Group items tagged

comparative hands on size of inauguration crowd for Trump and Women's March

Blog post by Jeff Cobb, the author of Ten Ways to be a Better Lifelong Learner and Mission to Learn blog, on EvoLLLution (illuminating the lifelong learning movement), 3.26.2012 See excerpt below for obstacles that keep people from lifelong learning: "AA: What are the major gaps keeping today's adults from effectively continuing their education? JC: There are two ways to come at that question, at least. It's high-level at first, to differentiate between education-which I consider to be primarily a formal, structured activity-and learning, the vast majority of which is informal and not necessarily structured. And learning encompasses education, but learning is just so much broader. When it comes to education, there can be any number of barriers that prevent an adult from continuing her education. Time and money tend to be two of the biggest. Those barriers can be overcome; like anything in life it's just often a matter of priorities and planning, both on the part of the individual and the society, but they do have to be overcome. On the other hand with learning, there's really nothing that can prevent an adult from continuing learning if they are in fact dedicated to doing that. We really can't help doing it; we're pretty much hard-wired to be continually learning. But we all know how overwhelming the flow of information can be around us these days; on the one hand it's this sense of being overwhelmed that can hold people back, I think another factor is that we simply don't look at a lot of the amazing new opportunities that we have, primarily through what the web now enables. … We don't necessarily look at these as learning tools and as things that can really help us to engage with and grow in life. Really, once you recognize that and once you start thinking in terms of effective strategies and effective approaches, the sky's the limit."

"Beat the Robots: How to Get Your Resume Past the System & Into Human Hands" from theMuse by Mark Slack and Erik Bowitz. Good, simple 4 step process for optimizing resumes for ATS.

Reminds me of Doris's blog on tools for seek, sense, share! Karen Jeannette takes it one step further and id's the steps she takes between seek, sense, share and the tools she uses for each. I like her hand drawn graphics a lot.

Reminds me of Doris's blog on tools for seek, sense, share! Karen Jeannette takes it one step further and id's the steps she takes between seek, sense, share and the tools she uses for each. I like her hand drawn graphics a lot.

Review by Rob Jenkins on the Chronicle, 3.18.13, on why MOOCs are a massively bad idea for wait-listed community college students in California as proposed in new legislation there. Excerpt: "We know that succeeding in online classes requires an extraordinary degree of organization, self-discipline, motivation, and time-management skill. A simple Google search of "how to succeed in online classes" yields a plethora of Web sites-including many college and university sites-offering students such gems as "be organized," "manage your time wisely," and (my favorite) "stay motivated."" Excerpt: So to recap, California's plan (or to be fair, one senator's plan) is basically to dump hundreds of thousands of the state's least-prepared and least-motivated students into a learning environment that requires the greatest amount of preparation and motivation, where they will take courses that may or may not be effective in that format. Here's a prediction: Those students will fail and drop out at astronomical rates. Then the hand-wringing will begin anew, the system will pour millions more dollars into "retention" efforts, and the state will be in an even deeper fix than it is now. (Virtual cheating will probably run rampant, too, followed by expensive anticheating measures, but that's another blog post.) Look, I'm not a politician or an economist. I don't know the answer to California higher education's budget woes. But I'm pretty sure herding community-college students into MOOCs is not it.

Blog post by Jeff Cobb, February 2010, Tagoras site, on pricing elearning. Explains price, cost, margin, value relationship. Excerpt: "What then are typical price points for e-learning in the association market? I am tempted not to cite any because the only other price points that should matter to an organization are potentially those of competitors. (And as Apple, for example, has demonstrated so well, even competitor pricing should be given only so much weight.) Additionally, our research suggests that only 20 percent of associations have any sort of formal process for setting price - which makes me wonder how much thought is being put into value, margins, and volume. Still, it can be helpful to have some sort of benchmark, however, general, against which to gauge your organization's pricing. We go into much more detail about pricing in our Association E-learning: State of the Sector report, but the average price per e-learning content hour in the association sector - based on our survey of nearly 500 organizations - is $56.79. Per credit hour the average is $73.97. So, for example, based on these figures, the average fee for a 90-minute Webinar that offers CE credit would be around $110. Conclusion I began this discussion by focusing on value, and it seems important to note as I conclude it that the price point is not only dependent upon perceived value, it helps drive perceived value. Part of what gives a Mercedes or a Louis Vuitton handbag its sheen of value is the high price point associated with each. To a certain extent, of course, the price is driven by underlying cost. But it is also true that these companies simply have the audacity - the organizational self-esteem, you might argue - to set a premium price. And people gladly pay it. Few associations, I find, are willing to take such an approach with pricing their e-learning, and perhaps few would succeed if they did. But my suspicion is that most organizations are pricing at a lower l

Great site for learning html, and a good model because they offer W3Schools certificates. This is the home page, with the topics you can learn listed in the left hand column. It is easy to follow and understand.

Here's one of the html sites I used to construct the table. It is an easy to use site, and they offer certificates.

HASTAC discussion by badge designers, 10/2012 Note this excerpt: Include badge earners in the design process of your program. Understand their motivation, what drives their involvement, and what they hope to get out of the program you are creating. Consider the diversity of your learners; they are likely to be driven by different goals. Assessment is just as important in a badge-based learning system as it is in more traditional learning environments. In order for badges to have value to the earner and to those who would consider using the badge to impute the skills or competencies of an individual, appropriate assessment practices need to back up the process by which the badge was awarded. Craft a badge system that is flexible enough to accommodate a range of learning styles, motivations and pedagogies. Some contexts call for more proscribed badging opportunities, where experts set up gauntlets which learners pass successfully before earning badges. Other systems call for a more grassroots approach, in which learners set their own goals and pursue less well-defined pathways that get them where they want to go as individuals, with badges in hand to show for their efforts. Creating a badge system that can adapt to a variety of contexts and audiences is a worthy challenge. Break up complex requirements into simpler steps and attach a badge to each step (so the badges act like waypoints on the overall path).

Good definition of social media vs. social networking from Huffpost Books by Fauzia Burke, 10/2/2013. Defines social media as the content you upload, and a one-to-many communication method. You own the content you share and have to produce it yourself. Social Networking, on the other hand, is engaging your audience with sites like Facebook and Twitter. Social Networking is about creating relationships, communicating with your readers, building a following. It is important to listen as much as talk with social networking so it becomes a sharing, and conversation-rich communication.

How crowdsourcing is impacting scientific research, and how blogging about scientific findings is changing how information about new discoveries gets supported/debunked. Interesting in the social media crowdsourcing aspect of how information is not in the hands of just experts anymore.

CrowdSourcing is changing the power dynamics of scientific information. Interesting article for the power of blogging and commenting vs professionals and scientific community.

#change11, blog post by Bon Stewart, May 2, 2012 And here's the rub... "The original MOOCs - the connectivist MOOCs a la Siemens & Downes, and the work of David Wiley and Alec Couros and others - have been, for the most part, about harnessing the capacity of participatory media to connect people and ideas. They've been built around lateral, distributed structures, encouraging blog posts and extensive peer-to-peer discussion formats. Even in live sessions showcasing facilitator's expertise, these ur-MOOCs have tended towards lively backchannel chats, exploring participants' knowledge and experiences and ideas. They've been, in short, actively modelled on the Internet itself. They've been experiential and user-driven. Their openness hasn't stopped at registration capacity, but extended to curricular tangents and participatory contributions and above all, to connections: they've given learners not just access to information but to networks. They've been messy, sometimes, but they have definitely not been business as usual. The problem with EdX is that, scale and cost aside, it IS essentially a traditional learning model revamped for a new business era. It puts decision-making power, agency, and the right to determine what counts as knowledge pretty much straight back into the hands of gatekeeping institutions."

Blog by Adam Dachis on Lifehacker on living with technology, 8.31.10. Outlines the problem and provides answers. We're surrounded by gadgets that demand our attention, constantly fragmenting our ability to properly focus on the task at hand. Living with technology doesn't mean we have to live with an addiction, however. Here's how to beat tech burnout. Back when we were tethered to desktop computers, this wasn't such a problem. First of all, technology had yet to proliferate in society at the enormous level it has nowadays, but more importantly we didn't have little computers (read: smartphones) that we could stick in our pockets. Previously we might check out email at a few convenient intervals during the day. Now these tiny little multitaskers are requesting our attention wherever we go. We have many more opportunities to interact with information and so we run into two more dilemmas: filtering an information overload and using our technology appropriately. The Solutions So what do we do about it? Overcoming a tech addiction and avoiding burnout requires work. There aren't any magic tricks that'll pave the road to freedom, but here are some ideas to get you started. Out of Sight, Out of Mind Stop Multitasking Never Apologize Get Organized

"I learned this the hard way with KISSmetrics. When we first started our blog, we were quickly able to get it to over 100,000 visitors a month, but we weren't generating any extra sales from that traffic. In fact, we weren't generating any sales at all. Because of blogging costs, I had no choice but to figure out how to make it a profitable channel. I did the same for a handful of other corporate blogs and learned a few tricks that can help any blog convert visitors into customers. Here are 9 ways you can get your first online sale from your corporate blog:"

"I have written several articles about LinkedIn, and they often generate the most comments. Here are the highlights of my LinkedIn advice from previous articles, along with additional tips and tricks, many of which remain unspoken by the people at LinkedIn. With this checklist in hand, you can make your LinkedIn profile your best personal branding tool. These little-known, often-overlooked and seemingly counterintuitive tips deliver big results with minimal effort."

An amazing interview with Maria Popova of Brain Pickings, July 2013 Highlights: What is your area of expertise as a writer or online publisher? I'm not an expert and I aspire never to be one. As Frank Lloyd Wright rightly put it, "An expert is a man who has stopped thinking because 'he knows.'" Brain Pickings began as my record of what I was learning, and it remains a record of what I continue to learn - the writing is just the vehicle for recording, for making sense. That said, one thing I've honed over the years - in part by countless hours of reading and in part because I suspect it's how my brain is wired - is drawing connections between things," "Do you believe in "writer's block"? If so, how do you avoid it? I think the operative word here is "believe." If you fixate on it, it'll be there. It's kind of like insomnia - the more you think about not being able to fall asleep, the less able to fall asleep you become. It's different for everyone, of course, but I find that you break through that alleged "block" simply by writing. As Tchaikovsky elegantly put it, "A self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood." The writer's creativity … Define creativity. The ability to connect the seemingly unconnected and meld existing knowledge into new insight about some element of how the world works. That's practical creativity. Then there's moral creativity: To apply that skill towards some kind of wisdom on how the world ought to work."

Forbes, 10/22/13, by Jacquelyn Smith "Entrepreneurial spirit is a mindset. It's an attitude and approach to thinking that actively seeks out change, rather than waiting to adapt to change. It's a mindset that embraces critical questioning, innovation, service and continuous improvement. "It's about seeing the big picture and thinking like an owner," says Michael Kerr, an international business speaker, author and president of Humor at Work. "It's being agile, never resting on your laurels, shaking off the cloak of complacency and seeking out new opportunities. It's about taking ownership and pride in your organization." Sara Sutton Fell, CEO and founder of FlexJobs, says: "To me, an entrepreneurial spirit is a way of approaching situations where you feel empowered, motivated, and capable of taking things into your own hands. Companies that nurture an entrepreneurial spirit within their organization encourage their employees to not only see problems, solutions and opportunities, but to come up with ideas to do something about them." Entrepreneurial companies tend to have a more innovative approach to thinking about their products or services, new directions to take the company in, or new ways of doing old tasks, she adds. "Entrepreneurial spirit helps companies grow and evolve rather than become stagnant and stale." According to Jay Canchola, an independent human resources consultant, entrepreneurial spirit is also associated with taking calculated risks, and sometimes failing. "

"Did you know that the words you use within your content could drastically affect how much social media traffic you get? For example, if you want more Facebook traffic, then using words like "when," "tell us," "submit," "deals," and "discounts" can help you get more shares, likes and traffic to your site. On the other hand, if you use the words "contest," "promotion," or "coupon" on Facebook, you'll actually get fewer shares and likes and less traffic."

Commencement speeches at different colleges, June 15, 2014 Harvey Mudd College Beth Shapiro, evolutionary biologist "Your unique education has prepared you for careers at the cutting edge of innovation. This is both good news and bad news. It's good news because you're probably going to find a job, it will pay well, and it will be intellectually fulfilling. It's bad news because whatever you thought you were training for when you started this exercise might not actually exist anymore. Five years ago, when you guys were deciding where to go to college, there were very few mobile-app developers or big-data architects, and there certainly weren't any chief listening officers for social media outlets. It's hard to imagine where the next five years will go, but it's kind of fun to do so. ... Who knows, but you guys are going to be among the people that are actually making it happen. And it'll be awesome, as long as you're willing to take some risks and step outside of your comfort zone. When an opportunity arises, take it." UNC at Chapel Hill Atul Gawande, doctor and writer "Ultimately, it turns out we all have an intrinsic need to pursue purposes larger than ourselves, purposes worth making sacrifices for. People often say, 'Find your passion.' But there's more to it than that. Not all passions are enough. Just existing for your desires feels empty and insufficient, because our desires are fleeting and insatiable. You need a loyalty. The only way life is not meaningless is to see yourself as part of something greater: a family, a community, a society. ... the search for purpose is really a search for a place, not an idea. It is a search for a location in the world where you want to be part of making things better for others in your own small way. It could be a classroom where you teach, a business where you work, a neighborhood where you live. The key is, if you find yourself in a place where you stop caring - where your greatest conce

"take our professional and personal development into our own hands" Jacob Morgan Forbes August 2015

Blog by Kevin O'Keefe, "Real Lawyers Have Blogs," on the topic of the law, firm marketing, social media, and baseball, February 23, 2014. O'Keefe reviews a study by Gerry Moran on using social media to teach, not to sell. Other key points that O'Keefe makes: Build a large social network of people modeled after your customers and their influencers. 75% of B2B decision makers use social media to learn. (wonder where this stat comes from?) Pass on valuable information. Don't use your social media and networking channels to promote yourself. You want to be known for handing out knowledge and not brochures. Use social so that people will want to visit with you in person. 73% of customers are willing to engage with you on social media, so the opportunity is there. Use social media to teach, not sell. Selling is best done face-to-face. However, Social Media Today reports B2B buyers look at an average of over 10 digital resources before ever making a purchase. Since customers need to learn before they buy, use this opportunity on social media to connect. Teach and connect with today's technology. Connect and get on the radar of your customers and potential networks by retweeting, sharing, commenting and favoriting others' content. Develop Insights. Before you teach and connect with your customers, you need to listen to the customer and their customers. Social is an excellent listening tool. Be a publisher. In addition to curating and passing on the great content to your network, create your own assets on a blog. Organizations who blog get clients. Later Excerpt: Over the years LexBlog as been all about helping lawyers understand how to use the Internet in a real and effective fashion so as to grow their practices. By sharing information from third parties along our own insight via blogs and other social media we established a reputation as trusted advisors. Even when I reach out to meet with lawyers and law firms I have never met f