Martin Luther King

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, Aug 23-29, 2020

/ Melanie Marttila

It’s time, once again, to get your mental corn popping.

Michael Tesler reports that support for Black Live Matter surged during the protests but is now waning among white Americans. FiveThirtyEight

Sarah Midkiff goes inside the Portland protests, separating fact from fiction. This is almost a month old. I think election hijinx are overtaking #BLM related news. Until this past weekend, when protests took precedence again. Refinery 29

Black lives matter: NBA walkout sparks historic sports boycott in US; Osaka withdraws, tennis halted. The boycott was short-lived, but sports teams are attempting to use their platforms to keep the message of #BLM front and centre. The Scroll

The national anthem protests, part 1, with Roger Goodell. Uncomfortable conversations with a Black man

And part 2.

Rebecca Ruiz explains why everyone should understand racial trauma right now. Mashable

N’dea Yancey-Bragg reveals five things you didn’t know about the March on Washington and MLK’s “I have a dream” speech. USA Today

Amy McKeever says that voter suppression has haunted America since its founding. National Geographic

Related: Matthew Wills reviews the suppression of Native American voters. JSTOR Daily

Jasmine Baker moved into her dorm at UNC Chapel Hill at the beginning of August. Two weeks later she, and just about everyone she knew, had covid-19. Slate

Matthew M.F. Miller explains how the pandemic has immeasurably altered our relationship with tech. Shondaland

Mary Mammoliti explains what it’s like to be blind in a socially distanced world. Refinery 29

Naomi Scherbel-Ball: Africa declared free of wild poliovirus. BBC

Katherine Ellison wonders who’s caring for the carers. Knowable

Zaria Gorvett explains why modern medicine ignores transgendered people. BBC

Abigail Bassett helps you determine whether someone is actually “toxic.” Shondaland

Is success hard work or luck? This actually plays into our perception (or lack thereof) of our privilege. Veritasium

Martha Mendoza and Frank Baker: massive northern California wildfires rage on. AP

Nell Greenfield Boyce: water, water, everywhere—and now scientists know where it came from. NPR

Joshua Sokol profiles the worst animal in the world: the mosquito. The Atlantic

Lesley Evans Ogden reports on the sea otter rescue plan that worked too well. BBC

Eva Botkin-Kowacki: herd community means there’s more to cows than we thought. Christian Science Monitor

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you were able to take away something to inspire your next creative project.

This weekend, I should be posting my August next chapter update. Until then, be well and stay safe.

ThoughtyThursday2019

Storytelling in learning

/ Melanie Marttila

Can you see why this might appeal to the Learning Mutt’s sensibilities?

Last week, I attended a great Webinar by Roger Courville of the 1080 group on incorporating stories into training.

 

 

His tips (in brief):

  • Keep it short and sweet;
  • Keep it relevant;
  • Keep it entertaining; and
  • Bring it back to your topic effectively.

In the past, I have also attended a Webinar by Nancy Duarte regarding her particular angle on storytelling.  Her focus is more on presentation, which, as Roger pointed out, has a different purpose to training.

She looked at the three act story/play structure and saw a “shape” that could apply to verbal discourse.  She analyzed Martin Luther King and Steve Jobs to see if her theory worked, and it did.  She offered critical insights to presentation, and you can look up her TEDxEast lecture on the topic here.

I’ve also attended a Webinar by Terrence Garguilo of makingstories.net.  His point: stories beget stories.  Tell an effective story, and your participants will begin to create stories of their own going forward.

Overall, storytelling in training is a powerful tool.  It’s one of the oldest social networking strategies in existence.

I would encourage you to look up, follow, and/or attend Webinars by these fine people.

How I have used story in training:

  • In design, I use a metaphor to ties things together.  It could be a knightly quest, or planning a road trip, but tying your material into a metaphorical frame work will help to keep everything on track.  This can (and should) extend to the visuals you use/create for the course.
  • In written materials, to link to external resources that are “nice to know,” or might set learners off on a learning tangent.  A lot of blog posts utilize this technique to connect the reader to useful information.  There have been times when I’ve spent upwards of an hour following links from a single post I’ve subscribed to, discovering and learning, connecting the dots.
  • In-class, I’ve used practical stories of my own or other’s experiences to engage participants.

Do you use stories in your training?  In what ways?  Are there opportunities in your training to adopt storytelling as a tool?