11 Temmuz 2012 Çarşamba
Korean War Documentary Film: The Reds Launch Their Expected Spring Offensive
Adventure 10 - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
10 Temmuz 2012 Salı
9 Temmuz 2012 Pazartesi
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Knowledge Management
In today’s perspective, most of the organizations use knowledge management in order to reduce the competitive pressure and achieve their long term goals and objectives. In today’s competitive world, it is essential for all the organization to increase their knowledge and information to compete with other organization not only in same industry but also from other industries (Stary and Hawamdeh 2007). Increased information and knowledge management helps the organization to create innovate products in the market that attract more customers and enhance the market image in the international market
Nokia followed knowledge management in order to achieve the goals and objectives in long term. Knowledge management helps Nokia to move from hierarchical structure to a network based learning organization. The knowledge management system of Nokia supports the strategic goals and objectives that are achieve global efficiency and effectiveness, learning across organizational boundaries and create local flexibility and responsiveness. In order to achieve strategies goals and objectives, company listens carefully to the voice of customers. It helps the company to provide more effective products to the customers in international market (Nokia 2011).
Nokia applied their knowledge management system to encourage innovation in its R&D and product development functions. It helps the company to provide latest technological products to the customer at low time. It is also helpful for the company to remain competitive in the international market. Strategies of Nokia are more focuses on to create new strategic direction that includes the change in leadership and operational structure in order to create effective organizational speed to attract more customers in a competitive world (Nokia 2011). In the strategy, Nokia also focuses on build strategic relationship with Microsoft Corp. to establish a new winning mobile ecosystem. Nokia’s strategy also includes the investments in different next generation technologies to capture and development of next generation customers towards the products and services at international market (Scullion and Collings 2010).
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References;
Scullion, H. and Collings, D. G. (2010) Global Talent Management. UK: Taylor & Francis.
Nokia (2011) About Nokia. [Online]. Avaliable at: http://www.nokia.com/about-nokia/company [Accessed: 1 October 2011].
Stary, C. and Hawamdeh, S. A. (2007) Knowledge management: innovation, technology and cultures : proceedings of the 2007 International Conference on Knowledge Management, Vienna, Austria, 27-28 August 2007. UK: World Scientific.
Justification for Knowledge Management in Organizations
This blog post is provided by Assignment Help Experts. Knowledge management system is an important part of any organization to manage their knowledge and information to motivate employees towards the products and also helpful to create effective production and processes that lead innovation and product development. The arguments for justification for this business case are as follow:
Provide Motivation for Employees: 
An effective knowledge management system is helpful to motivate employees in their work. It helps to improve employees’ skills and knowledge towards the products and services. It is because; knowledge management system provides the platform for the employees to share their knowledge and experience with other employees or management level employees in the organization. With the implementation of knowledge management system, Nokia increases the knowledge and improve their innovation activities and capabilities to design and produce a new product for the customers in the market (Jawadekar 2011).
Business strategy of Nokia is to develop the relationship with Microsoft Corp. to create effective ecosystem for the customers. With the help of Microsoft Corp, Nokia can increase the knowledge of employees to provide training in order to better assessment of new technology and products. It can helpful for the company to motivate employees towards the customer satisfaction. This can help company to create competitive advantages from the international market (Marks 2002).
Identify Best Practices:
In support of implementation of effective knowledge management system in the company, it is argued that KMS helps the company to identify their best practices in the international market. It helps the company to create effective innovation and also helpful to sustain their market share. Knowledge management system is also helpful for the organization to find out the way to how work actually gets done in the organization. It helps the company to create effective their processes from innovation to produce or market their products in the international market (Dalkir 2005).
Reduce Substitutes:
With the help of effective KMS, Nokia can reduce the substitutes and competitors in international market. It is because; in nature tacit knowledge is a sticky process that resists the transfer to new group or settings. That helps the company to save their tacit knowledge and creates the challenges for others to gain or achieve company’s tactic knowledge. An effective KMS also helps the company to increase in ability to innovate of different products and provide effective services to the customers in the domestic as well as in international market (Jawadekar 2011). An effective KMS helps the company to establish a policy that creates sustainable market environment for the company to survive in the international market.
If you have any assignment related query then please send your query at - Info@assignmenthelpexperts.com
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Effective and Ineffective advertisement
This post is provided by Assignment Help Experts. Advertisement describes all the fact and feature related to the product and service. Television is an effective media for capturing the market. Today lot of companies gives their advertisement on the television to increase awareness among the customers. Advertisements have different features and message regarding the product or service and the company.
Today FedEx’s trucks ad is more effective because it convey its message very clearly and provides all the information related to size, capacity etc. Nike’s ad is also attractive because it uses humor in its ad that makes it effective (Spoonfed Design, 2008). Coca-Cola targets the youth and it also shows it in its ad that makes it effective. The presentations and information of Coca-Cola’s ad determines its effectiveness. So, these are some effective advertisements those support the high success and growth of the firm in the competitive marketplace.
In the marketplace, there are some ineffective advertisements also presented. The advertisement of Zungui Haixi Corp is ineffective that is a footwear manufacturer Company. Advertisement of the company is least effective because it provides less information about its product. Dole is a largest food based company (Dole, 2011). The advertisement of this company is also not so effective because of using ineffective and irrelevant advertisement tools and messages.
The advertisement of Marcus is also not effective. It’s a food company and provides less information about the product in its advertisement. These advertisements are really ineffective. Less information, ineffective presentation, poor contains, irrelevant message etc. are the factor that are presented in above discussed advertisement that are captured at the time of recalling and these make the ad ineffective.
References;
Dole. (2011). Retrieved May 6, 2011 from http://www.dole.com/AboutDole/tabid/1255/Default.aspx#
Spoonfed Design. (2008). Retrieved May 6, 2011 from
http://www.spoonfeddesign.com/10-principles-of-effective-advertising.
If you have any assignment related query then please send your query at - Info@assignmenthelpexperts.com
You can call me at following toll free numbers;
- Call: UK Toll free no - 0044-808-189-1311
- USA/CA Toll free no - 001-877-839-9989
Marketing Strategy
According to Moore and Pareek (2009), marketing is one of the important functions of any business besides other functions such as R&D, Finance, IT, Operation, Production, and Human Resource (HR). Function of marketing in organizations is directly related with attraction and retention of customers in comparison of other functions that focus on managing internal matters of organizations.
To develop the marketing function effectively, firms choose appropriate marketing strategies. Role of marketing strategies is important for organizations. According to Silk (2006), marketing strategies can be divided into two parts such as selection of an appropriate segmentation, targeting, positioning, and selection of a suitable marketing mix (product, price, place and promotion). In both marketing and marketing strategies, role of advertisement is very critical as advertisement is one of the important tools among other tools such as sales promotion, marketing research, distribution and pricing of marketing.
According to Slater, Hult and Oslan (2010), marketing strategies are the combination of marketing mix, positioning, targeting and segmentation that helps the organization to create competitive advantages from the international market. With the help of effective marketing strategy, organization can attract the customers for the products and services.
In the research study, researchers also argued that marketing strategies plays an effective role in the organization to face various resources and utilize different opportunities. At the same time Rosier, Morgan and Cadogan (2010) has supported the argument of Slater, Hult and Oslan (2010) that marketing strategy starts with a detailed and creative assessment of organization’s capabilities in order to achieve organizational goals. In the research, researchers argued that marketing strategies helps the organization to increase in strengths in order to increase in competition in international market.
8 Temmuz 2012 Pazar
If School Was Like Twitter
a lesson I couldn't learn on Twitterby John T. Spencer
As the kids filled out their silent, kill-and-drill test, I found myself wanting to interact on Twitter. I wanted to share my questions and frustrations with the people I've gotten to know. It had me wondering what school would be like if we modeled it after Twitter.
At first, this ideas sounded intriguing. We would get together in random chats, organizing our thoughts and sharing resources according to shared categories that grow organically. I'd have the permission to speak and to listen, engaging strangers at times and somehow making close friendships in the process. When things got too loud, I could move into a one-on-one mode, sharing small direct, personal messages back and forth. There would be space for deep, conflict-ridden discussions and light-hearted humor.
Then I thought about the times when I've learned the most and they had certain elements that simply don't work that well on Twitter. They involved direct action and reflection, painful conversations, longer narratives, novels and paintings and solving equations that I had to wrestle with on my own. It was never entirely self-directed, often shaped, in positive and negative ways, by the will of the group.
I really enjoy Twitter, but I grow professionally from a pint or a cup of coffee or a long hike or a game of catch or a favorite novel or a perplexing historical monograph.
I love Twitter. I really do. I love blogging, too. But I'm struck by the notion that social media should not be the basis for how we design schools. Instead, we need to design social systems that reflect the profound, the superficial, the nuanced, paradox-filled, muddled, messy nature of humanity.
The Problem with TED Ed
The problem with TED Ed is the problem of what we define in traditional education as a "lesson".
In life, we learn lessons by trial-and-error. We burn our hand on the stove as children and therefore learn that the stove gets hot. Over time we realize it gets hot because its purpose is to cook food. Some of us learn how the stove works and become mechanics or industrial engineers; others of us become chefs. Most of us just realize to keep our hands out of hot stuff.
But we all learn by doing and by making mistakes.
And I emphasize "doing".
TED -- in the form it is presented online to the masses -- is not about doing. It is about watching. Listening. Consuming. Maybe leaving a comment or sharing a link to improve your TEDCred score. Yes, there is a wealth of interesting information and lots to think about. Personally, I find many of the lectures to be inspired. But we shouldn't confuse an inspiring lecture and provocative ideas with "learning".
And much of what we have called "lessons" over the decades really aren't lessons at all -- they are consumables. They are short narratives consumed by students who are then asked to fill in bubbles that demonstrate that the student either was paying a modicum of attention or that the student has good natural deductive skills in parsing the quiz-maker's craft.
And so we added the essay, the brief constructed response, the formal answer. And we said it was good because now we had brought qualitative and subjective response and the skill of argument to the assessment of learning. And we judged it objectively. And we kicked the poets out of town.
None of this led to "learning" for the overwhelming majority of students. If it had, we would not be at the crisis stage in education and culture.
And so, I was interested though skeptical of TED Ed when it was announced. And now, in seeing where it is going I am depressed.
Let's consider the things that TED Ed asks the learner to do: watch a video, take a multiple-choice quiz, write brief constructed responses, and read through a bibliography. If I took the name TED out of this scenario, I would suggest that many educators would say that this format is exactly the type of traditional assessment that project-based, inquiry-driven, personalized learning is at odds with.
It is perfectly fine to watch a video. It is perfectly fine to view a lecture. It is perfectly fine to quiz yourself on what you remember from the video or the lecture. It is perfectly fine to write a brief response about a big question. But let's not call that a lesson. That's just a starting point.
Lessons come from doing.
Our mother told us the stove was hot. She told us not to touch. If we were asked what mother said, we would say: "She said not to touch the stove. The stove is hot."
But we didn't learn a lesson until we touched the stove and got burned.
Lessons worth sharing are lessons that come from out of doing. And if we are going to bring education to the online space what we need right now is a platform that exists to help us do a lot more than flip the classroom. We desperately need a platform that exists to help us learn lessons by doing.
Will TED Ed evolve into that? Will MITx? Will any of the current rage of MOOCs?
Therein may lie a lesson.
From Tools to Toys
An excerpt from Pencil Me In:
For millennia, it was a cultural universal that games existed for learning. True, children had fun, but the games were designed to teach both social and physical skills. Children learned to be warriors, how to govern, how to access cultural narratives all through the act of play. In fact, Plato theorized that one could learn more about a person through an hour of play than a lifetime of conversation.
Even in America, where we have shifted toward a sit-in-your-desk-and-shut-up-and-learn model, our games become methods of accessing these cultural skill sets. We get the darkest factory values in child's play. Thus, Simon Says teaches social conformity and prepares small kids for the prison-like environment of their future careers. Dodge Ball teaches Social Darwinism. Hide and Go Seek teaches children that transparency is overrated. Best run and hide from others. After all, this is the building block of many adult relationships.
On the flip side, our games teach the best of American values. Hide and Go Seek helps teach autonomy and creativity. Simon Says teaches listening skills and proves to kids that language can be powerful. Dodge Ball helps with teamwork and allows kids to see the value of throwing things at people for sheer enjoyment.
So, in our class, we create a game to make sense out of capitalism. It's a market simulation game, where students graph their own investments and interact with one another. Throughout this process, they write reflections, send mail messages and join a pen pal network. A few of them even plog (short for pencil logs) about the process.
When the game ends, students debrief the information in their plogs. After words, we set our pencils down and talk. On some level, it feels like waking up for a daze. Students debate the pros and cons of a market system, talk about the risks of speculation and relate this to the economic crash of last year.
The pencil smudge girl from yesterday raises her hand, “I think there is a danger in playing this game, but I'm glad we played it.”
“Can you elaborate on that?” I ask.
“I think the people in Wall Street got suckered into the same vortex that we were just in. They got selfish and that led to the Panic a few years back. It became a game to win. I think that's how it is for some of the people who run Wall Street.”
All of this has me reconsidering the notion of fun. I don't want my students to be amusement-addicts who play a violent Hang Man game or throw wads of paper out of boredom. I want students to use pencils as a tool. However, I'm realizing that games can be a tool for learning. I’m left feeling conflicted and confused. Perhaps technology can be a toy and the game can spur deeper reflection. Maybe the power in every game is the fact that it creates a safe place to rehearse reality.
So now I'm sitting at home with my daughter. She's tossing a ball at the fence. The ball has been the dragon that attacked her fortress made of blocks and now it's a magic ball that will lose its fairy dust if it falls on the ground more than once. She's playing and learning and there isn't much of a divide at this age.
Perhaps there shouldn't ever be such a rigid divide. Perhaps when my students ask, “Can we play games?” or “Can't we have fun?” the answer doesn't have to be “these are tools not toys.” Maybe the answer can be, “Maybe they are tools, but maybe they're also toys. Sometimes it will be fun. Sometimes it will be difficult. But I will always try and make sure it’s meaningful.”
And it has me thinking that maybe innovation happens, not because we use our tools appropriately but because we play with them. We hack them. We change them. We use them in ways they weren't intended to be used and in the process, they become better tools.
Open, Collaborative Test
I was inspired by Shelly's final exam to try my own version of a collaborative, open internet test. The background for this is that students worked in groups of 3 on one of five topics related to the Cold War: Germany, China, Korea, Vietnam, and the arms and space race. All students were responsible for researching the beginnings of the Cold War and the policies and actions of the West and the Soviet Bloc. Students prepared presentations on their topic and shared while their classmates took notes. The next day the students worked in their same groups (they had two hours) to answer the following questions with full access to their computers.
Names and font colors :
Please pick a different color font for each group member and use it throughout. You should proofread each others' work before you are done. You must answer all of these questions in your own thoughts and words. Copy and pasting will result in no credit for that question! Your answers should be in complete sentences and paragraph form. You have some choices in how you answer these questions. Be sure that you address ALL of our sub-topics: China, Germany, Korea, Vietnam, and the arms and space race somewhere in this test.
Standards:
WHG8.1.1a blueExplain the origins of the Cold War including the differences in ideologies and policies of the Soviet bloc and the West.
WHG8.1.1b
The arms and space race between United States and Soviet Union.
WHG8.1.1c
Conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.
WHG8.1.1d
The development of communism in China
Answer all of the following:
- Explain how the conclusion of WWII helps start the Cold War. Be sure to list specific events and decisions by different countries.
- Explain in detail the message of this political cartoon. Be sure to identify the people, countries, etc:
- Give 3 examples of how the Capital used fear to manipulate people in The Hunger Games.
- Explain the “Domino Effect” and “containment” and how they originated from the Truman Doctrine. Give an example of how these policies were implemented.
- List as many examples of proxy wars from the Cold War that you can. Explain in detail how one of them was a proxy war.
- What factors lead to communism developing in China and how is China part of the Cold War?
- How were the space and arms race related to each other and to the Cold War? Give detailed examples of how they began and progressed.
- Watch this. Explain how this is not the end of the Cold War. How and why did the Cold War end?
- Evaluate your partners in this Google Form.
Choose 4 of the following questions to answer in detail:
- Insert 2 images (One Western and One Soviet) of propaganda and explain how they used fear to manipulate people.
- Why was this era called the Cold War? Use reason and evidence to support your claim.
- List the title and artist of a Cold War song,insert a hotlink to the song lyrics, and explain how that song relates to the Cold War. Bonus points if Mr. Kaechele likes the song:)
- Explain how “The Butter Battle Book” is an analogy to the “Arms Race.”
- Give specific examples of Cold War governments making decisions based on fear and false assumptions of the opposing side.
- Some people have compared the Cold War to a chess match. Others say “The Cold War never fought any physical battles.” Agree or disagree with one of these statements and support your opinion with examples.
- Explain how the Berlin Airlift was brinkmanship between the Soviets and the Americans.
- Explain how the Suez Canal Crisis was part of the Cold War.
- Watch “We choose to go to the moon.” How is this speech propaganda? How is it part of the Cold War? How is this speech part of the “American myth” of exceptionalism?
- Choose any topic of the Cold War that you feel is not addressed in the previous questions that you feel that you are an expert on. Explain it in detail.
Cell Phones Don't Annoy People; People Annoy People.
Last week, I joined fans of public radio’s This American Life, in shelling out twenty bucks to go to the movie theater for a live taping of the program. Host Ira Glass drew laughs when he talked about the many theater managers nervous that we was encouraging viewers to take out their cell phones during the show. While he was going for laughs, he was dead serious about letting folks fill the theater rooms with screen glow. Dozens of audience members in hundreds of theaters across two continents simultaneously pulled out their smart phones and fired up the app that had been created specifically for this show. Glass introduced the band OK Go, known more for their groundbreaking music videos than pop melodies. The gimmick-geared musicians did not disappoint. The easiest way I can describe the experience: the band played music and with the app the audience played Guitar Hero to accompany them. I think the consensus was that it was pretty cool stuff.
At the end of the song, folks put their phones away and the show, as they say, went on.
Cell phones have become Enemy #1 in subways, movie theaters and pretty much every public space. OK Go and This American Life provide an excellent example of how mobile technology can be mobilized for positive disruption. They succeed in showing that the negative disruptions are a product of the users, not the phones.
This is a good lesson for schools and educators to note. In edu-speak, controlling the impact of cell phones is a classroom management issue, not a cell phone issue. This does not necessarily mean educators need to be incorporating mobile into their lessons (though many readers of this blog probably do); rather, that we are at least embedding into our lessons the idea of responsible cell phone citizenship. Modeling the positive disruptions a la Ira Glass is one of many ways of fostering this important learning.
7 Temmuz 2012 Cumartesi
PDF Mergy - combine PDF files into one - Chrome web app
PDF files are everywhere. Every operating system and every device I know of can read them. They are a great way to share and publish files since they can be locked, watermarked, and viewed on pretty much any device or OS. Most office suites allow you to save files as PDF formats and there are some other great tools for creating them.
Sometimes you have multiple PDF files that you want to combine into one. I do this often since I save scanned documents as PDF files, as well as much of my own work.
PDF Mergy PDF Mergy is a Chrome web app that makes it easy to merge PDF Files. Drag and drop or select from your computer, place them in the order you want, and then, viola, one merged PDF file. It is all done on their server, not your computer, so this is a great app for use with Chromebooks and for people looking to do everything in the cloud. QuickPDF does the same thing, but needs to be installed on your computer.
Related:
PDF - interesting infographic and lots of resources for using them
PDF Converter - free online PDF conversion
Lots of PDF resources - print, markup, convert and more
PDFBinder - simple tool to merge PDF documents into one
BabyPDF - Edit PDF documents for free
Crocodoc - markup PDF files for free
Fill Any PDF form - fill out, sign and send forms
I Love PDF - merge or split PDF files
Adobe Digital School Collection - supporting creativity and digital literacy - includes Adobe Acrobat for creating PDF files
Qwiki Creator - easily create engaging multimedia projects
Last year I wrote about Qwiki, which is a site that takes your internet search and creates a multimedia presentation with resources about your search term. Text, images, audio are all part of it. It's a very cool way to quickly create a presentation about a topic.
I just learned from my Edtech colleague David Kapuler on his site, that Qwiki now has Qwiki Creator available. Qwiki Creator lets users work online in their browser to combine text, photos, videos, maps, tweets, and more into an interactive online experience that you can share and embed anywhere and even add your own narration. It also allows you to create narration using text to speech.
Here's a great demo showing how to make a Qwiki, and how easy it is:
Play the Qwiki: Qwiki Demo & Background
This is a really cool service that I can see being used by students for projects and by teachers to create great resources for their students.
Check it out: http://www.qwiki.com/
Gooru - collections of free study guides and resources
Gooru is a site I wrote about this past February that was in private Alpha. I just received notice from them that they have now launched their Beta site and it's open for use.
Gooru is a search engine for education and learning. It contains study guides, aligned to standards and personalized, on topics in 5th - 12th grade math and science. Resources include videos, animations, links, digital textbooks, and more. All of the resources have been organized and reviewed by teachers or content experts.
Here's a small sample of what a search for "physics" returns:
It also contains a social aspect with a community to discuss topics and ask questions. There are also self-assessments that Gooru suggest resources and study guides to help you.
Check it out and share with your students: http://www.goorulearning.org/gooru/index.g#/home
Discovery Education announces updates to it's Science Techbooks
Discovery Education has a lot of great resources for educators, many free (over 30). They also have fee-based services such as DE Streaming with thousands of videos, audio files, images, lesson plans, and much more.
The Discovery Education Science Techbook is more than a digital textbook. "It’s a different way of thinking. Thinking outside the box, perhaps. Or more appropriately, thinking outside the book." "The Techbook not only provides awesome content aligned to each state’s standards (there are currently Science Techbooks available for most grades K-8 in 30 states across the U.S.), but includes a model lesson for teachers to use with every concept, assessment questions for each standard, a teacher’s guide, and DVDs for when the Internet is not available. Resources such as the virtual labs, reading passages, video segments, science sleuths, explorations, and interactive glossary, etc., are packaged together to follow the five E model of instruction. Teachers have found an easier and creative way to build lessons using technology resources and content, as well as differentiating their classroom."
They have just announced Techbook 2.0 is available. This is an update to the Techbook based on feedback and suggestions from educators, including a group of well known and well respected educators who reviewed Techbook at a summit Discovery Education hosted. You can Register to attend a webinar to learn about the new layout, features, and enhancements.
links.discoveryeducation.com/sciencetechbook
Related:
25 Free Resources from Discovery Education
Discovery Education’s Science Techbook: Scientific Explanations in Action
What I Want from a Digital Textbook
TechBook Extravaganza
Apple Announces iBooks2 E-Textbooks - my initial thoughts
What I use with Physics classes instead of textbook
Resources to Replace Textbooks
Free Textbooks - online, download, iPad, Kindle
181 Google Tricks that will save you time in School - updated
181 Google Tricks that will save you time in School - updated is an article that has, as it's title suggests, some great tricks for using different Google apps and resources in education.
The tips include improving your search and finding what you need, using Google Scholar, iGoogle, Google Groups, Google+, Google Docs, Gmail, Google Calendar, Chrome and much more.
If you use Google's apps and resources, this is a must read.
Related:
Presentation on Google for Educators
Why I use Google's Products as an Educator (and how)
Google Groups - connect, share, communicate, discuss - great for education
5 Temmuz 2012 Perşembe
Cell Phones Don't Annoy People; People Annoy People.
Last week, I joined fans of public radio’s This American Life, in shelling out twenty bucks to go to the movie theater for a live taping of the program. Host Ira Glass drew laughs when he talked about the many theater managers nervous that we was encouraging viewers to take out their cell phones during the show. While he was going for laughs, he was dead serious about letting folks fill the theater rooms with screen glow. Dozens of audience members in hundreds of theaters across two continents simultaneously pulled out their smart phones and fired up the app that had been created specifically for this show. Glass introduced the band OK Go, known more for their groundbreaking music videos than pop melodies. The gimmick-geared musicians did not disappoint. The easiest way I can describe the experience: the band played music and with the app the audience played Guitar Hero to accompany them. I think the consensus was that it was pretty cool stuff.
At the end of the song, folks put their phones away and the show, as they say, went on.
Cell phones have become Enemy #1 in subways, movie theaters and pretty much every public space. OK Go and This American Life provide an excellent example of how mobile technology can be mobilized for positive disruption. They succeed in showing that the negative disruptions are a product of the users, not the phones.
This is a good lesson for schools and educators to note. In edu-speak, controlling the impact of cell phones is a classroom management issue, not a cell phone issue. This does not necessarily mean educators need to be incorporating mobile into their lessons (though many readers of this blog probably do); rather, that we are at least embedding into our lessons the idea of responsible cell phone citizenship. Modeling the positive disruptions a la Ira Glass is one of many ways of fostering this important learning.
Student-led Final Review
Others on this blog have been writing about student-produced/student-driven final exams. I'd like to add to the conversation the student-produced final review. This is the third semester that I have foregone handing out a big semester review before the final and instead left it up to my students to guide the review and I have not been disappointed. Just as there is a wide range of abilities in my classes, students produce an array of activities that go far beyond what I would have created, especially on the high and low ends of ability/readiness. I would be lying if I claimed that 100% of students subsequently took advantage of class review time to diligently study and prepare for the final exam but the vast majority do and, from my viewpoint, appear much more engaged in the whole process. I think that the student ownership creates buy-in and interest in what we are doing.
Note that while this is for high school Spanish students, most of the tools and resources here can be adapted to meet the needs of other subjects. This year, the most popular and beneficial study guides came in the form of the dice maker, fakeconvos.com, awards show and Quizlet. Below is an abbreviated version of how I introduce this to classes (I post it to them on Edmodo, and those who create digital reviews share them with classmates on the group page):
One of the ways that you can demonstrate your own understanding of learning is to be able to show it or teach it to another student. To that end, you will help others study for the final exam (and they will help you) by creating a review activity or game. We will dedicate block day and Friday to preparing for the final exam by using YOUR review activities.
You must be able to explain the game to your peers. If you are unsure about your idea, run it by me before your create it. You may do more than one activity. If you have a bigger project to attempt, I am open to allowing you to work in pairs but clear it with me first. Same goes for any doubts you have...if you have questions, ask!
Some ideas:
1. Write stories that classmates can read. By reading them, they are studying and preparing for the test.
http://www.artisancam.org.uk/flashapps/superactioncomicmaker/
www.makebeliefscomix.com
2. Record a listening practice. You can record a reading of one of our stories from class (They will be in your edmodo library) and have questions that classmates answer to demonstrate their listening comprehension.
3. Adjust one of these games to meet your needs:
http://its.leesummit.k12.mo.us/gameresources.htm
4. This site is a gold mine of activities you can use: awards certificate maker to do your own awards show for classmates, dice games, board game generator to invent your own board game, crossword puzzles and more. A lot of you used this one last semester:
http://www.toolsforeducators.com/
5. Create a story (usng target vocab!) in the form of a fake Facebook conversation:
http://fakeconvos.com/index.php
6. Here's another site with great resources, including a Jeopardy game maker:
http://www.superteachertools.com/index.php
7. Make your own online review game!
http://www.purposegames.com/
8. Make your own poster series (Hola meme addicts!). This site has some good resources:
http://bighugelabs.com/
9. Create a stack of digital flash cards. There are a ton of resources out there. Here's one:
http://www.brainflips.com/
10. This is a step up from a dice game: Sentence Generator
http://www.education.vic.gov.au/languagesonline/games/sentence/
This is but a partial list of what resources are out there. What would you add to the list? Have you had success (or struggle) with tasking students to take ownership of their own final review? Let us know in the comments!
What My Grocery Store Needs to Learn About Twitter
My grocery store has a sign begging me to follow them on Twitter. Here is what I was expecting to see in their Twitter stream:
- Hey, I’m selling food right now. You should come buy some. #hungry #food
- Did I mention that we have food? Thought you should try it. #food #hungry #eat
- Just sitting here full of food. Just got stocked. Damn I'm full. #food
- Hey guys, I have a ton of food and an endless supply of Celine Dion music. #adultcontemporary #food #party
- Party at my place. Everyone is in line. No one is line dancing. #lamestpartyever #party #food
- There's a #grocerchat in twelve minutes.
- So apparently all food is ethnic food (even white people food). So do I call it Hispanic, Latino or Latin? #grocerchat
- Really? But Latin just sounds like singing monks? Is that really what we should use? #grocerchat
- Apparently it's not okay to switch the butcher block signs to Comic Sans. Who knew? #grocerchat
- RT @Kroger "Wal-Mart is such a selfish blowhard. I hope he chokes on the vomit from eating up all the little guys."
- Sorry for the confusion. Supermarkets are for all people, not exclusively superheroes. #apology #food
- I'm sorry for referring to myself as the "anchor store." @kay'sbeautysupplystore - U R muy importante to me, girlfriend!
- Sorry for referring to @kay'sbeautysupplies as "girlfriend." #crossedalineonthatone #tryingtosoundhip
- @Safeway - You want a link? We got tons of sausage at our site.
- @Safeway - Wrong link? :( You want a link to an article? I've got a whole magazine rack. #checkoutthatrack #supermaketinnuendo
Participate.
Maybe choose a representative from three or four departments to answer questions regarding food. What if I could tweet out to a veggie expert who can tell me the best season to buy habanero peppers? What if I could look into my Twitter feed and get some tips for grilling large hunks of animal flesh? Instead, I see a stream of advertisements for events and sales.
Ultimately, that's the real issue with social media. Companies want to learn how to use it. However, Twitter is as much a place as it is a tool. We don't learn how to use the park or the library or the town square. We learn to relate and to participate and to interact in those places. If Sprouts wants to engage with the public, it has to move beyond simply creating advertisements and tweeting them out. You can't use Twitter.
We Have a Negative Space Problem
However, it's more than that. It's the concept of space. Twitter is simple and it looks simple. Watch the user interface and there's enough negative space to breathe. Google Plus has more to offer than Facebook and does so with more negative space and easier navigation.
It has me thinking of school. When I walk the halls, there's too much negative space. When I visit classrooms, there isn't enough negative space. Physically, there isn't any sense of balance. Students move from edgy overload to edgy boredom without a sense of flow.
When I think of instruction, it's crammed with positive space. No reflection. No wandering. No negative space between the subjects and the concepts. Again, it misses the sense of balance. For all the talk of "instructional design," schools are often missing one of the core fundamentals of design. We need negative space.
I'm not sure what it would look like, but I want schools to rethink the concept of negative space. I want to recover the paradoxically complex simplicity and solitude of negative space.
TeachPaperless: Final Post
I hate long goodbyes; so I'll spare you.
The news: this is it for TeachPaperless. I've decided to close up the blog. As this has been a big part of my life for the last three years, this moment comes with mixed emotions. But it is time; we've accomplished whatever this thing was meant to do and now it's time to make new things.
Before heading out, however, I wanted to acknowledge some people who have really made this whole project work. I'd like to thank Reader Knaus -- who I believe was the very first reader to really get into a comment discussion on this blog; thanks to Will Richardson, Ira Socol, Chris Lehmann, and Clay Burrell for inspiration; thanks to Scott McLeod; thanks to Richard Byrne; thanks to Dean Groom and all the crazies in Australia; thanks to all the folks who took part in the original Friday Chat sessions; thanks to the editors and folks at Edutopia, ISTE Connects, NY Times, Ed Week -- especially K. Manzo; thanks ASCD, MindShift, Audrey Watters; thanks to Robert Pondiscio for being such a great person to argue with in the early days of this project; thanks to Anonymous -- who is a very prolific commenter; thanks to Malcolm Gladwell for not beating me up (not that I think he would have); thanks to everyone at Johns Hopkins School of Education -- especially my former students; thanks to Bob Schick and to all of my former high school students / lab-rats; thanks to all of the readers and commenters who pushed our thinking here; thanks to all of the contributing writers; and especially thanks to John T. Spencer -- hands-down the finest pure-writer anywhere near the education discussion today.
I think we did some good stuff here; and I think we (or I should say "I") screwed up a fair amount. I take full credit for all screw-ups and I humbly accept whatever the fates allow here on out.
This also marks the end of my formal classroom teaching career (although for the last year I've taught exclusively online). Over the years, I've come to realize that I can't be a classroom teacher. My interests in learning are in the things that exist beyond the structure of a school curriculum and an academic environment. Luckily, we are living at a time when teachers have more ladders available to them to pursue their work in education than perhaps at anytime in the last hundred+ years -- from collaborative community based art projects to social entrepreneurship to the design of new technologies to the dreaming up of new programs that challenge the traditional barriers of time and geography and that will effect a real future.
And so, in the capacity of co executive director, I've joined with fellow teacher Andrew Coy in helping the Digital Harbor Foundation to found a series of community education and technology centers in Baltimore. We'll be serving Baltimore City Public School teachers and students K-12 -- delivering extracurricular after school maker-experiences where teachers gain free, open, and relevant PD and students gain digital literacy skills through the experience of actually building new things and new designs and new technologies.
I'm pretty crazy excited about the work we've done so far; and will be sure to detail where things lead on Twitter -- which, btw, I'm now going to use exclusively as @blakeplock.
Last thing I wanted to say -- and this is to the teachers and students out there: go make stuff. Stop jumping through hoops. There is a world out there and there are a million different ways of becoming educated. You don't have to follow their rules. Go out there and make stuff. Stuff that matters. Stuff that makes people smile. Stuff that changes the way other people do things. Stuff that's beautiful. Stuff that's ugly. Stuff. Stuff you make. Stuff that reflects who you are rather than what they want you to be.
Thank you all for some great conversation. Now it's time to really put my nose to the grind in Baltimore; I expect you'll be hearing about what our kids and teachers are doing soon.
Shelly
4 Temmuz 2012 Çarşamba
Use of Data to Reduce Variation in Process
Assignment Help Experts New Blog Post - Data used in the process is quite important to the statisticians, quality managers, Six Sigma Green and Black belts and other improvement professionals that have participated in the process. Organizations might use data within internal environment for reducing variation in the process. It might use data with fundamental concept of algorithm that is helpful to reduce variation through step by step procedure. Algorithm increases knowledge about how a process acts and behaves as a cost effective change that is significant to reduce variation (Scholtes, Joiner & Streibel, 2003). The collected data is used by the organization to define new system. An effective data sharing is useful to share data within the organization that reduces variations in different organizational processes.
At the same time, the organization might use data for statistical thinking with the help of statistical process control that reduces process variability. The data can be used for making chart for the organizational system and quality parameters. Reduction in process variation is quite important for the organization to improve quality system and performance and to meet customers’ expectation (Kaira, 2011). Six Sigma approach is a statistical technique that measures variation through using data for a process. Statistical thinking is significant due to its three key elements that include process variation, source of variation and use of data etc.
From the reduction in process variation, the result will not be in terms of yield. It is because; yield is the amount that returns the security of owners. In addition, Yield does not contain the price variation, if there is difference between total returns. It is the return of investment such as interest and dividend, but does not reduce the variation in the process (Bhunia & Mukhopadhyay, 2010). Generally, it is carried on the basis of percentages on cost of investment. By reducing the process, the results are not considered as yield, but results affect the yield.
References
Bhunia, S. & Mukhopadhyay, S. (2010). Low-Power Variation-Tolerant Design in Nanometer Silicon. USA: Springer.
Kaira, J. (2011). Medical Errors and Patient Safety: Strategies to Reduce and Disclose Medical Errors and Improve Patient Safety. Germany: Walter de Gruyter.
Scholtes, P.R., Joiner, B.L. & Streibel, B.J. (2003). The Team Handbook. (3rd ed.). Oriel Incorporated.