BUILDING 3-D VIRTUAL WORLDS 101

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BEGIN With the END in MIND!

Leadership by Visualization

Science hasn't fully explained how or why visualization works.

But the fact that it does is enough for most major air forces in the world to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in flight simulators.

Frankly, if you're aiming to achieve a major goal, who cares if you know how or why visualization works - just that it does!

And there's no doubt that visualization is a proven success technique used by achievers in every field, from athletes to actors to astronauts. None other than golfing legend Jack Nicklaus is said to have always played a course in his mind before actually beginning a game. John Goddard, the number one goal achiever in the world, told me several months ago that visualization was one of the main techniques he used to accomplish more that 550 major goals!

Brian Tracy says that, "All improvement in your life begins with an improvement in your mental pictures. Your mental pictures act as a guidance mechanism that causes you to act in ways that make your mental pictures come true in your life."

Last December we introduced a brand new tool as part of our Champions Club program. The Goal Tiger Vision Board is a very powerful application for your computer that enables you to take the teachings of the Law of Attraction and apply them in your daily life. It helps you to visualize your goals and dreams in a unique and dynamic way on your computer screen, using your personal dream images. You can combine these images with self chosen affirmations and power words. This way, the Goal Tiger Vision Board assists you in adjusting your belief system to break through any self limiting barriers you might have to reach your goals and create the life you desire.

Until now, the Goal Tiger Vision Board has only been available with membership in the Champions Club. But we've heard from a lot of our subscribers that they'd like to put the Vision Board to work to magnetically attract their goals and dreams.

So, with special permission from our software developers, for a limited time we are making the Goal Tiger Vision Board available as a stand-alone tool.

For a lot more details and all the benefits of the Goal Tiger Vision Board go here: http://www.goals-2-go.com/visualize/

21st Century Digital Learning Environments!

Pennsylvania's "Classrooms for the Future" Program Increases

Aug 31, 2007, News Report

Two hundred-twenty-five more high schools will benefit from Pennsylvania's innovative Classrooms for the Future technology initiative this school year, bringing the total number of participating high schools to 358.

The expansion of the program means high school students in 303 of the state's 501 school districts will be able to begin using laptop computers and other high-tech tools to improve their learning and better prepare for future success.

"Classrooms for the Future is helping our high school students engage in learning on a new level," Governor Edward G. Rendell said. "The new technology will nurture students' minds and feed their appetite for learning and it will prepare them to use equipment and machines that are commonplace in colleges and universities, corporate offices, production plants and just about anywhere they will go after graduating.

"By using technology as a learning tool, we are ensuring Pennsylvania's workforce will remain relevant and competitive in the global economy."

Classrooms for the Future is a three-year investment to provide laptop computers, high-speed Internet access and state-of-the-art software to high school classrooms across the state. Under Rendell's plan, every high school would be part of Classrooms for the Future by 2009.

The 2007-08 budget signed by Rendell in July allocates $90 million to provide the 255 high schools with 83,000 laptop computers and related equipment. It also invests $11 million in high-quality professional development for 12,100 teachers in new Classrooms for the Future high schools. That money, coupled with $2 million in federal funds, will enable each Classrooms for the Future high school to receive $30,000 for staff development.

Education Secretary Gerald L. Zahorchak said professional development is crucial to the success of Classrooms for the Future. As teachers learn how to integrate the technology into classroom instruction, they can move beyond being a mere lecturer and facilitate student-driven work.

The technology is being used in math, science, English and social studies classes to broaden the learning possibilities for Pennsylvania students and provide an unprecedented "gateway" to information and knowledge, the secretary added.

"After only one year, Classrooms for the Future already has proven to be a success for students and educators," Zahorchak said. "Teachers tell us students are more excited and engaged because of these new learning tools. In some cases, truancy and absenteeism are declining."

Greater student engagement is not the only benefit, he noted. Classrooms for the Future helps students connect their academic coursework to the real world, giving deeper meaning to what goes on both inside and outside the classroom.

As examples, the secretary cited a current events teacher who used Classrooms for the Future equipment to help her students stage a videoconference with a soldier serving in Iraq. In another classroom, a group of students studying bridge design used computer software to not only design structures but also to test them to determine whether they would work in a real-life application.

Such activities move students beyond being passive listeners and make them into active learners, Zahorchak said, while the professional development component of Classrooms for the Future ensures teachers are prepared to integrate high-technology into classroom instruction and activities.

From Time to Time a SUMMARY is Necessary. THAT TIME IS NOW!

Creativity + Innovation + Technology = Success 101

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Contents Copyright 2007 eSchool News. All rights reserved.

Innovation a key theme at NECC '07
New tech standards for students launched

Dennis Pierce Managing Editor
August 1, 2007

The need to produce a generation of students who are creative thinkers and innovators was a key theme at this year's National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in Atlanta.

More than 18,500 educators and exhibitors gathered at the Georgia World Congress Center June 24 through 27 for the nation's premier educational technology conference, hosted by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).

Conference-goers heard from keynote speaker Andrew Zolli, a futurist and author who urged those in attendance to cultivate students' creativity to maintain America's position as a global leader in innovation. Later in the conference, Zolli moderated a roundtable discussion on what it takes to unlock the creative potential in all of us.

In between, ISTE released an updated version of its National Educational Technology Standards for Students, a set of standards for defining what students should know and be able to do with technology at various grade levels. The revised standards include creativity and innovation at the top of the list of traits to be measured.

The innovation ‘imperative'

Zolli's opening keynote speech on June 24 had two parts. In the first half, he explained why it's "imperative" for educators to encourage students' innate creativity.

"You are shifting our whole civilization onto a new platform," he told attendees, using a metaphor the audience was familiar with to describe the changes in society brought on by advancements in technology. "We're watching an exponential curve ... an amazing set of shifts."

Two key ideas underlie these shifts, Zolli said: Everything that can be done by machine (eventually) will be, and many more things will be able to be done by machine than we now think.

"What happens when we're successful?" he asked attendees. In other words, what would the world look like if everything we needed were plentiful, fast, and cheap? "What is left to humanity is the essence of the creative spirit," he answered--and it's that creative spirit that educators must nurture in their students.

These capabilities are latent in all of us, Zolli said. He illustrated his point with an example from science. Scientists, he said, now have the ability to "shut off" various parts of the brain temporarily. In one research experiment, scientists turned off various inhibitors and had subjects draw a picture of a dog. In almost all cases, he noted, the subjects' drawings were much more rich in details than they were capable of before the experiment.

"We all have to find our own creative center," Zolli concluded. "The good news is, science tells us it's there."

In the second half of his speech, drawing on fields as diverse as demographics and psychology, Zolli outlined five key trends that are shaping education's future. And it's clear from these trends that creativity and innovation aren't necessary just for students: Educators, too, will need these traits to cultivate new approaches to teaching and learning.

The first of these trends is what Zolli called "demographic transformation." The world and U.S. populations are changing in ways that will have profound effects on education in this century, he noted.

For example, the world is becoming increasingly urban, and many of the largest cities in the world soon will be in East Asia. Women now make up 56 percent of undergraduates in the United States, and this figure is rising. The population in the Western part of the U.S. is rising at a much faster rate than in the East, and whites will be a minority in the United States by the middle of this century.

"The next generation is going to be more multiethnic and female than ever," Zolli said--and schools, too, will need to evolve to address these changes.

The second trend Zolli described is a shift in the way we think about our relationship with the natural world--or, as he put it, a growing awareness of "the need to navigate our moment in human civilization in relationship to our ecosystem." These social forces are going to meet new technological forces, he said--and as a result, "we're going to see hundreds of examples" of so-called "eco-innovation," or efforts to "rethink the world."

As examples of this phenomenon, Zolli cited a plant that scientists have engineered to turn red when its roots come into contact with the chemicals associated with landmines--and "ecotiles" that use the kinetic pressure of your stepping as you walk to power the lights around the town square.

"Someone you educate," he said, "... is going to win the Nobel Prize in this century for having solved a problem like this that also makes them a trillionaire." He added: "That's the opportunity in front of us."

The third trend, Zolli said, is a change in our perception of ideal "learning places."

"We are animals," he said, and as such, "we have preferred habitats." These are places that are rich in resources, multisensory and vibrant, adaptable and reusable, and mix public and private spaces. Zolli then showed a slide of a typical school building, with rows of bland lockers all looking the same.

"We send [students] to a place almost guaranteed to elicit psychosis to a social primate," he joked. His message: Educators must rethink their learning environments to elicit innovation from students.

The fourth trend is the need to cope with choice and complexity. In our "surplus society," Zolli said, we're now awash in choices. A key skill for educators to impart to their students will be the ability to manage these choices.

The final trend is the redefining of what "literacy" means. In our post-Sputnik model of intelligence, Zolli said, you're smart if you either know more facts than the average person, or you know unique facts that most others don't know. But as technology evolves and puts knowledge literally at the fingertips of students, that definition must change.

"Today, when students take the [SAT], they can take a programmable calculator into the test with them--and that's a bridge to a day when that device contains access to all the world's present information," he said. "The question is, what are we testing when we enable people to come in with the cloud of human knowledge behind them?"

It is inevitable that students will bring those tools with them to future tests, he said, and when they do, "we will have changed the nature of what we test to something a lot more like our ability to find, build, and use complex information tools in real time."

[Editor's note: For video highlights of Zolli's speech, as well as other aspects of NECC 2007, go to: http://www.eschoolnews.com/cic.]

New ed-tech standards

On day two of the conference, ISTE formally unveiled a new version of its National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS*S), the culmination of a yearlong process to revise this rubric for what kids should know and be able to do with technology.

Launched at last year's NECC, the NETS*S Refresh Project convened students and stakeholders in town-hall style meetings around the country during the past year, inviting their feedback. The project reportedly included participation from representatives in 50 states and 22 countries, including China, Costa Rica, Egypt, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia.

ISTE first issued its NETS for students in 1998, and this framework has since found its way into the standards of as many as 48 U.S. states. Now, nearly 10 years later--and having also issued NETS for teachers and administrators--ISTE has revised its NETS to keep pace with the changing demands of a new global, information-based economy, the group says.

Toward that end, creativity and innovation head the list of characteristics the new standards seek to measure.

According to ISTE's chief executive, Don Knezek, the original NETS*S focused primarily on technology tools, "because that was okay at that time, but that's not true now. ... [We need to focus on] what students need to learn effectively and live productively in an increasingly digital age."

Knezek has described the changes as a shift away from a focus on "competency with [technology] tools" and toward a focus on the "skills required in a digital world to produce and innovate" using technology.

The differences can be gleaned by looking at the categories that define each set of standards.

In the original standards, the skills necessary to define technology proficiency were outlined across six categories: basic operations and concepts; social, ethical, and human issues of technology use; productivity tools; communication tools; research tools; and problem-solving and decision-making tools.

The revised draft standards also are organized into six categories: (1) creativity and innovation; (2) communication and collaboration; (3) research and information retrieval; (4) critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making; (5) digital citizenship; and (6) technology operations and concepts.

"The first set of standards was about learning to use technology. This set is about using technology to learn," said David Barr, a retired educator and a member of ISTE's accreditation and standards committee.

Breaking the rules

Continuing the theme of creativity and innovation at this year's NECC, Zolli moderated a June 26 roundtable discussion on how educators can encourage the development of these characteristics within their students.

The discussion involved four experts with different perspectives on creativity: Mary Cullinane, a Microsoft employee and technology architect of the company's School of the Future project in Philadelphia; Michael McCauley, creative director for a Chicago-based communications agency; Francesc Pedro, senior analyst for the Paris-based Center for Educational Research and Innovation, a division of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development; and Elizabeth Streb, a nationally renowned choreographer.

The conversation centered on the question: What kind of environment best stimulates creativity?

The School of the Future project (see http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=6579) was about "fundamentally questioning the norm," Cullinane said. She added: "One of the things we wanted to focus on was creating a place where failure was an option--where kids weren't afraid to fail." That's hard to do in an era of increased school accountability, she acknowledged. In terms of its physical space, the school's designers sought to create "gathering places" where kids could come together and collaborate on projects.

Streb described a place she created in New York City, called Slam, where dancers, acrobats, and students come together to explore movement and flight. She portrayed it as resembling a large "garage," where it's OK to break things and get dirty. "We also allow complete sovereignty," she added, noting there is a "thin line between when play stops and class begins."

Streb also had a few words of advice for those in the audience: Ask seemingly unanswerable questions, and break the rules. "Discovery is going in with a clean question and then ignoring everything you thought you knew," said Streb, who has revolutionized modern dance by challenging many widely held assumptions about this art form.

Zolli noted that the panelists seemed to be talking about taking risks and empowering individuals (that is, students). So, he asked, how do educators deal with the structural impediments to these notions that typically exist in today's schools?

Cullinane acknowledged this can be difficult. She said Philadelphia's School of the Future was designed to exist within the traditional constraints common to school systems, such as budget limitations--yet its goal was specifically to loosen the structural barriers that often impede progress.

"Imagine if we were all swimming downstream--imagine how fast we could go," she said. "Yet, in schools, we're often swimming upstream" against a current of policies and procedures.

Zolli then asked what it is about the culture at Microsoft that encourages innovation. Cullinane responded that it's a place where individuals are self-critical and constantly questioning: How can I get better? This behavior is modeled every day, she said. Also, employees are given time to just think.

"You didn't have to justify that you were doing something," said Cullinane, a former teacher before joining Microsoft. "Thinking was doing something--and that, for me, was a fundamental change, coming from a school environment."

Cullinane ended the discussion by urging educators to remember the word "motive," asking: What motivates students? What do they value? What is their environment? What are their challenges?

"If we can't answer these questions, we're not going to be able to create the kinds of environments like the School of the Future," she concluded.

In a case reportedly involving the brother of Rep. William J. Jefferson, D-La., who was indicted recently on federal bribery charges, a former president of the New Orleans Public Schools board has admitted accepting $140,000 in bribes to help JRL Enterprises, a producer of educational software, obtain a lucrative New Orleans school contract.

The former board official, Ellenese Brooks-Simms, 67, pleaded guilty in a U.S. District Court in New Orleans to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery. Her lawyer told reporters outside the courthouse on June 20 that Brooks-Simms "fully acknowledges and regrets being involved in this." The charges against Brooks-Simms did not identify a business consultant who was said to have paid her to win school board contracts for the company.

JRL, which was founded in New Orleans and moved to Jackson, Miss., after Hurricane Katrina, was not accused of wrongdoing in the case. But JRL's "I CAN Learn" software has been involved in controversy in the past over its efficacy and the circumstances surrounding its contracts with the school district of Fort Worth, Texas (see Officials freeze ‘I CAN Learn': http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/ showStory.cfm?ArticleID=5679).

In the New Orleans case, JRL's founder, John Lee, acknowledged that he hired Rep. Jefferson's brother, Mose Jefferson, to "facilitate introductions to the decision makers" in Orleans Parish. But according to the city's newspaper, the Times-Picayune, Lee said he never authorized bribes.

Brooks-Simms was accused of accepting bribes on three occasions for "promoting and approving" school board contracts that "illegally benefited" a person known to federal prosecutors but not named in court papers. A news release from U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said the person in question received more than $900,000 in commissions for software contracts with the New Orleans school board.

Brooks-Simms served on the Orleans Parish School Board from 2000 to 2004. She is the latest person to plead guilty in a wide-ranging probe that began in 2003 and has resulted so far in 23 guilty pleas, Letten said. A string of plea deals has revealed kickback schemes involving construction and insurance activities, as well as school payroll thefts.

New Hampshire officials release new high school model

The New Hampshire Department of Education has released a document intended to develop "a new high school delivery model," in which learning is tailored around students' interests and teachers mentor instead of instruct.

"This is the next step in moving forward with school redesign," said Fred Bramante, a member of the state Board of Education. "If we do this right, why would any kid drop out of high school?"

The vision document, "Moving from High Schools to Learning Communities," is closely tied to the state's minimum standards for school approval. Those standards were revised in 2005 to allow schools more flexibility.

Among the changes were a provision that would allow high schools to maintain a school year of 990 hours instead of 180 days and a mandate that by the 2008-09 school year, students must have the option to earn credits by demonstrating mastery of a subject instead of taking a course in that subject.

Six "guiding principles" for redesigning high schools are outlined in the new vision document:

· Students should feel a personal connection to their high school experience. School guidance programs are important, as are internships and lessons customized to each student's learning style.

· All students should be held to high academic and personal standards.

· Students must believe that what they learn is relevant to their lives; students should be able to personalize their learning.

· Teachers should be facilitators, mentors, and coaches.

· Each student's learning should be monitored and documented.

· Data about that learning should be used to tweak the system to make it better. State education officials say some schools already emphasize personalized learning.

For example, Merrimack Valley High School offers online courses and internships, and its staff members are developing a charter school that would assess students based on their demonstrated abilities. The CSI Charter School would "profile" students and then adapt the curriculum to fit their needs.

Merrimack Valley Principal Mike Jette said he hopes to pilot the concept of awarding credit for "real-world learning," as outlined in the revised minimum standards, at the charter school next year and then bring it to the high school in 2008-09.

South Dakota joins effort to teach 21st-century skills

South Dakota has joined a national effort that seeks to teach students the skills required to succeed in a rapidly changing world, Gov. Mike Rounds said on June 19.

South Dakota is the fifth state to join the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, an organization that includes major corporations and education groups. The other four states are Massachusetts, North Carolina, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. The group's members include Apple, Cisco Systems, Ford Motor Co., Microsoft Corp., Texas Instruments, and Verizon.

"We have a powerful vision for the 21st century. We feel we need to infuse different skills into the core subjects," said Kathy Hurley, a representative of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

Students must graduate with skills that allow them to think critically, solve problems, communicate, be leaders, and use computers and other technology, Rounds said. Such skills are needed, he added, so South Dakota businesses can hire highly qualified workers to compete in the global economy.

"If we start now teaching these critical skills, we have a better chance of being economically successful within our state," Rounds said.

An advisory council of South Dakota business and education leaders will make recommendations on what skills should be taught to students at all education levels. The panel met on June 19 for the first time.

State Education Secretary Rick Melmer said the new effort could require some additional training to help teachers emphasize the targeted skills, which would be integrated into existing courses.

Rounds said the new skills program will be tied to his existing 2010 Education initiative that already has set goals for improving education in South Dakota.

By this fall, 25 percent of South Dakota's high school students will have laptop computers they can take home with them after school, Rounds said. Other programs let students take courses over the internet or television if their high schools do not offer those subjects, he said.

Seattle offers iPods as incentives for test-prep classes

Seattle high-school students who failed reading or math on the 10th-grade Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) are being given the chance to earn an iPod Shuffle from Apple Inc., the Seattle Times reports. The catch? They must spend five weeks in one of two WASL-prep summer programs.

The city hopes the programs, a joint project with Seattle Public Schools and Seattle Community Colleges, will help students pass the state exam--and city officials are offering the iPods, which retail at $79, as an incentive to get students in the door.

"For the subset of students who have lost motivation ... this is worth a try," Holly Miller, director of the city's Office for Education, told the Times.

A tutoring company helping with the programs came up with the idea of the iPod incentive, Miller said, saying it has worked well in other cities.

An anonymous donor is paying for the iPods for all students who complete the math-tutoring program. The city said it would buy iPods for students in the reading program.

The 6th Mind: "Priming the Pump" with Truth, Trust, Deeds!

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July 31, 2007

Who’s Minding the Mind?

By BENEDICT CAREY

In a recent experiment, psychologists at Yale altered people’s judgments of a stranger by handing them a cup of coffee.

The study participants, college students, had no idea that their social instincts were being deliberately manipulated. On the way to the laboratory, they had bumped into a laboratory assistant, who was holding textbooks, a clipboard, papers and a cup of hot or iced coffee — and asked for a hand with the cup.

That was all it took: The students who held a cup of iced coffee rated a hypothetical person they later read about as being much colder, less social and more selfish than did their fellow students, who had momentarily held a cup of hot java.

Findings like this one, as improbable as they seem, have poured forth in psychological research over the last few years. New studies have found that people tidy up more thoroughly when there’s a faint tang of cleaning liquid in the air; they become more competitive if there’s a briefcase in sight, or more cooperative if they glimpse words like “dependable” and “support” — all without being aware of the change, or what prompted it.

Psychologists say that “priming” people in this way is not some form of hypnotism, or even subliminal seduction; rather, it’s a demonstration of how everyday sights, smells and sounds can selectively activate goals or motives that people already have.

More fundamentally, the new studies reveal a subconscious brain that is far more active, purposeful and independent than previously known. Goals, whether to eat, mate or devour an iced latte, are like neural software programs that can only be run one at a time, and the unconscious is perfectly capable of running the program it chooses.

The give and take between these unconscious choices and our rational, conscious aims can help explain some of the more mystifying realities of behavior, like how we can be generous one moment and petty the next, or act rudely at a dinner party when convinced we are emanating charm.

“When it comes to our behavior from moment to moment, the big question is, ‘What to do next?’ ” said John A. Bargh, a professor of psychology at Yale and a co-author, with Lawrence Williams, of the coffee study, which was presented at a recent psychology conference. “Well, we’re finding that we have these unconscious behavioral guidance systems that are continually furnishing suggestions through the day about what to do next, and the brain is considering and often acting on those, all before conscious awareness.”

Dr. Bargh added: “Sometimes those goals are in line with our conscious intentions and purposes, and sometimes they’re not.”

Priming the Unconscious

The idea of subliminal influence has a mixed reputation among scientists because of a history of advertising hype and apparent fraud. In 1957, an ad man named James Vicary claimed to have increased sales of Coca-Cola and popcorn at a movie theater in Fort Lee, N.J., by secretly flashing the words “Eat popcorn” and “Drink Coke” during the film, too quickly to be consciously noticed. But advertisers and regulators doubted his story from the beginning, and in a 1962 interview, Mr. Vicary acknowledged that he had trumped up the findings to gain attention for his business.

Later studies of products promising subliminal improvement, for things like memory and self-esteem, found no effect.

Some scientists also caution against overstating the implications of the latest research on priming unconscious goals. The new research “doesn’t prove that consciousness never does anything,” wrote Roy Baumeister, a professor of psychology at Florida State University, in an e-mail message. “It’s rather like showing you can hot-wire a car to start the ignition without keys. That’s important and potentially useful information, but it doesn’t prove that keys don’t exist or that keys are useless.”

Yet he and most in the field now agree that the evidence for psychological hot-wiring has become overwhelming. In one 2004 experiment, psychologists led by Aaron Kay, then at Stanford University and now at the University of Waterloo, had students take part in a one-on-one investment game with another, unseen player.

Half the students played while sitting at a large table, at the other end of which was a briefcase and a black leather portfolio. These students were far stingier with their money than the others, who played in an identical room, but with a backpack on the table instead.

The mere presence of the briefcase, noticed but not consciously registered, generated business-related associations and expectations, the authors argue, leading the brain to run the most appropriate goal program: compete. The students had no sense of whether they had acted selfishly or generously.

In another experiment, published in 2005, Dutch psychologists had undergraduates sit in a cubicle and fill out a questionnaire. Hidden in the room was a bucket of water with a splash of citrus-scented cleaning fluid, giving off a faint odor. After completing the questionnaire, the young men and women had a snack, a crumbly biscuit provided by laboratory staff members.

The researchers covertly filmed the snack time and found that these students cleared away crumbs three times more often than a comparison group, who had taken the same questionnaire in a room with no cleaning scent. “That is a very big effect, and they really had no idea they were doing it,” said Henk Aarts, a psychologist at Utrecht University and the senior author of the study.

The Same Brain Circuits

The real-world evidence for these unconscious effects is clear to anyone who has ever run out to the car to avoid the rain and ended up driving too fast, or rushed off to pick up dry cleaning and returned with wine and cigarettes — but no pressed slacks.

The brain appears to use the very same neural circuits to execute an unconscious act as it does a conscious one. In a study that appeared in the journal Science in May, a team of English and French neuroscientists performed brain imaging on 18 men and women who were playing a computer game for money. The players held a handgrip and were told that the tighter they squeezed when an image of money flashed on the screen, the more of the loot they could keep.

As expected, the players squeezed harder when the image of a British pound flashed by than when the image of a penny did — regardless of whether they consciously perceived the pictures, many of which flew by subliminally. But the circuits activated in their brains were similar as well: an area called the ventral pallidum was particularly active whenever the participants responded.

“This area is located in what used to be called the reptilian brain, well below the conscious areas of the brain,” said the study’s senior author, Chris Frith, a professor in neuropsychology at University College London who wrote the book “Making Up The Mind: How the Brain Creates our Mental World.”

The results suggest a “bottom-up” decision-making process, in which the ventral pallidum is part of a circuit that first weighs the reward and decides, then interacts with the higher-level, conscious regions later, if at all, Dr. Frith said.

Scientists have spent years trying to pinpoint the exact neural regions that support conscious awareness, so far in vain. But there’s little doubt it involves the prefrontal cortex, the thin outer layer of brain tissue behind the forehead, and experiments like this one show that it can be one of the last neural areas to know when a decision is made.

This bottom-up order makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. The subcortical areas of the brain evolved first and would have had to help individuals fight, flee and scavenge well before conscious, distinctly human layers were added later in evolutionary history. In this sense, Dr. Bargh argues, unconscious goals can be seen as open-ended, adaptive agents acting on behalf of the broad, genetically encoded aims — automatic survival systems.

In several studies, researchers have also shown that, once covertly activated, an unconscious goal persists with the same determination that is evident in our conscious pursuits. Study participants primed to be cooperative are assiduous in their teamwork, for instance, helping others and sharing resources in games that last 20 minutes or longer. Ditto for those set up to be aggressive.

This may help explain how someone can show up at a party in good spirits and then for some unknown reason — the host’s loafers? the family portrait on the wall? some political comment? — turn a little sour, without realizing the change until later, when a friend remarks on it. “I was rude? Really? When?”

Mark Schaller, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, has done research showing that when self-protective instincts are primed — simply by turning down the lights in a room, for instance — white people who are normally tolerant become unconsciously more likely to detect hostility in the faces of black men with neutral expressions.

“Sometimes nonconscious effects can be bigger in sheer magnitude than conscious ones,” Dr. Schaller said, “because we can’t moderate stuff we don’t have conscious access to, and the goal stays active.”

Until it is satisfied, that is, when the program is subsequently suppressed, research suggests. In one 2006 study, for instance, researchers had Northwestern University undergraduates recall an unethical deed from their past, like betraying a friend, or a virtuous one, like returning lost property. Afterward, the students had their choice of a gift, an antiseptic wipe or a pencil; and those who had recalled bad behavior were twice as likely as the others to take the wipe. They had been primed to psychologically “cleanse” their consciences.

Once their hands were wiped, the students became less likely to agree to volunteer their time to help with a graduate school project. Their hands were clean: the unconscious goal had been satisfied and now was being suppressed, the findings suggest.

What You Don’t Know

Using subtle cues for self-improvement is something like trying to tickle yourself, Dr. Bargh said: priming doesn’t work if you’re aware of it. Manipulating others, while possible, is dicey. “We know that as soon as people feel they’re being manipulated, they do the opposite; it backfires,” he said.

And researchers do not yet know how or when, exactly, unconscious drives may suddenly become conscious; or under which circumstances people are able to override hidden urges by force of will. Millions have quit smoking, for instance, and uncounted numbers have resisted darker urges to misbehave that they don’t even fully understand.

Yet the new research on priming makes it clear that we are not alone in our own consciousness. We have company, an invisible partner who has strong reactions about the world that don’t always agree with our own, but whose instincts, these studies clearly show, are at least as likely to be helpful, and attentive to others, as they are to be disruptive.

SMART SEATS + SMART BOARDS + SMART TEACHERS = SMART LEARNERS!

(JAY KARR/McClatchy-Trinbune)

Fifth-grader Paula Lusena touches her science lab Smart Board, an electronic blackboard that allows students and teachers to project and manipulate graphic displays by touching and moving items around.

High-tech teaching

Smart Boards engage students weaned on the Internet

July 30, 2007

BY PETER FROST

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. -- At the start of each school day, Bluffton Elementary science teacher Tara Crewe fires up her laptop and video projector and beams the day's agenda onto a big-screen version of a 21st-Century blackboard.

What happens next is mind-boggling. Using a new interactive electronic white board, Crewe taps a yellow sun on the screen, and a quiz appears.

When a student answers a question, Crewe swipes a dry eraser over a blank line on the screen, revealing the correct answer almost magically.

Welcome to the future of teaching.

As schools across the country try to find ways to reach tech-savvy children in the video-game and Internet-saturated Information Age, these new interactive Smart Boards have emerged as a tool for teachers to engage students.

"It's turned learning in the classroom into the interactivity and entertainment kids are used to at home," Crewe said. Using Smart Boards "has made me a better teacher and made the kids more motivated learners."

Most of Crewe's instruction time is spent in front of the Internet-connected touch-screen board, which is linked to her laptop computer.

It allows her to link to educational videos, Web sites, slide-show presentations and blank screens -- like traditional white boards -- that she can draw on, save and print.

She often invites students to come to the front of the class and reveal answers with a simple swipe of the hand.

This kind of hands-on involvement with each lesson is especially beneficial to students with learning disabilities, those who have a hard time staying focused and children who learn more efficiently through interaction.

Crewe, one of the first teachers in her area to use the technology, started teaching with the Smart Board in January, when Bluffton Elementary installed them in six classrooms. Twenty-four teachers there now use the boards.

In the next several weeks, the district will roll out 48 more boards to schools throughout the county. To buy the equipment, Bluffton Elementary used a combination of district money and federal Title 1 funds, said Principal Kathleen Corley.

Each board costs about $1,500. The total per classroom with installation is around $3,800, according to the school district.

The benefits of the technology far outweigh the costs, said Crewe, who added she'd pay money out of her own pocket if the boards weren't provided by the district.

In classrooms with Smart Boards, homework completion rates are up as much as 60%, Corley said.

"You can demand, you can beg them, you can punish them, you can reward them," she said. "But the biggest thing is motivating them. And that's what these boards do. They help engage students in active learning."

Copyright © 2007 Detroit Free Press Inc.