Even their latest Halloween message is a brilliant example of a well-executed, memorable, and effective tutorial: Zombies in Plain English

IMHO, it’s impossible not to love a tutorial that includes the subhead “Step 3: Kill the Undead”

Watch it all the way to the end. And watch out for those zombies!

One of the oft-cited disadvantages of podcasts is that you can’t really “skim” them – that is, it generally takes 30 minutes of your precious time to listen to a 30-minute podcast. And if you stop listening early, you may miss great stuff that came later in the show. Many people find this frustrating. Sometimes I find it frustrating, too.

However, the human voice can be incredibly powerful and effective – and sometimes this can offset the inconvenience of the time that listening requires. For me, this happens often enough that I keep finding podcasting a compelling medium, even though many individual shows or episodes don’t offer me much value. It’s the pearls that make it worthwhile.

Here are two such pearls I found yesterday…

First, I was listening to episode 35 of The Watt, a blog and podcast on wide-ranging energy topics by Ben Kenney. In that show, he offered a lengthy but engaging discussion of why we should think carefully about, and discuss and address, the world’s energy situation. It’s basically an introduction to the overall theme of his show and blog.

Here’s the thing: I’m very familiar with energy issues, both from my journalistic and editorial work, and from my own interests. None of what he said was news to me. However, by listening to Kenney talk through how some important points are interconnected, and the significance of those interconnections, I “got ” this topic at a new level. And I really think it’s because I was listening to him talk – and maybe even because his discussion was informal and included a fair amount of his personal perspective as well as facts. All of that conveyed to me a new level of context and urgency for matters I’ve largely taken for granted.

Maybe that experience is somewhat unique to me, since I happen to be mainly an auditory learner. Which brings me to the second pearl offered up by my MP3 player yesterday.

After The Watt, I listened to show #26 of Diary of a Shameless Self-Promoter, by Heidi Miller. (Full disclosure: She’s a client of mine.) This episode was peculiarly timely for me, since in it Miller interviewed Eve Abbott, “Organizer Extraordinaire.” Bear in mind I was still organizing my storage loft while this show came on.

The content of this show resonated for me much better, I think, because I was listening to an animated discussion between two highly competent and intelligent women. I got much more from than than if I’d read an article (even a Q&A interview) covering the same points.

Therefore, I was delighted (but not too surprised) when I took the free online learning style assessment mentioned in the show and found that I’m primarily an auditory learner. It makes sense. I do read a lot, of course – but somehow I always seem to “get” complex topics better when I hear people discuss them. Especially when that discussion is fairly informal or conversational. Deadpan lectures put me to sleep.

Anyway, I just wanted to congratulate Miller and Kenney on these effective shows.

Also, I’d like to ask people to consider that although not everyone enjoys listening to podcasts, those of us who are primarily auditory learners might be getting the most benefit from this new medium. Consider that your target audience is comprised of individuals who represent a mix of learning styles. Doing even an occasional podcast might help you establish a connection with the part of your audience for whom sound resonates more than text. And we count, too.

See: What Business Can Learn from Open Source

I promise, this article is not at all techno-geeky. It’s philosophical and plain-spoken. Here are some key excerpts, and why they resonate with me…

THE CULT OF PROFESSIONALISM

Paul Graham wrote:

“Companies ensure quality through rules to prevent employees from screwing up. But you don’t need that when the audience can communicate with one another. People just produce whatever they want; the good stuff spreads, and the bad gets ignored. And in both cases, feedback from the audience improves the best work.”

Exactly. Furthermore, it seems like companies, organizations, sects, governments, and dominant social factions often attempt to manage, control, or squelch parts of the public conversation. They fear that open discussion inherently puts them at risk.

In fact, as long as these entities behave with integrity and goodwill, and as long as they understand that other opinions count, open public conversation will only help them. They simply have to be open to listening to it, learning from it, and participating in it.

…Of course, if they are NOT behaving with integrity and goodwill, or if they don’t think other people’s opinions matter, then frankly they have bigger problems than what people are saying about them, or to them.

Graham also wrote:

“I suspect professionalism was always overrated – not just in the literal sense of working for money, but also connotations like formality and detachment. Inconceivable as it would have seemed in, say, 1970, I think professionalism was largely a fashion, driven by conditions that happened to exist in the twentieth century.”

Wow, talk about synchronicity. Just before I read Graham’s essay for the first time today, I’d posted my own article about transcending artificial distinctions between the personal and the professional. I was inspired to write that by something Phil Gomes posted yesterday.

It never occurred to me before to think of the professional/personal/amateur distinction as a fashion. Personally, I think the world has gained much from the concept of professionalization. That said, there can be too much of a good thing – especially when it becomes rigid and limiting.

THE EVOLUTION OF PROFESSIONAL MEDIA

Graham wrote:

“One of the most powerful of those [20th century conditions] was the existence of ‘channels.’ …It was the narrowness of such channels that made professionals seem so superior to amateurs. There were only a few jobs as professional journalists, for example, so competition ensured the average journalist was fairly good. Whereas anyone can express opinions about current events in a bar. And so the average person expressing his opinions in a bar sounds like an idiot compared to a journalist writing about the subject.”

Aha… This is one of the core assumptions behind disagreements about citizen journalism – even whether the term “citizen journalism” is useful or appropriate. (I wrote about this label morass recently in I, Reporter). Nice to see it stated so clearly and plainly.

“Those in the print media who dismiss [online writing, including blogging] because of its low average quality are missing an important point: no one reads the average blog. In the old world of channels, it meant something to talk about average quality, because that’s what you were getting whether you liked it or not. But now you can read any writer you want. So the average quality of writing online isn’t what the print media are competing against. They’re competing against the best writing online. And, like Microsoft, they’re losing.

“…As in software, when professionals produce …crap, it’s not surprising if amateurs can do better. Live by the channel, die by the channel: if you depend on an oligopoly, you sink into bad habits that are hard to overcome when you suddenly get competition.”

Yes, this is exactly the case. Personally, I’m constantly discovering valuable information and perspectives from all sorts of unexpected people and places thanks to the net. This benefit far outweighs anything that mass media (newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, book publishing, etc.) ever offered me.

Now, I’m not trying to deny or dismiss the ample and admirable accomplishments of mainstream media, especially mainstream news organizations. For instance, I grew up reading the Philadelphia Inquirer, so I’ve known all my life what quality journalism looks like. And I chose to be educated as a journalist, and to work as a journalist, with journalists.

I’m just saying that, as much as I value the good things that mainstream media have accomplished. I value the diversity, searchability, flexibility, and immediacy of the internet even more. If someone held a gun to my head and forced me to choose between them, I’d have to go with the internet.

Fortunately, I don’t have to make that choice. Mainstream media and the internet are totally complementary – and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon. There’s room, and need, for both.

So while some of the old ways of doing mainstream media are starting to fade as the internet becomes more prominence, I don’t think that means mainstream media is “losing” or “dying.” It’s just continuing to evolve, as its always done.

I suggest that perhaps the only thing about mainstream media that’s “dying” is the perspective widely held by media professionals that their traditions and conventions represent the “true path” or “best option.”

WHAT MAKES A GOOD WORKPLACE?

Graham also wrote:

“The average office is a miserable place to get work done. And a lot of what makes offices bad are the very qualities we associate with professionalism. The sterility of offices is supposed to suggest efficiency. But suggesting efficiency is a different thing from actually being efficient.

“The atmosphere of the average workplace is to productivity what flames painted on the side of a car are to speed. And it’s not just the way offices look that’s bleak. The way people act is just as bad. …Maybe it’s not a coincidence. Maybe some aspects of professionalism are actually a net lose.”

I couldn’t agree more. And I’ll note that the same level of sterility often exists in professional communities and organizations – not merely inside a given office building.

Regarding the practice of business (coming up with ideas for what to do next, and enforcing quality), Graham wrote:

“Open source and blogging show us things don’t have to work that way. Ideas and even the enforcement of quality can flow bottom-up. And in both cases the results are not merely acceptable, but better.

“…The same happens with writing. As we got close to publication, I found I was very worried about the essays in Hackers & Painters that hadn’t been online. Once an essay has had a couple thousand page views I feel reasonably confident about it. But these had had literally orders of magnitude less scrutiny. It felt like releasing software without testing it.”

Oh, I know exactly what he means! As I learn and explore new topics, or as I communicate about my existing areas of expertise, I value the discourse that online media allows. It really makes me think harder, and to discard what just doesn’t work well.

Fortunately, in this medium it’s also fairly well accepted that people alter course, change their minds, and backtrack all the time. I must say, I wish that strictly “professional” environments were all so accepting of inevitable evolution.

Graham also wrote:

“When I say business can learn from open source, I don’t mean any specific business can. I mean business can learn about new conditions the same way a gene pool does. I’m not claiming companies can get smarter, just that dumb ones will die.”

Yep – we’re talking about an evolutionary perspective here.

However, I do think this perspective can – and should – strongly influence which kinds of fields and organizations smart, motivated people choose to get involved with. Options that may appear to offer security and stability today may not last long, and may not position you well for the changing environment of human endeavor.

” I think the big obstacle preventing us from seeing the future of business is the assumption that people working for you have to be employees.”

Yet another reason why I’m self-employed… Despite the abysmal and Byzantine employment-focused health insurance situation in the US. (Talk about inappropriate overlap between the personal and the professional!)

…Students, take note:

“So am I claiming that no one is going to be an employee anymore– that everyone should go and start a startup? Of course not. But more people could do it than do it now. At the moment, even the smartest students leave school thinking they have to get a job. Actually what they need to do is make something valuable. A job is one way to do that, but the more ambitious ones will ordinarily be better off taking money from an investor than an employer.”

Exactly. When you demonstrate that you can create value, that creating value is essential to who you are and what you want in life, then you end up creating your own opportunities.

That approach is really rather magical. And fun. It’s certainly saved my butt on more than one occasion!

Bravo, Paul Graham. Bravo!

If you currently know little or nothing about the world of weblogs, or if you want to know how to get more out of blogging (or even just reading weblogs), then this workshop is for you. It will get straight to the point. You’ll learn how weblogs can help you achieve your professional, creative, community, or personal goals more effectively.

REGISTER NOW! The earlybird fee (available only through Aug. 15, 2005) is $97. After Aug. 15, the cost is $107.

Here’s a sneak preview of the event…

This workshop will show you what “blogging” really means – and why it’s definitely NOT just “trivial online diaries.” You’ll also learn how to:

• Find blogs that are especially relevant to your interests or work.
• Navigate, read, comment on, and keep up with weblogs.
• Launch your own weblog – for free, right there in the workshop!
• Decide what to say in your weblog, and how and when to blog (content strategy).
• Keep your blogging simple, sustainable, and fun!
• Take the first key steps to publicize your blog.

Who should attend: Business people, independent professionals, educators, writers, organization or community leaders, and anyone who wants to find better ways to connect with their community, colleagues, customers, or other target audience.

This workshop is ideal for people with little or no experience reading or writing weblogs. It also will be useful for people who have already started writing or reading blogs but aren’t sure how to make the most of it.

When: Wed., Aug. 24, 2005, 9am – noon MDT. Coffee will be provided.

Where: Crown Rock Room, Boulder Outlook Hotel & Suites, 800 28th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80303

Why: This will be one of the most enjoyable, liveliest, simplest, and practical introductions to blogging you’ll ever find. It won’t be a dull lecture, and I won’t waste your time with geeky details you won’t need right away. You’ll immediately try your new skills in live, hands-on exercises and explorations. Of course, there will be time for questions, answers, and brainstorming – and a useful booklet, too.

Cost: Save $10! Pay just $97 before Aug. 15 only. (After that date, the fee will be $107.)

To Register: Please register online today to guarantee your seat in this workshop.

Requirements: Basic internet experience – you should at least know how to get online and use a web browser. There will be free wireless broadband access to the internet, and the workshop will include live hands-on exercises. If you have a laptop with wireless access, be sure to bring it. If you don’t have a laptop with wireless access, you’ll still be able to following along in class (and afterward with the booklet).

Followup: The workshop booklet will recap the basics, and also include useful additional information and resource lists. I’ll also be publishing audio excerpts as podcasts after the workshop. (What’s a podcast?)

Questions? Just e-mail me.

I hope to see you there!

…And yes, I will be offering workshops on other topics, on other dates and in other cities. Stay tuned!

I’m drawn to this field because I’ve grown to realize that traditional versions of news, journalism, and journalists are no longer enough. The cult of officialdom has reached its limits. There is more than one way to gauge relevance and credibility. We need more kinds of news, from more kinds of sources, to adequately serve the information needs of our communities and the world.

After spending months watching this field sprout, I’m finally ready to dive in and help it blossom. My longtime friend and colleague, A. Adam Glenn (who recently left his Senior Producer position at ABC News.com to broaden his media horizons) will be my teammate on this exploration.

Fortuitously, last Thursday I was interviewed by Randy Dominga of the Christian Science Monitor on the topic of citJ.

UPDATE: The Monitor article which mentions me (in the lead) is now online! See: Write the news yourself! Great headline, and great article. Read more about that coverage, and the associated blogosphere buzz. Thanks, Randy Dotinga!

So what exactly are Adam and I up to on this front?…

We’re launching a venue called I, Reporter. I’m building that site right this minute, and will link to it before the weekend is out. Initially I, Reporter will feature a weblog covering:

• How is citJ being done in the US and around the world, by whom?
• How might it affect society, communities, and the media business?
• What are the ethical, legal, social, and professional issues – and how might they be approached creatively and constructively?
• What do citizen and professional journalists have in common, and where do they clash?
• What do audiences think of citJ?
• Behind-the-scenes discussion of our own citJ projects
• Tips, opportunities, pitfalls, and other practical tidbits
• CitJ questions worth pondering.

Also, we are developing a training program for citizen journalists and for news organizations that seek to nurture and leverage the efforts of citizen journalists. Our suite of services will include workshops, educational materials, publications, e-learning, mentoring, and more. We’ll also present the voices and expertise of some of our media colleagues as well as exemplary citizen journalists. I, Reporter will be the main hub for all of this activity.

Normally I wouldn’t announce a project like this before the blog is actually up and offers a few postings. However, I’m expecting at least part of this effort to be covered in a Christian Science Monitor feature due out Monday, June 20. So I wanted to give CONTENTIOUS readers a little advance notice.

WHAT DOES CITIZEN JOURNALISM NEED RIGHT NOW?

Most needs spring from discomfort. It seems to me that many would-be citizen journalists are motivated by discomfort with the quality and type of coverage offered by traditional news orgs.

Too often this motivation is negated by a surprisingly common experience of isolation and limitations.

These people often have great ideas for issues or events to cover. However, most of them lack the basic journalistic skills and insight needed to report, verify, craft, and publish those stories. They’re not clear on the scope and type of coverage they wish to create. It’s hard to realize a fuzzy vision.

Worst of all, most citizen journalists seem to be largely fending for themselves. Teamwork is currently rare in this field.

Some traditional news organizations are involved with citJ projects and sites. That can help – as long as they don’t try to ghettoize or undermine it. The more passively managed efforts rarely attract many postings or traffic. However, some (like the Bakersfield, CA Northwest Voice) are seeing some success with innovative, active approaches. Independent citJ efforts such as South Korea’s OhMyNews can be surprisingly popular and credible.

PRO-AMATEUR COLLABORATION: ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

Too often, news orgs’ main contribution to citJ is simply to supply a fairly passive venue for publishing citizen-produced news – such as a web site associated with the local paper like the Boulder, CO Daily Camera’s My Town or YourHub.com from the Rocky Mountain News.

Beyond infrastructure, news orgs usually offer little or no guidance, mentoring, or training for citizen journalists. Nor do they typically highlight citJ efforts, online or via print or broadcast. This is probably why citizen-generated content is typically minimal on such sites.

The truth is, when it comes to citJ, you need to do much more than just “build it” to get people to come.

Also, misunderstandings and even mistrust (or at least skepticism) currently abound between professional and citizen journalists, thanks largely to key differences in some core assumptions.

Perhaps the thorniest issue is how closely citJ should emulate the objectives, format, and style of traditional journalism. For instance, in the citJ realm transparency is usually considered more crucial than objectivity. Many news professionals who’ve labored for years in traditional journalism have a particularly hard time with this.

It’s not surprising that most news orgs don’t yet know how to relate well to citizen journalists. This is fairly new. Heck – citizen journalists are only just beginning to grasp their own identity.

All of this can leave would-be citizen journalists fumbling and feeling overwhelmed and isolated. That’s not fun for anyone – and who would do that much work for free if it’s not fun?

Adam and I believe that motivation, training, creativity, experimentation, and collaboration are the keys to further evolution for both citizen and professional journalism. Both breeds of journalists have much to offer each other. We plan to focus on their mutually complementary nature, without putting one above the other. More mutual understanding, curiousity, and empathy might go a long way.

MY OWN CITIZEN JOURNALISM PROJECT: HOGAN-PANCOST

I, Reporter also will offer a behind-the-scenes look at specific citizen journalism projects. Here’s a bit about the citJ team reporting project I’m starting soon:

I live in the southeast corner of Boulder, CO – where for months a contentious development issue has been the topic of neighborhood conversation and several public meetings. At issue is the Hogan-Pancost property: a 24-acre grazing field which abuts existing homes, soccer fields, a rec center, a semi-rural property, and open wetlands.

Over the last several years the owner of this property has been trying to get it developed, to the general dismay of nearby homeowners. This year’s push for development is particularly potent and may succeed despite the oppostion of local activists. The current proposal calls for 115 new homes on the property, including 46 units of reduced rental rate senior housing to help ease the city’s affordable housing crisis.

(Disclosure: I’m a resident of this neighborhood, and so far I lean very slightly toward opposing this project – mainly on flood plain and ground water concerns. However, there also are several potentially positive aspects of the proposed development. So I can’t really say I’ve made up my mind yet.)

So far this year, the Daily Camera has published nothing about this controversy. On May 28, 2005, the Colorado Daily (a small paper primarily aimed at students and faculty of the University of Colorado, Boulder) ran one article on it (now behind a subscriber firewall).

Citizens in my part of Boulder would like to see more coverage of this topic, so I’m going to help them create it. I’m currently pulling together a team of citizen journalists to write some basic news stories discussing various aspects of this issue from different perspectives. The goals are:

• Expand the amount of publicly available news on this story, even modestly
• Impart basic journalism skills to new citizen journalists
• Using a real-world experience to make learning “stick”
• Leverage the strengths of a small but diverse group in making coverage decisions
• Generate energy and fun through cameraderie
• Provide a simple but strong example of how citJ can complement professional reporting.

My team will be publishing finished stories on either the Camera’s or the Rocky’s citJ site. We’ll also publish them in a special section of I, Reporter to show the effects of different types of presentation.

On I, Reporter I’ll also be covering the back story of how this process is working, for better or worse.

This project seemed to interest the Christian Science Monitor reporter, so you might see it mentioned in that article.

Well, that’s all for now. Much more on this later!

My friend and colleague Dave Taylor is delivering another BlogSmart workshop, How to Blog, on Friday, June 2, in Boulder, CO…

I attended Dave’s first BlogSmart workshop and it was fantastic. The room was full, the wifi worked flawlessly, and the presentation was impeccable. Dave has a gift for teaching complex topics in a relevant, humorous, and occasionally provocative way. He gets his students engaged and involved. He’s especially good at clarifying the “so what.” I could feel the mental gears clicking all around me. Even an “old” blogger like me learned some new things. It was a great overview of the “big picture” for business blogging.

Here’s what his new How to Blog workshop will cover:

• A survey of weblog solutions
• The advantages of Typepad for your first blog
• Signing up for a Typepad account (hands on)
• Configuring your Typepad account “just so” (hands on)
• Picking a template from the many available and installing it to customize the look and feel of your new blog (hands on)
• Using Technorati and Google to find existing web pages on your topic and how to figure out their “permalinks” (hands on)
• Writing your first weblog entry! (hands on)
• Including a link to another web page in your blog entry (hands on)
• Uploading pictures to Flickr, and integrating Flickr pictures into your new weblog (hands on)
• Publicizing your new weblog
• Questions and answers. Lots of them.

I’m not sure whether this upcoming workshop is sold out yet, but if you’re in or near Colorado’s Front Range region and you want some hands-on experience with blogging, sign up now. If you can’t make this one, I know Dave will be offering others. Although he focuses mainly on business blogging in this workshop series, I think this particular one will be useful to people interested in all types of blogging.

Wish I could be there.

Curious? Visit NewsU and sign up (it’s free). This is a completely self-paced online course, no instructor involvement, so you can work through the lessons comprising the course in your own preferred order and on your own schedule. There are lots of exercises and interactivity, too. The target audience is journalists from any beat who are interested in covering (or who find they must cover) drinking water quality issues…

This course was a joint project between Poynter’s NewsU and the Society of Environmental Journalists, with support from the Knight Foundation.

Of course, this was a team effort. I’d like to thank Paige West, Poynter’s designer for this project, for her creativity, good humor, and professionalism. Also Beth Parke (SEJ’s Executive Director) and Howard Finberg, Poynter’s director of interactive learning, for their support, guidance, and inspiration. And of course the Knight Foundation, for having the wisdom and foresight to support NewsU.

This was my first major e-learning project, and I learned a lot from the process. I’m proud of this course, and I think my future projects will be even better. I’m currently working on another NewsU course – stay tuned on that. And I’m furiously learning the open-source learning management system Moodle for another project I hope to announce shortly.

If you take the drinking water quality course, I’d appreciate any feedback. Please e-mail me. And please try out the other NewsU courses – there are several online now, and more are in the works.

More info…

These EFA courses are being offered online this spring:

• Grammar for Writers and Editors: Four e-mail sessions. Thursdays, March 17–April 7. EFA members, $95. Nonmembers, $115
• Pricing Strategies for Freelancers: Ten e-mail sessions. Tuesdays and Fridays, March 15–April 15. EFA members, $120. Nonmembers, $150.

Here’s the list of all current EFA courses. See that page for full descriptions and details on both the online and classroom courses.

Here’s how EFA says its online courses work: “The dates given for online courses are when postings appear. Generally, participants have two to three days to read and respond to each posting – you don’t have to be at your computer at the moment the posting appears.”

If you’re a writer or editor and if you’ve never taken an online course, you might want to sign up for one of EFA’s online classes. Or at least sign up for some online course on a topic that interests you. E-learning is a fast-growing market for writers and editors. If you hope to branch out into this field, the best way to start is to first take a few online courses to see what works (and doesn’t) in that learning environment.

TOP OF THIS LIST: Experiencing knowledge to succeed, by Michael Jones, Yafle.com, Dec. 13, 2004. Excerpt: “Many in education – and especially many in e-learning – forget a simple truth. It’s not what you learn, it’s the process by and environment in which you learn it…

“Those who attempt to boil down information to a set of standardized learning objects that can be consumed interchangeably and acontextually risk losing sight of the contextual and collaborative elements of learning. Now, for some types of learning (e.g., procedural training), it’s perfectly correct and efficient to simply transfer information from A to B. This is simple knowledge transfer and acquisition. More complex learning, however, is essentially experiential and deeply contextual.”

Read the rest of this list…

1. Learning Times: “An open community for education and training professionals. Members have free access to a wide range of opportunities to interact and network with peers from across the globe. Member activities include live webcasts and interviews with industry leaders, online debates and discussions, live coverage of industry conferences, and international working groups… Also features free group collaboration tools.” I joined this community not too long ago. I haven’t had a chance to explore it thoroughly, but so far it seems pretty useful. (Thanks to Croncast for this link.)
2. Corporate E-Learning, by Michael Specht, Dec. 23, 2004. Expanding upon my Dec. 10, 2004 article, Corporate E-Learning: Focus on Tasks, Specht notes, “What struck me about it is Amy is almost talking about a sophisticated RSS environment for learning objects.” Quite intriguing…
3. Backwards chaining in corporate training, by Rebecca Thomas, Education Niche, Dec. 21, 2004. An interesting explanation of a learning technique in which people learn a process by first learning how to finish it. Then they proceed backwards through each step until they master the whole process.
4. Learning from the Fourth Grade, Incremental Blogger, Dec. 19, 2004. A look at why PowerPoint has become a common presentation tool among grade-school students.
5. M-Learning: European mobile learning program. “Aimed at young adults, aged 16 to 24, who are most at risk of social exclusion in Europe. They have not succeeded in the education system, cannot read and write adequately and have problems with simple calculations except in familiar contexts. They are not currently involved in any education or training and may be unemployed, under employed, or even homeless. What do many of these young people have in common? A mobile phone.”
6. News from the Neurosciences, a collection of scholarly articles from New Horizons for Learning. “How would it affect educational systems if everyone truly believed that the human brain could change structurally and functionally as a result of learning and experience–for better or worse? How would it affect how we teach and how students learn if everyone believed that the kinds of environments we create for learning, how we teach, and the learning strategies we offer students could result in better mental equipment they will use throughout life? In News from the Neurosciences, you will find articles that support the validity of this concept, as well as articles of current interest on various other aspects of brain research and its implications for education.” (Thanks to Stephen Harlow for this link.)