Show the students the final on day one

Schools are changing, life is changing.  So, any one person's experience might be quite different from another's, in school or at home or anywhere else.  Many people of my generation experienced school, especially the years of 3rd grade and beyond, as a sampling and a surprise.  The idea in such a set-up is that any test will be a sample of what the student knows, a sort of random check.  If the student can answer 90% of the test questions, it is assumed that he knows 90% of the material that was studied.  A test or "surprise quiz" in that way of verifying learning is not to be revealed to the students beforehand because of the danger of "studying for the test", that is, learning only answers to the test questions, spoiling the inference from test performance to all of the material studied.

I studied statistics in grad school and taught the subject in college.  However, it was about 15 years after I began teaching, I looked into the work of W.E. Deming, Walter Shewhart and Joseph Juran.  They worked in an area called "process control" and sought to make mostly manufacturing processes as efficient and error-free as possible.  In their work, a car that comes off the assembly line that doesn't run properly is a big waste.  They want as close to 100% of their creations to work as they can possibly get.

If we are really trying to get every student to learn, we too are trying to get as close to a 100% success rate as possible.  There are political and social ramifications to high rates of success in education but teachers in tax-supported schools of a democracy try for success for all.  So, just like the Scouts with their merit badge requirements, it makes sense to put the final right out there where students can keep an eye on the goals.  Right from day one, they can benefit from knowing what they need to be able to do to show mastery.  Some of the final might already be known before instruction begins.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

tests in school and actual learning

Say, I teach you the date of Albert Einstein's birth.  It was March 14, 1879. So, in one scheme of learning, you have learned if you say or write "March 14, 1879" when I say or write "When was Albert Einstein born?"  Of course, there are more elaborate frameworks describing learning, such as Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Objective, where I might ask you to paraphrase your answer in other words to cut down on dry, non-comprehending memorization.  Higher up in the taxonomy, I would ask you to apply your knowledge (Al was born after the Civil War), analyze the fact (he couldn't have known Columbus or Henry VIII),  do some synthesis (write a story about Al's first brush with electricity) and evaluate the fact (not very useful, not validated or confirmed).

But what about typical testing?  What about verifying that you have learned?  We want to spend our school time mostly on student learning so the most common approach to testing is to ask the student to respond to a series test "items" and count the number or percentage that he is able to answer "correctly" (in quotes since sometimes through ignorance or pure error, the answer that gets full credit is not the actual correct answer, but rarely).

Consider a test of just 2 items:

Student	Question 1	Question 2	Test score
Circle	1	0	1
Circle	0	1	1
Triangle	0	0	0
Square	1	1	2

-

The diagram shows the experience of four students on a two-question test.  The important point is that the two circle students have the same "score" but are 100% opposite in their states of knowledge.  One knows just what the other doesn't.  If we are not running a contest but instead are trying to get the students to learn, what needs to be done for one of the circles is the opposite of what the other needs. Many classrooms are un in such a way that this situation can be detected and corrected but many are not.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Teachers testing and grading

I taught a course in testing for more than 30 years.  The basic idea was to increase the value and accuracy of the tests and grades teachers give students.

Quite a few teachers are not happy with the duty of grading students.  I can understand and sympathize.  It does seem to be especially burdensome to ask the teacher to be sensitive to the student and his personality, his academic strengths and weaknesses, to be inspiring while at the same time to be judge and jury of his academic performance.  Of course, in college, we are often dealing with very competent students.  Despite that fact, some professors feel it is their duty to award a certain percentage of low grades and a limited percentage of high grades.

The book that I wrote and used in my tests and "measurements" class is online here"

http://goo.gl/6fjOk6

The actual URl (uniform resource locator a.k.a. 'web address') is much longerr and more complicated but I put it in the Google url shortener and got the result above.

I like to compare classroom teaching to dentistry.  When I go to the dentist or the doctor or the car mechanic, I come with a problem and I want to leave without it.  I want my problem solved.  I don't want to hear that there have already been so many successful treatments that my problem has to be only partially solved.  I like to feel it if a student takes my course, it is my job and his/hers to learn all the required parts of the course.  The student and I have a mutual responsibility to have that student earn the highest possible grade, "A" at my university.  The student may choose to not study, to babysit the kids, to work extra hours at his/her job.  I will gladly give a failing grade or a lower grade if that is what was earned.  But I would rather find a way for the student to show me A level work if possible.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Math of sleep

90 minute cycles, need 5 cycles = 450 minutes or 7.5 hours

Sounds can help getting us to sleep.

Be punctual about bedtime.

Don't skimp on sleep.

I have been interested in sleep since the 2nd grade.  One day, it seemed like my brain wasn't working.  The word "apple" completely stumped me.  I knew I knew it the day before. Mom said I had gotten little sleep because of family events.  That was my introduction to the importance of sleep.  Later, I read how the other side kept our heroic and innocent spies awake to torture them and extract information.  In the real world, I could see which of my 5th graders got to be on time and which didn't by the quality of their papers.

A couple of years ago, I found "The Universal Sense" by Seth Horowitz, PhD, a neuroscientist and sound expert.  That lead me to Sleep Genius, the app and Sleep Genius the web site and company.  I was suspicious of the power of sound but then I thought of what happens when I heard a Strauss waltz well played or some words of love spoken in my ear.  I admire the Schubert adagio D956.  The power of sound shows in the 2005 movie Joyeux Noel, when a woman's voice floats out over the WW I battlefield.

Sleep Genius plays music that is supposed to lull a person to sleep and about 7 of 10 times, it does for me.  If I wake up at 4:30, I realize I need another of the 90-minute cycle of sleep, snuggle back down and get it.  My sleep and my nights seem to make more sense when I think in terms of 90 minute cycles but it has take a little work to feel comfortable with such hour and a half periods.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Getting into YouTube

I am exploring a little of YouTube.  I made this video because I needed something to practice annotating.  Dr. Roth, the director of the UWSP CCIT lab where I am doing a little volunteering, asked me to learn to insert annotations into videos.  It seems that you can see the written title, a small blue bubble and what is called a "spotlight"(a yellow rectangle) if you run this link in the Google browser called Chrome. It is free and easily downloaded to any computer.

Here is the link itself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUP_6IFyXzA&list=UU62YVzQb-lNCLUJ7R2EUrng

It can be copied and pasted into the URL (address window ) of any browser (Internet Explorer in Windows/PC, Safari on a Mac, Firefox.  I have run it in Chrome and in Safari and the annotations appear.  They don't in Firefox but it runs all right otherwise.

I just learned that there are channels and subscriptions in YouTube.  So far, I have found subscriptions to be free.  They just mean I get notified of each new item posted  I have a channel but it is called "Bill Kirby".  The trouble with that is that there are two many Bill Kirbys.  My email address is "olderkirby" because Google accepted that as unique and therefore ok for a name.  I don't have big plans to make videos.  

I wondered about Google Radio, where I wouldn't have to worry about my stage makeup (just kidding), the lighting, the camera angle, etc.  There is such a thing but it only means a selection from Google Play music.  I will have to look into podcasts.  Another thing I am interested in learning is how to make a video pause at a given spot, which could be important in instruction.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Thinking can be tough

Several friends confess that they are thinking these days.  Tough activity at times!  Is our country doing ok or getting worse?  As I age, am I getting closer to death and possibly hell after death, for my many sins?

 

You could put down such topics as worries, not as thinking or analysis.  If you aren't used to handling such questions, you may wonder at yourself.  Why now?  At my age, shouldn't I have answers by now?  Maybe.  But maybe you have more time now.  Maybe you have more insight.  It is definitely possible to develop more insight as you get older.  You simply know more and have experienced more so it is easier to see a little more broadly and a little farther.

You have more experience and are more aware of dangers and ways things can go wrong.  As a student, you may have had times when you wrestled with tough topics and never really felt as though you got a full understanding.  You may have thought you were finished with those days and it can come as a shock that here are some of the same old questions and you still don't have answers.  In fact, now that you know more and remember more and worry more, tough questions these days seem even tougher than they used to.

I personally find that it helps me to see how ignorant I am.  I don't know what goes on in my own body and truthfully, neither does anybody else. Oh, they can scan and do blood tests but nobody has complete knowledge.  Besides, they won't.  

It helps me to try to face what I think I know and what it seems I don't know.  I don't know what is happening in Washington, D.C. or even in my own little town.  Just as with monogamy, there is only one me.  I can't really concentrate on national politics and state politics and local politics.  I can't really study global warming and gun control and genetically modified plants as foods.  I have declining years and I will focus on a selection of activities and thoughts that meet my needs, hopes and desires.  Sometimes, I will be unable to focus.  I will experience intrusions.  A neighbor or a relative asks for help.  A pipe bursts or a crime gets committed. I will bear with the upsets and unexpected problems as best I can, looking for ways to return to what I care about and what I think I can handle.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Isn't 'puffery' a wonderful word?

American business law in the area of advertising and marketing does not, as I understand it, try to focus on whether advertising claims are true.  Instead, it focuses on whether claims are misleading.  Traditionally, my touting the book just about to be released as "the greatest book you have ever read, the one book to read during your lifetime to lift your spirits to heaven while putting your worries away forever" in not considered misleading.  The idea seems to be that your common sense and years of being mislead by exaggerated claims will keep you from being misled.  

The words above between quote marks are considered puffery, typical overblown language claiming outlandish results, much like old snake oil ads claiming to cure all ills.  This Harvard Business School article discusses puffery and some research on it.  Some researchers were curious about why advertisers use puffed-up language if it always gets discounted or ignored.

Of course, exaggerated claims can drift into pure humor.  Here is an item for "digital download" for only $495.00 that sports 131 customer reviews.  I am not sure about the document itself but the customer comments deserve a book of their own. Be careful about clicking to buy.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Justice of the US Supreme Court

We are reading "My Beloved World" by Sonia Sotomayor, a Justice of the US Supreme Court.  It is an autobiography and we are only 20% into the book.  Justice Sotomayor's parents were born in Puerto Rico.  Much of what we have read so far focuses on her childhood and memories from then.  She grew up in New York City.  

I would like to be able to witness some magic by which the adults around the young girl of eight or nine were informed that they were dealing with a future US Supreme Court justice.  The web site Biographies of Current Justices of the Supreme Court has this to say about Justice Sotomayor's life:

Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice, was born in Bronx, New York, on June 25, 1954. She earned a B.A. in 1976 from Princeton University, graduating summa cum laude and receiving the university's highest academic honor. In 1979, she earned a J.D. from Yale Law School where she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She served as Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney's Office from 1979–1984. She then litigated international commercial matters in New York City at Pavia & Harcourt, where she served as an associate and then partner from 1984–1992. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated her to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, and she served in that role from 1992–1998. She served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1998–2009. President Barack Obama nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on May 26, 2009, and she assumed this role August 8, 2009.

I don't know much about being a judge but it sounds like hard work, physically and emotionally, to me.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Early years and basic fears of abandonment and suffocation

Judith Bardwick wrote Psychology of Women in the 60's.  She thought then that fears of abandonment were basically associated with the feminine mind, especially the mind in its nubile or mating years.  She thought a somewhat corresponding fear among men was the fear of suffocation, a fear and an unsatisfactory feeling that a young boy can experience with parents who are felt to be overprotective, overly constricting or confining or strict in what is allowed and what is forbidden.  Of course, a boy or man can be abandoned, too and a girl or woman can experience emotional suffocation.  In fact, looking up "abandonment" and "suffocating parents", I found at first glance all the comments under the latter to be from young women.

I often think of this pair of fears when trying to understand real people, celebrities and characters in stories. Kahneman and Tversky did Noble prize work on psychological insights into behavior, which is covered nicely in Kahneman's book, "Thinking: Fast and Slow".  They helped make well-known the phenomenon call "anchoring".  If movies, parents or siblings set one's expectations for personal freedom high, encumbrances and oversight by parents may chafe.  Some people of high spirit may quickly take umbrage at curfews or questions or criticisms that others take in their stride.  Personality and background and what one's peers seem to be doing and accepting help to set the anchor point, the expected level of freedom and custody.

You can't tell what fears and irks are in the back of a person's mind.  That my brother never had to face the deadlines and scrutiny I did may still be affecting my judgment decades later.  Even the person himself might not realize where he got his anchor point of expectation from, or when.  He might not be able to look at a question or decision today without unconscious influence from feelings resentments and injustice from years ago.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Starting without a starting point

When we cover a piece of paper with marks we call writing, it is handy to have a traditional way of laying out the marks.  We do have such a tradition and in many countries, the usual way is to have rectangular sheets of paper and to start on an upper left corner.  We say we write from left to right and then when we run out of room, we jump back to the left edge again and write beneath what we have already written.  Therefore, we are used to starting our reading at the same point.  If the teacher or the message begins where we expect, a reader can jump down the page and see what we are going to be getting to later on.  In many subjects, there is a sort of nest of ideas that interrelate.  The basic ideas may not have a starting point but more resemble a clutch of pick-up sticks laying in a tangle.  

 

If a beginner is introduced to such a subject in a linear way, he or she may naturally think of the first topic as foundational in a way that it is not.  It may take several years of practice for such a beginner to get rid of the inappropriate feeling of that first topic being THE starting point and to better grasp that a group of basic topics all share the importance of supporting the subject.

 

It is not just writing on paper.  When I make a presentation, the nature of time and of spoken language means I have to start somewhere.  I could try to warn learners beforehand that all of the tools or topics of the coming hours are equally supportive and fundamental but there will still be a first topic.  Often, that first topic is not well grasped until its codependent and interrelatedness is felt fully and naturally.

 

I have wondered if I could cut round paper handouts with pie-slice shaped descriptions of important basic topics and try to give out the paper in a way that gave successive students their piece with a different topic at the "top".  Maybe if I had a short video explaining each fundamental topic and arranged each video to be given to a different portion of the group, we might undercut inappropriate biases toward or against the parts of the subject.  After each video had been seen by a sub-group, all the sub-groups or teams could meet in a single large room with the task of instructing everyone present in the material of all the videos.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Learning about social media

The director of the CCIT lab, Dr. Kristi Roth, where I am a volunteer, asked me to work on the social media accounts for the lab.  I met with the social media person for the entire college, one of four colleges in the local university. I am always amazed by what is going on in the world.  I wrote a post in this blog in March of this year  that includes a link to the Wikipedia article on social media and social networks on the web and connected by computer. That article lists more than 200 social networks, most of which you probably never heard of.  The college social media agent said that she had gotten knowledge and contacts that increased her professional knowledge and worth through social media.  

I am on Twitter but not Facebook because I didn't like the way it operated.  That might be a mistake since just about everyone is on Facebook.  As the dean of the college told me, his own children are all of the social networks I could name.  He stays up to date on that publishing and posting through his wife, the same way I do.  I asked the social media agent for the college if she thought most of the 10,000 students on campus used Facebook and Twitter.  She said she felt that might be but she said she gets the impression that Instagram is coming up fast.

LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google Plus are all working to reach the billion users Facebook has.  Meanwhile, there is a lot to learn and to think about on this subject.  Here is an Amazon page of books about social networks.  Of course, there are always new developments to learn about.  The social media agent introduced me to Doodle, which is online software, where more and more software resides these.  It is a tool for finding a date for a meeting between people with complex calendars in diverse organizations and settings.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Two schools, a strawberry and tenderness

As I understand it, there are two schools of Zen.  So what?  Who cares?  Those who developed Zen and related practices have been seeking the best use of their minds for 2,000 years and more.  The two schools matter because many in the West are trying to adopt those practices that do actually enrich their lives.  The two schools stand for different paths. One is the slow path: plenty of sitting, training the attention on a single target such as a flame or a spot or one's breath.  The other is the quick grasp path: realizing that we are here right now, that my bad behavior yesterday is in the past, that my anger of a minute ago is in the past, that I can profit myself and others by simply letting go of my intention to snarl and grimace. Those working on themselves often find the two paths intersect at various points.  Sometimes, sitting quietly quiets effectively and sometimes, sudden chances to simply change pop up.

The Zen story of the man lowering himself on a rope along a mountain cliff applies to many moments in life.  The man looked down and saw a nasty tiger waiting on the ground in anticipation of the man's descent.  He looked up to see a different tiger waiting at the top of the rope.  Unhappily, some mice were chewing on his rope!  Just then, at eye level, the man spotted a ripe strawberry growing on the cliffside right at eye level.  He picked it and popped it in his mouth.  Delicious!  This guy was able, right in the middle of a deadly situation, to experience the delight of a good berry and be conscious of that delight.  It was fleeting but it was real.

Similarly, in the storm and stress of everyday life, as in the depressions and swampy boredom of everyday life, any of us may find a moment when we spot a strawberry of possible kindness or acceptance of another.  We may be able to pop that berry into ourselves and smile or joke or hug.  Delicious!

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Not this and not now

I wrote that I would send a second Harvard publication but I didn't.  My days are completely revolving around computer andcommunication technology.  Don't worry: I can quit whenever I want, he said.  Whether it is the mailbox or the inbox or the chat window or the Hangout window or Facetime or Twitter or….., it is definitely possible to get more stuff than one wants.  If you want Harvard Medicine News, a free weekly by email, go here

http://hms.harvard.edu/news/sign-email-communications

Americans are a speedy, impatient people.  They don't like to wait and they like things NOW.  I am very American but I find that life brings me the chance to practice a little patience over and over.  If I going to do a and b and c, I have to decide when each can fit in.  If b and c are going to be done with friends or helpers or experts, things get a lot more complicated.  I may find that I can't go shopping with my wife, without whom my shopping for clothes for me is a waste of time, unless we compare calendars and commitments.  I like things NOW and waiting is not what I would choose but there may simply be no alternative.  Plan ahead, work cooperatively with others or forget it.  A chance to work on my patience!

Between trying to sort my mailbox and improve the value of what I pay attention to and trying to work cooperatively with others, I get lots of opportunities to breathe deeply, look at my Kindle and just gaze about me. I am practicing. Honest.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Body Language

This is the first issue of the Havard Medicine Magazine I have received and it looks rather interesting.  It and the weekly Harvard Medical News are free.  I will send along a copy of that publication in a minute.  Don't obsess about health, mortality and medicine but it is certainly a worthwhile topic.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Harvard Medicine Magazine <harvardmedicine@hms.harvard.edu>
Date: Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 10:48 AM
Subject: Body Language
To: olderkirby@gmail.com

If you are still having problems viewing this message, please click here for additional help.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Dan Harris's book "10% Happier"

Most days, whenever it fits our schedules, my wife and I sit in our living room with a timer set for 10 minutes.  During that important time, we do nothing. Well, it is actually impossible to literally do nothing, but we move very little, if at all.  We don't speak or change positions or answer email.  We keep our eyes fixed on the same point and we concentrate on our breath.  We experience our breath.  When we catch ourselves thinking about something of interest, we have struck one of those golden moments.  We bring our eyes back to the same point and we gently put our attention back on our breathing.

We do what can be called "secular meditation".  That activity is what Dan Harris, ABC newsman, discusses in his excellently written book "10% Happier".  The book's title is actually "10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Really Works."  You can see why I refer to the book as "10% Happier" for short. This daily habit is actually an ancient practice.  Dan Harris's book explains how and why he began meditating, what modern evidence and experience are doing to convince all sorts of people, from grade schoolers to FBI agents, from salesmen to athletes, to take up the habit, too.

I began studying this daily habit for what it might do for me, for school children, for adults in about 1980.  10% Happier is the best written, most comprehensive and most useable book I have found about how to use mediation in a daily way.  I highly recommend reading it through, maybe more than once.  It is available for downloading to a computer, a Kindle, an iPad, an iPhone or other smartphone from Amazon.com for $11.  Besides, all that it is fun to read and interesting.  Harris meets in person with a very good collection of the modern American teachers of this habit.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Getting some air (or a substitute)

The other day, I noticed a light on the dashboard of my Honda Fit that I hadn't seen before. It looked like this and it was still on after a while.

http://dashboardsymbols.com/the-symbols/

I looked it up in the manual and thought it said it related to the brake system.  I made sure the parking brake was completely off but the light didn't go out.  I called the garage.

They said it wasn't about brakes but about the pressure in the tires.  I learned that the sensor system turns the light (light = a "tell-tale", according to the site linked above) when the system detects a change in the tire pressure of 2 lbs or more.  I am used to reading the target air pressure from the side of the tire itself but I had been told before that the standard pressure in today's cars is 32 lbs per square inch (psi).  But this time, the mechanic chief said that since our weather had gotten colder (it is 45° F outside right now at 9 AM), that company has changed the current tire pressure target to 34 psi.  After fixing me up, I was told the tires had been inflated to 36 psi.

Why?  The weather has gotten colder but it has a long way to go to reach its coldest point.  Honda and many other companies want to be environmentally smart.  If the tire pressure is too low for that tire's shape and engineering, the miles per gallon will be lower that it could be.  (I don't know how much lower.)  If the tire pressure is too high for the design of the tire, the tire will wear out faster.  Not only does that increase the need for tires but it also puts some yucky tire particles in the atmosphere.  As the temperature drops, so does pressure.  The guys at the garage are trying to compensate for the coming cold with higher pressures.

The manager of the garage told me that I could go to some other places in town and have my tires filled with nitrogen, which holds a steadier pressure at a wider range of temperatures than ordinary air but the cost is currently $20-25 per tire.  Of course, refilling with air at a typical gas station will dilute the nitrogen, eventually needing another nitrogen filling.  All that from a tell-tale light on the dashboard.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Pulitzer Prize novel about young men, comic books and hopes

It must have been about 4 or 5 years ago, that Mike Slygh gave me the impression that Chabon's "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" was good reading. (He didn't mention that it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2001.)  Now, quite a while later, I am listening to it read aloud as I drive around on errands and such. 

Mike was totally right.  Every now and then, a short phrase pops up that hits me in the ear with great tone and I thank him for recommending the book, which I remember is related to his own interest in comic books and their history.

He possessed an incorrect but fervent understanding of the workings of television, atom power, and antigravity,

Incorrect but fervent understanding !!!

Sammy had never felt himself to be anything more, in Bubbie's eyes, than a kind of vaguely beloved shadow from which the familiar features of dozens of earlier children and grandchildren, some of them dead sixty years, peered out.

Felt himself to be a kind of vaguely beloved shadow !!!

She turned now and looked at her nephew. "You want to draw comic books?" she asked him. Joe stood there, head down, a shoulder against the door frame. While Sammy and Ethel argued, he had been affecting to study in polite embarrassment the low-pile, mustard-brown carpeting, but now he looked up, and it was Sammy's turn to feel embarrassed. His cousin looked him up and down, with an expression that was both appraising and admonitory. "Yes, Aunt ," he said. "I do. Only I have one question. What is a comic book?"

Chabon, Michael (2012-06-12). The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (with bonus content): A Novel (pp. 1-74). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. Excellent narration in Audible edition by David Colacci.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Sandy's Lists

Sandy, a tech savvy lady and author of Downsizer Sandy blog, writes about lists and technological devices:

Your post was neat in thinking only about lists...I think as new things are added to techy equipment it might become more usable for me for lists but not now:

One thing that is a problem for me with electronic lists is that I can't get to them quickly... if my techs are turned off or are off line due to cable problems at the time I want them...

Privacy issues with financial lists

I can't see ones at the same time on tech stuff  as quickly as I can in each of my spirals..

I'm too lazy to go periodically into each electronic area to decide which lists or parts of lists I want to delete...thus I had become a "hoarder" mentally of electronic lists...too afraid I would delete something and want it later when I couldn't remember where exactly it was in computer heaven. But then had too many lists and would lose interest in using them.

I tend to forget electronic lists with time...whereas in my spirals I can go back and check...

I've been typing thousands of books' data over the past year from a list of books on my computer but not in a spreadsheet format into a spreadsheet on Excel...It was a nightmare going back to see what to do with similar problems...just last week...and luckily I had put enough on each book into one of my spirals to see what we did with similar problems. But we are done with it now!

But alas! I have now become a spiral hoarder due to age and life changes  but am making myself purge lists I no longer want each am as I make my daily lists to do away with as many as I can.

I even have a Kindle book wish list in one of my spirals..Ha! Ha!

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety