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5 Reasons you will NOT compete your course

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This is wonderful from 

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Five Reasons from the wonderful Xina Gooding Broderick 

  1. You didn’t set aside sufficient time to complete your course so create a timetable. Build in compassion. Build in flexibility and re-schedule. Adjust for it. And move in. We’re going for progress, not perfection. 

  2. You didn’t realise it would be as challenging as it is. See Barbara Oakley on ‘Learning How To Learn’. The physiology of procrastination and defeat. Do study skills. Know your learning style. Get plenty of rest. Find a way to embed that learning. Podcasts. Take them on a walk. 

  3. You didn’t ask for help when you needed it. Speak to your tutor or teacher. Keep asking until you understand. You need to understand this. 

  4. No accountability. When left to your own devices. 

  5. You downgraded your requirement for completing it. What are your pros and cons. Every component to decide if this is correct for you in the first place. 









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Design Museum

Visualising social learning

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Tuesday, 20 Nov 2012, 11:09

DSC03935.JPG

Fig.1 My mother sketching one of us c 1974

Imagine taking a desk and chair and sitting down in the concourse of Liverpool Station with a large computer screen. You are researching and writing up an assignment. People are going to look over your shoulder - some will contribute.

What makes this more or less likely to happen?

I used to sit and draw. This attracted attention. Sometimes I would draw people who sat for me - I was 'getting my hand in' for an A Level in art.

If my mother, an art teacher, were around then she would offer some gentle suggestions, sometimes taking out a sheet of paper to show me how.

Would you like someone to look over your shoulder?

With family around this is inevitable, from the indulgent love of a grandparent and the snidde teasing (potentially) from a sibling.

  • Where do we recreate such ways to learn online?
  • What more can we do to facilitate this?
  • What is it about the human nature to help each other along?
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Design Museum

H800:3 Technology (the mobile kind)

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Saturday, 18 Oct 2014, 16:45

In fact any kind.

Coming out of H807 I felt I was 'readoing for a degree' in the traditional sense of the words.

Entering H808 I found there'd be stuff I'd have to use, no escape.

In both instances I eventually got down to it; read masses in H807 and started to learn or relearn how to take an academic approach to research, reading and writing nad in H808 I tried everything, mastered some, reviewed everything, and saw gaps worth filling.

Just as there is the time to read everything there isn't the time to try everything either. Whatever the software does (or is called) there will be six others just as good. Like all good consumers I may go by brand name, so Google, Microsoft, Adobe and even Facebook and Twitter are in.

Go with recommendations from fellow students who can demonstrate what they can do with these tools and talk about it at length; anything else might lead you down a blind alley.

Have two or three versions of something on the go until you're happy. I'm for Firefox as a browser, but still use GoogleChrome while trying mywebsearch from time to time. I've had and have pictures in KodakEasyshare but find everything (as the rest of the family) now feeds into Picasa (I find it intuitive, streaming content from camera, through an edit, online then blogged in minutes).

So I have to go mobile.

My Sony Ericson is more matchbox that Smartphone, a pager, camera, phone thingey. Today I resolved to open the manual (I bought the thing 13 months ago). I have some pics trapped on the phone. I decide to find out how to get them onto the memory card, into Picasa Gallery and online. I find I might be able to send them to my Picasa Account or my daughter's Facebook account. Odd that one. The picas route fails but I correctly identify one of the three versions of me running around Facebook and successfully upload a series of pictures taken over Christmas 2009. All the pics are sideways on and I cannot see that Facebook has an edit function.

I consider this to be an achievement; though I suppose there will be a cost. If its a £1 pic then I'm £12 down. Luckily I stopped it from uploading 93 pics.

Now however whenever I go to my phone I have a stream of Facebook drivel from my cousins various activities, with an occasional piece of nonsense from my 12 and 14 year old. How do I turn this off? (How did I turn it on!) Is it costing me anything.

What's the use?

Learning Technologies say they are plenty of uses. I agree. Were this a business phone and a business Facebook group and everyone was chatting on a theme then being able to engage, or disengage from this lively on topic banter would be of value.

There are other pieces of software on my hit list for H800.

My attitude is to jump in fully clothed, wearing a life-jacket with a smile on my face. I my flouder, I may swim. I may need the life-jacket, I may not. But at some stage I'll be hawled into a community lifeboat, pick up and oar and start to row. A few weeks in I might be at the helm and a few weeks after this I may strip off and dive in off the prow to go looking for something fresh.

i.e. behave like a teenager even if you're not. And if you get stuck ... ask a teenager. What I love about my children is that they will gladly offer to help. I then see that they are as clueless as me at first but after a few goes they manage to crack the code.

 

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Multiple browsers

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Tuesday, 5 Oct 2010, 05:49

Goaded into this by H807 and H808, Innovations in E-Learning and the E-learning Professional, I find I am often using two or three software tools to do the same task instead of one. Call it research, or do I like to cherry pick the different way they do things?

I have slipped into using Google Chrome and Firefox as my preferred browsers. I'm also mixing between a PC and a Mac, though I've abandoned Internet Explorer and AOL.

A few weeks using Outlook and I risk smashing the PC (not its fault) or is it? To resolve problems I am having to ring a tech friend as the help prompts are obtuse - worse than a politician who has their prepared answer to whatever question is asked of them which results in some baffling non sequitur.

In one week I have lost ALL my AOL emails (not that seven/eight years of these things were worth keeping I suppose) and now ALL outgoing emails are being bounced back in my face.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I love Mac because it is friendly and intuitive. I loathe most things Microsoft because they are neither.

Is this just me?

If you've never owned a Mac, save up, go buy one.

 

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