LearningEngineer.com ← Engineering Learning for Efficiency

Podcast Player for Science and Grammar

May

2013

I like to listen to podcasts. Of course, I prefer science podcasts above all others. So, I built a podcast player that would play all my favorite podcasts, which includes Grammar Girl, Science Magazine, Nature, ScienceFriday, 60 Second Science, Marketplace and Car Talk. Here is the link: http://learningengineer.com/courses/moodle/mod/page/view.php?id=127

Pretty graphics don’t help learning.

May

2013

A midst all the talk of technology and motivating students is the fact that they have to learn something. Being entertained is not the same thing as learning something, contrary to popular opinion. Just because a graphic has pretty pictures doesn’t mean that it will actually improve outcomes. The problem is that if someone is ...

Xerte 2.0 HTML5 Compatible

May

2013

Xerte 2.0 is out and it is HTML5 compatible, which is great for those of us who are looking towards the future. Xerte is an excellent product, although the new version did take a bit of work to install. I had to go in and look at the files to get it to work; however, ...

Science Games

May

2013

If you like playing games and want to learn about science, then you should try http://www.sciencegamecenter.org/ to play games that will teach you about the immune system, cellular growth and horticulture.

Teacher Myths – Summers Off

Apr

2013

Teachers don’t get summers off, contrary to the beliefs of many. Teachers are paid for the contract days they work, some teachers have simply agreed to be a creditor to the school or college and allowed them to spread their pay out over a longer period of time. When the teacher has completed 100% of ...

The New Old is Now the Old New

Apr

2013

The educational buzzwords and cliches seem never-ending. Recently, McGraw-Hill sent me an invitation for a live Twitter event on adaptive learning technology by the CEO of Area9 and an education technology writer for ZDNet at 2:00 pm ET, which is a great time to hold a discussion on education minus any teachers, meaning people who ...

Slide Go for Slide Presentations

Apr

2013

I have looked at a lot of products that provide slideshows. Prezi, Diigo, Flickr, Google Drive Presentations, and Xerte are but a few of those that I have looked at. What most lack is the ability to just paste plain old audio into the slide. However, I have now found one. It is called Slide ...

Online Learning is Different Because of the Distractions

Apr

2013

Researchers at Harvard have discovered how online learning is different than learning in a classroom. From the research, we already know that online colleges and universities have graduation rates around 10%. So, how is online learning different? Too many distractions. So, researchers at Harvard have shown that short lessons of about five minutes, followed ...

The Seven Limitations of Expertise

Apr

2013

Experts are limited to their domain and that expertise does not extend to other domains. Experts over estimate their abilities when it comes to their field of expertise. Experts gloss over information that they believe is irrelevant; therefore, missing details that may be necessary to solve a problem. Without contextual clues, experts are not that ...

KIPP Study from Department of Education Misrepresents the Facts

Apr

2013

The KIPP study put out by the Department of Education is flawed and incorrectly reported by the media. The study is flawed because the subjects are not randomly selected from the general population, but rather, from a biased group of children who want to attend another school. So, it isn’t actually randomized. Also the children, ...