DevLearn08 - Day 3

I'm in a Breakfast Bytes session already, and I can tell it's not going to be a good one. The content sounds like it might be useful, but most of the people in the group are talking in such quiet voices that I can only make out half of what they're saying. A lot of others have already tuned out because they're having the same issue hearing.

Okay, so we convinced everyone to speak up. The leader of this discussion made the point that one of the best ways to get people to start using Web 2.0 tools is to just start using them yourself for your daily work. For example, instead of creating a Word document and passing it around, create a wiki and point people to it. It occurs to me that we could use blogs for project status updates the same way we use the project tracking spreadsheet for our weekly team meetings.

A good point he made is that information doesn't just need to be searchable, it needs to be findable. If you can't find a piece of information, then what good is that information? That makes the case for tags. If we can get our hands on a tool that uses tags and has the option to search tags without searching content, we'll put ourselves in a good position to have findable content.

So that breakfast discussion ended up being a little more basic than I had hoped for, but that's generally been the trend here. Still, the discussion did prompt a few thoughts and I took a couple notes on things to check out later. The discussion leader is from Portland, and involved in the local ASTD chapter there. He and I probably know a few of the same people.

Today's keynote speaker at the general session is John Medina, author of Brain Rules. Holy crap, this guy talks fast.

Sounds like he's going to talk about short- and long-term memory and exercise and learning. Not sure how those last two are related, but I'm sure I'll found out.

One of the theories about short-term memory is that we have a "memory buffer" that they call immediate memory where things that we have just seen are stored briefly. The human brain can store seven pieces of information (plus or minus 2) in that immediate memory for 30 seconds. If you don't repeat it, you lose it. If you do repeat it, it enters working memory. Once that information enters working memory, you have it for up to 120 minutes. The number of things you can store in working memory, and the amount of time you can store them varies widely from person to person. He told an interesting story about working memory and a professional chess player which I won't repeat here, but am not likely to forget.

As for long-term memory, one point he made is that it takes ten years of periodic repetition before your brain will have a piece of information permanently stored. At that point you will never forget it. An example he gave was the lyrics to "Stairway to Heaven."

What happens during that ten years is something we do not understand. To wit, scientists refer to this stage of memory as the "nomadic phase." The memory wanders around in your brain somewhere, but they don't know what it does or where it's stored. During this time, however, that memory can be altered or amended, which means it can be corrected or corrupted. Still, it does have to be periodically repeated or you will not retain it permanently. That makes the case for continuing to do math all the way through high school. Don't want your kids to forget their times tables, do you?

I just noticed that Dr. Medina's presentation is done in Director, and he's actually playing it in Director. Wacky.

The relationship between exercise and learning is this: regular and moderate exercise stimulates brain function, making it easier for your brain to pass information from immediate memory to working memory, and from working memory into nomadic memory. They tested this with a control group, and found that with aerobic exercise (and only aerobic exercise, anaerobic exercise doesn't work) executive brain function (memory) improved by 120%. Another study determined that regular aerobic exercise has a nearly identical effect on depression to Zoloft.

More interesting: they've discovered that the rate of learning is highest during the cool down period after exercise. Jason, if you're reading this, I need a stationary bike installed at my desk.