Author: barboakley

Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Virtual Reality

Barb was fortunate enough to be able to visit the Google Virtual Reality Labs last week. Some of the capabilities of the medium are expensive, but really quite extraordinary—she felt like she was on the holodeck in Star Trek. There is a rumble in the air—educators are beginning to realize that their might be value in the new medium. Here’s a balanced article by Carl Straumsheim, “Virtual Reality on the Horizon,” that describes how higher academia is beginning to grapple with this different way of framing the world. (And if you’re looking for an interesting take on the Pokémon Go phenomenon and education, here it is.)

Becoming a Self-Motivated Learner

Here’s a terrific article, “The Golden Age of Autodidacts,” by one of our favorite authors, Carlin Flora, in Psychology Today. We love Carlin’s thinking—here’s her introduction to the article: “It’s never been easier, or more important, to grow your own knowledge base. Here’s what the science of self-directed learning can teach you.” Carlin wrote the terrific book Friendfluence: The Surprising Ways Friends Make Us Who We Are. If you value your friends (which you should), you’ll value this book. Highly recommended!

Is Solitude the Secret to Unlocking Our Creativity?

Here’s another excellent article in the Observer by Jory Mackay about the value of solitude, walks, daydreaming, and being alone in nature in helping us to be more creative.

Book Recommendation for the Month: Grit

This month’s big book recommendation is Angela Duckworth’s Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. If you’re a parent, you will find plenty of fantastic ideas to help you raise your children with spunk, verve, and yes, grit. If you’re just looking for new ideas about how to get along better in the world, even as you achieve what you want to achieve, Grit’s for you. Highly recommended!

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

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Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Learn to improve your writing in English

Writing coach Daphne Grey-Grant, who did a terrific bonus interview about the writing process for Learning How to Learners, has a great post on a useful app for improving your writing. Check it out!

MOOC of the Week

As you know, we’re always interested in people’s very favorite MOOCs. A MOOC that’s developed a well-deserved cult-following is Professor Al Filreis’s ModPo, which is a “fast-paced introduction to modern and contemporary U.S. poetry, with an emphasis on experimental verse, from Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman to the present.” This MOOC, put out by the University of Pennsylvania-Coursera, is meant for complete novices and as well as those who already love poetry. We’ve been fortunate enough to see Professor Filreis speak in person—he’s an exceptionally caring and passionate instructor who sets a gold standard for commitment to his MOOC students. ModPo will be starting again on September 10th.

Using a second language—like a workout for the brain

Here’s an intriguing article by Lizzie Wade in Wired on how switching between two languages can be tiring—but can give you a good mental workout. You might be interested to learn that simultaneous translators often work in pairs, so that they can trade off after about a half an hour. Translating can be exhausting mental work!

Books of the Week

We often recommend non-fiction in our “Cheery Friday” emails, but we’d like to take a step to the side and recommend one of Barb’s all time favorite works of fiction, Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden. This amazing story of the inner life of a geisha has over 3,000 reviews on Amazon—the vast majority of which are five stars. If you want double the fix on Japan, check out James Clavell’s riveting Shogun. Clavell, incidentally, also wrote the screenplay for the classic movie of WWII heroics, The Great Escape.

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

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Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Exercise—Even More Research Reveals Its Power for Learning!

Here’s a wonderful article on very recent research revealing that “Exercising After a Task Improves Memory,” The key finding? “The people who exercised hours later had better recall and stronger and more clear activation in the areas of their brain associated with memory retrieval.“ Don’t forget to get your exercise today!

Overcoming Fears of Public Speaking

Learning How to Learner Sheetal Goel has long had a fear of public speaking. She loved the strategies of Learning How to Learn and used them to help improve her speaking abilities. She ended up joining Toastmasters, and talked about procrastination in her second speech for the organization. Kudos to this brave learner for taking the leap, working to overcoming her fears, and moving forward! (Here’s an article about overcoming fears while speaking in public.)

Are You with a Major Publisher or Online Provider? Would you like to handle Learning How to Learn for Kids?

Learning How to Learn is now the biggest, most popular MOOC in the world, with nearly 1.5 million students having enrolled from over 200 countries around the world. The enthusiasm and interest for the course has been exceptional. Along those lines, there has been a strong interest from parents and teachers in a junior version of this curriculum for kids and their teachers. If you are affiliated with a major publishing company or online provider and you would like to partner in producing a junior Learning How to Learn multimedia curriculum targeted for younger audiences, please contact our agent Rita Rosenkranz at rrosenkranz@mindspring.com.

Left Brain – Right Brain

We’re sometimes asked about left brain-right brain issues in learning. This is an area where, as research has shown, real care must be taken. There is no such thing as a left brain or right brain type of person–after all, we use both sides of our brain for pretty much anything we do. However, there still are unquestionable differences in how the two hemispheres function, and it’s a fascinating area to read about. Two of our favorite books in this area are The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, by psychiatrist and neurimaging researcher Iain McGilchrist; and The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, by surgeon Leonard Schlain, (who also wrote the groundbreaking Art & Physics). All of these books are highly recommended—they will help you think much more broadly about how we learn!

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

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Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

New Glossary for Learning How to Learn!

Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of Mentors Linda Walker, Vindra Khanai, and Marta Pulley, Learning How to Learn has a fantastic new glossary of terms available. Go to the discussion forum here to check it out, and to discuss what you see. Incidentally, if you are translating, you might find this glossary exceptionally useful—which leads us to:

Your Opportunity to Become a Language Lead on Learning How to Learn—or to Just to Help Translate!

Learning How to Learn is exploding with popularity as the most translated course on Coursera, with nearly 1.5 million registered students in over 200 countries to date. Have you ever wanted to see the course become fully translated into your language, as it already is in Chinese, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese? Do you have, or do you want to learn, the leadership skills to help a full translation into your own native language happen? Here’s a description of what a Learning How to Learn Language Lead does. If you would like to apply to become a Language Lead for your language, you can apply here. We would love to have you on board! (Please give us a couple weeks to sort things out once you’ve applied.)

We already have Italian, Russian, Bengali, Georgian, and Akan (Twi) Leads, but dozens more Language Leads are needed. This is your chance to get in at the ground floor of a hobby that can make fantastic connections for you worldwide, even as it helps build your local profile as a leader in learning. If you would just like to help out as a translator for your language, that’s always possible on any of the 39 languages supported by the Global Translation Community. Just follow the instructions on this form. (If you’d like to work on a language outside the 39 languages of the GTC, that’s possible, too, but you’ll need to apply as a Language Lead to help us get started.)

Do You Need Writing or Editing? Check Out Rebecca Judd, our Lead Mentor on Learning How to Learn!

Becca Judd, our lead mentor on the English-speaking platform, works as a freelance editor. She’s worked with multiple authors (ranging from best-selling authors to those who’ve yet to be published, and everyone in between), bloggers, and business owners, and they all seem to love her work. Seriously, just have a look at what they’ve had to say about her.

She’s mentioned recently that she has space in her schedule to help more people with their written work. So if you’re writing a book, you might like to look at this page (or contact Becca direct)—or if you’re writing anything else, her main page might be more useful to you. She’s absolutely happy for you to contact her, so please feel welcome to do so! She’s very friendly—and we can vouch for the fact that she’s been invaluable to us at Learning How to Learn!

Degreed

We’ve become aware of an interesting new education tech company called Degreed that that is engaged in the measurement, tracking, and validation of all the learning individuals do throughout their lives. Here’s Barb’s recent webinar to help HR managers and others in industry get a sense of the kinds of cool things we’re doing in Learning How to Learn.

Young Learning How to Learners and Their Accomplishments

We’re always happy to announce the initiative and successes of young learners. Fifteen-year-old Anand Satheesh has published an intriguing book titled Emerson for the Digital Generation. The book shows how a great thinker from the past is what we need to keep us on track today. Buy a copy for your child to pass along some great insights—and to help encourage your child to write her or his own book!

More Intriguing Books of Note

We’ve been finding ourselves leaning on the wonderful research outlined in Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire book Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind. If you’re interested in any aspect of the creative process, including how different forms of meditation can enhance or detract from your ability to be creative, check this book out.

Also, if you are university professor who is in any way affiliated with writing textbooks—or if you simply have a yen for oceanography (we do!)—we’d like to direct you towards the book Essentials of Oceanography, by Alan Trujillo and Harold Thurman. This is a stunning book that brings in the best of modern technology—you can use the QR codes by the graphics to go to terrific animations. This book won the prestigious “Text” textbook excellence award by the Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA). Take a look to get great insight into the future of publishing.

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join the private LHTL Hall of Fame group | Follow LHTL on Twitter

Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Watch a Memory Competition, Live!

Long time Learning How to Learners know that we’re big fans of US Memory Champion Nelson Dellis. Nelson has his third annual memory competition happening in just under 2 weeks from now (June 24-26). It’s being hosted at Dart NeuroScience’s offices and boasts the top 24 memory athletes from around the WORLD, all competing for some $75,000 (not too shabby). The whole competition can be seen live online at http://www.xmtlive.com. There will be sports commentators livening up the high stress action.

Basic information on the competition and how it works can be found at: www.extremememorytournament.com. You’ll have a chance to see what a real memory competition looks like. As a bonus, there will be interviews and tips from the world’s greatest memory athletes and experts throughout the competition. Don’t miss it!

Sleep—even 30 minutes more helps improve learning and health

A great new study using smartphones has revealed people’s sleep patterns around the world. In the US, one in three adults aren’t getting the recommended minimum of seven hours of sleep, and in some other parts of the world, people are even more sleep deprived. Even half hour less sleep can have a big impact on cognitive function and long-term health. An interesting fact that this study brought to (sun) light is that people who spend some time in the sunlight each day tend to go to bed earlier and get more sleep than those who spend most of their time in indoor light. So if you get a chance to go outside today, take it. Incidentally, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise, our popular book-of-the-month we recommended last week, has observed that professional musicians find additional naps to be a helpful part of their learning repertoire. If your work is intellectually intense, it may be especially important to guard your sleep!

Learning How to Learn in Georgian! როგორ ვისწავლოთ სწავლა – უკვე ქართულად!

We’d like to pass along an important message from a Learning How to Learner: “My name is Mari Chikvaidze and I am a new Georgian Lead trying to put the team of volunteers together for translating Learning How to Learn into Georgian language (ქართველებო, შემომიერთდით და ერთად გადავთარგმნოთ ეს სასარგებლო და პოპულარული კურსი – “როგორ ვისწავლოთ სწვავლა”!). Looking forward to hearing from you soon! Feel free to connect with me via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marichikvaidze”

Book (and earmuffs) of the week

We’ve been reading the book Procrastinate On Purpose: 5 Permissions to Multiply Your Time, by Rory Vaden. It’s a straightforward read and a nice reminder about what’s important to keep your focus on.

Speaking of keeping focus, we like using earmuffs when we’re learning something really difficult. If you want to go low tech and cheap, we swear by the Peltor Sport Ultimate 10 Hearing Protector. (Yes, these earphones are the ones modeled by Barb’s older daughter in a week three video here). For a higher tech version, try these Bose QuietComfort 25 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones. They aren’t as good as the low tech Peltor earmuffs. But they are slimmer and look less geeky if you might be wearing them on planes.

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

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Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

A reminder about Process versus Product

Learning How to Learner Anirudh Varanasi has written an insightful essay about “Focusing on Process rather than Product.” Who knew that losing at water basketball could produce such insight?

No Pay MBA

Learner Laurie Pickard has taken on the order of 30 MOOCs as part of a project to complete an education equivalent to an MBA. She calls the project the “No-Pay MBA,” and she has been blogging about it at www.nopaymba.com since late 2013. If you’re interested in doing something similar, check out Laurie’s blog!

Creating a Data Science Masters from MOOCs

In a similar vein, David Venturi is happily becoming a data scientist—and saving himself a heap of money—by dropping out of one of Canada’s top computer science programs and instead creating his own data science masters degree. Here’s how he did it. Clearly there’s growing opportunity to creatively do advanced studies in a flexible, inexpensive way.

Class Central’s Analysis of Books versus MOOCs

The third part of MOOC analysis site Class Central’s interview about MOOCs versus books, featuring Raj Raghunathan (“Dr. Happy Smarts”), has just been published. Writer Charlie Chung does a terrific job of contrasting the two very different book-MOOC mediums—the entire 3-part series is well worth your while. (Incidentally, feel free to leave a review of Learning How to Learn at the Class Central website.)

Barb’s interview at the Antigua Forum

In January, Barb was lucky enough to attend the Antigua Forum in Antigua, Guatemala. Here is her wide-ranging interview, as produced by the Universidad Francisco Marroquín. You’ll learn Barb’s insights on the future of MOOCs, teaching people how to learn, and her research on the best ways to help others.

Quora

Barb’s Quora session, where she answered top-voted questions about learning, fear of public speaking, and MOOCs, went beautifully. Some of her answers were also posted in places like Inc and the Huffington Post. You can find Barb’s complete set of answers here. (Feel free to vote them up if you like!)

Book of the Month!

Every once in awhile, we encounter an extraordinarily insightful book on learning. This past week, we’ve had the opportunity to read the phenomenal book Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise, by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool. This is the best book we’ve ever read about learning. If you want to improve your abilities in virtually any area, or help your kids to do better, you couldn’t do better than to read this important book. Incidentally, what Ericsson refers to as “mental representations” is analogous to what we in Learning How to Learn call “neural chunks.” Notice that Barb’s Quora answer about the most important technique in learning is right in line with Ericsson’s findings—we just use slightly different terminologies.

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join the private LHTL Hall of Fame group | Follow LHTL on Twitter

Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Barb on Quora!

Remember, Barb’s on Quora today at 11:00 am Pacific time. (Reading answers on Quora forms one of Barb’s favorite “diffuse mode” pastimes) Go here to post questions for her!

MOOCs of the Week!

If you join the Global Translation Community to help translate Coursera courses, you will be lucky enough to meet the fantastically knowledgeable Italian coordinators Marta and Aldo. Aldo, who has a lot of experience with MOOCs, was kind enough to recommend his all-time favorite MOOCs, which he recommends to pretty much everyone he meets online and in real life. These are, (besides our own Learning How to Learn, of course!), the edX courses Science of Stress Management and the Science of Happiness. Aldo notes “I found that these three courses have influenced me deeply, as a father, a person and a life long learner.” Aldo also recommends How To Learn Math, from Stanford Lagunita, as one that fosters well reasoned attitudes and concepts which find application in pretty much any field.

Help Out a Professor Who Wants to Know Whether Learning How to Learn is Useful

Learning How to Learner David Linn is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at a community college in Tennessee. He teaches Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT, Advanced EMT, and Paramedics), and finds that his students enjoy the hands-on components of what he teaches, but have more trouble when it comes to the book-learning portions. Basically, it seems that many students enter the program without appropriate study skills to be successful. David feels that Learning How to Learn seems to offer an opportunity to gain additional, free online support. He would like to know your thoughts about whether Learning How to Learn has been helpful for you. He asks: “I would like to hear about your educational journey so I can adequately assess this format for my class. Please provide honest feedback.”

If you would like to share your experiences and thoughts in a way that might be helpful for David, please post in the discussion forum here.

Reading with intention can change your life

Here’s an excellent article in Quartz about more effective ways to remember and use what you read: “Reading with intention can change your life” (Hat tip Learning How to Learner Ng Yeong Jye on the discussion forums, via Senior Mentor Linda Walker.)

A Great Animated Summary of Focus and Diffuse Modes

Learner Nathan Lozeron has made a phenomenal short animated video based on the course supplemental book A Mind for Numbers to help you understand focused and diffuse modes. We love Nathan’s work—you may even wish to subscribe to his free productivity newsletter.

Our Unusual Recommendation for the Week

Research has shown that writing your notes by hand instead of typing them helps you learn better. So we have to tell you about the way Barb likes to be productive in her work. She uses Palomino Blackwing Pencils for her note taking. These pencils have the most extraordinary feel of any pencil she’s ever used. Once past the initial sharpening with a standard pencil sharpener, (vertical is best) she uses a cheap plastic Staedtler manual pencil sharpener, which she sets right beside her whenever she is writing.

In the evening, before Barb goes to sleep, she uses her wonderful Blackwing pencil to write a brief list of the main things she’d like to accomplish the next day. Writing the “Day” task list the evening before helps her set it in mind to actually accomplish what she wants to accomplish. (She prefers quadrille ruled engineering pads for her lists and doodles.)

When Barb gets up in the morning, she looks over her Day list, and then sets out a little mini-list of three or four mini-tasks on a small Now list on a different part of the same page as the Day list. Using her wonderful pencil, she gets to cross off each of those smaller tasks as she does them. It feels great! As she gradually finishes the items on the bigger Day list, she crosses them off there, too. She usually don’t finish all the items on the Day list, but she makes a lot of progress this way. Barb usually tries to get at least one Pomodoro in early on her toughest task, to “eat her frogs first.”

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

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Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Barb on Quora!

One of Barb’s favorite “diffuse mode” pastimes is reading questions and answers on Quora. To her delight, she’s been asked to take questions in a session that is running on June 3rd. Go here to post questions for her!

Help Translate Learning How to Learn to Your Favorite Language

Do you speak a language other than English and love Learning How to Learn? Join Coursera’s Global Translator Community—the “GTC”—to help translate this course into other languages! To join the GTC, click here. Once you’ve joined, click here to begin translating this course! The GTC has recently been simplified and streamlined—we think you’ll be very happy with what you find! If you’re already a Transifex user, here are docs that can assist with the transition to the new interface. If you do have any troubles getting into Learning How to Learn, please email Barb at oakley@oakland.edu and she’ll make sure you can get started.

Improving Your Test Taking

Retiree Steve Batty took Learning How to Learn earlier this year and shared its concepts with a close friend—a chemist by education who builds and maintains a water and soil testing company’s computer systems. Steve’s friend is also a Microsoft Certified Engineer and is studying to take the Certified Microsoft 2012 server exam. Steve related to his friend our suggestion that when you run across a test question you can not solve, you should move on and then come back to it after you have reached the end of the exam questions. Steve also told his friend why this can help. Steve notes that his friend “has done that in his last several practice exams and it has allowed him to improve his scores by 15 to 20 per cent. He marveled at how, when he returned to the tough questions most of the time, the correct answer was obvious to him.” The “hard-start jump-to-easy technique,” which we discuss in week 4 of the MOOC, really does work!

In his retirement, Steve has put together a nice blog that compiles great information on neuroplasticity in a way that anyone can learn more about this fascinating topic. Enjoy!

Great info on MOOC-taking and MOOC-making from Class Central!

Class Central, our favorite all-knowing MOOC watcher, has published a fantastic series that help with various aspects of MOOCs and learning. The first article is “ Can Learning Help with Mental Health Conditions?”–a terrific article by our very own Lead Mentor on Learning How to Learn, Rebecca Judd. The second article is “MOOC Motivation Hacks: 30 Tips and Tricks to Keep You On Task.” LHTL is in #27. These sounds tips will really help.

Class Central’s great articles culminate in a three part series describing the differences between MOOCs and books: “Which Will Win: MOOC vs. Book? (Part 1 of 3).” The second part, “MOOC vs. Book – Part 2: Complementary Learning Channels,” features a discussion with Barb about how her book A Mind for Numbers helped with construction of Learning How to Learn.

Next week, Professor Raj Raghunathan, author of the intriguing book If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy?, will describe the rather different relationship of how his book helped with the development of his MOOC. (Raj, a.k.a. Dr. Happy Smarts, has done the upbeat A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment MOOC.)

Consciousness and Humor—Books of the Week

We’re always very interested in consciousness as one of the most integral aspects of learning. One of the best—and most colorfully beautiful—books we’ve ever read on consciousness is Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul, by Giulio Tononi. This wonderful book blends art with science in a way that metaphorically advances your understanding of consciousness–no straight research book could ever do as well.

On the other hand, if you’re looking for the funniest, most uplifting career advice around, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life, by Scott Adams. From the very beginning, we were riveted—will Adams’ voice freeze in terror in front of a massive audience? Adams’ many disastrous, hilarious failures en route to great success give hope for us all.

That’s all for now. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

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Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Rap version of Learning How to Learn from Focus: Hope (the chorus features “Coursera!”)

Here’s a short, fun, upbeat rap song sent along by Mrs. Ifeoma Okechukwu, the Manager, the Center for Advanced Technologies Engineering Education, Focus: HOPE. It features several of her talented adult learners, who have figured out a wonderful way to remember the key ideas of Learning How to Learn. (Love the “Coursera, Coursera” refrain!)

Great Visual and Book on Overcoming Procrastination

One of the best visuals we’ve seen in a long time is “How to Get Motivated: A Guide for Defeating Procrastination.” Go to the discussion forum where it is posted and check it out.

Procrastination, as it turns out, is probably one of our Learning How to Learner’s biggest challenges. The visual we mentioned above is based on a terrific book—The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Stuff Done, by Piers Steele. Of all the books we’ve read on procrastination (and we’ve read a lot), we found this one to be the best—highly recommended!

“Deutsche LHTL-Mannschaft – übersetze ein paar Untertitel, verwandle ein paar Sätze!” (Learning How to Learn in German )

Our new German Lead, Sebastian Koelper, is asking for German-speakers to join him in establishing his team to create a complete German version of Learning How to Learn. If you’re interested in joining Sebastian’s team, please go to the discussion forum here for information about how to get started!

Barb in the United Kingdom

Also remember Barb will be giving a keynote on learning at the Liberating Leaders Conference in Petersfield, Hampshire UK on 25 May 2016. If you’re anywhere in Europe and doing anything with leadership in education, this conference shouldn’t be missed.

The human story behind the progress of science

One of our most memorable books of recent years is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot. What we especially appreciate about this book is that it plays fair to all concerned—it tells a riveting personal story about Henrietta Lacks and her extraordinary family. But it also helps us better understand how science is learning to grapple with profound ethical issues. An intriguing short book in a related vein is our friend Jef Akst’s Personal Trials: How Terminally Ill ALS Patients Took Medical Treatment Into Their Own Hands. Jef is a senior editor for The Scientist—it’s eye-opening to learn of how seemingly ordinary people are beginning to band together to help tackle some of medicine’s most intractable challenges.

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

Follow LHTL on Facebook | Join the private LHTL Hall of Fame group | Follow LHTL on Twitter

Cheery Friday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Barb’s in Ottawa, Canada, in a talk open to the public—so bring your friends and family!

Barb will be speaking in Ottawa on Monday, 30 May 2016 from 8:30 – 10:00 AM at a talk open to the public (although they kindly ask for you to register here beforehand). Barb will give insights behind the making of Learning How to Learn, and she will also describe key highlights from Learning How to Learn in a fun and insightful way. This will be a fantastic event at Carleton University’s breathtakingly beautiful conference space, so if you’re anywhere near Ottawa, don’t miss it!

“Need to remember something? Better draw it, study finds”

As you know, one of the MOOCs we feel strong affection for as a sort of sister course is Memory and Movies, by John Seamon. (John’s accompanying Memory and Movies book is also terrific). John’s most recent class email makes mention of a great article “Need to remember something? Better draw it, study finds.” Even if you’re a terrible artist, drawing a picture instead of writing the words makes an incredible difference in your ability to remember something.

Crash Course and VSauce

We’ve been pointed towards the “Crash Course” series of educational videos on topics such as physics, calculus, philosophy, the development of video games, Leonardo DiCaprio and the nature of reality. These are fantastic videos that are not only educational, but highly entertaining. On a side note, we’re sometimes asked by potential MOOC-makers and educational videographers about how to make scientific topics watchable even as the science sometimes goes deep. Crash Course gives, yes, a crash course on how to do it. Incidentally, we’re also fans of Michael Stevens of VSauce—here’s a sample video “Why Do We Have Two Nostrils?”

Errata Corrige: Bengali Forum Link

We’re forming a new Bengali version of Learning How to Learn (শিখতে শেখা-আপনাকে সাহায্য করবে কঠিন বিষয় আয়ত্ত করতে). Already we’ve had many volunteers from last week’s announcement. Unfortunately, there was a bad link to the new Bengali Discussion Forum—you can find the right link for the discussion forum here. This will be the first ever translation of any MOOC into Bengali. If you speak Bengali, Arifa could really use your help as part of the little team she is forming. If you haven’t done it already, please fill out this form to join a terrific group! (If you don’t know what “Errata Corrige” means, it is a cool Latin term for “Error Correction.”)

Books of the Week—three (well, five altogether) more GREAT biographies!

If you haven’t read about three of the greatest characters in the history of Western civilization, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Augustus Caesar, well, it’s about time! (Okay, we also snuck Winston Churchill into the mix.) If you read the biographies below in any order, you’ll get a wonderful sense of the contrasting characters of some of the world’s most intriguing historical characters. When Barb read these books, she was flabbergasted to realize that she had previously learned so little about these magnificent figures from the past, whose legacies still shape the modern world.

• Julius Caesar, by Philip Freeman. A riveting look at the great man’s controversial achievements, with deep insights into his personal life. Who knew that Caesar would put his entire life at risk, refusing to give up his beloved wife when so ordered by the empire’s dictator? Instead, he became a fugitive.
• Alexander the Great, by Philip Freeman. We liked Philip Freeman’s Julius Caesar book so much, and there were such compelling stories of how Alexander had influenced Julius Caesar, that we couldn’t resist reading this compelling book. Incidentally, Alexander benefited from having Aristotle as his teacher—which just goes to show how much a good education can do for a person in their ability to have a (sometimes controversial!) impact. Behind the scenes, it’s worth noting that the engineering feats of both Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar and their men are what really made them so successful.
• Augustus: First Emperor of Rome, by Adrian Goldsworthy and Augustus: The Life of Rome’s First Emperor by Anthony Everitt. We read two contrasting books about Augustus, an enigmatic character with a very different kind of genius than either Julius Caesar or the great Alexander. See what you think of the differences between the two books.

We love reading biographies by different authors of the same historical figure—it gives a surprising sense of how much the biographer her- or himself matters. If you really want a sense of the contrasting opinions that can arise in biography, read Gretchen Rubin’s awesome Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill: A Brief Account of a Long Life.

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

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