"What’s beautiful about Waze is how it constantly surprises you. “Here?! You want me to turn here, Wazy Daisy?” Not to sound like The Californians on SNL but we Angelenos pride ourselves on knowing the right route at any given moment (“Take the 90 to the 405 to the 10 to the 110 to the 101 to the 5, dude”). Waze just knows way better. The other day I’m taking what I think is the only route back home from Whole Foods. It’s the way I’ve driven for ten years. Traffic was slugging up so I asked Waze what to do. Two seconds later, I’m snaking around traffic on side roads — I swear — I didn’t even know existed. It also pointed out a traffic camera, a road hazard and flashed an icon where the stopped vehicle was blocking traffic on my normal route. I probably shaved ten minutes off the trip."
"Have you ever considered writing a book? Are you planning to self-publish the book? If so, you probably have a lot to learn about the various processes you need to go through and the companies that can best help you along the way.
"Check out “Your Guide To Self Publishing: From Print to Kindle and Beyond!” This guide is by Christian Cawley, a resident MakeUseOf writer who has self-published his own book multiple times. It’s a comprehensive guide to the self-publishing process in order to make your life easier when you embark on the journey.
"Whether you’re working on a piece of fiction, poetry or any other piece of literature, this guide outlines your self-publishing options – digital and physical alike."
"A little-known California company called Esri offers a “Facebook for Maps” that promises to change the way we interact with our environment, predict behavior, and make decisions in the decades ahead."
Established leaders have an obligation to pass the baton and help develop leadership in others. This article discusses 4 critical components to effectively mentor young professionals and inspire future leaders.
Conference was held May 6-May 10, 2013. This page houses all the presentations that were archived. Some speakers include Yong Zhao, Steven Anderson, Andy Hargreaves, Pasi Sahlberg, Michael Fullan, Walter McKenzie, and many others.
"Wondering about the latest releases in the world of educational technology? Well I have compiled my usual bi-weekly round-up of the major web tools you might need to know about. The websites below, besides being new here inEducational Technology and Mobile Learning, they also have some educational potential that you, teachers and educators, might capitalize on.
"As you know by now, the titles I include in these lists are all web tools that I have come across in my daily online meandering. Each time I stumble upon a good tool that one of my fellow bloggers reviewed, I add it to my bookrmaking list till I end up having a "meaty" collection for you. You can also check the previous posts I have featured here before inthis page."
The EQuizShow one is really compelling! I love that there is a library you can easily access without having to create a login. Feedspot looks like a good replacement for Google Reader.
"Although MOOCs and Connectivism appear to be the result of recent innovation, neither has emerged from a vacuum. The three elements in the title of this talk, Connectivism, Online Learning, and the MOOC, relate to three core elements in a learning society: knowledge, learning and community. This talk will draw out aspects of each of these three elements and relate them specifically to the development and design of MOOCs today, and in particular to network-based MOOCs (or cMOOCs)."
The other big advantage of Scoop.it is that discussion is based around content, which can help to give the interaction more depth. It also helps user to escape much of the banality that appears on Twitter as it tends not to attract the celebrity or 'what I had for lunch' postings as it isn't principally about conversation, but as more of a focus on content sharing.
"On Tuesday, June 4, the Center on Media and Human Development Northwestern University released Parenting in a Digital Age: A National Survey. Alexis Lauricella, one of the report’s co-authors, shares some of the findings here."
"For their paper, “Mirrored Morality: An Exploration of Moral Choice in Video Games,” Dr. Weaver and his fellow researcher Nicky Lewis had 75 gamers (40 men, 35 women, ages 18 to 24) play Fallout 3, a game that starts with relatively little game play and multiple character-building decisions. These gamers also took the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (you can take the self-scorable test, here) to evaluate their psychological foundations of morality, such as whether they value loyalty to a group or whether they respect authority. From this, Weaver determined that players used their own moral foundation to make their choices in-game. The key finding was players largely made moral decisions just as they would in real life, that is, they were doing the right thing. Even when given the opportunity to be violent, they were choosing non-violent "acts.http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2012/11/28/you-and-your-videogame-avatar-are-more-moral-than-you-realize/
"Two Democratic senators used a Congressional hearing on Wednesday to condemn for-profit colleges as preying on active members of the armed forces to receive federal tuition aid by increasing enrollments but ignoring academic quality.
"At the hearing, before the defense appropriations subcommittee, Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island called for stricter accreditation standards and criticized for-profit universities like DeVry as using slick marketing tactics to get a larger cut of federal dollars."
"Building a project nest is a developmental process, not something that has boundaries. It is added to incrementally and over the course of your project. Throughout our work with a large fashion brand in London we built small display cases of ideas for teams to use.
"For the schools we work with they can dedicate a wall space that becomes a working wall. In a primary school in South Brisbane, Australia they have a whole room dedicated to the artefacts of their project. Whichever way you decide to do it, the fact that there is a messy learning space that learners or members of a team can contribute to, provides a ongoing support to project work.
"Take a look at the following next steps to help you make the most of your project nest."
"If you believe influence is driven by the creation of a relationship between two parties, where one sees the other as truly knowledgeable about a particular product or service, then let’s talk about the science behind that influence.
"Establishing influence is a multi-step process that moves the influenced through four key stages."
"In an open letter to the students and parents of Montgomery County, Maryland and the Montgomery County Department of Education, teachers in the math department at Poolesville High School explain what they see as the systemic reasons behind widespread exam failures in their content area by students (letter reprinted by Valerie Strauss in The Washington Post). The failures proceed from policies in place for many years having a cumulative effect, they write. Students have been accelerated through the math curriculum as teachers and principals have been pressured to meet unrealistic targets, with the result that students have gaps in understanding. As many students as possible have been placed in honors math classes, so higher-performing students lack sufficient challenges, and those not in honors find themselves in classes with no peer role models and a culture of failure. The ubiquitous use of calculators in the early grades has resulted in students who lack number sense and basic skills, and thus cannot make the leap to algebra. And Algebra I de-emphasizes algebraic manipulation, leaving students unprepared for Algebra II and beyond. The teachers also recommend that students be required to pass a final exam to receive credit for a course, and teachers be allowed to assign grades that truly reflect mastery of content."
This is true as a student who went through honors classes, one tends to forget the basic skills needed for many standarized tests. I have experienced this when taking the math placement test for college, I felt that I needed a calculator for problems that when i was in middle school I could compute by hand. As a student gets ahead in math, the student becomes more dependable on the graphing calculator. The calculator also has the capacity of simply giving an answer from inputing a formula. As a student who went to school in Montgomery County, I remember having this issue in high school when it was assumed that AP NSL students could pass the government HSA without studying which is not true. The AP course did not cover some cases and laws that were tested on the HSA. Even though we may have good teachers in the beginning, we will eventually forget the basics in order to retain the more advanced information.
A great collection of links for self-directed learners. Over 100 resources in 12 different areas such as Open Courseware, Non-traditional education outside of college, Noteworthy Blogs about undorthodox ways of working, and Work Colleges combining schooling and working.
"The best type of curriculum for preparing students for the workforce is one that focuses on real-world problem-solving. It sounds simple, but for the first time, we have clearly established a link between students learning 21st century skills and future work success.
"The results of a Gallup/Microsoft Partners in Learning/Pearson Foundation study show that young workers in the U.S. who reported learning 21st century skills in their last year of school are more likely to say they have higher work quality. In fact, those reporting high levels of 21st century skill development in school are twice as likely to have higher work quality compared with their peers who had low 21st century skill development.
"In the study, the 21st century skills include knowledge construction, real-world problem-solving, collaboration, self-regulation, skilled communication, technology, and global awareness. Of all these,real-world problem-solving is the most important factor of higher work quality. Positive responses to the following two items have the strongest link to work quality:
“Worked on a long-term project that took several classes to complete”“Used what you were learning about to develop solutions to real-world problems in your community or in the world”
"Wondering about the latest releases in the world of educational technology? Well I have compiled my usual bi-weekly round-up of the major web tools you might need to know about. The websites below, besides being new here inEducational Technology and Mobile Learning, they also have some educational potential that you, teachers and educators, might capitalize on.
"As you know by now, the titles I include in these lists are all web tools that I have come across in my daily online meandering. Each time I stumble upon a good tool that one of my fellow bloggers reviewed, I add it to my bookrmaking list till I end up having a "meaty" collection for you. You can also check the previous posts I have featured here before inthis page."
"Productive strategic thinking exercises are at the heart of The Brainzooming Group methodology. Great brainstorming and strategic planning questions encourage and allow people to talk about what they know including factual information, personal perspectives, and their views of the future."
"In response to growing demand for training students for careers in the sciences, the College Board will introduce Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles -- its first new program in seven years. There already is a Computer Sciences A program from AP, which teaches computer programming. Officials say the new course will focus more on intellectual concepts and practical applications"
Expanding on our weekly Innovation column — which asks, Who made that? — we explore the origins of dozens of products and ideas in this special issue of the magazine.
we all are intrigued by the history behind things.... where they originated... how do they do it... we, as humans, are inquisitive... or is it just plain nosey!
"Practice only accounts for around one third of “perfection”, and the oft-quoted motto should be reworded to:
"Practice makes perfect … but only if you also have natural talent and start early enough."
I’ll explain why this is — but first, we need to explore the motto’s origins.
"The deliberate practice framework proposed by Swedish psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and colleagues in 1993 has favoured the view that accumulated hours of “deliberate practice” — a type of practice aiming at correcting mistakes and rich on feedback — is the only factor that explains differences in performance in sports, arts, sciences and intellectual games.
"Ericsson exposed the idea that it takes around 10 years of intense dedication to achieve high levels of performance. This idea was recently popularised by British-Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell in his 2008 book Outliers, but with a twist: it takes 10,000 hours to achieve such level of expertise.
"Along with American psychologist Zach Hambrick and colleagues, I have been involved in a study that re-analysed previous research in the fields of chess and music, including data from Ericsson’s original deliberate practice framework study. Our findings were published earlier this month in the journal Intelligence."
I found this article quite informative and well done.
And I wonder if there is not another dimension to this area of study that has not yet been addressed adequately - the role of social interaction in practice leading to mastery.
Certainly the studies of music and chess involve learners who receive extensive feedback from their coaches and mentors. In team sports, as illustrated by the photo chosen by the publisher of the article, the social factors involving the team and its cohesion and mutual support go a long way toward explaining outstanding individual performance. Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls are a good example of this.
In formal education, social constructivism is often advanced as a highly desirable learning environment to be created for learners - recognizing that learning is social as well as perhaps occurring best in settings of authentic problem-solving.
To get content containing either thought or leadership enter:
To get content containing both thought and leadership enter:
To get content containing the expression thought leadership enter:
You can enter several keywords and you can refine them whenever you want. Our suggestion engine uses more signals but entering a few keywords here will rapidly give you great content to curate.
Your new post is loading...
Image is of a Google data center.