• Handschooling.com is created by Judy Breck, who describes her work in an interview by We_Magazine.

    We_Magazine interviews Judy Breck



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    About Findability

    As 21st century education adapts to its online future, the edu sector is learning to work under the network laws that make the best study knowledge findable. Findability emerges naturally from educational resources embedded in a network when these 7 elements are present.

    Digital - Educational materials that are printed are outside of the digital online commons where findability arises.

    Unbundled - Findability works bests with the smallest pieces of content, so bundles like curricula, courses, and PDFs stifle findabiity.

    Open - To be findable, content must be open in the one Web global commons, with no barriers of cost, subscription, or copyright.

    SEOed - Search Engine Optimization with keywords and linking attracts search engine spiders and boosts rankings on search engine results pages.

    Juiced - Webpages getting higher search engine page ranks from links by educators judging their content as superior.

    Networked - Nodes of learning content are syndicated (RSS), virally spread, and connected into social networks.

    Mobilized - Nodes of learning content are becoming findable to millions, and potentially billions, of new learners by being optimized for mobile phones.

    The learn nodes posted on this blog are models that show how you can increase findabiity for open educational resources.

  • The LEARN NODE is a tool for creating findability

    The illustration below shows a learn node, which you can use as an educator to make webpages more findable. The top little circles illustrate links out to content nodes related to the subject of the large circle. Bottom left, experts connect to the node affirming its quality - giving it juice. Bottom right, a student connects to the node to learn the subject of its content.

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    Blog posts are used to make learn nodes on this website. Click here for a primer on using a blog post to make a learn node. Any webpage with its own url can be used as a learn node.

    Visit GoldenSwamp.com for discussions of the way learning is emerging in the 21st century.

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Jan
19

Learn node: Elephants of Cameroon show how to do wildlife online

oldiri2.jpgIllustrating this learn node is the beautiful elephant named Oldiri, who wears a tracking collar that lets scientists know his locations as they study him and his herd. The Current Elephant Locations page of the Elephants of Cameroon project describes the work. Under the umbrella of Field Trip Earth, Elephants of Cameroon for several years has been one of the finest online environments for learning about wildlife. The monitoring of elephant locations is explained in detail and includes many accounts of the adventures of the actual teams doing the collaring and monitoring. Work going back several years is available. The Cameroon Field Diary: Winter 2008 is currently unfolding online, as it is written by Dr. Mike Loomis, Chief Veterinarian at the North Carolina Zoological Park who left the United States on January 6th to begin the 2008 collaring season.

Good things can have a long life on the Internet as the following review of Elephants of Cameroon shows. It was written in April 2000 for HomeworkCentral.com’s Top Eight newsletter:

Dr. Mike’s departure for Cameroon on April 12, 2000 begins an expedition whose purpose is to save Africa’s vanishing giants, and that can be followed as it unfolds through the Internet in these pages. Supported by the North Carolina Zoological Park and other wildlife organizations, the Web project is a big one, like it’s subjects. There are sections describing Cameroon and elephants in general, and another on the place of the elephant in the culture and oral tradition in Northern Cameroon Dr. Mike’s diary provides updates and questions can be emailed to him. Current sightings of individual elephants are given, along with listings of previous sightings accompanied by maps. These and other pages make this a Web site rich in learning opportunities for a wide range of students, and for anyone interested in elephants.

For a different view of elephant study, the Tufts University Veterinary Medicine Open Courseware provides a detailed lecture outline on Ungulate Medicine. The lecture includes a focus on elephants.

More learn nodes at: learnodes.com


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