Knowing yourself

Knowing yourself means not only that you find out what you are good at and what you like, it also means discovering what you are not good at and what you don't like. Both help you to see your goal in life.

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2012

A learning tool is a tool to create or deliver learning content/solutions for others, or a tool for your own personal or professional learning. (http://c4lpt.co.uk)
Here is the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2012 as voted for by 582 learning professionals worldwide. Below is the slideset available via Slideshare and beneath it the textual list.  Other pages are available as follows:

The 21st century skills

The 21st century is known as the “Information Age” in contrast to the 20th century as “The Industrial Age”. It is important to know that the skills needed in today's global economy are different from the skills needed in the past. With globalization, the world is becoming an open market where countries and companies are competing for economic advantages. The application of Information Technology (IT) has forced many changes that never happened before. In this “Connected world”, no country is strong enough to withstand the impact of global economy forces. Without knowledge of the global economy, a country cannot defend itself to forces that it cannot control. The same thing also happens to company, without a good strategy it cannot defend itself to competitors that it does not even know.

Balance Continuity and Change

Precisely because change is a constant, the foundations have to be extra strong.

The more an institution is organized to be a change leader, the more it will need to establish continuity internally and externally, the more it will need to balance rapid change and continuity.

The Educated Person

The educated person needs to bring knowledge to bear on the present,not to mention molding the future.

In his 1943 novel, published in English as Magister Ludi (1949), Hermann Hesse anticipated the sort of world the humanists want—and its failure. The book depicts a brotherhood of intellectuals, artists, and humanists who live a life of splendid isolation, dedicated to the Great Tradition, its wisdom and its beauty. But the hero, the most accomplished Master of the Brotherhood, decides in the end to return to the polluted, vulgar, turbulent, strife-torn, money grubbing reality—for his values are only fool’s gold unless they have relevance to the world.

Postcapitalist society needs the educated person even more than any earlier society did, and access to the great heritage of the past will have to be an essential element. But liberal education must enable the person to understand reality and master it.

Action point: Read a book on politics, history, or anything that interests you. What did you learn? How can you put that knowledge to work?

Post-Capitalist Society

Peter Drucker

depicts: describe

anticipate: guest

splendid: sáng lạng

vulgar: tầm thường

strife-torn: xung đột tàn phá

grubbing: Đào xới

fool: người hề

heritage: di sản

Reinvent Yourself

Knowledge people must take responsibility for their own development and placement.

In today’s society and organizations, people work increasingly with knowledge, rather than with skill. Knowledge and skill differ in a fundamental characteristic—skills change very, very slowly. Knowledge, however,changes itself. It makes itself obsolete, and very rapidly. A knowledge worker becomes obsolescent [nerver use] if he or she does not go back to school every three or four years.

This not only means that the equipment of learning, of knowledge, of skill, of experience that one acquires early is not sufficient for our present life time and working time. People change over such a long time span. They become different persons with different needs, different abilities, different perspectives, and, therefore, with a need to “reinvent themselves.” I quite intentionally use a stronger word than “revitalize.” If you talk of fifty years of working life—and this, I think, is going to be increasingly the norm—you have to reinvent yourself. You have to make something different out of yourself, rather than just find a new supply of energy.

Action point: Ask those ahead of you in age how they went about “repotting themselves.” What steps should you take now?

Drucker on Asia

Peter Drucker

Feedback: Key to Continuous Learning

To know one’s strengths, to know how to improve them, and to know what one cannot do—are the keys to continuous learning.

Whenever a Jesuit priest or a Calvinist pastor does anything of significance (for instance, making a key decision), he is expected to write down what results he anticipates. Nine months later, he then feeds back from the actual results to these anticipations. This very soon shows him what he did well and what his strengths are. It also shows him what he has to learn and what habits he has to change. Finally it shows him what he is not gifted for and cannot do well. I have followed this method myself, now for fifty years. It brings out what one’s strengths are—and this is the most important thing an individual can know about himself or herself. It brings out where improvement is needed and what kind of improvement is needed. Finally, it brings out what an individual cannot do and therefore should not even try to do. To know one’s strengths, to know how to improve them, and to know what one cannot do—they are the keys to continuous learning.

Action point: List your strengths and the steps you are taking to improve them. Who knows you well enough to help identify your strengths?

Drucker on Asia

Peter Drucker

The young and richest in China

Hurun, the research company announces the 2012 list of richest Chinese under forty with thirty-three young people selected. Only individuals who have more than $1 billion Yuan in assets and less than forty years old can be chosen. This is the second year that Hurun has published the list. Yang Huiyan, 31, won first place with a wealth of 36 billion Yuan ($5.7 billion US dollars). Fang Wei, 39, second only to Yang , was found to be the richest young entrepreneur starting from scratch with assets of 15 billion Yuan ($2.4 billion US dollars). Among the richest under 40, most came from business and information technology industries. Many started when they were still in college and some even made more than million when they were younger than 25. Most people think that rich Chinese got their wealth through inheritance but actually most of them are self-made billionaires," said Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of the Hurun Report.

On the practice of a weekly review

A weekly review is an excellent idea. Here are some of the reasons why we need do it:

1. Track and celebrate accomplishments. Ever wondered where your days went? Tracking your accomplishments lets you get a handle on what you’ve done. Celebrating what you’ve finished encourages you to do more, too.
2. Deliberately plan the next week. Instead of just reacting to the tasks and interruptions that come up during the week, sit down and plan a few things that you want to do.
3. Follow up on priorities. If a priority task needs more work, having it on your list makes it easy to follow up (or see where you’re procrastinating!).
4. Keep people up to date. If you make it easy for family, friends, and coworkers to keep up with what you’re doing, they’ll know more about interests, resources and opportunities that can help you.
5. Make it easy to review the year. Having a record of your accomplishments and tasks makes those yearly reviews so much easier.
6. Reflect on what worked and what can be better. Reviewing your week and planning the next one nudges you to think about how things can be better.

It doesn’t take a lot of time, and the benefits are tremendous. I can usually do my weekly review in 15-30 minutes.

Here’s what I’ve learned from doing so:

• Bullet lists keep things short and simple. You don’t need to document everything – just enough to help you remember.
• Categories help you keep things balanced. There are lots of different category systems you can use, and you can make up your own. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People recommends thinking in terms of your different roles.Getting Things Done has lots of good pointers for weekly reviews. Play around with the idea.
• There are lots of ways to do a weekly review, so experiment to find what works for you. Some people like asking a set of questions instead. Others like using spreadsheets. Find out what works for you!

If you’re new to blogging, a weekly review helps you ease into the habit of publishing, and it can help you improve your productivity habits too. Give it a try!

source: http://sachachua.com/blog/2010/01/on-the-practice-of-a-weekly-review/

Top 13 questions to ask yourself

The questions we ask determine the answers we get. And it is from these answers that we create the actions of our day-to-day lives. This simple progression of questions to answers to actions implies that if we want more effective and productive actions, we can start by asking ourselves better questions.

The questions below are meant to help you create the actions you desire, and while you can ask these questions at anytime, the second half of December is a good time to ask, reflect on, and answer these questions.

Will it take some time? Yes it will. But it will be time well-spent. Read the questions now to get them in your sub-conscious mind. Then, schedule a two hour appointment (or schedule 10 minutes each day and do one question a day) with yourself in a quiet place, with your Journal, computer or just a pad of paper and record your answers to these questions.

Hot Skills 2012

According to several industry reports, the critical shortage of Information Technology (IT) skills continues with IT salary increases faster than any other skills. The highest demands are in Mobile application development, Cloud computing management, and Database administration. Last few years, web development was hot but with the number of mobile phone, especially smart phone increases, the need to have more mobile apps accelerates the industry demand toward mobile app development. (It is estimated that the world has over 4.5 billion phone users with a third of them are smart phones). These reports analyze growth patterns for technology skills and IT hiring trends in 15 countries, including the U.S., UK, France, Germany, Japan, Finland, China, Norway, Italy, and S. Korea etc. and list the IT skills in greatest demand as: 

1) Mobile application development: - iPhone/iPad, Android, Window 8, HTML 5, JavaScript, and UI design.

2) Cloud Computing management: - Salesforce, Google Apps, Amazon Web services, Azure and Eloqua.

3) Database Administration: - My SQL, Oracle, Cognos, Hbase, and Informatica

Among those skills, iPhone/iPad and Android development skills are among those in greatest demand, as companies are paying the highest salaries to obtain those skills. Companies are also paying top salaries for Cognos and Informatica expertise. HTML 5 and JavaScript skills are next and little higher than people with MySQL skills. 

The reason why so many companies cannot hire workers with these skills is currently no formal training of these skills in any college so most workers are self taught or learn these skills on their own. According to a source from NASSCOM, only India has these skills in their training programs at some universities. That may explain why many companies are looking to India as the main source for their skilled workers today and in the future. One executive said: “On the average it takes about two years for U.S schools to develop new course for a new technology but India can do that in less than a year. Their trainings are flexible and always response to industry needs. That is why they are ready whenever we need skilled workers. That may explain why even in a slow economy, their IT outsourcing industry is still doing well.”

Prof John Vu    

Carnegie Mellon University

Original source: 

Tips for entrepreneurs

One of my role models is leaving IBM to explore the world of entrepreneurship. Jamie Alexander has a lot of development experience. He built a number of sites, including PassItAlong, an internal social learning system we use at IBM. He’d be the first to admit he needs help with the business side, though, and he’s looking forward to learning more about marketing and adoption. He’s applying to the Digital Media Zone incubator at Ryerson University, and will check out the local technology events.

Career advancing

When a person advances, he leaves his current position and moves to better position. For example, a first year college student advances to second year. Each year students advance to the next grade by acquiring certain knowledge and passing exams. The same thing also happens in the industry. Workers advance from entry level to more experience level, a novice advances to a professional etc.

Be prepared

Today we are living in an uncertain time where anything can happen and it may happen very quickly. Perhaps you are lucky to have jobs when other lost theirs but in this changing time, everybody needs a plan for finding job and stay employed. Who would have thought just in the past few months, several million people in the world have lost their jobs? Who would think that even large companies such as Toyota, AIG, IBM, and Microsoft would have to lay off people? Today with globalization, anything can happen so it is important that you must be careful in planning your careers. Students must consider seriously about their knowledge and skills as they are making education choices, university selections, training decisions, and job decisions, etc.

Learning by asking questions

University teachers often ask themselves, "Is my teaching effective?", "What could I do better?", “How can I improve my teaching?” The teaching method that most teachers are taught is based on the tradition that “teachers teach and students learn”. It is a one-way transmitting of knowledge. It is concentrating on the teaching, but not on the learning.

However, learning can happen without teachers. Some students can learn by themselves. We all learn many things by observation, by making mistakes and by actually doing something. These types of learning often stay with us and we call them experience. We may forget what we are taught in school but we never forget our experience. The question is instead of focusing on the teaching, should we place our priority on the student’s learning? The best ways to improve teaching is to focusing on how students are learning and this is the essence of active learning.

Learning "Soft-skills"

A student asked me: “Today many jobs require soft-skills but where do I learn those skills? Do I have to go to special school to learn them?"

Answer: You do not need to go to special school. Most “Soft skills” are often taught in college but you may not pay attention. Of course, there is no class called “Soft- skills” but many classes that you take can help you to develop these skills. For example, some college classes require students to give presentations or participate in group discussions. As presenter you will have to prepare for your talk in front of the class, you have to learn about the topic that you will present so you can talk about it confidentially. You will have to make sure that your presentation match the class level or interest. If it is too complicated, nobody will understand you. If it is too simple, they maybe bore and not pay attention. Basically you have to prepare and practice it several times to make sure that you feel comfortable on giving it. By doing that you are developing your soft-skill in “presentation”.

Book Reviews: How to Write Book Reviews

A book review is both a description and an evaluation of a book. It should focus on the book's purpose, contents, and authority.

Scan the Book's Preliminaries

Before beginning to read, consider the following:

1. Title - What does it suggest?
2. Preface - Provides important information on the author's purpose in writing the book and will help you to determine the success of the work.
3. Table of Contents - Tells you how the book is organized and will aid in determining the author's main ideas and how they are developed - chronologically, topically, etc.

Read the Text

Book Reviews

How to write a book review

There are two approaches to book reviewing: 

• Descriptive reviews give the essential information about a book. This is done with description and exposition, by stating the perceived aims and purposes of the author, and by quoting striking passages from the text. 
• Critical reviews describe and evaluate the book, in terms of accepted literary and historical standards, and supports this evaluation with evidence from the text. The following pointers are meant to be suggestions for writing a critical review.

How to Write a Book Review

A book review is a description, critical analysis, and an evaluation on the quality, meaning, and significance of a book, not a retelling. It should focus on the book's purpose, content, and authority. A critical book review is not a book report or a summary. It is a reaction paper in which strengths and weaknesses of the material are analyzed. It should include a statement of what the author has tried to do, evaluates how well (in the opinion of the reviewer) the author has succeeded, and presents evidence to support this evaluation.

Writing Template

I. Thesis sentence templates

The introduction for any piece of writing is very important. This is where you establish a relationship with the reader. A thesis sentence is a sentence in the introduction that tells the reader what the topic or argument of the essay is.

1. Comparison/Contrast thesis sentences

These templates can be used for essays where you are instructed to COMPARE or CONTRAST

1.1 Template 01

The differences[similarities] between ______ and _______ are________ , and they______