, and after another day and night of rest for our pigeon guest we decided to freak him out again, as we had when we rescued him from the street (wow, that sounds dramatic), and try and get a better look at the ankle bands. I had already found information on how to read the bands, assuming by this point that it was a homing and/or racing pigeon. So hubby held the bird, I wrote down the info, and figured out which federation he belonged to. From their website I found the group his owner belonged to and got contact info. Hubby made some calls and we eventually got connected to the owner who lived about 40 miles away. Long story short, we ended up housing our new friend for a couple of weeks while he recouped (so to speak).
One day, he was suddenly in a window sill, and then up on a shelf, clearly improving and trying to get to higher and higher ground as he prepared to return to the skies. Or so we hoped. The owner wasn't in a hurry to come get him. This wasn't a pet per se and I guess it is sort of a occupational hazard of raising racing pigeons that, like soldiers, some don't make it back. We went through being worried that the bird would be killed if it didn't heal up all the way and wondering if we were going to end up keeping the bird. But in the end the owner made arrangements to pick up the bird and confirmed that the bird's leg was fine and he just needed a few more days rest and that the bird was supposed to be in a big race this month and that the new power lines they have built in our area have been causing the birds some problems.
I didn't get to meet the owner but I did get to see him because he told my husband that he was on a TV show about the pigeon races. Sure enough, I few more Google searches and I found videos from the show on the Animal Planet. It was called Taking on Tyson. Yep, Mike Tyson is a pigeon enthusiast and you could tell watching him with the birds that they bring a calmness to him while still fulfilling his competitive spirit. The videos were fascinating. I soon learned what the band on the other leg was for. The one leg had the identification tag with visual information, the other was a race tracking chip, like marathon runners have in their bibs. They scan the birds when they enter a race and then can get a clock speed on them when they return.
Aside from being a cool story with a happy ending, it is also a story of how important it is to be comfortable learning on the fly. I can't tell you how many people have heard about this story and said: "Gee, I wouldn't have had any idea what to do" or "how did you figure that out." Those of us who are lifelong learners sometimes take for granted what a special skillset we have.
Hey, did you ever consider that you don't have to be at a garden or museum or wherever that has a phone audio tour to enjoy it? I do it all the time for an number of reasons. Maybe I am with friends and don't want to hold up the group or be anti-social by stopping and dialing into the tour at each stop of the tour. Maybe I want to focus on taking pictures and juggling my phone and camera and everything is a recipe for a clumsy technology moment. I make note of the phone number and the numbers that you have to press to retrieve the various messages and then call in later. Or, even better, as Willowwood Arboretum suggested, call in ahead of time and use the audio tour to help plan your visit. Brilliant. They give you all the info right on the website and suggest you plan ahead. Even better still, they provide a printed version of the transcript. And here's a few of the shots from our visit.
But I'm also making plans. I'll write more about this in the coming weeks, but by writing here I'm firmly committing to writing more about it in the coming weeks. I have had an idea dancing around in my head for a long time now and it keeps tapping me on the shoulder and clearing its throat and staring at me with a slightly disgusting yet mom-you-didn't-clean-your-room kind of look. So when I return from NOLA I'm going to outline everything.
The gist of it is that we are all presenting 24 x7 whether it is a formal presentation for work or school, a meeting, an interview, a date, a community event ... whatever. And we all have been on the giving and receiving end of presentations and we all are surrounded by pop culture, are all adjusting to the ocean of information we swim in daily, and we struggle to focus our attention and garner the attention of others. The upcoming project will be part book, part workbook, part do-it-yourself learning adventure, and hopefully part community of people who all want to improve their presentation skills and help others to improve theirs because frankly we are all really tired of boring presentations. Amirite?
Here's my personal example of the week. I just completed one full year of using my Fitbit activity tracker. I have mine set with a goal of 5 miles of walking each day, which for me comes close to 12,000 steps, a bit more than the suggested 10,000 steps. Every day for the last 365 days I have met that goal. How do I know? Because I can see it on the Fitbit dashboard on my phone or computer. I have gotten badges and stars and other nice-to-haves, but it is the visibility of my daily progress that keeps me hooked. But, hey, it is pretty cool to know that I have walked the equivalent of transversing India (1,997 miles). And it's not just me. In the coming weeks my mother, who is 83 years young, who uses a walker, will complete one full year of meeting her daily goal of 2 miles (which is a more modest, but equally impressive for her capabilities). She knows she needs to exercise to keep up her stamina and strength so that she can continue to live independently but it is easy for any of us to take a day off, which leads to a couple of days, and then .... But making the progress visible has helped her to stay the course. As of today, she has walked 1.7 million steps over the past 50 weeks. Trust me gamification, but whatever name, works.
#2 How my self-directed learning habits helped save a bird
A couple of weeks ago, late in the evening, my husband and I were out for a walk and found a wounded bird standing on one foot in the middle of the street. It appeared to have bands on both ankles and was a pigeon, but clearly not an urban-poop-on-park-statues variety. Not wanting it to become roadkill or a midnight snack for one of the neighborhood cats, we scooped into a big plastic bin and took it home ... with absolutely no idea what to do with it. And oh, did I mention it was a holiday weekend? But being resourceful I decided we could figure it out. Life forms need water, I already knew that, although I also knew that scared animals don't always want to eat or drink, so we put some water in the bin, covered the top to keep it dark and decided that if it survived the night, we would do what we could.The next morning I crept into garage and peeked in the box and guess who was peeking back up at me. Phew, still alive ... but also still on one foot. I started thinking about who I knew that knew about birds. See it is always good to build a network of people who know about a lot of different stuff. I also headed to the Internet. It wasn't hard to find out the basics of what they eat and figure out that while I didn't have wild bird seed I did have rice (uncooked) and popcorn. OK, we could put a dish of food in the bin with the water until we could get to a store for seed. Oh, and I learned that I should splash my finger around in the water so the bird would hear the sound and know there was water.
I kept reading, and learning, and after another day and night of rest for our pigeon guest we decided to freak him out again, as we had when we rescued him from the street (wow, that sounds dramatic), and try and get a better look at the ankle bands. I had already found information on how to read the bands, assuming by this point that it was a homing and/or racing pigeon. So hubby held the bird, I wrote down the info, and figured out which federation he belonged to. From their website I found the group his owner belonged to and got contact info. Hubby made some calls and we eventually got connected to the owner who lived about 40 miles away. Long story short, we ended up housing our new friend for a couple of weeks while he recouped (so to speak).
One day, he was suddenly in a window sill, and then up on a shelf, clearly improving and trying to get to higher and higher ground as he prepared to return to the skies. Or so we hoped. The owner wasn't in a hurry to come get him. This wasn't a pet per se and I guess it is sort of a occupational hazard of raising racing pigeons that, like soldiers, some don't make it back. We went through being worried that the bird would be killed if it didn't heal up all the way and wondering if we were going to end up keeping the bird. But in the end the owner made arrangements to pick up the bird and confirmed that the bird's leg was fine and he just needed a few more days rest and that the bird was supposed to be in a big race this month and that the new power lines they have built in our area have been causing the birds some problems.
I didn't get to meet the owner but I did get to see him because he told my husband that he was on a TV show about the pigeon races. Sure enough, I few more Google searches and I found videos from the show on the Animal Planet. It was called Taking on Tyson. Yep, Mike Tyson is a pigeon enthusiast and you could tell watching him with the birds that they bring a calmness to him while still fulfilling his competitive spirit. The videos were fascinating. I soon learned what the band on the other leg was for. The one leg had the identification tag with visual information, the other was a race tracking chip, like marathon runners have in their bibs. They scan the birds when they enter a race and then can get a clock speed on them when they return.
Aside from being a cool story with a happy ending, it is also a story of how important it is to be comfortable learning on the fly. I can't tell you how many people have heard about this story and said: "Gee, I wouldn't have had any idea what to do" or "how did you figure that out." Those of us who are lifelong learners sometimes take for granted what a special skillset we have.
#3 Visit before you visit the Willowwood Arboretum
Hey, did you ever consider that you don't have to be at a garden or museum or wherever that has a phone audio tour to enjoy it? I do it all the time for an number of reasons. Maybe I am with friends and don't want to hold up the group or be anti-social by stopping and dialing into the tour at each stop of the tour. Maybe I want to focus on taking pictures and juggling my phone and camera and everything is a recipe for a clumsy technology moment. I make note of the phone number and the numbers that you have to press to retrieve the various messages and then call in later. Or, even better, as Willowwood Arboretum suggested, call in ahead of time and use the audio tour to help plan your visit. Brilliant. They give you all the info right on the website and suggest you plan ahead. Even better still, they provide a printed version of the transcript. And here's a few of the shots from our visit.
#4 Making time for making
I got a chance to go to the Maker Faire this week but I haven't had a chance to review and process all of the cool stuff from there and since I'm traveling much of the next two weeks, it will probably have to wait a bit. But that doesn't mean that I am not living the maker lifestyle. I have been literally making things. Hey, check out some of the cool buttons I'm making for friends who are traveling to NOLA soon.
But I'm also making plans. I'll write more about this in the coming weeks, but by writing here I'm firmly committing to writing more about it in the coming weeks. I have had an idea dancing around in my head for a long time now and it keeps tapping me on the shoulder and clearing its throat and staring at me with a slightly disgusting yet mom-you-didn't-clean-your-room kind of look. So when I return from NOLA I'm going to outline everything.
The gist of it is that we are all presenting 24 x7 whether it is a formal presentation for work or school, a meeting, an interview, a date, a community event ... whatever. And we all have been on the giving and receiving end of presentations and we all are surrounded by pop culture, are all adjusting to the ocean of information we swim in daily, and we struggle to focus our attention and garner the attention of others. The upcoming project will be part book, part workbook, part do-it-yourself learning adventure, and hopefully part community of people who all want to improve their presentation skills and help others to improve theirs because frankly we are all really tired of boring presentations. Amirite?
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