An exciting day with a second round of book-signings,
meeting up with the Committee, and a visit from Mayor Nenshi!
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Tuesday
Calgary Chamber of Volunteer Organizations - Second day at the 2013 Conference
and a visit from Mayor Nenshi!
Thursday
Tuesday
Degree or Diploma verses Real World Experience...
Michael Schrage
Michael Schrage, a research fellow at MIT Sloan School’s Center for Digital Business, is the author of Serious Play and the forthcoming Getting Beyond Ideas.Higher Education Is Overrated; Skills Aren't
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Are they right? I don't know. But painfully clear to many employers are serious gaps between elite educational credentials and actual individual competence. College transcripts spackled with As and Bs — particularly from liberal arts and humanities programs — reveal less about a candidate's capabilities than most serious employers need to know. Even top-tier MBA degrees often say more about the desire to have an important credential than about any greater capacity to be a good leader or manager. The curricular formalities of higher education — as opposed to its informal networks of friends and connections — may be less valuable now than they were a decade ago. In other words, alumni networks may be more economically valuable than whatever one studied in class. "Where you went" may prove professionally more helpful than "what you know." That certainly undermines "value of education" arguments. While higher education itself isn't marginal or unimportant, its actual market impact on employment prospects may be wildly misunderstood. In "Econ 101" terms for job-hunters: time spent cultivating your Facebook/Linked-In network(s) may be a better investment than taking that Finance elective.
Eduzealots have done a truly awful thing to serious human capital conversations and analyses around employment. By vociferously championing higher education as key to economic success, they've distorted important public policy debates about how and why people get hired and paid well. They've undermined useful arguments about "street smarts" versus "book smarts." Treating education as the best proxy for human capital is like using patents as your proxy for measuring innovation — its underlying logic shouldn't obscure the fact that you'll underweigh market leaders like WalMart, Google, Tata and Toyota. Dare I point out that Microsoft's Bill Gates, Dell's Michael Dell, Apple's Steve Jobs, Oracle's Larry Ellison and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg are all college drop-outs? The point isn't to declare a college degree antithetical to launching a high-tech juggernaut but to observe that, perhaps, higher education isn't essential to effective entrepreneurship.
We have a huge branding issue. Pundits and policy-makers jabber about the need to educate people to compete in knowledge-intensive industries. But knowledge doesn't represent even half the intensity of this industrial challenge. What really matters are skills. The grievously undervalued human capital issue here isn't quality education in school but quality of skills in markets. Establishing correlations, let alone causality, between them is hard. (Michael Polanyi's classic "Personal Knowledge" brilliantly articulates this.) A computer science PhD doesn't make one a good programmer. There is a world of difference between getting an "A" in robotics class and winning a "bot" competition. MIT's motto isn't Mens et Manus (Latin for Mind and Hand) by accident. Great knowledge is not the same as great skill. Worse yet, decent knowledge doesn't guarantee even decent skills. Unfortunately, educrats and eduzealots behave as if college English degrees mean their recipients can write and that philosophy degrees mean their holders can rigorously think. That's not true. Feel free to comment below if you disagree....
As Atkinson's anecdotes affirm, there's no shortage of "well- educated" college graduates who can't write intelligible synopses or manage simple spreadsheets. I know doctoral candidates in statistics and operations research who find adapting their superb technical expertise to messy, real-world problem solving extraordinarily difficult. Their great knowledge doesn't confer great skill. Nevertheless, you would find their research and their resumes impressive. You should. But focusing on their formal educational accomplishments misrepresents their skill set outside the academy. Academic and classroom markets are profoundly different than business and workplace markets. Why should anyone be surprised that serious knowledge/skill gaps dominate those differences?
Higher education institutions do decently with knowledge transmission. Unfortunately, they do dismally transmitting skills. Pun intended, that's — apparently — not their job. That's also why "human capital" debates and investment policies going forward should weight skills over knowledge. When I look at who is getting hired, purported knowledge almost always matters less than demonstrable skills. The distinctions aren't subtle; they're immense. How do they manifest themselves? These hires don't have resumes highlighting educational pedigrees and accomplishments; their resumes emphasize their skill sets. Instead of listing aspirations and achievements, these resumes present portfolios around performance. They link to blogs, published articles, PowerPoint presentations, podcasts and webinars the candidates produced. The traditional two-page resume has been turned into a "personal productivity portal" that empowers prospective employers to quite literally interact with their candidate's work.
Unsurprisingly, this simultaneously complements and reinforces the employer-side due diligence that's emerged during this recession: firms have both the luxury and necessity to find the best possible candidates for open positions. Yes, they're looking for appropriate levels of educational accomplishment but, really, what they most want are people who have the skills they need. More importantly, they want to actually see those skills — be they written, computed, designed and/or presented. Professional services firms I know now don't hesitate to ask a serious candidate to demonstrate their sincerity and skills by asking them to show how they might "adapt" a presentation for one of the company's own clients. Verbal fluency and presence impresses headhunters and interviewers. But the ability to virtually demonstrate one's professional skills increasingly matters more.
This is part of the vast structural shift in the human capital marketplace worldwide. Firms have the ability and incentive to be far more selective in their hires. But project managers and professionals also have the bandwidth and desire to showcase their skills. The resume is rapidly mutating away from a documentary string of alphanumeric text into a multimedia platform that projects precisely the brand image and substance a job candidate seeks to convey. Did they teach you that in college or grad school? Of course not. Will you learn that by hanging around LinkedIn or Facebook? Probably not.
Is this how human capital markets will become more efficient and effective tomorrow? Absolutely. You've got to have skill to show off your knowledge.
http://blogs.hbr.org/schrage/2010/07/higher-education-is-highly-ove.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm;_medium=feed&utm;_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29
Quid pro quo will define the author-publisher relationship
Quid pro quo will define the author-publisher relationship
Published on O'Reilly Radar - Insight, analysis, and research about emerging technologies. | shared via feedly mobile
In a recent interview, author and digital book producer Peter Meyers talked about what we can expect as publishing comes into its own in the digital era. He said customized book apps will largely go by the wayside, and HTML5 as a format will be a bit of a hard-sell to consumers. And using his own experience as a basis, Meyers said publishers aren't in danger of becoming irrelevant.
Highlights from the interview (below) include:
Different kinds of books gravitate toward different kinds of formats — Meyers said the majority of books in the future won't be customized apps. The ones that will be apps will be the ones that require interactivity. [Discussed at the 0:19 mark.]
HTML5 is still a wild card — Meyers said HTML5's core question is transactional: Are people willing to pay for web-based content? Consumers have been reluctant thus far, but as HTML5 gets fully supported, we'll see more experimentation. [Discussed at 1:40.]
Amazon's Fire tablet will be a problem for B&N — Even though both tablets are similar in a lot ways, Meyers pointed toward Amazon's ecosystem and said B&N just doesn't match up to Amazon's content and service offerings. [Discussed at 4:54.]
Will publishers become irrelevant? — Meyers said no. Using his own experience as an example, he highlighted the fact that his publisher (O'Reilly) provides a platform to publicize his work and technological support to produce works in particular formats. What he doesn't get — and said few authors do — is hand-holding, individual attention, detailed line editing, cheerleading and so forth. Meyers said authors need to go in with the expectation that they'll have to do as much for their publishers and their books as the publishers do for them. [Discussed at 5:26.]
You can view the entire interview in the following video.
Meyers' new book, "Breaking the Page: Transforming Books and the Reading Experience," will be released in the next couple weeks — you can nab a free preview copy now — and he'll host a workshop at TOC 2012.
Monday
How to integrate online media with in-person lectures...
Exploding the Lecture
November 15, 2011 - 3:00am
Personal narrative plays an important role in Mike Garver’s teaching style. Garver, a professor of marketing at Central Michigan University, often uses anecdotes from his own life in his lectures, according to one of his students. “It’s a good way to, in his words, ‘Put a movie in your mind,’ ” says Mike Hoover, a senior at Central Michigan, who is currently taking Garver’s course in market research.
So when I ask Garver about his efforts to excise the lecture from the classroom and blow it to smithereens, he naturally begins telling me a story. In this one, it’s 1998, and Garver is fresh out of grad school and into his first teaching job, at Western Carolina University. He’s giving a lecture on “the principles of marketing” to 100 students. The head of teacher development at Western Carolina is observing, but Garver isn’t nervous. On the contrary, he’s in the zone.
“I gave one of the best lectures I had ever given,” Garver says. “It just flowed. The students were into it, I had funny jokes — I thought, 'This is the best I’ve ever been, and the head of teachers is evaluating my teaching, and I am kicking ass!' ”
After class, Garver remembers his supervisor affirming the young lecturer’s confidence -- before blowing it apart. “He basically said, ‘Mike, that was a great lecture. Have you ever heard of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning?’ ” Garver had not. His supervisor explained Benjamin Bloom’s 1956 formulation, which divides learning into higher and lower orders and emphasizes the importance of putting learned ideas to work.
“Even though your lecture was spectacular,” Garver recalls his mentor saying, “you’re down here at the bottom of Bloom’s Taxonomy.” He challenged Garver to infuse higher orders of learning into his teaching methodology. “I have been chasing that dream ever since,” Garver says.
Now, with the arrival of technology that allows him to easily record his lectures at home, slice them into easily digestible morsels, and make them available for students to watch online prior to class meetings, Garver says he has finally caught up to that dream.
I tell Garver it’s obvious that he is in marketing. He laughs and says he’ll take the compliment.
This is how Garver lectures these days: He gives his lectures alone, at home, on his own time, into a microphone. “I get fired up with coffee, I go into the studio, and I just start cranking out lectures,” he says. Garver, who compares himself to Ray Charles in his ability to nail the first take, says he does not have a hard time summoning charisma in the absence of a live audience. Listening to the boom and lilt of his voice through the telephone, I believe him.
After he’s done recording, Garver edits the lectures into shorter mini-lectures, ranging from 5 to 29 minutes. Then he posts the lectures to Central Michigan’s iTunes U site, along with accompanying PowerPoint slides. Garver instructs his students to listen to one or more of the mini-lectures in preparation for each class (he only devotes a week of the syllabus to reading marketing textbooks — a genre he describes, in general, as jargon-choked “translation exercises,” useful primarily for curing insomnia).
Garver says he believes that even disciplined minds have trouble focusing on something as dense as a lecture for more than 15 minutes. When he first began recording lectures and assigning them outside of class, Garver says his students sometimes found it even more difficult to stick with the lectures amid the distractions of home than in the classroom, where they were at least a captive audience. “They’d say, ‘Oh my God, that hour-long lecture — what were you thinking?’” Garver says.
That’s when he started using his digital cleaver more judiciously. “I’m actually thinking of cutting the 15-minute lecture into smaller chunks,” he says, “and I think I can.” Garver’s goal is to turn his lectures into albums of two- to five-minute tracks.
At the beginning of each class, Garver uses classroom clickers to quiz students on the concepts covered in the previous night’s lectures. For the rest of the class period, Garver typically divides the students into teams and asks them to apply those concepts to specific use cases. “What we can focus on is the upper end of Bloom’s Taxonomy,” he says — that is, hands-on learning.
“I kind of gave up lecturing in the classroom,” Garver says, adding that he was tired of having to choose between introducing ideas and letting students try putting them into practice. “There was never enough time for both,” he says.
The theoretical ideal Garver is using as his guiding star is a half century old; and the technology he is using is not particularly new, either. But his eagerness to eject the lecture from the classroom entirely is still somewhat rare among professors who teach large, face-to-face classes.
Central Michigan has made a push to make lecture-capture technology available to faculty, and many use it, says Brian Roberts, an instructional technologist at the university’s Faculty Center for Innovative Teaching. However, nearly all of them “do what I call more of the ‘traditional’ or ‘basic’ lecture capture,” says Roberts: They give their lecture in class per usual, the only difference being that students can refer to the recording later when they are studying.
Aside from Garver, the idea to record and assign lectures outside of class has not gotten much traction at Central Michigan, says Roberts.
That could soon change. The popularity of Khan Academy, a fast-growing database of short educational videos — which has drawn raves from Bill Gates, among others — suggests that mini-lectures, delivered apart from the classroom, could pick up momentum in higher education.
“What you’re talking about here is likely to become increasingly popular, partly because it reflects that paradigm we’re starting to hear more discussion about: that is, 'flipping the classroom,'" says Mara Hancock, the director of educational technology services at the University of California at Berkeley. "Rather than pushing information at students, it might be better to use it in a way that helps them with higher-level learning."
One of the biggest obstacles to the proliferation of lecture capture has been reluctance by faculty to take the extra steps necessary to ensure that their lectures are properly captured and cataloged. At the annual Educause conference two years ago, officials involved in a major deployment at Purdue University said they had a hard time even getting faculty to press an "on" button at the outset of each classroom presentation.
Hancock says that her institution focuses on making it as convenient as possible for professors to use lecture capture. Garver's method requires a great deal more work: creating lecture recordings outside the classroom while finding constructive new ways to teach inside the classroom. "I think faculty will have to want to embrace that and go through the door knowing that it will be more work," says Hancock.
Such a shift might come as a relief to professors who find lecturing tedious, and perhaps an ill omen for professors who feel uncomfortable managing a lecture hall full of students without the aid of a script.
Paulina Lee, a senior in Garver’s market research course, says that full-length recorded lectures suffer the same problems as their ephemeral counterparts.
“Even if I were to sit through a lecture, or have a professor post a lecture [online], I really don’t want to be sitting in front of a computer for an hour taking notes,” Lee says.
For the latest technology news and opinion from Inside Higher Ed, follow @IHEtech on Twitter.
So when I ask Garver about his efforts to excise the lecture from the classroom and blow it to smithereens, he naturally begins telling me a story. In this one, it’s 1998, and Garver is fresh out of grad school and into his first teaching job, at Western Carolina University. He’s giving a lecture on “the principles of marketing” to 100 students. The head of teacher development at Western Carolina is observing, but Garver isn’t nervous. On the contrary, he’s in the zone.
“I gave one of the best lectures I had ever given,” Garver says. “It just flowed. The students were into it, I had funny jokes — I thought, 'This is the best I’ve ever been, and the head of teachers is evaluating my teaching, and I am kicking ass!' ”
After class, Garver remembers his supervisor affirming the young lecturer’s confidence -- before blowing it apart. “He basically said, ‘Mike, that was a great lecture. Have you ever heard of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning?’ ” Garver had not. His supervisor explained Benjamin Bloom’s 1956 formulation, which divides learning into higher and lower orders and emphasizes the importance of putting learned ideas to work.
“Even though your lecture was spectacular,” Garver recalls his mentor saying, “you’re down here at the bottom of Bloom’s Taxonomy.” He challenged Garver to infuse higher orders of learning into his teaching methodology. “I have been chasing that dream ever since,” Garver says.
Now, with the arrival of technology that allows him to easily record his lectures at home, slice them into easily digestible morsels, and make them available for students to watch online prior to class meetings, Garver says he has finally caught up to that dream.
I tell Garver it’s obvious that he is in marketing. He laughs and says he’ll take the compliment.
This is how Garver lectures these days: He gives his lectures alone, at home, on his own time, into a microphone. “I get fired up with coffee, I go into the studio, and I just start cranking out lectures,” he says. Garver, who compares himself to Ray Charles in his ability to nail the first take, says he does not have a hard time summoning charisma in the absence of a live audience. Listening to the boom and lilt of his voice through the telephone, I believe him.
After he’s done recording, Garver edits the lectures into shorter mini-lectures, ranging from 5 to 29 minutes. Then he posts the lectures to Central Michigan’s iTunes U site, along with accompanying PowerPoint slides. Garver instructs his students to listen to one or more of the mini-lectures in preparation for each class (he only devotes a week of the syllabus to reading marketing textbooks — a genre he describes, in general, as jargon-choked “translation exercises,” useful primarily for curing insomnia).
Garver says he believes that even disciplined minds have trouble focusing on something as dense as a lecture for more than 15 minutes. When he first began recording lectures and assigning them outside of class, Garver says his students sometimes found it even more difficult to stick with the lectures amid the distractions of home than in the classroom, where they were at least a captive audience. “They’d say, ‘Oh my God, that hour-long lecture — what were you thinking?’” Garver says.
That’s when he started using his digital cleaver more judiciously. “I’m actually thinking of cutting the 15-minute lecture into smaller chunks,” he says, “and I think I can.” Garver’s goal is to turn his lectures into albums of two- to five-minute tracks.
At the beginning of each class, Garver uses classroom clickers to quiz students on the concepts covered in the previous night’s lectures. For the rest of the class period, Garver typically divides the students into teams and asks them to apply those concepts to specific use cases. “What we can focus on is the upper end of Bloom’s Taxonomy,” he says — that is, hands-on learning.
“I kind of gave up lecturing in the classroom,” Garver says, adding that he was tired of having to choose between introducing ideas and letting students try putting them into practice. “There was never enough time for both,” he says.
The theoretical ideal Garver is using as his guiding star is a half century old; and the technology he is using is not particularly new, either. But his eagerness to eject the lecture from the classroom entirely is still somewhat rare among professors who teach large, face-to-face classes.
Central Michigan has made a push to make lecture-capture technology available to faculty, and many use it, says Brian Roberts, an instructional technologist at the university’s Faculty Center for Innovative Teaching. However, nearly all of them “do what I call more of the ‘traditional’ or ‘basic’ lecture capture,” says Roberts: They give their lecture in class per usual, the only difference being that students can refer to the recording later when they are studying.
Aside from Garver, the idea to record and assign lectures outside of class has not gotten much traction at Central Michigan, says Roberts.
That could soon change. The popularity of Khan Academy, a fast-growing database of short educational videos — which has drawn raves from Bill Gates, among others — suggests that mini-lectures, delivered apart from the classroom, could pick up momentum in higher education.
“What you’re talking about here is likely to become increasingly popular, partly because it reflects that paradigm we’re starting to hear more discussion about: that is, 'flipping the classroom,'" says Mara Hancock, the director of educational technology services at the University of California at Berkeley. "Rather than pushing information at students, it might be better to use it in a way that helps them with higher-level learning."
One of the biggest obstacles to the proliferation of lecture capture has been reluctance by faculty to take the extra steps necessary to ensure that their lectures are properly captured and cataloged. At the annual Educause conference two years ago, officials involved in a major deployment at Purdue University said they had a hard time even getting faculty to press an "on" button at the outset of each classroom presentation.
Hancock says that her institution focuses on making it as convenient as possible for professors to use lecture capture. Garver's method requires a great deal more work: creating lecture recordings outside the classroom while finding constructive new ways to teach inside the classroom. "I think faculty will have to want to embrace that and go through the door knowing that it will be more work," says Hancock.
Such a shift might come as a relief to professors who find lecturing tedious, and perhaps an ill omen for professors who feel uncomfortable managing a lecture hall full of students without the aid of a script.
Paulina Lee, a senior in Garver’s market research course, says that full-length recorded lectures suffer the same problems as their ephemeral counterparts.
“Even if I were to sit through a lecture, or have a professor post a lecture [online], I really don’t want to be sitting in front of a computer for an hour taking notes,” Lee says.
For the latest technology news and opinion from Inside Higher Ed, follow @IHEtech on Twitter.
http://www.linkedin.com/news?actionBar=&articleID=913731403&ids=0Pc3gNcPsPcjAId38Pdj0Odj8Vb3wSdjASdPcNeiMUcz4Mcj0RczAIcPoOd3gVej4V&aag=true&freq=weekly&trk=eml-tod2-b-ttl-4&ut=2PY8FfBRJcb501&_mSplash=1
Sunday
Most Hackable E-Reader
I'm interested in purchasing an e-reader of some kind (i.e. must use e-ink tech, no LCD screens) and wondering if anyone has any suggestions about which reader lends itself most to tinkering / extending / hacking? Are there any that make it possible to install your own software? (It would be cool to see i.e. Emacs running on one.) Nook Color, hands down. Unfortunately, your eInk criterion limits you to cheap knockoffs. If you're willing to go LCD, you won't be disappointed with a Nook Color. Cyanogen makes the ROM for it, and they are nearly impossible to brick. Heck, you can run a custom ROM right off the microSD card, never putting your warranty in jeopardy. And, because it's Cyanogen, you can read nearly anything, and have full Android Market access. -- Christopher Nook Color $249 Available from and manufactured by Barnes and Noble |
Most Hackable E-Reader
I'm interested in purchasing an e-reader of some kind (i.e. must use e-ink tech, no LCD screens) and wondering if anyone has any suggestions about which reader lends itself most to tinkering / extending / hacking? Are there any that make it possible to install your own software? (It would be cool to see i.e. Emacs running on one.) Nook Color, hands down. Unfortunately, your eInk criterion limits you to cheap knockoffs. If you're willing to go LCD, you won't be disappointed with a Nook Color. Cyanogen makes the ROM for it, and they are nearly impossible to brick. Heck, you can run a custom ROM right off the microSD card, never putting your warranty in jeopardy. And, because it's Cyanogen, you can read nearly anything, and have full Android Market access. -- Christopher Nook Color Cyanogen Nook Color Rom Have a different answer to this question? Submit your own!
|
Wednesday
ViTiny USB Digital Microscope
 I have had this handheld USB digital microscope for a couple of months and have found it really handy for working with anything with small geometries, or whenever I want to see something really small. The optical magnification range is 1x to 80x, but is advertised as having even higher magnification through digital zoom (basically, just zooming in on the digital image). The bang-for-buck is huge even if you don't need to look at high-resolution negatives from some spy-plane. It can be used at a broad range of magnifications, from microscopic (the fibers in paper look like a log-jam) to its alternate use as a webcam by just changing the distance and re-focusing. It really shines when you put it against something you need a close look at because of its built in light source, two magnification levels set by spinning the focus ring, and the Windows-only software that lets you do calibrated on-screen measurements and side-by-side comparisons with one side live. The price is low enough you might suspect it's a toy instead of a tool, but it's serious hardware. It has a 2 mega-pixel sensor, with decent optics and enough configurable image control to satisfy the geekiest tool buff, but the defaults make it simple and practical to use right out of the box. There are other USB microscopes out there, but this one is affordable and has so much utility that it's fun to use. Last time I loaned it out it took weeks to get back because everyone who tried it had to show someone else the snazzy little tool they'd just ordered for themselves. -- Jon Crabtree Vi-Tiny USB Digital Microscope Windows XP/Vista/7 Compatible (no support for Mac OSX) $90  |
ViTiny USB Digital Microscope
I have had this handheld USB digital microscope for a couple of months and have found it really handy for working with anything with small geometries, or whenever I want to see something really small. The optical magnification range is 1x to 80x, but is advertised as having even higher magnification through digital zoom (basically, just zooming in on the digital image). The bang-for-buck is huge even if you don't need to look at high-resolution negatives from some spy-plane. It can be used at a broad range of magnifications, from microscopic (the fibers in paper look like a log-jam) to its alternate use as a webcam by just changing the distance and re-focusing. It really shines when you put it against something you need a close look at because of its built in light source, two magnification levels set by spinning the focus ring, and the Windows-only software that lets you do calibrated on-screen measurements and side-by-side comparisons with one side live. The price is low enough you might suspect it's a toy instead of a tool, but it's serious hardware. It has a 2 mega-pixel sensor, with decent optics and enough configurable image control to satisfy the geekiest tool buff, but the defaults make it simple and practical to use right out of the box. There are other USB microscopes out there, but this one is affordable and has so much utility that it's fun to use. Last time I loaned it out it took weeks to get back because everyone who tried it had to show someone else the snazzy little tool they'd just ordered for themselves. Vi-Tiny USB Digital Microscope Available from Amazon Manufactured by ViTiny |
Monday
Sage Maths
Sage Maths is free open source software for doing virtually every type of maths you can imagine. Not just numerical maths, but symbolic maths too - you can give Sage an equation and it will tell you what the equation of its integral or differential is, for example. And it will do numerical maths, plot graphs, analyze statistical information and solve equations or sets of equations. In fact, it will do virtually anything mathematical you can think of.
Sage was developed as an open source alternative to commercial systems like Mathematica and Matlab (it has most but not all of the functionality of both) because mathematicians and scientists need to be able to understand and review the algorithms their software uses - something not possible with a closed system.
Originally developed for graduate mathematicians, Sage is now at the stage where it is useful and interesting to professional and hobbyist mechanical and electronic engineers, amateur astronomers, business number crunchers, and people who just want to know more maths than they do. It runs on Linux, Windows and OS X, and lately people have managed to run it on both Apple iThings and Android smartphones. -- Jonathan Coupe
Sage Maths
Free
Available from Sage
Sage was developed as an open source alternative to commercial systems like Mathematica and Matlab (it has most but not all of the functionality of both) because mathematicians and scientists need to be able to understand and review the algorithms their software uses - something not possible with a closed system.
Originally developed for graduate mathematicians, Sage is now at the stage where it is useful and interesting to professional and hobbyist mechanical and electronic engineers, amateur astronomers, business number crunchers, and people who just want to know more maths than they do. It runs on Linux, Windows and OS X, and lately people have managed to run it on both Apple iThings and Android smartphones. -- Jonathan Coupe
Sage Maths
Free
Available from Sage
Sage Maths
Sage Maths is free open source software for doing virtually every type of maths you can imagine. Not just numerical maths, but symbolic maths too - you can give Sage an equation and it will tell you what the equation of its integral or differential is, for example. And it will do numerical maths, plot graphs, analyze statistical information and solve equations or sets of equations. In fact, it will do virtually anything mathematical you can think of.
Sage was developed as an open source alternative to commercial systems like Mathematica and Matlab (it has most but not all of the functionality of both) because mathematicians and scientists need to be able to understand and review the algorithms their software uses - something not possible with a closed system.
Originally developed for graduate mathematicians, Sage is now at the stage where it is useful and interesting to professional and hobbyist mechanical and electronic engineers, amateur astronomers, business number crunchers, and people who just want to know more maths than they do. It runs on Linux, Windows and OS X, and lately people have managed to run it on both Apple iThings and Android smartphones. -- Jonathan Coupe
Sage Maths
Free
Available from Sage
Sage was developed as an open source alternative to commercial systems like Mathematica and Matlab (it has most but not all of the functionality of both) because mathematicians and scientists need to be able to understand and review the algorithms their software uses - something not possible with a closed system.
Originally developed for graduate mathematicians, Sage is now at the stage where it is useful and interesting to professional and hobbyist mechanical and electronic engineers, amateur astronomers, business number crunchers, and people who just want to know more maths than they do. It runs on Linux, Windows and OS X, and lately people have managed to run it on both Apple iThings and Android smartphones. -- Jonathan Coupe
Sage Maths
Free
Available from Sage
Smart, Digital Flash cards Maximize Study Time
Flashcard apps tend to be imitations of their physical counterparts. Instead of flipping a card over to reveal an answer, users click or swipe.
Not so with Brainscape. The company uses the digital platform to tweak the flashcard model with proven learning strategies. Questions in Brainscape apps require recall, not multiple-choice selections, ask users to reflect on answers by noting their confidence in them, and use those confidence grades to determine how often each card should be spaced in a deck.
Brainscape founder Andrew Cohen, who has a master’s degree in education technology, conducted a study with 10 Columbia students to compare the effectiveness of what he calls “confidence-based repetition” to normal flashcards. After the students studied material for 30 minutes, students who used Brainscape scored higher on an assessment than students who used flashcards.
Smart, Digital Flash cards Maximize Study Time
Flashcard apps tend to be imitations of their physical counterparts. Instead of flipping a card over to reveal an answer, users click or swipe.
Not so with Brainscape. The company uses the digital platform to tweak the flashcard model with proven learning strategies. Questions in Brainscape apps require recall, not multiple-choice selections, ask users to reflect on answers by noting their confidence in them, and use those confidence grades to determine how often each card should be spaced in a deck.
Brainscape founder Andrew Cohen, who has a master’s degree in education technology, conducted a study with 10 Columbia students to compare the effectiveness of what he calls “confidence-based repetition” to normal flashcards. After the students studied material for 30 minutes, students who used Brainscape scored higher on an assessment than students who used flashcards.
Thursday
Jeff Jarvis and I wholeheartedly disagree with this notion.
Usage-based billing not off the table at Telus
Jeff Jarvis and I wholeheartedly disagree with this notion.
Usage-based billing not off the table at Telus
Saturday
Friday
The Five Traits That Get You Promoted to CEO [Career]
Passionate curiosity: Relentless questioning and being infectiously fascinated with everything around you, human nature in particular
Battle-hardened confidence: Overcoming—and even relishing—adversity. CEOs most often ask job candidates how they've dealt with failure in the past.
Team smarts: More than just being a team player, understanding how teams work and getting the most out of the team (in sports terms, being a playmaker)
A simple mindset: Being concise, simple, and clear in your communications
Fearlessness: Comfort with the unknown and taking calculated, informed risks; also, seeing opportunities and being proactive about positive change
Monday
Situation bleak - Calgarians are still experiencing the effects of the recession
CNW/ - New Calgary Counselling Centre research results show Calgarians are still feeling the effects of the recession and many do not have a plan to deal with the changes they are experiencing.
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/November2010/22/c6267.html
Situation bleak - Calgarians are still experiencing the effects of the recession
CNW/ - New Calgary Counselling Centre research results show Calgarians are still feeling the effects of the recession and many do not have a plan to deal with the changes they are experiencing.
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/November2010/22/c6267.html
Sunday
7 Ways to Improve Your Business that Cost No Money
It is the norm for Small businesses, startup, new ventures to struggle due to limited financial resources. There are so many efforts that can improve your business and produce results that are little or no cost. We all want results, but at what cost ? Did that $1,000 investment or expense produce $10 results?
Part of my profession as a business broker involves consulting with both buyers and seller of business. I also provide consulting services to businesses outside my role as a business broker in Florida. Rarely do I experience a discussion based upon “I have too much cash flow to deal with.” Small business owner and entrepreneurs are constantly seeking ways to improve their businesses with limited resources.
Below are a list of several tactics and efforts a small business owner may take that cost little or no money and therefore the Return on Investment (ROI) is extremely high. There are many other practices and efforts that can be utilized outside of the below short list, hopefully this list can change the line of thinking of a business owner from “I wish I could do something but I don’t have the money” to:
“what can I do to improve my business with limited or no money” -
1. Look at your company from the perspective of a customer
Can you do that? Can you pretend you are a customer trying to do business with your company. You send an inquiry via email, you place a call into your company – what happens? We all have dealt with companies that customer service seems more like “How to effectively get a customer off the phone” instead of “I won’t let you hang up the phone until I know I have completely helped you to fulfillment.” IS it a pleasant experience to do business with your business?
2. Attempt to surround yourself with more beneficial synergistic strategic partners
As a business broker I have various strategic partners that allow me to best assist my clients. These professionals include, Attorneys, Accountants, bankers and Financial people. I am relocating to a city 5 hours from where I am and am in the process in developing a new “team” that I can rely on. I researched banks that do a lot of SBA loans to small business, migrated thru the company website, found a point of contact that I had an interest in meeting with, sent an email, and got an email back saying “going on vacation back in 2 weeks, call me then.” I proceeded to pursue a relationship with someone that would call me back, passed over this prospective strategic partner and found someone that I feel will develop into a mutually beneficial business relationship. My clients will benefit from my valued strategic partners.
3. Use the Internet more
post a blog – how much does that cost?
post a tweet about a sale, a special or event- We’ve all heard/read that this can be a good idea- just do it.
check out a site such as Fiverr.com and see if someone can do something for you for $5. Are there other sites that facilitate low cost solutions? Can you afford to make a $5 error?
Try something you haven’t tried – a video, guest blogging, join more related forums or user groups, start a group.
4. Educate yourself
Take some time out of your day to read other related blogs info on your industry or specific area of focus. Commit yourself to learn your own financials better than you presently do. Again the ROI on your time invested in this can be quite high.
5. Go to a network meeting
There are several available in most communities that are either free or cost a couple bucks. How much could you benefit from making that “right contact.”
6. Consider a Freelancer
Are there some functions/task that you currently are having performed that may be done more cost effectively thru an outside source such as a free lancer. Open your mind to it.
7. Treat all customers, prospects, employees, vendors with respect and integrity
The ROI on this no cost effort is immense.
Don’t ever stop trying something different. I have utilized the above items in my various business ventures throughout the years and still utilize them on a regular basis. If you are running a business, buying a business, or growing a business these low and no cost business practices will result in very good return on investment and usually all it takes to get these returns is to consider them and just do them.
Part of my profession as a business broker involves consulting with both buyers and seller of business. I also provide consulting services to businesses outside my role as a business broker in Florida. Rarely do I experience a discussion based upon “I have too much cash flow to deal with.” Small business owner and entrepreneurs are constantly seeking ways to improve their businesses with limited resources.
Below are a list of several tactics and efforts a small business owner may take that cost little or no money and therefore the Return on Investment (ROI) is extremely high. There are many other practices and efforts that can be utilized outside of the below short list, hopefully this list can change the line of thinking of a business owner from “I wish I could do something but I don’t have the money” to:
“what can I do to improve my business with limited or no money” -
1. Look at your company from the perspective of a customer
Can you do that? Can you pretend you are a customer trying to do business with your company. You send an inquiry via email, you place a call into your company – what happens? We all have dealt with companies that customer service seems more like “How to effectively get a customer off the phone” instead of “I won’t let you hang up the phone until I know I have completely helped you to fulfillment.” IS it a pleasant experience to do business with your business?
2. Attempt to surround yourself with more beneficial synergistic strategic partners
As a business broker I have various strategic partners that allow me to best assist my clients. These professionals include, Attorneys, Accountants, bankers and Financial people. I am relocating to a city 5 hours from where I am and am in the process in developing a new “team” that I can rely on. I researched banks that do a lot of SBA loans to small business, migrated thru the company website, found a point of contact that I had an interest in meeting with, sent an email, and got an email back saying “going on vacation back in 2 weeks, call me then.” I proceeded to pursue a relationship with someone that would call me back, passed over this prospective strategic partner and found someone that I feel will develop into a mutually beneficial business relationship. My clients will benefit from my valued strategic partners.
3. Use the Internet more
post a blog – how much does that cost?
post a tweet about a sale, a special or event- We’ve all heard/read that this can be a good idea- just do it.
check out a site such as Fiverr.com and see if someone can do something for you for $5. Are there other sites that facilitate low cost solutions? Can you afford to make a $5 error?
Try something you haven’t tried – a video, guest blogging, join more related forums or user groups, start a group.
4. Educate yourself
Take some time out of your day to read other related blogs info on your industry or specific area of focus. Commit yourself to learn your own financials better than you presently do. Again the ROI on your time invested in this can be quite high.
5. Go to a network meeting
There are several available in most communities that are either free or cost a couple bucks. How much could you benefit from making that “right contact.”
6. Consider a Freelancer
Are there some functions/task that you currently are having performed that may be done more cost effectively thru an outside source such as a free lancer. Open your mind to it.
7. Treat all customers, prospects, employees, vendors with respect and integrity
The ROI on this no cost effort is immense.
Don’t ever stop trying something different. I have utilized the above items in my various business ventures throughout the years and still utilize them on a regular basis. If you are running a business, buying a business, or growing a business these low and no cost business practices will result in very good return on investment and usually all it takes to get these returns is to consider them and just do them.
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