Technology in Education

Technology in Education - podcast

I recently had a very interesting discussion with Andy Davis of Venturi about the role of technology in Higher Education and its effects on students, staff, and on the challenges the sector faces. Do check it out, particularly if you work in education or the third sector.

Comments

Starting at the start - why write a blog?

Why start a blog on Pychology for IT Pros (and other technical people)? Whilst there's a huge amount of information tailored to traditional business, and an increasing body of work around startups and their associated culture, there is very little that directly relates to the day-to-day working life of technical people and what they do. This is a major omission; whilst technical people may be different in that part of the job involves dealing with machines, a huge part of the work is with, for, and mediated by, other people. There's a good argument that the role of IT people is to form the bridge between computer systems and the rest of the organisation. The aim of this blog is to use evidence from psychology, neuroscience and other related fields to give you insight into how you can do your job more effectively, and be happier whilst doing so. You may well be wondering if reading this blog will be worth your time, aside from the absence of anyone else writing on the the t...

Why work?

This is the first of a series of post on happiness at work. Happiness is one of the most valuable practical outcomes of applying psychology, and doing so at work can be transformative. We typically spend 40 hours a week working, which is a very long time to be doing something which makes us miserable. Few people I've met had really made a point of pursuing happiness at work. It's not a widely held expectation that we should enjoy our jobs, and perhaps even the opposite is true, that there is some moral value in spending time doing something you find unpleasant. This internalisation of the Protestant Work Ethic has been, perhaps surprisingly, escaped the Danes. They have word for happiness at work, Arbejdsglæde, and both expect the workplace to allow them to be happy, and make decisions in support of that. This has considerable benefits, including a higher per-capita GDP than the UK. Before I get stuck in, it's important to define what I mean by happiness here. What I...

How to change things

In the past few posts I've covered quite a few potential sources of dissatisfaction at work. You might have found yourself in a job which sits poorly with your personal identity , or you may have found yourself in a workplace which lacks sufficient trust . This post is focused on some methods with a good psychological backing to help you change yourself so you can get closer to the things you want. I'm focusing on self-change here as it's perhaps the most fundamental thing you can do to address an unhappy situation, and has the most profound effects. There's a lot of resonance in this topic for me personally, and this blog is a part of my own change process. First, I'm going to discuss approaches that make change more likely, then I'll move on to techniques for determining what kind of positive change you really want to make. Making change more likely Much like actively designing a computer system is far better than letting circumstance design it for you, pla...

Psychology for IT pros

Search This Blog