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Live, Learn, Teach

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Live, Learn, Teach

When it comes to her career, Louise loves to pack in as much variety as she can. From science, to business marketing, and now to secondary teaching, Louise is making sure that every day holds an opportunity to learn something new, and pass it onto others.

In high school, Louise gravitated toward all
things science. It felt only natural to continue on with it at university,
where she enrolled in a Bachelor of Science, and studied a wide variety of
subjects to keep her options open upon graduation. From there, a desire to
branch out led Louise to study a Graduate Diploma in Business Marketing.

Louise smiling with laptop

Before she knew it, Louise was going down a career path that was anything but linear. Her qualifications took her from marketing at Adidas, to a drug company to utilise her science knowledge, and onto a range of other roles. Eventually, she ended up working as an expedition guide, where she led (and continues to lead) tourists to breathtaking destinations, such as the Arctic, Antarctic and the Kimberley. Louise takes great pleasure in learning about aspects of each region she visits, like climate, land, oceans, and native creatures, to name a few.

Louise looking through telescope

Leading expeditions brought Louise to realise that it was not only gaining knowledge that she loved – but sharing it too. She enrolled herself into Curtin University’s Master of Teaching (Secondary Education), online through Open Universities Australia. She was able to enrol on the basis of having a Bachelor’s degree in the area of science, which she intended to teach at secondary level. While at first Louise felt intimidated by the idea of online study, it was the best solution to studying while travelling the world for work, and it quickly became a familiar and comfortable part of her day.

What Louise values most about her course is the
placements, of which she’ll undertake 4 times during her course. It gives her
the chance to apply her learnings and adjust them based on the real world
environment. “Putting all that information that I’ve been learning through my
subjects into a practical environment, has just cemented it all for me” says
Louise.

Louise teaching science class

Louise estimates it will be 5 years all up to complete her degree, but she’s grateful to be able to learn at her own pace – still able to fit in her work and other passions. Louise’s future students will be in good hands, and will no doubt be infected by her love of learning and zest for life.

Longing to shake things up?

While taking a linear career path may seem like the ‘done thing’, there’s nobody standing in the way of an exciting and highly varied work life. How can you make this a reality? Further education is a great place to start.

Through
Open Universities Australia (OUA) you can:

  • Find the right course – Choose from over 290 degrees and 1500 single subjects from universities across Australia.
  • Earn the same degree as on-campus – Enrol through us, then study online with your chosen uni (and graduate with them too).
  • Study, regardless of your history – Start with single undergraduate subjects without any entry requirements.
  • Gain credit towards your degree – Apply for credit for past study or work experience, and finish faster.
  • Feel supported from start to finish – Get help from a friendly student advisor, right through to graduation.

To express your interest in this course, or any that we offer – fill out the form on this page, and we’ll put you in touch with a friendly student advisor.

If you’re keen to explore on your own, simply head over to our website to browse the extensive catalogue of courses from universities across Australia.

Related courses through OUA:

Bachelor of Education (Primary Education) – Curtin University

Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood Education) – Curtin University

Master of Education – Griffith University

Master of Teaching (Birth to Five Years) – Macquarie University

See more

An introvert’s guide to networking

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An introvert’s guide to networking

Nothing sends shudders down an introvert’s spine quite like the word “networking”, but it doesn’t have to be that way. You can still build a great network even if you’re not a social butterfly.

There’s a limit to what we can accomplish by going it alone in today’s interconnected world, and a great set of contacts will keep you informed, help you find jobs, uncover marketing opportunities and create new friends and mentors.

But if you’re kind of a private (dare we say mildly antisocial) person, then even minor events such as business breakfasts can be a major source of stress and anxiety. If that’s a barrier to building your network, then try these ideas instead.

What are friends for?

Your friends and family are already your social network and your biggest support system, and they’re generally happy to help when asked.

Whether you’re on the hunt for a new job, potential customers, or contacts in a specific field or company, let your friends know you’re looking. Many of the best jobs never even make it to recruitment websites because they are filled by people referred through personal connections.

An introduction from a person who knows you personally carries added weight because from the perspective of your potential new contact, you’ve already been cleared as someone trustworthy.

Reaching out beyond your inner circle to long-lost friends and former colleagues can yield a surprising depth and variety of good contacts—in fact anyone you know, from your neighbours to people you play sport with or your hairdresser, is potentially a source of useful introductions.

Declare your intentions

Yes, it can feel a bit weird to network within your social circle, and it’s important to be careful not to be seen to be abusing people’s trust.

If you’re reaching out to a friend for a reason other than friendship then it’s best to be up front about it. There’s nothing worse than agreeing to meet up with someone for a drink only to find they had ulterior motives, wanting to ply information from you.

When a friend agrees to help you, you can make things easier for them by offering to write a brief message about yourself that they could edit and send on.

And afterwards, make a point of telling them what the outcome was, and saying thanks.

500 million reasons to love LinkedIn

Social media site LinkedIn makes networking easy. With over 500 million users and 250 million monthly active users, it’s also a great way to stay up to date with the latest developments in your field and share information with others. And if you’re looking to hire or be hired, it can even replace traditional recruitment entirely.

Get started by creating your LinkedIn profile and ensure that it showcases your skills and portrays you as a polished professional— think of it as a digital business card.

Your email and phone contacts are a great place to start building your LinkedIn network. The site’s advanced search functions make it easy to find people on a range of levels including location, company, past employers and schools, industry and interests, and then invite them to connect with you.

Multiplying opportunities

Each time you make a new connection, you also gain access to that person’s publicly available connections too and you can then invite them to connect directly with you, opening up even more networking opportunities.

Groups are a really powerful LinkedIn networking feature in LinkedIn, as they give you access to huge numbers of people interested in the same topics as you.

Do a little research on the thousands of groups available, and choose ones related to your fields. Look for groups that have lots of members and activity.

Once you’re up and running on LinkedIn, it’s important to keep nurturing your network. Create and share your own engaging content, or share content from other sites, and like and comment on other LinkedIn posts that you find valuable. And keep yourself visible to the people in your brand community by providing status updates on a regular basis.

Fake it ’til you make it

Without a doubt, you’d much rather stay home with Netflix. But like it or not, some social events simply cannot be avoided, so it’s always a good idea to have an emergency mingling toolkit ready.

Prepare an ‘elevator pitch’, a 20 to 30-second sound bite that explains who you are and what you do. You can easily expand upon or shorten this ‘pitch’ as needed. Practice a few small-talk points and conversation starters too. 

It really helps to act extroverted, even if you’re all butterflies inside. So smile, walk to the centre of the room and start shaking hands, and you’ll be surprised by the results. Ironically, introverts often make the best networkers because they’re good listeners.

Whether it’s online or face-to-face, time spent building your network is a great investment, and like all great investments if you get started early, it will continue to grow and pay dividends over your whole career.

As Alexander Hamilton would say “Do not throw away your shot”.

What’s New on Coursera for Business – June 2019

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What’s New on Coursera for Business – June 2019

By Kyle Clark, Enterprise Content Expert

This month we are excited to announce a special release on top of 39 brand new courses: TensorFlow in Practice. This Specialization was developed in partnership with deeplearning.ai and Google Brain’s Laurence Moroney to provide learners with the expertise to write and deploy production-quality TensorFlow code.

In addition to our new TensorFlow specialization, here are our top 5 picks for the month of June:

  • Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI), IBM – In this course you will learn what Artificial Intelligence (AI) is, explore use cases and applications of AI, understand AI concepts and terms like machine learning, deep learning and neural networks. You will be exposed to various issues and concerns surrounding AI such as ethics and bias, & jobs, and get advice from experts about learning and starting a career in AI.  
  • Foundations for Big Data Analysis with SQL, Cloudera – In this course, you’ll get a big-picture view of using SQL for big data, starting with an overview of data, database systems, and the common querying language (SQL). Then you’ll learn the characteristics of big data and SQL tools for working on big data platforms. 
  • Demand Analytics, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey – Through the real-life story and data of AK MetalCrafters, you will learn the analytics skills to help companies with demand planning and forecasting. At the completion of this course, you will be able to help companies like AK significantly improve its forecasting accuracy by building and validating demand forecasting models and assessing the impact of time, seasonality, price and other environmental factors on demand.
  • Introduction to Blockchain: Evolution and Technology Concepts, Association of International Certified Professional Accountants – Blockchain technology is in a period of exceptional growth, and the accounting profession will play a significant role in driving its adoption. Starting with a focus on the history and evolution of blockchain and bitcoin and then on to the characteristics of bitcoin, you will get a refresher on the fundamentals of money/currency and learn how bitcoin fits into the global business landscape. 
  • Predictive Analytics and Data Mining, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – This course introduces students to the science of business analytics while casting a keen eye toward the artful use of numbers found in the digital space. 

All Courses

Business

Technology

Data Science

Other

 

Summer Reading Contest, Week 3: What Interested You Most in The Times This Week?

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Summer Reading Contest, Week 3: What Interested You Most in The Times This Week?

Welcome to Week Three of our Tenth Annual Summer Reading Contest.

To participate, just post a comment here by 9 a.m. Eastern on July 5 that answers the questions “What interested you most in The Times this week? Why?”

What should you choose? Well, as you know from the rules we’ve posted, you can pick anything published on NYTimes.com in 2019, including articles, essays, Op-Eds, videos, photos, podcasts or infographics.

So what did you read, watch or listen to this week?

We hope you’ll click around NYTimes.com and find your own great articles, features and multimedia, but we know that not everyone who participates has a Times subscription. Because all links to Times content from the student features on our site are free, every week we’ll try to help by posting interesting pieces from a variety of sections.

Here Is Every 2020 Democrat, Roasted by Haiku

_________

Whatever caught your eye, tell us about it in the comments.

Need more details? The contest rules are all here, and you can read the work of last year’s winners here. A quick overview, though:

• You can choose from anything published in the print paper or on NYTimes.com in 2019, including videos, graphics and photographs. (In your response, please include the URL or headline of the piece you pick.)

• We’ll post this question each Friday from today through Aug. 16, and you’ll have until the next Friday morning to respond with your picks. Then we’ll close that post and open a new one with the same question.

• We’ll choose at least one favorite answer to feature on our site each week. Winners from this week will be announced on July 16.

• Feel free to participate each week, but we allow only one submission per person per week.

• New for 2019: Students in the United States and the United Kingdom must be between 13 to 19 years old to participate. However, if you are submitting from anywhere else in the world, you must be between 16 to 19 years old. Please see The New York Times’s terms of service for more details.

_________

While this is the only Student Opinion question we’ll be asking this summer, here is our section that features hundreds of writing prompts still open to comment.

To Nap or Not to Nap, IS That a Question?

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To Nap or Not to Nap, IS That a Question?

A common sleep recommendation is to limit naps! Wait, what?

Anyone who has struggled to get children to nap should be laughing so hard now they might be crying. As a parent of two young boys, I cherish times when they both settle down for an afternoon nap. Certainly, children should be getting more sleep than adults, but how tempted am I to nap with them? Mayo Clinic.org (2) explains that adults who nap should pay attention to the length of their nap. They suggest that going past 90 minutes in a nap is a deal breaker. After 90 minutes you typically progress into deeper sleep. Spending too much time or not enough in deep sleep stages can cause you to feel terrible after you wake.

I have been teaching my students about the role of sleep in forming memory for a while now. Psychologists Georg Muller and Alfons Pilzecker were among the first to suggest that what we learn changes overtime, and sleep can account for some of this change by improving long-term memory (3). They found that participants learning short sets of “non-sense” syllables (e.g., FOV) would recall syllables randomly, over time, even when these syllables were no longer being tested. They called the ability to remember without intention, “perseveration.” Consider not being able to stop thinking about an embarrassing event, long after you were embarrassed; this is perseveration. Muller and Pilzecker called the process of consistently remembering consolidation. This word makes me think of taking all the leftovers in my fridge and planning to eat what is still good and throw out what is too far gone each week. Consolidation is an important process to remembering.

When we make new memories, the hippocampus is heavily relied upon. Over time, memories begin to rely predominately on the cortex and in turn, less on the hippocampus. It is not that the knowledge “moves” from one place to the other. It is that as time passes, we tend to use and connect long-term memory with other memories (4). This image from research by Gordon and Diekelmann depicts how information at learning relies on activation of the hippocampus, but, after sleep and retrieval, activation shifts to the cortex.

Stories from Penn Engineering’s MCIT: Alumni and Faculty

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Stories from Penn Engineering’s MCIT: Alumni and Faculty

The Online Master of Computer and Information Technology (MCIT) program at the University of Pennsylvania is designed for students from non-computer science backgrounds who want to leverage computer science to advance their careers and positively impact society.  MCIT Online brings the established on-campus MCIT program into a 100% online format. This innovative degree program has a history of empowering students from diverse academic backgrounds to succeed in a variety of technology fields.

To better understand what it takes for someone with little computer science experience to land a job at a top tech company in just two years, we talked with on-campus MCIT alumni and Penn Engineering faculty about the degree program, the alumni network, and what a prospective student should know when applying.

 

Making Time to Learn: How Online Study Fits Around Your Career

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Making Time to Learn: How Online Study Fits Around Your Career

The new suite of computer science degrees from the University of London and member institution Goldsmiths offer you the opportunity to study your degree fully online. This flexibility allows many students to continue working while gaining a qualification that will support future career ambitions. We spoke to three students about how they manage their studies with work, family, and other commitments.

You don’t need to be in a classroom at a specific time each week – all you need is internet access.

Alexeia Wiesner had already completed the first year of a computer science degree at a local university when financial pressures forced him to withdraw to work full time. Now, with nearly 10 years of on-the-job experience as a web developer, he was determined to complete his qualification and the flexibility offered by the University of London’s online computer science programme suited him perfectly.

“The University of London has a good track record for distance learning and this looked like a really good quality programme. I’m studying the Web and Mobile Development specialism which is in line with the field I’m working in and the flexibility of online study means I can still work three days a week. It’s good because you don’t need to be in a classroom at a specific time each week – all you need is internet access.”

I’m learning stuff that applies directly to my job – I can use it almost immediately.

The new programme, has been developed in partnership with academics from Goldsmiths, University of London and Coursera, one of the world’s largest online learning platforms. The interactive content has been carefully designed to engage and inspire students, whether they choose to study online or attend a local teaching centre.

“The programme is really well done. With the videos you’re still getting a sense of face-to-face teaching and the material is given to you in an interesting format – there’s a story behind it to keep you engaged. One of my modules is themed around you being a detective and using coding skills to solve puzzles,” says Amanda Maria Bizzinotto Ferreira, who started the programme X months ago.

“I can’t lie, it does take more effort to study around work and you have to be self-disciplined and plan your time well. But I’m already learning stuff that applies directly to my job – I can use it almost immediately. In the future I’m hoping to be a freelancer and work remotely, so this flexible approach to studying suits me well and is good preparation.”

Ferreira runs a digital marketing and web development agency. She initially studied a degree in mechanical engineering before a career change led her to a role in product testing and technical support. While she learned on the job, she wanted to gain a formal qualification would help fill the gaps in her skill set.

“I didn’t want to rely solely on what I’ve learned on my own. When you’re self-taught you often have to improvise and work around problems, but with a degree you know you’re learning best practice and getting really good quality instruction.”

Studying web and mobile development will really help my business. Bringing those skills in-house will help us expand the scope of the agency.

After spending a year abroad in the United Kingdom during her first degree, Ferreira was interested in studying at a British university.

“In Brazil it can take five years to complete a degree and I wanted to complete it quicker than that. I really enjoyed my year abroad in Britain but this programme is the best of both worlds – I didn’t have to pay to move to London but I still get a University of London qualification.”

She’s already been able to apply her coursework on the job. “Studying web and mobile development will really help my business. At the moment, if a client needs to have an app built – or even if I need something developed for the agency – I have to hire a developer. Bringing those skills in-house will help us expand the scope of the agency.”

Ricardo Diaz is a self-taught machine learning engineer. When he was offered sponsorship to work in Peru he had to quit his degree in his native Venezuela. Two years later he was determined to finish his formal education and having already completed other courses through online learning platform, Coursera, the University of London degree appealed to him.

The flexibility of online study is great. I like to jump right in and access as much content as possible so it’s good to be able to go at my own pace,” says Diaz

“I’ve always had a love for tech, ever since I was a child. To be self-taught you really have to have a passion for it. But I wanted to complete my qualification and when I heard about the University of London programme on Coursera it sounded interesting,” says Diaz. “The Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence specialism is particularly suited to my career path and it’s rare that you have the chance to study such advance concepts at an undergraduate level.”

He aims to use his love of tech to make a difference in the world and hopes that gaining a strong foundation of knowledge and skills will propel his career. “Being self-taught can only take you so far. Having a formal qualification opens doors. I’m working full time as a machine learning engineer and have also recently been given a contract to write a book about machine learning so I don’t have a lot of free time. The flexibility of online study is great because I can work through four or five weeks’ work in a couple of days. I like to jump right in and access as much content as possible so it’s good to be able to go at my own pace.” Find out how a BSc in Computer Science from the University of London could fit in with your career.

 

Trending Tech Skills

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Trending Tech Skills

New technologies are changing the way the world works. As a result, governments and organizations are looking for talent with skills that will prepare them for the future. According to our analysis of global skills, demand for technology skills has increased 13% across the globe in the last year. Other important skills like Kubernetes, robotic process automation, and computer-aided manufacturing top Upwork’s list of the 20 fastest growing skills of 2019 so far. 

Want to jumpstart your career as a Google Cloud Engineer? Curious what self driving cars are all about? Check out this round of up the top new technology courses and Specializations that have launched this year and start learning today:

1. AI for Everyone by deeplearning.ai

Having a baseline understanding of the capabilities of AI and machine learning is important for any role in tech. In this introductory course, you’ll learn AI terminology, what AI can (and cannot) do, how to spot opportunities to apply AI to problems in your own organization, what it feels like to build machine learning and data science projects, how to work with an AI team and build an AI strategy in your company, and more.

2. Architecting with Google Kubernetes Engine Specialization by Google Cloud

The Architecting with Google Kubernetes Engine Specialization will teach you how to implement solutions using Google Kubernetes Engine including building, scheduling, load balancing, and monitoring workloads, as well as providing for discovery of services, managing role-based access control and security, and providing persistent storage to these applications.

3. AWS Fundamentals: Building Serverless Applications by Amazon Web Services

Using real-world examples of a serverless website and chat bot, you’ll build upon your existing knowledge of the AWS cloud to take advantage of the benefits of modern architectures for greater agility, innovation, and lower total cost of ownership across a range of AWS services, including AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Lex.

4. Computer Vision Specialization by The State University of New York 

This Specialization provides a foundation in the rapidly expanding research field of computer vision, laying the groundwork necessary for designing sophisticated vision applications. Explore the integral elements that enable vision applications, ranging from editing images to reading traffic signs in self-driving cars to factory robots navigating around human co-workers. Content includes image processing and state-of-the-art vision techniques, augmented by insights from top leaders in the computer vision field. You’ll gain hands-on experience writing computer vision programs through online labs using MATLAB and supporting toolboxes. Learn more in this instructor Q&A.

5. Tensorflow in Practice Specializationby deeplearning.ai

In this four-course Specialization, you’ll explore exciting opportunities for AI applications. Begin by developing an understanding of how to build and train neural networks. Improve a network’s performance using convolutions as you train it to identify real-world images. You’ll teach machines to understand, analyze, and respond to human speech with natural language processing systems. Learn to process text, represent sentences as vectors, and input data to a neural network. You’ll even train an AI to create original poetry!

6. Preparing for the Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer Exam by Google Cloud

This one-week on-demand course helps prospective candidates structure their preparation for the Associate Cloud Engineer exam. The session will cover the structure and format of the examination, as well as its relationship to other Google Cloud certifications. Through lectures, demos and hands-on labs, candidates will familiarize themselves with the domains covered by the examination.

7. Self-Driving Cars Specialization by University of Toronto

This advanced Specialization gives you a comprehensive understanding of state-of-the-art engineering practices used in the self-driving car industry. You’ll get to interact with real data sets from an autonomous vehicle―all through hands-on projects using the open source simulator CARLA.

 

European MOOC Platforms Plan New Generation of Microcredentials

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European MOOC Platforms Plan New Generation of Microcredentials

European MOOC Consortium

Europe’s main MOOC providers have partnered to create new microcredentials that will allow learners to earn academic credit while gaining in-demand skills.

The initiative, called Common Microcredentials Framework, is spearheaded by the European MOOC Consortium, which comprises Europe’s largest MOOC providers:

  • FutureLearn, which is based in the UK and has 9 million learners.
  • Miriada X, which is based in Spain and has 4 million learners.
  • FUN, which is based in France and has 1.6 million learners.
  • EduOpen, which is based in Italy and has 54 thousand learners.

The consortium’s objectives include stimulating the creation of online courses, popularizing their use in academia and industry, and guiding the development of education policy in Europe.

The proponents of the framework argue that as technology evolves, in-demand skills change and continuous learning becomes a necessity; that traditional education isn’t flexible and can’t keep up with technology; and that existing microcredentials, with their different names and characteristics, can confuse learners and employers.

By contrast, microcredentials developed under the new framework aim to be widely recognized; flexible and practical; and ideal to meet the demand for lifelong learning.

To achieve those goals, the European MOOC Consortium has outlined a number of specifications that a microcredential should satisfy to be considered part of the new framework:

  • Credit-bearing: The microcredential should allow learners to earn academic credit after completing an ID-verified final assessment.
  • Recognized: The microcredential should be classified at the bachelor’s or master’s degree level in the European Qualifications Framework, which helps European universities understand academic qualifications offered in other European countries.
  • Transparent: The microcredential provider should issue transcripts to its graduates specifying the skills gained, effort required, and academic credit earned.
  • Substantial: The microcredential should involve 100 to 150 hours of study.
  • Practical: If the microcredential is targeted toward professionals, it should help them gain industry-relevant skills and be flexible enough to fit into a busy schedule.

By tying microcredentials to academic credit, the new framework aims to ensure the quality and rigor of its qualifications. By positioning them in the European Qualifications Framework, it aims to facilitate their recognition and portability across Europe. And by requiring them to be skill-centric and flexible, it aims to address the workforce need for upskilling and reskilling.

The first microcredentials within this new framework are expected to launch before the end of 2019.

Free July Wallpaper

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Free July Wallpaper

Our July wallpaper features the Antrokas font and the Auguste Dessert – Watercolor Floral Set.

Included in the free download is one desktop option with a calendar and phone & tablet options without a calendar.

Enjoy!

FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY.




Free – Checkout Checkout




Added to cart




 

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