Archive for August, 2008
Our latest rock star Japanese tutor…
Posted on 28. Aug, 2008 by reg.
So I came across this fantastic video tonight from one of our new rockstar teachers named Koichi. This video is incredible. I’m not currently learning Japanese but literally I want to start just so I can take lessons from Koichi. Something I’ve been giving a lot of thought to lately is this ongoing obsession I have with setting the stage for someone to be the Tiger Woods of teaching. Most people look at my like I’m crazy when I start talking like this. But then I see videos like Koichi’s and I wonder…perhaps we’re closer than anyone thinks. :)
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A Vision of Students Today
Posted on 21. Aug, 2008 by reg.
Can’t believe I’d never seen this before. Goosebumps through the whole video. Who’s ready for a change? A big change. A really, really, really big change.
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Badges and More Badges
Posted on 21. Aug, 2008 by scott.
Jared and I, well, more Jared than I, rolled out a major feature today: Badges. This has been something that Jared’s wanted to do for ages and we finally pulled it off. If you take a look at your public eduFire profile today you’ll see a major change on the right hand side. Here’s one for Marco C one of our higher ranked teachers:
What badges do is show visually your interactions with eduFire. If you mouse over one of the badges you’ll see what the badge stands for:
So what you can see here is that Marco’s got his bronze and silver badges for Sessions Taught. Yes, reflecting this week’s Olympics driven focus, badges are generally available in Bronze, Silver and Gold flavors. If you just run the mouse cursor over the different badges on someone’s profile page then you can see what badges they have. Sometimes we’ve made the badge criteria public — such as 20 sessions taught for a silver. And, other times, we’ve kept it hidden because we wanted to make sure that people didn’t try to game the system in a negative fashion.
So what are some of the badges for? Well here’s a starting list of ways you can get badges:
- Playing Flashcards
- Creating Flashcards (teachers only)
- Filling out your profile page completely (picture, video, about me text for teachers, picture, about me text for students)
- Participating in the forums
- Teaching Sessions
- Taking Sessions
- Contributing ideas to the Ideas Board
- Rating Videos
- Making friends on the site
- Getting testimonials on the site (teachers only)
- etc; There’s more than a bit of whimsy in the badges that are available so might be surprised at what you see on different people’s profiles.
Three Special Badges: Apples, Chalk Boards, Flagged
There are three special badges:
- Every student gets an apple badge to indicate that they’re ready to learn
- Every teacher gets a chalk board to indicate that they’re ready to teach
- The flagged icon indicates that this person is an eduFire Community Manager. While our whole community is usually willing to help people if you need assistance, an eduFire Community Manager is part of eduFire and should be even more able to help you.
Badges are automatically evaluated on the site every morning so you won’t see an immediate change to your badges until the next morning depending on what you do on the site.
Kudos to Jared for turning this feature around so quickly and doing just a bang up job on it.
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How to Change the Way Kids Learn
Posted on 09. Aug, 2008 by reg.
Interesting article from Clayton Christensen and my friend Michael Horn:
How to Change the Way Kids Learn
This in particular was very interesting to me:
A group of 50 Minnesota teachers laid off from rural schools because of declining enrollments banded together in 2004 to start an online charter school called Blue Sky. They each have the same number of students as they did before (150), but the teachers describe their bond with each student as far stronger and more nuanced. The students call or e-mail at all hours because they are taking courses at all hours. Online, each student is an individual. Even children who were formerly behavior problems in school seem to have shaped up. It’s hard to be a behavior problem in a class of one.
Bonus points (and maybe a T-shirt) for anyone who offers up in the comments the best answer for how that directly relates to this.
(Props to Sundeep for the tip.)
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eduFire Calendar Integration
Posted on 08. Aug, 2008 by scott.
One of the recurring requests that we’ve had on the Ideas board has been some sort of calendar integration for your eduFire appointments. What Jared and I have just implemented allows you, from your eduFire dashboard, to add your eduFire sessions to your Internet enabled calendar such as Google Calendar, iCal, Outlook, Sunbird or another calendar that supports ics (Interest Calendar Standard) events.
Integrating eduFire with Google Calendar
Start by going to your eduFire Dashboard at http://edufire.com/dashboard. You’ll now see some calendar links at the end of your upcoming sessions:
Now copy the url from the iCal link by using your right mouse (ctrl+click for Mac folk) since you need to paste it into Google Calendar.
(If you’re not yet a regular Google Calendar user goto your GMail account and click the Calendar link).
Once you’re in Google Calendar click the Add button and then select the Add by Url option from the drop down menu:
In the Add Other Calender page, paste in the url you copied from your eduFire dashboard above.
Now goto a date where you have a eduFire session and, voila!, you’ll see your eduFire session.
Now what’s great about both Google Calendar and Apple’s iCal is that these are dynamically updated as they change so you only have to subscribe once to your events and they’ll continue to update.
Known Issues
Due to bugs in Outlook 2003 you may not be able to have your eduFire sessions on the calendar. Please upgrade to Office 2007 if this affects you. Another workaround is the calendar built into Windows Vista.
Sidebar: What a Long Strange Trip it Will Be
Now whenever you implement calendaring features in a piece of software, without fail, you’ll generate some kind of bizarre error. Here’s the one that Jared and I created yesterday:
Yes that is January 2,851,611 A.D. Oy. I guess that Morlocks will be able to learn to speak via eduFire.
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The Olympics Are Here! 8 Free Ways to Learn Mandarin Quickly.
Posted on 05. Aug, 2008 by reg.
Ni hao! We’re less than 72 hours from the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. And we know what you’re thinking…I haven’t learned any Mandarin yet!!! Don’t worry, we’re here to save the day with 8 free ways you can get learn the “language of the Olympics” fast. What better time than now? Enjoy!!!
#1 – Watch Movies – What could be a more enjoyable way to learn a language than by watching movies? Here’s the trick…find a bunch of movies that you want to watch that have Mandarin language tracks and English subtitles (Netflix is a great place for this). This way you’ll be hearing and immersing yourself in the language but at the same time you’ll be able to follow the movie and match up expressions. Then as you improve you can replace the English subtitles with Mandarin subtitles to improve your reading skills.
Of course you can always watch Mandarin videos on video sharing sites like YouTube and here and here on eduFire as well!
#2 – Build your Vocab on the Web – It’s never been a better time to be a language learner. In the last couple of years a number of free services have launched that help you build your vocab online (and often for free!). Some of the ones that we like include Confucius Institute Online, Internet Polygot, LiveMocha, Mango Languages, nciku and Zap Chinese. Also, make sure to check out free Mandarin Flashcards here at eduFire as well.
#3 – Music – Like watching movies, listening to music is a fun and easy way to improve your foreign language skills. Thanks to the Internet there’s a lot of music out there that will help you learn Mandarin. Some options include Groove|Asia, Mandarin Radio and this list from Wikipedia.
#4 – Podcasts – As with music, podcasts can be a great way to learn Mandarin while you’re driving to work, hitting the gym or just getting stuff done around the house. Check out Open Culture’s list, stream Mandarin podcasts from Odeo or search iTunes for “Mandarin” and subscribe to your favorites.
#5 – Reading – There are a lot of ways to brush up on a foreign language through reading. One simple way is to buy a copy of a book in English and another copy in Mandarin. Then read them side by side. Or alternatively, look for a book with animations so you can follow the story in pictures and try to pick up on the context of what’s being said (here’s an example). Search Amazon for “Mandarin” or depending on where you live and your familiarity with Mandarin, try Joyo, Amazon’s site for China. And of course, in sticking with the spirit of the post, remember that there’s a good chance that your local library will have some books you can borrow that will help you learn Mandarin.
#6 – Classes – Free Chinese classes online? Heck ya! As previously mentioned it’s never been a better time to be a language learner with high-quality free courses being offered by people like The BBC, The Foreign Service Institute and MIT.
#7 – Find a Partner – One of the quickest ways to learn a language (other than hiring a private tutor) is to find someone who knows Mandarin and who is willing to practice with you. There are a couple of approaches you can use here. First of all, you could post an ad in your local craigslist looking for someone who is willing to do a “language exchange” (someone who knows Mandarin and is looking to practice their English skills). Another option is to find someone online. There are a number of services that you can use here including italki, LiveMocha and My Happy Planet.
#8 – Travel Somewhere Where They Speak Mandarin – OK, this technically isn’t free. But if you’re already traveling to China then any additional practice you’re going to get is going to be free of charge. So take full advantage of that opportunity! Make friends in the pubs, chat up everyone you see and if you’re single, definitely fall in love with someone who speaks Mandarin. That’s definitely the best way to assure that you’ll learn the language quick!
Best of luck in your Mandarin studies and enjoy the Olympics!!!
UPDATE: A commenter on Reddit pointed out that we didn’t mention ChinesePod. It is linked from the OCulture list of podcasts but I wholeheartedly agree that it is a can’t-miss resource for learning Mandarin and should be highlighted!
