The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 5,600 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 9 years to get that many views.
See on Scoop.it – skills services
“For learning to be successful it has to have a social ingredient in it. This social ingredient requires observation, attention and interaction. Students tend to learn better when they use their observational skills attentively. Thankfully, the new emerging technology provides these requirements and the onus is on the teacher to show students how to use and leverage such technology in their learning.”
See on www.educatorstechnology.com
Article from Scientific American by Tori Rodriguez. Very interesting that creative insight grows during ones less than best times of the day. Shared by Miguel Escotet.
“… Your least productive time of day may be the perfect opportunity for a moment of insight, according to a study from a recent issue of Thinking & Reasoning.
“Mareike Wieth, an assistant professor of psychological science at Albion College, and her colleagues divided study participants into morning types and evening types based on their answers on the Morningness Eveningness Questionnaire [...] but subjects’ performance on tasks requiring creative insight was consistently better during their nonoptimal times of day.”
To read more follow this link: http://miguelescotet.visibli.com/share/yeY28k
From Zen Habits – Breathe - http://zenhabits.net/learn/ To read more follow the link.
‘We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.’ ~Lloyd Alexander.
Post written by Leo Babauta.
“I am a teacher and an avid learner, and I’m passionate about both.
I’m a teacher because I help Eva homeschool our kids — OK, she does most of the work, but I do help, mostly with math but with everything else too. I also teach habits, writing/blogging, simplicity and other fun topics in online courses.
I’m a lifelong learner and am always obsessively studying something, whether that’s breadmaking or language or wine or chess or writing or fitness.
Here’s are two key lessons — both really the same lesson — I’ve learned about learning, in all my years of study and in trying to teach people:
- Almost everything I’ve learned, I didn’t learn in school; and
- Almost everything my students (and kids) have learned, they learned on their own.
Those two lessons (or one lesson) have a number of reasons and implications for learning. Let’s take a look at some of them, in hopes you might find them useful.”
Related Articles
Lists from Marc and Angel Hack Life – thanks to them for extensive lists – follow the link to see the lists:
“All education is self-education. Period. It doesn’t matter if you’re sitting in a college classroom or a coffee shop. We don’t learn anything we don’t want to learn.
Those people who take the time and initiative to pursue knowledge on their own are the only ones who earn a real education in this world. Take a look at any widely acclaimed scholar, entrepreneur or historical figure you can think of. Formal education or not, you’ll find that he or she is a product of continuous self-education.
If you’re interested in learning something new, this article is for you. Broken down by subject and/or category, here are several top-notch self-education resources I have bookmarked online over the past few years.”
Image below and content from this link: http://www.marcandangel.com/2010/11/15/12-dozen-places-to-self-educate-yourself-online/
Shared from OnlineUniversities.com: “Social media resources like Google Plus offer a great opportunity for growth in education through collaborative work, communication, and camaraderie. Many of today’s universitieshave recognized this incredible potential, and have put G+ to work on campus. We’ve discovered more than 30 great ways universities are currently using Google Plus, along with several ideas for the future. Read on to learn about the amazing possibilities that Google Plus offers for universities.”
Reference: http://networkedblogs.com/wNNzx (Accessed 24/04/2012).
Today I am sharing information about three new Education start-ups from an article by Nick DeSantis from The Chronicle of Higher Education: The first is a transfer college called Altius Education (a very much needed idea for South Africa, with our problematic achievements in Grade 12). The second is OpenStudy which has focused on soft skills, again an area requiring attention in South Africa. The third is about Sophia a social learning platform purchased by Capella Education System.
“The theme of disrupting higher education was buzzing among hundreds of conference attendees this week at the Education Innovation Summit at Arizona State University. The event offered start-up companies a captive audience for pitching their products. Here’s a small sample of announcements they made:
Altius Education: This company has already gained prominence among educators for its creation of a “transfer college,” which gives students a bridge to a bachelor’s degree by helping them transfer to traditional four-year institutions. And now the chief executive of Altius, Paul Freedman, has bigger plans—he wants to put “the flying car of higher education” in the driveway of every student. The engine, he says, is called Helix, a new tool that seeks to reinvent what learning-management software can do…
OpenStudy: Traditional grades are one-dimensional. Transcripts don’t convey how good students are at working with others and
Image via CrunchBase
solving problems. That’s the argument made by the leaders of OpenStudy, the social-learning network that calls itself a “global study group.” To fill in those gaps, the company has introduced SmartScore, a measurement of “soft skills” including teamwork, problem-solving, and engagement. In a blog post that previewed SmartScore’s introduction, OpenStudy’s co-founder, Preetha Ram, said the tool would ‘challenge the traditional notions of intelligence normally quantified by grades…’
Sophia: The social platform for teaching and learning was purchased this week by Capella Education Company, the parent of the for-profit Capella University. The partnership means Sophia will roll out low-cost college courses online, beginning with a college-algebra course in June…”
[Creative Commons licensed Flickr photo by tsutatsuta]
Reference: http://ht.ly/1iT2ic (Accessed 19/04/2012).
From International Hub – The Guardian - article by Sarah Duff
Youth unemployment rates are worryingly high, yet education policy and culture make higher education a priority for students, says Sarah Duff.
Photograph: Alexander Joe/AFP/Getty Images
“The end of the first week of teaching in the South African academic year is an experience that any academic at any university around the world would recognise: the chaos of finding timetables and new lecture venues …
…In January, Angie Motshekga, the minister for basic education, announced with some fanfare that 70.2% of the pupils who sat the examinations for the national senior certificate – usually referred to as matric – passed. In a country with high levels of deprivation and poor resource allocation, this appears to be a magnificent achievement.
Unfortunately, the celebrations hid a few worrying facts. In 2011, according to the well-respected NGO, Equal Education, … of the 923,463 pupils who began grade 1 in 2000, only 496,090 took matric in 2011, meaning that nearly half dropped out during their school career.” Therefore of … “all those who began school in 2000, the real matric pass rate falls to 38%. ” This is indeed a very worrying fact.
“…despite the fact there are about 600,000 unemployed graduates in South Africa, university education is seen as the only pathway to employment. I would rather the department of higher education and training invested in FET colleges …”
However, I would like to point out that these moves are already taking place – see South African Education Green Paper. This is a major focus of Dr Nzimande, Minister of Education. The Green Paper is available for download at the following link which also has a great article: Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme: http://www.scaprogramme.org.za/2012/02/the-green-paper-for-post-school-education-and-training-in-south-africa/
To read more of Sarah Duff’s article follow the link below:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/higher-education-network-blog/2012/apr/18/south-africa-vocational-training?newsfeed=true (Accessed 18/04/2012).
The first graphic shows “What is Social Learning?” and is from SkillSoft on Overdrive Interactive: http://blog.ovrdrv.com/overdrive-develops-social-learning-infographic-for-skillsoft/ (Accessed 18/04/2012).
From Future Workplace:
http://futureworkplace.com/wp-content/uploads/Social-Learning-Infographic.pdf (Accessed 18/04/2012).
Follow this link to see the graphic: Social-Learning-Infographic
This week has seen the last Networked Learning Conference Hotseat for this year – Managing your Online Learner Identity
Having followed the Hotseat discussions, the topic seems to have raised more questions than it has answered. It started with a discussion about what we mean by online learner identity, online identity, learner identity, or simply identity and is this different online to offline, and can we ever not be learning?
