"Imagination is more important than knowledge..."
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
IMAGINATION!
WOW! Dear President Obama, thank you so much for your support and encouragement. I am literally flattered to get your recognition and appreciation for my historical achievement. "Zaid, I have been a fan of your site, ever since you discovered my little secret. Your discovery led me to your work, and I have been following ever since."
Sometimes I wonder where I get my imagination from! Nurturing our imagination is a critical learning tool to facilitate creativity, innovation and invention (perhaps the most important!). Imagination is an amazing visualization tool, and many people apply this to improve their abilities and skills in the real world. For example, great footballers (soccer players) often use their imagination to visualize how they might score before a game, and it often helps them to make the right decision when the real opportunity comes along.
However, imagination is also important to our mental health and happiness. When we were kids, we could have lots of fun with ourselves using our amazing imagination. I remember scoring the winning goal in the FIFA world cup final, slam dunking Shaq in his face, running the 100 meters in 4 seconds, winning Wimbledon without picking up a tennis racket, beating Mike Tyson in the first round, fighting aliens in galaxy Gaga, etc.
But then when we grow older our imagination and dreams seem to fade away, and the real world hits in. We come to realize that perhaps we will not be able to achieve such remarkable things that our imagination inspired us with when we were young. Our urge to greatness (Freud), or urge to feel important (Carnegie) in the real world becomes a burden, which leads many into depression, and some to mental hospitals... (Enjoy your imagination!)
I will continue this interesting 'Imagination' stuff in another post, but now let's get back to...
Sometimes I wonder where I get my imagination from! Nurturing our imagination is a critical learning tool to facilitate creativity, innovation and invention (perhaps the most important!). Imagination is an amazing visualization tool, and many people apply this to improve their abilities and skills in the real world. For example, great footballers (soccer players) often use their imagination to visualize how they might score before a game, and it often helps them to make the right decision when the real opportunity comes along.
However, imagination is also important to our mental health and happiness. When we were kids, we could have lots of fun with ourselves using our amazing imagination. I remember scoring the winning goal in the FIFA world cup final, slam dunking Shaq in his face, running the 100 meters in 4 seconds, winning Wimbledon without picking up a tennis racket, beating Mike Tyson in the first round, fighting aliens in galaxy Gaga, etc.
But then when we grow older our imagination and dreams seem to fade away, and the real world hits in. We come to realize that perhaps we will not be able to achieve such remarkable things that our imagination inspired us with when we were young. Our urge to greatness (Freud), or urge to feel important (Carnegie) in the real world becomes a burden, which leads many into depression, and some to mental hospitals... (Enjoy your imagination!)
I will continue this interesting 'Imagination' stuff in another post, but now let's get back to...
POWERLINKS
I am glad to announce that my PowerLink collection has smashed (or broken) the 1000-barrier. In other words, the PowerLink collection consists now of more than 1000 links (or URLs). If you are looking for juicy learning resources, I strongly recommend (Isn't this shameless self promotion!) that you subscribe to one of my PowerLink collections (Delicious or Diigo). Currently, there are 130+ delicious users already subscribing to the delicious collection. It is called 'fans' there, which I find kind of annoying. 'Followers' would probably sound more appropriate. Perhaps they could let us change the term to whatever word we like. Now that would be cool!
Though, you don't need to be a delicious or Diigo user to subscribe. Instead, one can for example copy/paste the link (e.g. http://delicious.com/zaidlearn) into an RSS Newsreader (e.g. Google Reader) and swoosh you will get the latest updates as I discover. Better yet, if you think that I discover a lot of rubbish, and only want to for example subscribe to the new learning tools I discover, you can subscribe to a particular tag (http://delicious.com/zaidlearn/Tools). Here are three tags that might be interesting to subscribe to:
Though, you don't need to be a delicious or Diigo user to subscribe. Instead, one can for example copy/paste the link (e.g. http://delicious.com/zaidlearn) into an RSS Newsreader (e.g. Google Reader) and swoosh you will get the latest updates as I discover. Better yet, if you think that I discover a lot of rubbish, and only want to for example subscribe to the new learning tools I discover, you can subscribe to a particular tag (http://delicious.com/zaidlearn/Tools). Here are three tags that might be interesting to subscribe to:
- Learning Tools (200+)
- EduGames(100+)
- EduBlogs (70+)
But, why subscribe to ZaidLearn's PowerLinks? Excellent point! Actually, there are many other great link collectors out there (Hint: check my delicious network for a few) with more links and fans (I mean followers!) than me (by a couple of miles!). In other words, you should subscribe to them, too.
So, why I am sharing all this with you. Actually, I want you to enjoy all the great learning resources I discover, which might not be reflected on this blog. Although, one can post daily updates from delicious or Diigo, I prefer not to, due to some funny mind boggling preferences. Also, one can actually find the latest updates on the right side column of this blog (somewhere there!), but that might not be so clear to most readers.
So, can you please answer the question? Alright, my PowerLink strategy is not to index and collect everything under the sun. Google does a great job at that. Coming to think of it, my PowerLink strategy is similar to how Warren Buffett might invest into a stock or company (Buffettology). In other words, when I look at a learning resource, I ask a few critical questions, and if they fail to meet them, I am not going to add them. For example, if I can't imagine visiting the link in a few years time, I will not add them to my PowerLink collection.
For example, there is no problem in indexing a few thousand learning tools, but how many of them would you really want to use? So, instead I only index those tools that I find useful, or really get me excited (and are FREE as far as I know!). For experts in the field that might sound annoying (they might want the full list), but for new comers it is often a blessing (or curse if you miss out) in disguise (No time!). It all depends! You might want to call it ZaidLearn approved learning resources. Nope, that didn't sound good.
Anyway, one way or the other, I do hope the PowerLink collection helps people out there. If it does, I am happy!
PRESIDENT?
Finally, I have decided to run for the President of the United States in 2012. "Have you gone pot! You are a foreigner, it is impossible! Even worse, you are a Muslim! They would...!" You got a good point there, but it is nice to imagine sometimes, what if? I firmly believe I could have done a better job than Bush (mark my words!). But, let's hope that President Obama is a positive change for America and the rest of the world. "He is not the President yet!" Can you imagine Palin becoming the President of United States? "You mean MCaine!" Is that any better? :)
So, why I am sharing all this with you. Actually, I want you to enjoy all the great learning resources I discover, which might not be reflected on this blog. Although, one can post daily updates from delicious or Diigo, I prefer not to, due to some funny mind boggling preferences. Also, one can actually find the latest updates on the right side column of this blog (somewhere there!), but that might not be so clear to most readers.
So, can you please answer the question? Alright, my PowerLink strategy is not to index and collect everything under the sun. Google does a great job at that. Coming to think of it, my PowerLink strategy is similar to how Warren Buffett might invest into a stock or company (Buffettology). In other words, when I look at a learning resource, I ask a few critical questions, and if they fail to meet them, I am not going to add them. For example, if I can't imagine visiting the link in a few years time, I will not add them to my PowerLink collection.
For example, there is no problem in indexing a few thousand learning tools, but how many of them would you really want to use? So, instead I only index those tools that I find useful, or really get me excited (and are FREE as far as I know!). For experts in the field that might sound annoying (they might want the full list), but for new comers it is often a blessing (or curse if you miss out) in disguise (No time!). It all depends! You might want to call it ZaidLearn approved learning resources. Nope, that didn't sound good.
Anyway, one way or the other, I do hope the PowerLink collection helps people out there. If it does, I am happy!
PRESIDENT?
Finally, I have decided to run for the President of the United States in 2012. "Have you gone pot! You are a foreigner, it is impossible! Even worse, you are a Muslim! They would...!" You got a good point there, but it is nice to imagine sometimes, what if? I firmly believe I could have done a better job than Bush (mark my words!). But, let's hope that President Obama is a positive change for America and the rest of the world. "He is not the President yet!" Can you imagine Palin becoming the President of United States? "You mean MCaine!" Is that any better? :)
1 comment:
Nice post as always. I like your last paragraph about imagining becoming the next US president *lol* And hey, Obama really COULD ;)
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