The Invisible Mentor

Archive for the ‘Resources’ Category

I have pulled together an assortment of blog posts with information to help you in a variety of ways.

M.I.T. Game-Changer: Free Online Education For All: Lifelong learning is a fact of life for any professional who expects to succeed. There are many ways to learn, however, for those who want to take university courses for professional development, the price can be prohibitive. In this article, MIT will be announcing a new initiative, where anyone with an internet connection can take free courses online, and will we awarded a certificate of completion at the end. This certificate will not have the same weight as the paid MIT program, but it’s still a noble gesture.

Learn to Code with Codecademy & Scratch: This is a very short post which introduces us to Codecademy, which I signed up with today, and will be taking the programming course. If you decide to join me, please let me know so that we can support each other.

10 Useful Chrome Web Apps and Extensions for Teachers and Students and more: Though this blog is for teachers, I like it because I learn a lot and am introduced to tips and resources that help me in my work. You will find many of these apps useful. I have downloaded many of them and have started to use them already.

Bookboon – More Than 500 Free eTextbooks: If you have children in university, this is a must-read blog post for you!

Interesting Post

Getting an Education Through Content Creation: I like this post because it is consistent with what I believe. And when you learn something new, teach it to other people so it becomes clearer in your mind.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Qwiki is a possible starting point to an information research project. At the website, you type in a topic in the search box, and it delivers a short multimedia presentation on the topic if it’s in its database. It also offers some related topics for you to further explore.

For instance, I typed in how to read a book, and it delivered a short presentation about Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book. For the second edition of the book, Charles Van Doren was the co-author, so when I clicked on the link to Van Doren, I learned more about him including the scandal he was involved in. I also noticed under the related section of the site there was also a link to A History of Knowledge so I clicked on that and discovered it was a book that Van Doren wrote.

You will not be able to use Qwiki for comprehensive research but it’s a starting point for you. This resource is still in the alpha testing stage so I’m not sure how long it will survive.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Book links are affiliate links.

Related articles

• Qwiki Will Soon Let You Qwiki Yourself (techcrunch.com)
• Qwiki – A Multimedia Knowledge Engine (epiphanysolutions.co.uk)

The ability to write and problem solve effectively are  excellent skills to have. Below are three websites that allow you to cultivate those skills.

Daily Writing Tips

This website is a free subscription-based one. I like this website because it presents words that people often use incorrectly and provides examples for correct usage. Many people will find this website very useful and it will prevent you from making embarrassing mistakes.

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/

The English Club

Though the English Club website is for people who want to learn or teach English, it has a lot of good information. If you spend some time browsing the website you’ll discover a very good grammar guide among other things.

http://www.englishclub.com/

Ask Nature

Ask Nature is a project of the Biomimicy Institute. If you have challenges to resolve and problems to solve and are looking for some creative solutions, the Ask Nature  portal is the perfect place to start. Biomimicry is a new field, only about 20 years old, is innovation inspired by nature. To start the problem solving process, at the Ask Nature website, type in your question in the search box. You will receive responses that will take you down a path that you would likely have not taken, isn’t that what innovation is about?

http://asknature.org

Please refer to How to Problem Solve, Reverse Problem Solving and  How to Read to Problem Solve. Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Every so often I present websites that I think you should know about. A few days ago I presented a hybrid creativity model based on Graham Wallas‘ and James Webb Young’s creativity model. In the model you have general information, which are things you discover and file away for future use. The websites today are geared toward rounding out your general knowledge. The more varied your knowledge, the more creative you are. The creative you are, the more creative ideas you unearth for problem solving.

One website I added to the mix because many people travel so I thought it would be handy for discounted airfares.

Space Adventures

Provides private spaceflight opportunities.  It’s the first company to have taken clients into space.      

Virgin Galactic

Are you interested in space travel? Virgin Galactic is a space tourism operator which will be providing sub-orbital flights. It is an offshoot of the Virgin Group, Richard Branson‘s enterprise.

Ask Nature

It’s the design portal for the Biomimicry Institute. Biomimicry is a fairly new field where nature is used to inspire problem solving. The Ask Nature website is filled with lots of information that will round out your general knowledge.

Travel Alerts

You will find discounted vacation and last minute travel. Get the alerts sent to your email box each week http://www.travelalerts.com.

If money were no object, would you invest in space travel? Please keep the conversation flowing, click on the comment link below and leave a note for me. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Ted talk: Biomimicry in action: Janine Benyus

Biomimicry in action: Janine Benyus

Space Tourism Markets What We Know And What We Don’t Know

Space Tourism Markets What We Know And What We Don’t Know

Photo Credit: Zemanta
Video Credit: YouTube via Apture

I realized that I have not had any tips and tricks or resources blog posts in a long time so I decided that it was important to start off the new year right.

Whenever you have to conduct country research, a good place to start is at the CIA Factbook website. At this website you’ll find information on the history, geography, people and so on of the specific country,  and if you’re going on vacation, or even on business, you’d like to learn about political stability. CIA Factbook gives you these types of information. Another place to gather country information is Country Reports.  For next steps refer to the blog post How to Analyze Information.

And while you are surfing, two cool websites are National Geographic and Planet Earth on Discovery Channel. Are these websites helpful? What are three of your favorite websites?

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please comment. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Photo credit: Via Apture

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