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We've Moved!
Hello there!
We’ve moved! We’re sorry we can’t migrate your comments and likes over with us, but we’re looking forward to starting and continuing new conversations on our shiny new blog. Come join us!
5 MOOC Professors To See Before You Die
“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”
- William Arthur Ward
Times have changed. The new rock stars are top professors from top universities. The brave knights of 21st century fight the darkness of ignorance, earning the love of millions of students around the globe. Why? In this chaotic ocean of knowledge and amongst the great variety of learning resources, teachers are what matter the most - their talent to incite interest in students and inspire them to dive deeper. Their charisma and support can create real magic. In this article we’ll take a look at 5 instructors you don’t want to miss.
Dan Ariely of Duke University
Habitat: Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior by Coursera
Persona: Jedi who fights the darkness of human irrationality.
Dan Ariely brings to you a surreal experience, a realization that everyone around you (including yourself) isn’t rational at all. Your life will never be the same again once you’ve taken this course. The fun, entertaining nature of his lectures a-la thriller, comedy, cartoon, with a superhero-like professor makes the experience truly wonderful.
People behave irrationally, that’s a fact. You think that you are not in this category? Take this class and think again. Dan Ariely shows that obvious is usually not so obvious and the rational human being is a myth. You will learn aspects of psychology and behavioral economics such as cognitive bias, the psychology of money, neuroeconomics as well as everyday life hacks such as why “play hard to get” is a great strategy for dating, how to split the bill after the dinner at a restaurant with friends and what are the best hacks for boosting personal productivity.
Interestingly enough, Dan Ariely never had an intention of becoming a behavioral economist. Initially, he studied Physics and Math at Tel Aviv University until the last year of university when he switched to Psychology. Although, Dan Ariely has no formal experience, he is recognized as one of the brightest minds in the field of Behavioral Economics. He has written numerous papers, bestselling books, popular articles in major business and economics newspapers and magazines and has broad teaching experience in universities such as Sloan Management School and Duke University.
Trivia: Now he’s getting magical power aka valuable information on human beings in the Center for Advanced Hindsight and sharing it with the world by writing books and giving ted talks.
Contacts: https://twitter.com/danariely
"A Preview to "A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior" can give you a precise idea what fun this class is.
David J. Malan of Harvard
Habitat: CS50x by edX
Persona: The Captain who guides through the rough seas of Computer Science.
David J.Malan is a Senior Lecturer of Computer Science at Harvard. However, for the majority of online students he is known for his course CS50x. Computer Science is now sexy. Many prominent entrepreneurs, business executives and journalists support the idea that everyone in 21st century should be able to code. This belief is based upon research on the future of the labor market, corroborated by the huge $500 billion gap between CS job demand and supply within the next 5 years. However, Computer Science is a difficult discipline and can be very challenging even for the most motivated self-directed learners.
Here comes David J. Malan and CS50x. Every “play” click will take you to a Harvard auditorium. The course is as rigorous as an actual Harvard class would be. However, you won’t even notice rigidity of the course and all the effort you’ll put into tough homework and coding. The first homework in Scratch will make even complete newbies comfortable. Singing students from previous offerings adds a lot of fun to your studies. Recommendations of documentaries and related fiction such as movies about hackers will give you some extra material to be inspired by. David Malan’s passion about his subject and faith in his students will further enhance your motivation. Why does this happen? Partially, because a professor is interested in his subject but most likely it is because apart from actually teaching he’s doing research on instructional technologies and pedagogy. This class is a great preparation for more advanced courses.
Trivia: After this class you’ll realize that there’s no wonder why Harvard students pay 200k for 4 years of education. Luckily for the world and thanks to edX, CS50X is free for everyone willing to learn.
Contacts: https://twitter.com/davidjmalan
One of the most funniest parodies on "Call Me Maybe" from Harvard CS50 students will encourage you to take this class
Chuck Eesley of Stanford University
Habitat: Technology Entrepreneurship by NovoEd
Persona: The Pirate-in-disguise who converts newbies into Pirates of Startup Seas.
You won't see any jaw-dropping effects in Chuck Eesley's lectures, but his modest confidence and in-depth knowledge of the subject will give you insights into starting a technology business. His course, Technology Entrepreneurship, is based on his own research at Stanford and personal experience of entrepreneurship and successful startups. The mission of professor Eesley's work is to "empower the next generation of entrepreneurs to have the greatest chance of success". What makes Chuck Eesley really special is his activity and interactions with students via the Facebook group and via Twitter.
What about course itself? If there’s anything hotter than Computer Science nowadays, it’s startups. The buzz around the trend of starting businesses, dropping out of school, exploring new worlds and creating valuable and useful products allures thousands people of all ages, sexes and nationalities into the harsh world of business. Welcome to the Gold Rush of 21st century!
Likely for society, creation of businesses is more meaningful and beneficial than mining gold. Because of business complexity, it requires deep knowledge and a range of skills. Books, articles and blogs can help in this case but the knowledge gained from these alone won’t be equal to what Chuck will give you - a holistic picture, deep understanding of the subject, carefully designed assignments... All the equipment for becoming a True Pirate of the startup seas!
Trivia: Indeed, Chuck Eesley is the most social MOOCs professor. You may follow him on Quora to find out his thoughts, opinons and ideas on many questions by community, from personal "What is like to be a professor at Stanford?" to more general "What are some ways to foster entrepreneurship?". He's written 80 answers and is not stopping, so lots of food for thoughts even after the class is over.
Contacts: https://twitter.com/eesley
Haven't heard about Lean Startup? That's bad, but no worries - this video will give you some useful clues
Edward Hess of Darden School of Business(Virginia University)
Habitat: Grow to Greatness: Smart Growth for Private Businesses by Coursera
Persona: The Wizard of Business who reveals the magic of growing successful companies.
Are you bored by academic, traditional lecture-style courses? Try this course. It couldn’t be farther away from bookish, dull lectures. You may even forget that it’s an online course - Edward Hess creates an atmosphere of conversation with an old friend. Serious researches and case studies sound rather like anecdotes from life, which engages you more and more with each lecture and makes digesting information much easier.
If there’s only one business course you take, Grow to Greatness is a great choice because it reveals the mystery of successful businesses in just 10 weeks. Statistically, 1 out of 10 newborn companies survives. There is a widespread belief of success: find a brilliant idea, check for product/market fit, execute flawlessly, and, voila, magic happens. However, something is missing in this recipe: business nuance and actual how-to’s. Grow to Greatness: Smart Growth for Private Companies is a perfect place to find the Holy Grail.
You might say: ”I’m not so into business, why should I take this course?” If we take a closer look at the nature of business, many practices can be applied to life to help you to become a better you, to live a fulfilled life and accomplish great things. Doesn’t it sound familiar? (Hint: bestsellers on lifestyle, productivity, wealth...)
What is business about? Creating value for society, making people happy, getting things done, achieving great things despite all odds.
Concepts such as “power of processes” will help you to organize your life and fight procrastination. “Leadership” lessons will show you how to be charismatic and confident person, bringing out the best in others and inspiring people to make great things happen. “Strategic focus” will teach you how to set the right goals and achieve them.
Trivia: More than 30 years in business world, ex-executive of serious firms, author of 10 brilliant books... Sounds scary, huh? But instead of a haughty stereotyped Wall Street guy, you will find a likable professor-friend. Edward Hess knows how to create the right atmosphere.
Contacts: https://www.coursera.org/instructor/~10
Introduction for the first part of course which focuses on 4P's(Planning, Prioritization, Processes and Pacing). The second part of course is on 5th P - People.
Salman Khan of Khan Academy
Habitat: Khan Academy
Persona: The Brave Knight who created Khan Academy, the antecedent of today’s popular MOOCs.
Every self-directed learner has at least heard of Khan Academy. The story of it’s inception is fascinating. Short educational 10-minute YouTube videos became a huge catalyst for education, with more than 260 millions views so far. Now you can find more than 3000 videos covering almost everything from deep science to liberal arts subjects alongside assignments, discussions and tracking progress tools. Moreover Khan Academy successfully applies the principles of gamification, so you’ll never be bored and always motivated to learn more.
As a result, Khan Academy has been recognized as one of the most influential educational organisations in the world.
The story behind the curtains is truly inspiring. It all started from just one person, Salman Khan, a talented, well-educated hedge fund analyst who wanted to help his cousin Nadia with her math. Tutoring went well, and, as it always happens with great things, more people he knew wanted to get help. This was an “A-ha” moment for Salman: he created a YouTube channel to distribute more of his videos. Surprisingly for Khan, not only his friends and relatives watched his videos. Other learners and teachers all around the world also started to appreciate his effort. A few millions views in 3 years and a lot of testimonials persuaded Salman Khan to quit his job and begin Khan Academy.
This is a true fairy tale story, with the Brave Knight spreading the light of knowledge.
Trivia: Sal Khan's vision is to provide world class education to anyone, anywhere. He writes about it in his book 'One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined'. His TED talk inspired Sebastian Thrun to quit Stanford and start his own MOOC platform Udacity.
Contacts: https://twitter.com/salkhanacademy
TED talk by Salman Khan on reinventing education
Each month there are dozens more courses going live. New universities join the MOOC movement, bringing the best talent to the scene. Today, we’ve covered only 5 instructors, but there are many others who deserve to be in this list. Who has been the best online teacher you’ve encountered? We’d love to hear about how they inspired you.
This post is part of a series on the Beginner’s Guide to MOOCs:
0. Introduction
1. Major MOOC Platforms
2. 5 MOOC Platforms you should know about
3. 5 MOOC Professors to See Before You Die (current post)
Extra:
1. AwesomeCerts Contest: Win Up to $750
2. Make All Your Education Count: Redesigning CV
Hack 7: Filling Your Skills ToolBox: How to Brainstorm
Brainstorming is a popular technique for finding solution to particular problems by generating multitude of ideas. The method was created in 1952 by Alex Faickney Osborn. You’ve probably heard that the best method to brainstorm is in group, but in this article we’re going to walk you through brainstorming for certificate on your own.
Image courtesy to Adi Respati.
Step 1. Formulate problem. Everything begins with the right question to ask. Try to stick to one specific question, not lots of them. For certificates and learning these questions might sound like:
How will I study for this course?
What techniques will I use for the course?
When will I study?
What kind of notes will I write?
What will I put onto my Cert?
Step 2. Take your time.
The main idea of brainstorming is generating ideas without assessing them. Quantity will transform into quality. Rather than finding one perfect solution for a problem, your goal is to discover as many solutions as possible. You can use the pomodoro technique for brainstorming. Set 15-25 minutes and think about the problem. Generate as many as you can ideas and write them down. No editing. No judging. No eliminating. Sometimes the most ridiculous ideas are the most insightful, original and interesting. An obvious reminder is to avoid distractions - turn off your phone and computer, since they might be detrimental to brainstorming.
Step 3. Use different approaches.
You can use the traditional method - a simple list of ideas. However, techniques from completely diverse areas may be really effective.
Mind maps are powerful way not only to organize, but also to generate ideas. You can use them at the beginning to get more ideas, using associations and branches. You can also use it after initial brainstorming to organize your ideas. You can work on one branch or jump from one to another.
Mind Map of creating study plan for Coursera's Grow to Greatness 2: Smart Growth for Private Businesses course
The Method of 5 Why’s and How’s was originally used to identify problems and their causes. You can apply it to brainstorming, too. How does it work? Begin with a simple statement. Example:
“I need to create cert” “How?” “Using notes” “How?” “Writing by hand” “When?” “Right after each lecture, whilst watching the video or after one week of lectures”.
…
Questions may vary - the best are how, what, why who, when, etc. It’s very easy to reach a standstill during brainstorming. The method of 5 why’s will help you to start afresh. This method allows you to provide more concrete questions for your mind to answer. Use as many ideas and questions as you can.
Freewriting is a technique used by writers to overcome writer’s block and begin writing. According to Wikipedia, freewriting is completely different from brainstorming because in brainstorming ideas are simply listed while in freewriting you deal with a text. However, it is indeed a fantastic technique to get your brain working. Freewriting helps you to collect ideas and thoughts on particular topic, using your associative thinking.
How does it work? Set 15 minutes and just begin writing about a course and the problems you need to solve. Don’t get distracted, ignore grammar and forget editing - just write down all of your thoughts. After the time is up, look through your notes and highlight the interesting ideas.
Rules:
1) Your goal is to create lots of ideas. Work for quantity not quality.
2) Don’t restrict yourself. Don’t eliminate some ideas because they seem ridiculous - every direction is good. Sometimes you’ll find unexpected, creative solutions in unknown territory.
3) No distractions. Brainstorming is a time when you and your ideas are meeting. Spend these 15 minutes offline.
4) Try no rules. If after 15 minutes you’re still full of ideas - don’t stop! Setting a time limit is more for you to begin working and doesn’t need to be strictly followed. If you find that mind-mapping doesn’t work for you and you’re better work with simply listing, or if you feel that freewritng helps you generate more ideas - go with it! The point is to find the most creative solutions for a particular problem.
Brainstorming is a powerful tool for discovering your inner genius. Moreover, it unlocks your creativity - a crucial skill in our modern world. In the next article, we’ll talk more about creativity.
Stay tuned!
If you have any questions, ideas or feedback, feel free to comment or drop a line to [email protected]. How do you brainstorm? What other ways for getting ideas do you use?
Share it with us and Accredible community on Facebook | Twitter |Google+ or in comments.
This post is part of a series on the Hacks to Create Winning Certs:
0. Contest Announcement
1. MOOC Certs
2. “Saylor category for self-paced learning” Certs
3. Formal Learning Certs
4. Knowledge/Skill Certs
5. How to Make the Most of Accredible?
6. Skills ToolBox. Overview
7. Filling Your Skills ToolBox: How to Brainstorm(current post)
Using online education (MOOCs!) to address student access in California
Thanks to the 20 million minds foundation for a wonderful infographic on MOOCs and how they can address student access to education:
Accredible #AwesomeCerts Contest Extension!
We announced the #AwesomeCerts Contest on 29th April and we are thrilled with the work and effort you put into creating truly Awesome Certs. We have decided to extend the deadline to 31st July to give you more time and opportunity to win the Contest.
Why the extension?
After talking with some of our wonderful users we felt that one month was not long enough to develop the kind of Certs you all wanted to create! Several popular MOOCs also finish later this summer and we wanted to make sure those people had a chance to participate too.
We have also had a group of new users join our community recently and we wanted to extend the chance for them to join the fun and have the chance to win the prize money!
Accredible's AwesomeCerts Contest
So what's been happening with the contest?
We have been publishing a number of great hacks on how to win here on our blog so if you'd like some hints and ideas on creating your winning Certs, here's your guide! So far, we have 6 hacks and the list grows each week:
MOOC Certs - how to create great Certs for MOOCs courses(Coursera, edX, NovoEd)
“Saylor category for self-paced learning” Certs (Udacity, Saylor, Udemy, etc)
Formal Learning Certs (high school, college courses, degrees, MBAs, Masters, PhDs)
Knowledge/Skill Certs (hobbies, conferences, seminars, readings, documentaries, etc)
How to Make the Most of Accredible?(features review and ideas on how to use them)
Skills ToolBox. Overview (announcement on Skills nice-to-have for creating great Certs)
Also, check out or series on the Beginner’s Guide to MOOCs. We are creating a roadmap for both novices and mature learners to navigate the wonderful but complicated world of online education:
Major MOOC Platforms - comprehensive review of major MOOCs such as Udacity, Coursera, edX. What are the differences between them? How to approach each of them? Who are the people and what is the story behind them?
5 MOOC Platforms you should know about - Review of mostly overlooked but still worth watching platforms such as NovoEd, Udemy, Open Learning, Saylor Foundation and Open Learning Initiative. What is so special about them? Why should you try them? What kind of courses and education you’ll find there?
There's also a lof of fun happening on our official facebook fan page. Some of our users (Thanks Shah Yasser Aziz, Devavrat Ravetkar and a few others!) have made us some awesome memes and have started great conversations. Thank you all for building such an awesome community!
So to wrap up, the new contest deadline is 31st, July so start documenting your learning and show the world what you know! Why this date? Well it just so happens that this is birthday of one of the greatest wizards in the world - Harry Potter. Let’s make magic together!
Hack 6: Skills ToolBox. Overview.
There’s an old maxim that states “there’s a tool for every job”. Creating a great Cert without some tools may be difficult and sometimes even frustrating. In the last blog posts we introduced features which enable you to make perfect certs. But it’s not enough for having fun with building your intellectual portfolio. Today we will share with you some ideas and review the skills which will be covered in future hacks to make building intellectual portfolio more fun.
Tool 1: Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a very effective technique to find multiple creative solutions for particular problems. The rules are simple: for a particular problem, you try to generate as many ideas as you can without judging or eliminating them. Then, you look at your ideas and choose the best ones.
Brainstorming is a powerful tool to get truly innovative and great ideas and solve even the most challenging problems in an original way. How to formulate questions? How to brainstorm effectively on your own? How can it help you to create awesome Certs? In one of the next blog posts, we’ll take a deeper dive into it.
Tool 2. Creativity.
Some people associate creativity with artists, poets and geniuses in general. Creativity is seen as a phenomenon, an impressive gift which ordinary people cannot possess. Others discard creativity telling that there’s no place for it in a practical world. However, creativity allows you to generate amazing projects and artifacts. There’s no mystery about it and we firmly believe that creativity can be unlocked in every person regardless of his or her age, nationality, profession or interests.
Tool 3. Planning.
Can you get from New York to Los Angeles without seeing a roadmap or any signs along the way? Can you achieve a Big Goal without seeing the steps that will lead it to you? No.
Planning is one of the most important skills in our century. It allows you to be productive, successful and stress-free. You need a roadmap to achieve any kind of goals, be it creating a winning Cert, mastering code or getting a promotion at job. Certs can help you to enhance and organize your knowledge along with planning and achieving your learning goals. We will show you how you can create study roadmaps using Accredible.
Tool 4. Kindergarten Method.
Do you remember being a kid? Life was full of wonders, dreams, and new discoveries. Kids are fearless, inquisitive and fast learners. Unfortunately, children grow up and we, adults, forget many useful techniques, unique mentality and childish attitude which could be of a great help today, in the grown-up world. This tool is about recalling this sunny and careless period and learning to do many great things again. It’s about giving you a new pair of wings to fly.
Tool 5. Friends.
People are important in life. Friends and peers are crucial for learning. We learn not from books - we learn from other people. Most online courses are great not because of knowledge - information has been there before MOOCs. They are valuable because they gathera multitude of students with different background but similar interests in one place to share ideas and help each other. That’s why learning via MOOCs is so popular now and much more effective than before. However, peer-to-peer learning is not the only way to use society to learn in a better way.
Today we have shown you 5 important skills that will help you not only create a winning cert, but also to succeed in your learning in general. In the next 5 hacks we’ll take a closer look at each of them. Stay tuned!
If you have any question, ideas or feedback, feel free to comment or drop a line to [email protected]. What do you think - what skills are the most important for self-learner? What are your personal hacks to succeed?
Share it with us and Accredible community on Facebook | Twitter | Google+ or in comments.
This post is part of a series on the Hacks to Create Winning Certs:
0. Contest Announcement
1. MOOC Certs
2. “Saylor category for self-paced learning” Certs
3. Formal Learning Certs
4. Knowledge/Skill Certs
5. How to Make the Most of Accredible?
6. Skills ToolBox. Overview(current post)
Hack 5: How to Make the Most of Accredible?
In the last few blog posts we gave you some insights about general creation of Certs. Today we’ll show you how you can use all the features of Accredible to make truly Awesome Certs.
Step 1. Organize.
Like a book begins with a prologue, your Cert begins with a Summary. We’ve already talked a lot about it but it’s crucial for reviewers of your Cert to see the right Summary. First of all, they should cover the most important points of your learning experience. Secondly, your Summary should be readable - people will appreciate your work more if the summary is pithy and clean. Try to include only the most relevant information and to use bullet points for dividing the knowledge/learning.
Work. One of the most useful features for organizing the work is the ability to move position. Put the most important, like Statement of Accomplishment or Diploma, at the top. If some documents are important, but you cannot place them in the top you can use either - change the size or highlight them.
Keep the similar docs together(like homeworks in one place, quizzes in another, your reflections and essays in a third, etc). The alternative is to use labels for particular types of work. Earlier you could use only defaults such as “course work”, “notes”, “grades”, “extra work”. Now Certs have evolved and you can edit labels which makes your Certs more flexible and personalized.
Step 2. Beautify.
For making beautiful Certs you can use the following ideas:
Position work wisely. Put one size docs on a row, larger size pictures or mind maps on another row. Highlight the most interesting and beautiful pieces of your Cert and place them in a particular pattern. When you are polishing your cert, remember that people like symmetry.
Edit the image of Cert. For formal and informal learning we introduced all the MOOC platforms and most universities. But what if you do a Cert for a skill you’ve learned but there aren’t any images in the library? Don’t worry, you can upload your own image which will make your cert more creative and personal.
Beautifying Certs- have fun! Don’t stick to one course of action or take beautifying as a requirement. Just play around with your docs, change the sizes of pictures, move positions, try different images. Some people already submitted Certs that impress us with a beautiful overall appearance.
Step 3. Make it Accredible.
Some people believe that it’s impossible to achieve perfection. We believe that everyone can do their best and be exemplary. When you have uploaded all your notes, homework and statements, the only last piece that separates you from perfection (exemplary cert) are endorsements. Share your achievements with colleagues via Linkedin, with family via email, with friends via Facebook or with the whole community (including the Accredible community) via Twitter.Show what you’re worth. You’re more than numbers or obscure lines in CVs and this is your chance to prove it.
Moreover, you can talk about what you know. It’s better one time to see, than one hundred times to hear. Grab your webcam and shoot a video of you explaining different concepts from your Cert. Or tell people about your work experience. Or what you learned beyond official syllabuses. That will sound persuasive.
Your Cert is a piece of you, which shows your intellectual identity. Also, it’s your chance to save what’s really important to remember. We live in a century when overabundance of information makes people to forget significant things. Accredible is your personal wiki which allows you to remember everything that matters. In the next few hacks we’ll open you a ToolBox of skills that will help you to be in shape, unlock creativity, plan wisely and play with work.
If you have any question, ideas or feedback, feel free to comment or drop a line to [email protected]. What features do you like the most? What would you love to have? What are you struggles connected to self-learning?
Share it with us and Accredible community on Facebook | Twitter | Google+ or in comments.
This post is part of a series on the Hacks to Create Winning Certs:
0. Contest Announcement
1. MOOC Certs
2. “Saylor category for self-paced learning” Certs
3. Formal Learning Certs
4. Knowledge/Skill Certs
5. How to Make the Most of Accredible?(current post)
6. Skills ToolBox. Overview
Hack 4: How to Create Winning Knowledge/Skill Cert?
In the previous blog posts we explored three types of Certs: MOOCs, Formal Learning and Self-paced learning Certs. You may find some similarities between them. Knowledge/Skill Certs are totally different from any of those. Because you are not given any kind of instructions, you can do this Cert for everything: books, skills or even hobbies. Every type of learning should count, and this Cert is your chance to show who you are behind the traditional courses and ubiquitous lines of your CV. Moreover Knowledge/Skills Certs helps you to save all the learning you’ve ever done.
How to work with Knowledge/Skills Certs?
First of all, you need to decide what the Cert will be about. The content of the Cert will mainly depend on the topic. The hobby Cert will be completely different from the skill Cert. Without clearly defined goals, working further on your Cert will be very hard.
Secondly, the Cert summary might baffle you. “What should I write in it, if I haven’t had any syllabuses or other hints?”. Don’t worry. Think about what you want to save and show the world. Most obvious solutions are not the best in this case. If it’s book learning you want to save, the table of contents won’t tell other people anything about your Cert. However, brief notes of the work you’ve done, skills you mastered or essays you’ve written will show much more.
We advise you to work on your Cert summary twice. The first time is when you are just start creating your Cert, since it’s a great way to think about what you can put into it, kind of like sketching a roadmap. The second time is when you’ve already put all of the materials into your Cert for your summary; be more complete and relevant, which will also give you more ideas on what you will work on further.
Thirdly, use different kinds of tools to help you. Here we list just a few things that may do it:
Mind maps for organizing thoughts and ideas.
Infographics for remembering data and visualization of information.
Docs on motivation and reasons for creating this cert. Why is it important for you? Why did you decide to master this skill?
Plan for further development. Learning is never over and a roadmap might be very helpful for you to not be too distracted.
Presentations and videos.
You can put any kind of projects and essays into your Cert. The more methods you use, the more valuable your Cert is for both, you and community.
Pro tip 1.
Since learning is never over, your Cert may grow from just one skill to another. Try not to follow the plan too strictly. Sometimes you may get new ideas for your Cert - do not hesitate to change the direction. Learning is an unpredictable journey full of adventures and surprises. You should be flexible to get the most of it.
Pro Tip 2.
You can save not only knowledge and learning into your Cert, but also experience. Are you fan of Russian Literature and going to visit Moscow next month? Put into your Cert the personal reviews and photos of Mikhail Bulgakov’s Museum and travel notes on Russian Culture as a whole. Or maybe you’re learning Chinese cuisine - why not to insert pictures of your own Chinese cooking into it? Do not restrict yourself only to bookish knowledge, use every kind of learning, experience included, to show your expertise, enthusiasm about topic and proactivity.
It’s the last post of our sub-series on Creating Winning Certs (have you submitted yours to our AwesomeCerts Contest?). In the next sub-series we’ll explore the ToolBox of Skills that will help you to fight procrastination, unlock your full potential, and come up with great ideas. You’ll learn how to use Accredible to the fullest and make your Certs better.
Stay tuned!
If you have any question, ideas or feedback, feel free to comment or drop a line to [email protected]. What skills do you want to master? How do you plan not instructed self-learning? What are your personal hacks to turn your life into School? Share it with us and Accredible community on Facebook | Twitter | Google+ or in comments.
This post is part of a series on the Hacks to Create Winning Certs:
0. Contest Announcement
1. MOOC Certs
2. “Saylor category for self-paced learning” Certs
3. Formal Learning Certs
4. Knowledge/Skill Certs (current post)
5. How to Make the Most of Accredible?
6. Skills ToolBox. Overview
Hack #3. How to Create A Winning Formal Learning Cert?
In the last blog post of this series we covered self-paced learning Certs. Now, it’s time to talk about more conservative yet interesting and useful types of Certs - formal learning (college courses and degrees, high school projects and curricular).
Although there are a lot of heated discussions on broken educational systems around the world, at Accredible we believe that formal learning shouldn’t be underestimated. Schools and colleges are still powerful social institutions to gain structured, organized and useful knowledge. But people are more than grades and signed papers - now all their projects, works and knowledge may be stored and shared with the world.
Hack #2: How to Create Winning Self-Paced Learning Cert?
Accredible #AwesomeCert contest is running and we're posting the series of hacks that will help you to win it. In the last blog post we gave you some insights into creating MOOCs Certs. Today we are going to walk you through one of the most difficult paths: self-paced learning by such MOOCs as Saylor, Udemy, Treehouse and others.
Some self-paced learning platforms - YouTube, Saylor, Khan Academy, MIT Open Courseware, iTunes U, P2PU, Udemy, Treehouse, Codecademy
Beginner’s Guide to MOOCs: 5 MOOC Platforms You Should Know About
In the last post we covered the most popular MOOC platforms: Coursera, Udacity and edX. However, there are many other places which can help you enrich your knowledge. These are the MOOC platforms you’ll find out about today.
NovoEd
Started as a Stanford MOOCs experiment (Stanford Venture Lab), NovoEd now is an independent MOOC platform, currently offering 9 classes. Unlike the courses from many other platforms, NovoEd courses are about more than just reading, watching videos and taking quizzes. Their emphasis is on collaboration and learning by doing.
The most famous courses, Crash Course on Creativity and Technology Entrepreneurship at NovoEd.
Hack 1: How to Create a Winning MOOC Cert?
As we promised in our earlier announcement, we begin a series of short tips on creating winning certs for our contest. The first topic we’ll explore is MOOC certificates. Most of MOOCs offer a certificate upon successful completion of the course, but all the knowledge, all of your work is gone or spread out after the class is over. Creation of an Accredible cert helps you to save this work and show it later to your friends and potential employers.
What to put on a cert?
First of all, pay attention to syllabuses. In most courses’ information pages the syllabuses are long and obscure. For people viewing your Cert, you don’t want all of this detail. He or she wants concise and specific syllabuses which will cover all the areas of knowledge and all the skills you gained during the course. In one of next hacks, we will explore how to create such a syllabus in more detail.
Accredible’s #AwesomeCerts Contest
“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” - Benjamin Franklin
At Accredible, we believe that all kinds of education matter, whether it’s courses in traditional universities, certificates from MOOC classes or even reading books. We want to help you to learn, to show the world what you know. We are pleased to announce our #AwesomeCerts contest where you can show your learning by creating cool Certs, save and organize your knowledge, and even get prizes from us - vouchers for Amazon.
Beginner’s Guide to MOOCs: 1. Major MOOC Platforms
At Accredible, we are passionate about learning. In this article we walk you through the three largest MOOC platforms today: Coursera, Udacity and edX. How are they different? What kind of courses do they offer? What platform will suit you the best? We'll give you the knowledge to choose when and how to study from each, based on your own interests and learning styles.
So, what is a MOOC? The term has been around the web for a couple of years and Wikipedia gives the following definition:
A massive open online course (MOOC) is an online course aiming at large-scale interactive participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, MOOCs provide interactive user forums that help build a community for the students, professors, and TAs. MOOCs are a recent development in distance education.
Coursera
Founded a year ago, by Stanford Computer Science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, Coursera is the most popular MOOC platform today. More than 3 million students take classes on diverse topics offered by 62 universities from various countries.
Beginner’s Guide to MOOCs: 0. Introduction
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”
― Plutarch
Experts believe that the two most essential needs of a learner are:
Freedom to explore and express ideas
Access to resources that aid in getting answers to their questions
Perhaps this is why massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been a catalyst for discussion and created a huge buzz. For the first time people have the opportunity to learn whatever they want from the best professors in the world, for free. 2012 will always be remembered as the year of the MOOC. Now we all have the ability to enhance our CVs, gain new skills and broaden our minds if we’re willing to join the adventure. Missing this opportunity is a huge mistake.
Make All Your Education Count: Redesigning CV
With all the amazing innovations and developments within academia and edtech at the moment, one content area that seems to have been left behind a little is the common CV.
Education has evolved dramatically over the last fifty years yet things like CVs and certificates haven't changed for hundreds of years. They are (at best) shiny pieces of paper with a name, grade and institution printed on them.
CVs tend to contain very pigeon-hole style of content such as 'education', 'work' and 'interests' which ultimately only create a very low resolution image of a person and one that is liable to deception.
For example, if you get a B in Computer Science does that mean you were generally 'average', or are you an exceptional programmer with a weakness in some other part of the syllabus that isn't relevant to the job at hand?
Here at Accredible, we've been working hard to improve the way that credentials and certificates are generated across MOOCs, university courses also as wider learning by using peer-review and reputational networks to determine and maintain quality.