University through the eyes of a student

So what does university today look like? Are students using their time effectively and where do they really spend most of their time? The short video below will show you just what our students are doing and how some of their tuition is being used, and where it could be used more effectively.

It is evident from the video that a large proportion of a student’s time is spent socialising and partaking in activities that don't involve learning or studying. So is this right, shouldn't they be focusing on learning? Let's think about this logically, the majority of these students are in their late teens to early twenties, it is their rite of passage to experience all of the aspects of university life; a degree is the end game but these young people are also learning to live by themselves, look after themselves and build friendships with other likeminded people, to put it simply these students are not only there to better themselves educationally they are also in university to gain essential life skills.

To other students like myself, these figures may be completely off and the university experience completely different.  At twenty seven I have feel I have gained my stripes from the 'University of Life' and I have returned to education to better myself and the future of my family. With this in mind the majority of my time is spent in the library or studying at home, when my child is in bed. There is someone else relying on me to pass my degree and that reflects in the university experience that I lead. Similarly, if the question was posed to many other 'mature students' I am sure the answers would mirror mine.

TED Review - Logan Laplante on Hack Schooling





Logan Laplante is a 13 year old boy whose mother withdrew him from mainstream school when he was 9, against the recommendations of her peers; his story is a truly inspiring outlook on modern education.

The key principles of Logan's talk is that when kids grow up we shouldn't be concerned per say with what they will do for a job, we should be focusing our children's education to focus on happiness and healthiness as if we can get these things right then they will surely follow the right career path for them and most importantly will have a happy, healthy life.

Logan has been studying the science of happiness and health and from this, the classes he takes in his 'school envirnoment' can be broken down into 8 key areas.

 

What he is saying is that creativity is one of the most important skills a person can have, from creativity and interest in something will innovate ways of learning.  Children will find ways to learn, if they link the learning to their passions and interests.  Within his home school environment he still studies the things that children in mainstream school learn, but in a way that interests him; as he states in the clip, rather than writing a short story about butterflies in English class, he is instead writing creatively about his passion; skiing. 

 

Logan has developed this further into a theory called 'Hack Schooling'.  This is not a school that teaches people to hack computers, well, not if that is not what they want to do.  The theory is there is always a way to 'hack' education; find a better easier way to complete a task, find a short cut, add one way of doing things to another way creating a mash up of methods and thus creating a simpler, better way of doing things.  It is about always taking advantage of opportunities to learn and moulding this situations to your personality so you gain more from the experience.

 

 

 

I would suggest that we remember the name Logan Laplante as I believe we will be hearing more from him in the future with his innovative Hack Schooling theory.

In Plain English...

...in Plain English are a series of videos, available on YouTube, about pretty much anything that you may need to know about technology.  The video above focuses on Social Networking.  They are fantastic, each of the videos that you watch breakdown, what may originally seem like a complicated topic to explain into simple steps for understanding.  Your Nan doesn't understand what the world wide web is?  No problem!  The World Wide Web in Plain English will explain it all to her in a way that she can grasp.  Its not just for technophobes though, even the more technologically advanced people can benefit from the various videos out there that breakdown the more complex scenarios.

Embedding Video

During our session with Mandy on 14/11/2013 I learnt how to embed a html link to my blog using code.  Embedding a video is a simple process, once you know how.  When on the website of the picture or video that you would like to embed there will be an option to either embed straight away, or a share option with an embed option within that.  Once you have selected embed a link will appear, copy this link ready for use in your blog.  When you are in your blog select the HTML tab and paste the link.  When you return to compose the picture or video will be there as a live link. 

Once I learnt how to do this I have been using it a great deal, as well as sharing with others the method.  The process is so simple but thelook of your blog will improve tenfold once embedding video or images as it will become increasingly visually appealing.