Group items tagged

Post in WP discussion forum on how unhelpful so-called help discussion forums really are. Excerpt: "I signed up for WP AT Godaddy,com and have the same question, so I have to come here and do whatever I can understand of what i'm told. my universal experience with forums like this - here at WP and at the forums which serve as the ONLY assistance for non-paying users of third party design businesses -is that genuinely inexperienced people are not-so-subtly encourage to self-select out. people who need help make it very clear that they are really inexperienced, beg for step-by-step directions and get responses they cannot decipher or use. And if they have the temerity to say so, well, here's the first forum i clicked under this topic: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/email-set-up-on-wordpress-site?replies=3 the forum was simply shut down. lol? I don't understand why experienced users who know how to do things bother to make such replies. Is there some club somewhere where such things are on display for the amusement of our betters? Because unintentionally or not, it seems gratuitously mean. "

Is this what we need to do on a regular basis with WLStudio? #EdChat http://www.facebook.com/EdchatPLN This is a different type of group - #Edchat is Twitter based. In their own words, "#Edchat is a hashtag discussion among educators from all over the world on education related topics. It happens every Tuesday at Noon EDT and 7PM EDT. To join us simply follow the #Edchat hashtag on Twitter!" The Facebook Page keeps users up on discussion topics, and provides additional resources.

Interesting blog post by Jane Hart on building an enterprise learning network within an enterprise social network. Is the WLS going to be an enterprise learning network? Perhaps not in the usual sense of an organization with employees comprising a workforce. But perhaps it can use some of the same techniques advocated by Hart below: Under Part Two 1. new social approaches to training and online learning--backchannel learning, online social workshops ("participants with a lot of autonomy, so that they participate in the ways that they feel more comfortable and best suits them..." ); tiny training aka microlearning--short bursts of learning ten minutes long... 2. Innovative Learning Initiatives--social onboarding, social mentoring 3. Continuous series of learning activities and events 10 minutes a day - provide a daily link to a place where individuals can spend just 10 minutes learning something new. Note: 10 minutes a day, each weekday adds up to around 6 days of training in a year! Live chats - run regular live Twitter-like live chat sessions on different topics. They might just take place over 1 hour or be a longer all-day event that people can join in at any time. Hot seats - put one of your people (e.g. CEO or a leading expert) in the hot seat for a period of time, and encourage employees to ask them questions. Book club - organise a monthly time for conversation around a book of interest. Lunch'n'Learns - ask someone to lead a short informal session on a topic of interest to them. This might be purely conversational or involve a web meeting or face-to-face meeting, with the ELN used as a backchannel. 4 - SUPPORT OTHER PEOPLE-BASED LEARNING SERVICES Your ESN provides the opportunity to set up and support other learning activities in private group spaces. A Learning Help Desk service (aka Learning Concierge service) which provides an advice centre for ad hoc learning and performance problems. - See more at:

blog by George Siemens reflecting on his first week of a dual-layer MOOC, October 28, 2014. "I'm biased toward learners owning their own content and owning the spaces where they learn. My reason is simple: knowledge institutions mirror the architecture of knowledge in the era in which they exist. Today, knowledge is diverse, messy, partial, complex, and rapidly changing. What learners need today is not instructivism but rather a process of personal sensemaking and wayfinding where they learn to identify what is important, what matters, and what can be ignored. Most courses assume that the instructor and designer should sensemake for learners. The instructor chooses the important pieces, sets it in a structured path, and feeds content to learners. Essentially, in this model, we take away the sweet spot of learning. Making sense of topic areas through social and exploratory processes is the heart of learning needs in complex knowledge environments. " Though I am biased toward learner-in-control, I do recognize the value of formal instruction, particularly when the topic area is new to a learner. Even then, I would like to see rapid transitions from content provision to having learners create artifacts that reflect their understanding. These artifacts can be images, audio, video, simulations, blog posts, or any other resource that can be created and shared with other learners. Learning transparently is an act of teaching.

By Will Blunt, February 9, 2015, Hubspot. Very useful tips on collecting research for writing blog posts. Tracy linked to this in LinkedIn. HT to Tracy.

Temple University's site about creating a table. They also have many topics on using html that we can access. It is not as easy to use as the other sites I have bookmarked, but is valuable non the less.

Temple University's site on creating a basic table. Not as easy to use as the other sites, but still valuable. Offers other html building topics as well.

This is Khan's version of a dashboard of topics to master.

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."

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.

Blog post by Suzie Mitchell, November 6, 2012, on how her desire to have a more satisfying relationship with her son led to learning about technology and using online tools to build her knowledge, which in turn led to a new career and more satisfying life. Wonderful justification for Studio IMO enriching one's life in the short-term and how opportunities came to her for work, etc. Excerpt: ""Google is your friend, Mom. Use it whenever you don't understand something." OK, duh!, but those words set me free. I could ramp up my learning all by myself. I dived headfirst into the tech world, got a smartphone and started downloading apps on every topic that interested me: health and wellness, fitness, recipes, news and, yes, shopping. Soon Justin and I were exchanging emails about apps, articles and websites. It felt great; my son-buddy was coming back into the fold. There was a lot I didn't understand, but I embraced the "fake it until you make it" approach. Before long he was sending me links he thought would appeal to me. Some I really liked, but others were hard to comprehend. They offered products and services that boomers would supposedly appreciate - but I couldn't figure out how to navigate the site, or I didn't understand what was so "amazing" about the "revolutionary" product."

Blog, June 19, 2013, Scoop.it, on how Most Popular leads into reading more in a webiste can be quite distorted to direct reads. Advocates for human curation. "The solution: Human curation. We need to provide readers with lists and collections of content that are popular within a certain field because they are genuinely popular to those who know about or are interested in that field. Most Popular lists on websites are generated by algorithms, making them extremely easy to game (by clicking the same content repeatedly, for instance) which in turn leads readers to believe they've found good content when they oftentimes haven't. It's the job of the curator, as a human, to let other humans know what they (the curator) are finding to be the best pieces of content on a topic - as someone who knows about a specific subject or interest."

How one person created a comic book to educate young girls and women about menstrual periods, a topic previously avoided by everyone, including biology teachers in schools in India. Previous ignorance led to girls/women using unhealthy hygiene practices and being isolated from society participation--very good

by Taunee Besson, CareerCast.com senior columnist about David Bell who successfully used networking to land a new job. His 6 tips: Ask people for info, not a job; start with people you know, then who they know, and finally strangers after you have practice; know what you want to say ahead of time, but don't have a canned speech; recognize you will have good and bad days; prepare a specific topic for each discussion; if your contact refers you to other people, let them know how it turned out.

blog post by Susan J. Ellis, Energize, February 2017, great post for helping volunteers thrive in moving org mission

****This post by Derek J. Keenan explains his Social Professional Learning Model that served as his Masters Capstone paper at Alberta University, April 23, 2012. Its core is an action research approach to learning enriched by and anchored in social media. Substitute teacher with "other named professional" and it works for people in all types of work/interests. There is also a short (s cultivating connections with the people who have the same self-directed learning quest as you. The next step is reciprocating by publishing and sharing what you know or believe to be true. Throughout it is your experience that informs your participation and your participation informs your level of understanding--you are constantly learning and eventually building your personal learning network relationships to be there for you.

Both the discussion method (Tweet-chat) followed by private reflection and public writing, as well as the topic--design thinking are fascinating to me. Written by David Kelly on April 24, 2012. Is method of learning relevant to WLStudio?

Just found out about this MOOC that starts next week (April 30--5 weeks long) by Curtis Bonk, a professor at Indiana University. It's on Instructional Ideas and Technology Tools for Online Success. I would like to see how he structures this class and learn a lot, too, about the topic. Every MOOC is a chance to learn!

I saw this debate this morning and engaged with the topic and format. I like this way of presenting different perspectives on a hot-button issue and would like to experiment with it in WLStudio.

Interesting distinction between blogging and writing articles. Kevin O'Keefe's blog on January 16, 2014 Blogging is done to engage others in a conversation by recognizing the post is one in a series on a topic. Writing an article is to get your point of view out there. Excerpt: I have always viewed blogging as all together different than writing an article. Blogging is a conversation where by listening to relevant discussion you engage those in the conversation. Social media consultant, Jayne Navvare (@jaynenavvare), made the point as well as anyone in her post today. If you want to post "articles" to the web using a blog platform, fine, but do not confuse that with blogging. Articles are static. Blogging is dynamic. Bloggers do more than just write posts. They socialize. Articles are one way. I write it. I distribute it. You read it. Think magazines, newspapers, and newsletters. Circulation and eyeballs are measures of success. Blogs engage. Blogs mix it up with readers and other bloggers. Relationships and word of mouth reputation are measures of success.

Excellent blog post by Suzanne Choney, TODAY Tech, 2/3/12, on dopamine addiction to social media. Chastises researchers who are still running experiments noting that it's already been proven--what's the need to do more research? Has some great links to research, writing, etc. on this topic