health – Hybrid Learning

How I Kept My Sense of Humor

Batoota — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 09:24:09 +0000

It’s remarkable to watch a five-year-old draw, void of any anxiety about what the world will think. We all start our lives creatively confident, happy to create and share our work with pride. And then, as we age, our comfort with creative expression declines. We’re discouraged by the learning curve of creative skills and tools, by our tendency to compare ourselves to others, and by the harsh opinions of critics. As Picasso famously quipped, “All children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.”

Well, we’re entering an era that changes everything. A few critical technology breakthroughs and fundamentally more accessible platforms are changing everything. From free web-based tools with templates that help conquer the fear of the blank screen to powerful generative artificial intelligence that conjures up anything from a text prompt, expressing yourself creatively no longer requires climbing creativity’s notoriously steep learning curve.

Most of those who have succeeded in life can trace their success back to the essential education they obtained from parents, teachers and/ or friends.
T-Ralph Olaniyi

People from communities of color are underrepresented in publishing. Our books make up less than six percent of the titles released each year, and that’s despite a century of fighting against the gatekeepers. The results of this systematic exclusion are clear: we are also elided from the national conversation, starting in elementary school. Those who live in this country are trained by textbooks, libraries, classrooms, TV, and cinema to see US life as almost exclusively white.

The Death of Creativity’s Learning Curve

There is so much else to praise

Welcome to an era in which the friction between an idea, and creatively expressing that idea, is removed. Whether it is as an image, an essay, an animated story, or even a video, you can simply talk about what you see in your mind’s eye.

“But that’s not real creativity!” some may exclaim. Until now, “creativity” has conflated both the generation of ideas and the process involved to express those ideas. Michelangelo, for instance, believed that each stone has a statue inside it and the sculptor discovers it by chipping away. Most artists today can’t afford 13 human assistants, but they use other tools to reduce the laborious parts of creativity, including AI-powered shortcuts, component libraries for product designers, templates, and now generative AI. This latest breakthrough has elicited both fanfare and fear because of its ability to conjure up an original piece of media based solely on a text prompt.

Of course, behind the scenes, the machine learning engines that drive AI creation were trained using millions of pieces of content from real artists, many of whom never consented to have their work used in that way. To correct this, I anticipate a series of regulations, evolutions in copyright law, new walled gardens and token-gated portfolio experiences, and new compensation models for artists that opt-in and/or allow the use of their style for GenerativeAI purposes.

Welcoming & Adapting to Ubiquitous Creative Confidence

As the expression of ideas becomes exponentially easier, the ideas themselves become more of the differentiator (yes, I think “Prompt Engineering” will become a discipline in and of itself!). Good ideas aren’t derived solely from logic and patterns of the past; they’re also the product of human traumas, mistakes of the eye, and uniquely human ingenuity. I am excited about AI, but I am ultimately long on creativity (aka humanity).

It’s important to distinguish pragmatism from the various forms of postmodern thinking

Much like every sport’s top athletes improve every generation, so should creatives. I would argue that AI is like some breakthrough new racket or sneaker — it almost unfairly elevates the game for every player and allows the very best to advance the game itself. Revolutionary tennis rackets and string technology allowed any weekend player to hit shots they never would have been capable of before. But it didn’t turn them into Rafa Nadal or Roger Federer. People with extraordinary talent, dedication, an

Men & Women Are Biological Opposites

Batoota — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 09:22:35 +0000

Most of those who have succeeded in life can trace their success back to the essential education they obtained from parents, teachers and/ or friends.
T-Ralph Olaniyi

The Death of Creativity’s Learning Curve

There is so much else to praise

Welcoming & Adapting to Ubiquitous Creative Confidence

It’s important to distinguish pragmatism from the various forms of postmodern thinking

Health Care Roulette

Batoota — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 09:21:19 +0000

Your Table Sugar May Not Be Vegan

Batoota — Wed, 04 Jan 2023 19:20:10 +0000

I’m Vaccinated. My Kids Aren’t. What’s Safe for Us to Do?

Batoota — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 17:34:00 +0000

The COVID-19 vaccine is currently not authorized for use in children under the age of 16.
While children appear to be less affected by COVID-19 than adults, they’re not at zero risk from infection and illness.
Families must weigh the benefits versus risks when deciding what activities to partake in with unvaccinated children.

As more and more adults across the United States receive the COVID-19 vaccine, families with unvaccinated children are left with many questions about which activities are safe to participate in this summer.

Two of the three vaccines currently on the market are authorized for use in adults 18 and older, while the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is authorized for people 16 and older.

Pfizer recently released data stating its vaccine is safe and effective for children 12 to 15 years old.

Experts expect children in this age group to start getting vaccinated soon, maybe even as early as next month.

Testing is also underway in children under 12 and as young as 6 months. But these trials are expected to take longer; younger children may need different doses than adolescents and adults.

“If all goes well, we’re looking at probably early 2022 when we would see emergency use authorization for younger kids,” Dr. Stanley Spinner, vice president and chief medical officer at Texas Children’s Pediatrics and Texas Children’s Urgent Care.

That leaves a lot of time and uncertainty for parents trying to navigate a post-vaccine world where they’re protected but their children are still at risk of infection and transmitting the virus to others.

How COVID-19 affects children and how to evaluate risk

The good news is that children appear to be less affected by COVID-19 than adults.

“Fortunately, children seem to have a lower risk of severe illness from the virus,” said Dr. Dane Snyder, section chief of primary care pediatrics at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. “The risk is still there. It’s just much lower than adults.”

Spinner also emphasized that children are much less likely to be hospitalized or die from COVID-19, but noted there are kids who have been severely affected.

“Here at Texas Children’s, just like at other pediatric hospitals across the country, we continue to have children in the ICU due to COVID infection,” he said. “Most of these children are at higher risk due to their underlying conditions, but some were completely healthy and we wouldn’t have expected there to be a problem.”

As such, parents should continue to take precautions to keep unvaccinated children safe, especially those who are medically vulnerable.

“We don’t live in a zero-risk world, so the bottom line is figuring out how much risk is anyone willing to take when making a decision,” Spinner said. “There are so many variables that one has to consider.”

Healthline asked Spinner and Snyder to offer guidance on what factors parents should weigh when deciding whether to partake in the following activities with their unvaccinated children. Here’s what they said.

Visiting with grandparents and other relatives

Both experts emphasized the importance of human interaction, especially with loved ones.

“That’s such an important part of our lives, both short term and long term, so it’s important to include those benefits when it comes to evaluating risk,” Snyder said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that fully vaccinated people can visit with unvaccinated people from a single household who are not at severe risk of COVID-19 indoors without wearing masks.

This means kids who don’t have an underlying condition that puts them at risk of COVID-19 complications can safely visit with their fully vaccinated grandparents.

For high-risk children, Spinner recommends being a bit more cautious. Visiting outdoors and wearing masks is one way to do this.

“We’re still not 100 percent sure that everyone who is fully vaccinated may not transmit the virus,” Spinner said. “We’re still learning.”

When you start bringing other unvaccinated people into the mix, this is when it becomes more complicated.

“If you have a family member who isn’t masking when going out and engages in socially risky behavior, that may alter the dynamics of getting together,” Spinner said.

People want to improve mental health by exercising, but stress and anxiety get in the way

Batoota — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 17:24:01 +0000

New research from McMaster University suggests the pandemic has created a paradox where mental health has become both a motivator for and a barrier to physical activity.

People want to be active to improve their mental health but find it difficult to exercise due to stress and anxiety, say the researchers who surveyed more than 1,600 subjects in an effort to understand how and why mental health, physical activity and sedentary behavior have changed throughout the course of the pandemic.

The results are outlined in the journal PLOS ONE.

“Maintaining a regular exercise program is difficult at the best of times and the conditions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic may be making it even more difficult,” says Jennifer Heisz, lead author of the study and an associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster.

“Even though exercise comes with the promise of reducing anxiety, many respondents felt too anxious to exercise. Likewise, although exercise reduces depression, respondents who were more depressed were less motivated to get active, and lack of motivation is a symptom of depression,” she says.

Respondents reported higher psychological stress and moderate levels of anxiety and depression triggered by the pandemic. At the same time, aerobic activity was down about 20 minutes per week, strength training down roughly 30 minutes per week, and sedentary time was up about 30 minutes per day compared to six months prior to the pandemic.

Those who reported the greatest declines in physical activity also experienced the worst mental health outcomes, the researchers reported, while respondents who maintained their physical activity levels fared much better mentally.

Researchers also found economic disparities played a role, particularly among younger adults.

“Just like other aspects of the pandemic, some demographics are hit harder than others and here it is people with lower income who are struggling to meet their physical activity goals,” says Maryam Marashi, a graduate student in the Department of Kinesiology and co-lead author of the study. “It is plausible that younger adults who typically work longer hours and earn less are lacking both time and space which is taking a toll.”

After analysing the data, the researchers designed an evidence-based toolkit which includes the following advice to get active:

Adopt a mindset: Some exercise is better than none.
Lower exercise intensity if feeling anxious.
Move a little every day.
Break up sedentary time with standing or movement breaks.
Plan your workouts like appointments by blocking off the time in your calendar.

“Our results point to the need for additional psychological supports to help people maintain their physical activity levels during stressful times in order to minimize the burden of the pandemic and prevent the development of a mental health crisis,” says Heisz