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Learning Solutions Magazine: Show Me the ROI! by Dr. Conrad Gottfredson
How are you validating the transfer of learning from training events to the workplace? The majority of organizations still rely on measuring learner reactions and learning mastery, not the results. There is an answer: integrated performance support. In this article, read about two basic steps that put your organization on the path out of the mire of murky measurement!
Coursera: Our New Front Page: So Fresh and So Clean!
Editor’s Note: Coursera’s Lead Student Team Engineer Pamela Fox shares her reflections on our front page’s new look!I joined Coursera wayyyyy back in the day, almost a year ago, and I remember my first project was to redesign our front page in anticipation of our upcoming growth from 4 to 17 universities. So many! How would we showcase them all?! But hey, I figured it out and we moved on. We’ve grown quite a bit since then and we’re now up to 62 universities and 320+ courses, plus we’ve added the options for Signature Track and ACE, all the while managing never to upgrade our poor year-old front page. By the time we realized it was high time for renovation, it was quite the “fixer-upper.” With the combined efforts of our designer Payam, our prolific intern Marc, and our newest full-time web engineer Josh, we crafted a new front page and browsing experience. Our new front page includes: • A prominent search box, which takes pote…
Saylor.org: We Love Resources: UC Irvine
Like the resource we featured two weeks ago (Free Music Archive), we haven’t yet found a place for the videos at Open Chemistry (UC Irvine), though in this case we might be forgiven; the site arrived with the just-finished Open Education Week 2013. Whether you’re just a die-hard Breaking Bad fan or in love with chemistry for its [...]…
Saylor.org: #DigEdCon Keynote Profile: Kenneth C. Green, Ph.D., Founding Director, The Campus Computing Project
“Others have opinions & epiphanies; I try to bring data to the discussion…” -Kenneth C. Green, Ph.D., Founding Director, The Campus Computing Project We are so excited to have the very funny, very knowledgeable Kenneth C. Green, Ph.D., as one of our keynote speakers at The Saylor Foundation Digital Education Conference in April. Dr. Green [...]…
Saylor.org: With Spring, A Transition: A Message from Director Alana Harrington
To the smart, dedicated, totally awesome Saylor Community– I’m both excited and sad to announce that I will be stepping down from my post as Director of the Saylor Foundation at the end of this month. My family and I have decided to relocate to our hometown of Houston, Texas! The search for a new [...]…
Coursera: My Coursera Experience: Empowering Local Communities through MOOC
Editor’s note: Sharon Watkins is a Coursera student who runs an Ohio-based Non-Profit “The Learning Cafe”. She’s empowering her local community by encouraging people to take courses together & improve their careers. The Learning Cafe (TLC) is an evening hours community ‘learning environment’ housed in our public high school located in a high poverty community. The purpose of our program is to raise community engagement in education by providing fresh enrichment and advancement learning opportunities.We do what many community schools do: offer a dinner, transportation, access to social services and childcare along with a wide range of classes. We want to entice reluctant learners back to school while we challenge our seasoned students with new learning choices as well. My husband brought MOOC’s and Coursera to my attention last fall. We host TED Talk discussion groups at TLC and so I watched Daphne Koller’s talk on Coursera. T…
Udemy: Read, Write, Count, Code: Programming For Kids (Video Tutorial)
It’s time to admit it, the anti-social, unkempt, thirtysomething computer programmer who still lives in his parents’ basement is a myth. Today programmers have great job prospects, making on average 78k, which is nearly double the national average. They work for large corporations and small startups, the public and the private sector, for profit and nonprofit organizations. They can even start their own companies and then flip them for millions of dollars. Ability to program is becoming as essential as... Continue reading »…
Udemy: Basic Music Theory and Ear Training: 5 Reasons Everyone in Music Needs It
I’ve been a university Professor of Music for over 10 years now, and my students always groan about basic music theory. “Why do I need theory?” they ask. “I just want to sing / play guitar / write songs.” They think theory is the opposite of practice, and since practice makes perfect, they think, “I’ll just get good at doing what I do.” In music, this couldn’t be further from the truth. There are five reasons why: 1. If you’re... Continue reading »…
Saylor.org: Student Snapshot: Michael Ross
This is the first in our new series of Saylor.org student snapshots. Here, Michael Ross tells us his story. My name is Michael Ross. At the time of writing this profile I am at the age of 30. I have a strong interest in 3 majors at the Saylor Foundation, but have decided to stick [...]…
Saylor.org: Ninja Skills: Double-Book Your Learning
Last week, I issued a “Ninja Skills” challenge, asking for your go-to techniques for keeping track of online learning. Put another way: Problem: Managing online/hybrid classwork can be a lot harder than in the good old Trapper Keeper® days. Opportunity: Share collective wisdom on best organizational practices. Discover tools and methods beyond your wildest dreams. [...]…
Saylor.org: Spirit of Innovation Challenge
Spurred by the premise that young people have some positively good ideas, the Conrad Foundation holds its annual Spirit of Innovation Challenge to “help students truly understand how what they are learning can be applied to something with large-scale social impact.” High-schoolers use their STEM* powers to “develop innovative products to help solve global and local problems while supporting [...]…
Learning Solutions Magazine: Research for Practitioners: Student Annotation of Examples Improves Learning Outcomes by Clark N. Quinn
A constant challenge for instructional designers is finding or developing well-designed examples, including explanations. Could learners provide and document the examples? Research to the rescue! You may be surprised (and pleased) by what this study discovered.
Saylor.org: Course o
It’s the Information Age (you may have noticed). If you, or someone you care about, is feeling a bit left out, you could do worse than to connect up with the three-hour Computer Skills and Literacy course from our Professional Development series — the latest arrival on our iTunes U channel. Rather than a guide [...]…
Udacity: A Rose By Any Other Name
We want to wax poetic about the huge help you've given us with Udacity course translations! A rose by any other name, and Udacity courses in any other language, do indeed smell as sweet. Thank you for udaciously translating our courses into 63 different languages, furthering our mission of bringing accessible, affordable, engaging and effective higher education to the entire world! Interested in learning in different languages? Check out the closed captioning button, located at the bottom right of the lesson screen, to see what languages have been translated. Our most translated languages include Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese. Introduction to Computer Science, Programming Languages, How to Build a Startup, and Introduction to Statistics have been fully translated into Traditional Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, Ukranian, and Spanish, respectively. How are people translating our lessons? Working with Amara, an open source captioning and subtitling service, Udacity connects students…
Learning Solutions Magazine: When Designing eLearning, Remember the
Every good instructional designer knows that content must be meaningful and it must engage the learner. Every instructional designer also knows just how difficult that can be! Here is a three-point strategy that will help you design content that meets the challenge.
Udemy: How Bogdan Milanovic got 500 new students from Reddit
When instructor Bogdan Milanovic posted on Reddit about his Udemy course, I’m not sure if he was prepared for what happened next. In under two days, 500 people enrolled in his course. Let’s be clear about one thing: all of these students enrolled in his course for FREE because the Reddit community does not like to be sold to. However, KEEP READING to learn how this strategy can cause a ripple effect of PAID signups for you (especially important if... Continue reading »…
Udemy: How to Become a Content Marketer: 6 Steps to Get You Started
The premise behind content marketing is enticing: give away great content, and your customers will come to you. Content marketing is nothing new, but it has recently gained a lot of momentum. The number of content marketing jobs listed on indeed.com has more than doubled between 2009 and 2012. Whether you are wondering how you could grab one of these jobs, or you want to help grow your existing business, here are some tips to get you started on becoming... Continue reading »…
Udacity: Interactive 3D Graphics Contest
If you’re taking our Interactive 3D Graphics class, you are going to learn a ton and create some amazing interactive graphics. And we are really pumped to announce a contest that will give you a chance to earn bragging rights (and some other cool stuff) by creatively showing what you’ve learned in the class. In order to show off in this contest, you must be enrolled in the class (so if you haven’t signed up for this course, go do it now!) and adhere the full terms and conditions. There are several different categories you can choose to compete in and prizes range from the seminal “Real-Time Rendering” book signed by co-author Eric Haines (who is also the instructor for this class), Udacity t-shirts, and gift cards at Shapeways for 3D printing. If you want to participate make sure you read and agree to the contest terms (yes, you have to read them) and take note of the deadlines. Here’s how the contest breaks down:There will be two p…
Udemy: Joomla Versions: Should I Upgrade To Joomla 3?
There has been a lot of questions surrounding the recent release of Joomla! 3.x. How do you decide which version of Joomla! is best for you? Currently, Joomla! 2.5.x is an LTS (Long Term Support) release that is proven stable and has access to thousands of compatible extensions. The LTS releases are supported for 21 months, giving you or your clients a solution that can and should be used for longer stretches with greater reliability. While Joomla! 3.x has some... Continue reading »…
Coursera: Dan Ariely's Course on "A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior" Open for Enrollment!
Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke, Dan Ariely is no ordinary man. With 70% of his body burned in an explosion when he was a teenager, a day in the life of Dan is plagued with aching limbs and hands that don’t always work, much less fit into ski gloves. But that doesn’t stop him from conquering the field of behavioral economics as the expert on all things “irrational.” One of the main themes in Dan’s research is the contrast between what a rational agent should do, at least according to standard economic theory, and how we humans actually behave. In his upcoming course on Coursera, “A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior,” Dan will provide an introduction to behavioral economics that makes you scratch your head and wonder why we act in the curious ways we do. How stable and consistent are our preferences? How do we think about money? How do we justify unethical behavior? What motivates us to work? How can we exhib…