Olga Werby

Olga Werby, Ed.D., has a Doctorate from U.C. Berkeley with a focus on designing online learning experiences. She has a Master's degree from U.C. Berkeley in Education of Math, Science, and Technology. She has been creating computer-based projects since 1981 with organizations such as NASA (where she worked on the Pioneer Venus project), Addison-Wesley, and the Princeton Review. She conceived, designed, and illustrated the award-winning "Field Trips" series of programs distributed by Sunburst Communications. Olga has a B.A. degree in Mathematics and Astrophysics from Columbia University. Olga currently teaches interaction design and cognitive theory at the American University in Paris and the University of California at Berkeley Extension Program. She was part of the faculty of San Francisco State University's Multimedia Studies Program, the Bay Area Video Coalition, and the campus of Apple Computers. Olga is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education. She also holds a California teaching credential and is part of the San Francisco Unified School District where she often tests science-related curriculum materials in public elementary and middle schools.

Anchoring Errors, Background Knowledge Errors, Diagnostic Errors, Errors, Newsletter, Perception, Users

Human Limitations

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Giraffe-sized Asteroid

We live in a vast universe that spans enormous scapes of time and space. But humans evolved to understand information in relatable quantities at a human scale. We conceive landscapes mostly in chunks we can easily walk, connected loosely by strands of distances we can comfortably drive. We live in the now, but relate to the future in terms of a past that we dimly remember. We can make plans just within a very narrow scope of time — days, perhaps weeks. The future is always elusive and vague. We don’t comprehend spans of time outside of our experience. The span of a million years, ten million, a hundred million, or even just a thousand are concepts which we can intellectualize about but can’t really feel. Even in our interactions as members of a species, we can each just maintain a web of a few dozen relationships. Space, time, and human interactions are limited for us. We don’t process and, thus, don’t truly comprehend, information of large or very small scales that are beyond our direct experience. It’s not who we are as humans. This has all sorts of ramifications beyond the obvious. It’s why it’s easy for us to…

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book promotion, Newsletter

Extravagant

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Free Science Fiction

The Latin root of the word extravagant means “to wander outside or beyond.” Clearly the meaning changed somewhat over the years, but wandering in unfamiliar places exposes our senses, and thus our brains, to new experiences. Our senses are hit with novel sights, sounds, and scents. We are getting something “extra” out of life when we venture beyond the familiar. I remember the first time I travelled to a tropical destination. The aroma, as I stepped out of the airport, was overwhelming; it was almost a physical wall of fragrance. There was no doubt that I was entering some place new. Novel sensual experiences impact how we think and remember, putting on a new track our normal train of thoughts. Wandering the world creates wonder. Changing our perspective in this way is a main reason to seek out new experiences. When we think, we don’t do so in isolation. Our minds are not soaring and thinking up ideas in an empty space. We think with our bodies and senses as much or more than we do with our minds. The sensory inputs we get as we move, work, and problem solve, feed us information and clues as to what to…

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book promotion, Long Term Memory, Newsletter, Perception

In-the-Moment Experience Versus Memory of Time

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San Francisco Pride Month Laser Show by Bruce Andersen 2023

Time really does fly. It marches like an unstoppable force. But our memories of the past events and our perception of time are not so immutable. In-the-moment experience and the memory of such are so very different. Our memories are problematic, at best, and completely fictional at worst. But we can choose what we remember; we can shape our own history.

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book promotion, Ethnographic & User Data, Newsletter

Imaginary Children

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April Giveaway header

Tamagotchis, AI companions, cars, and even rumbas have people that are heavily emotionally invested in these inanimate and abstract things, giving them pet names and interacting with them as if they were invested with souls. Perhaps humans jump to anthropomorphism inanimate objects faster than other species. But we are not alone in attributing life in this way. I wonder if intelligent life that evolved on other worlds possesses this trait as well? Is it a sign of higher consciousness or is it just an Earth thing?

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Book, book promotion

Amazon Book Sale

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reading versus watching

For many many years, I’ve been a sales associate at Amazon. I’ve started just as they’ve started, when selling books over the Internet was a novel and cool thing. I haven’t written back then (but soon after). And for as many years, Amazon has been trying to get me to promote things. But that’s just not what I do — I’m not interested in selling home products or pushing beauty items. In decades of being an associate, I’ve never made a dime, but I hope that some of my readers got discounts of books I’ve recommended over the years. This month, Amazon tried to reach out again by giving me a list of 200,000 products to choose from. And less than 0.5% of those were books. And of those, a smidgen of a percentage were books that I actually own and love, have bought over and over again (I have multiple copies of many of these; but I’m not a hoarder), my kids and friends have read, I’ve recommended and for which I wrote reviews. So, Amazon finally figured me out — it gave me an opportunity to share books with my readers that I endorse at a discount. So…

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