Group items tagged

I wonder how often this opportunity is there but the person isn't . . . seems like the very definition of computational thinking. "In the end, the tool was very crude but accomplished something very useful: It had a flow that ensured all the reports required by people on the ground, and above, were sent in a timely and orderly manner. Each step of that flow was almost entirely automated. Each button filled a template and put the text in the clipboard for copy-pasting in the chat. Events were timed automatically. Distances and time of travel were computed automatically. A dropdown menu facilitated entering common values. Big warning signs were visible when a time critical step was ongoing, or some important data was missing."

"So give me an A-, because my dreams overshot my constraints, and my vision for the final project didn’t come in on time. But I came to class prepared for every discussion, and led it in fact. I read every assigned reading, and listened to the commentary of my classmates. I did the blogs that were required, and I wrote every paper on time and with gusto. I stopped wasting my time and I stopped wasting the classes time, of which I am also proud. And I opened myself to the possibility that I am wrong sometimes, which unbelievably only took me 22 years. I want an A, and I believe I just explained why I deserve as much. But I realize only after having done the work required to become an A thinker how little an A really means to me, and how much better I feel knowing that."

""Twitter is really useful for simultaneous monitoring of events in real time," says Witze (who is also on TON's Board of Directors). At another meeting, the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston in March 2015, she went to a session about the MAVEN mission to Mars. She used real-time Twitter feeds to get a sense of what the scientists in the room thought was important, and wrote up this story while the speakers were still talking. The real-time feedback she got from Twitter was "like having a small army of smart people helping out," Witze says. And following the live tweets provides "a whole other level of commentary" that can be valuable for identifying sources to interview for a story. "

"Audrey Watters: It's gonna take more than a 'genius hour'. I've tried to do something somewhat like this - it's essential for my team to have time to explore, create, play, discover, etc., and they can't do that if they're expected to be "on task" 100% of the time. A big part of our role in the Technology Integration Group is to go deliberately off script, off-piste, and do things that we think are worth trying. Even if (especially if?) it's not an Official Project. But, it's hard to sustain when Real Projects and Deadlines loom and suck up all of the available time. So we have cycles. There are weeks where we're all "on task", and weeks where we're exploring new stuff. "

"Sometimes a mistake is so embarrassing, it cycles all the away around the shame circle and becomes kind of awesome. Today's case in point: Kyrzbekistan, a country accidentally invented by a New York Times piece that meant to reference the Central Asian nation Kyrgyzstan."

"My friend had filled the day. He was busy. But the things that made him busy were the result of his own decisions. He didn't lack the time to read. He was simply choosing not to. Throughout the day, we face a number of decision points about how to spend time. Too often we approach these decisions passively, as if our hand were being forced, our free will compromised. Let me add one caveat: if you have young children, a brutal commute or juggle several jobs to make ends meet, you are exempt from everything I write in this piece. You are truly busy."

"Students appreciated the MOOC's ability to support structured, self-paced learning. Students often watched the short (10-to-15-minute) lecture videos at double speed with the captions turned on, at times that fit the students' schedules. Students described Andrew Ng as a highly effective lecturer, which added to the value of the lecture videos. Students did not actively participate in the discussion forums provided by the MOOC, choosing instead to use each other and Professor Fisher as resources when they needed help with the material. Occasionally, a student with a specific question would check to see if that question had already been asked and answered in the forums. It often was, and so the forums were a study resource for the students even if they didn't post to the forums themselves. Doug's students appreciated the in-class active learning facilitated by the "flipped" approach. By shifting explanatory lectures outside of class, class time was made available for more discussion, interaction, and application of that material. The students described Doug's role as "facilitator," guiding class discussions and making sure that every student understood the material. The biggest challenge identified by the students was a misalignment between the MOOC material and the additional readings Doug provided. These readings took the students beyond the introductory ideas presented in the MOOC, focusing on recent and seminar research in the field. The readings weren't designed for novices in the field, as Andrew Ng's lecture videos were, and they required "a different kind of learning," as one student put it. Nor did the readings always build on the week's MOOC content in clear ways."

Assessment, or testing, was still administered, but now it was used as an integral part of the learning process. As a result, when he eventually took his spot on Toyota's production line, Spear was able to assemble his part the first time and every time. In other words, assessment was used both for and of learning. Toyota doesn't have to treat formative and summative assessments as two different things-just as we don't have to do so in education when we move to a truly competency-based system.

"In this seven-part series, TIME looks back over the past 12 months to identify some of the ways of seeing-whether conceptually, aesthetically or through dissemination-that have grabbed our attention and been influential in maintaining photography's relevance in an ever shifting environment, media landscape, and culture now ruled by images."

"The best performing teacher in the whole system was a woman named Zenaida Tan. Up until that report, she was completely unheralded. The skills she possessed were invisible. Meanwhile, less important traits were measured on her evaluations (three times she was late to pick up students from recess). In part, Lemov is talking about the skill of herding cats. The master of cat herding senses when attention is about to wander, knows how fast to move a diverse group, senses the rhythm between lecturing and class participation, varies the emotional tone. This is a performance skill that surely is relevant beyond education. This raises an important point. As the economy changes, the skills required to thrive in it change, too, and it takes a while before these new skills are defined and acknowledged. For example, in today's loosely networked world, people with social courage have amazing value. Everyone goes to conferences and meets people, but some people invite six people to lunch afterward and follow up with four carefully tended friendships forevermore. Then they spend their lives connecting people across networks. People with social courage are extroverted in issuing invitations but introverted in conversation - willing to listen 70 percent of the time"

"But this was his first use of an ARLE for professional development. "In gaming, you fail 80 percent of the time, and you enjoy the experience and come back for more," he said. "This lets you put students in situations where they fail, and learn from their failure, safely. At the same time, the authenticity of the learning experience is off the charts.""

"The period - the full-stop signal we all learn as children, whose use stretches back at least to the Middle Ages - is gradually being felled in the barrage of instant messaging that has become synonymous with the digital age"

"We're rich in data-but the returns are diminishing rapidly, because after a certain point the more information you have, the harder it becomes to extract meaning from it. Ironically, an excess of information resists analysis and comprehension in much the same way a lack of it does. As a result, the more that new technology floods our world with complex information, the more we end up calling on a much older field of human endeavor, one that has always been devoted to making complexity comprehensible and extracting meaning from chaos, namely, art. "

"There are a variety of ways to learn from someone else's experience.  Start by reading and researching.  Libraries and the internet are great sources for exploration.  When using the internet, look for recognized and reliable sources.  There's lots of erroneous information on the web, so be discriminating. Attend classes.  You have many choices for live or online classes on virtually any subject that interests you.  If you're so inclined, you can work full or part time on a degree.  Adding academic credentials to your resume is always beneficial. Find a mentor who is an expert in the area you are interested in.  Offer to volunteer, apprentice, or intern.  Working with an authority in a particular field is a great way to acquire lots of experience quickly. Observe people who are already where you want to be.  You don't have to know them personally.  You can read about them, read books and articles they write, or follow media accounts of their exploits.  Join associations or professional groups in your area of interest.  They are an excellent opportunity to meet and connect with experienced people.  You will have many opportunities to ask questions and attend a variety of educational forums."

I found myself almost getting on board this article until I got to the end: "Don't waste time learning from your own experiences. Acquire an edge by learning from what others have already been through. Whatever your goals may be, there are those who have a lot to teach you because they have already traveled your path." I believe there is great benefit to being reflective on one's own actions and experiences. At the end of the day, we certainly can learn and make connections through other's experiences, but frankly we go to bed, and wake up, as ourselves every day. The more we understand and know ourselves the better we can be accurate guides.

I could have written this (absent email arguments). "I could have written that yesterday. I've learned a ton more about programming and databases; I've spent time getting the basics of computer science; and it's all to just keep doing the same damn things over and over again, and then forgetting I did them, and repeating them. Like a version of Groundhog Day about making Groundhog Day. "

"She's publishing her lab notes and data online along with blogging about her work in lay language at labscribbles.com. She's believed to be the first biomedical researcher to open access to work in real time rather than waiting for experiments to be completed or their results published."