Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with learning

as far from Shopping Mall State as possible

brandnew — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:55:08 -0800

What are some of the more radical, yet reputable, universities in the United States? What are some universities in United States that encourage a culture of radical intellectualism? To be precise, I mean ones that promote or even encourage research and development of ideas that are unconventional, potential controversial, and likely to be found no where else.

I'm looking for those places of education that attract the most pure thinkers - educators and students that thrive by living on the edge of knowledge, uninterested in contemplating the usual paths. Although they may be fearless and provocative, they still employ rigorous and credible standards of research.

Of course this is an ideal portrait, and likely non-existent. But which universities even come close?

UCLA professional programs

mooza — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:56:46 -0800

I'm looking for opinions on the UCLA Professional Program in Screenwriting, whether you've done it, or know someone who has. In particular - opinions on the online course. Cos you know, I'm not in LA and can't be. Google has led me loads of news on alumni and whatnot, but not much reviewing of the experience (particularly the online one). Any other experiences with other online courses are welcome.

Please don't tell me I should just write until my hands drop off and that I don't need a class. Just advice on actual course if you could...

Thanks everyone!

Summer program for 15 yr old NYC?

quiverandquill — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:45:22 -0800

Can you recommend a summer program, August - Sept, for a bright 15 year old girl living in Queens, NYC? My niece is very smart, loves dance and theater and wants to excel academically. She's starting to make choices that aren't ideal, and (unrelated) do somewhat poorly in Math. I would love to find a program in Queens, or NYC for the month of August that can help her with school, inspire her and encourage her in the right direction. Help?!

Quit shimmering, and play something we can all sing

scruss — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 05:03:41 -0800

Beyond loud, pleasing (and above all) shimmering folk chord strumming, what can I do with a 12-string acoustic guitar? Just got a nice 12-string guitar. While the strumming sounds enormously pleasant, I'm finding that the country/folk basic flatpicking that I enjoy on the 6-string doesn't really work so well.

I've just got Pete Seeger's 12-String Guitar as Played by Lead Belly, but it might be a little beyond me for now. The less said about attempting Kottke, the better

So, what works for you on 12-string?

Help with my motivation to learn to drive

rainygrl716 — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:19:15 -0800

I need a good plan that will keep me motivated to learn to drive over the summer. I am 23 years old and have very limited driving experience. It also causes me to experience anxiety and worry to think about driving. What type of plan can I implement to help change my behavior so that I can at least start practicing? Right now I take the bus and walk. I would love the ability to drive just so that I had that option. In the past, I've had two driver's permits and they both expired with me getting in only a little practice. I get very nervous on the road and I really don't even know where to start. I end up focusing on the driver's exam and experiencing a lot of anxiety. I've been practicing relaxation techniques for months now and using "imagery" which was recommended to me by a professor to help ease the anxiety driving can cause, and it has helped a lot, but now I just need the motivation to get out there and do it!

I really want to get my license, but I don't know how to stay motivated to even try. I planned on getting a new permit again weeks ago and instead I just never have and I sit here and get down on myself because I'm not even trying. In a year I start a rotation at school wherein I will have to travel all over the city to different locations. I can continue to take the bus, but I'm sure driving would be so much easier. Also, my friendships have been limited due to this as it isn't always possible to hop on the bus and meet up.

Does anyone have any advice how I can stay motivated? Any other driving tips for an embarrassed 23 year old? I have a vehicle that I can practice with so that isn't a problem. I've looked at driving schools but I don't have that kind of money. I'll just have to rely on my husband, but I just don't even know where to start! Please help.

What do you wish you'd learned in college?

nímwunnan — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 06:38:24 -0800

What do you wish you'd learned in college, especially art school? What important lessons or concepts that you know now, preferrably related to your profession, passed you by in school? I'm mostly interested in arts education, but I'm looking for anyone who feels like they didn't get taught -- or were inefectively taught important things in school that they came to understand later. Bonus question: If you haven't been to art school but you know someone who has, what do you wish they had learned?

Oh Google, Where Art Thou?

Holly — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:25:09 -0800

I recently set up a language learning blog on Typepad which I am still developing, and to which there are very few visitors as yet and no inbound links. And now (sob) Google has dropped me. Though the first few days have been indexed, nothing I've posted over the past 3/4 days comes up on Google. Do they crawl so irregularly? In a fit of enthusiasm I also signed up for Google Sitemaps a few days ago, which I now sense I shouldn't have done so early. So (a) why might Google have apparently dropped the site and is there any way of concretely finding out and (b) is it possible to remove a verified site from Google sitemaps and then rejoin Sitemaps at a later date, when the site has more inbound links of the kind Google loves? Thanks for any light you may shed.

Did I teach my dog a dog-wrestling move?

christopherious — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:25:56 -0800

Did I teach my dog a dog-wrestling move? The other day while at the park, my dog was playing with a stranger's dog. While they were wrestling, I noticed that my dog (who seemed to be in the alpha role) had a new move. When he would go for a take-down, he'd pin the other dog at the neck/shoulder to the ground with his own neck and head. He would hold the other dog to that position for a few seconds, neither moving. Then he'd get up and they'd resume playing. He kept doing this, and I seemed to recall seeing other dogs learn new moves by watching/playing with other dogs. But I couldn't remember ever seeing another dog show mine that particular wrestling hold.

Then a few days later, as I was hugging my dog, I realized I was doing that exact move myself, pressing his head/neck/shoulder region down with my own as I hugged and praised him. Suddenly I wondered if he picked this up from me.

Is that possible? Can dogs pick up dog-play moves from humans? Or, did I learn the move from him instead? Or, have we both been duped by Toxoplasma gondii?

Blogs that teach?

btkuhn — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:59:34 -0800

Blogs that teach? Most of the daily blogs that I read, even the "scholarly" ones or those dealing with a particular subject, are focused on links to topics of interest, or the blog writer's analysis of a particular topic. For instance, the volokh conspiracy is an excellent law blog, but it doesn't "teach" the fundamentals of law to the reader; rather, it addresses specific rulings, usually with the author's analysis of the issue.

I am interested in finding blogs that teach the reader about the subject of the blog. To continue with the subject of law, I want to find blogs that say, for example, "Today we are going to learn about contract law (or one particular aspect of contract law)", and then go over the basics of contract law. Kind of like that email service that emails you a few pages of a book every day. It seems like there are plenty of podcasts online that do this (I've used MIT courseware in the past and it's great), but I learn much better with the written word format. Plus, an RSS feed breaks things up so that you don't have to set aside an hour to watch a lecture.

I'm not interested only in "academic" blogs; any feed that teaches a subject or skill in a stepwise manner via RSS. I'm thinking bird-watching, or juggling, playing the guitar...

Interesting Non-Academic Fellowships

divabat — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 03:27:38 -0800

What are some interesting non-academic fellowships out there? Some examples of what I mean:

Sauve Scholars
Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellows
Ashoka
Echoing Green
TED Conference Fellows
YouthActionNet Global Fellowship
YSEI Fellows

So essentially they give you money and support for your projects, or for attending an event of theirs, but the focus isn't on academia and is generally open to a wider selection of people (compared to traditional fellowships that are geared towards academics). What other terms do they use to describe themselves?

(the examples I used up there are largely youth-oriented, but other focus areas are more than welcome.)

Intermediate ASP.NET/VB Book?

fx3000 — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 08:01:14 -0800

Good ASP.NET(VB book)? I have been learning ASP.NET(VB) using the book Build Your Own ASP.NET 2.0 Web Site Using C# & VB, 2nd Edition and I am three quarters of the way through the book. I am starting to think about what book to use after this one to go further with my learning.

The thing is while I would rather use C#, the work I am doing requires me to code in VB. From a quick glance it seems like many of the best books focus on C#. I know the .NET framework is the much bigger deal to learn than the chosen language, but I still think there would be a lot of benefit to learning from a book that offers VB code.

With that said, can anyone make anyone some recommendations for a good followup book? The book I'm in now is a beginner book, and a good one at that. The next book would hopefully be intermediate-ish, but not too advanced. Also, I should mention some of the things I am going to be looking to build are CMS's and Portals and I am will probably do a lot with RSS feeds and Web Services. Anything that keeps in SEO in mind is a bonus also.

What should I learn to do this summer?

HotPatatta — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 08:31:32 -0800

What books can teach me skills that would be enjoyable or interesting to share with friends in group settings or one-on-one? I thought it might be fun to spend the summer reading books that teach me how to do something. I want to be able to share, practice, and explore these things with a group of friends or with them individually. For example, I'd like to learn how to give a Swedish massage, apply special FX makeup, and give a (very basic) palm reading. Obviously it takes a great deal of study and practice to do these things well, but I'll leave that for later.

What other skills can be learned by reading a book? I'm especially looking for skills that won't require much equipment or capital investment on my part.

Say it wasn't all for nothing...

Zé Pequeno — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:05:43 -0800

I'm strugging to come to terms with the fact that I've read such a seemingly extraordinary number of books yet seem to remember so very little. The obvious answer is to apply oneself more rigidly, in future, to study; to take notes and review them, etc. However, I really don't feel like writing extensive plot summaries every time I read a book, neither does this help me deal with the very distressing realisation that I don't know as much as I should do. I notice that I feel stupider and more ignorant when I pass through long periods of not reading. Sometimes, though, if I'm particularly engrossed in a book I will remember rather effortlessly something obscure and (at the time apparently unimportant) from something I've read years ago.

My question is:

Is there any particular method of honing this sort of mysterious recollective experience through meditation for example? It would also help for remembering distant and supposedly forgotten memories of real events.

I've gained a lot through books beyond the immediate in-the-moment joy of reading good prose, I know that. For one, my vocabulary's far bigger than it perhaps might have been and I seem to have developed a fairly good sense of rhythm - but I expect more from the reading experience. For one, I feel like I'm missing out on this whole concept that writers have talked about for eons regarding knowledge being a faithful companion in times of boredom. The joy of the inner life, etc.

What does Metafilter think?

Going beyond the textbook and the Language Lab

shirobara — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:40:24 -0800

What are your favorite online resources for learning, practicing or getting exposure to the languages you speak? I'm looking for things that go beyond a textbook and a couple of CDs: things like interactive tools and study materials, well-written blogs written in / about the language, and especially audio, video or reading materials that people learning the language might not be able to find easily. I'm interested in both resources designed for native speakers of that language that are accessible to people learning it and well-designed resources for people learning the language. For example, Librivox might be good for high-level English learners trying to improve their listening skills and vocabulary, while Pinyin Practice is for people just starting to learn Chinese pronunciation.

I'll start off with a few for Japanese that have helped me:
Real World Japanese: Listening practice using real-life situations, with three levels of difficulty for each situation.
Episodes of Atashin'chi: my host family loved this slice-of-life family show, and the language is pretty accessible for intermediate speakers. (No subtitles, too, so you can't "cheat")
Reading Tutor: a collection of paragraphs with links to definitions on the side, so you can click on an unknown word and see the definition (in English or Japanese) without a new window or an annoying popup. You can also use your own texts this way by using the "Dictionary Tool," or see a chart of all the kanji used in a text and which level of the JLPT they correspond to.

It's not Japanese, but I also really love the BBC languages site, with its engaging content for so many languages -- I've been using the French lessons to brush up, and it's a lot more fun than high-school French ever was...

I'd love to learn about great resources for as many languages as possible!

What do I need to know about being treasurer of a nonprofit?

croutonsupafreak — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:05:30 -0800

I've been elected treasurer of a small nonprofit. I'd like some advice about best practices for creating a budget and tracking our finances, and also about other responsibilities I should be aware of. I guess I'm looking for advice on how to track money. I'd also like to know if there's more to being a treasurer than managing the books.
Are there Excel templates out there I can use? What one book I should read to better understand budgeting for an organization? What else I should know about the duties of a treasurer?

Some background:
The group has about $25,000 in the bank, and its assets tick up by a few thousand dollars each year. Every year the group runs one big fundraiser, and spends most of the money collected on training events. We have no paid staff.

Previous volunteer treasurers have had no experience in this sort of thing, just like me. I'd like to at least take a stab at assembling a respectable budget for us to follow, and at getting our books in some kind of order for the first time.

I'm good at budgeting my own cash, but this is above my experience level. Advice?

Recommend Hindi language learning sites?

inbetweener — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 02:39:07 -0800

Can you recommend any intermediate level Hindi language learning resources online? I have a basic grounding in the Hindi language, having taken 2 years of evening courses in Hindi.

I can read Devanagari script without any problems. I originally learnt Hindi using Rupert Snell's "Teach Yourself Hindi" book, which is excellent. However, I stopped going to classes about a year ago so I need a way of keeping my Hindi up.

I want some intermediate level resources (preferably online) to improve and widen my Hindi. I've tried to read the BBC Hindi website, using the dictionary at shabdkosh.com to help me along, but the standard of the language is way beyond me.

I'm looking for some Hindi language learning sites that are of a lower intermediate level to get some practice and some tips. However, despite my attempts to find such sites I simply can't - I'm sure they must exist as I've found equivalent sites for less popular languages such as Tamil.

Any advice would be helpful - I can't afford (timewise or moneywise) to go to more classes at the moment.

Appealing, school-appropriate video game clip?

daisyace — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:00:02 -0800

I would like to find a link for a short video clip of a video game that meets certain criteria. It will go into a presentation to elementary school teachers, as a quick backdrop to a point about interactive games that will be used in school, and that will be fun while challenging kids to think and learn. (It won't itself BE that game; it just has to plausibly look the part.) It needs to have some connection to an outer space theme. So to recap and clarify the criteria:
* At least a 5-second, decent quality clip available online.
* Looks appropriate for kids younger than 12.
* Looks appropriate for a school setting (so, no shoot 'ems, etc.).
* Look like it helps kids think and learn, but preferably not as explicitly as math sums that appear on screen or something - think more like 'puzzles and challenges,' less like 'pick the word that starts with A.'
* Looks interactive.
* Some connection to an outer space theme.

Suggestions would be great, links even better.

Johnny Can't Remember

zenpop — Fri, 30 May 2008 10:34:27 -0800

How can I remember more of what I read? I'm a non-fiction person. Especially books having to do with metaphysics, philosophy, art, etc. I read a great deal, but I can't seem to remember key elements or points later on.

I recall disliking school, elementary and high school, because nothing much interested me (no one was teaching, say, astrology back then). I didn't want college. So I didn't go and did quite well in life despite not having a degree.

I'm thinking maybe not having gone through higher education might have limited me in the remembering department. Or is that a myth?

Does anyone have a favorite technique, or skill, or exercise -- or god forbid, a book recommendation-- that would assist me in being able to remember and recall more what I read?

Sesame Street-ish show in Spanish?

Flunkie — Mon, 26 May 2008 11:15:35 -0800

What Spanish language kids' show (in the USA) would be good to watch for someone trying to pick up Spanish? I would like to pick up some Spanish. I know a little, but nowhere near enough to follow conversations, or the nightly news, or sitcoms, or Sabado Gigante, or whatever. I can pick out individual words sometimes, but they're like a sudden beacon appearing out of chaos, soon to be reclaimed by it.

It occurred to me that it might be better to initially set my sights a little lower: on a kids' show, akin to Sesame Street or something like that, where learning the language is an inherent part of the show.

Any suggestions for shows along these lines that I could record?

Simple French-language booklets for Kenyan French teacher of elementary students?

vanoakenfold — Fri, 23 May 2008 04:00:38 -0800

On a recent trip to Kenya, we visited a school who is in need of simple French language instruction booklets for elementary-age children. Most all of the language guides I've found are texts along the dense hardback or college variety, or come on DVD which wouldn't be at all feasible. Any ideas? They already know English. Just some simple, basic French core grammar structuring and lessons. They've recently been loaded up with young refugees fleeing from nearby French-speaking countries and are hoping to teach some to English-speaking kids. The teachers are very intelligent and college-educated but lack the resources I've got.

Looking for advice about Spanish immersion programs (and more) while in Oaxaca, Mexico

iamkimiam — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:02:03 -0800

Traveling to Oaxaca with a friend for a 2-4 week Spanish immersion program this June/July. We are looking for some advice about Spanish language programs, homestays/lodging, and transportation. We are having a very difficult time finding a good learning program—there are so many to choose from and we don't quite know what to look for and how to determine which ones are good. We are both in our 30's, female, both semi-fluent in French (if that helps us any), but looking for an intensive Spanish immersion program in Oaxaca. We want to learn as much of the language and about the culture as we can during our short stay.

Have you had experience with programs in Oaxaca (state or city)? Did you do a homestay? What do you recommend? What should we know?

Also, any information about transportation and/or beginning/intermediate surfing in the area would be much appreciated!

A framework for designing a self-study course using free material?

TheManChild2000 — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:34:46 -0800

Is there a high-level general procedure or process that can be used to design a course of self-study in any topic? There is a broad electrical engineering topic that I intend to spend the next X months learning more about, and would like to approach it efficiently, if possible. I'm wondering if there is a generalized self-study framework that I could simply plug the details for pursuing this particular topic into.

I don't want to go out and spend big bucks on the textbooks that are available. There is a large amount of free material available to me. My general plan is to gather everything that I can, sort and prioritize it, spend a chunk of time just reading, and then see if I can pick a more specific direction after that. But hey, maybe there's a smarter way...

Adult diagnosis of a learning disability and where to go from here

Anonymous — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:32:15 -0800

Adult diagnosis of a learning disability and where to go from here I have always sensed that something wasn't right with my brain. I'm really smart and have excellent verbal skills but always found myself to be a slow learner. This has been very frustrating for both me and for my supervisors. Consequently, I've been an “underachiever” in life and have developed bad anxiety.

Fast forward a few years... neuropsychological testing revealed a significant (but narrow) learning disability. It's not quite ADD but has some overlap, as I have a short attention span as well as difficulty with organization and information presented verbally. I also have an “inefficient” learning style, which was described as poor cognitive strategies for grouping information in order to learn more effectively. According to the testing, I often miss the “big picture.”

As an adult with already poor self esteem due to these problems, my question is, where to go from here? Although it's a relief to have an explanation for my difficulties and to find out that my IQ is indeed very high (despite my underachievement), since I’m no longer a student I don’t know how to find support services or learn what learning/organizational strategies would be helpful. It's also hard to know who to share this information with (e.g. employers, friends) and when.

I would like to learn how to best compensate my weaknesses because I find that they present a significant barrier to my career advancement and satisfaction, as well as my feelings about myself. (They also affect me socially since I do miss the big picture sometimes; this usually leaves me feeling a bit "out of sync” with others.)

I’d be really interested to hear from others who had a similar experience of dealing with a later-life diagnosis of LD and how you coped. I worry that I may never be able to achieve the career performance that I desire, and this makes me really upset because I am well educated and a very hard worker and have very high goals for myself.

Help me find this flashcard program?

Proginoskes — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:56:03 -0800

About a year ago, I installed a freeware program onto my Dell Axim to aid with learning. Since then, the program has been removed and I've forgotten what it was called. I'm hoping someone out there can help me. The program was for learning languages and memorization. I remember that data to be memorized was added to the program in pairs (i.e. "Ottawa" and "Canada"). The program would display one of the two strings (Ottawa) and then show a prompt to be clicked after the user had tried to remember what the matching string was. Clicking the prompt would display the matching string (Canada). If I recall correctly, several options were displayed where the user could enter how well the text had been recalled ("I remembered it immediately", "It took a bit of thought", "I was completely wrong", ...). The program would keep track of which were memorized less correctly and show those more frequently.

If anyone can help me find this again, I'd really appreciate it.

Help me, I'm a late adopter.

Zarkonnen — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:26:43 -0800

How do I learn new programming languages and start using modern web apps without getting frustrated and angry? So I'm in my mid-twenties and work in IT. I've been watching the last couple of years of exploding creativity on the net - literally millions of blogs, new programming languages, new ideas like twitter, citizen journalism, etcetera.

But lately I've realised that despite being able to see the potential benefits and really actually exciting possibilities of all this new stuff, I grumpily dismiss it and stick to how I've been doing things for the past couple of years. I use email, Java and PHP, and HTML 4.0.1 Transitional. I occasionally write some stuff in my site's news section, but I doubt my completely random ramblings make anyone come back. I'd like to think that I might have some interesting things to say on some topics, but I can't find the time to write about it, and it feels odd to intersperse "here's some photos I took" with "here's a detailed analysis of this political situation". I don't use Ruby Twitter XML Python LISP Quicksilver GTD Podcasts RSS Lifehacks. I don't contribute to wikis, or talk on forums (with the pretty much sole exception of MeFi).

At the same time I'm getting very frustrated with the limits of the tools I do know how to use - Java's verbosity and lack of support for first-class functions is a pain, and I don't like the fact that I'm always the last to hear about everything interesting that happens on the net. I have no coherent systems for making notes or keeping track of appointments or tasks, despite the plethora of Mac programs available for doing just that.

Why is this a problem? Well, I'm not even thirty yet, but I can already feel myself falling behind the times. I don't want to end up as the kind of programmer / person in general who toils away on some legacy project in a little corner, insisting "we've always done it this way" until one day I get fired for being completely superfluous. I want to want to learn new things. I want to be more organised.

So is there a question in all of this? Yes! I want you to tell me how to break out of my rut. Tell me how I can learn about, and start to use, new stuff, despite the two big obstacles I'm about to describe.

Obstacle number one: Why do I dislike new things? To a large part, to be honest, because the people who do use these things and try to promote them really grate on my nerves. Take programming languages: many advocates of new languages (Ruby, I'm looking at you) start off their pitch by pointing out how useless language X (also known as "Java") is, and how using their language allows you to become a massively more enlightened individual. Along the way, there is a strong implication that anyone who still uses language X in 2008 is a hopeless dinosaur. Way to insult your audience.

Number two: I find learning new things really unpleasant. Faced with needing to code a small website, another programmer would say "Cool, a chance to try out this new Python framework, and this AJAX front-end library - no one's ever tried using them together before, but I have a really clever plan involving metaclasses". I say "Well, I don't really want to take too much time on it, so let's code it up in imperative-style PHP 4. It's clunky, it's incredibly verbose, the code is hideous, and errors are hard to track down, but I know how it works and can liberally reuse code from previous projects." Of course, this is a caricature, but the point remains that that other programmer will end up being more productive and motivated than me, perhaps not on this project, but on the next, where I'm still using PHP 4, but the other guy would be using said Python framework (but not the AJAX library, because it turned out to be too buggy).

So why don't I go off and do like the other programmer? Because the framework and the library will have terrible, hard-to-find inconsistent documentatio, bugs that cause the default configuration to fail silently, and creators who have the attitude described in obstacle #1. And here's the crux of the matter: where the other programmer would think "Cool, a challenge! Let's try to get this working." I fly into an impotent rage, cursing the code, its creator, and myself. I will yell at the computer when yet another promising documentation link 404s on me, I will make strangling motions at the screen when it turns out that I installed some package whose name has no vowels on the wrong path, and I will mentally tally every single problem I've had getting the whole thing working. Both the other programmer and I will take about five hours to get the framework up and running, but while that's five hours of joyful problem-solving time for the other guy/gal, it's five hours of fuming at the computer for me, and I'll have a headache at the end. And somewhere along the way I will probably give up and code the thing in PHP 4 or Java, feeling guilty for being a dinosaur.

Much the same happens when the Thing in question isn't a programming language but a website or some organizer/productivity program.

So to the end of not having to look at new things anymore, I now come up with automatic put-downs for every new thing that crosses my path: Ruby's syntax is horrible, Twitter is shallow, XML is verbose, Python is white-space-sensitive, LISP is unreadable, Quicksilver is unstable and obtuse, GTD is for obsessive-compulsives, podcasts are narcissistic, RSS is inefficent and ill-defined and life hacks are impractical. Contributing to wikis is pointless, and all forums are full of 13 year olds.

Still, I want to learn and use new things, because I find them fascinating and recognise their potential. So what techniques, states of mind, resources would you suggest that I could use to approach learning new languages, starting to use new websites, new modes of communication, etcetera, without just coming away pissed off and exhausted?

(And if you've read all of this, congratulations. You get a voucher for small prize, redeemable anywhere on the moon only.)