Listen/Read/Watch 1

First in a series of recommendations of material to listen to, watch or read over the summer or after. These materials may provide some insights in your course matter, or if you are an administrator give you further material to help you illustrate why you are making a particular change.  This episode features- On the Media, Hidden Brain, Science Friday & The Ted Radio Hour.  

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Welcome back to education matters in New York, I'm your host, Wayne Ackles. Today, we're going to be exploring a new feature that I've added to the podcast called The listen watch and read segment, these segments are going to be throughout the summer, giving you some suggestions for the summer months, and maybe won't get to them until after the summer months. But some different ideas for things either to watch, listen to or read, that may help better your teaching give you a better, you know, a more enhanced view of the world, or just in general be entertaining. And so I've set aside some today for I guess I'd call them listens. And these different resources you can find on the web, you can probably access them with a smart device like an ally XA. And I have to spell that because I have one that's about a foot away from this microphone. So I don't want her talking back to us right now. Google devices, etc. So I'm going to take you through these and where you can find them. And one of the reasons why I recommend them, especially for those of you that are looking for materials, or ways to enhance either delivering instruction, or ways to enhance reaching your staff on ideas when you're trying to work with staff on sand new initiative and getting them to see a different perspective, for instance. So the first one that, and I'm a big fan of this show and have been for a long time. It's called on the media, and it's produced by WNYC Studios in New York City. It's part of the NPR universe. What this show does a really nice job of doing is it examines how the media approaches a variety of current events issues, as well as developments in the trends of media, whether it's consolidation, or whether it's the movement from say, newspapers, and this is this is something that has been going on for decades now the the movement of newspapers to the the internet, and to apps, etc. Also, what those trends mean, for us, especially in a country, where we depend on news to make political and economic decisions on a regular basis. And as a social studies teacher, this was fascinating because this outlet does a really nice job of really taking a hard look at media across the board, in terms of its development, how it's approaching news articles, you may if you listen to the piece that I did on the Uvalde and buffalo shootings, I mentioned an episode where they talked about how mass shootings are often covered in the media, the the cycle that inevitably happens, and they did a really nice job with that incorporating interviews from other media sources and their own reporting with different experts, etc. And so that's one that I really would recommend if you're looking to get a different perspective on media, in terms of how it again looks at the day to day life here in America. The next one is a lot of fun, for a lot of reasons, and that is hidden brain. Hidden brain is again, part of the NPR universe. It recently I got well, actually, it's been longer than recently. And I hadn't even realized it had done this because I listened to it on an NPR station. But it has kind of spun off and then it's independent, and does its own producing, et cetera now, but fascinating stuff. So hidden brain is really an engaging look at different studies that have recently been done around psychology and how the brain works. So not just psychological studies, but neuro chemistry neuroscience, where I could see someone using this in particular, is to engage students about how their own brain works. I often have said that we as educators don't always do a great job of explaining how the brain works to our students before we start teaching them. We just it sort of like we start learning without giving them the owner's manual to their own brain. We may know or remember from our studies But I think having that insight that metacognition, of how the brain works also helps students when they understand that. And it really has some neat studies that they have done. And it really shed some light on many of the fables, of why people make the decisions that they do, etc. The other reason that I bring this one up is, in terms of those of you that are administrators listening to this. Sometimes you may hear something on this that may give you a perspective, to help show your staff why and approach and education isn't always as sound as one thinks it is. Many times and I've been there, as a building leader, sometimes you need a different voice, delivering the same thing that you've been trying to say, to help people see where you're going, and why you're trying to get there. And it may not convince everybody using something like hidden brain. But it does make for good conversation, and help move that conversation in the direction of trying to make a move in a different direction, especially in terms of new initiatives and new approaches and culture building and those kinds of things. The next one is an old favorites. And this one has been around for a long time. Again, it's part of the NPR universe, you're probably seeing a trend here. This one is called Science Friday. And this is also a product of WNYC out of New York. And as it sounds, it's on Fridays on NPR stations, I used to catch it on Friday afternoons when I came home. As I was coming home from work, if I could, especially when I was teaching, I would usually be out early enough to catch it. What is fascinating about this show is the variety of discoveries that Science Friday talks about. And these are usually recent discoveries that have been discovered on a variety of topics. And that's what is so neat about it is you might be hearing something about dinosaurs, or birds or the universe and Astronomy, or you name it, including psychology and other neuroscience and the methodologies as to how those discoveries were made. So it's really a good show not only about the discoveries that have been made, but also how the science happens. Because that's something I think it's could be very helpful when you're working with students to sit show them that this is how the scientific method is used. And you know, any number of different different topics relating to science or social science for that matter. Also, one of its claim to fame is that this show was spotlighted on The Big Bang Theory, there was an episode where the host reflejo interviews one of the characters on Science Friday. So that's also kind of fun to check out this NPR host on on this very popular television show. And the final one that I'll leave you with is the TED Radio Hour. And again, this is also something that's part of the NPR universe in all of these are very easy to find. If you just type in, whether it's on the media, hidden Brain Science Friday, or the TED Radio Hour, they will come up very quickly in a typical internet search, the nice thing with a TED Radio Hour, and I really appreciate the direction that this show takes because many of us have listened to different TED talks over the years or had TED Talks recommended to us. But what is nice about the TED Radio Hour is that NPR, the NPR host that look at this, we'll find a topic and find not just one TED talk, but sometimes multiple TED talks on a topic, and then interview those subjects that gave the TED Talk. And they give you some bite size overviews of those TED Talks. So that if you decide to go back and really want to explore them in depth, you have that option. And sometimes it's also it might just be on one person from a TED talk on a particular topic. And it really I found that when I was trying to find information, whether it was for the classroom, or if I was trying to find some information that I thought I might share with faculty on a particular topic, you know, that piece of having that broken down a little bit. And a variety of perspectives and the high points of a TED talk. So that you can decide for yourself, whether you want to engage in the whole TED talk is, is really helpful, because many times in the TED talks, and not to take away from any particular TED talk, but sometimes the build up to the punch line, if you will, to the discovery is longer than you want to spend. And they start, a speaker may talk about their background, and, and sometimes that leads to the discovery, and sometimes it's just anecdotal to bring the crowd with them. We all are under time restraints, and sometimes it's nice to be able to say, okay, here are the high points. And now I can look for those within a TED talk. So the TED Radio Hour is definitely one that I would recommend. And so that is it for this week's episode of education matters. We show have some more speakers, guests and a couple of weeks. This week, I have to take the show on hiatus again. And it may be a week and a half or so because I have some business commitments that will take me out of town. So that will create a little gap in our production schedule. But I hope those of you that are in education are enjoying the summer and the chance to recoup and recover. Those of you that are not in education. Well, I hope you're enjoying these exposures to the world of education as well. This has been education matters New York. I'm your host Wayne Ackles. And this is a fat Wolverine productions. Take care and have a great rest of the week.