The Center for Graphic Facilitation

‘I Love Charts’ from Sid the Science Kid

It's good to see PBS is teaching strong values to grow up with with Sid the Science Kid and this lovely chart song (below). A chart is a handy dandy scientific tool...it gives you information that you can see with your eyes...a chart that you visualize...you get the picture... so do I... Best kid song ever.

From FlowingData.com

NPR: Bored? Try Doodling To Keep The Brain On Task

From NPR:

ABOVE: President Obama's doodle, sketched as part of a "National Doodle Day"

Bill Gates is a doodler, and he's not alone. Lyndon Johnson doodled. Ralph Waldo Emerson doodled. Ronald Reagan drew pictures of cowboys, horses and hearts crossed with arrows. Most of us doodle at one point or another. But why?

To understand where the compulsion to doodle comes from, the first thing you need to do is look more closely at what happens to the brain when it becomes bored. According to Jackie Andrade, a professor of psychology at the University of Plymouth, though many people assume that the brain is inactive when they're bored, the reverse is actually true.

"If you look at people's brain function when they're bored, we find that they are using a lot of energy — their brains are very active," Andrade says.

The reason, she explains, is that the brain is designed to constantly process information. But when the brain finds an environment barren of stimulating information, it's a problem.

FULL ARTICLE >>

WIRED: MIT Students Turn Internet Into a Sixth Human Sense -- Video

LONG BEACH, California -- Students at the MIT Media Lab have developed a wearable computing system that turns any surface into an interactive display screen. The wearer can summon virtual gadgets and internet data at will, then dispel them like smoke when they're done.

FULL STORY: http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/02/ted-digital-six.html

'Minority Report' Interface Controlled by Hand Gestures

"Before Tom Cruise went crazy," notes the unnamed reviewer in this video from WIRED, "he starred in this actually pretty cool movie called Minority Report, where he was controlling this computer interface purely with his hands."

At CES 2009, Toshiba showed off a conceptual computer interface that uses hand gestures for control. With simple motion sensing technology and a software interface, Toshiba hopes to open up applications for video games and other interactive media.

The WIRED reviewer concludes: "I think it is pretty cool. I don't think it'll hit the mainstream anytime soon. I don't think people will be solving crimes or anything with it."

Who knows? Three years ago, Jeff Han blew the roof off at TED 2006 by premiering his touchscreen interface. Then the iPhone came out and made smallscreen multi-touch an expected feature on gadgets.

Oh, there's the Wii which is fast putting the concept of a hardwired game controller in the category of rabbit ear television antenna.

I want to know when we can use it to start painting in virtual 3-D!

Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School

The brain is an amazing thing. Most of us have no idea what’s really going on inside our heads. Yet brain scientists have uncovered details every business leader, parent, and teacher should know.

Dr. John Medina is a developmental molecular biologist and research consultant. He is an affiliate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He is also the director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University.

Medina's Brain Rules book, DVD and on-line tutorials make the complexity of our individually wired brains both understandable and fun. Lots of content also available on YouTube--including the location of the elusive Jennifer Aniston neuron!

clipped from www.brainrules.net EXERCISE | Rule #1: Exercise boosts brain power. SURVIVAL | Rule #2: The human brain evolved, too. WIRING | Rule #3: Every brain is wired differently. ATTENTION | Rule #4: We don't pay attention to boring things. SHORT-TERM MEMORY | Rule #5: Repeat to remember. LONG-TERM MEMORY | Rule #6: Remember to repeat. SLEEP | Rule #7: Sleep well, think well. STRESS | Rule #8: Stressed brains don't learn the same way. SENSORY INTEGRATION | Rule #9: Stimulate more of the senses. VISION | Rule #10: Vision trumps all other senses. GENDER | Rule #11: Male and female brains are different. EXPLORATION | Rule #12: We are powerful and natural explorers.

 

Neuroscience Sheds New Light on Creativity

from Fast Company article by Gregory Berns:

The brain is fundamentally a lazy piece of meat. It doesn't want to waste energy. That's why there is a striking lack of imagination in most people's visualization of a beach sunset. It's an iconic image, so your brain simply takes the path of least resistance and reactivates neurons that have been optimized to process this sort of scene. If you imagine something that you have never actually seen, like a Pluto sunset, the possibilities for creative thinking become much greater because the brain can no longer rely on connections shaped by past experience." READ FULL ARTICLE >>

Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain

In working with many diverse groups of people, coming together to solve complex problems, I am absolutely flummoxed by this paradox: young minds struggle with complex, inter-related problems, while "more mature" minds struggle to learn new concepts.

Rather than throw both brains out with the bathwater (what a badly mixed metaphor!) how best do we design collaborative projects and discussions that accommodate all brains, whether wily, worldly or wise?

clipped from www.nytimes.com illustration by Yarek Waszul When older people can no longer remember names at a cocktail party, they tend to think that their brainpower is declining. But a growing number of studies suggest that this assumption is often wrong. Instead, the research finds, the aging brain is simply taking in more data and trying to sift through a clutter of information, often to its long-term benefit. The studies are analyzed in a new edition of a neurology book, “Progress in Brain Research.” For example, in studies where subjects are asked to read passages that are interrupted with unexpected words or phrases, adults 60 and older work much more slowly than college students. Although the students plow through the texts at a consistent speed regardless of what the out-of-place words mean, older people slow down even more when the words are related to the topic at hand. That indicates that they are not just stumbling over the extra information, but  are taking it in and processing it.

Visualizing Flow

Graphic Facilitator, Bruce Flye, recommends an article Going with the Flow about a mechanical engineer at Duke who works with broad concepts in flow and does it visually. Adrian Bejan is a Romanian-born American professor of mechanical engineering and inventor of the constructal theory of global optimization under local constraints. The theory explains why a river delta looks like a tree or blood vessels.

ADHD: Fast Kids, Slow Brain Growth

Brain development found to be slower in children with ADHD
Mon Nov 12, 2007 5:43pm EST

clipped from www.reuters.com Children and teenagers with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have developmental delays of up to three years in some regions of the brain, U.S. researchers said on Monday. "The sequence in which different parts of the brain matured in the kids with ADHD was exactly the same as in healthy kids. It's just that everything was delayed by a couple of years," said Dr. Philip Shaw National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Mental Health. Shaw said the delays are most pronounced in regions of the brain that are important for controlling thought, attention and planning. ADHD is a condition suffered by about 2 million U.S. children that often becomes apparent in preschool and early school years. Children with ADHD have a tougher time controlling their behavior and paying attention. The finding was based on imaging studies involving 223 children and teens with ADHD and 223 without the disorder.

Sunny Side of the Brain

Graphic facilitation lights up the brain. Literally. As a facilitator or participant, the process engages multiple areas of the brain, specifically, the ACC.

The anterior cingulate cortex can be divided anatomically based on attributed functions into executive, evaluative, cognitive, and emotional components. The ACC is connected with the prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex as well as the motor system and the frontal eye fields making it a central station for processing top-down and bottom-up stimuli and assigning appropriate control to other areas in the brain.

It is also a key tool in controlling pain and positive thinking.