Group items tagged

Blog post by Chris Collison on 2.26.13, that discusses reciprocity in fostering a learning atmosphere and adoption of best practice in an organization. Excerpt: "Reciprocity is an important principle for knowledge management, and one which underpins the idea of Offers and Requests. Offers and Requests was a simple approach, introduced to make it easier for Operations Engineers at BP to ask for help, and to share good practice with their peers. The idea was for each business unit to self-assess their level of operational excellence using a maturity model, and identify their relative strengths and weaknesses. In order to overcome barriers like "tall poppy syndrome", or a reluctance to ask for help ("real men don't ask directions"), a process was put in place whereby every business unit would be asked to offer three areas which they felt proud of, and three areas which they wanted help with. The resulting marketplace for matching offers and requests was successful because: i) The principle of offering a strength at the same time as requesting help was non-threatening and reciprocal - it was implicitly fair. ii) The fact that every business unit was making their offers and requests at the same time meant that it felt like a balanced and safe process."

ComsterCollege.com article by Lauren Bayne Anderson, June 16, 2011. Excerpt Here are some benefits to joining a professional organization: Jobs Many professional organizations help their members find jobs, or at the least, offer up job listings that other members may be offering. Mentoring Mentoring is the cornerstone of many professional organizations when it comes to working with younger members. You may never get in the room with someone at the top of your field, for a very long time. But professional organizations have the ability to pare you with someone much more experienced. Professional Development Many organizations offer professional development via courses, workshops, publications, and information on their website shared only with members. They also keep members up to date on industry trends and how to deal with them. Some organizations (take the National Association of Black Journalists for example) offer news and print coverage of their annual conferences, run by students-which is an excellent opportunity to gain experience. Networking Most organizations have an annual conference. This is an opportunity for you to mix and mingle with others in your field in both professional and leisure settings. There is also often a job fair where you can make contact and stay up to date with the very people who hire - even if they're not hiring right now. In fact, some people find recruiters follow their career and stay updated when you stop by their booth at the job fair. They may be keeping an eye on you until they are ready to finally offer you a job. Scholarships For the youngest of members (high school and college), scholarships may be the primary reason to join a professional organization. Many offer scholarships to the new members studying to enter the field.

Rio Salado College is an online community college and offers a lot of the topics we want to offer in the Studio. This link is to the description of their offers in relation to online overload and net savvy. Although geared towards their students, anyone could take these.

I'm beginning to wonder if we have been overcome by events in terms of our learning offers! The course descriptions look really good.

Interesting explanation of business model for how nonprofit and forprofit MOOC partners--edX, Coursera, and Udacity--will make money along with the universities. Implications for other, smaller online learning partnerships? Excerpt on two models (large-scale efforts) According to Mr. Agarwal, edX offers its university affiliates a choice of two partnership models. Both models give universities the opportunity to make money from their edX MOOCs-but only after edX gets paid. Related Content What You Need to Know About MOOCs Document: The Revenue-Sharing Models Between edX and University Partners The first, called the "university self-service model," essentially allows a participating university to use edX's platform as a free learning-management system for a course on the condition that part of any revenue generated by the course flow to edX. The courses developed under that model will be created by "individual faculty members without course-production assistance from edX," and will be branded separately in the edX catalog as "edge" courses until they pass a quality-review process, according to a standard agreement provided to The Chronicle by edX. Once a self-service course goes live on the edX Web site, edX will collect the first $50,000 generated by the course, or $10,000 for each recurring course. The organization and the university partner will each get 50 percent of all revenue beyond that threshold. The second model, called the "edX-supported model," casts the organization in the role of consultant and design partner, offering "production assistance" to universities for their MOOCs. The organization charges a base rate of $250,000 for each new course, plus $50,000 for each time a course is offered for an additional term, according to the standard agreement. Although the edX-supported model requires cash upfront, the potential returns for the university are high if a course ends up making money. The university gets 70 percent of any revenue gen

In research on CoA communities, went to NYC CoA to see what they offered and ran across the most active site so far. See excerpt below for rebooting your life offered by The Transition Network, which I think is the women's group that Lisa knows. Is relevant to WLS. See book title on Reboot your life, Energize Your Career and Life by Taking a Break in excerpt below. "REBOOT YOUR LIFE - A special workshop on taking a break and making the most of it Are you feeling: Disengaged and too tired to figure out how to change that? A yearning for an adventure, or extended travel to recharge your batteries? A need for time to heal your heart and/or body? Or to get on the path to wellness? Like you need to plan for your "retired" chapter or already retired and wanting a more fulfilling life? Two of the co-authors, Rita Foley and Jaye Smith, will share important and useful insights gained from their four years of research, interviewing over 300 individuals and 50 organizations for their book, Reboot Your Life, Energize Your Career and Life by Taking a Break and from their workshops. With both discussion and fun exercises the authors will cover important topics such as : Overcoming emotional hurdles to taking time off work Turning job loss into an "unexpected sabbatical" Managing and planning for the stages of your Reboot Break Pre- retirement planning Deflecting robbers of your time What can I do next? Living a life of balance and passion Reboot Partners workshops, book and talks have been featured in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and on Martha Stewart radio, Oprah's OWN Network, and WPIX New York."

"The Varied Functions of Badges" summary from HASTAC discussion, 9/2012 My interest in the functions of badges was spurred along when the MacArthur Foundation asked for help documenting the design principles for using digital badges that emerge across the 30 projects underway by the awardees in their Badges for Lifelong Learning project. We needed to come up with a manageable number of categories. Here is what we came up with: Recognizing Learning. This is the most obvious and arguably the primary function of badges. David Wiley has argued cogently that this should be the primary purpose of badges. If we focus only on purposes, then he may well be right. His point is that badges are credentials and not assessments. This is also consistent with the terrifically concise definition in Seven Things You Should Know About Badgesby Erin Knight and Carla Casilli. Assessing Learning. Nearly every application of digital badges includes some form of assessment. These assessments have either formative or summative functions and likely have both. In some cases, these are simply an assessment of whether somebody clicked on a few things or made a few comments. In other cases, there might be a project or essay that was reviewed and scored, or a test that was graded. In still other cases, peers might assess an individual, group, or project as badgeworthy. Motivating Learning. This is where the controversy comes in. Much of the debate over badges concerns the well-documented negative consequences of extrinsic incentive on intrinsic motivation and free choice engagement. This is why some argue that we should not use badges to motivate learning. However, if we use badges to recognize and assess learning, they are likely to impact motivation. So, we might as well harness this crucial function of badges and study these functions carefully while searching for both their positive and negative consequences for motivation. Evaluating Learning. The final category of

MIT and Harvard have teamed up to offer MOOCs, and this month Stanford, Princeton, U of PA, U of MI have created a new commercial company, Coursera, with $16 million in venture capital.

"It's not hard to sell the benefits of telecommuting to employees; it's the employers who need convincing that working from home can actually translate into increased profits. According to a recent Families and Work Institute's National Study of Employers, the number of employers offering a flexible work place increased from 34 percent to 63 percent between 2005 and 2012, indicating the option of telecommuting is quickly becoming the norm rather than the exception. Telecommuting offers many benefits to an employer, including increased employee satisfaction, reduction in operating costs and the ability to tap into a broader talent base - one no longer limited by geography."

Great blog post by Pamela Wilson on how images market more than words; identifies resources, too. istockphoto.com: This is the site I go to first. The search capabilities are great, the selection is vast (and growing) and you can even search by color and composition. (If you want to run your text along the right side of a photo, you can search for photos that have open areas along the right side, for example.) shutterstock.com: Another excellent (and vast) collection of high-quality images. dreamstime.com: I haven't used this much, but it looks promising. It claims to have the least expensive stock photos, and the quality looks good. Free stock photos stock.xchng: The granddaddy of free stock photo sites. The free offerings are shown along with tempting paid offerings from a sister site, but if you can resist the urge to upgrade to paid, there are plenty of good images here. morguefile.com: Don't let the name fool you. A morgue file, as I learned in art school, is where one keeps photo and image references to be used in the future. This is the Internet's morgue file, and is assembled by creative people and freely shared.

Very interesting Slideshare on finding the juicy problems of your customers that they will pay you to help solve. Should go into our marketing resource group. Offers a leanstartup validation board from customer hypothesis to problem hypothesis to solution hypothesis to design experiment (get out of the building) to validate what you plan to offer.

"Neil Rhule, from the Caribbean's Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship..."Ive heard it said that entrepreneurs are born, not raised. This may or may not be true but I take some issue with this statement and the context in which it is used. First of all, what is an entrepreneur? An entrepreneur is defined as one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise. This basically means that you have a great idea or initiative and are willing to take the bold step to make it happen while considering the risks. To some, being an entrepreneur is just another word for being unemployed! Everyone is born with a talent and has the ability to learn a skill. I would like to share my three steps to becoming an entrepreneur that I believe is applicable to anyone. These three steps are: Step 1 - Have a talent or skill (be creative!) Step 2 - Offer a service based on that talent or skill Step 3 - Start a business from the service you offer

Blog post by Joe Rominiecki, June 11, 2014, on how staid organization--American Neurological Association--changed admission requirements and found new-"old ways" to engage with younger, newer members in the course of the first year of membership. 300 out of 1,880 at end of 2013 were new, often younger members. ""We have quite a few committees, and the committee work is a lot. The annual meeting programming is extremely scientific, so their participation in our interactive lunch workshop committee or our faculty development committee or our scientific programming committee is critical to the success of the meeting," Smith says." Excerpt: I'm a strong believer that the type of volunteering offered to young members is crucial, too. It has to be meaningful work. If I'm offered a choice between joining a group for young professionals or joining a planning committee for a particular association function (event, publication, education, etc.), I'll take the latter. I'd rather not just be lumped in with other young pros, fenced off in a separate little play area. I want to be doing some real work for the association. And DTV says I'm not alone: In that study, "I can do something for a profession or cause that is important to me" ranked as the most important reason for volunteering in associations, and that was true for all generations.""

by Matt Zalaznick, Universitybusiness.com Article from Oct 2015 on how more institutions offer digital badges as a form of micro-credential or "subdegree" to students. Also - "Perhaps appropriately, the University of Alaska, Anchorage offers professional development badges to instructors for studying digital instruction techniques, such as course design, social media and student interaction."

article by Robert Elsenpeter, Star Tribune, 2008. Expand Your Network Many admins are already members of the International Association of Administrative Professionals (IAAP). And while that is a group worth joining, there are other organizations - like Toastmasters - that can help your professional life. "Attend community groups and industry association meetings," says Kathy Northamer, vice president of OfficeTeam in the Twin Cities. "Make presentations on your area of expertise. Volunteer with a nonprofit. You'll not only gain new contacts, but acquire experience and work samples you can use to build your career." Different organizations can offer different opportunities. But there is one thing they all have in common and it's something beneficial for the admin. "Networking, networking, networking!" says Northamer. "The more contacts in your network who know you, the more likely you will secure leads, interviews and interesting job offers." Reasons to Join a Professional Organization: Personal and professional development resources. Networking opportunities. Professional certification that can help your career. Service and support from the national organization. Opportunities to develop one's leadership skills. Discounts on related products and services. Regular organization conferences. Member publications.

list of reasons offered by academics on why Twitter is useful to them, February 19, 2012, Julie Northam 

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.

Interesting site for women to find out and act on what they desire to be. She has courses (paid), groups, workshops, etc. Worth looking at for her content, offerings, and possible connection to the Studio. Plus, she is something else!

I like the feel of the site. It is a little more fluff than I think we would use, but it offers some interesting components for us to consider. Thanks.

Harvard Business Review's top trends identified by using 5 questions that determine if these are indeed a trend or not. Top trends for 2015 are: Deep learning (machine learning); Smart virtual personal assistants; Uber's monetization of downtime and the offer for those needing employment to work. Uber-like businesses such as grocery delivery, massage services, dry cleaning and laundry, etc. will take off; Oversight for Algorithms - ethics of how algorithms can be used especially when programmers add subjective judgments to algorithms causing false answers; Data privacy - dealing with ongoing breaches. The public does not blame hackers but blames business for not taking measures to combat hackers; Block chain technology is a transactional database that is shared by everyone participating in bitcoin's digital system. Block chain systems may become a universal platform for anything needing a signature or authentication.

Harvard Business Review's top trends identified by using 5 questions that determine if these are indeed a trend or not. Top trends for 2015 are: Deep learning (machine learning); Smart virtual personal assistants; Uber's monetization of downtime and the offer for those needing employment to work. Uber-like businesses such as grocery delivery, massage services, dry cleaning and laundry, etc. will take off; Oversight for Algorithms - ethics of how algorithms can be used especially when programmers add subjective judgments to algorithms causing false answers; Data privacy - dealing with ongoing breaches. The public does not blame hackers but blames business for not taking measures to combat hackers; Block chain technology is a transactional database that is shared by everyone participating in bitcoin's digital system. Block chain systems may become a universal platform for anything needing a signature or authentication. 

Reflection blog post by Nancy White on 1.9.13 on her Project Community course that she co-taught at the Hague. Offers many insights including this jewel below on what the learning design must bring together: "The other aspect of the design was to bring three elements together: sense making discussions about the subject matter (synchronously in class and asynchronously on the class website), insights from weekly "guests" shared via 5-10 minute videos (to bring a variety of voices), and action learning through small group experiences and team projects. I know there are strong feelings about team projects, but building collaboration skills was part of the course learning objectives, so this was a "must do." And we spent time talking about the how - -and reflecting on what was and wasn't working as a vector for learning these skills."

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.