Education Hacking
Transcription
Education Hacking
“Education Hacking” Useful Tools & Resources for Corporate Learning V1 Peter Palme September, 29, 2015 INTRODUCTION For those who came across this Whitepaper directly you might wonder what education hacking means and why I have written this whitepaper. You will find the answer to your question in the Post “What Corporate Learning & Development can learn from Education Hackers and employees? -> Linkedin: http://bit.ly/educationhacking In this whitepaper I have summarized a number of helpful resources and tools. I have put them in categories that I thought would be helpful for people working in corporate learning & development and as well as for employees taking their personal & professional development in their own hands. In the first segment I give an overview on Open Education Resources. How to find resources and who are the key providers. In the second segment I focus on language acquisitions. There are many tools available. And dependant on the learner the best strategy and tools can be selected to achieve results not yet achieved with the traditional language acquisition approach. For each tool I will give an overview of the benefits and the key features. Additionally I will list the systems requirements and the costs. Most tools are free to use in a basic version. As a lot of venture capital is now flowing into this education area. You can expect more and more tools to be developed and more and more resources added. I will keep track on the most relevant. Yet if you think I am missing an important tool or resource please do not hesitate to contact me. Most of these tools and resources are in English. Wherever available I added German sources as well. 1 My contact details are: Peter Palme: [email protected] Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/peterpalme Blog: http://ppalme.wordpress.com 2 TABLE OF CONTENT Introduction ............................................................ 1 Search for OER & MOOCs ......................................... 6 Class-Central ..................................................... 6 Degreed............................................................ 9 Academic Earth.................................................. 9 Mooctivity ....................................................... 10 Mooc List ........................................................ 11 OER = Open Education Resources............................ 13 MIT ................................................................ 13 Khan Academy ................................................ 15 MOOCS & Online Courses Provider ........................... 16 Coursera ......................................................... 17 edX ................................................................ 19 Canvas.net ...................................................... 21 Udacity ........................................................... 23 Iversity ........................................................... 26 Open University ............................................... 27 Open edX ........................................................ 27 Alison ............................................................. 28 YouTube Edu ................................................... 29 Ted- Ideas Worth Spreading .............................. 29 MOOCs relevant for HR & Corporate L&D .................. 30 Curricula .............................................................. 31 Data scientist .................................................. 31 3 Tracking ............................................................... 31 Language Acquisiton .............................................. 31 Speaking .............................................................. 32 Language Exchange/Community Platforms ...................... 33 Italki .............................................................. 33 Wespeke ......................................................... 33 Livemocha ...................................................... 34 Busuu ............................................................. 35 Language Teacher Platforms ....................................... 36 Listening ................................................................ 36 Podcasts .......................................................... 37 Radio Online ..................................................... 37 Film / Video / Television ........................................ 37 Pronunciation ..................................................... 38 Forvo.com ....................................................... 38 Rhinospike ...................................................... 38 Reading ................................................................ 39 Lingua.ly ......................................................... 39 Readlang ........................................................ 40 LingQ ............................................................. 40 Writing .................................................................. 41 Interpals ........................................................... 41 Lang-8 ............................................................. 41 Lyrics Translate ............................................... 42 Spaced Repetition Tools ......................................... 42 4 Memrise.......................................................... 43 Anki ............................................................... 44 Understanding / Meaning ........................................ 45 Wiktionary ...................................................... 45 WordReference.com ......................................... 45 Bab.la............................................................. 45 Translation Tools ................................................ 46 Google Translate .............................................. 46 Babelfish ......................................................... 46 Other Tools ........................................................... 46 Interactive courses ............................................. 46 Duolingo (free) ................................................ 46 Foreign Service Institute ................................... 47 Education Hackers & Hacks ..................................... 47 Workshop “Education Hacking” ................................ 49 About Me .............................................................. 50 Thank you ............................................................ 50 5 SEARCH FOR OER & MOOCS These search sites are also called aggregators. CLASS-CENTRAL Class-central https://www.class-central.com/ This aggregator is showing all MOOCs provided by 523 Universities and 196 Institutions across the globe. Most of these courses are delivered by 39 providers. How important MOOCs are now for universities is supported by the fact that 22 of the top 25 US universities in US News World Report rankings are now offering MOOCs. Class-central will give an overview of the content in this course and the scheduled dates. People can vote on the quality 1-5 stars and leave a review. MOOCs usually have a start date and end date. Only 6% are self-paced courses that can be started at any time. 55% of all MOOCs do not have an upcoming start date. Therefore if you miss a MOOC you will not know when this MOOC is offered again. Class-Central provides a MOOC Tracker that will alert you when your desired class is offered again. They track now 250 000+ MOOCs. You can also build your own catalog of courses on classcentral by adding courses to your personal list: ”Interested”, ”Enrolled”, ”Completed”, ”Audited”, etc. Once you have added a course to your catalog, the 6 MOOC Tracker will inform you when the course is scheduled again. Alternatively you can search keywords to the MOOC tracker. When those search keywords match new courses you will be alerted. In total there are 3641 courses. Subjects Business & Management (604 courses) Science (416 courses) Social Sciences (394 courses) Education & Teaching (355 courses) Computer Science (349 courses) Humanities (349 courses) Health & Medicine (305 courses) Programming (285 courses) Art & Design (232 courses) Engineering (206 courses) Mathematics (146 courses) Languages Courses are offered in sixteen different languages. The majority of courses are in English (2841 courses). In second place is Spanish (268 courses), third French (140 courses) and fourth Chinese (137 courses). There are only 41 courses in German. 92 courses are in Arabic. Courses in other languages are: Japanese (34 courses), Russian (23 courses), Portuguese (23 courses), Turkish (19 courses), Italian (11courses),Hebrew (3 courses),Dutch (3 courses),Korean (3 courses),Estonian (2 courses),Basque (1 courses). 7 Human Resources: A search on class-central will show 56 courses on Human Resources. Additionally there are courses in Education & Teaching and Social Sciences that could be relevant. Education & Teaching Teacher Development Course Development Online Education Social Sciences Psychology Business Relevant Courses: Business & Management (604 courses) Management & Leadership Finance Entrepreneurship Business Development Professional Development Marketing Social Sciences 8 Economics DEGREED Degreed https://degreed.com/ Degreed lets you search through 250 000 elearning courses from 1,200 providers, millions of books, articles, videos and events. It also allows to track learning. Further details on degreed under the topic tracking later in this document. Topics can range from web development to playing banjo. Costs: 75% of degreed content is free. 25% of content is pay for usage. ACADEMIC EARTH Academic Earth http://academicearth.org/ Academic Earth was founded in 2008 by Richard Ludlow, Chris Bruner, and Liam Pisano. They curated over 750 online courses and 8500 individual lectures from world class universities. Courses come from 25 Universities, which include California Institute of Technology, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, MIT, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Oxford, and Yale University. Since 2012 Academic Earth belongs to CMN.com. Subjects: 9 Art & Design Business Engineering Humanities Medicine and Healthcare Science & Math Social Science Test Preparation for ACT, GMAT, LSAT, MCAT, SAT In Business you have the following categories: Accounting Entrepreneurship Finance Management Marketing Negotiations Academic Earth offers playlists to show the most interesting courses per topics. Playlists are for topics such as First Day of Freshman Year, Understanding the Financial Crisis, Money Makes the World Go Round or Living a Good Life. In total there are 10 Playlists ranging from 1hr 48 minutes to 9hrs 11 minutes in length. Costs All courses are free MOOCTIVITY Mooctivity https://www.mooctivity.com/catalog/courses/ Mooctivity searches through Coursera, EdX, FutureLearn, Iversity, France Université Numérique, Udacity, Open2Study, NovoEd, OpenSAP, OpenHPI, and other 1 0 MOOC LIST Mooc List https://www.mooc-list.com In Mooc List only courses with open access (free) are listed. Registered users of MOOC List can evaluate courses and leave reviews. Similar to Spotify users can share their list of selected MOOCs with other users. 1 1 Search: You can search by keyword or brows MOOCs by provider, categories, university, instructor, country, language, type of certificate, and tag. Costs: Access to courses are free. For certificates or an exam the MOOC provider may charge a fee. MOOCs in German: https://www.mooclist.com/language/german?static=tru 1 2 OER = OPEN EDUCATION RESOURCES MIT In 2002 MIT was the first one to share their lectures and documents with the public for free. http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm You can search by topic such as Humanities, Social Science, Teaching and Education, Business and of course of the Engineering categories. The other way is to search by departments such as Sloan School of Management, School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, School of Engineering, School of Science, School of Architecture and Planning and Other Programs. 1 3 Overall there are around 2100 classes. Human Resources Courses: You will find Human Resources Courses if you search under the topic Business in the Subtopic Industrial Relations and Human Resources Management. In the results 15 courses are listed. One course for example is on Strategic HR Management and another is on Designing and Leading the Entrepreneurial Organization. Also there is a subtopic on Organizational Behavior which has 51 courses. In the Topic on Teaching and Education you will find the following Sub-Topics Curriculum and Teaching, Education Policy, Education Technology and Higher Education. Business relevant courses: There are 27 courses relevant for Entrepreneurship. The topic Business comprises in total of 16 subtopics. These range from Accounting, Finance, Leadership, Management, Marketing to Supply Chain Management. System Requirements: It depends on the subject. You will get an overview of what browsers and what file types are supported here: http://ocw.mit.edu/help/faq-technical-requirements/ Video lectures are hosted on Youtube. Costs: The course materials are all free. Costs can be occurred for books recommended in the courses. Certification: At M.I.T.x: 1 4 “The program will not allow students to earn an M.I.T. degree. Instead, those who are able to exhibit a mastery of the subjects taught on the platform will receive an official certificate of completion.” Students using the program will be able to communicate with their peers through student-to-student discussions, allowing them an opportunity to ask questions or simply brainstorm with others, while also being able to access online laboratories and self-assessments. KHAN ACADEMY http://www.khanacademy.org/ Khan Academy is focused on K12 School education. However it offers courses in Economics and Finance in subjects of Microeconomics, Finance and Capital Markets, Entrepreneurship, and Macroeconomics. Additionally it offers courses together with partners such as Dartmouth College on Computer Sciences Algorithms. System Requirements: Browsers Google Chrome Firefox Internet Explorer 9 or above Safari. Costs: Free 1 5 MOOCS & ONLINE COURSES PROVIDER Class-Central lists 39 Providers. The top 12 providers offer 3143 courses which represents 86 % of all MOOCs. Coursera edX Canvas.net FutureLearn Independent Miríada X Udacity CourseSites iversity Rwaq ()رواق NovoED Open2Study 1274 courses 660 courses 279 courses 193 courses 162 courses 144 courses 104 courses 81 courses 67 courses 67 courses 63 courses 49 courses Only a few universities offer credit for MOOCs. Example Penn State for the criminal justice MOOC and University of Oklahoma for the intro computer science MOOC. In Europe the provider iversity is planning to work with European universities to offer credit. The big 3 MOOC providers, Coursera, Udacity, and edX, have their own paid credentials for their free courses. NovoEd is helping Stanford’s Graduate School of Business to bring their executive program online. Open edX allows organizations and groups to host their own MOOCs. 1 6 COURSERA https://www.coursera.org Coursera is by far the largest education platform for universities and organizations worldwide. Currently Coursera has over 15 Million learners, and by now over 1335 courses and 126 partners. Universities who partnered with Coursera come from the following countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States All courses are based on the mastery learning approach. Mastery learning was developed by the educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom. Emphasis is on understanding a topic well before the learner moves on. Learners watch short video lectures, take interactive quizzes, and connect with fellow learners and instructors. For many courses, Coursera provides randomized versions of the assignment so a learner can re-study and re-attempt until mastery. Against pay Coursera offers a Verified Certificate of the accomplishment. This is done by peer graded assessments. In many studies it was shown to result in 1 7 accurate feedback for the learner and a valuable experience for the grader. Human Resources: To search for human resources or human resources management on Coursera you won’t get meaningful results. It will list hundreds of courses who touch on human topics but are not directly related to the human resources profession. Therefore use an aggregator such as class-central to find HR courses offered by Coursera. Business relevant courses: https://www.coursera.org/browse/business You find courses in the following categories: Leadership and Management, Finance, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Business Essentials, Business Strategy And soon learners will be able to take an entire MBA program online for free. The University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign’s College of Business will roll out a new MBA program with the name iMBA on Coursera. The MBA program will include courses on digital marketing, accounting, and business operations. While the MBA courses are free, it will cost $20 000 USD to get the official degree. The costs for the MBA are around 1/4th to 1/5th compared to other online offered MBAs. Visit the Coursera website for updates. The program will be launched in the spring of 2016 and by the end of 2015 the application process will start. Costs Courses are open to anyone, and financial aid is available. To get the Coursera specific certification you need to pay. 1 8 EDX https://www.edx.org/ edX is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is governed by MIT and Harvard. edX offers 660 courses and has a faculty and staff of over 1200 teaching courses and discussing topics online. More than 400 000 students have earned a certificate so far. edX Charter Members Founders are MIT and Harvard and contributors are Berkeley, Sorbonne, TUDelft, Caltech, EPFL and ETH as an example. In total 39 universities from different continents contribute to edX. Certification edX offers honor code certificates, verified certificates, and XSeries certificates. Honor Code certificates are currently free. It certifies that you have successfully completed a course. Your identity is not verified. Verified certificates are available for a fee that varies by course. It certifies that you have completed your edX and that you have identified yourself by a photo and ID. The XSeries Certificate is offered by some schools. It states that you have passed a series of courses in a specific subject. 1 9 For example, you can earn an Aerodynamics XSeries Certificate from MITx once you successfully complete 16.101x Introduction to Aerodynamics and 16.110x Flight Vehicle Aerodynamics. If you plan to use your course for job applications, promotions, or school applications, you may prefer to have a Certificate of Achievement that is verifiable. System requirements: Browser Chrome Firefox Safari Internet Explorer version 10 and above Costs: You can attend all edX courses and participate in any or all activities and exams for free. Also honor code certificates are free. Many of edX’s past courses are available as archives. These courses can only be audited and some features, such as the discussion forums, may not be available. No certificates are available for archived courses. Up until two weeks after a course starts you have the option to opt in and pay for a verified certificate or opt out again to not pay for the course. 2 0 CANVAS.NET https://www.canvas.net/ Canvas has 18 million users worldwide. Institutions, Universities, Colleges, Schools or for profit corporations with together with an institution can create their own MOOCs on the Canvas platform. Canvas acts more like a LMS provider than as a producer of MOOCs for content providers. Canvas Network is developed and supported by Instructure, a technology company that partners with educators. You will find a long list of partners on the Canvas Website. I just want to highlight the Center for Creative Leadership as one of their partners who has built a MOOC on Canvas.net. Human Resources: There is one on CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility by VIA University College Employees will also find a course on “Create an Expert Linkedin Profile for Job Search” Business Related Courses: I found the following examples: New Venture Discovery: From Idea to Minimal Viable Product by Columbia Business School Project Management for Business Professionals 2 1 Essential Quantitive Skills for Business Certification: Individual instructors or sponsoring institutions may offer a certificate of participation or completion. The instructor or sponsoring institution is responsible for issuing certificates. Canvas Network does not issue certificates. System requirements: Browsers Internet Explorer 10 and 11 (Edge support begins September 28; IE 10 will be discontinued on November 21) Chrome 44 and 45 Safari 7 and 8 Firefox 39 and 40 (Extended Releases are not supported) Flash 17 and 18 (for recording or viewing audio/video and uploading files) Respondus Lockdown Browser (supporting the latest system requirements) http://guides.instructure.com/m/4214/l/41056-whichbrowsers-does-canvas-support Costs: Free or fee. This is decided by the course creators. Most courses seem to be free. 2 2 UDACITY https://www.udacity.com/ Udacity was one of the first MOOC provider. Founded in 2012 by Stanford University computer scientist Sebastian Thrun, Udacity has moved away from free online education only and is now pushing ahead with short, low-cost computer and data science courses that are designed to rapidly find jobs for their students. With the increasing digitalization of our industries and companies, Banks, insurance, telco companies are tech companies. They are all needing front-end web developers, mobile developers, and data scientists. Udacity courses are highly interactive with activities, such as quizzes and exercises, interspersed between short videos and interviews with instructors and industry experts. Additionally after a lesson will be a set of exercises that can be repeated without limit. Further courses included projects that can be later shown to prospect employers. Business Relevant Programs: How to build a startup by Steve Blank (Udacity course EP245) Certification: With industry giants—Google, AT&T, Facebook, Salesforce, Cloudera, etc.—Udacity offers nanodegree 2 3 programs and credentials. Students have found jobs as web developers, software engineers, data analysts, instructors, QA Engineers and more. Udacity’s nanodegrees are each a set of courses. Five are available: four are job-focused and one is an introduction to programming. Further Udacity partnered with Georgia Tech to offer an accredited, fully online Master's Degree in Computer Science. While the courses are hosted on Udacity, the degree is conferred by Georgia Tech. System requirements: Browser An up-to-date version of Chrome, Firefox or Safari is strongly recommended. We also support Internet Explorer 9 and above. At this time, mobile browsers are not supported, but you can download our iOS or Android Apps to view courses on the go. Internet Connectivity Download: 2+ Mbps recommended; minimum 1 Mbps. Upload: 0.5 Mbps. Operating System PC: Windows XP or higher with latest updates installed (note: Internet Explorer 8 is not supported). Mac: OS X 10.6 or higher with latest updates installed. Linux: Any recent distribution that has the supported browsers installed. Mobile Apps 2 4 iOS: Requires iOS 8.1 or later Android: Requires Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) or later YouTube Ability to watch YouTube videos is required. If YouTube is blocked on your network, please contact your IT support or internet provider. If you do not use the HTML5 player, or are using Internet Explorer, you will need Adobe Flash Player v11 or above. Webcam & Microphone Required for Office Hours and exit interviews (Full Course). Webcam: 640×480 or higher resolution. Microphone: built in to most webcams and laptops, or freestanding. Not a headset for proctored exams. Google Account Costs: The materials for individual courses—and the associated projects that make up the nanodegree curricula—are accessible for free. Costs for the Nanodegree So far 7000 people have signed up since the nanodegrees were launched late last year, paying $US200 ($257) a month to enrol in the series of courses, which take from six to nine months. The online Master’s Degree in Computer Science from Georgia Tech costs 7000 USD. Udacity offers special enterprise tools and pricing for company executives, university professors and high school teachers who want to use Udacity for their employees or students. The following organizations will award scholarships, provided by AT&T Aspire and Udacity: 2 5 Genesys Works YearUp Boys & Girls Clubs of America Communities In Schools Girls Who Code Jobs for America's Graduates IVERSITY https://iversity.org/ Iversity is the European provider of MOOCs. It partners with universities in Europe. 63 courses are offered by 41 partner universities. Courses are in English or in German. Iversity was founded in Q4 2013. The platform has more than 600 000 users. As an example L’Oréal used iversity MOOC “Public Speaking” to train employees Certification: You can get a free statement of participation with your name on it. For courses that give ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) credits there is a fee. The final exam will take place on-site at the university. Before you enroll in any of the available ECTS tracks you need to check with your current home university if they honor those ECTS credits first. 2 6 System requirements: Browser Chrome Firefox Safari Costs: You can participate, watch the videos and follow the course for free. Get a free statement of participation with your name on it. L’Oréal paid for each employee 99 Euro for the certificates of the MOOC Public Speaking. OPEN UNIVERSITY The Open University Learning space (600 free courses also with credits): http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/ See Credit Accumulation and Transfer scheme (CATS):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_Accumulatio n_and_Transfer_Scheme. (Remark: Can be transferred into ECTS) OPEN EDX https://open.edx.org/ EdX is a nonprofit online initiative created by founding partners Harvard and MIT and composed of dozens of leading global institutions, the xConsortium - See more at: https://open.edx.org/about-openedx#sthash.zrJNtJ2z.dpuf Open edX is the open source platform that powers edX courses. - See more at: https://open.edx.org/aboutopen-edx#sthash.zrJNtJ2z.dpuf Through their commitment to the open source vision, edX code is freely available to the community. Institutions can host their own instances of Open edX and offer their own classes. Educators can 2 7 extend the platform to build learning tools that precisely meet their needs. And developers can contribute new features to the Open edX platform. - See more at: https://open.edx.org/about-openedx#sthash.zrJNtJ2z.dpuf ALISON Alison: https://alison.com/ Alison was founded in 2007 by Mike Feerick in Ireland and has now more than 4 million registered users in 200 countries. Alison has over 750 free online classes at certificate or diploma Level. The courses are in the following categories: Financial & Economic Literacy Business & Enterprise Skills Digital Literacy & IT Skills Health Literacy Personal Development & Soft Skills Schools Curriculum Languages Health & Safety & Compliance Certification: Anytime you can take or re-take an assessment on Alison. You are required a score of 80% or over to pass. 2 8 You are officially a certified ALISON graduate, once you have passed all the assessments on your course. Human Resources Courses: You will find several courses for Human Resources like Human Resources Management, Fundamentals of Human Resources and Diploma in Human Resources. Business relevant courses: Alison offers Diploma in Business Management & Entrepreneurship, Diploma in various Marketing Courses from Social Media Marketing to discovering and meeting markets needs and course on Fundamentals of Operations Management. System Requirements: Adobe® Flash Player; internet access (works on all speeds, although the faster the better, as always!); web browser (pre-installed on most Windows/Mac/Linux operating systems); recommended browsers include Google Chrome® and Mozilla Firefox® email address (if you don't have one, sign up with Google™ Mail, Yahoo!® Mail or any other free email provider). Costs: Certification and courses are free. Alison uses google AdWords and online advertising to finance its offerings. YOUTUBE EDU http://www.youtube.com/education Video Lectures online from renowned universities and other sources such as BBC. TED- IDEAS WORTH SPREADING www.ted.com The latest in key research projects, findings and 2 9 insights in less than 20 Minutes introduced in a compelling speech supported by presentations and media. Great resource to learn new things in any academic field. There are more providers. I am collecting these in my long list here: https://ppalme.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/educationhacking-the-list/ MOOCS RELEVANT FOR HR & CORPORATE L&D Using MOOC in training: https://www.mooclist.com/course/teaching-flipped-canvasnet?static=true Dynamic Educator in the digital world: https://www.mooc-list.com/course/becoming-dynamiceducator-canvasnet?static=true Leaders of Learning: https://www.mooclist.com/course/gse2x-leaders-learning-edx?static=true Human Resources: https://www.open2study.com/courses/humanresources-090215 Learning How to Learn University of California, San Diego Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects by Dr. Barbara Oakley, Dr. Terrence Sejnowski. Free MOOC on the latest research in adult learning and plenty of practical tips. It is the top 3 most used MOOC worldwide. Recommended for all employees who take up a formal program or study like an MBA or other certificate programs and who need some guidance on optimizing their learning effectiveness. I also offer a 1 or 2 day workshop. More details at the end of this whitepaper. 3 0 CURRICULA DATA SCIENTIST Data Scientist for Free https://www.tucanaglobal.com/tucana_blog/how-to-become-a-datascientist-for-free There are more curricula. I am collecting these in my long list here: https://ppalme.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/educationhacking-the-list/ TRACKING Degreed.com https://degreed.com/ to track all learning’s. SuccessFactors is also now cooperating with MOOC providers to track learning. LANGUAGE ACQUISITON There are many theories and tons of research on language acquisition. I have a more pragmatic approach to language learning. One way is to look through the eyes of people who successfully learned a new language. There is one group of people who stands out. These are the polyglots who acquired several languages during their life time. A number of these polyglots have shared their methodology and insights on websites and books. If you ever want to dig deeper into their experience I would recommend you to read Dr. Kato Lomb “How I learn languages”(free pdf), Benny Lewis “Fluent in three months” (Bestseller, Amazon associate link) and Gabriel Wyner “Fluent Forever”. 37 Polyglots share their language learning wisdom online. When I looked across these polyglots there is one thing in common. They usually pick a method that works best for them. There is not one common method at all. Benny Lewis goes into a conversation with people in a foreign language very early, while Dr. Kato Lomb would start to read subjects of her preference in a foreign 3 1 language as soon as possible. Gabriel Wyner instead would focus immediately on the correct pronunciation and then use a spaced repetition tool intensively. The underlying principle these polyglots follow can be summarized as: Frequency over Duration. Instead of doing a longer learning session once per week they do short ones frequently every day. The best example is the polyglot Professor Alexander Arguelles, who speaks 50 languages by now. 15 minutes a day, but every day, can be enough to achieve amazing results in a very short time. These 15 minutes can also be spread out during the day. The same fundamental principle is applied by top athletes or top performers in music and art as well. It is this frequent application that will continuously improve their strength and their skills. Therefore my advice is to find the method learners will stick to every day instead of directing them to any currently recommended method. I think the best way is to offer a workshop where they get to know the different learning approaches and resources available and to give them time to reflect on what their own preferred path looks like. As I like to read and can flexible integrate it into my daily schedule I prefer the approach of Dr. Kato Lomb and as well use the space repetition tools like Gabriel Wyner. There are 5 areas in language learning: speaking, listening, reading, writing, and understanding/meaning. SPEAKING There are many opportunities to speak a foreign language online. 3 2 LANGUAGE EXCHANGE/COMMUNITY PLATFORMS Language Exchange Platform: ITALKI http://www.italki.com/partners Italki connects learners with native-speaking language partners. The learner is able to find a partner for any type of language. Learning partners will give equal time to teach each other the desired language. It is an exchange of time. System requirements: Skype, Google Hangout or Face Time. Whatever your language exchange partner is using. Costs: This service is free. WESPEKE http://en-us.wespeke.com/index.html You can find a language partner from 170 countries speaking 130 languages. Connect and practice by using text, audio, or video. Systems requirements: Operating System Mac v10.4 or above, Windows XP service pack 3 or above. No support for iPads, iPhones or Android. Browsers Chrome, Firefox for text, audio and video chat. Internet Explorer 10+ only for text chat. Screen Resolution Minimum 1024 x 768 (browser resolution) Hardware 3 3 Webcam, speaker with microphone, headphone for video and audio chats is recommended Costs: Free LIVEMOCHA http://livemocha.com/ Rosetta Stone acquired Livemocha in 2013. It is now structured around lessons where you learn a new concept. It includes all the element of a language reading, writing, listening, speaking and understanding. You find courses for 35 languages. Livemocha has a large community where you can find easily a learning exchange partner. It is mostly directed to chat (writing) first, but you can also arrange to speak live to your exchange partner. However according to Benny Lewis Livemoacha is crossing out the word skype in any text chat. Benny Lewis reviewed Livemocha and Busuu: http://www.fluentin3months.com/busuu-livemochareview/ System requirements: The most updated version of Flash. Download or update your Flash 3 4 Windows: XP SP3, Vista SP2, Windows 7, or Windows 8Mac (Intel based only): Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion (OS X 10.6 or higher) Firefox 16, Chrome 20, Safari 6 or greater Adobe Flash Player, most recent version. Download or update your Flash On Windows: 2.33GHz or faster x86-compatible processor OR Intel® Atom™ 1.6GHz or faster processor for netbooks On Mac: Intel Core™ Duo 1.33GHz or faster processor 1GB RAM or higher 1024 x 768 display resolution or greater High-Speed Internet connection (at least 768Kbps) Speakers and microphone Costs: Free to join. You will be given points for free when you join. You can then spent points on the learning activities you want to do. Of course you can earn points by helping others. If you do not have enough points you can buy beans. BUSUU https://www.busuu.com/enc/ Busuu is similar to Livemocha. It offers the following languages. English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Polish, Turkish, Arabic, Japanese and Chinese. Busuu has a community of 50 Million learners. Costs: Freemium. With the free account you have access to more than 150 learning units and busuu-talk (chatting with native speakers). A premium membership starts at 14.99 Euro per month. There are many more language exchange platforms or other opportunities to find a language exchange partner or group. I have collected a number of these in my long list here: https://ppalme.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/educationhacking-the-list/ 3 5 LANGUAGE TEACHER PLATFORMS Online Language Teacher Platform: http://www.italki.com Besides a language exchange partner you can also find professional teachers on italki. Benny Lewis has written an excellent review on italki with lots of advice on finding the right teacher: http://www.fluentin3months.com/italki-review/ System requirements: Skype, Google Hangout or Facetime. It depends what your teacher will use. Costs: Trials are from 1-10 USD and last 30 minutes. This way you can try out your teacher first. Most teachers will charge around 20-30 USD per hour. 15% of their income will go as a fee to italki. You can even find teachers that will give a lesson for 610 USD per hour. There are more language teacher platforms. I have collected a number of these in my long list here: https://ppalme.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/educationhacking-the-list/ LISTENING There are many opportunities to listen to a language on the internet. They range from podcasts, Youtube videos to online radio and television station to music and pronunciation databases. And of course if you are meeting with a language learning exchange partner you are also listening at the same time. Here are some of the many resources. 3 6 PODCASTS InnovativeLanguage.com http://www.innovativelanguage.com/online-languagecourses/ Courses in 31 languages are available as podcasts for free. They are branded under the LanguagePod101.com name. Itunes On apple itunes there are plenty of language learning courses as podcasts available. They are in the section Podcasts > Education > Language Courses https://itunes.apple.com/us/genre/podcasts-educationlanguage/id1469?mt=2 Open Culture http://www.openculture.com/freelanguagelessons Open Culture lists free obtainable audio files as well as other useful learning resources for 48 languages. RADIO ONLINE Tunein http://tunein.com/radio/Browse-Locations-r0/ Search for a country and a radio station worldwide and listen to the stream. FILM / VIDEO / TELEVISION Youtube https://www.youtube.com/ You find many television series in any language on Youtube. Streema 3 7 http://streema.com/tv/ Streema lets you find free television station streams. There are many more tools and resources for listening. I have collected a number of these in my long list here: https://ppalme.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/educationhacking-the-list/ PRONUNCIATION FORVO.COM http://forvo.com/ Forvo was founded in 2008 by Forvo Media SL, who are based in San Sebastian, Spain. In Forvo you will find 3 million words pronounced by native speakers in 325 languages. These pronunciations will even include newly artificial created languages such as Toki Pona. System Requirements: Web browser and speakers Costs: Free RHINOSPIKE http://rhinospike.com/ Rhinospike was founded in 2010 and has recordings of entire sentences by native speakers in 71 languages. So far 37 549 recordings were made. System requirements: Web browser and speaker Costs: Free 3 8 READING I am the advocate of reading a lot in foreign languages. Quite a number of well-known polyglots used this approach to continuously improve their learning of a new language. The internet is full of opportunities to read. There are some helpful resources for reading and tools to assist you in collecting new unfamiliar words. LINGUA.LY https://lingua.ly/ Lingua.ly was founded by academics from Cambridge and Stanford in 2011. They want to help people to learn languages via immersion in authentic newspaper articles. Language learners can study English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Italian, German, Dutch and Portuguese from start to finish. A user can start learning with Lingua.ly by visiting their favourite website, blog, celebrity Twitter account, anywhere they are likely to find small bits of text in the language they are learning. They can then collect some unknown words. The users can have these words translated and add them to their flash cards repository to practice later. Additionally lingua.ly offers some fun memory game challenges. Further the learners can visit the read tab to find short, easy text selections that will help them review the words they’ve learned and acquire new ones, a little at a time. Over time, these click patterns tell the platform a lot about a user’s personal vocabulary. But Lingua.ly goes beyond simply mapping their knowledge base and harnesses search engine technology to understand user preferences. With all of this information, Lingua.ly can then rank existing documents on the web by their 3 9 suitability for the learner at any given point in time. In other words, this content recommendation engine constantly adjusts itself to the learner’s level and recommends real world reading material that optimally supports his or her learning efforts. System requirements: Web browser, speaker Supports ios and Android Costs: Free READLANG http://readlang.com/ Readlang was founded in 2013 and has a similar approach to reading and learning than lingua.ly. It supports 56 languages: http://readlang.com/languages System requirements: Web browser, speaker Supports ios and Android Costs: Two plans: Free with a limit of 10 phrase translations per day or Premium (5 USD / month) with unlimited translations. LINGQ https://www.lingq.com Company founded in 2007 by the polyglot Steve Kaufmann and his son Mark. Steve was the first to introduce the digital immersion of learners into reading authentic content online. Lingua.ly follows a similar approach. 4 0 You can learn the following languages: English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Swedish, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. Costs: Three plans: Free, Premium (10 USD / month), and Premium Plus (39 USD / month) There are many more tools and resources for reading. I have collected a number of these in my long list here: https://ppalme.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/educationhacking-the-list/ WRITING INTERPALS http://www.interpals.net/language_exchange.php Interpals lets you connect to pen pals worldwide. You will find a pen pal in any language. The site was created in 1998. System requirements: Web browser Costs: Free LANG-8 http://lang-8.com/ The platform was developed by Yangyang and Kazuki Matsumoto in 2006 in Tokyo, Japan. Lang 8 is a language learning platform where native speakers correct what you write. The site has 750,000 users from over 190 countries and supports 90 languages. However the interface of the lang 8 is available only in Japanese, English, Mandarin, Taiwanese, Korean, Spanish, Cantonese, Russian, German, French, Portuguese, Italian, Tagalog, 4 1 Indonesian, Arabic, Dutch, Swedish, Vietnamese, Thai, Finnish, Polish, Norwegian, Turkish, Malaysian System requirements: Web browser Costs: Free LYRICS TRANSLATE http://lyricstranslate.com/ People translate their favourite song lyrics into other languages or help each other with the translation. Lyrics are translated in up to 312 languages including dialects. All languages are listed here: http://lyricstranslate.com/en/languages.html System requirements: Web browser Costs: Free There are many more tools for writing. I have collected a number of these in my long list here: https://ppalme.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/educationhacking-the-list/ SPACED REPETITION TOOLS Spaced Repetition Tools (Flash cards or Karteikärtchen (in German)) make it very easy to learn and review words on the go. All the spaced repetition tools can be accessed via internet or offline via mobile apps. This makes it very easy to integrate language learning into a busy schedule. Think about the many 2-5 minutes slots during a day where you were commuting, waiting or sitting somewhere. This way it is easy to achieve the 15 minutes per day of language learning. 4 2 MEMRISE http://www.memrise.com/home/ Memrise was developed in 2009 by a memory world champion and a neuroscientist based on the latest research in gamification, social learning and neurosciences. It uses flashcards for learning languages or other subjects. The site is very user-friendly. Memrise informs you when you have to review your vocabulary again. You get points and you can compare yourself to others. Memrise uses engaging type of tests to help you learn vocabulary and other items. You can create your own courses and of course you can use all the other courses people have created on the site. Besides learning languages Memrise offers courses in Arts & Literature, Maths & Science, The Natural World, History & Geography, Professional & Careers, Entertainment, and Trivia In Professional & Careers you will find courses in Business & Finance, Computers & Engineering, Law, Medicine & Healthcare, and other. 4 3 System Requirements: Browser, speaker supports also android and ios Costs: Free ANKI https://ankiweb.net/ Anki is the Japanese word for memorization. It was developed by Damien Elmes in 2006. While you can create and do everything online in Memrise (cloud based) for Anki you need to install the program on your computer to create your own flashcards. Anki has more features and flexibility than Memrise when it comes to creating your flashcards. To review your flashcards you can do this online via the Ankiweb. Anki is not only used for languages but for all areas where you need to memorize content. As an example according to Wikipedia in 2010, Roger Craig obtained the all-time record for single-day winnings on the quiz show Jeopardy![12] after using Anki to memorize a vast number of facts. System Requirements: Anki supports Windows, Mac, Linux/BSD, iPhone and Android. You need speakers and for the Ankiweb a web browser. Costs: Free There are other spaced repetition tools. I have collected a number of these in my long list here: 4 4 https://ppalme.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/educationhacking-the-list/ UNDERSTANDING / MEANING WIKTIONARY https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page Wiktionary is a collaborative project to produce a freecontent multilingual dictionary. So far 4,181,288 entries with English definitions from over 1550 languages have been made. Wiktionary has grown beyond a standard dictionary and now includes a thesaurus, a rhyme guide, phrase books, language statistics and extensive appendices. It aims to include not only the definition of a word, but also enough information to really understand it. Thus etymologies, pronunciations, sample quotations, synonyms, antonyms and translations are included. WORDREFERENCE.COM http://wordreference.com/ Free online database to search for the meaning of words in Español, Français, Italiano, Português, Català, Deutsch, Svenska, Русский, Polski, Română, Čeština, Ελληνικά, Türkçe, 英汉词典 英和辞書, 영-한, 사전, ق اموس إن ج ل يزي- عرب ي. Additonally they have a well-used discussion forum where you can find words that are not yet in the dictionaries. BAB.LA Bab.la has also free dictionaries for 28 languages. What I recommend is their blog post which lists the best blogs to visit for a specific language. http://en.bab.la/news/top-25-language-learning-blogs2014 There are more great sources to get a better understanding of the language. I have collected a 4 5 number of these in my long list here: https://ppalme.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/educationhacking-the-list/ TRANSLATION TOOLS GOOGLE TRANSLATE http://translate.google.com/ Google Translate is the best known free translation tool available. However it is not perfect. BABELFISH http://www.babelfish.com/ Babelfish is owned by Yahoo. It will not only translate words but it has a forum called “How do you say? “ where you can ask for support for more complex translations or validate the result of the automatic translation tool. There are more translation tools available. I have collected a number of these in my long list here: https://ppalme.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/educationhacking-the-list/ OTHER TOOLS The following tools will use almost all of the different areas of language acquisition from listening to writing. INTERACTIVE COURSES DUOLINGO (FREE) https://www.duolingo.com/ Duolingo is using gamification. In bite-sized lessons learners earn points, race against the clock, and level up. It was created in 2011 by crowdsourcing pioneer Luis von Ahn, PhD, and Severin Hacker, PhD. Duolingo has over 100 Million users. The creation of courses is 4 6 crowdsourced through native speakers and language enthusiasts of any language in the world by working together. Currently there are courses for the following languages: Latin American Spanish, French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Irish, Swedish, Danish, Turkish, Norwegian Bokmål, Ukrainian, Esperanto Costs: Free to learn, for certification you have to pay FOREIGN SERVICE INSTITUTE http://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/ The Foreign Service Institute developed these courses funded by the United States government. All courses are public domain. This site is not affiliated in any way with any government entity; it is an independent, nonprofit effort to foster the learning of worldwide languages. On the Foreign Service Institute Site are free courses for 45 languages. There are more tools available. I have collected a number of these in my long list here: https://ppalme.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/educationhacking-the-list/ EDUCATION HACKERS & HACKS Scott H. Young – MIT Computer Science Degree in 1year: http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/myprojects/mitchallenge-2/ Scott H Young succeeded to learn MIT’s 4-year curriculum for computer science in 12 months, without taking any classes located at MIT and spending less than 2000 USD. His speech at the Ted Conference: 4 7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embe dded&v=piSLobJfZ3c#t=0 Jay Cross - College Degree in 1 year: http://www.doityourselfdegree.com/ Scott H. Young was influenced by the first Education Hacker Jay Cross. Jay got a college degree in 1 year at 1/20th of the cost compared to the traditional way by using online available resources only. Benny Lewis – Fluent in a language in 3 months: http://www.fluentin3months.com/ Benny has demonstrated on how to become fluent in a language in just 3 months without having to visit the country where it is spoken. Not only is Benny with the help of the internet more effective than using the traditional class room programs, he also does it at a fraction of the costs. Dale Stephenson – Education without College (uncollege): http://www.uncollege.org/ Dale Stephenson founded UnCollege.org after he dropped out from college. Uncollege provides Gap Year programs for young adults who want to drive their own education. Dale shows new ways to drive your own education without having to attend college which costs as you know a lot of money in the US. He is the Author of Hacking Your Education and has a background in home schooling. His book also inspired McKenzie’s new onboarding program where they follow a very similar approach. Peter Palme – Reading Chinese Newspaper in 1 year: https://ppalme.wordpress.com/mission-2015-able-toread-a-chinese-newspaper-in-chinese-by-31-12-2015/ Peter set himself the Mission of Reading a Chinese Newspaper by the end of 2015 In just 2 months and a net learning time of 32 hours he read his first Chinese book. 7 months later he knew more than 2000 unique characters and read his first article in a Chinese newspaper. 4 8 As a comparison Chinese children will learn just over 1000 characters in their first four years in school and then it would take them to grade 6/7 before they can read a newspaper. Peter Palme – SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Certified Application Associate – Cloud HCM Peter used open.sap.com and the SAP Learning Hub to get his certification in ¼ of the time compared to attending a SAP classroom training and at a 1/5th of the costs. As he has a subscription to SAP Learning Hub for one year and can attend other courses the costs for his employee central certification will even further decrease compared to the traditional way. Do you have your own education hacking story to share please contact [email protected]. WORKSHOP “EDUCATION HACKING” Engage yourself and your employees with the amazing variety of learning available on the internet. Help yourself and others to become a passionate and highly effective learner. In this pilot workshop you will learn how to be a more effective learner and how to best use OER (Open Education Resources) and other tools in a corporate environment for your development. Bring back the knowledge from this workshop to implement in you organization or just for yourself. Foundation: Reflection on your own learning experiences and habits Get to know the latest research and principles in effective learning Your learning: Define a mission statement for your next development project/goal Overview of resources and tools available Identify the right approach, methodology and tools for your learning path 4 9 Sustainability: Introduce your learning project to the group and get helpful feedback Develop a contingency plan for your learning journey. Follow through: Track your learning progress More details: https://ppalme.wordpress.com/2015/09/08/theeducation-hacking-workshop/ ABOUT ME My vision is to build a truly integrated HR in the cloud. A truly integrated HR is the key enabler for organizations to maximize their business outcomes. And I want to leverage the cloud for learning. I want to help companies to become engaging and innovative learning organizations. THANK YOU At this point I'd like to thank Leopold Kause from DidacDesign http://didacdesign.com for his expertise provided on OER and his valuable advice. 5 0