The point of using learning styles should never be to pigeonhole someone into a limited form of data consumption. It needs to used to teach them build a bridge from where they are, to where they need to be. It should be about teaching the student how to process any type of information from any type of source. In order to do that, we need to know how they process, so they can build a system that allows them the best use of whatever it is they're learning.
The brain needs to be progressively challenged just like any muscle and achieving a state of mild confusion while consuming new information does just that.
I agree with you on solar. From my perspective, any energy we don't capture and harvest from the Sun as it hits Earth is wasted. Now allow me to offer you a different view on my buddy; Carbon. Carbon itself is a commodity and should be handled as such. We need it to make graphene, synthetic diamonds and carbon nanotubes which will in turn become the new silicon for the next decade or so.
What if all those things can be as accessible as what is common today? We must harvest every last molecule of carbon for this end. That include the crap we have overloaded the atmosphere with. I've already come up with a system for this that needs some fleshing out. With it we can make better solar panels, water filters, textiles of immense tensile strength, relativistic electrical conductivity and insulation.
Carbon is the fourth most common element in the universe or at least from what we can see. We must keep it that way if we want complete proliferation of this next generation of desktop and mobile quantum computers in every part of human society. So we need to capture and reclaim it from every corner of the Earth because the end goal is totally worth it.
Forgive me but I love this stuff, thinking about how much quantum mechanics has taught us about the universe makes me absolutely giddy. I haven't even watched this yet and I can tell you this:
To achieve multi-planetary status, we need to make ourselves less fragile than we currently tend to be. What I mean by that is that if we devoted half as much time, money and resources as we do to wage endless wars and collectively shifted our focus to medical advancements such as the technology we need to keep ourselves alive in the hostile environments we'll encounter in space, our astronauts very likely could be traveling in self contained, iron man-like suits by now.
Aside from that, we may have to upgrade our own physiology so;
We NEED nanotech that can repair us, keep us healthy and help us adapt OURSELVES to new environments that have enough of the proper elements. Can you imagine being able to Evolve On Demand so that you can breathe a different atmosphere and derive whatever your body needed from it? I can.
If relativity holds then planets that are either bigger or moving faster might have a very different local space-time from what we're used to, so imagine if jet lag was so severe it hospitalized you.
We need artificial intelligence capable of both supervised and unsupervised learning to run and monitor our environments, our medical conditions - both physical and mental. The 'quantified self movement' actually has a very, very useful purpose here.
We need to be able to repair a ship while it's in space. We need to be able to repair an environmental suit while standing or perhaps trapped in a volcano that ejects molten Dihydrogen Monoxide on Titan.
We need real, functioning, scanning, recording, data-analyzing Tricorders. Yes, if if weren't obvious by now, I AM a total Star Trek nerd and if we want to explore space, we need those mobile forensic labs that will allow us to truly see the universe and ALL of its wonderful colors. I could go on, but then someones' R&D department is gonna have to pay me.
Eventually it will have to be recognized as a new species of life, so I hope programmers, tinkerers and everyone else keeps that in mind because all life must be respected
And this particular form will be our responsibility, we can either embrace it as we continue to merge with our technology, or we can allow ourselves to go extinct like so many other species already have
For the naysayers - ever notice how attached we are to our phones? Many behave as if they are missing a limb without it - it's because they are, the brain adapts rapidly and for many, the brain has adapted to outsourcing our cognition. It used to be books, day runners, journals, diaries - now we have devices and soon they'll be implants or prosthetics
The writers at marvel who came up with the idea of calling iron man's suit a prosthetic were definately onto something and suits like that are probably our best chance of successful colonization of other planets. We'll need ai to be our friend out there, working with us
while being upfront about employment terms is always a good thing,
this sort of arrangement is unilateral in the company's favor. you sit there, churning out codes and solutions and they get to keep it after you leave.
what do you get other than a pat on your back and some space filler on your resume?
shares of the company?
free software updates for life?
a chance to preview new hardware before anyone else?
how about free hardware? or at least the chance to buy it at cost?
what about using whatever you help create, somewhere else?
there are non-tech businesses that work this way and the morale is typically through the floor. you see this at brick and mortar businesses when there's no room for advancement within the company, because the company isn't expanding geographically they have one location and they like it that way.
most of those companies, love these loopholes they can take advantage of, like less than full time hours so you don't get healthcare benefits and because the turnover rate is so high, no one ever really gets a raise. oh, they have protocols on the books, but no one makes it that long.
it's like the rat box experiment -
one box of rats has food and a way out - they spread out and flourish
one box has no food, but a way out - they all leave
one box has food and no way out - when the food runs out, so do they
one box has no food and no way out - you end up with one really fat cannibal rat
just because we humans like to pretend we are civilized, we are not immune to succumbing to our animal instincts.
interestingly enough, this behavior can also be observed in neighborhoods in NYC where there are many NYCHA buildings grouped together like Queensbridge and Morrisania Houses. from their perspective there's no future, no food, no money, no hope - no discernible way out.
so what do they do? they turn on each other.
what do humans do where there is a massive blackout and we are suddenly back in the stone age?
we behave like the animals we are. we've seen it time and time again.
I recommend becoming well versed in IP law if this is a 'lifestyle choice' anyone wants to make. at least then, you can protect your own right to profit off of anything you create in these set ups.
There are many people who are simply unaware of the visual elements in a given situation because it's usually handled by the brain at an unconscious level - similar to speech.
It seems to me like you have a heavy feeling-based response to what I must resort to calling 'dyslexic visual input'.
You may want to include some auditory input, by associating the correct sounds with the letters to help you sort through it and perhaps just brush aside any unpleasant feelings that may arise. it gets easier with practice.
A problem with studies like this is that you may learn something of what it's like to be dyslexic, but probably that's all you're gonna get out of it. perhaps there are a few super geniuses out there who will see what it's like to have it and come up with some new way of dealing with it.
A better approach, especially for someone who has struggled with it, is to find people who have overcome many, most or even all of the difficulties associated with this neurological condition and see if you can mimic what they did.
Maybe even put an ad in the paper or online and find out if you can get people to call you and very carefully unpack their experience of having it and what they have done to overcome it. What you want here is a set of instructions that you can follow, and I'd start with the things that are common to the majority of the people you speak with, so be ready to take notes or record it.
Recent studies have revealed that the brain is remarkably adept at rewiring itself, especially if you feed it the right materials to work with. I mean that both literally and figuratively, so a diet rich in omega 3s and 6s as well as any minerals or other chemicals that are precursors to neurotransmitters such as DMAE, Magnesium and so forth.
