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Luc P. Beaudoin

To boost productivity and cognition in the Knowledge Age, prioritize Deep work, avoid the Shallows, and Self-Quantify

September 26, 2016 by Luc P. Beaudoin

cognitive_performance—————

In 2009, Winifred Gal­lagher pub­lished his excel­lent Rapt: Atten­tion and the Focused Life, per­sua­sive­ly argu­ing that pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, enjoy­ment and human devel­op­ment require extend­ed peri­ods of focusing.

The next year, Nicholas Carr pub­lished his fas­ci­nat­ing The Shal­lows: What the Inter­net Is Doing to Our Brains in which he argued that the Inter­net is ‘rewiring’ our brains. While his claim was exag­ger­at­ed, infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy and the Inter­net cer­tain­ly pro­vide chal­lenges to [Read more…] about To boost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and cog­ni­tion in the Knowl­edge Age, pri­or­i­tize Deep work, avoid the Shal­lows, and Self-Quantify

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Filed Under: Attention & ADD/ADHD, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: cognition, cognitive, Deep work, human development, knowledge age, Nicholas Carr, productivity, Self-Quantify, Winifred Gallagher

5 ideas to help knowledge workers increase lifelong learning and productivity

June 8, 2016 by Luc P. Beaudoin

worker-brains—–

Some apps aim to help you train spe­cif­ic brain func­tions, such as work­ing mem­o­ry. Oth­ers are meant to help you main­tain spe­cif­ic skills, such as use­ful field of view for safe dri­ving. But sup­pose you are read­ing a very insight­ful book and need to mas­ter some of its knowl­edge gems.

What kind of app might you use? [Read more…] about 5 ideas to help knowl­edge work­ers increase life­long learn­ing and productivity

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Peak Performance Tagged With: apps, cognitive-science, deliberate practice, expertise, information technology, Learning, self-testing, Working-memory

For a good night’s rest, combine general sleep hygiene with mindful and cognitive techniques

May 2, 2016 by Luc P. Beaudoin

sleep——-

Most Sharp­Brains read­ers under­stand the ben­e­fits of stress reg­u­la­tion, and also the ben­e­fits of sleep. Rec­om­men­da­tions for sleep hygiene are well pub­li­cized. They include avoid­ing alco­hol and stim­u­lants like caf­feine; stick­ing to reg­u­lar bed and wake times (even if you don’t get enough sleep); expos­ing [Read more…] about For a good night’s rest, com­bine gen­er­al sleep hygiene with mind­ful and cog­ni­tive techniques

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Peak Performance Tagged With: alcohol, caffeine, cognitive, cognitive refocusing, cognitive techniques, imagery distraction, meditation, mindful, mindfulness, sleep, sleep hygiene, stress regulation, stressful thoughts

7 Key Lessons from the 2011 SharpBrains Summit: Retooling Brain Health for the 21st Century

April 21, 2011 by Luc P. Beaudoin

Sharp­Brains served a high­ly thought-pro­vok­ing and infor­ma­tive 2011 Vir­tu­al Sum­mit on Retool­ing Brain Health for the 21st Cen­tu­ry over 3 days, March 30th — April 1st. Here is a brief dis­til­la­tion of the large num­ber (40+) of presentations.

1.The range and vari­ety of pre­sen­ta­tions left no room for doubt that the dig­i­tal brain health mar­ket is con­cerned with much more than improv­ing cog­ni­tive per­for­mance and preventing/treating dis­ease. There is a need for many tools in each of the fol­low­ing cat­e­gories: [Read more…] about 7 Key Lessons from the 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit: Retool­ing Brain Health for the 21st Century

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Filed Under: Technology & Innovation Tagged With: artificial intelligence, Baycrest, brain wellness platforms, Brain-health, brain-wellness, Club-One, cognitive-performance, Cognitive-Training, computer science, digital brain health, driving safety, games, Henry-Mahncke, human-brain, knowledge workers, mathematics, mental capabilities, Mental-Health, Nationwide, neuroscience, Posit-Science, Psychology, Robin-Klaus, Simon Fraser Uni­ver­sity, videogames, Virtually Better, Walter Greenleaf, Working-memory

Apple iPad Thumbs-Up: Brain Fitness Value, and Limitations

February 11, 2010 by Luc P. Beaudoin

In a pre­vi­ous arti­cle for iPad2Sharp­Brains, I asked whether the Apple tablet (the iPad) would hin­der or sup­port cog­ni­tive fit­ness. Here, I assess the iPad against the cri­te­ria I laid out pre­vi­ous­ly. I then assess its poten­tial for brain fit­ness in gen­er­al. I am rely­ing on Apple’s infor­ma­tion; I have not yet used the iPad.

The iPad has been cov­ered all over the net, and Apple has much infor­ma­tion on its web­site, so I will not repeat that here, except to say that the iPad looks like a 9.7 inch iPod with a mul­ti-touch LED-back­lit IPS screen. It can run all iPod appli­ca­tions and more. It is a rather spec­tac­u­lar, attrac­tive plat­form for doing all of what you can do with an iPod but with com­pelling pos­si­bil­i­ties that a larg­er screen presents. It is also an eBook read­er and an extreme­ly impres­sive gam­ing machine. It is priced very com­pet­i­tive­ly ($500 and up). I imag­ine that many peo­ple will for­go pur­chas­ing an iPod, a game sta­tion, a net­book and an e‑reader and apply their sav­ings to this device.

The iPad itself, and as part of a tech­no­log­i­cal ecosys­tem of prod­ucts that work togeth­er, is some­thing which has major impli­ca­tions for the brain fit­ness market.

The fol­low­ing table sum­ma­rizes the check-list from my pre­vi­ous article.

Table 1 iPad Eval­u­a­tion Check-List

Cri­te­ria Assess­ment
Appli­ca­tions
Pow­er­ful per­son­al task-manager Yes (Third-par­ty)
Graph­ic Organizer Yes (third-par­ty)
Pow­er­ful outliner Yes (third-par­ty)
User-activ­i­ty monitor No (but with­in reach of Apple)
Inte­grat­ed self-test­ing system No (third-par­ty can do part of this).
Major Cog­ni­tive Features
Sys­tem inte­gra­tion and syncing Yes (for what is pro­vid­ed, anno­ta­tions not yet supported)
Rich anno­ta­tion framework No (but it is with­in reach of Apple)
Col­lab­o­ra­tion Some (anno­ta­tions not supported)
Mute func­tion (Atten­tion Protection) Close (iPad is attention-friendly)
Afford­able, rat­ed content Major pub­lish­ers are on board; book prices cur­rent­ly high; intel­li­gent qual­i­ty rat­ing sys­tem not announced

1. Appli­ca­tions Checklist

Apple has enabled much of whatchecklist is need­ed for the iPad to meet the appli­ca­tion cri­te­ria I laid out. The iPad is not just an e‑reader, it is an appli­ca­tion plat­form for cog­ni­tive pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, brain fit­ness and learn­ing. It will run all exist­ing (140,000 and count­ing) iPod appli­ca­tions. Some of the appli­ca­tions I called for are already on the Apple App Store, though they will require (forth­com­ing) enhancements.

I pre­vi­ous­ly not­ed the need for a task man­ag­er, a graph­ic orga­niz­er, an out­lin­er, and a spaced learn­ing sys­tem. These appli­ca­tions will not be pre-installed on the iPad. How­ev­er, many ven­dors have already announced that their Mac OS X cog­ni­tive pro­duc­tiv­i­ty appli­ca­tions (includ­ing graph­ic orga­niz­ers, out­lin­ers and task man­agers) are being port­ed to the iPad. So, we can tick those cri­te­ria off.

Apple has devel­oped specif­i­cal­ly for the iPad inex­pen­sive iWorks pro­duc­tiv­i­ty appli­ca­tions for com­pos­ing doc­u­ments, spread­sheets and pre­sen­ta­tions. This is implic­it sup­port for active learn­ing on the iPad. In addi­tion, Apple’s exist­ing iPod appli­ca­tions are also avail­able for the iPad.

I was puz­zled by the absence of a dic­tio­nary on the iPad home page. Users should not have to research and down­load dic­tio­nar­ies them­selves, par­tic­u­lar­ly since a use­ful dic­tio­nary is avail­able on OS X (its ecosys­tem rel­a­tive).

2. User Monitoring

I expressed the need for a user activ­i­ty mon­i­tor, which was not pro­vid­ed. What I mean here is that the Apple should include oper­at­ing sys­tem, MobileMe and appli­ca­tion sup­port for mon­i­tor­ing and report­ing on how the user is spend­ing their time across the Apple ecosys­tem. This sup­port [Read more…] about Apple iPad Thumbs-Up: Brain Fit­ness Val­ue, and Limitations

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Filed Under: Peak Performance, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Apple, Apple iPad, brain fitness limitations, brain fitness value, cognitive

Will the Apple Tablet Support or Hinder Users Cognitive Fitness?

January 26, 2010 by Luc P. Beaudoin

Rumor has it that Apple is going to announce a tablet com­put­er, which may well become a rev­o­lu­tion­ary new way for users to read and expe­ri­ence all kinds of edu­ca­tion­al content.

Will it sup­port or hin­der our Cog­ni­tive  Fitness?

In this arti­cle, I describe the cri­te­riachecklist that a tablet com­put­er and its tech­no­log­i­cal ecosys­tem must meet in order for the solu­tion to make users more knowl­edge­able and smarter. To achieve these lofty goals, the tablet must be much more than an read­er. The offer­ing must be an inte­grat­ed learn­ing envi­ron­ment with which users trans­form the infor­ma­tion that they read, hear and view on the tablet into their own knowledge.

The key con­sid­er­a­tion in design­ing such a sys­tem is that pro­duc­tive read­ing is active read­ing. In oth­er words, learn­ing involves a lot of think­ing, writ­ing, draw­ing and com­mu­ni­cat­ing. Learn­ing involves antic­i­pat­ing what the author will say, set­ting learn­ing objec­tives, detect­ing knowl­edge gaps, writ­ing com­ments on the doc­u­ment, draw­ing diagrams.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, today’s com­put­ers do not make this an easy task. Most browsers, for exam­ple, do not inher­ent­ly allow you to anno­tate text (e.g., to make a note of what is impor­tant or you don’t under­stand). Anno­tat­ing requires an add-on, and the anno­ta­tions are usu­al­ly just text or high­lights that are trapped in soft­ware; they can­not be linked to oth­er doc­u­ments, email or diagrams.

In order to be a suc­cess­ful learn­ing envi­ron­ment, the Apple tablet must match the incum­bent (paper) and also address the cri­te­ria list­ed below.

Beat The Incum­bent Com­peti­tor — Paper

First, Apple must take into account the major strengths of a tablet’s main com­peti­tor: paper. Despite its many draw­backs com­pared to com­put­ers, paper cur­rent­ly has many advan­tages. Spencer (2006), for exam­ple, has found that her dis­tance edu­ca­tion stu­dents find paper to be more depend­able, flex­i­ble, and ergonom­ic. Spencer’s stu­dents pre­ferred to print com­plex arti­cles than to read them online.

Paper has a pre­dictable struc­ture and lay­out. It is easy to use and it has a def­i­nite start and end point. Most read­ers can very rapid­ly access any page of a book, use the table of con­tents, index to quick­ly nav­i­gate. Read­ers don’t have to wait for a page to load, they can turn it. Also, paper is less busy and less dis­tract­ing: it does not beep while you are concentrating.

More­over, users can write on their own paper to their heart’s content.

These fea­tures present chal­lenges to read­ing and learn­ing technology.

Check­list for a Tablet Com­put­er to Make us Smarter

In this sec­tion I focus on some of the fea­tures that can make a tablet a use­ful learn­ing envi­ron­ment. This goes beyond hard­ware, and deals with cog­ni­tive soft­ware and ser­vices. [Read more…] about Will the Apple Tablet Sup­port or Hin­der Users Cog­ni­tive Fitness?

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Filed Under: Peak Performance, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: annotation system, Apple, Apple Tablet, cognitive, cognitive-services, cognitive-software, collaboration, content, e-reader, ecosystem, graphic organizer, integrated learning environment, monitor, outliner, personal task manager, Simon Fraser University, smart-brains, smarter, Tablet

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