Curated Industry Content for the Week of 01/25/16

Every Monday we curate a number of articles and blog posts that have relevance to members of the eLearning Guild Community, and to the learning and performance field as a whole. Each piece of content that we share includes a brief introduction from the member of the Guild Community sharing why they think the content is important.

Here’s the content for this week:

Why I Taught Myself to Procrastinate by Adam Grant
Procrastination is fairly universally seen as a bad thing. But is it really? This article explores the potential positive effects procrastination can have on creativity. -David Kelly

Make Yourself Smarter With These Beautifully Illustrated, Fact-Filled Instagrams by Rebecca OConnell
This article highlights the Instagram account of Mike Lowery. While the facts shared via the account are definitely interesting, I share it here as a great example of how visuals can be used as a source of learning. -David Kelly

Making Learning Easy by Design by Sandra Nam
I share this article for two reasons. First, it offers great tips related to the design decisions made for an app designed with learning in mind. Second, it’s also a great example of someone narrating their work so others can learn from the writer’s experience. -David Kelly

Inside the Growing Social Media Skills Gap by Ryan Holmes
Social media is a critical platform to connect internal employees, and to connect with external customers. While many people use applications like facebook and Twitter daily, this article explores an important skills gap – the difference between using social media personally and using it for work. -David Kelly

7 free tools for anyone who wants to become a better writer by Kat Moon
Writing is a core competency for designers of learning programs. This post shares a number of great free tools that can be used to enhance your writing skills – Daily Page is one of my favorites. -David Kelly

What Science Is, and How and Why It Works by Neil deGrasse Tyson
There are plenty of practices used by learning professionals that are common despite there being little evidence that the practice is effective or worse, there is evidence that dispels the practice. Why do practices like these persist? Perhaps we need to incorporate the objectivity of the scientific method into our practices more. This article from famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson explains why the scientific method is so important. -David Kelly

What are you reading?

If you have an article, blog post, or other resource that you think we should consider sharing in a future Curated Industry Content post, please feel free to send a link to the resource to David Kelly along with a few sentences describing why you think the resource is valuable.