The Five Myths of Informal Learning

Informal learning is emerging as one of the most powerful disciplines in our industry. The tools and methodologies that have been developed over the past several years are changing the learning landscape in amazing ways. But there are a number of misunderstandings about this critical approach. I’d like to share some myths I’ve encountered when trying to intentionally implement a successful informal learning strategy.

1. Informal learning doesn’t need structure.
2. Informal learning approaches such as social networks can replace training.
3. E-learning is informal learning.
4. An effective and thorough training program negates the need for informal learning.
5. It’s only informal learning if it’s immediate and embedded.

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Innovate My School

Innovate My School is a community-driven website that keeps teachers informed about the latest ideas and trends in education. From exciting new products and services to alternative teaching and learning practices, Innovate My School empowers teachers to think beyond traditional boundaries, lead proactively and, most importantly, feel inspired.

Read latest inspiration articles - packed full of fresh ideas, innovative practices and personal insights from teachers and industry experts around the world.

Browse comprehensive online marketplace to discover, compare and get quotes for all the newest educational products and services.

Keep up to date with all the buzz surrounding new trends, disruptive products and case studies, from startups and leading brands, by following the innovation news page.

Book a FREE innovation speed date to bring the the latest edtech innovations to your next meeting!

Download free teaching resources, covering a range of key topics, produced by teachers and suppliers from around the web.

Read and subscribe to the free digital magazine for a range of exclusive articles designed to inspire, challenge and excite anyone that works in a school.

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eLearning Papers

eLearning Papers adds a new dimension to the exchange of information on open education, OER and ICT in education in Europe and stimulates research. As such, the articles provide views regarding the current situation and trends in different communities: schools, universities, companies, civil society and institutions. Through these articles, the journal promotes the use of Open Educational Resources and new technologies for lifelong learning in Europe.

eLearning Papers issues include an editorial article, plus articles, interviews and/or reviews, and are usually published four or five times a year.

The texts published in this journal, unless otherwise indicated, are subject to a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivativeWorks 3.0 Unported License. They may be copied, distributed and broadcast provided that the author and the e-journal that publishes them, eLearning Papers, are properly quoted. Commercial use and derivative works are not allowed.

eLearning Papers is a digital publication created as part of the Open Education Europa portal. The portal is an initiative of the European Commission to promote the use of Open Educational Resources and new technologies in education and training.

It is one of the most visited online journals on Open Education which fosters stimulating research and practices in Education, Innovation and Technology.

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Bell the CAT: Best Websites for Mock Tests

Preparing for a glittering future as an MBA? Are you really prepared for your MBA entrance exam? The best way to evaluate your preparation for the MBA entrance tests is by going through mock tests. These mock entrance tests not only familiarise you with the types of questions you can expect in the examination, but they also help you chalk a strategy for the exams and revise at the last minute.

For best results, you should take at least three to four mock tests per week. Also, ensure that the mock tests you take are from a good institute like T.I.M.E or IMS. Apart from these, here is a list of websites you can turn to for CAT exam tips and mock online tests.

Testfunda.com:

IMSIndia.com:

Testbook.com:

Cybermocktest.com:

MyCATstudy.com:

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What Are MOOCs Good For?

What Are MOOCs Good For?

Although massive open online courses (MOOCs) have not revolutionized the higher-education model the way advocates expected them to, they still have value. In September, researchers led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) David Pritchard published a study of an online course, which determined the MOOC effectively communicated difficult concepts, even to students who were not up to MIT's standards. MOOCs essentially are content, similar to textbooks, that when used as the centerpiece of a well-taught course can benefit learners. MIT's Sanjay Sarma says many of the MOOCs' underlying technologies, which are interactivity- and assessment-centered, can be useful for students on campus. Meanwhile, Harvard University's David Malan notes MOOC tools add another dimension to his lectures by enabling them to be split up online into shorter segments, so students can spend as much time on each unit as they require. "We're nearing the point where it's a superior educational experience, as far as the lectures are concerned, to engage with [students] online," he says. Pritchard says MOOCs are prompting people across higher education to consider how they can warrant charging huge lecture fees to students when better and less costly courses are available online. He also thinks MOOCs could play a role in education at the high school and lower levels, given that teachers are already a major audience.



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7 innovative Indian tech startups to watch out for

From addressing data center energy issues, empowering kirana stores to transforming Indian agriculture using the cloud, Indian tech startups are amongst a lot of action.

Can an Indian startup provide answers to global data center energy woes?

How an Indian startup is empowering kirana stores by leveraging cloud, analytics and mobile apps

Can a startup transform Indian agriculture by using the cloud?

Cloud helps Classle deliver education to the rest of the pyramid

NanoBi Analytics: A startup building the first analytics app store in India

How a startup is seeking to disrupt the recruitment industry by using the cloud

How an Indian startup is leveraging Big Data analytics to drive genetics research

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Will MOOCs Destroy Academia?

"Thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee," wrote the prophet Isaiah. This phrase has been popping into my mind as I have been following the recent raging discussions over the topic of MOOCs.

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If I had my wish, I would wave a wand and make MOOCs disappear, but I am afraid that we have let the genie out of the bottle.

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National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning aims to reach more students

With its new certification initiative, the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) has come a long way from its humble beginnings as a repository of video lectures. On the cards are translations, sub-titling and original content in different languages so that the courses reach more people.

NPTEL is also moving to a massive open online course ( MOOC) platform to host the content.

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Free Online Certificate Courses & MOOCs from Great Universities: A Complete List

Here you can find a list of 200 free online courses (MOOCs) offered by leading universities. Most of these free courses offer “certificates” or “statements of completion,” though typically not university credit.

Courses are arranged by start date, while evergreen courses, which can begin whenever you wish, are found at the bottom.

Also don’t miss our separate collection, 650 Free Online Courses from Top Universities.

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Virtual learning spaces

Clarify your doubts, view digital dissections, videos of experiments and listen to lectures by experts from around the world on the social media… Learning could be fun this way.

The Internet has thrown open a whole new world of information access and it’s not just the regular educational sites we’re talking about. Even those platforms assumed to be of a frivolous, social nature are now being seen as powerful tools of education. Who would have thought Facebook, Twitter and YouTube would help you score extra in your tests?

“If anything, it (social media) just opens up another channel of communication from students to teachers,” comments a person on a website. Not just a channel but numerous and simultaneous channels that connect you to several material at one shot.

Here’s a look at the social media spaces that are underestimated educational tools. Read the full article

Converting Text to Speech – Free Resources for Powering Learning with Audio

The power of audio in e-learning is undisputed. Studies have proven that the inclusion of multimedia – including audio– increases the adoption of basic skills in learners by 21 percentile and of higher order skills by 20 percentile (Source: Multimodal Learning Through Media– What Research Says). With the advent of mobile learning and its popularity, audio continues to be one of the most sought-after tools for making learning effective. Audio is used as an able accompaniment with text, or even as a stand-alone module, delivering just-in-time learning to the learner.

Text-to-speech converters have been available for the past few years, and they have evolved tremendously to keep up with the demands of the latest technology and emerging platforms of learning delivery. Here is a useful resource, listing text-to-speech resources that will help you introduce audio-element into learning. From reading out webpages to converting Word documents into audio files (in multiple language choices) to even creating instant voiceovers for your presentations – these tools can do it all!

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Website: Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

The aim behind the website "Educational Technology and Mobile Learning" is to help educators, teachers, curriculum designers, and students better integrate technology into education. It provides ideas, tips, tutorials and reviews of the best free web 2.0 tools, and since the world is going mobile, it has also devoted an entire section of this blog to articles covering reviews of free educational mobile apps that work on smart devices.

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/

8 FREE Online Computer Science Courses for Beginners and Advances Users

Many people want to learn computer science, but not many can afford to do so at the best institutions. Fortunately many of the best institutions in the world are opening up their courses so you can take a course from Stanford, MIT or Harvard simply by going online and learning at your own pace. Here are 8 ways you can take advantage of this.

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Machine Learning Lectures by Professor Andrew Ng, Stanford CS Dept.

This course (CS229) -- taught by Professor Andrew Ng -- provides a broad introduction to machine learning and statistical pattern recognition. Topics include supervised learning, unsupervised learning, learning theory, reinforcement learning and adaptive control. Recent applications of machine learning, such as to robotic control, data mining, autonomous navigation, bioinformatics, speech recognition, and text and web data processing are also discussed. This is a series of 20 lectures of about 75 minutes each.Watch them

Programming Methodology Lectures by Professor Mehran Sahami, Stanford CS Dept.

Programming Methodology (CS106A) is an Introduction to the engineering of computer applications emphasizing modern software engineering principles: object-oriented design, decomposition, encapsulation, abstraction, and testing. Uses the Java programming language. Emphasis is on good programming style and the built-in facilities of the Java language. This is a series 26 lectures of about 50 minutes each. Watch them

ThinkQuest -- Projects -- Competitions -- Professional Development

ThinkQuest is an online learning platform that helps students develop important 21st century skills, including communication, critical thinking, and technology skills. It includes:

-- ThinkQuest Projects: A project environment that supports collaborative learning

-- ThinkQuest Competition: Technology competitions that challenge students to solve real-world problems

-- ThinkQuest Library: The world's largest online repository of student-developed learning projects, visited by millions of web learners each month

-- ThinkQuest Professional Development: Professional development for educators

The Oracle Education Foundation (OEF) provides ThinkQuest as a free service to K-12 schools globally.

Over 8,000 websites created by students around the world who have participated in a ThinkQuest Competition.

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Scitable -- A Collaborative Space for Learning Science

Scitable is a free science library and personal learning tool brought to you by Nature Publishing Group, the world's leading publisher of science.

Scitable is an open online teaching/learning portal combining high quality educational articles authored by editors at NPG with technology-based community features to fuel a global exchange of scientific insights, teaching practices, and study resources.

Scitable currently concentrates on genetics and cell biology, which include the topics of evolution, gene expression, and the rich complexity of cellular processes shared by living organisms. Scitable also offers resources for the budding scientist, with advice about effective science communication and career paths.

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How Khan Academy Is Changing the Rules of Education

Carpenter, a serious-faced 10-year-old wearing a gray T-shirt and an impressive black digital watch, pauses for a second, fidgets, then clicks on “0 degrees.” Presto: The computer tells him that he’s correct. The software then generates another problem, followed by another, and yet another, until he’s nailed 10 in a row in just a few minutes. All told, he’s done an insane 642 inverse trig problems. “It took a while for me to get it,” he admits sheepishly.

Carpenter, who attends Santa Rita Elementary, a public school in Los Altos, California, shouldn’t be doing work anywhere near this advanced. In fact, when I visited his class this spring—in a sun-drenched room festooned with a papercraft X-wing fighter and student paintings of trees—the kids were supposed to be learning basic fractions, decimals, and percentages. As his teacher, Kami Thordarson, explains, students don’t normally tackle inverse trig until high school, and sometimes not even then.

But last November, Thordarson began using Khan Academy in her class. Khan Academy is an educational website that, as its tagline puts it, aims to let anyone “learn almost anything—for free.” Students, or anyone interested enough to surf by, can watch some 2,400 videos in which the site’s founder, Salman Khan, chattily discusses principles of math, science, and economics (with a smattering of social science topics thrown in). The videos are decidedly lo-fi, even crude: Generally seven to 14 minutes long, they consist of a voice-over by Khan describing a mathematical concept or explaining how to solve a problem while his hand-scribbled formulas and diagrams appear onscreen. Like the Wizard of Oz, Khan never steps from behind the curtain to appear in a video himself; it’s just Khan’s voice and some scrawly equations. In addition to these videos, the website offers software that generates practice problems and rewards good performance with videogame-like badges—for answering a “streak” of questions correctly, say, or mastering a series of algebra levels. (Carpenter has acquired 52 Earth badges in math, which require hours of toil to attain and at which his classmates gaze with envy and awe.)

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Computer Education In Schools: The Open Source Way

InOpen Technologies, an IIT Bombay based technological start-up, designs and develops special educational content and solutions for academia. We call it special because the content and training completely uses Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Rupesh Kumar Shah, chief executive officer and founder of InOpen Technologies, shares his experience with Shweta Dhadiwal Baid of EFYTimes, on how the free and open concept turned into a thoughtful and successful business. Read