A Brief History of Pretty Much Everything

I was looking at Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day and I found a YouTube video by a student named Jamie Bell  who writes:

This is the final piece for my AS art course, a flipbook made entirely out of biro pens. It's something like 2100 pages long, and about 50 jotter books. I'd say I worked on and off it for roughly 3 weeks. 

*UPDATE: It (the final piece) got full marks! YAY :D*

Take a look at this very creative video:



 Congratulations to Jamie and thanks to Jane for posting it!

Social Media Revolution

The following video does a great job in explaining social media as a fundamental shift in the way that we communicate.  Social media is no longer a "fad" and I agree with the video that "successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertisers."

I think the internet was the creation of the information age, but what do we do with all of the information that has been collected? Social media will allow us to disseminate this information into smaller, more specific chunks to individuals that can make use of the data. Social media is a means of not only finding and sharing information, but of collaboration and discovery. Take a look...



I made a similar post entitled, "A Brave New World-Wide-Web," that also demonstrates this fundamental communication shift. Take a look and tell me your thoughts concerning the evolution of social media.

Update: Wordle and the CareerTech Testing Center Blog

I made a previous post awhile back about Wordle and I thought it would be interesting to see how it analyzes the CareerTech Testing Center Blog over time, October 2008 vs. February 2010:

October 2008

February 2010

If you remember, Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like, but you must cite Wordle.

It looks as if the blog still focuses on assessment, but it has evolved into a discussion of educational concepts, learning, and knowledge. I would have to say that Wordle is probably correct as my original posts focused on assessments, statistics, test modifications, etc. As assessments are built to assess learning and knowledge, my posts have been more focused in these areas as of late. This is really kind of an interesting way to take a "snapshot" of your site and evaluate your content over time. Have any of you tried Wordle and in what ways?

Please let me know if you like or dislike the direction of the blog and/or what topics you would like to see us discuss. As always, REVIEW the "Archives" or "labels" since we have tried to provide you with some great resources over time and SHARE the blog with anyone that might have an interest. We don't make any money off of this and it's strictly a creation to provide you with educational and assessment resources to simplify your life. In other words, we are trying to do the research for you and save your valuable time.  We hope you enjoy it and let us know what you think!  J.T. 

New Entrepreneur Skills Standards and Assessment from the CareerTech Testing Center

I wanted to announce the new Entrepreneur skills standards and assessment being offered by the CareerTech Testing Center.

The following duty areas comprise the skills standards (take a look at each duty area on the standards for the specific tasks within each duty area):

• Understand the Concepts and Processes Associated with Successful Entrepreneurial Success
• Understand the Personal Traits/Behaviors Associated with Successful Entrepreneurial Performance
• Understand Fundamental Business Concepts That Affect Business Decision Making
• Understand Concepts, Strategies, and Systems Needed to Interact Effectively With Others
• Understand the Concepts and Procedures Needed for Basic Computer Operations
• Understand the Basic Economic Principles and Concepts Fundamental to Entrepreneurship/Small-Business Ownership
• Understand Personal Money-Management Concepts, Procedures, and Strategies
• Understand Concepts and Strategies Needed for Career Exploration, Development, and Growth
• Identify How to Change System Settings, Install and Remove Software
• Understand the Concepts, Systems, and Strategies Needed to Acquire, Motivate, Develop, and Terminate Staff
• Understand the Concepts, Systems, and Tools Needed to Access, Process, Maintain, Evaluate, and Disseminate Information for Business Decision-Making
• Understand the Concepts, Processes, and Systems Needed to Determine and Satisfy Customer Needs/Wants/Expectations, Meet Business Goals/Objectives, and Create New Product/Service Ideas
• Understand the Processes and Systems Implemented to Facilitate Daily Business Operations
• Understand the Concepts, Strategies, and Systems that Businesses Implement and Enforce to Minimize Loss
• Understand the Concepts, Strategies, and Systems Needed to Guide the Overall Business Organization

Please contact the CareerTech Testing Center at 405.743.5412 to order this new assessment! As always, you can access our skills standards for FREE on our website.

Are You Addressing Learning Styles with your Instruction and Assessments?

I spent part of my weekend reading a very interesting White Paper from Questionmark's Eric Shepherd and Janet Godwin entitled "Assessments through the Learning Process." It really made me think about the challenges that CareerTech teachers face within their classrooms. I believe that career and technology programs face, more than anyone, such a wide variety of students, in terms of age, background, and experiences. You will need to join their community (for free) to have access to the entire white paper, but I think you will find it worthwhile. I have a portion of the introduction below and I think you will find it thought provoking and worth your time:

Assessments through the Learning Process

Authors: Eric Shepherd and Janet Godwin
With assistance from:
Dr. Will Thalheimer, Work-Learning Research
Dr. William Coscarelli, Southern Illinois University
Dr. Sharon Shrock, Southern Illinois University

The way that training and classroom courseware are delivered has shifted profoundly during the past five years. While a great deal of attention has been given to form of delivery, it’s clear that search and retrieval practice as well as other important factors influence how and what students actually learn and apply to their specific tasks.

Some organizations have tried to move entirely to online learning opportunities, for example, and yet not everyone is well suited to this approach. A significant portion of the population, especially those considered to be Gen X or Gen Y, love to learn on the computer. They even spend their leisure time on the computer. Others learn better in the more traditional training session where people get together, break up into groups, and talk to each other. Many of us prefer the classroom setting with all of its human interaction.

It’s critical, therefore, to understand how people learn, what they have in fact learned, and whether this knowledge is useful for their particular job. That’s why the cornerstone of developing successful educational, training, and certification materials is the effective use of assessments. While assessments used to consist of reams of paper upon which students filled in tiny boxes, now companies and educational institutions have a real opportunity to use technology not only to make assessments more widely available but also to make the process far more effective.

These organizations can use assessments to guide people to powerful learning experiences; reduce learning curves; extend the forgetting curve; confirm skills, knowledge and attitudes; and motivate people by giving them a real sense of achievement.

I can't overstate the importance of recognizing the learning styles of your students. Technology has infiltrated our lives and the ways that we learn are now so varied.  This might make instruction more difficult for you, but at the same time, what a great resource. As I have said before, individuals are what makes learning exciting and we can learn something new from every person we meet and that includes learning and understanding how they learn. Take a look at the White Paper and let us know your thoughts.  J.T.