Incredible Sites you should know about: Update

Detailed here are some websites that will help you do things smarter, find information more readily, and provide some solutions that will make you safer on the Web. More updates are planned as COVID reshapes the way educators educate and how learners interact. 

1. Varsity Tutors: Celebrity instructors teach their favourite topics
2. Instructables: DIY How to make instructions
3. Duolingo Learn a new language for free!
4. Khan Academy Learn about anything here
5. Justin Guitar The best guitar lessons on the internet, and they're free!
6. MIT Open Courseware Open courseware from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
7. Investopedia It's new, it's improved and it has information and advice on subjects from the stock market to green energy to bit coins.
8. Quora Follow topics to find out more information and to get answers to your questions.
9. Information is beautiful You will look at information in a totally new and graphically appealing way.
10. Spreeder Free online speed reading software.
11. Project Gutenberg Get free eBooks here.
12. Code Academy Learn to code for free.
13. Anki Anki is a program which makes remembering things easy. Because it's a lot more efficient than traditional study methods, you can either greatly decrease your time spent studying, or greatly increase the amount you learn.
14. Memrise There are thousands of courses on Memrise - all free and all created by other members of the community. Courses are available in many languages, for many languages and other subjects. If we don't have what you want, join in and make your own!

Why Reality TV Marriages Are (Mostly) Doomed

As I write, my wife and I are critiquing Married at First Sight on New Zealand's Three, and we're discussing why most of the relationships we are viewing are doomed to fail.  Before I get into the dynamics of the couples, let me clarify.

Television is about storytelling. Everyone learns that a story has three main parts. Let's break them down.

1. The Beginning 

We meet our characters, and are told the premise of the story. In this case, a TV channel is hoping to capture ratings by "hooking" in the viewers and getting them addicted to a weekly fix of these characters. To do that, they must ensure that the characters are interesting, reasonably attractive, likeable and reasonably intelligent. A panel of relationship "experts" matches them up. We meet these relationship "experts" to explain the dynamics of the events we witness. We see the wedding ceremonies and a bit of a flash-back to events leading up to that most important of days. By now, you, the viewer, have a pretty good idea of who will work and who won't. You also have a pretty good indication of who your heroes will be and who will be your villains.  If you don't believe me, google Naz from a previous programme.  By the end of the series her goose was cooked with the NZ public, so much so that when she tried re-inventing her image on another reality series, (Dancing With The Stars), she was one of the first to go.

2. The Middle

We're into the honeymoon period and off we go to some exotic location. The pressure is on, as viewers look for any hint of intimacy, or any hint of conflict. You get a very clear indication of who the couples are who are actively listening to each other, and who are the ones actively seeking to get their rocks off.  One couple are good-naturedly bantering about the state of the weak tea he made. We never get to see if he asked her how she likes to take it.  The pressure is on. The "experts" are talking in the cutaways about sexual intimacy.  Don't forget that the couples have only met each other at the altar. There has been no courtship; no chance to get to know each other. They take part in a number of activities that most honeymooners would go on in the tropics.

When the honeymoon is almost over, the couples are introduced to each other. The "experts" point out that some couples will retreat into "foursomes" so that they can "dilute" the tension.  Alliances are formed, and if previous years are an indication, some foursomes quickly become threesomes. There is a lot of talk about "physical" and "sexual" attraction.  Little is said of getting to know each other, but some couples seem to naturally "get" this. You can tell them because they laugh a lot together.  About this time is when the conflicts will arise and we are left to conjecture how they will work things out. You get to see the growth of tensions, and some characters start to retreat into themselves.

3. The End

We've watched the stories unfold and we've made up our minds who we're gunning for or who we're cheering for. We delight when the nasty people get their comeuppance; whether it's a home truth uttered by their peers or the parting comments of a player who's had enough.

So why do I say "Doomed?"

That's the easy bit.  Sorry, but watching people who've been perfectly matched, getting on like a house on fire, falling in love before our eyes, showing besotted attention to the needs and whims of their spouse, talking sensibly about communication and compromise:- that's about as interesting as a series revolving around watching paint dry.  Audiences demand conflict, and any writer knows that there must be some form of conflict leading to a conclusion. Good ratings mean good advertising revenue. No-one is going to watch the undercoat dry. We want blood and guts.

Reality Television is the Bread and Circuses of the twenty-first century.  If you sign up and hope to meet Mr or Ms Right, you may get your wish, but that will be at the whims of the producers. I'm not even going to discuss the back-to-front way the whole concept is delivered. Society has "moved on" from the days where you met someone, got to know them, developed friendships, got married and then consummated the relationship.  These days you meet, have sex, decide if it was good enough, and then hopefully find out if there's more to your prospective partner than great technique.

Sorry contestants, but it's not in the interests of the company for you to experience that magical movie-like ending. They don't mind a bit of lust and laughter, but the bottom line is they want blood.

I was about to hit publish, when my wife, who is much wiser than me, remarked that the contestants knew what they were getting into. Social media has been buzzing about one contestant who had a friend query if she'd mentioned yet that she doesn't believe in marriage. From the body language and her comments, it would appear to be the case. Sadly, it doesn't seem that the husband knows this yet.

©2018 Owen McCarthy

Welcome to the Machine: Writing a resumé that's ATS compliant

Since re-imagining my life, I've spent quite a bit of time working on my resumé. I've also helped others develop theirs, and hopefully helped them in their job-seeking journeys. Jobscan offer a useful resumé screening service that helps you match your experience with the job you're considering.

Jobscan's helpful article could be the difference between your resumé reaching human hands and you receiving a generic email like this: "Thank you for the time and care you took in applying for this role. Unfortunately in this instance you have not been chosen for further consideration for this position."

Jobscan's Jon Shields goes on to say that ",job seekers also need their resume to be compatible with applicant tracking systems (ATS). An ATS-friendly resume template can be the difference between getting noticed and slipping through the cracks"

Resumé Do's and Don'ts

Jobscan consulted with seven experts and came up with some helpful tips. Read the full article here.

Remember too, that some industries have different requirements, so take that into consideration when deciding what to keep or discard.  I read their thoughts and decided that these are the things I should change:

1. Get rid of "references available on request."

2. Check carefully that my formatting is consistent. For example, using consistent dates throughout.

3. Keep my LinkedIn link and change my address to simply a location.

4. Change my formatting to a simpler, ATS-friendly format.

5. Make my bullet-points short, sweet and with white space between.

I found the comments on visuals interesting. Two of the experts had helpful comments to ensure that your visuals don't mean hiding key points from the ATS. 

 

ATS-friendly Templates

Check out these templates on Jobscan's website. You can have them emailed, or you can download them. There's also a Google Docs link if you want to keep them in the cloud.

One final word of advice was given me by a friendly real-estate agent. Not every employer is going to love your work. Her advice was simply to "move on and say, "NEXT!" 

Star Trek: Beyond review

Last night I went to the movies. It was a toss-up between Star Trek and Jason Bourne. I can still vividly remember the first time I saw Star Trek (TOS). It was 1970 and TV in New Zealand was one B&W channel. My parents chose this particular moment to lecture me. Don't ask me what the lecture was about. I watched that entire episode with the volume turned down. It was a Wordsworthian moment. He'd have had fun talking about "stationary blasts of waterfalls." S1E1 is my Simplon Pass. I remember my emotions clearly. Last evening's movie weaved elements from TOS very cleverly. Watershed moments are just that. I started writng this review after viewing ComicBookGirl19 on YouTube. Karl Urban is the glue that binds the main characters together, and he gets the best lines. "Just perfect." He has great timing, and for a Kiwi, I reckon he has caught the elements of the character played so well by DeForest Kelly perfectly. When the movie ended I could tell that the theatre was full of Trekkies as we all watched the credits roll. For my money, this is probably one of the best ST movies of any iteration. I'd still rate "The Voyage Home" as the best, but this one set out to be fun, and to show us the characters in a little more depth. ComicbookGirl points out that there's a limit to how much you can do that in a movie, and she's right. There are lots of clever little nuances you might miss, but I bet George Takei went "Oh my!" when John Cho meets up with his family at Yorktown. 

Other reviewers have said that the movie is a lot of fun but lacking in substance. I disagree. It deals cleverly with the theme of what brings people together to make them a team. It deals with relationships on more than one level, and it does it with great subtleness. Yes, this movie is about the action, and at times the viewer feels thrown off balance, so clever are the angles and shot selections.

Finally, I loved the tribute to Leonard Nimoy and how it was woven into the story-line. This movie is a winner on so many levels. Trekkies from all walks of life will love it. Good on JJ Abrams for breathing new life into the Star Trek World.

Digital Research: Is it helping our learners?

Or is it just confusing them more?

I'm an avid follower of Jacqui Sharp's blog, and I came across this interesting infographic. It originates from the Education Database online blog, which is also worth a look.

Please Include Attribution to OnlineEducation.net With This Graphic

Formative Assessment

On a New Zealand Primary Teachers' online forum, teachers were asked what formative procedures they used to measure reading. The usual felons were trotted out; eAsTTle, PAT's, IPI's, STAR, PROBE and PaCT. I was interested in the fact that a number of teachers responded that they used all these in their formative assessment, which raised a number of concerns. 

Formal Testing: In-house professional testing informed me that formal testing provides a snapshot at a particular point in time of what a student can do, what gaps they may have, and some possible next steps in their learning process. However, to form an overall judgement of a student's capabilities, we require more data.

Overall Teacher Judgements (OTJ's): When we make these we have a variety of data we can refer to. We can refer to daily lessons, notes in our modelling books, self-assessments, assessment tasks, peer reviews, and our anecdotal evidence. This might include student exemplars, teacher notes from discussions or lessons, or students self-evaluations. Maybe a summative assessment task may be set and from those results we can compare and contrast our data. 


A Testing Regime:  With the introduction of National Standards teachers were provided with indicators against which we could measure a student's progress. However none of the formal assessment tools are designed to indicate how a student is performing against the standards. They are designed to measure performance against the NZ Curriculum. Much debate has raged over the fact that the two documents don't exactly line up, but I don't see that as a weakness. Rather, the Standards provide a set of indicators where students can be measured to see whether they are below, at or above National Standards. I have been in schools where staff have tried to say that Level 2P is below and Level 3B is at but those statements will only be true for a short period. If I test a student in March, and report on progress in May, my e-AsTTle data will be out of date. 

Formative assessment should not consist solely of formal tests. Formal tests provide data that measures performance on a given date. They only give a snapshot.






https://www.cmu.edu/.../basics/formative-summative.html

Formative vs Summative Assessment - Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation - Carnegie...

The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative assessments:

CMU.EDU|BY CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY

Resumé Writing- Final thoughts

Final Musings on Resumé Writing

In my continuing quest for employment, I have spent much time researching the art of Job-seeking. I've read countless forums, spoken with HR specialists, networked with a number of people and re-written my resumé several times.

Sometimes I've felt like giving up, but then I remember that this is my job right now. You don't just give up on a job because it is hard. I was talking recently to a real estate agent. She's a very successful agent who exudes confidence and professionalism. She's passionate about her career and about life in general. Half my age, she knows instinctively things that I've taken a lifetime to learn. One day we were chatting, and she told me that when she started out it took many months before she achieved her first sale. I've only known her in her current state, with a 100% success record and a can-do attitude that I find humbling.

She gave me a wonderful gem of advice after I received my latest rejection letter. Her advice?
"Say to yourself, 'Next!'" Simple but incredibly effective.

Today I was reading an article posted by The Economist, titled Why Storytelling makes you a better business leader.   The article outlines four key strategies:

1. Be original- tell your story
2. Be authentic- what do you stand for?
3. Show empathy- how do you identify with your clients and colleagues?
4. Be consistent in tone and voice as you share your story in a variety of ways.

These principles apply to telling our story through our resumés. Be authentic, be original, identify with your prospective employer and tell your story using a consistent voice and tone. For other job-seekers out there, remember that while this is your job, be as passionate about it as if it were your dream job. And don't forget to say, "NEXT!" when you need to.