some notes during reading "Networks, Crowds and Markets" by David Easley and Jon Kleinberg - Introduction

a network is a pattern of interconnections among a set of things

adding resources in a network can undermine its efficiency - Braess's paradox

a notion of equilibrium - a state that is self-reinforcing in that it provides no individual with an incentive to unilaterally change his or her strategy, even knowing how others will behave

we have a fundamental inclination to behave as we see other to behave: 1) the behavior of others convey the information or it is a direct benefit from aligning your behavior with that of others

in many cases you care more about aligning your own behavior with the behavior of your immediate neigbors  in the social network, rather than with the population as a whole.

a new behavior starts with a small set of initial adopters and then spread radially outward through the network.

a diffusion of technologies can be blocked by the boundary of a densely connected cluster in the network- a "closed community" of individuals who have a high amount of linkage among themselves, and hence are resistant to outside influences,

Things to learn about didactics - need to know for teachers and students

A month ago i was participating in the workshop organized by IMA, ZLW & IfU. The aim was to develop the concept for the interdisciplinary learning event. I suppose that this group was working mostly on the preparation of the workshop.

It was a great event. Just think that we plan a learning discipline with about 15 people where students were involved to!


I hope the event will take place at the summer term. Different departments should participate in it: databases and information systems, business administration, sociology, and product engineering. Therefore, before we start to conceptualize the event, we listened to some didactic tips that many of us know but forget. 


methods for learner interactions:

• think-pair-share (think alone, talk about it with a partner and present to others)
• buzz groups (lecturer provides some information and asks a question, the group is formed and the question is discussed in the group, the solution is presented to others)
• jigsaw (the same procedure as in previous cases but group formation is different. all experts of topics are distributed in groups, so that each group has an expert of each topic)

Memory:

• ultra short-term memory may give the information to the next memory if it is interesting. According to different sources it works  from 2 to 20 seconds.
• short-term memory can work till 20 minutes and send the information to the next memory if it is interesting. The capacity is limited in 7 entries (formulas, parameters, words, sentences - depends on how good a mind is trained). The capacity can be extended. 
• long-term memory stores the information for a long time. There are episodic (when did it happen?), declarative(general) and procedural memory (how did it happen?). BUT the information can be lost!!!

How can you prevent to loose the information from the long-term memory? 

• repeat the learned material by and by
• repeat the material in continuously increasing time intervals  
• 5 minutes pause after the learning block