The Promise of Personalized Learning
As public budgets shrink, schools look toward online models for ways to improve student performance but, however cost-effective, they cannot replace the human element in teaching. Here's a hybrid model called blended learning in which computers help students achieve competency by letting them work at their own pace while teachers are freed to do what they do best: guide, engage, and inspire. ... posted on Aug 15 2015, 5,129 reads

I Teach to Learn: Compassion in Education
"Learning, today, is heavily rooted in the material realm. It's almost an assembly line to get a job, to get money, to survive, and for the few who get past that -- to conquer. Materialistic endeavors are, of course, very useful to operate in the world, but it requires a very different skill-set to engage with our inner values." In this essay, Nipun Mehta explores what it takes to grow our "Compas... posted on Aug 14 2015, 20,505 reads

Love at First Sight: K9s Online
12,000 animals come through the doors of the Humane Society of Utah every year, all of which are in need of a new and loving home. Help has come in the form of an unlikely team member, a photographer who is working wonders at uniting man and his best friend. Guinnevere Shuster's "photo booth" style portraits do a much better job of capturing the personalities of the dogs than standard snapshots, r... posted on Aug 13 2015, 4,448 reads

Rescuing Social Change From the Cult of Technology
"Technology is terrific...But in the end, there's no real progress without change in people." This is the conclusion that Kentaro Toyama, leader of Microsoft Research India, reached after five years of working to implement technological solutions for social change. Hear his reflections on progress, technology, and the human will.... posted on Aug 12 2015, 14,439 reads

When You Give a Tree an Email Address
Given the chance to speak to a tree, what would you say? Recently, officials in Melbourne assigned trees in the city limits each an email addresses to help locals report broken limbs and other potential dangers. It turns out though, that people weren't as concerned with communicating about the trees as they were interested in communicating with them. Hear what people had to share, heart to heartwo... posted on Aug 10 2015, 9,436 reads

Body & Spirit: A Conversation with Sculptor Stephen DeStaebler
"We live in our body like its an animate sculpture. The fact that most art in civilization has been figurative is not by accident. When you're more aware of your body, you're more on the edge of survival...We've been brought to think there are little cubbyholes for everything. But truer religion thrives on the questions that you'll never resolve. If you don't honor the potential of one of these ot... posted on Aug 09 2015, 9,270 reads

Can You Teach People to Have Empathy?
"According to the latest neuroscience research, 98% of people (the exceptions include those with psychopathic tendencies) have the ability to empathise wired into their brains -- an in-built capacity for stepping into the shoes of others and understanding their feelings and perspectives.The problem is that most don't tap into their full empathic potential in everyday life."... posted on Aug 08 2015, 23,775 reads

Love as a Great Transition Story
We may imagine love to be quite utopian, but consider the alternatives. In not choosing love we are left with law and the prospect of global bureaucratic stagnation. In not choosing law we are left with force and the prospect of either global devastation or global domination. If we value our freedom and vitality as a species, we are obliged to do no less than learn to love one another as a human f... posted on Aug 07 2015, 16,931 reads

Peter Kingsley on Remembering What We Have Forgotten
In this interview author Peter Kingsley points out that "there's something infinitely precious at the origins of (Western) civilization. The trouble is that it's been lost because we started taking it for granted...The challenge (is) to wake up now and take responsibility for what we have been given." ... posted on Aug 06 2015, 3,619 reads

The Pixel Painter
Passion has no expiry date. This is rings true for Grandpa who at 97 years continues to follow his passion for painting. The world has changed phenomenally in his lifetime. He spent his career as a typographer, creating letterforms by hand but now, thanks to his grandson, he produces his art on the computer. This sweet film showcases some of Hal Lasko's work as well as his abundant energy for crea... posted on Aug 05 2015, 4,106 reads