The benefits of digital learning for improving employee performance | Digital learning - Retail Technology Innovation Hub

From schools to businesses by way of individuals looking to improve their skills, digital learning, or e-learning, has become commonplace for a wide range of demands by Staff Writer.

Photo: Unsplash

It has allowed students to continue to learn even when they are unable to get to school, and it has brought entire classes of people together no matter where they are in the world.

E-learning can also significantly benefit your business and your employees, and if you want to know why here are the top four benefits. 

Always improving 

Any business should strive to provide adequate options for their employees to develop skills and improve.

While training courses and mentoring are some of the most popular, it’s also vital to consider other avenues such as e-learning to give them a range of options. 

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Source: Retail Technology Innovation Hub 

Ask a Trainer Video: Visual Design for E-Learning | E-Learning - ATD Blog

When you fall into the world of e-learning, there’s so much about the job that no one tells you by Tim Slade, authoring tools trainer for Artisan E-Learning and Bianca Woods, instructional designer with BMO Financial Group.

Photo: ATD Blog

Not only do you need to be a good instructional designer, but you also need to be a project manager, user interface designer, video editor, audio editor, LMS administrator, and occasionally the only one who knows how to un-jam the office copying machine.

Then, of course, there’s the visual design and graphic design aspects of the job...

Ask a Trainer Answers Your Questions About Visual Design for E-Learning.PhpPhoto

In this Ask a Trainer video, Tim Slade and Bianca Woods, answer questions about visual design best practices when creating e-learning solutions. 

 

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Source: ATD Blog 

Why I’m Hosting The Joy of x Podcast | Mathematics - Quanta Magazine

The noted mathematician and author Steven Strogatz, Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Applied Mathematics at Cornell University explains why he wanted to share intimate conversations with leading researchers from diverse fields in his new podcast. 

Photo: Ashley Mackenzie for Quanta Magazine

As a teenager in the 1970s, I used to love snuggling up in a big, soft velvet chair in my high school library. There, in its burnt-orange upholstery (I told you it was the ’70s), I’d lose myself in the memoirs of great scientists. One of those autobiographies, Werner Heisenberg’s Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations, made an abiding impression on me. In it, he describes feeling hopelessly stuck on a problem as a young postdoctoral fellow. To make matters worse, he was suffering from such a severe case of hay fever that he had to take two weeks off and escape to a remote, pollen-free island in the North Sea. One night, he suddenly saw the solution to his problem. He was far too giddy to sleep, so as a new day dawned, he climbed “a rock jutting out into the sea … and waited for the sun to rise.” His late-night epiphany is now called quantum mechanics.

This is the kind of fascinating thing we can learn by hearing great minds talk about their work and how it connects to their lives. It’s the best way, and maybe the only way, to learn not just what great scientists do but why they do it.

So when the editors at Quanta Magazine invited me to host a podcast for them, I jumped at the chance...

One last thing. Maybe you’re wondering why we call this podcast The Joy of x. Aside from the pun that only people of a certain age will get, we feel that this is a show about different kinds of joy — the joy of discovery, the joy of curiosity, and the joy of being a scientist, to name a few. As in algebra, the letter x represents the unknown quantity, the solution we’re seeking. But to us it connotes anything that sparks imagination and curiosity, anything that lies beyond the edge of what’s known. In short, x stands for the scientific quest.

 

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Source: Quanta Magazine 

Empty protractor | Mathematics - Association of Teachers of Mathematics

"The use of a protractor is twofold, viz, to lay down an angle or to measure an angle already laid down." (Meredith, 1791). 

Tom Francome, Lecture in Mathematics Education at the University of Birmingham describes how he uses an empty protractor to develop pupils' understanding of angle. 

Protractors  are  used  routinely  in  schools,  typically from year five (9-10 years) onwards...

The attached document has been downloaded or otherwise acquired from the website of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics (ATM) at www.atm.org.uk.

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Source: The Association of Teachers of Mathematics (ATM)

Why the Unknowable Number Exists But Is Uncomputable | Mathematics - Mind Matters

Sensing that a computer program is “elegant” requires discernment. Proving mathematically that it is elegant is, Gregory Chaitin impossible.

Abstract virtual binary code illustration on blurry modern office building background. Big data and coding concept. Multiexposure

In this week’s podcast, “The Chaitin Interview IV: Knowability and Unknowability,” Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks interviewed mathematician Gregory Chaitin on his “unknowable number.” That’s the topic of this series, based on the fourth podcast. Last week, we tried getting to know the unknowable number. Today, let’s look at the question of how we know that the number is unknowable — instead of merely non-computable. Lots of things are non-computable but we do not expect that to be true of numbers.

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Source: Mind Matters

The Beauty of Math in Architecture | Math - Newsmax

Alexandra York, author and founding president of the American Renaissance for the Twenty-first Century (ART) a New-York-City-based nonprofit educational arts and culture foundation (www.art-21.org) explains, Humans are hardwired to find delight in nature’s designs. We gravitate toward order rather than chaos. 

Pythagoras
Photo: denny vrandecic - Flickr

We like spirals, curves, zigzags, symmetry, harmonious proportion, and congruence: snail shells, waves, sunflowers, honeycombs, galaxies, leaves… all of nature’s fractal compositions that create an integration of details the whole of which seems so much greater than the sum of its parts. A fractal is a repeating geometric pattern that can be subdivided endlessly into parts, each part being a smaller copy of the whole; yet, it is the “finished” structural pattern that charms us.

How do nature’s geometrical pleasures transfer to manmade forms of architecture? Does an element of humanism enhance this art form to turn nature’s purely optical pleasure into a personal and/or communal one? As usual, we repair to ancient Greece for answers. Born from requirement to measure land — "geometry" means “earth measuring” — the Babylonians and Egyptians used geometry empirically to construct civic and religious buildings millennia before Greek flourishing in 5^th-century BCE. But when Greeks eventually traveled to “modern” versions of those early civilizations, they not only learned much about math in general but also expanded the basics — geometry in particular — into a scientific philosophy that became a separate discipline.

Pythagoras (569 BCE) started it while visiting Egypt and grasping principles beneath brilliant but experientially achieved structures...

All of the arts utilize math. Painting and sculpture necessitate an underlying geometric design to support composition. Fictive arts require thematic structure — a beginning, middle, and end — to support story progression...

...mathematically designed physical substances and forms as its only means of communicating. Communicating what today?

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Source: Newsmax 

University of Dundee offers scholarship for Indian students | Education - The Indian Express

The 'GREAT scholarship' offers international students who want to study at UK University for a one-year postgraduate course. Interested and eligible candidates can apply for the scholarship by May 7, 2021 by Education Desk.

The 'GREAT scholarship' offers international students who want to study at UK University for one-year postgraduate course.
Photo: The Indian Express

 

>The University of Dundee in collaboration with the British Council is offering the ‘Great scholarships’ 2021-22 for Indian students to study a full-time, on-campus, postgraduate course of value £10,000. The offer starts in September 2021. Interested and eligible candidates can apply for the scholarship by May 7.

The scholarship is given for the tuition fees. It offers international students who want to study at the UK university a one-year postgraduate course. It also encourages the students to apply and demonstrate an interest in the chosen subject, through examples of work or academic experience...

The University of Dundee currently has 14 ‘Great scholarships’ available for the 2021-22 academic year for students from China (two), Egypt (one), Ghana (one), India (one), Indonesia (two), Kenya (one), Malaysia (two), Pakistan (two) and Thailand (two) for all subjects.

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Source: The Indian Express  

Butterfly 'perfectly preserved for almost 400 years' in Cambridge University book | Entertainment - Yahoo

The insect book's original owner could have placed it there in the 17th century, according to Jimmy Nsubuga, Yahoo.

Rare preserved butterfly discovered in a copy of the earliest insect book published in England 

 

A butterfly found perfectly preserved inside a Cambridge University library book may have been there for almost 400 years.

Head of Library Services at Trinity College Jenni Lecky-Thompson was shocked after discovering the insect in a specialist book from 1634. 

College officials have said there is a possibility the original owner could have placed it in Theatre of Insects, which is the earliest insect book published in England...

“This one could have been put there by the first owner back in the 17th century, and if so it is amazing that is has survived there for so long.”

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Source: Yahoo and Trinity Hall Cambridge Channel (YouTube)  

Gen Xers are "thriving" with digital work while millennials struggle | CXO - TechRepublic

R. Dallon Adams, Staff Writer at TechRepublic notes, Adobe's Workfront released a report about the impact of COVID-19 on employees, the importance of workplace tech, generational differences among workers and more.

Photo: iStock/torwai

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, organizations around the globe adopted remote work policies to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. On Thursday, Adobe's Workfront released its annual State of Work report for 2021 outlining "how COVID-19 changed digital work," generational differences among employees, the importance of useful technology in day-to-day workflows and more.

Overall, the report compares the results of two Center for Generational Kinetics-conducted studies. The first study was conducted in February and March of last year and the second was held eight months later in November and December. Each study involved 1,000 respondents who "worked on a computer and collaborated with other people" and were employed by a company with a minimum of 500 employees, the report said. 

In the telecommuter age, remote teams have leveraged a vast suite of technologies to enable collaboration from afar...

Digital workers are more comfortable with "a variety of foundational work elements," but Gen Xers "appear to be thriving," according to the report. For example, the number of millennials who said they were comfortable with communication ideas and expression opinions increased one point, while Gen Xers reported an eight-point increase in both categories.

In terms of a person's ability to "build and reinforce trust in the workplace," millennials' comfort levels dropped three points while Gen Xers reported a four-point increase...

The report ends with a series of "takeaways" for business leaders and this includes treating "technology as a critical workforce issue."   

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Source: TechRepublic  

The number of Caribbean islands offering remote-work visas expands | Caribbean - Travel Weekly

Gay Nagle Myers, Contributing Editor inform, Dominica and Montserrat are the latest destinations to offer opportunities for digital nomads to power up their laptops in a tropical setting.

Zoom backdrop? Little Bay in Montserrat; the island is now offering long-term visa options for visitors who want a remote-work option.
Photo: Travel Weekly

Remote-work programs have sprung up across the Caribbean, as islands look to entice long-term visitors who contribute to the hospitality economy. The programs require visitors to stay in certified, approved properties -- hotels, resorts, villas and Airbnbs. Many are beachfront, and some properties offer discounts for long stays.

The chance to relocate and work remotely was first launched by Barbados with its Welcome Stamp program in July and was followed by Bermuda's One Year Work program in August, which allowed non-Bermudians to relocate their home and office to the 21-square-mile island for research study or remote work.

Others islands followed: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, Curacao, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico...

The newest entry is Dominica with its extended-stay visa program dubbed Work in Nature (WIN), which offers remote workers, digital nomads, academics, families and those on sabbaticals to work remotely for up to 18 months on the island.

Dominica has high-speed internet, modern health-care facilities, educational options for families and opportunities to join for volunteer programs.

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Source: Travel Weekly