LearnHub

Who won?

WOW! I hadn’t seen those commercials. Even though I’m in an area that is currently in drought, we don’t do enough to educate people about water conservation. We do, however, give out some serious tickets for watering your lawn (up to $1,000 in my area).

Thanks for sharing!

I’m taking a class at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. While many people think I’m learning so much… I’m not learning any more than one can find in a book. I agree with you about contacts being the only thing you really gain from getting an M.B.A.

I think business school is just one big fraternity. You pay big bucks to get in and connect with people like yourself. Alumni of the group help you find jobs and make connections. In college you’re paying for friends and in business school you’re paying for contacts.

Even though that’s really lame and it’s sad how far just knowing the right people can get you regardless of your talent or ability, that’s really how it works.

I’d suggest knowing where you want to work after business school and then find out where they recruit from. You’ll find they get 80% of their new MBA hires from one or two schools.

This is a detailed timeline of the 1936 Olympics.

Most interesting fact I learned: “Lewald is kicked out of being in charge of preparing the Olympics, because his grandmother was a Jew. The Olympic Committee commands Hitler and the Nazis to have Lewald be in charge of the preparations.”

However this site states he was replaced. Does anyone know if Lewald was or was not replaced?

Andrew… really? I couldn’t be more surprised by your top 10 list. I’m looking forward to renting Eagle v Shark though… that looks hilarious. Forrest Gump has THE best soundtrack EVER, but why is it your favorite movie of all time?

If you like the B-budget Boondock Saints, have you seen the new Jodie Foster movie “The Brave One?” You may like it. It runs along the same lines.

I didn’t even know they made a Super Mario movie until I saw your list…

My question is… how did you pick this top 10. Is it based on the movies that have the highest replay value to you or are they the ones that made the biggest impact on you when you first saw them? Do you appreciate a good director or are you more of a plot/script guy?

I’m having a hard time making a favorite movie list because if we’re talking replay value, movies like “The Rundown,” Romancing the Stone,” Indiana Jones,” “Shaun of the Dead,” “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” “Die Hard,” “Dante’s Peak,” any of the Harry Potter movies… they would all be contenders… but they aren’t the best scripted or directed movies I’ve seen. They are the ones that I can rewatch while doing other things over and over again…

I guess I’m just struggling with narrowing down all my various favorite movies from each time period and genre into one list and naming one as better than another… It’s like picking your favorite child… I’m not willing to do it…. nana nana boo boo!

I actually do own a copy of Rope and I’ll watch it tonight with an eagle eye. I thought there were only 5 cuts so I’ve missed a few. Looks like there are 5 black cuts so I must have only seen those. Thanks for the details! I’m always looking for an excuse to pull out an old movie. That’s awesome!

Hi, Dr. Srinivasan, Thanks for your note. This lesson was actually created before the links were working properly and way before embedded video was enabled. I do intent to redo this lesson and many of my others with embedded video in mid-May. Thanks again for your feedback. I totally agree with you. Video and color would make this much more interesting. As for a curriculum, I agree I need to have it more intertwined and less disjointed. I’ll need to do several more lessons for that. I have a full-time job and it’s my busy season so I won’t have a lot of time to devote it until mid-May.

Rear Window is also my favorite, because the feeling of entrapment and helplessness is so great with him confined to the wheel chair. Also, I’m just a big Jimmy Stewart/Grace Kelly fan.

Why is Rear Window your favorite?

Are you saying that because you’re excited about it or are you upset they were copied?

Peter, Thanks so much for posting a link to your video lesson here. I really enjoyed it.

Regarding SPAM, you are right that it is unavoidable. It is also true that there are two grades of spam and this type of Spam is the less annoying.

Grade One: Commercial. Includes advertisements for medications with photos, conferences, invitations to view web cams, services, etc etc.

Grade Two: Personal. Sent by people you “know” who have no internet social skills (netiquette as you so aptly called it earlier). It comes in the way of forwards with various pictures, jokes, etc in them. It also comes in invitations to various things they should know I don’t care about. Some people when asked will stop passing these things along, but others will mindlessly continue to include you. I find this to be annoying mostly because it highlights the fact that they either don’t know who I am or they don’t care. If they did they wouldn’t have sent it.

I understand Andrew’s point that you shouldn’t have to ask people not to send you things they just shouldn’t if they don’t know you and know you aren’t interested. That is definitely my policy.

So maybe you have to “opt in” to get informational e-mails. The default should be guided by netiquette. Don’t send invites to people you don’t know AND know would be interested in the particular topic/item. You can have an option to say “I love learning about everything and nothing that links to an educational resource could ever be considered Spam. Opt me in.”

Thoughts?

I think having a wat to set preferences is the perfect solution. I hadn’t even thought of that. I wonder if someone from LearnHub can tell us if they’re planning on adding that feature.

Well, I think it depends. I’ve been guilty of inviting a ton of people to one of my courses, but I think I was wrong to do that. While It’s free and informational, both positive, I still think that’s outweighed by the nuisance of it. I’ve decided my policy is going to be only to invite people I know or have talked to personally that I KNOW would be interested in the particular class I’m offering them. I think broadcasting an informational e-mail about the course isn’t particularly useful. I’m not sure I would put information e-mailing under the “because I care about people” category. If you know it pertains to their interests, then yes, but if not, then I don’t think e-mail a stranger about a course you’re not sure they care about proves anything about caring for people.

However, it’s not easy to search for courses in right now. So it is more permissible now than I think it will be in the future. Personally, I view the LearnHub feed to see what I’ve missed and if any new courses have been created that sound interesting, I’ll go check them out myself.

Does that answer your inquiry? Or is that not what you were trying to ask?

I totally agree with you, Peter.

As LearnHub grows we’ll need changes to allow us to make it more effective while remaining inclusive. It will surely be a challenge. I use the word challenge deliberately because it denotes something that will have to be worked at to be maintained, like a garden perhaps. It’s not particularly exciting or glamorous, but the “tending to” will need to be done and those willing will need to have the ability to do that.

You made such good points that I couldn’t say them better myself. The points you made that particularly resonate with me are:

- “To meet people like me that I may like.”

- “To gain insights and answers to questions you had for a long time.”

- “To find an audience for your thoughts… to help others with the knowledge you share”

- “To save the value of Learnhub for those who want meaningful learning experiences, I believe that some stronger structure is needed on Learnhub.”

- “Install community rules and to empower the communities to put their rules and controls into action. Some courses even may be “invitation only”, perhaps even to join a community you may have to request acceptance.”

Seems odd for me to say this given my “authority” level, but I think “authority” is the wrong word for what’s being measured here. I’m also not sure I would call it visionary. It needs more complex metrics to actually measure authority or the value of a member to LearnHub as a whole.

Because you get a boost for how many contacts you have and how many things you’re involved in, it rewards people who over post (or as I call it spamming). This is something I have tried hard to avoid doing. I have only joined groups that I genuinely think I can add something to and get something from.

In turn, I don’t add posts unless I think they add value to the lesson or discussion (usually).

The authority doesn’t reward people who are deep instead of wide (in terms of knowledge). Meaning an actual established authority in a specific field would not have a very high authority ranking on this site if they were only involved in that segment.

(and no… I do not intend to give back my prize for most authority… I’ll do a lesson on hypocrisy for penance)

I think you would have to come up with a very sophisticated rubric to make an “authority” system work in a classroom. It would become a game and that actually might be really engaging… but I’m not sure it would have the intended effect.

The difference is that it’s only possible for her to birth a limited number of children. However, if count all of their children… I’d say 9.

Geof, those are great points. I really hadn’t thought of the increasing expectation of students for texts that are not only accurate, but visually pleasant and stimulating. I appreciate your point of view. Thanks.

Anyone else have thoughts about the current expectations students have of textbooks? Do you think the publishing on demand could work? At what level?

Man, Adam, you took the words right out of my mouth…

I just use notepad… it keeps me from fiddling with formatting issues and keeps it simple. I like the idea of this, but it lags a little and that drives me crazy…. er…

Now that I know how to make links…..

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Thanks for the feedback. I’m loving the ability to use video in lessons now. So exciting!! I added the lesson to Parenting and German History. Thanks for asking!

Well… some of it is, but can you do anything in physics without math? Can you even prove physics exists without math?

Nope. : )

And… it’s funny and catchy…