A century ago, on March 21, 1924, a dinner party in New York with intellectual and artistic luminaries such as Alain Locke, W.E.B. Du Bois, Jessie Fauset and James Weldon Johnson set in motion one of the most influential cultural movements of the 20th century.
What was that movement?
Have you ever lost touch with a good friend? If so, how did it happen? Did you move to a new neighborhood, change schools, find a new social circle — or did the two of you just drift apart?
In “The Friends Who Got Away,” Frank Bruni laments the puzzling loss of friendships in his life:
Where did J. go? For a while there, he was such a treasured part of my life, someone I thought about frequently, someone I yearned to see, someone whose dinner company I relished, someone whose emails made me smile. I can’t remember how we met — a mutual acquaintance, I think — but after we did, I never traveled to his city without contacting him in advance and making plans to see him. And he regularly checked in on me.
Until he stopped. Was that five years ago? More? And did he stop, or did I? I’m not sure. I just know that I was busy, he was busy, my travel decreased and one day I suddenly realized that we’d lost touch with each other. I also felt strangely timid about reaching out: If he wanted to hear from me, wouldn’t I have heard more recently from him? Or was he thinking the exact same thing?
I wondered and wondered. Then some pressing obligation or competing anxiety tugged my attention elsewhere. Then more time went by. And here J. and I are — or, rather, aren’t. We’re onetime confidants who never had a falling out, never said a proper goodbye, simply evaporated from each other’s lives like dew from a blade of grass.
I’m haunted by how many times, and with how many friends, that has happened. By how the bustle of our lives and the bustle in our heads take people away from us, though we never intended to let them go. By how unintentional, unavoidable and subtly but stubbornly sad that is.
There are friends in our pasts who are there for obvious reasons. We disappointed or hurt them. They disappointed or hurt us. The relationship wasn’t healthy or ceased to be happy, and while that was unfortunate and perhaps painful, it was also clear. It demanded a change. Those friends don’t exit our thoughts, but they also don’t hover there like question marks. We understand what happened, even if we mourn it.
But there are at least as many friends in our pasts for no specific reason, and the older I grow, the more that nags at me.
“The simple act of baking can conjure unexpected delight,” writes the Times Food columnist Genevieve Ko, who has been baking since she was eight. She writes:
When you’re preparing a meal and starting with salmon and potatoes, you end up with cooked salmon and potatoes. But when you’re baking, you start with a slew of powders, golden butter and an egg, and you end up with crackly-edged, chewy blondies.
Do you bake? Why do you enjoy it, if so? What do you like to bake most? What recipes are on your list to try?
Have you ever had a baking disaster? If so, did you manage to save your creation in the end?
Tell us in the comments, then read the related article to learn five beginner recipes.
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
The word inexorably has appeared in 49 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Aug. 8 in “Repeat After Her: There Is No Dance Without Dance Education” by Brian Seibert:
In dance education circles, her first name is enough. Everyone knows Jody. They call her the doyenne of dance, the godmother. They speak of her as the No. 1 cheerleader, the most tireless and tenacious champion, the general.
… “She’s a force of nature,” said David C. Banks, the New York City schools chancellor. He has been at the job for 20 months — months filled with calls, emails and texts from Arnhold, with meetings and joint visits to schools. “We all know the arts are a good thing,” he said. “She is the voice in your ear that will not let you forget how important they are.” (He also called her “a sweetheart.”)
Even in interviews, Arnhold educates, buttonholes, lobbies for her cause — graciously but inexorably. She repeats her sayings, like “There is no dance without dance education.” She means, in part, that the next great dancers and choreographers might now be in a kindergarten class in Brooklyn, in need of exposure. She also means that the future dance audience is there.
Can you correctly use the word inexorably in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
If you want a better idea of how inexorably can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com. You can also visit this guide to learn how to use IPA symbols to show how different words are pronounced.
If you enjoy this daily challenge, try our vocabulary quizzes.
Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.
The Word of the Day is provided by Vocabulary.com. Learn more and see usage examples across a range of subjects in the Vocabulary.com Dictionary. See every Word of the Day in this column.
There are two types of learning systems. I’m not talking about an LMS, LXP, combo, TDP, or EXP (drop the name on that), learning platform, or “We are not an LMS, and anyway, they are a dying breed” (I’ve written that is far from true). What I am referring to, is commercial or in-house. In-house is really popular, among many companies, academia (Moodle was originally designed for academia, and is heavily used there, still), organizations, associations, even 3rd party content publishers.
Commercial is fee-based. It is built by a vendor – you pay to “buy the system” which really means you are leasing it. You purchase seats (some vendors refer to it as licenses). You may have to buy for multi-tenant, or e-commerce functionality, or additional add-ons, if the vendor offers it. You can scale, but it is not free, and therefore it turns off some folks – the whole scaling part, and actually the whole we have to pay fees for this and that.
For me, though it is a series of misnomers to go the free route. In-house (a term I will use when talking to folks who do this – and yes, I’ve had clients that home build – the same term as in-house), ignores several premises, even today (many the same as years ago).
If you decide to build 100% in-house, congrats – but the UX side is not going to match as a whole, commercial systems because of one simple fact. The majority of vendors in the industry, their R&D goes to the system. They push capital into the platform. It is their cash cow.
Now have I seen some commercial systems whose UI/UX is seriously brutal and just ugh outdated, but still has big-name clients, who do not seem to care about that? Absolutely. Still, to me, I ask myself, if they – the person who green lighted this purchase of said system, would they use the system and rave about its UI/UX to everyone? They seem to forget the latter.
Then you have that whole skills development piece tied to your recommendation which outputs content/courses based on what skills and job roles you select. If you want to achieve better results you will go with machine learning, which is an algorithm. Your results are never 100% perfect, due to what you weighted or how you trained your machine learning. So, you need to find someone who knows how to do this in-house. On the commercial side, yes, I see a lot of machine learning algorithms whose results are flawed due to the training of it. The sad part is that the buyer has no idea.
On the in-house, it is brutal, which is why it isn’t a popular feature to add. That person has to exist again at your business – because once you outsource that, Tada – fees. And the whole premise of in-house is zero fees (ignoring that resources – the humans are actually earning a wage). Okay, you say to yourself, look it may cost us some stuff to build our in-house, but the costs outlay will be far lower than us going commercial. Which is not an uncommon argument I hear on the whole in-house vs commercial route.
Therefore, let’s make the assumption that your in-house system will have costs to it, but you own it 100% (commercial you don’t), you can scale it without paying additional costs/fees, you can add functionality for free – assuming you are using say Moodle or another 100% open source freebie whose community is active (a big need) or you are building using err, having someone whose tech skill sets are building it, and therefore at the lowest rung, can add some things, by building it.
The functionality though compared to a commercial system (as a whole in the industry, because it is by no means always the case, plenty of commercial systems, lack basic feature sets), will not match. It will be lower. Because the investment on the folks building in-house will never match the commercial vendor (again as a whole). Let’s say the in-house investment is 25K. The commercial vendor (and I’m not talking about Cornerstone or similar) can go easily over 100K.
Notwithstanding though, an often used (not publicly mentioned), route is to have a dev team from Eastern Europe add those items, capabilities. If your company is based in India, then the dev team is always from India. Are there vendors in the states that have dev teams in other places, beyond Eastern Europe? Yes. Based specifically in the country where the vendor is based? 100% – this is quite common – in fact the majority. However, for those that go the other route, the investment to build is lower.
But the outcome of what can be developed functionality wise commercial side, is going to be stronger. And yes, the vendor will continuously invest, whether they go outsource dev team (who works for the vendor) or does in internally – most make continuous updates and can add much quicker than something that is built in-house.
Support, whether it is customer, or tech support, or a combo of both, on the commercial side, should be better than in-house. First off, let’s look at the in-house options (and for those who have gone this way…)
In-house Support – A support desk
These items above, are just the basics. Are there commercial systems whose support is below average or downright awful? You bet. But I believe there are far more whose support is above average and higher, than compared to an in-house system.
Oh, and there is a cost to customer support/tech support. There is always a cost, and thus if you are going in-house, you will need to calculate that. Don’t cheap out and just use a bot, because folks get angry quickly, and those bots that are customer support bots or someone goes Zendesk, frustrate. Lastly, just dropping somehow to videos and a FAQ (nobody reads this), nor often the “HELP” thing, and those videos, well, I’ve seen plenty that tells me the person who created it, has zero background in training – a crucial piece BTW. Actually, Zendesk isn’t free, so that in-house system will increase its cost.
Scale Up
Okay, before bouncing into scaling, I should ask, where is that in-house system being housed? I assume it is SaaS, and not a bunch of servers at your location, which causes another big NONONO.
Do you house on AWS? (There are fees for that). Google Cloud? Microsoft Azure? Some other servers farm. The first three offer additional capabilities, thus if you use them, there is a cost addition.
The majority of vendors in the industry use AWS. Azure is a solid second.
Scaling up – an often reason to go in-house, ignores a few points. Yes, you can scale up without any fees to you, but let’s assume that you are selling content to another business entity. And this entity, wants to add more users than what they purchased (because that isn’t free to them), and so you do. Generating a nice pocket of cash in the process. Some folks – 3rd party publishers who go this way, actually have a team in-house or a person who handles this, before the buyer uses the system. The publisher, even if it is a five-person team, who is behind this, angles the whole scale up pitch, forgetting that the buyer is the one who is outlaying the fees to do so. Think about that.
In-house vendor cost for scaling up? Zero. The buyer? Not zero. Okay, I know you are going to say what about if we build our own in-house system which is going to be used 100% by our employees or members? The scaling up fees to us, are nothing. Compared to a commercial vendor.
Okay, but let’s refer back to the whole UX aspect. Your employees are using a junker, or something of not strong quality, and you – the L&D team or IT team or let’s be real, the company sees no issue with that.
What does it say as a company and its commitment they pitch for their employees when it comes to personal and professional development (a common theme) or we are providing content/courses to help with their skills and job roles – I’m focused more here on the system itself.
A forward-thinking company has a built in-house system that looks like they forgot their own angle. An old school company who still says they value their employees, but outputs something that my web site built in 1994 looks better (granted, it was really cool).
If I am a customer of the company, and getting access to use the system for free, what does that say to them? Hey, look at our clunker – but we are a forward-thinking company! Save your time – and show them how to find Alta Vista using the Wayback Machine on the Internet.
It never looks good. And it I believe ignores the premise of learning to your employees – because yeah it is free, yeah, we care about you, yeah, we give you courses/content (that we built ourselves), but you get to use a junker, or a fair UI, and so-so UX. Nice.
Yes, there are companies who buy junkers that are commercial, because it is either cheap or they don’t care. I should note there are some very inexpensive systems whose UI/UX will wow you, including one vendor who is in my Top 10 for 2023.
I’d argue though (and yes, I am doing it right now) the clunkers are more on the in-house then commercial.
The Moodle Community
As earlier noted, it is by far the most popular choice when it comes to 100% open source – free. However, their business-focused version Moodle Workplace isn’t free. On top of that, accessing the code is a no-go.
The new 4.3 LMS version of Moodle has a front-end pleasant look, but please when they are mentioning educators in their pitch, is their focus on business or corporate or someone who sells content?
What is fee-based on free Moodle
Ahh, you say, we can do all if it ourselves. A savings.
Next up you need some added functionality, to stay current. And let’s for sake of fun assume you are using 4.3 (again, my gut says a lot of folks aren’t).
But where you aware
The plugin list – you will find this under the community angle. For those wondering.
That a lot of experts are now saying that the ability to actually identify what is plagiarized and what isn’t using AI, is getting a lot tougher, and the AI improves. Vendors who sell it of course will disagree. Anyway, who on the corporate side is using a plagiarism solution?
Looking for AI offerings in Moodle – well, I found one, it is a chatbot that has AI capabilities – which the chatbot is geared more towards a web site IMO, then within a system – oh, and those capabilities are fee-based.
In my own in-depth research to find Moodle plugins offering Generative AI, I ended up using AI to handle my searching. Because within the plugins page on Moodle, there were uh, one.
I used Copilot and found five – okay seven, but two were with plagiarism tools. The others? All five are fee-based. A fun fact about using Gen AI, is that you may receive different answers for the same question, even on different Gen AI sites. Thus, in my thirst to find Gen AI tools to work with Moodle, I went over to my good friend – Gemini (formally Bard). Hey Gemini – I found three. All fee-based, all from OpenAI.
No matter, I am going to zing over to GPT4 to tell me. I found four, the same four, that were in the Copilot version. The same ones which were in Gemini. But I can’t believe that is it. I am going over to a site, that gives you access to Claude 3 Opus, ChatGPT-4, Gemini Pro, Zephyr and many more. Well, oh grand ultimate AI site, any AI plugins for Moodle? Four.
Why the inquiries you might ask?
Because with Commercial systems that have already jumped into AI, not one of the plugins you can get today for Moodle, can create courses/content – unless you purchase GPT-4, and then just type in a bunch of text to create a text-based course. Seeking to tie Skills to job roles? There are commercial systems working on it today. Moodle? Not a chance. Seek to go beyond just a Gen AI text-based option? You won’t find it with Moodle.
Way too many folks that go built-in, if they go and search – want the pie in the sky, even though their own system doesn’t even make a half a pie. They get sticker shock when they identify systems they want, with all the cool features they need, and then when they see the shock, go back to their system, because hey it’s free on our end.
What this tells me is that they didn’t do their due diligence. If you can’t afford system A, you might be surprised that there are plenty of systems that have the slick UI/UX, and strong features that won’t break the bank.
If you need a content creator within the learning system – commercial – remember they will never match an off the shelf high-end tool. The reason is simple. The learning system vendor is not in the authoring tool space. They add it in, because there is a demand. If really want something that someone intermediate can do, there is one vendor who offers it, with AI – that is not just for beginners. But to assume that the content creator tool that comes with the system is going to match Articulate or dominKnow or even Captivate (which has changed it dramatically) is far fetch.
Bottom Line
If you dig around, you will find a commercial system that will meet your needs. It won’t bust the bank, and frankly if you include that AI piece into your search, find ones that either have it now, or are building it by the end of the year (better for you).
But don’t buy into the idea that a built-in system is far better than a commercial system. Yes, you can buy a clunker system, there are plenty, and yes, you can buy a system that doesn’t have the features you have, there are plenty, but you can buy one that is inexpensive, will scale, offer you top support, strong functionality, rapid development and all the wonderful stuff you need (depending on what you need).
And if you need an integration with ABC, a commercial system can do it. Need to have stronger tracking of data for selling your content? There are learning systems – commercial that can do that, without breaking the bank.
The choice is yours.
Realize though that the arguments made today, on why to go built-in, are no longer in play. A different time, perhaps.
Now,
Not a chance.
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Note: Images are created using Generative AI
Is anyone you know especially interested in skin care? Do they seem to know, or want to know, everything about various products, skin types and beauty treatments? Are you someone who fits into this category?
The New York Times recently reported that beauty stores like Sephora and Ulta are seeing a surge in new customers: tweens and teens on the hunt for acne and anti-aging skin care products that are meant for adults.
Why do you think skin care is so popular with young people right now? What do you think about this trend?
In the guest essay “Toxic Beauty Standards Can Be Passed Down,” Alexandra D’Amour writes that the enthusiasm teenagers — and their mothers — have for skin care veers into unhealthy territory:
Wrinkles are the new enemy, and it seems Gen Z — and their younger sisters — are terrified of them. A recent video on TikTok that has garnered more than eight million views features a 28-year-old woman showing her “raw,” procedure-free face, meaning no Botox or fillers. As some women and girls cheered on her bravery, others were left horrified. “Praying I’ll never look like that,” one comment read.
Gen Z-ers are being introduced to the idea of starting treatments early as preventive treatment. They are growing up in a culture of social media that promotes the endless pursuit of maintaining youth — and at home, some of them are watching their mothers reject aging with every injectable and serum they can find. Jessica DeFino, a beauty writer, recently coined the term Serum Mom to describe a mother who is “obsessed with meeting a certain standard of beauty and nurtures the same obsession in her children.”
For me, lessons of preventive skin care came from social media, not my mother. I was a few years shy of 30, digging into Instagram and series like Emily Weiss’s Into the Gloss’s Top Shelf. My skin care regimen suddenly became a 10-part routine, each step promising beauty and extended youth.
Since then, the rise of TikTok seems to have increased the way anti-aging beauty standards are consumed and internalized. Many girls and women now have endless access to social media posts of skin-care purchase hauls and plastic surgery before-and-after slide shows.
There’s a nickname for tweens and teenagers who have been influenced by social media to get into skin care: Sephora Kids. Johanna Almstead, a fashion industry friend, tells me that in her local mothers group chat, nearly every mom had “Skincare, skincare, skincare!” on the holiday gift lists they were given — by their fifth graders. Her 10-year-old daughter doesn’t have access to social media, but she is exposed to this skin care obsession through friends, who are copying TikTok beauty influencers and whose parents are buying the products for them — acids, peels and toners — even though many of these products are meant for actually aging or acne-prone skin.
Representatives for the pricey brand Drunk Elephant (a tween favorite) posted on Instagram in December a list of products safe for kids and tweens. Buying a 10-year-old a colorfully packaged lip gloss or adult moisturizer may seem trivial, but it seems to me it can create a pipeline to a 15-year-old discussing forehead wrinkles on TikTok. We need to be wary of how the cosmetics industry can manipulate both mothers and kids and how, by backing it, we as mothers create a new set of worries for our children.
Students, read the entire essay and then tell us:
What do you think about what you just read? Did anything surprise you? Does the essay feel accurate to you in terms of the interest people your age and younger have in skin care regimens and products?
Ms. D’Amour writes that purchasing a young person skin care products meant for adults can “create a pipeline to a 15-year-old discussing forehead wrinkles on TikTok.” Do you think this theoretical “pipeline” is concerning? Is it concerning that some teens and tweens worry about wrinkles?
Ms. D’Amour writes:
Mothers are both victims and perpetrators of a culture that sells women the lie that we aren’t enough exactly as we are. And yet, if a mother’s insecurity can fuel her daughter’s own self-loathing, a mother’s radical self-love might just protect and even heal her daughter from a toxic culture.
What do these ideas mean to you? Have any adults talked to you about taking care of your skin or dealing with insecurities about your physical appearance? What sorts of messages do you get from your parents or other adults in your life about body image? Do you think they struggle with their own feelings about “being enough”? Or are they at peace when it comes to their looks? Do you think social media also affects how they see themselves?
Have you heard of “looksmaxxers,” an online community of young men devoted to making the most of their looks? Do boys also deal with pressures and insecurities about their looks because of what they see online and hear from other people?
Do you have any role models or people whom you admire for their approach to their appearance? Why do you look up to them? What have you learned from them?
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.
1. After looking closely at the image above (or at the full-size image), think about these three questions:
2. Next, join the conversation by clicking on the comment button and posting in the box that opens on the right. (Students 13 and older are invited to comment, although teachers of younger students are welcome to post what their students have to say.)
3. After you have posted, try reading back to see what others have said, then respond to someone else by posting another comment. Use the “Reply” button or the @ symbol to address that student directly.
Each Monday, our collaborator, Visual Thinking Strategies, will facilitate a discussion from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern time by paraphrasing comments and linking to responses to help students’ understanding go deeper. You might use their responses as models for your own.
4. On Thursday afternoons, we will reveal at the bottom of this post more information about the photo. How does reading the caption and learning its back story help you see the image differently?
We’ll post more information here on Thursday afternoon. Stay tuned!
More?
• See all images in this series or slide shows of 40 of our favorite images — or 40 more.
• Learn more about this feature in this video, and discover how and why other teachers are using it in their classrooms in our on-demand webinar.
• Find out how teachers can be trained in the Visual Thinking Strategies facilitation method.
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
Learning to code so that you can land a job in tech can feel daunting. That’s why we’re sharing inspiring stories from Codecademy’s community — to show how people like you (yes, you!) can embark on a learning journey and end up with a totally new career. We hope these stories serve as a reminder that there’s no single path to a more fulfilling work life.
Today’s story is from Shabana Khatau, a 46-year-old Systems and Application Advisor at Network Rail, living in London. Read more stories from Codecademy learners here. Want to be featured in a video about your coding journey? Be sure to share your story here.
“Growing up, I watched my brother getting into tech and it was so fascinating seeing what he was doing. It just kind of sparked something inside me. I always wanted to have a career in tech, but unfortunately, life happened. I kind of squashed the ambition that I had to get into tech and focused all my energy on supporting my family and bringing up my four children.
I did a fitness instructor course and a personal training course. I was teaching young children exercise, and then I went into coaching girls’ football. I noticed that with social media, you see a lot more stories coming out [about people who switch careers]. That’s when I realized that even though I was older and had kids doesn’t mean that my life has stopped.
I had been away from tech for over 15 years, and I felt like I didn’t know where to start. So much had changed, and I was completely clueless about what to do or where to go. There was an agency that was offering a package to get into coding where part of the curriculum included courses from Codecademy.
Codecademy courses are structured so that you don’t need to have multiple screens. You can have one screen where you’ve got everything: the lesson, the place to do your coding, and links to get additional information — so it’s all in there, and you can do it in your own pace.”
“I have four boys so they’re definitely keeping me busy. When the fourth one was away from the baby stage, I had more time to think about where I can go with my life. I thought, Maybe it’s not too late for me. Even though I have kids and I’m older, I still could get into tech. I started reading books and listening to podcasts that talk about how you can change your life. I would say it took me about six months before I felt like, I’m getting somewhere. I have built up enough knowledge to start doing my own projects.”
“I had lost my confidence about going back into the corporate world to work. After roughly a year I felt like I could go back into a corporate environment and understand what people are talking about. Even though I might not be on a senior level, I still have the knowledge and I can communicate about any topics that they throw at me.”
I was waiting for something that could give me that happiness and confidence — and coding has given me that.
Shabana Khatau
Systems and Application Advisor at Network Rail
“I was applying to jobs here and there, and then this company Network Rail liked what they saw on my application, and they asked me to come for an interview. They wanted someone who had knowledge about coding. Codecademy was a bridge for me to get into tech and give me the qualifications that I needed to secure a job.”
“In my interview, I told them I want to become a Software Developer. They said that this could be a starting point because you need to understand the infrastructure of the Network Rail company before you can go into developing software.
I couldn’t believe it when I got the job offer. I never thought that it could happen. I had landed a job in tech, and I could actually pursue my career. My family was so happy, and my kids were like, ‘We’re really proud of you!’ They’d seen me studying day in and day out, coding and learning the tech world. So, for them, it was an inspiration to see that I had achieved something. I think what I’ve shown them is that you should have dreams and it’s possible to follow your dreams. If you work hard enough, you can be successful.”
“I wasted quite a bit of time before learning about Codecademy. Anyone who would come up to me, I would direct them straight to Codecademy; don’t waste any time on anyone else, just start there and then see how you feel. Everything is there, so if you want to go the database route, then there are database courses as well. It’s all there — you don’t have to install Visual Studio Code before you start learning, you can just use their platform to learn, which is a great bonus.
I feel like this is what I’ve been waiting for all my life. I was waiting for something that could give me that happiness and confidence — and coding has given me that.”
Conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Are you thinking of taking up a musical instrument? Can you already play some tunes but want to improve? Do you struggle to find the time or budget to commit to paid lessons? You can now perfect your playing skills with free online Irish Traditional Music courses in the most popular instruments. Discover the joy of making music, whether you are in Boston, Belfast, Brisbane or beyond, with completely flexible online music lessons. The tutors are all top Irish musicians and include the wonderful Nell Ní Chróinín, lead vocalist with well-known group Danú, who will teach you how to sing in the distinctive Irish Sean-nós style. There are three courses in each instrument, progressing from beginner through to intermediate level, so there’s something for every learner. Advanced players can take the courses to add more Irish tunes to their repertoire.
There are certified courses in:
Bodhrán(Irish Drum) with Dermot Sheedy. The bodhrán (pronounced bow-ron) is a handheld drum which is hit with one or both ends of a short beater with movement through the wrist. You’ll be amazed at the sounds and rhythms Dermot Sheedy, drummer with Hermitage Green, can create.
Flute and Tin Whistle with Brian O’Loughlin. Popular across a wide range of genres, the tin whistle is the perfect instrument for beginners. Tin whistle and flute maestro Brian O’Loughlin teaches techniques that will help you play any style of music beautifully.
Concertina with Conor O’Loughlin. One of the best concertina players in Ireland, Conor is an accomplished teacher who will help you master the squeezebox whether you want to busk in the streets or perform the folk music of your own country.
Button Accordion with Conor Connolly. The accordion is another squeezebox instrument popular across many cultures. Learn from a true artist and former Ireland’s Young Musician of the Year.
Fiddle with Doireann Ní Ghlacáin. Practice makes perfect whether you are looking for violin lessons for beginners or fiddle techniques to enhance your playing. Doireann is a natural-born teacher and you can hear her in action in the guitar and bodhrán lessons.
Guitar with Michael McCague. Multi-instrumentalist songwriter Michael McCague uses the DAGDAD tuning for Irish folk guitar. Learn the most frequently used chords and achieve the rich sound associated with folk, country and bluegrass music.
It’s easy to register and enrol – you could be playing your first tune by tea time!
Doireann Ní Ghlacáin, a presenter on the Irish TV station TG4, organised the filming of the lessons on the west coast of Ireland. Doireann [pronounced Durrin] also teaches the Irish Fiddle courses. A fiddle player almost as soon as she could walk, Doireann has stellar Irish heritage credentials and is passionate about all aspects of the culture. Her maternal grandfather is the famous composer and arranger Seán Ó Riada who is acknowledged as a giant of the 1960s Irish music revival, while her paternal grandfather, Tom Glackin, was an accomplished fiddle player from Donegal. As she says, “Music is very much the family business.”
“I love the vision of Alison in regards to these free courses and the learning of music – that it is a joy of life, and everyone should have access to learn how to play musical instruments without respect to their financial circumstances.”
Although Doireann plays fiddle in the Donegal style, and retains a strong connection to that north-western county, she was brought up in Dublin where her father, Kevin Glackin, played a key role in the capital’s resurgent traditional music scene. Doireann’s mother, Sorcha Ní Riada is a journalist with the national TV station RTE. She came from Cúil Aodha [Coolea], a village in the Múscraí [Muskerry] Gaeltacht region of Co Cork, and so Doireann was brought up as a Gaeilgeoir, or native Irish speaker. “My mother nurtured a love of sean nós singing in us and we spent our childhoods between Dublin and Cúil Aodha, where I learned the songs from the area,” she told us.
Unsurprisingly, Doireann’s life has revolved around performing and teaching the fiddle and she tours regularly with concertina player Sarah Flynn. They recorded an album, The Housekeepers, in tribute to the great women of the Irish musical tradition, and have performed from China to the USA and all over Europe. She hasn’t neglected her own education, however, with a degree in Irish and History, a Masters in Irish Literature and at the time our courses were recorded, was working on a PhD in Irish and Ethno-Musicality, focusing on the songs of the Muskerry Gaeltacht.
A young busker plays the fiddle at a music festival in Co Clare, Ireland. Image by Brian Morrison © Tourism Ireland
Irish music is traditionally taught through a learn-by-doing approach and the theory is ‘caught’ not taught academically as in classical music. By enrolling with Alison you will be learning from some of the best as Doireann has selected all-Ireland champions to teach these free online music courses. “We knew we wanted the top musicians in their field and that’s what these courses provide that is unique. The teachers are all young musicians at the top of their game. I love to sit down and listen to their music. As fellow musicians we were able to work together and make sure the lessons were accessible to learners.”
All of the tutors for these Irish music classes are experienced teachers of their respective instruments. “That’s the lovely thing in Irish traditional music. You’ve been taught for years and then when you master your craft, you go and teach it to others. Whereas in other art forms it’s very much about you, in Irish traditional music you are aware of being a link in the chain. You learn it from somebody and you pass it on to the next generation. All the teachers are very aware that we’re just bearers of the tradition and we must pass it on to the next generation as best we can, while being as truthful to the tradition as we can.
“I love the vision of Alison in regards to these free courses and the learning of music – that it is a joy of life, and everyone should have access to learn how to play musical instruments without respect to their financial circumstances.” Even better, each course is accompanied by free notes to download and use for practice.
The courses are also available on Alison’s YouTube channel, however, you need to enrol on the website to download the free pdfs with all the course notes. Feedback from learners has been “mighty” as they say in Ireland:
As @HiddenEarth1916 shared under the Irish Singing Beginner 1, Lesson 1 video “I’ve been wanting to put my Irish to use and now have found something, thank you!”
“Wow, thank you so much for all the knowledge and I can’t wait to do more lessons!” @TriciawiththeTRUTH
DisAbili Solari comments on Nell’s singing: “Your voice touches some deep chord inside my heart and makes me cry.” @disabilisolari
@messenger3478 adds: “Thank you for sharing this! I love art and learning about my heritage!”
Start your journey into Ireland’s musical heritage by checking out the Traditional Irish Music Hub now! For more musical updates, follow us on Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok.
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“The Alison courses I had completed showed them my willingness to learn and they accepted my Alison certification.” John Taylor
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“I got a job thanks to one of my Alison certificates.” Oladapo Onasanya
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“Through Alison I received a job as a Procurement Officer.” James Maina
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