Over the past several weeks, schools have wrestled with how — and whether — to talk to their students about the Israel-Hamas war. The Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli bombardment of Gaza have killed thousands of civilians.
As difficult as it can be to discuss the war, and the decades of conflict that have preceded it, schools can be a place to help students navigate the “toxic discourse,” write Amaney Jamal and Keren Yarhi-Milo, two university deans, in a guest essay for the Opinion section of The New York Times.
Educators, they write, can “state hard truths and clarify critical issues,” challenge students’ preconceptions and encourage them to “think through their positions using data, evidence and logic.” Teachers can also invite learners “to reflect on how their own emotions shape, and occasionally distort, their analysis of the world around them.”
If you have addressed this conflict in your classroom, we would love to hear from you — whether you devoted one class period or many. What resources have you found useful? What challenges are you encountering? What questions or issues are your students raising? What advice do you have for others?
Please tell us via the form below. We hope to publish a roundup of your replies, but we understand that some of what you may want to express might be sensitive. Though we need your full name and details when you submit a response, you can tell us how you would prefer to be identified if we publish your ideas.
I can hardly believe that autumn is already in full swing! Need a little reminder? I’ve got just the thing: a stunning free November wallpaper that captures all the classic autumn hues. Think rich yellows, fiery oranges, deep reds, and cozy beiges. The design is bursting with colorful mushrooms and leaves, making you feel like you’re walking through a warm autumn forest.
Each wallpaper download from November 2023 includes the following:
Desktop wallpaper x3 (plain, with the calendar, and with a quote)
Phone wallpaper x3 (plain, with the calendar and with a quote)
Tablet wallpaper
Instagram ready quote
Quote for November 2023
I had originally planned to include a quote about the beauty of autumn, but considering how vibrant and lively the wallpaper is, I thought it is a good occasion to feature something more serious instead. This quote is your daily reminder to be more mindful and aware of our own thoughts and perceptions, and to strive for a deeper understanding of the world we live in. It highlights the importance of having an open and curious mind towards different perspectives and ideas, rather than being closed off and blinded by our own beliefs and biases.
The eyes are useless when the mind is blind
P.S the square image is also included as a larger file in the download package below! Feel free to post it on your Instagram.
You can get three different desktop options with the free download – one with a calendar, one without the calendar, and another with a quote. Additionally, there’s a wallpaper available for tablets and three phone options too. You’ll also find an Instagram-ready square that features the weekly quote.
FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY.
NOTE: This wallpaper is available as a free download through November 30, 2023 only. After that, a $5 download fee applies.
Looking for more?
Browse all wallpapers from this series.
How about a new design?
Since you just got a new wallpaper, consider updating your blog’s appearance with a fresh and modern look too! There are many different blog templates available that can make your page more enjoyable to read and navigate. Take some time to browse through them and see what catches your eye.
Blogger templates
WordPress Themes
Your voice matters!
If you have your favorite quotes and would like them to appear on the next free wallpaper, make sure to post them in the comments below or send us your ideas via email.
Recent graduates of Imperial are ready to lead public health.
One of the top institutions from the 2024 QS World University Rankings has graduated a new group of future leaders. These graduates from all around the world are transforming their careers and lives with The Global Master of Public Health (GMPH) from Imperial College London. By earning their degrees at their own pace through the flexible online learning of this program, these graduates can now open new doors with their world-class education. Perhaps you’ll even notice similarities between their stories and your own. Let’s take a look and see.
Elvira from Greece
Describing Imperial as her top choice and the “holy grail” for science enthusiasts, Elvira wholeheartedly embraced the GMPH program. She enjoyed every aspect of her journey, including the engaging courses, exceptional professors, supportive classmates, and patient staff members who answered her questions throughout the program. Elvira’s advice for anyone considering the GMPH is resolute. “Do it,” she urges. Elvira points out that the program is the perfect fit for those with even the slightest interest in public health. She also adds that being an Imperial graduate has been a significant asset in her job search.
David from Germany
David is a trained physician and public administration professional. He was drawn to the outstanding academic reputation of Imperial and the flexible online learning of the GMPH program. He says, “The international orientation of the program and the flexibility of online learning allowed me to gain additional research and public health skills while continuing to work full time.” David even successfully published a dissertation project in health services research, further advancing his career prospects.
Patrick from the Philippines
Patrick chose the GMPH degree for its exceptional faculty and flexible online learning as well. He proclaims, “The program enhanced my practical knowledge, enabling me to apply the coursework directly to my professional role at the World Health Organization (WHO) on global health policy for HIV.” After graduation, Patrick secured a prestigious epidemiology fellowship at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he now develops rapid models in HIV surveillance for marginalized key populations in the US.
These graduates demonstrate the transformative impact of pursuing your GMPH degree through Imperial. With this program, you have the flexibility to accommodate your personal schedule and the access to a global learning environment that we’ve heard about here. You also have many opportunities to learn from world-class faculty and real-world experiences during the program, as well as the ability to focus on the specialized areas within public health that are of the greatest interest to you.
No matter where you are learning from, obtaining your GMPH degree can help you achieve your unique career and life goals. Putting this highly coveted credential on your resume shows academic, government, non-government, and pharmaceutical employers that you’re among the most qualified candidates for their open positions related to public health. Explore this exciting program further, and someday soon you could be sharing your own success story as part of the latest graduating class.
New course follows DeepLearning.AI and Andrew’s successful AI for Everyone course
By Marni Baker Stein, Chief Content Officer, Coursera
Today, I am thrilled to announce Generative AI for Everyone from DeepLearning.AI, a new course taught by global AI leader Andrew Ng. The course is designed to help learners everywhere navigate the profound shift generative AI is bringing to the world.
McKinsey research shows that generative AI could enable automation of up to 70 percent of business activities across almost all occupations by 2030 and could add up to 4.4 trillion a year to the economy in productivity gains. This beginner-level course will help everyone, including those with a nontechnical background, gain a deeper understanding of how generative AI works and its impact on the workplace and everyday life. Professionals and business leaders will learn how to apply generative AI in their work and get ahead of the changes this technology will inevitably bring.
“Generative AI is helping many individuals work more efficiently, and also enabling businesses to deploy AI applications in days – which previously would have taken months to build. I’m excited about sharing generative AI best practices to enable many more people to take advantage of these revolutionary new capabilities.” – Andrew Ng, Founder, DeepLearning.AI
Throughout the course, learners will:
Gain expertise on how generative AI works, including what it can and can’t do.
Learn to use generative AI to help their day-to-day work and receive tips on effective prompt engineering.
Receive a framework for systematically analyzing an individual or a business’s workflow to identify promising generative AI automation and augmentation opportunities.
Understand generative AI’s impact on business and society, including its risks and responsible use.
Andrew co-founded Coursera in 2012 to help empower learners with the skills necessary to succeed in a world transformed by new technologies like AI. Today, Coursera has 136 million registered learners, and his 2019 blockbuster course AI for Everyone has more than 1 million enrollments to date.
As generative AI continues to take the world by storm, we are proud to expand our catalog of content in this domain from partners including Google Cloud, Scrimba, Vanderbilt University, and more with this new course from a renowned expert like Andrew and world-class partner like DeepLearning.AI.
Click here to enroll in Generative AI for Everyone today.
If you’re learning to code with the intention of switching careers or fields, it can be difficult to wrap your head around how long that will take and how much it’ll cost to learn the skills. (The answer for both is, it depends.)
The cool thing about all our courses and paths is that they’re self-paced, so you can ramp up or taper down how much time you’re spending each week learning how to code based on your goals. Many people start from zero, hit our career paths hard, and land coding jobs in less than a year. Other learners take years because they’re balancing learning to code with their already busy lives. And there are even folks who are learning to code because they want to stay at their companies and move up the ladder.
Everyone has different financial responsibilities and individual circumstances to consider, so there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. But there are some common concerns that typically come up for career switchers across the board: How much does it cost to learn to code? Do I need to quit my job to get serious about coding? Is it really possible to get a software job without a college degree? Ahead we’ll answer those questions and share strategies that helped learners just like you pull off a career change.
Learn something new for free
The cost of learning to code
Codecademy Pro is the plan we recommend if you want to develop skills to land a job, and it costs $359.99 a year. Keep in mind that most learners with Pro complete our paths in three to six months. Pro also comes with all the essentials needed to transform your career, like hands-on portfolio projects and access to hiring networks. Take a look at our plans to find the membership that meets your goals.
Traditional coding bootcamps, on the other hand, come with a sizeable financial and time commitment. In 2023, the typical coding bootcamp costs $10,825, according to recent reporting from Forbes. Some full-time, in-person bootcamps can cost as much as $21,000. To put that amount in perspective, compare that to the average cost of college tuition and fees per student per year in the U.S., which is $36,436. Another deciding factor? Bootcamp schedules. You’re typically expected to put your life on pause to attend long days of intensive training over several weeks. With our plans and courses, you get to determine the pace you learn at and the amount of time you devote to coding — whether you spend weeks or years working towards your goals is entirely up to you.
How Codecademy learners saved up to switch careers
Curious how other people made ends meet while they learned with Codecademy and prepared to switch careers? Here are a few strategies that worked for our learners.
Start with free courses
The best way to see if you like coding is to try it — and with our free courses, you can test the waters and learn something new without spending a cent. Byron Jenkins, a Senior Software Engineer at Capital One, started coding as a high schooler with our free courses in JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. Byron loved the courses so much he was inspired to pursue software engineering as a career.
With free courses like Learn JavaScript, Intro to ChatGPT, and Learn SQL you can try out a few different domains of programming and see what you like before choosing a career path to focus on. Or if you’re looking to learn the fundamentals of computer science like you would in a college program, you can take our Computer Science career path — it’s a beginner-friendly path that learners usually complete in 20 weeks.
Set aside a cushion
Many personal finance experts recommend that you have a several months’ worth of expenses saved if you’re planning to quit your job with no income lined up. Some say you should plan for six months, while others recommend having at least 12 months of liquid savings. Again, the exact number of months you should plan for depends how much downtime you plan to have between quitting your job and landing a new one.
Before Cristian Téran quit her job to pursue learning to code full time, she made sure she had enough money to cover about six months of expenses. She gave herself a year to find a job, and with careful planning, she was able to land a role as a Front-End Engineer in six months. “I wish that everyone could have the same opportunity as me, because I know not everyone can quit their jobs that easily to focus on studying,” she says.
Learn while you work
Whether you’re learning in the evenings after work or you have an unpredictable hourly job, there are ways you can start learning (and even job searching) while you’re already employed.
If you have a part-time gig, see how you can plan coding around your shifts. This strategy worked for Casper Tollefsen, a Web Developer who learned to code while he was a security guard. “If I had quiet shifts, where I could just sit and keep an eye on things, I’d bring a book and read up on game design and programming in general,” he says. (Of course, don’t let your learning get in the way of performing your current job. But if you have the flexibility, go for it.)
Another option is to set aside time before and after your shifts to dedicate to coding. Vic Ontiveros, a Software Designer living in Finland, dropped out of his college computer science program due to financial issues. He was able to find a part-time pizza delivery job to make ends meet and would “hop on and off Codecademy” in his free time, he says.
Consider freelancing
Start a side hustle offering your coding services, like building and designing websites for individuals or businesses. It might sound intimidating, but you probably have the skills you need to get a freelance web development business off the ground. (You can get started right away learning in-demand freelance coding skills and building websites with our Front-End Engineer career path.)
When De’Shaun Broadnax was in high school, he learned HTML/CSS and JavaScript with Codecademy so he could build websites. Then he started building websites for local businesses to earn some spending money. “I felt like it wasn’t super hard to make websites: I was putting some words on the screen and making them pretty colors for like $20,” he says. “As I did that, I started to learn more and grow more, and the passion kind of stuck with me. I got a little bit more serious in high school with coding.” Eventually, De’Shaun got hired as an Associate Software Engineer for a NASA contractor.
Ask about an education stipend
Learning a new skill like coding is a strategic way to work towards a promotion or new role at your current job. If your company offers an education stipend, consider asking your employer to cover the cost of Codecademy. We recommend our Plus plan for people who want to learn or advance a skill. Not sure how to broach the subject? You can use this script to ask your company to pay for professional development.
If you’re contemplating a career change, invest in your future and sign up for a Codecademy Pro membership. Pro comes with everything you need to make your career shift a reality, including hands-on portfolio projects, personalized job listings tailored to your skills, and the opportunity to tap into extensive hiring networks. In our opinion, having the tools to select a career path you’re passionate about and structure your learning around your life (not the other way around) is a priceless perk.
Since Lionel Messi, considered by many to be the greatest soccer player ever, signed with Inter Miami this July, he has made a big splash for his new team — on and off the field.
All of a sudden, after a single summer, the pink jersey is everywhere. It has become almost impossible to acquire, yet there it is, paradoxically, on the backs of thousands of fans thronging American stadiums, hanging from market stalls in Buenos Aires and Bangkok, a vivid flash on almost every field where children gather to play soccer in England.
Are you a big Messi fan? Would you want to wear his new jersey? Why or why not?
Do you have any favorite sports gear that you love to wear?
Tell us in the comments, then read the related article to learn more about the story behind Messi’s jersey.
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 stilted has appeared in 59 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on March 11 in “The Radical Act of Eating With Strangers” by Setareh Baig:
After an initial warm-up period, the Galentine’s Day brunch was in full swing. First came a flurry of compliments, shared among unfamiliar faces. (I love your purse! Cool coat. Great boots!) Then the host shared some warm welcomes and brief introductions. After that, Ms. Michaud — seated at the table with the guests, near the kitchen for easy serving — left everyone to fend for themselves and, within a few minutes, the stilted mood among strangers turned cozy and natural.
One psychological trait that experts identify as essential to pursuing and creating new connections is optimism. After all, what could be more fundamentally optimistic than attending a dinner with a table full of strangers, expecting to make a new friend?
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word stilted 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.
Then, read some of the other sentences students have submitted and use the “Recommend” button to vote for two original sentences that stand out to you.
If you want a better idea of how stilted can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com.
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.
What kind of kid where you back in the day? One who handed out candy or one who went with toilet paper in hand, a few eggs and a list of neighbors who should experience this type of joy? As an adult, are you someone who hands out candy? Wearing a costume? Or the person who hides in the back, refuses to answer the doorbell, and maybe turns off the light, hoping they will leave you alone? Perhaps you are an individual who buys candy, just sticks it out there in a large pot in your front yard and allows the masses to enjoy whatever they want. I can see each of you, in one of these areas – assuming you celebrate Halloween. There was a day where I would have my house decked out in 7-foot skeletons, scary noises, gravestones, and then hide in the back, allowing my partner, who I think she loved doing this, handing out candy. Come to think of it, she always wanted me to, but hey, the dogs come first!
It’s time for this year’s special Halloween edition, a treat that generates a lot of interest and excitement. I’ve pulled out the stops this year, by using Dall-E-3 (AI image generator using GPT Plus – formally known as GPT-4) to generate the images I created using the right lingo for the prompts.
Whenever you see a topic or category, which may or may not include a specific vendor, and it is deserving of a “TREAT” you will see this:
Aww, isn’t it cute? And Friendly!!
The Trick is this one:
Nobody will see this as friendly.
TREAT
Generative-AI latest pricing with vendors. It’s quite early as you know (and I want to state that, we are at tiny flea stage here, with AI capabilities in learning tech/systems), but in chatting with numerous vendors who have rolled it out, only one vendor so far, doesn’t’ charge extra for it. That vendor is D2L – both for their Business edition (which I love) and their EdTech version.
D2L lands a super TREAT. Their generative-AI (ChatGPT 3.5 turbo) is in the following and used as:
Content Creator – Beyond creating the content, you can create practice questions on a selected item of text OR on the content itself
Video Skills – Generate Learning Objectives from the learning content (Brilliant – a lot of vendors do not do this, especially with video skills, in fact, it is rare)
Video Skills – Using an AI coach, it can use the content for the submission to identify delivery, tone, suggestions and much more. (SWEET)
I love that there is no extra cost here, because as noted, a lot of vendors that are jumping into Gen-AI are using it create courses/content and/or assessments. Honestly, while it is fine, and a quick start, I want to see more, and you can do it today, well a vendor can – but they are missing it. It’s so obvious. Actually, one vendor I spoke with on my trip to Copenhagen – Eurekos – identified it immediately, and plan to do it, along with some others coming in 2024. They focus only on customer training.
TRICK
The number of learning systems pushing out all types of marketing spin around Generative-AI, often listing it as AI, and some say Co-pilot, which uh, isn’t fully accurate. If you are using your AI to create content, say as such, not something like AI zippy for incredible content.
The bigger trick here is the number of people who will just think this is the “wow,” without recognizing that it isn’t interactive, nor engaging. Sure it’s text. And for some vendors they have a WYSWYG window where you can add additional assets, but we are not talking full-blown engagement here.
That to me, as it exists now, is the minus that vendors are ignoring. Not that a built-in authoring tool, now referred to as a content creator tool, or content creation, was designed to deliver engagement and interactive content.
TRICK
Speaking of ignorance – are the number of vendors who are using Generative-AI in their systems and are forgetting this one little window next to the response – the window that asks if this information is correct or not, and if not, what is the correct information. Now you may ask, why is this important?
The AI trains itself on the data over and over again. That is how it learns. If the information presented it wrong, what do you think it will do? Figure that out on its own? Not a chance. That’s where that human element comes in.
When I use GPT-4 for the text and file angle it will present me with a “thumbs up, thumbs down, and a check board like thing. If I select thumbs down, it will ask me what was incorrect and I will write it in, and then submit it. If you are using other Gen-AI solution whereas text plays into it, or files, they will provide something for correction options.
It is that important. Let’s go into the real world here – and think of all those learners, regardless if there are employees, customers, members, whatever – and they are using prompts to do XYZ (which at some point, will happen on the learner side); and in the meantime, the admins are doing the content creation, the assessment piece, but are still using a context window (that is where folks enter their prompts). How many, of those folks do you think will actually check to see if the information is correct? How many will review it? Unless they know these things can produce fake and/or false information and that you must re-check it, minimal. A context window option to agree or disagree and provide the correct info – on the admin side is crucial. And if a vendor thinks that folks can figure this out on their own, I can tell you, I’ve met folks who are running L&D, that are unaware.
Even when I created my images, it asked me if it was exactly what I wanted, and if not, it would regenerate it. It was not – here you go, see ya.
TREAT
The nearly official listing of the Top 50 Learning System for 2023-24. I say nearly official because there are a few I will be looking out in November. However, there are plenty that are already in what will be the 50.
In no particular order, and I should add, that I did not provide a link under them. Rather if they are in the FindAnLMS platform, you can locate them there – under FAL and compare them, check out their details, and do so much more. Those that aren’t – you can find via the web. I did this because there have been cases, where the link I gets changed by the vendor, and thus, people can’t locate the system.
I want to stipulate that being in FAL was not a requirement for the Top 50, or even my Top 100 or Vendors to watch or Vendors with the Best Gen-AI (that is published in Dec) in their system. FindAnLMS though prides itself on getting the best vendors in the industry on one platform – to maintain 100% independence and allow you, to drive the experience. (okay, promo offer).
360 Learning (FAL)
Absorb LMS with Engage (FAL)
Acorn LMS (FAL)
Adobe Learning Manager
Archipel Academy (FAL)
Bealink (FAL)
Biz skills with Biz Academy (FAL)
BrainCert
Cornerstone LMS (FAL)
Cypher Learning (FAL) – Update to listing coming soon – just an fyi.
D2L for Business (FAL)
Degreed (FAL)
Docebo Learn with DCS (FAL)
eloomi (FAL)
enabley (FAL)
Eurekos (FAL)
Fuse (FAL)
IMC Learning Suite (FAL)
Juno Journey (FAL)
Kallidus (FAL)
Knowledge Anywhere (FAL)
KREDO (FAL)
Learn Amp (FAL)
Learn Upon (FAL)
Learning Cart (FAL)
Learning Pool (FAL)
LearnOps Platform (FAL)
Learnster (FAL)
Litmos (FAL)
LMS 365 (FAL)
MentorCliQ
NovoEd
Pluralsight (FAL)
Schoox (FAL)
Skilljar (FAL)
SmarterU (FAL)
Talent LMS (FAL)
Tenneo (FAL)
Thirst.io
Thought Industries (FAL)
Tovuti
Uqualio (FAL)
Valamis (FAL)
Of this list, the vendors that surprised me the most – as in they came out of nowhere are
Bealink
Archipel Academy
Thirst.io
If the Final Official Rankings, I will identify those vendors who are using Gen-AI, and what LLM they are using. Although here comes a trick
TRICK
Vendors who do not want to identify what LLM they are using. This first and foremost makes no sense. If you need to know specific information around that LLM they are using for their learning system, that goes far beyond what they expect you to ask, then they are going to provide it. If you are BIG huge company with 200,000 users, I bet they provide it – if they want the deal. An NDA is likely. However, I am getting really good at figuring out what LLM folks are using as a whole. You see enough of them; you start to see patterns.
There are few vendors who are using Google Cloud, and what I am seeing across the board is the hidden sauce secret here. Google first off, has a lot of LLMs. Secondly, the way Google Cloud works is to give you a variety of options, albeit the one you will want to go with is called Vertex, which is an LLM, of which you can bounce into the model garden and select from 100s of LLMs. Or stay with it. Personally, I would do the latter and pick one of those other LLMs. Anthropic you will see is coming, which is the same company, that Google just invested 2 billion dollars into – with 550 million upfront, on top of the 4 billion Anthropic received from Amazon. Clearly, eyeing Claude2 (and the pro version at that).
When a vendor says they are using Google Cloud for AI, congratulations! Now, tell me which LLM you are using, and if you are using Vertex, did you choose one of the models, and if yes, which one. I have yet to find a vendor who is using OpenAI to keep it a secret on whether or not they are using 3.5 Turbo or 4 or at some point, 5 or whatever they call it, when it rolls out.
If a vendor says Amazon (no one has yet), then is it Titan or Bedrock? If Bedrock, which one of the LLMs? And I suspect they will tell.
I do hope that these vendors who are using Google Cloud and those exploring it – do not try to play the trade secret game, when it comes to an LLM. Especially those vendors who announce it via a press release. And they do.
TREAT
More and more L&D and Training executives asking the right questions, the in-depth questions around the functionality and capabilities of the learning system they are considering AND what I hear more and more, to my delight, are those folks asking – not just right now, but looking down the road, as forward thinking, especially with Gen-AI.
I honestly believe there are quite a few vendors out there, who enjoy privately, the limited knowledge many folks present. They are not expecting people to go in, and know what to ask, what to seek around pricing, what to no longer be fooled by, or tricked into, or know what to seek in a demo, and lastly pointed detailed questions. Specific.
When you go the above route, watch out – because the system you will buy will answer all those things yo want, b) no more cookie-cutter sales pitch, and c) no more spin and spin.
TRICK
Way too many vendors continue to believe that L&D is the only department in town. I’ve seen this with vendors who focus only on customer training or associations. It’s bonkers. If you are pitching your system for customer training and employees, you might be talking to someone who is running training. Association folks tend not to have a background in L&D. What is the impact of just ignorance on these vendors who pull this approach? People walking by your booth, ignoring you for consideration because your messaging and marketing says something else. It happens a lot.
TREAT
Affordable systems with robust features/capabilities for all audiences. I love it! The days of trying to get an affordable system regardless of if you have 250 learners or 500 just seemed out of reach. Even today, where more vendors are focusing on 1,000 or 2,500 and above and trying to limit or decline under 1,000; the idea that there are not enough affordable top tier systems isn’t accurate. I am seeing those 1,000 and under, even 500 learner systems, include Gen-AI. Whereas vendors who target 25,000 or higher, lack it.
There are vendors where everything is included, no add-ons that are forward driving vs those where it is all about add-ons, with some items forward driven, others not so much. And when I refer to affordable systems that are in the wow angle, I’m talking globally. There are quite a few in the Top 50 list, including a few I am looking at to finalize it.
This is the best treat for everyone. Because you are no longer limited to buying a cheap lousy learning system – LMS, LXP, Learning Platform or whatever. Rather you can find that slick, modern UI/UX feature rich system as well.
TRICK
Somewhere out in the netherworld are a group of CLOs, senior L&D executives, hobgoblins, and folks who still believe, getting together and laughing about selling the idea around MOOCs being great.
They aren’t. Their completion rates have always been awful. They are nothing more than sticking a synchronous based learning method – tossing in that syllabus to boot, taught usually by someone from some impressive university or implied to be better than your university you went to (in most cases), and thus, by having all these components – you will learn and complete!! Especially since it is free.
Boring is boring. And MOOCs are boring. Their days of being the halcyon for what ails e-learning (something I never bought into – read here and here) especially for adult learners, never achieved its results, unless those results were lots of people leaving. Still, there are corporate folks out there, who still believe.
They can’t ignore it. They believe! They believe!
The problem is a lot of people don’t. Look if MOOCs make you happy and you see lots of them out there, and you complete them all – congrats! But find a good book that focuses on the same subject matter OR find an asynchronous based course that focuses on the same subject matter but allows you to focus on what you want to know, when you want to know it, without following the instructor’s lead AND that syllabus.
I had that experience in grad school and college, no need to relive it, thank you very much.
Bottom Line
Thanks for reading the latest installment of the Halloween Edition.
Until next year….
uh, for the Halloween edition.
You get to see me – uh, posting on Nov. 14th – as I am off on holiday! So, no blog post next week.
It’s not a matter of if, but when you’ll make a mistake at work. One of the best known examples of a very public mistake at work is HBO’s “Integration Test Email #1,” which was affectionately nicknamed the “dear intern” incident of 2021. People from all industries responded with their own anecdotes of work blunders with varying degrees of impact, and (spoiler alert) most were not catastrophic or career ending.
We mistakenly sent out an empty test email to a portion of our HBO Max mailing list this evening. We apologize for the inconvenience, and as the jokes pile in, yes, it was the intern. No, really. And we’re helping them through it. ❤️
Whether you’re an intern, a newbie developer, or a senior engineer, mistakes can actually be pivotal learning moments — it’s all about how you react to them, according to Jean du Plessis, Senior Engineering Manager at cloud platform Upbound (you may remember him from this blog about how to make yourself a promotable software engineer).
Jean still vividly recalls a mistake he made early in his career as a junior developer. “It was my first project in the first few weeks of the job, and I was excited to be building something already!” Jean says. After building a customer enquiry form for a tourism website, he inadvertently deleted all the records of the enquiry submissions — not realizing that he was the only person receiving them. He recovered, and has now been on both sides of minor and major incidents, as a manager and as an individual contributor.
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It sounds counterintuitive, but having past mistakes to point to can make you a stronger candidate when you’re applying for jobs. “I actually ask candidates to give an example of a mistake they’ve made when I’m interviewing,” Jean says. “I’m looking for signal that they took responsibility and learned from the experience.” It’s easier for hiring managers to judge whether you’re a good fit for their role if you can speak to challenging experiences and show how you overcome them. Here are Jean’s tips for what to do in the aftermath of a work blooper, and how these mistakes can make you a better developer.
1. Own your mistake
Whatever the scale and impact of your mistake, the first and most important thing you can do is own it. Take responsibility. Trying to hide your mistake or deflect blame onto someone or something else is usually transparent and won’t help you to win back your manager or team’s trust.
“The act of taking responsibility shows that you are learning from the experience,” says Jean. “It speaks volumes about a person’s character when they admit to messing up.”
For example, you might set aside time to talk to your team leader in a one-on-one setting. First, address your error, and reiterate that you understand the consequences of your misstep. You can try saying something like: “I want to acknowledge that this was my mistake, and I accept full responsibility for it.”
2. Take steps to mitigate
If there’s a way to fix or undo your mistake, do it immediately. If you’re not sure the best way to address the problem, work with your team leader or a trusted colleague to come up with an action plan. This is why it’s so important to own up to the slip-up; you can’t collaborate on fixing it if you’re trying to cover it up. Working to correct your error is the quickest way to get over your embarrassment or shame about it.
It can take time to develop the right tools to address and solve a problem. Want to learn some problem-solving tactics from an expert? Register for our exclusive soft skills training session on November 1 at 1 pm ET to learn how to creatively solve problems and make an impact presenting your ideas. (Quick note: These events are only open to people with a Codecademy Plus or Pro membership.)
3. Propose ways to prevent it from happening again
“Mistakes expose gaps in your process,” Jean says. In his case, the senior engineer he was paired with should have checked that the enquiries were going to the client. “That early mistake led to the creation of a post-deployment checklist for engineers to verify after something goes live,” he says.
You can turn your mistake into a positive, valuable experience if you use it as an opportunity to identify single points of failure and manual processes that can be automated to avoid human error. “We had an incident at a previous company when an engineer spun up a Kubernetes cluster for testing, and forgot to tear it down afterwards,” Jean says. “Come the end of the month, we discovered an unexplained jump in cloud costs. This prompted us to put mechanisms in place to monitor and control our cloud expenditure.”
One way to come up with preventative measures is to conduct a blameless postmortem, in which everyone involved in mitigating the mistake shares the actions and expectations that led up to the incident without placing blame on an individual. This format of postmortem is designed to shift the focus to the process and how it can be improved in the future, rather than penalizing people who made mistakes.
If your company doesn’t have a practice of blameless postmortems, you can suggest adding it to your remediation process. Even if you’re not reading this in the immediate aftermath of an incident, now is a great time to propose implementing them so the structure is already in place for the next incident.
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Remember: The only developers with no mistakes under their belts are those with no experience. If everything goes smoothly at work 100% of the time, you’ll never learn how to respond to a crisis or test the limits of your knowledge.
Realizing that you made a mistake is always going to feel deflating in the moment, but the best way to mitigate that feeling (and any potential damage) is to be prepared. Join us for our problem-solving soft skills training on November 1 to take the first step.
It’s an exciting time at Coursera: We are proud to be launching DeepLearning.AI’s AI For Good Specialization, which contextualizes how artificial intelligence (AI) is being used to address real-world problems, like public health crises and climate change. This launch perfectly aligns with our topic today—the last of our high-income skills series—AI skills.
Regardless of your career path, you’re increasingly likely to encounter some form of AI at work. According to a study by Lightcast, the number of job listings seeking AI skills is high and climbing across almost every field.
AI is often used to drive automation and perform tasks requiring minimal human input, like information sorting. For more complex tasks, we can teach computers to imitate human learning processes using algorithms and statistical models. This practice is called machine learning.
But here’s the best news: You don’t need to know all the ins and outs of algorithms in order to benefit from AI and contribute to the conversations around it. Sometimes, understanding AI frameworks is enough. (See: AI For Good.)
Not all AI skills require technical programming knowledge.
User-friendly tools, such as ChatGPT and DALL-E 2, make it easier for anyone to incorporate AI into their regular workflow. Whether or not you’re in a technical field, here are some AI skills you may want to use at work:
AI ethics refers to safeguarding against the negative consequences of AI technology. This skill lives at the intersection of technology and sociocultural systems, for example thinking about how unconscious bias may show up in emerging AI technologies.
AI strategy has to do with incorporating AI tools into your workflow. Using AI strategically requires you to understand both its opportunities and its limitations as you use new technologies to further your business goals.
Prompt engineering is the ability to communicate with AI tools in order to return your desired outputs. You don’t always need to know a programming language for prompt engineering; for example, you can use natural language to prompt ChatGPT.
Where to begin
To explore real-world applications of AI, start with DeepLearning.AI’s newest Specialization, AI For Good. Here, you’ll use AI frameworks as you learn how AI is used to address world problems.
For a technical crash course, look into DeepLearning.AI’s AI For Everyone. This 10-hour course was designed with non-technical professionals in mind, so it’s an approachable way to learn about different fields or branches of AI, like machine learning and deep learning, and how they may intersect with the workplace and society. Plus it’s taught by Andrew Ng, one of the world’s leading AI experts and a co-founder of Coursera.
To grow your ChatGPT skills, check out Vanderbilt University’s Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT course. In this course, you’ll learn how to write effective queries for ChatGPT to increase your productivity in your daily life, at work, or anywhere. Or, if you want to better understand what ChatGPT is, try Google Cloud’s one-hour course, Introduction to Generative AI.
With that, our high-income skills series comes to a close. We’re going to take next week off, so we’ll see you in two weeks with another special issue. See you then!
