21st Century Learning Skills

Big Data and Infographic Thinking

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I’ve always been a lover of great infographics ever since being introduced to Edward Tufts. I think this stems from my life-long-love of maps.  More and more data is being turned into shorthand to aid in advancing trends in all areas of our lives.  These types of presentations really help us understand our world and help us make decisions.

 

This one shows Chinese exports

Watch this brief video from Francesco Franchi, a master of information design. He talks about how you have to go beyond the picture and create an entirely different sort of experience that encourages critical thinking.

Francesco Franchi: On Visual Storytelling and New Languages in Journalism from Gestalten on Vimeo.

Sunday, The New York Times ran an article about Big Data. In it they talk about how “Data is in the driver’s seat. It’s there, it’s useful and it’s valuable, even hip.”   And infographics can really help us decipher information so it becomes useful to us.  For example, learning how pasta, not bacon makes us fat.  Or how to make the perfect cocktail. These are really fun and useful ways infographics help us.

Corporate America is also catching on. Imagine how job aids and training could improve with some really juicy infographs.  More and more companies are adopting ‘data-driven decision making’.  Heck, even the government is getting in on the data.

What it all boils down to is the content. Then, placing the content into a design that really assists the viewer to ‘read’ the information in a ‘nonlinear manner’. Good infographics make the viewer think-they don’t interpret the information for the viewer.

iBook Author by Apple

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There are times in an instructional designer’s life when the game changes and Apple has just changed the game-again. This time it is with their iBook Author.  Those who are considering an elearning situation, should consider using this new tool. The ability to interact with the content built in iBooks is amazing for all types of learners. Integrating audio and video right into the iBook allows the learners to integrate with the content.

Anyone who needs a workbook, textbook, manual. job aid, even a magazine, or newsletter should consider this type of learning aid. I will be getting mine soon.

This amazing new [FREE] app iBook Author allows anyone to create beautiful Multi-Touch textbooks — and just about any other kind of book — for iPad. With galleries, video, interactive diagrams, 3D objects, and more, these books bring content to life in ways the printed page never could.

This application has the ability to drag and drop text, images, graphics, video, movies and more into the template.  Apple’s Widgets add Multi-Touch magic to books with interactive photo galleries that bring images to life, engrossing 3D objects you can’t help interacting with, animations that burst off the page, and more.

Another beautiful thing about iBooks Author, it lets you create books that people with disabilities can read and experience. The table of contents, glossary, widgets, main text, and more are built to automatically take advantage of VoiceOver technology. Add accessibility descriptions to any widget or media — including movies and quizzes — so even those with vision impairments can use them.

And you can publish it to the iBookstore or iTunes U or share it with anyone with an iPad.

The Self-Directed Learning [SDL] Support Model: Training Educators for Online Learning

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Since August, I have been on a journey working with some fabulous educators, instructional designers and just all-round wonderful women drafting outlines and creating the content for a chapter that will be published in a book which is being published by the International Association for K-12 Online Learning [also known as iNACOL]. We just completed our draft of our chapter and are so excited.

This chapter will present a student-centered model for online teacher mentoring. The one-to-many online model is designed to be scalable, self-directed, and leverages social learning. The program, Self-Directed Learning [SDL] Support Model: Training Educators for Online Learning, introduces teachers to ideas of self-directed learning, partnering pedagogy, and metacognition while orienting new and prospective virtual teachers to the online learning environment. To maximize impact and sustainability, this program employs the Cognitive Coaching model through a social learning community.

Without giving away all our secrets -you’ll have to wait until the whole book Lessons Learned in Teacher Mentoring: Supporting Educators in K-12 Online Learning Environments is published [due out in the fall of 2012]- we explain ‘how’ we developed and taught an online course which has helped many educators-across Massachusetts- become better learners and in turn better educators.

Our chapter goes into great detail explaining how we used self-directed learning techniques and skills to teach educators how-to understand and use essential self-directed learning skills such as: goal setting, metacognition, motivation, critical thinking and time management.  We also discuss how we designed our online course, how we delivered it and how we improved it.

I can tell you that by implementing the use of social learning, collaboration and ePortfolios we have had a very good success rate with this online course. Here is what a few of our participants said about our course:

“This was a new way to approach teaching.”

“The course really helped me understand how to encourage and coach students not just around content but around linking content to their own goals in life.”

“It’s cool to watch students change over the course of the year. They start talking about what their goals are and what skills they’ve learned. Online learning puts their education in their own hands—it’s wonderful!”

 

Don’t Go Back to School by Kio Stark

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Self-directed learners are everywhere, as Kio Stark is finding out as she writes her book: Don’t Go Back to School. This is a handbook for independent learning that shows you how to learn almost anything with or without school. Watch this video and read more about Kio Stark’s project here at Kickstarter