Learning
« Previous Entries Next Entries »In Praise of Unusual Courses
Thursday, April 10th, 2008I’ve taken a number of unusual courses in my academic life.
A college I attended offered a course titled “Introduction to Welding,” which sounded like a good way to get three credits. I really enjoyed it. Getting metal pieces to stick together was great fun, and the risk that the gas tanks might explode provided the [...]
School Board Proposes Limitations on Homework
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008If their legs were long enough to reach the pedals of their parents’ cars, young children would be emptying their piggy banks for gas money and immediately relocating to Toronto, Ontario.
Why the move? The Toronto District School Board, the largest public school board in Canada, is proposing to eliminate homework for kindergarten children and ban [...]
The Importance of Flow in Learning and Happiness
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008I seem to come across the concept of “flow” everywhere I turn.
About two years ago, a large company approached Brandon Hall Research to see if we’d be interested in studying the effects of flow on learning. Then, last year, in reading about brain plasticity, I came across research that suggested that flow is the state [...]
The Rubber Room
Thursday, March 13th, 2008National Public Radio recently aired an excellent This American Life episode called Human Resources. The first part of this documentary featured a story called “The Rubber Room,” which focused on a surreal situation in the NY City Public School System.
The rubber room is a place where hundreds of teachers facing disciplinary hearings for real, imagined, [...]
Microsoft Having a Bad Year
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008First, the software giant’s $44.6 billion offer to purchase Yahoo was rebuffed, sending Microsoft back to the boardroom to plot its next move.
Then, the European Union fined Microsoft $1.35 billion for failing to comply with a 2004 ruling that found that Microsoft had withheld interoperability information from its competitors.
Then, last week, a judge made available [...]
The Tinkering School: Helping Kids Discover Danger
Thursday, February 21st, 2008Last week, I wrote about a teen panel I attended that suggested that, except for a few small differences, today’s teens seem pretty similar to their boomer parents. Considering how differently these generations were raised, this is surprising.
When I was young, my favorite game was called stretch. My opponent and I would face each other, [...]
Free MIT Online Courses Getting a Million Hits Per Month
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008It’s been seven years since the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) launched its OpenCourseware project. The goal of the initiative has been to:
“…advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship to best serve the world.”
Since then, this repository has grown to include more than 2,000 free online courses. The site [...]
Four Dumb Things I Do Out of Habit (But Plan to Stop)
Wednesday, January 9th, 2008A week ago, I switched to browsing the Web using a portrait- rather than landscape-oriented monitor. Although my new monitor can pivot back and forth between the two orientations, I haven’t moved it back to landscape mode since trying out the Web in vertical format. This is definitely the right orientation for all the reasons [...]
Brandon Hall Research Resources
Friday, November 23rd, 2007Brandon Hall Research provides independent, objective information about learning and talent management.
PUBLICATIONS AND KNOWLEDGEBASES:
Information to help buy systems, tools, and services
Information [...]
Why Pecha-Kucha is Catching On
Friday, August 31st, 2007Since first reading about pecha-kucha, PowerPoint presentations limited to 20 slides displayed for exactly 20 seconds each, in this month’s Wired magazine, pecha-kucha seems to be everywhere I look.
My home town is holding a pecha-kucha evening at an arts and technology center this month. Fellow blogger Mike Caulfield has proposed a Learning 2.0 pecha-kucha contest, [...]
