Here’s an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal.

In the information age, so much is worked on in a day at the office but so little gets done. In the past, people could see the fruits of their labor immediately: a chair made or a ball bearing produced. But it can be hard to find gratification from work that is largely invisible, or from delivering goods that are often metaphorical. You can’t even leave your mark on a document in increasingly paperless offices. It can be even harder trying to measure it all. That may explain why to-do listers write down tasks they’ve already completed just to be able to cross them off.

A friend here in Outreach sent me a link to this video today and I immediately knew I had to post it here. One of the biggest and most important conferences held here at Penn State every year is the Autism conference. This video was done by a girl named Amanda. Amanda is autistic and this amazing YouTube video made by Amanda shows how people with autism communicate.. just perhaps not in the same way that we do. The video is amazing, inspirational and really forces you to see things from a different perspective.

Read the article and watch the video here.

Here’s a video from IDEO founder David Kelley. IDEO is a design company that consults with other organizations in the design of projects. Kelley talks about the need to design with the user experience in mind and the techniques his company uses to convey how a product might be used.

A site dedicated to career development and lifelong personal and professional growth. From the blog:

This blog is dedicated to helping individuals and organizations use best practices and social media tools to construct life-long learning and career development systems.

http://michelemartin.typepad.com/thebambooprojectblog/

What a great and innovative idea to use ocean waves to make music! See it here.

This site tracks the use of Second Life in Education in K-20 education. The contributors are educators who are experimenting with Second Life. It contains people’s practical experience in this environment and some scholarly resources.

www.sl-education.org/

Are you concerned about the prevalence of standardized testing in education. This blog explores the shifts that are occurring in education, in part because of the use of new technologies, as educators make the transition to the 21st century classroom.

http://shifted21.blogspot.com/

World Campus is doing some really interesting work with Second Life. Shannon is the Social Networks Adviser for Penn State World Campus. If you’d like to learn more about their work check out Shannon Ritter’s blog, The Social Networking Girl, to learn more about Second Life and this initiative.

Time & Attention Talk, Merlin Man - Here’s a video from Merlin Man about managing your time and attention (e.g. too many meetings, distractions). He gave the presentation at Mac World 08. (Note: the presentation starts with a blank white screen but the video appear after this). Merlin Man has a really great website called 43 folders that is dedicated to exploring how to get things done.

Note: In a few spots, he uses some colorful language. I still think the content is good and worth listening to.

Hi Everyone—

The American Council on Education (ACE) published this report last August about the critical importance of innovation and why it’s sometimes so difficult to innovate in higher education. At the very least, it helped me to know that we are not alone in our struggles—we’re in pretty good company, in fact. It also helped me to frame some of the issues that are terribly important when trying to nurture innovation in higher ed. I’d be interested in hearing others’ thoughts and reactions to the report.

Happy reading!

Cheers—Melanie

Here’s the report - ACE Innovation Guide