The best way to learn about scientific subjects

The best way of learning is when education happens all around the student but the student may not even be conscious of the learning process. Is sounds Utopian that students do not have to DO anything in order to learn. They just have to be there.

I think it is possible to teach science in a fun way without asking for too much effort. The band 'They Might Be Giants' do a great job by combining rock music with science lessons without being a smart-ass.

"They Might Be Giants is a band from New York City that was founded twenty somethin’ years back by John Linnell and John Flansburgh. Our current DVD/CD set (officially for kids but really for ourselves) is called “Here Comes Science”.

Some of my favorite videos/songs are:











P.S. Thanks to Otto who showed me this great band :)

Open Source (Free) Educational Software

As a big supporter of open source software, I was glad to find a list of several educational open source software for different topics collected by OpenDisc.

"The OpenEducationDisc focuses solely on meeting educational needs of students of all ages.  Software has been chosen to address specific IT needs across a wide range of subject areas.  The contents of the disc therefore differ from the OpenDisc and are listed below."

Office and Design

OpenOffice.org – Fully compatible office software for your school work
Dia – Make technical diagrams and flowcharts
Scribus – Create professional looking posters and magazines
GanttProject – Plan your school projects with this project management software
FreeMind – Collect your ideas with this mind mapping Software
Sumatra PDF – Read PDF files quickly and easily

Internet

Firefox – A safe, secure and fast web browser
Thunderbird – Manage your emails better than ever – Reclaim your inbox!
Pidgin – Talk to your friends whatever instant message client they use
Kompozer – Create web pages easily, without having to code

Art and Graphics

GIMP – Edit digital photos and create graphics
GIMP animation – Create animations
Inkscape – Make professional looking vector graphics
Pencil – Animate your own cartoons
Blender – 3D graphic modeling, animation, rendering and playback
Tuxpaint – Drawing program for children ages 3 to 12

Multimedia

VLC – Play music, videos and DVDs
Audacity – Record, edit and mix music
Mixxx – Mix your own music like a DJ
MuseScore – Compose your own music
Piano Booster – Teach yourself the piano
Infra Recorder – Burn your own CDs and DVDs
CamStudio – Record your actions on a computer
Really Slick Screensavers – Great looking screensavers

Science and Mathematics

Nasa Worldwind - Discover the earth and other planets
Geogebra - Learn geometry and algebra
Greenfoot – Teach yourself how to program
GraphCalc – A graphical calculator
BYOB – Learn how to program and make animations
CarMetal – Cool mathematical modelling tool
Maxima – University standard computer algebra system
Celestia – Explore the universe in three dimensions
Stellarium – A planetarium on your PC

Games

FreeCiv - Control the world through diplomacy and conquest
FreeCol – Discover the ‘New World’ and build an empire
Numpty Physics – Solve puzzles using physics
TuxTyping 2 – Learn to type like a pro
Tux of Math Command – Test your mathematical skills

Utilities

7zip – Compress and uncompress files in a wide variety of formats
Abakt - Schedule and execute backups of your data
Clamwin – Antivirus software with automatic updating
TrueCrypt – Encrypt and secure your valuable data
Workrave – Prevent and recover from Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI)

Science can be fun!

Yes, indeed! Science lessons can be fun particularly with regard to great teachers who explain math, biology, chemistry, etc. in a comprehensible way. Unfortunately, this is sometimes not the case...

But there is help - students can visit the Khan Academy, which is "a not-for-profit website with the mission of providing a world-class education to anyone, anywhere". In their words: "We are complementing Salman's ever-growing library with user-paced exercises--developed as an open source project--allowing the Khan Academy to become the free classroom for the World."

They provide 1800+ videos of different topics, such as math, science, humanities, test prep, etc.

What are the trends in e-learning?

While I was wondering about the right topic of my master thesis, I was thinking of technologies that might have the biggest impact on e-learning in the future. That means, that I don’t want to write about Second Life or other new media that didn’t revolutionize learning in the last years. Even though the number of users is increasing, I honestly don’t see a big future of Second Life for educational purposes. I am more interested in new fields of e-learning that will change the ways of teaching and learning.

After some Internet research, I found the following trends for e-learning technology:

Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest (Carabaneanu et al.)

• Mobile technologies: In the future learning solutions and services will be integrated into mobile technologies as mobile phones, PDAs, digital pen and paper, and in the long term, mobile devices that are not yet on the market. In the long term, learning solutions and services are also likely to be integrated into electronic appliances, machines and information interfaces.
• Simulations in e-learning process : For a number of years, simulations have played an important role in the training activities of certain sectors, like the defense, aviation and aeronautical industries in several countries. They were not adopted until now on a large scale as learning tools due to some factors like the cost of development and the lack of tools for developing high-quality simulations. These days we are in a different situation and simulations are being adopted in other industries and for a broad range of skills and competence development. Technology and cost barriers are continuing to shrink, opening up the potential for wider adoption of simulation technology.
• Adaptive learning environments (ALEs) : In the recent years there is an increasingly heightened awareness of the potential benefits of adaptivity in e-learning. This is happening because the ideal of individualized learning (i.e., learning suited to the specific requirements and preferences of the individual) cannot be achieved, especially at a “massive” scale, using traditional approaches. Factors that further contribute in this direction include: the diversity in the “target” population participating in learning activities (intensified by the gradual attainment of life-long learning practices); the diversity in the access media and modalities that one can effectively utilize today in order to access, manipulate, or collaborate on, educational content or learning activities, alongside with a diversity in the context of use of such technologies. A learning environment is considered adaptive if it is capable of: monitoring the activities of its users; interpreting these on the basis of domain-specific models; inferring user requirements and preferences out of the interpreted activities, appropriately representing these in associated models; and, finally, acting upon the available knowledge on its users and the subject matter at hand, to dynamically facilitate the learning process.
• Open source e-learning tools : Most of these products have extensive developer communities and present strong arguments for considering open source applications like an alternative to commercial products. Some of the criteria that are in favor of making a decision regarding an Open Source software applications are related to cost savings, stability, performance and access to code. On the other hand, for ensuring that users in the near future as well as the longer term have access to the best available applications, these Open Source software applications should be built on open standards.
• Standards development : Standard development is meant to knit together disparate groups and interests in the distributed learning community. It is intended to coordinate emerging technologies and capabilities with commercial/public implementations.

 Dr. Amy Finn, Chief Learning Officer, Centra Software

• Blended Learning: An emerging trend in e-learning involves blended learning programs, designed to integrate e-learning with traditional training methods to increase overall effectiveness. No longer is one delivery method alone sufficient to handle enterprise-wide training needs. The construction of true blended learning programs moves learning itself into a new age.
• The disappearing Learning Management Systems (LMS): A few years ago organizations looked to LMS to solve their business problems. The LMS strategy was a reasonable one, but one that involved a corporate commitment in time, cost, resources, and energy that few organizations could afford or be successful at. Learning Management Systems were said to be able to “do it all” for the internal workings of an organization. The fact is that no one product can do it all, and it is not reasonable to assume one would be able to do so.

Gartner Group & the University of Pennsylvania

• Serious gaming: Human beings love to learn through experience. Many e-learning providers have discovered that they can use video game technology to develop fun, engaging, effective simulations. Industrial employers can train workers to handle sophisticated tasks without risking injury or production quality. Other types of teams can grow skills and learn best practices by participating in simulated quiz shows or treasure hunts. Fun e-learning programs help boost staff morale while reducing the time it takes for team members to integrate new skills and ideas.

To this list of e-learning trends, I would like to add Augmented Realities. “Augmented Reality (AR) has a distinction from what we commonly know as Virtual Reality (VR). The primary and basic distinction is that VR relies and depends upon an environment created and manipulated within the context of a virtual environment. AR allows users to manipulate and retrieve information within the real world environment. AR allows individuals (i.e. students) to experience the realness of something without harmful consequences of their actions.” But what does AR mean for education? “Through exploration AR abides by the primary tenets of constructivist learning theory. Students are able to manipulate their environment with the use of technology to derive at an understanding, while acquiring knowledge. The difference is that in AR there are not any consequences for their actions as there would be in a behaviorist learning environment.”

In my opinion, Mobile Learning and the use of open source software have the biggest potential to be the way to learn and teach in the future simply because of cost effectiveness and usability. A huge amount of students own a mobile with Internet access. That means, that they carry around a tool that offers plenty of learning possibilities wherever they are. So why not using it for education? On the other hand, open source software is not only cheaper (it’s free), it also gives student the opportunities to learn about alternative software and get engaged with computer science. I just read that some countries, e.g. Germany, are facing problems because of the lack of computer science and other graduate engineers. So why not supporting the use of open source software to improve for example programming skills?