Trending In Ed with Mike Palmer

This week, Mike sits down with bestselling author, keynote speaker, and disruptive storyteller Erik Qualman, aka Equalman, to explore how best to manage one's digital brand in the 21st Century.Drawing from examples from Erik's life, we dig into how privacy is eroding and how a thoughtful understanding of one's digital stamp, a combination of your digital footprint and your digital shadow, is key to success in modern life. Erik imparts nuggets of wisdom as only a motivational speaker can as he and Mike explore what life is becoming in a post-privacy world.If you want to get motivated to unlock your inner superpowers, then this is the episode for you!

A recent survey of 3000 children between the ages of eight and 11 showed that a majority of US and UK children are more interested in becoming a YouTube star than an astronaut. In China, the majority of respondents preferred to pursue a career in space, with Vlogger as the least popular option. We welcome Brandon back as a guest to discuss all this, plus Legos, AsCans, Space X and more. Strap on your virtual (or actual?) space helmet and get ready for liftoff with a midsummer Extra from your friends at Trending in Education.

On the heels of recent coverage in The Wall Street Journal and Wired, the team digs into the news that a new form of Poker AI named Pluribus, has been winning in games versus poker pros. The surprising secret to Pluribus’ game? Surprisingly, it’s bluffing!Mike and Dan begin the conversation and are joined by an old friend to explore what this can teach us about human intelligence, machine learning, and game theory. We also pitch a few development ideas for a human/AI poker tournament along the way. Push all in on one more poker show with us on this week’s installment of Trending in Education. 

As we’ve said on numerous occasions, you need 21st Century skills to pay those 21st Century bills. To that end, Coursera, the online learning platform, recently released its inaugural Global Skills Index, billed as "data-driven insights into the world’s top career skills.". Dan and Mike are once again joined by Melissa Griffith as we dive into the global insights this report has to offer. What skills are most sought after by Coursera’s users? How might this data be interpreted to understand global upskilling trends? Are there any gaps or biases in the data that Coursera is working with and how might future 'GSI' reports look as Coursera refines this report? What other learning platforms could add broader context to what’s happening with global skill development? How does the United State stack up against the rest of the world and how should we interpret those comparisons?We cover these questions and tie the conversation to broader trends in workforce development and the future of work on this week’s show. Enjoy! 

Amazon announced they'll be investing over 700 million dollars in upskilling and reskilling a large portion of their current workforce between now and 2025. Over the next six years, the retail giant will be providing training in AWS, machine learning, and other areas of work within the organization. Mike and Dan are joined by Melissa Griffith to dive into what this could mean to the future of work at Amazon and beyond. We also explore the implications to the broader field of workforce development as AI and automation intersects with human upskilling.How is Amazon choosing which employees will receive this training? What sort of data might Amazon collect to measure the efficacy? Should that data be open or proprietary? How might this training scale to other companies? Get primed and ready to go as you dive into this episode on what’s emerging in workforce training at Amazon.

This week, we dive into the learning myth of "summer learning loss." Based on a recent article from EducationNext.org, we discuss the history of summer learning loss, where the current mythology stands, and how we might move forward with a better understanding of school calendars, summer assignments and more.If you’re in search of summer learning gain, this is the podcast for you!

Have you ever felt like you don't have one true calling? When asked what you wanted to be when you grew up, did multiple answers spring to mind? On today's extra, we dive into the idea of multipotentiality, spurred by a recent TED talk by Emilie Wapnick. In a world where much of the discussion around talent and career advancement has focused on deep specialization, what role can sharp, flexible generalists play in the future of work? How is the latest research pointing to the benefits of pairing experts with generalists to drive towards creativity and a good blend of both vertical and lateral thinking? We discuss these topics and reflect on our own perspectives on talent on our latest extra. Enjoy!

We’re “all-in” this week, as we welcome Annie Duke, author of Thinking In Bets and retired poker pro, to the show. Annie begins by sharing the long, winding path she took to become an author and expert in decision science. From her time as a PhD student in cognitive science to her introduction to poker as a novice, to her inspiration to write her books, Annie provides great detail on all of the influences throughout her life that have come together to write Thinking In Bets. We also dive into the non-profit, The Alliance for Decision Education, that Annie co-founded in 2012 and discuss how she hopes to push decision education at scale to millions of students in K12. How do we get decision-making wrong? How often do we worry about the result, see Pete Carroll’s play-calling in Super Bowl XLIX, rather than the process that led to the decision? If we were to teach students the basics of good decision-making, how might this improve their ability to decide quickly and adapt to a variety of environments and novel contexts critical to learning and the future of work? We discuss all that and more on this week’s episode. Pull up a seat, ante up, and join us for an engaging conversation! 

Following on the heels of our conversation with the researchers who studied the impact of environmental factors, including temperature, on performance, here we dive in to get more reactions from Dan, Mike, and a few friends of the show. The most buzzworthy component of the research has been the findings that women, on average, perform better on cognitive tasks in warmer temperatures while men, on average, tend to perform better in cooler temperatures. We welcome Dr Erika Blumenthal to the show for the first time to get her takes on this hot topic, and bring back friend of the show, Kristen Smith, to help round out the conversation. Find a microclimate to listen optimally, turn up the volume, listen in and enjoy. 

You most likely saw a news article or morning television show covering a recent study on temperature and performance. Mike and Dan chat with the researchers behind the story! Debates have raged for decades on office temperature and how it might change the way we work. This research shows that women do perform better in warmer temperatures, while men perform better in cooler temperatures. We talk with Dr. Agne Kajackaite, WZB, Berlin Social Science Center and Dr. Tom Chang, Associate Professor of Finance and Business Economics at USC about the process, results, and potential implications of their project.How might educators and test proctors better understand how a shared environment can be best set up for everyone? Can students use this sort of information to prepare themselves for better performance on test day? We discuss all this and what other factors, such as pollen levels, might truly change one's ability to perform at top levels.