”You go to your TV to turn your brain off. You go to your computer when you want to turn your brain on. “                                                                                                                   -Steve Jobs

Informal learning

“The best learning happens in real life, with real problems and real people, and not in the classrooms. ”

Formal learning

“Formal learning may not always be required… but it should always be available”

For example, Formal learning is like traveling in bus, the driver decides where the bus is going, and the passengers are along for the ride. People new to the territory often ride on bus before hoping on bike. Informal learning is like riding a bike; the rider chooses the destination, the speed as well as the route. The rider can stop anywhere to admire the scenery or to help a fellow rider.

Conclusion

The Informal learning is considered to be more effective in building proficiency than formal learning methods. That is the reason while hiring a candidate, experience and exposure will be taken into account more than mere degrees in the practical world.   It’s major plus is that learning will be mostly relevant and it is done in small steps in which the learner is a kind of entity in the overall happenings. So the learner can experience and then understand it thoroughly. Nonetheless, apart from all the formal learning we get, if we keep our eyes and ears open to any kind of knowledge that can be applied practically, we are on the right way to climb the cliff. This seems to be good clarity on informal learning about how it helps to enhance competency and professionalism of the talents of today to meet the changes and challenges in the future. Read more at www.lookforedu.com

amichetti .@simbeckhampson why is that worrying? hacking is a form of creativity, something I try to encourage in teens I work with. Read more at twitter.com

amichetti .@simbeckhampson not at all. I think you have a very narrow view of what hacking entails/requires. Have you ever taught kids programming? Read more at twitter.com

amichetti Perhaps my hacker friends can help @simbeckhampson understand that hacking ≠ evil but does facilitate creativity. Read more at twitter.com

amichetti .@simbeckhampson aren’t hackers just creative prgrmers? they manipulate & tinker, a la Turkle. R U familiar w/her work? http://j.mp/bUlEMY Read more at twitter.com

amichetti .@simbeckhampson You’ll have to read her published work to understand what I mean, then. And no, NOT all forms of hacking are illegal. Read more at twitter.com

amichetti .@simbeckhampson you have “cognitive development” & “learning” in your profile. I’m very surprised you think so negatively about hacking. Read more at twitter.com

amichetti .@simbeckhampson hoping you are familiar also w/Seymour Papert? http://j.mp/czIS1h his and Mitch Resnick’s Constructionsim IS ALL hacking Read more at twitter.com

amichetti .@simbeckhampson Sure, I’ll ask my Twitter network right now. That’s 1,480 people (in theory). Read more at twitter.com

amichetti Hey Polly peeps: do the words “hacking,” “tinker,” or “manipulate” seem dark/negative to you? do they sound illegal? cc @simbeckhampson Read more at twitter.com

How Kids Learn to Communicate in a Social Media World

We have been asking ourselves what happens to children when they spend an average of seven and a half hours a day on media, when they text rather than talk? Will they learn to communicate?

Now we are also asking what happens to children when we–their parents–are so absorbed with our BlackBerries, iPhones or iPads that it sometimes takes a child biting our leg to get our attention?

children told me hundreds of stories of having to say “earth to mom,” or “earth to dad” to get their parents’ attention. This issue may have gotten more extreme (and social media can be particularly addictive) but it is an old issue.

And social media isn’t bad or good either. We just need to figure out how we use it so that we can also “be with our kids.”

They said that when they need their parents, they want them to “be there for them”–that’s what I called focused time.

Each of us is going to have to find the right “fit” between paying focused attention to our kids and to social media.Read more at www.huffingtonpost.com

College students have less empathy than past generations

College students today show less empathy toward others compared with college students in decades before, a study from the University of Michigan says.

Sara Konrath, a researcher at the university’s Institute for Social Research, looked at 72 studies that gauged empathy among 14,000 college students in the past 30 years. She found that empathy has been declining — especially since 2000.

The research finds that college students today show 40% less empathy vs. students in the 1980s and 1990s.

The study did not evaluate why students are less empathetic, but Konrath says one reason may be that people are having fewer face-to-face interactions, communicating instead through social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

“Empathy is best activated when you can see another person’s signal for help,” Konrath says.

Michigan graduate student Edward O’Brian, who helped collect data for the study, says the “explosion” in social networking has caused college students to spend less time with each other.

“You might spend your night posting on Facebook walls and sending out tweets to hundreds of your online friends, but by doing so, you’re also not spending time with real people and gaining valuable interpersonal experiences,” O’Brian says.

Another cause may be changing expectations about success. Since the 1980s, there has been a steady trend in people feeling more stressed about trying to “get ahead,” Konrath says.

“Empathy is a very important moral trait in terms of everyday caring for people in our environment,” she says.

Raines says that empathy is declining in all generations and that people may be closing themselves off from others in response to the increase in the flow of information and bad news.

“If we just open our hearts to all the misfortune around us, it would be just overwhelming,” she says. Read more at www.usatoday.com

4 Issues With Comments, And Why Most Blogs Are Anti-Social

I have four issues that I’ve drawn from the comments you made, and bolded the main points, as this has turned out to be a longer post than usual.

Why Comments Matter

connections trump community

documented online

The Issues

1 – Readers don’t know what to comment

who is writing about being a better commenter?

2 – Bloggers don’t know what questions to ask

skills of facilitation are really absent in a lot of bloggers

Start valuing people – I mean really valuing people – individual people.

when was the last time you really engaged in a comments section and were retweeting it because of the comments?

4 – We don’t understand Social

Social is all about people and relating with them (not to them).

The Main Point

Blogs that don’t ask meaningful, thought through questions and don’t engage in meaningful responses don’t value their readers and are anti-social.

Your Leading Thoughts

My question for you is:

Do you invite people to your house to then just talk about yourself, and reply to nothing your guests have to say? Read more at scottgould.me

Innovative Blended Learning

Innovative Blended Learning I haven’t said it for a sometime so now seems an appropriate moment to say A BIG THANKS to all those following and commenting on my FB, Twitter, Amplify, Ning, LinkedIn, YouTube (and other networks). I’m still learning lots about social media & communities, daily in-fact and imagine it’s going to be a long journey, qui…te probably a never-ending learning journey. As each day passes I try to offer a better balance between re-posting interesting media you may like or find useful and the individual uniqueness of the personal reviews and articles. If you have any suggestions or tips on how I can further improve, they would be most welcome – thanks again, all the best for now, Paul

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