Tuesday, October 25, 2011

How Do I Love Thee: Embodied Thinking




Understanding the cognitive tool of embodied thinking. Embodied thinking requires the experience of naturally involving the body when producing thoughts, making decisions, solving problems, or creating solutions.  This reminds me of Ken Robinson’s TED video when he describes some university professors who live in their heads and look upon their body as just a form of transport for their heads.  This is a hilarious thought but true if we don’t realize the embodied thinking as a cognitive tool and disembody ourselves while thinking.  We should also be able to empathize what we experience while thinking.  Empathetic thinking means that we should feel and relate to the situation or the concept as we strive to fully experience or expand our creative potentials.

How this understanding impacts my topic.  Embodied thinking can be applied in education though social networking, simulations, and digital games.  In the paper, Using the Technology of Today, In the Classroom Today, the authors explain that today’s technology has instructional, embodied, and cognitive implications for learning by letting students be more connected, engaged, and have fun activities and interactive games.

Empathetic thinking is crucial for social media.  Todd Wilms said it very well in his article, Social Media Success is Just One Thing: Empathy, that you need to ask what people want before you start talking. Empathy is the key to social media success. Unlike other communication channels, the power is placed in the hands of the audience, not the speaker. Being responsible and sensitive to whom we connect prevents us from being in a one-way connection.  Just imagine a telemarketer who does not listen whether you are interested or not in the product he is selling as long as he finishes the script that he is supposed to read.  We all want to be heard and we all want to belong, but it is essential to understand how to set our limits and respect someone’s boundaries online in order to help us enjoy the powerful benefits of social media.

How and why I chose the embodiment.  I have chosen a video of more than 200 people - young or old, men or women, formally or casually dressed, dancing in unison to the beat of the music. Why a video of people dancing?  Rhythmic bodily movement is instinctive.  It connects people, even if unconsciously, to the rhythms of nature.  Dance springs from a human desire for personal expression and social connection and it feels good.” – Michael Crabb, Why People Dance 

This video perfectly represents social networking as it influences everyone to just naturally “dance” by connecting to the powerful benefits social media.  When the music and the group dance ends, everyone applauds and has the feeling of pleasure and fun.  This portrays the same concept when after a person has been accepted into a group through social media, the human need for belongingness has been satisfied. Two people started the dance and the majority followed today’s trend of getting connected with people of similar interests and goals – it’s contagious!
Sunday, October 16, 2011

How Do I Love Thee: Abstracting



Abstracting as a cognitive tool.  Having the ability to identify and to single out a major attribute from a concept, image, domain, or anything is called abstracting. Once the main feature has been identified, the feature is further represented to emphasize its significance. This cognitive tool also uses analogy to highlight the major elements.      

How this understanding impacts my topic.  Abstracting, is a thinking tool that brings about the simplest but the most compelling reason that I came up with my course topic:  Recognizing the relevance of social networking to adult learning. The very essence that I can extract from social networking is CONNECTION.  An adult learner who has learned this thinking tool has the ability to grasp the concept of thinking abstractly about considering everyone as major pieces of a connection.  Through abstracting, he also can picture himself in the connection and someone who has a vital role to contribute to the relevance of the network.

How and why you choose this abstraction and representations.  A connection can be represented by people who are interconnected through social media.  A connection can also be represented by the relevant interests, talents, and skills each member of network can offer that could bring about more connections. To illustrate abstracting, I decided to use nature to represent the two elements of connection.  DANDELIONS with WATER DROPLETS can be an abstract representation of the core of my course topic.  The dandelion is a visualization of the whole social network of people which are represented by the flower seeds.  The water droplets portray the interests, talents, and skills that join people.  As the interests, talents, and skills get bigger, so does the droplets of water. 

I find this tool a thought-provoking and interesting way of representing ingenuity! Well, another way unleashing our creativity …