What Do College Admissions and Piranha 3D Have in Common?
August 31st, 2010
I get easily frustrated with people who force complex interpretations of everything. This is particularly true at certain universities, where professors appear to worship complexity. As much as I appreciate a really substantive cerebral experience, I also realize that Piranha 3D doesn’t have an elaborate subtext to illustrate the perils of the socio-industrial complex’s influence on the global environment. It’s about a bunch of really mean fish that eat really attractive people, purely for audience entertainment purposes.
One of the reasons I started writing about college admissions is that at times it seems everyone who writes on the topic has an attitude consistent with those colleges that seem to pride themselves on their disconnect from the “real world.” So-called college admissions experts appear determined to make the topic seem complex, defying understanding by anyone without decades of experience in the field. This leads to
Posted in University Record | Comments (0)
Get a daily instructional design idea
August 29th, 2010
I’ve been tweeting a daily idea to spark your instructional design creativity. To get your daily ID idea, follow me on Twitter. (I don’t say much!)
Some recent tweets in the series:
- Ask your SME, “What are the 3 most common mistakes people make?” Turn them into branching scenarios.
- Using a story? What challenge is your character facing? Make them suffer!
- Are you solving a performance problem, or are you just turning information into a course?
- What are you creating to support your course? Job aids? Guidance for managers? Follow-up discussion? Additional tips in emails?
- Teaching a complex procedure? Course: How to use the job aids. Job aids: Everything else.
- What compelling scenario can you use to start your course? P.S. “A new employee is wondering…” isn’t compelling.
- Have your learners finish an almost-completed problem, then take away support in stages until they’re flying solo.
- What do you really want? “Describe the Heimlich maneuver” or “Save lives?” Don’t stop at declarative knowledge.
- How can you turn a dos/don’ts list into something more memorable? Try short scenarios that show the results; have learners draw the conclusion.
I use the #IDideas hashtag, and other people sometimes chime in with their own ideas. You can see past ideas here.
Image © iStockPhoto: mattjeacock
Tags: Idea, Instructional Design
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DreamSpark–Software for Learning
August 29th, 2010
I’ve talked about DreamSpark before of course but the start of the school year seems like a great time for a reminder. The Microsoft DreamSpark Program provides students with Microsoft Professional Development tools for free! Lots of tools! The full professional suite including Visual Studio and several server products. It provides access to the XNA creators club as well. It’s an amazing amount of software.
A recent edition is that now students can build and deploy apps to Windows Phone Marketplace for free through DreamSpark (In the US and other selected areas) This is a real value as it lets students create and sell applications without paying the usual marketplace fee.
The part of DreamSpark that gets the most attention is the sign up for college/university students. But
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The State of the Student
August 29th, 2010
Last week we looked at the state of public schools, as viewed by the American public. Today we’ll look at the state of the American student, as viewed by students themselves.
In creating the recent report Youth Readiness for the Future, Gallup polled students age 10-18 on their hope, engagement and well-being. Why those variables? A number of reasons, including that they are indicators of future success, with links to attendance, grades, achievement scores, retention and employment. And they are malleable—so even if a student is not hopeful now, he or she might be in the future.
The results? Ove
Tags: Student
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