I did a "Saturday Morning Idea Engine" post a few weeks ago and have been thinking since then that maybe I should start making it a regular feature. Please comment and share your thoughts on that. In the meantime, I thought I’d rev the engine and take it out for another test drive. This time around the main idea that has occurred to me is that I often don’t need to look any further than readers here for some great ideas. With that idea in mind, I took  a look at comments on some recent posts and came up with some great suggestions for managing your ongoing learning. The first is from Avil Beckford, who writes the great Invisible Mentor blog. In a comment on "How Do You Read A Book?" Avil shared some helpful posts she has done on getting the most out of reading - certainly a highly useful skill for the average lifelong learner! It must be serendipity that we are in the same head space. My blog post today is Reading and Listening Plan Process, which includes reference guides on how to read. As a voracious reader, I am always talking about reading, and often take notes in the front of the book when I reading because I do book reviews. I have a series of questions that I like to answer to get the most from my reading. Here are three related blog posts to assist when reading books: Reading and Listening Plan Process Book Summary Template: How to Get the Most from a Book How to Master a Subject Meanwhile, on a recent post asking "Who are your curators?" reader  Eric Wilbanks commented that he finds both Twitter and Facebook useful as curation tools. (Agree on the former, but I struggle a bit with the latter.) Reader Luise Barnikel at IsssueLab adds that the "share" function on Google Reader is also a great tool. (Google Reader , in general, is one of my favorite curation tools.) A favorite curation tool of mine is the "share" functionality on Google Reader. I can follow people who I know share good information, and then I have a complete feed of new blog posts and sites which have been vetted by the folks I follow. It’s how I found THIS post! I also curate my own info stream on nonprofit marketing, knowledge sharing and information management via Google Reader, and anybody is welcome to follow or subscribe: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/luise.barnikel Great ideas for managing personal learning. Got any you’d like to share? Help me rev up the Saturday Morning Idea Engine. (And let me know if you would like this as a regular feature.) Jeff P.S. If you enjoy what you read here on Mission to Learn, I’d be truly grateful if you would subscribe by RSS feed or e-mail. Related posts:The Saturday Morning Idea Engine

[tweetmeme] If you are reading Mission to Learn, chances are good that you already feel comfortable with the whole social media thing. But maybe not. Or maybe you are always on the lookout for new ways to explain the mysterious ways of social media to colleagues, friends, or family. Either way, this brief video - Social Medial Explained Visually - from the folks at Say It Visually is both fun and useful. Jeff P.S. - You might also want to check out Skype: A Visual Explanation Related posts:Skype: A Visual Explanation Howard Rheingold - Social Media Classroom

[tweetmeme] Sonia Simone over at Copyblogger has a nice post on How to Get a First-Class Online Business Education. Her focus is specifically on online business - i.e., how to create and run a successful online business - but the philosophy and process she describes applies well to self-educating yourself more generally in business and pretty much anything else. Well worth reading and internalizing. With respect to broader business education resources, I have highlighted a number of them previously in 35+ Free Online Business Education Sites, but I want to be sure to point out a nice new set of resources organized by the folks at Online Colleges. They have pulled together a catalog of pretty much every open education resource you can imagine, and among them are links to a wide range of open courses in business. Check out the links on the pages below to school yourself in pretty much any business topic Accounting & Finance Entrepreneurship General Business Human Resources Innovation International Business Management Marketing Of course, as with an self-education effort, you will need to be motivated, and you must be prepared to make time for focused learning, set learning goals, and apply discipline as needed. Jeff Related posts:35+ Free Online Business Education Sites Where to Find Free Computer Programming Education Online 25 Free Online Resources and Web Apps for Lifelong Learners

A New Yorker (or in some versions Arthur Rubinstein) is approached in the street near Carnegie Hall, and asked, "Pardon me sir, how do I get to Carnegie Hall?" He replies, "Practice, practice, practice." (Wikipedia) [tweetmeme] We’ve all heard the old Carnegie Hall joke (well, at least those of us above a certain age have). More recently, you may have caught the buzz about the importance of "10,000 hours" as popularized by Malcom Gladwell in Outliers. The message in both cases it that if you really want to excel at something, a lot of time and a lot of practice are required. The time part seems straightforward enough, but I know from my own love/hate experience with learning the guitar over many years that simply clocking hours of practice is not enough. The practice has to be of a certain quality. In the words of a recent article on "expert performance" in the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, it has to be deliberate. Some readers may find the journal article a bit long and academic, but if you can motivate yourself to read and take notes on the whole thing, I think you will find some great wisdom in it. You don’t have to consider yourself an entrepreneur to benefit from the insights - they apply broadly. Whether or not you read the whole thing, here are eight key features of deliberate practice as it is discussed in the article. I’ve provided my own gloss on each: 1. Deliberate practice is highly demanding mentally, requiring high levels of focus and concentration. You’ve heard it before - no pain, no gain. But the authors also stress that you have to be "fully absorbed" in your practice for it to truly be effective. This is suggestive of the concept of "flow." 2. It is designed specifically to improve performance—to strengthen it beyond its current levels. This is the part that says you can’t just put in time and expect to get significantly better at anything - you have to consistently stretch yourself, and then stretch some more. 3. It must continue for long of periods of time. This is Gladwell’s 10,000 hours/10 years. The authors go on to say "Basic research on expert performance suggests that the benefits it generates cannot usually be attained with less than 10 years of continued, vigorous effort (e.g., Ericsson, 2006)." 4. It must be repeated. Even though repetition alone won’t get you to the level of excellence, you also won’t get there without out it. Perhaps this why the word "Practice" is repeated three times in the old joke. 5. It requires continuous feedback on results. Sometimes you can tell on your own whether you are doing things right. I know when I hit a wrong note on the guitar, for example. But very often this is the area where having a great teacher, coach, or mentor can make all the difference. 6. Pre-performance preparation is essential. This is where goal setting comes in - you have to know where you want to go if you expect to get there. And as the authors stress, goal-setting "should involve not merely outcomes, but also the processes involved in reaching predetermined goals." 7. It involves self-observation and self-reflection. As you practice, you need to be continually aware of your own performance and be focused on correcting and adapting as appropriate.  This kind of in-the-moment self-assessment is critical regardless of whether a teacher is involved. 8. It involves careful reflection on performance after practice sessions are completed. In addition to being aware of your performance as you are practicing, you need to look back on it once you are done and determine where you stand with respect to your overall goals. What might you change the next time to ensure ongoing progress? (And see my earlier thoughts on reflection as a learning habit.) The overall focus of this article is on entrepreneurship, but regardless of whether you are an entrepreneur, I think you will find many insights here that are useful to practice in your particular area of interest. Given that "entrepreneurship" is a somewhat fuzzy area, however, the article may be especially helpful to you if you are pursuing interests that are not as straightforward as learning a musical instrument or a new language. How does deliberate practice factor in to your learning habits? Please comment and share with other readers. Jeff P.S. If you enjoy what you read here on Mission to Learn, I’d be truly grateful if you would subscribe by RSS feed or e-mail. No related posts.

[tweetmeme] In my day-to-day work I conduct a lot of interviews with the customers and potential customers of organizations that sell education and training. You know, trade and professional associations, training firms, etc. The usual aim of these interviews is to gain insight into how and whether the organization might broaden its reach online. Inevitably, at some point in an interview, a large percentage of the interviewees will say something along the lines of "Well, learning online is fine, but it can’t beat the networking you get face-to-face at a conference." And I always think to myself, really? At the bottom of my question is some skepticism about (a) how good the average person really is at networking for learning in a live conference environment, and (b) whether the quality of that networking is really better than the (often unconscious) networking that most people - at least among the sorts that are likely to attend conferences - already do online. Here are some of my theories: Most people meet a relatively small number of new people at any given conference or other face-to-face event, and many of the conversations with those people are confined to polite chatter like "So, have you been to this conference before?" Related to the first point, most people tend to connect or re-connect with people they already know, and in many cases, are in touch with relatively frequently. Sometimes these people have new knowledge to impart. Often they don’t, or to the extent they do, it remains hidden. Increasingly, a great deal of the valuable networking that goes on around a conference is actually happening online or on our mobile phones - through e-mail, through Twitter, on Facebook, in blog comments and posts. As I have written elsewhere, people don’t tend to think of this as online learning, or even learning in general, but it is. Arguably, the place-based event is a catalyst for it, but much of the value generated is not really dependent upon face-to-face interaction. Now, none of this is to say that there is not value in face-to-face events and the networking that comes with them. Some people view them as essential for removing distractions and focusing, for example. I agree with that, up to a point, but certainly conference fees and travel costs can be a high price to pay for artificially imposed self-discipline. Additionally, connecting with friends, colleagues, and the occasional new acquaintance helps to form and cement emotional bonds that are vital to a productive, happy professional and personal life. Admittedly, these bonds are sometimes (though certainly not always)  the foundation for effective networking online. But I suspect they are just that in many cases - a foundation - and that increasingly a lot of the actual networking and value generation, from a learning standpoint, is happening online. "Can’t beat the networking you get face-to-face" - at least to the extent that the objective of the networking is developing new knowledge - is overrated. Well, that’s my perspective at least. What’s your? Jeff No related posts.

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[tweetmeme] I’ve been focused more and more lately on how we learn. This has led me to re-read Stephen Pinker’s How the Mind Works, which - whether you ultimately agree with Pinker’s views or not - really is a must-read for anyone passionate about learning. (I’m moving on now to re-reading his earlier The Language Instinct.) I also Googled the phrase "how we learn" - surely not for the first time? - and noted immediately that a TED channel titled "How We Learn" comes up near the top of the results. That led me to the following, recently-posted video featuring Adora Svitak. No doubt this has already made the rounds out yonder on the Web, but I am a little behind on my blog reading these days. And besides, if you have seen it before you already know it is worth seeing again. Prepare to be schooled, delightfully, by a 12-year old: - No related posts.

[tweetmeme] I’ve written about a range of habits related to learning, but one I have not yet covered is concentration - perhaps because I find it among the hardest of habits to truly master. I’m as apt as anybody to have my working memory hijacked by the temptations of multi-tasking, ….or simply to become distracted by the shiny new learning objects that I encounter on a daily basis, …or to start writing about one thing and find myself wandering to other topics as new thoughts occur to me, …or….uh, right - concentration. Here are some of the approaches to it that I find helpful: 1. Be conscious and intentional I keep coming back to "consciousness" as the cornerstone of most effective learning habits. Before you are likely to be successful at concentrating you have to make a clear, conscious decision to focus your attention. Sounds simple enough, but more often than not we move from one experience to the next without any real consciousness, and certainly without a decision to concentrate. 2. Set clear goals - and victories I’ve lamented my own lack of goal setting before. To concentrate effectively, it really helps to have specific outcomes in mind.  Break down longer term goals - like mastering a new language - into smaller chunks that are achievable in short bursts of concentration - like memorizing how an irregular verb is conjugated. 3. Be consistent A foolish consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds, but a wise consistency is often essential to enlarging the mind. Great athletes, musicians, writers, and others who excel in their chosen field nearly always have set times and places for concentrated thinking and practice. Consistency of environment helps to normalize distractions and consistency of time helps establish a pattern and rhythm to support concentration. Pick a limited range of places where and times when you do your most focused learning. You can and should vary these over time to avoid falling into rote learning habits, but don’t be too fast or erratic in making changes. 4. Avoid or remove distractions Part of what sparked me to write about concentration this week is the ongoing debate about the impact of the Internet on our brains. (See, for example, Pinker and Carr on this.)  I’m still undecided about the deeper, longer term impact, but I don’t have much doubt about the ability of the Internet - and countless other modern wonders - to distract us on a minute-to-minute basis and interfere with concentration. You may be able to train your mind to block out such distractions, but for me, the easiest path has always been simply to avoid cognitive overload by turning off the e-mail, the browser, the phone, the iPod, the [add your own distraction here], etc.. 5. Set time limits and allow for breaks Similar to how the body has limits for focused physical activity and needs recovery time from exercise, the mind benefits from periodic short breaks during periods of concentration as well as longer breaks between periods of concentration to help consolidate learning. During shorter breaks, it is better not to turn to other tasks, but to truly take a break and let the mind rest. (For a scientific perspective on this - including a helpful video abstract - see a recent article on "awake rest" in Neuron.). Longer breaks should include essential activities like getting sufficient sleep at night. 6. Take care of mind and body Speaking of sleep - I’ve written before about the important role it plays in memory. And having sufficient sleep is also likely to positively impact your attitude towards concentrating and ability to concentrate in the first place. Likewise, a balanced diet and plenty of aerobic exercise are very important factors in promoting healthy brain activity and memory. Really, being well rested, well fed, and in good physical shape is the foundation for being able to concentrate well. 7. Practice Finally, few of us are able to will ourselves to concentrate and become effective at it over night. I wrote recently about the keys to deliberate practice and those keys apply here as much as they do anywhere else. Yes, that’s right - you have to focus and concentrate in order to learn to focus and concentrate. Here are a few simple techniques for improving concentration that might help you in your practice. I’m also a fan of breathing exercises as a way to help clear the mind and focus attention. So, those are my tips. Got any you think should be added to the list? Jeff Related posts:5 Key Paths to Improving Memory, Part I While My Guitar Gently Weeps - Or the Importance of Setting Learning Goals 5 Tips to Lean Towards Lifelong Learning

[tweetmeme] This is a guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. When most people think of social networks, they think of Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, or similar sites, but there are many other types of social networks popping up on the web. Some of the fastest growing networks are designed specifically for education. These sites allow people to learn in a social context through discussion, file sharing, and collaboration. Here are 20 social learning networks to visit in your spare time. LearnCentral - LearnCentral is an open environment that is half social network and half learning community. The site can be used to create courses, host meetings, connect with other education enthusiasts, and find learning resources Udemy - Udemy encourages members to teach and learn online using the site’s many free tools and applications. Members can create their own online courses or search for courses that have been created and posted by other people. Academici - This web-based site for academics and knowledge workers makes it easy to network, collaborate, and conduct commerce online. Members can post articles, share resources, and much more. Academia.edu - Academia.edu is an online community that helps academics connect with colleagues and follow the latest research. Members can also share their own research and be notified when someone searches for them on Google. Campusbug - One of the original social learning networks, Campusbug provides students and lifelong learners with tools they can use to network and educate themselves on a variety of topics. iMantri - iMantri is a peer-to-peer community for people who are seeking mentors or offering coaching in a particular area. Members can use the site’s tools to assess their competencies and find people who are either willing to help or in need of help. Smart.fm - Smart.fm is an education platform and online community that relies on personalized learning algorithms to help people achieve their academic goals. The site helps users establish goals, create a study schedule, and track learning progress. Grockit - This online interactive learning environment uses social gaming technology and a Web 2.0 infrastructure to help students master academic skills and prepare for standardized tests. Grockit members can study alone or in groups. Loomagoo - Created by Students at Loyola University New Orleans, Loomagoo is a social network for students who want to share notes and other learning materials with each other. The site also allows students to buy and sell old textbooks and other school supplies. wePapers - The goal of wePapers is to create the world’s largest online study group. Members can use the site to share knowledge, find lecture notes and study guides, and store papers and research work. Pronetos - Also known as the Professor’s Network, Pronetos welcomes academics of every discipline. Members can share papers and course materials, connect with other scholars, and locate recent field research. We the Teachers - We the Teachers caters to educators but welcomes anyone who has an interest in learning or teaching. Members of this social network can share lesson plans and classroom resources as well as tools for creating games, puzzles, and other activities. ResearchGate - ResearchGate is a professional network for scientists. The site has more than 400,000 members who collaborate using the site’s free applications. Members can also upload papers, share scientific news, read the latest publications, and search for job opportunities. WiserEarth - WiserEarth is a social network for sustainability. Site features include community forums where members can collaborate or engage in discussion, an international directory of non-governmental and socially responsible organizations, and a classification of issues related to social justice and environmental restoration. WriterFace - This social network is intended for beginning writers, professional writers, and other people who simply have an interest in writing. WriterFace is also open to literary agents, editors, librarians, and anyone else who works in the media or publishing industry. Members can network with each other, market themselves, sell their work, and much more. GoodReads - GoodReads is a social network for booklovers who want to share what they have been reading and get book recommendations from other people. Members can also form book clubs, play trivia games, and browse famous quotes. Livemocha - Livemocha is the largest social network for language learners. The site has more than 6 million members who help each other learn English, Spanish, French, Hindi, German, and Mandarin Chinese. Busuu - Like Livemocha, Busuu is an online community for people who want to practice their language skills. Popular site features include an integrated video-chat-application, writing exercises that can be corrected by native speakers, review quizzes, and learning units. Busuu supports several languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese. Brazen Careerist - Created for Gen Y professionals, this social site emphasizes professional networking but also provides members with the chance to learn how to create a resume, develop a base of solid contacts, showcase ideas, and manage their career. Tutpup - Tutpup is an award-winning social learning network that allows young learners to come together online to play fun, educational games. The site is free of advertising and exceeds the information security and privacy requirements of the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Game categories include spelling, basic math, times tables, and algebra. This is a guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes for PharmacyTechnicianCertification.com. Please vote for this entry on Association Jam! Related posts:15 Language Learning Tools for Lifelong Learners 25 Free Online Resources and Web Apps for Lifelong Learners 7 LinkedIn Tactics for Lifelong Learning

I write a fair amount here on Mission to Learn about focused learning; about things like carving out time for learning, setting goals, concentrating, practicing, and reflecting. These are all necessary activities for mastering particular skills or bodies of knowledge, but they are, of course, only the more obvious, visible aspects of what we tend to think of as learning. The greater part of learning, the stuff we engage in moment-to-moment, day in and day out, often has little to do with achieving conscious goals. Whether we know it or not, our minds and bodies are constantly learning from our experiences and the environment around.  And at a semi-conscious level, we are constantly making choices that contribute to our ongoing learning - the conversations we engage in; the media we watch, read or listen to; the places we go, just to name a very few. I think a distinction that the philosopher Alan Watts made many years ago between what he saw as "spotlight consciousness" and "floodlight consciousness" can be applied to these two types of learning: Generally speaking, we have two kinds of consciousness. One I will call the "spotlight," and the other the "floodlight." The spotlight is what we call conscious attention, and we are trained from childhood that it is the most valuable form of perception. When the teacher in class says "Pay attention!" everybody stares, and looks right at the teacher. That is spotlight consciousness; fixing your mind on one thing at a time. You concentrate, and even though you may not be able to have a very long attention span, nevertheless you use your spotlight: one thing after another, one thing after another… However we also have floodlight consciousness. For example, you can drive your car for several miles with a friend sitting next to you, and be completely absorbed in talking to your friend. Nevertheless, your floodlight consciousness will manage the driving of the car, will notice all the stoplights, the other idiots on the road, and so on, and you will get there safely without even thinking about it. Even if you happen to find Watts a bit dated and "groovy," I’m betting you can find some value in his spotlight-floodlight distinction and how it might apply to learning. At a personal, organizational, and societal level, we tend to focus on and value "spotlight" learning much more highly than "floodlight" learning.  The spotlight perspective dominates the world of degrees, certifications, and even much of the self-help literature that claims to carve out alternate paths.  There’s nothing surprising or even necessarily wrong with the bias towards the spotlight - things tend to be easier to see, understand, and manage in the spotlight. But being aware of and regularly tuning into floodlight learning is increasingly important in a world where we are bombarded daily with information and influences, where we have a bewildering array of choices about how and with whom we interact (for example, in social networks).  So much of learning is driven by context and circumstances - whether we choose them or they are thrust upon us, but we don’t often think critically about our context and circumstances.  We often learn on "auto-pilot" - not unlike how we often drive on auto-pilot. That may be fine, in most cases, but among other possible dangers it can cause us to gravitate  toward what is familiar, comfortable, easy - towards a state in which little significant learning is happening at all. Focus, concentrate, set goals - let your spotlight shine bright. But occasionally peer out into the floodlight and make sure you like what you see. Jeff P.S. - If you aren’t familiar with Watts, or simply want to expand your knowledge about his work, I recommend Learn Out Loud’s Out of Your Mind: Essential Listening from the Alan Watts Audio Archives. Related posts:How to Improve Concentration and Focus: 7 Tips Two Brief Lessons from the Mile High Learning Club While My Guitar Gently Weeps - Or the Importance of Setting Learning Goals