idealawg

Using Sketchvideos for teaching: A demo focusing on conflict

My talented friend and colleague Susanne Hoogwater (also a lawyer and mediator) is very creative. Since she is a Renaissance Soul, I am constantly astounded and delighted at the new arenas she opens up for others and the products she designs. Recently I have become aware of a method she is using to facilitate teaching about conflict, and watched it in action.

And now you may watch a sample SketchVideo created by Susanne, too. It's part of a series on emotional intelligence and critical decisionmaking that she is designing for Denver's Conflict Center. This sample looks at four kinds of power: over, surrender, with, and within.

Click to watch the SketchVideo and to learn more about the benefits of communicating with this medium, as well as Susanne's process of creating these videos. She does it all on her iPad!

iSplit: Dividing marital assets on your iPad using an app based on Maria Montessori's ideas

The use of computer technology in marital dissolutions is not at all new to me. George Norton, the first attorney with whom I worked after law school, created SupporTax back in 1984; he also designed and produced other computer-based dissolution tools. (And George was an excellent, and funny, teacher and mentor.)

SupporTax was created by George Norton (1930-2000) in 1984. A leading family law expert, George H. Norton was a graduate of Brown University and Stanford Law School. He was in the first group of certified family law specialists in California and a past president of the Northern California Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Mr. Norton designed the Santa Clara county support schedule and the Rule 1274 schedule and participated in the design of the new California guidelines established by SB 370.

What do you think about people using their iPads in divorces? From the product's Web site:

iSplitLite and iSplit Divorce represent a new kind of Mobile App that helps you, when dividing up your assets and debts, to make visual decisions about “who gets what” more quickly, with less adversity and acrimony.

...
iSplitLite is an iPad based tool that helps divorcing couples split up their marital assets/debts by using the “drag and drop” feature of Apple’s Mobile platform. Move icons around and the program automatically re-calculates for you.

iSplitLite will save you enough in legal costs to pay for the purchase of your iPad

Click to read the story behind the app. You may be surprised to read that it is based on Montessori philosophy!

A novel concept. Useful for some divorces? Maybe a supplementary tool for mediations? What else?

Image credit: iSplit.

Mediating from a Distance: Suggested Practice Guidelines for Family Mediators

MediateBC has published this manual with the above title which can be accessed by anyone online. From the Introduction to the 2nd edition:

These guidelines paint the relevant topics with a broad brush. Nevertheless, it is hoped that mediators considering whether or not to incorporate the use of information and communication technologies into their family mediation practice will find them to be a useful starting point. They have been prepared primarily for mediators who are looking for ways to provide their services to people who are either too distant or otherwise unable to physically access those services — or to people who, quite simply, prefer to take advantage of some of the benefits of mediating using technology.

Click to read the rest.

John Muir and Twinkie Tweets

Famous people are misquoted on the Internet, Facebook, and Twitter daily. Like most of my friends and colleagues, I now never pass a quote on unless I do some investigation to see if it is accurate. And typically I don't repeat online any accurate quotes either; more about why in a minute.

Today I saw somewhere online a quotation attributed to John Muir, a man I admire and the person for whom my grammar school was named. With a few short words, in this alleged quote, he summarized systems. Some day in the future I may want to use this quote so I began to research its veracity. The quote I'd seen was not accurate, but I found something better. From "John Muir Misquoted" (Sierra Club Web site):

Misquote Alert: "When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world."

John Muir Quotations

We are frequently asked for the source of the above quote, which for some reason has been included in many popular "favorite quotes" websites around the Internet, and is indiscriminately posted on Twitter and other social networks. We even found it being mistakenly used by Smith & Hawken on a 2007 gift card and in several products in the Northern Sun catalog. Worse, we even found it engraved on granite! Actually, this statement is NOT what Muir wrote. It is only a shortened paraphrase of what Muir wrote, and is not nearly as interesting, eloquent, and charming as Muir's original.

Another variant of this misquote found on the Internet likewise mistakenly attributed to John Muir is this one:

"Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe."

Once again - Muir never said this! Neither of these quotes attributed to John Muir are correct. They are simply paraphrases of the fundamental ecological principle of connectedness that Muir is considered to be one of the first to articulate.

...

Here is the correct John Muir quote as Muir wrote and published it:

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe."

Regardless of whether or not they are accurate, I often wonder why people Tweet and reTweet many of the quotes I see floating through my Twitter stream. These words do not carry wisdom or wit. Like Twinkies, they are puffy with air, devoid of any value other than empty calories and cheap entertainment, a waste of resources, and saccharine. This week I began to label them in my mind as Twinkie Tweets. Seen any in your stream?

Of course, many people do like Twinkies, they buy them, they eat them. Our tastes in desserts and snacks

What's your online life's role in your stress level? Dr. Whybrow answers

Happy to hear that Dr. Peter Whybrow has another book coming out. For a taste of what he'll cover, take a look at this interview from Pacific Standard. From "Manic Nation: Dr. Peter Whybrow Says We’re Addicted to Stress":

“The computer is electronic cocaine for many people,” says UCLA’s Peter Whybrow. “Our brains are wired for finding immediate reward.” Which is why we can’t stop.

...

“Many of the usual constraints that prevented people from doing things 24 hours a day—like distance and darkness—were falling away,” says Whybrow. Our fast new lives reminded him of the symptoms of clinical mania: excitement over acquiring new things, high productivity, fast speech—followed by sleep loss, irritability, and depression.

Whybrow believes the physiological consequences of this modern mania are dramatic, contributing to epidemic rates of obesity, anxiety, and depression. In his forthcoming book, tentatively titled The Intuitive Mind: Common Sense for the Common Good, Whybrow explores how to repair the damage. “Why is it that we’ve been railroaded down this path of continuous stimulation and can’t seem to control ourselves?” he wonders. “Why can’t we just stop?”

“The good news,” he goes on, “is that we are now beginning to understand it from the perspective of brain science.”

Click to read the rest.

afiohwgvpowrgjerpberopbhjmqeprhkpoq

wefubwgiogor

How to use your iPad to teach and make presentations

Seeing that one of the bar exam preparation providers uses iPads in its training (also and this), I was reminded of the possible utility of the tablet for learning. Except I don't know how to use the device for anything besides e-mail, Sudoku, and reading books. My knowledge gap is large, very large.

What to do? My first answers to closing a knowledge gap are to talk with an expert or, more frequently, find a book. Not knowing an expert, I went on a book search. Google up!

After a search, I ordered this book and will write more later about what I learn.

Are you an achiever, explorer, socializer, or killer: Is conflict resolution a game?

Here's a fun way to categorize yourself and others, at least for a short while. Although this typology has no scientific validity, like many of the other self-report assessments such as Myers-Briggs, it is a good reminder that we are not all the same, and that OSFA (one size fits all) is an ineffective and sometimes risky assumption. (Click to read about some of the problems with personality assessments.)

In my research of educational game design, I came upon the typology; it's Bartle's Taxonomy of Player Types. The four types are achiever, explorer, socializer, and killer. They were developed to describe the different ways people approach games and can be compared to the four suits in a card deck:

An easy way to remember these is to consider suits in a conventional pack of cards: achievers are Diamonds (they're always seeking treasure); explorers are Spades (they dig around for information); socialisers are Hearts (they empathise with other players); killers are Clubs (they hit people with them).

Another way to see these four:

• Killers and achievers act. Killers act on other players and achievers act on the world.
• Socializers and explorers interact. Socializers interact with other players and explorers interact with the world.

See a visual image, a graph, of the four types here at the top of page 111, here under the section The Four Bartle Types, or here about 1/5 of the way down under INTEREST GRAPH.

In order to find out what type you are (or, more exactly, what type you are today because these kinds of assessments are situational), take this quick test. It's fun, and, if you are like me, some of the questions

iPad Brings New Wave in Doctor, Patient Communication: Are iPads improving communication in other professions

This news release precipitated some questions in my mind . . . 

Are there instances when lawyers are using iPads to communicate better with clients? How about coaches, are they using iPads? Are mental health professionals using iPads with clients? Are iPads being used in conflict resolution?

News release (Henry Ford Health System):

MEDIA CONTACT: Krista Hopson khopson1@hfhs.org

iPad Brings New Wave in Doctor, Patient Communication
March 28, 2012

NOTE: A high-resolution bites and b-roll package is available for download upon request. A web video also is posted online: http://youtu.be/y3XyBQ6vJmE.

DETROIT – A Henry Ford Hospital surgeon checks in on a patient the day after removing a tumor from his kidney, examining the surgical scar and seeing on the patient’s face that he’s still in a bit of pain. But this isn’t your typical post-surgical hospital rounding.

The surgeon and his patient are actually 25 miles apart in two different hospitals, each armed with an iPad equipped with the live video chat software FaceTime.

Through face-to-face video calls on iPads and other tablets, Henry Ford is initiating the next wave of high-tech communication at hospitals called “telerounding.” In January 2009, Henry Ford became the first hospital to live-tweet surgery using Twitter, starting a trend still popular today at hospitals across the country.

“Using the iPad to communicate really appeals to the type of patients that are seeking state-of-the-

Resource for those interested in the flipped classroom: An ongoing collection of posts from around the blogosphere

Dr. Jackie Gerstein stays on top of the blog posts being written about the flipped classroom, and posts them for you on her Scoop.it. Click to see the collection of flipped-classroom posts. Her tagline at the collection:

Resources for the flipped classroom: Students review content for homework, class time is for experiential activities, questions, and rich discourse.

Other resources (a list to which I will add):

• "Flipped learning: A response to five common criticisms" (eSchool News)
• "What Everybody Should Know About the Flipped Classroom" (online learning exchange)
• Check back for more

How to use Twitter for social learning

Click here to register for a free account at Social Learning Centre which allows you to access their many modules on using Twitter for learning. Topics include: Getting Started; The Basics; Presentations and Events; Classes, Training & Learning . .  and more.