Learning more about "Good Study Habits"

There's nothing better than a network of people thinking about a similar interest or problem. A hat-tip to Carol Huber, formerly of Pinellas County Schools, who sent me the link to an article on study skills in The New York Times. The September 6, 2010, article, "Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits," by Benedict Carey, points out the wide gap between "common knowledge, " and research on study skills. Certainly there's more to learn or maybe re-learn about helping student retention.

For instance, instead of sticking to one study location, simply alternating the room where a person studies improves retention. So does studying distinct but related skills or concepts in one sitting, rather than focusing intensely on a single thing.

Like a football coach who mixes their team workouts with drills to improve strength, speed and specific skills, a student can benefit when a good learning coach varies the type of material covered in a single session. For example, interleaving vocabulary, reading and speaking in a language class or practice sessions solving several different types of problems in mathematics appears to increase student retention and performance during follow-up testing.

Which may explain why some of the early Computer Curriculum Corporation (CCC) software seemed so effective twenty years ago. The software was programed to "spiral" the student through a subject area and vary the material being presented based on the student's recent performance. The software, with almost infinite patience, could go back and reteach a particular skill if a student needed more practice or quickly move forward if the student demonstrated mastery. There were many areas in some of those early attempts at computerized learning that needed improvement, but I still like their ability to vary the instruction based on student performance and ultimately allow each individual student to progress as fast or as slowly as necessary to master a particular topic or skill.

But back in the present, several of the links within the article may help those who are working hard in schools or homes everyday and are willing to look for new ways to help students retain the knowledge they've worked so hard to learn. Read the whole article at: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?em&exprod=myyahoo

EFF - More privacy with HTTPS

Released in June as a public beta by the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) and the Tor Project, the HTPPS Everywhere Firefox extension helps guarantee that your browser is using encryption when visiting 27 sites, including Google Search, Wikipedia, EFF, and many other sites that offer HTTPS.

To learn more and get HTTPS Everywhere:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/06/encrypt-web-https-everywhere-firefox-extension

Zotero: a serious research tool for Firefox

I first learned about Zotero while looking at some promotional material for UberStudent, a new set of learning tools for college or advance HS students. Most people (and I suspect you're in that group) don't need to worry about a new operating system and and a whole CD of new software if you're already focused on research and writing. Most of us who transitioned from 3x5 cards and erasable bond into computer-based writing have likely developed our own system for taking notes and saving bibliographical information in a particular format.

On the other hand, if you're a new college student or returning for a few advanced classes,  Zotero may be worth a longer look. Zotero has a pretty good home page which starts, "Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, cite, and share your research sources. It lives right where you do your work—in the web browser itself." By being a Firefox extension or plugin, Zotero will work on Windows, Mac or Linux systems using Firefox. Additional plugins are available that allow Zotero to work with MS Word, OpenOffice or Neo word processors. As you check out the Zotero home page, note the Center for History and New Media and the George Mason Univ. logos at the bottom of the page. Somebody has thought long and hard about how to help young students write papers. Example? The interface mimics iTunes, something most college students already know how to use.

While on the home page, at least click on the icons shown for "Collect", "Organize" and "Cite" which are three individual tasks that most of us are attempting to accomplish during the process of writing a paper. What blew me out of my chair was (1) how easy it is to add new material from web pages or material already in your computer such as video or PDFs and (2) the list of major styles and journal specific styles already built into the research tool! The format is either there or may be available with another plugin. The last two tools are more interesting from a class or teaching perspective. Tools are available to sync the information among multiple computers, share information within work groups and even publish dynamic bibliographies.

And like Steve Jobs, "...One more thing!" Please play the short video on the quick start guide's first page found at: http://www.zotero.org/support/quick_start_guide. The video may be the best summary of what Zotero can do that I've seen so far. The support pages contain other basic tutorials and videos, support forums, and a blog and you may want to bookmark the page for further reference if you decide to give Zotero a more serious try.

If you've already got your own system for doing what Zotero does, God bless you and use what works for you. I may use some of my own time this Fall to see if I can catalog some of my own permanent references - some of the PDFs, videos and documents that I've collected over the past several years - and get to know Zotero a little better. At least I'm not working on a deadline.

And as for the UberStudent software, I plan to download UberStudent onto a live CD or even a spare computer and see what other new learning tools are available for advanced secondary or college-level students who use Linux. I might find other learning tools I'd like to explore. Maybe everyone currently in education already knows about Zotero which if so, only confirms my suspicion that I've been retired too long and should sit down and shut up. However, like so many other new technological tools, getting the word out about tools like Zotero to the small schools in the hinterlands always takes more time than anyone thinks. Not everything on the Internet can go viral and reach Mountainburg at the same time. We'd have a heck of a traffic jam on that little wire over the mountains!

Update: 9/20/10 Lifehacker.com likes the UberStudent software CD. Kevin Purdy writes:

We suggested last week that, for many college students, a used laptop reloaded with Ubuntu is good enough. UberStudent, an Ubuntu installation loaded with student-friendly tools and customizations, is a smart pick for getting your actual school work done.

To read the short Lifehacker review see:  UberStudent Is an Ubuntu System Custom-Built for Students

God will get them for this!...

Last week, the Catholic Diocese of Des Moines, Iowa lost more than $600,000 to the usual type of electronic fund transfer theft. When one of the U.S. money-mules involved in the scheme questioned the transfer, he was told the funds were being transferred to compensate sex abuse victims. See: http://krebsonsecurity.com/2010/08/crooks-who-stole-600000-from-catholic-diocese-said-money-was-for-clergy-sex-abuse-victims/

KrebsonSecurity reports on Sept. 1st that criminals used a computer virus to steal the Univ. of Virginia at Wise comptroller's credentials and then electronically transferred $996,000 from BB&T to the Agricultural Bank of China. Nothing in BB&T's EFT software triggered an alarm and nobody at the bank bothered to check on the legitimacy of the transfer? How many million dollar transfers does UVA-Wise make to Agricultural Bank of China? See: http://krebsonsecurity.com/2010/09/cyber-thieves-steal-nearly-1000000-from-university-of-virginia-college/

Now look. I'm tired of writing about this, but I'm also absolutely convinced businesses and government agencies - whose commercial accounts lack the protections afforded to individual consumers - need to take simple, inexpensive precautions to prevent similar thefts. Brian Krebs spells out ways for businesses to protect themselves in the links attached to the bottom of the UVA-Wise article above.

From the lack of information in newspapers and national news networks, I guess the only people who think this type of crime is a big deal are the victims who have actually lost money. These are preventable crimes that need to be exposed and not hidden from the public.