Free-range learning
-
Oxford Days 21-17
A brief hiatus helping out a friend to get to Tofino. Plunging into the next 5 days – from Oxfords’ Festive Countdown Calendar 2024! Copan Ruinas – an ancient Mayan city filled with people, art and agriculture that thrived from 426CE to 822 CE…and then abruptly ended. On the Solstice in 2024, Oxford instructors encouraged…
-
Oxford Days 26-22
Another series of days to explore – from Oxfords’ Festive Countdown Calendar 2024! Inside a Genius Mind: A Collaboration between Emeritus Professor Martin Kemp, Google Arts & Culture, Artist in Residence Martial Geoffre-Rouland and Nexus Studios, July 2023 Leonardo’s notebooks, written in ‘mirror’ writing, are challenging to interpret. This team uses machine learning to make…
-
An Oxford exploration
While a little late for counting down the days of December using my favourite Advent calendar from Oxford University, I decided to look over my shoulder and do a backwards exploration from the 2024 Festive Countdown Calendar to see what ‘sparks’… Discover the WikiTrivia timeline game! “…take a moment to unwind this fun, interactive trivia…
-
Incredible Trees
In 2024, Comox Valley Naturalists made some significant changes to their popular “Tree of the Year” event. The goal of this annual event (since it began in 2018) has been to identify and highlight trees of significant interest or importance in the Comox Valley to encourage interest in valuing and protecting trees within Comox Valley…
-
Aphids around the world
When I was in my early teens, I used to stay overnight on Friday nights at my best friend Debbie’s house, because her mom would let us stay up late and watch really bad 1950’s horror movies (and eat huge bowls of popcorn). We binged on cringe-worthy movies like Them! (a 1954 hit about giant…
-
Curiosity vs Learning
I’ve had fun the last week or so, visiting many interesting, intriguing web places using the beautiful ‘Festive Calendars’ created by Oxford Continuing Education from 2023 to 2017. Each year’s calendar begins and ends with the following explanation: “Our gift to you: each day during the month of December, explore free, educational online resources –…
-
Different views
Happy New Year! We all hope it will be a good year, despite the current cold (and snow). I continue to procrastinate, dealing with every other task or person around me, before returning to write on my blog! I have files of ideas and collections of research for various articles and posts I’ve never completed.…
-
New place for open textbooks
As a past user of and contributor to open textbooks in BC, I was pleased to see that BCcampus has created a new home for their growing collection of open textbooks and course material packages (see B.C. Open Collection). You can still explore the linear arrangement until February 2024 but I found the new site…
-
Gleaning the web
LOL, I just reviewed the latest WP 6.3 tutorial video Embedding media and third-party content on your website and I’m left wondering why there are no warning of copyright infringement? In the old days, people used to display content from other websites in frames I think. They took that away and I seem to remember…
-
Intriguing structures 2
Despite my good intentions, I have neglected my blogging for the past several months! So, I’m diving back in with another look at visualizations that interest me (and that seem useful for learning). Recap: Intriguing structures 1 was about interactive online calendars that could be used to catch a learner’s attention and encourage them to…
Got any book recommendations?