Recommended+Reading

//**Inevitable:**// **__//Mass Customized Learning://__** [|Bea McGarvey] and __[|Chuck Schwahn]__ The book presents a desirable and doable vision that allows learning systems to leave the Industrial Age, time-based approach to instruction and replace it with an Information Age, learning-based system. //Everybody// is mass customizing. Everybody. Everybody - //except// //education//. Pandora.com allows me (and you, of course) to customize my music radio station; My Yahoo allows me to customize my news page; Starbucks allows me to have a venti decaf with a little room; my iPad and Google allow me to go anywhere in the world while sitting having that venti decaf.
 * Books:**

//Overview:// "From small steps come big changes!" The authors of the book (brothers Chip and Dan) reiterate that life is change and if we fail to alter our behavior when required to do so, dire fates often await. The pair looks at why we're resistant to change and the means by which we can, change that. The book begins with dividing the brain into "the rider and "the elephant. The latter is our emotional and instinctive side, say the Heaths, and the former is the part of us that tries to stay on track and get things done. The Heaths contend that in order for change to take place, both the rider and the elephant need to engaged and satisfied. And instead of focusing solely on problems that need to be solved or negative behaviors that must be eliminated, they advocate seeking the bright spots and replicating them (aka "praise the good''). They also offer the idea that small adjustments can make more of a difference than seeking the root causes of the dysfunctionality.
 * //Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard://** Chip and Dan Heath (Authors of the book //Made to Stick)//

Overview: Why do some ideas stick? Many of us have heard and then repeated stories that may have possessed some immediate believability but were later refuted or contradicted by facts. According to the Heaths, there are six key qualities that make an idea stick: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotion and story. In addition to the discussion of their six keys, the Heaths present quite a few examples to illustrate them. But that's not all; they provide a number of successful templates that they say can be populated with specific ideas. It's not an entirely plug-and-play proposition; some assembly is required, as well as making sure that all the pieces fit and make sense.
 * //Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Stick and Others Die://** Chip and Dan Heath