Learning Disorders and Law School: Strategies and Resources — from onlinemasteroflegalstudies.com with thanks to Allegra Balmadier for these resources

Excerpt:

Law schools across the country with all kinds of students and faculty could fairly be described by a single word: rigor. Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree programs are traditionally known for copious amounts of required reading and semester-end exams that count for a student’s whole grade. A legal education is an intensive course of study that would challenge any student.

A student with a learning disorder or disability (LD) may struggle for a particular reason—not for lack of effort but because of the conventional structure of class, assignments and tests. LDs can cause difficulty with processing information, a problem that is exacerbated when universities and colleges fail to offer support.

However, with appropriate strategies, students with LDs can succeed in law school and in the legal profession. Learn more about learning disorders and find resources below.

 

Homeschool math doesn’t have to be intimidating! — from raisinglifelonglearners.com by Colleen Kessler

Excerpt:

Finding The Right Math Program For Your Child
There are so many choices on the market. Some with manipulatives, some with thick workbooks, some on online learning platforms.

While it may seem overwhelming, its actually good news! You don’t have to worry about all of them – you only have to find the one that works for you!

That’s exactly what’s happened for my family this year with CTCMath.

CTCMath is an online program developed by a father of ten children, with twenty years teaching experience. It is a subscription math service that provides learning from Kindergarten all the way through Calculus. CTCMath specializes in providing online video tutorials that take a multi-sensory approach to learning.

 

 

The number one thing we’ve loved most about CTCMath this year is that it teaches math in short, bite sized amounts.

I LOVE the shorter lessons approach. Not only is it the best way to teach children with attention issues, but it also makes it easy for parents who struggle with math themselves!

Colleen Kessler

 

45 Next Generation Learning Tools That Kids Will Love — from ireviews.com with thanks to Alex Ward for this resource

Excerpts:

There’s a wide range of tools designed to support curriculum and help teachers and students achieve their goals. These are our top picks for school students of every age, due to their impressive functionality and simple integration into the classroom.

 


From DSC:
Below is a sample screenshot from the Elementary school resources section. They also have resources for middle schoolers and high schoolers.


45 Next Generation Learning Tools That Kids Will Love

 

Osso VR nets $66 million for surgical training — from axios.com by Sarah Pringle

Excerpt:

Why it matters: Surgical training hasn’t evolved in 30-plus years, but Osso VR is looking to change that by empowering health care professionals with virtual reality.

  • Training and assessing surgeons more efficiently can drive up the adoption of modern and hard-to-learn medtech, and democratize surgical education.
  • “The innovation from the medical device industry is providing us an incredible opportunity to treat patients much more consistently and with optimized outcomes,” said Justin Barad, Osso’s co-founder and a practicing pediatric orthopedic surgeon.

From DSC:
Not that this is exactly related, but the above item made me think of it:

  • The Healing Power of Learning — from chronicle.com by James M. Lang
    After a health crisis, an academic finds that learning is not just joyful but restorative.
 

The Future of ID in an AI World — from learningsolutionsmag.com by Markus Bernhardt and Clark Quinn

Excerpt:

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are promising great things for learning. The potential here is impressive, but there also exist many questions and insecurities around deploying AI technology for learning: What can AI do? Where is it best utilized? What are the limits? And particularly: What does that leave for the instructional designer and other human roles in learning, such as coaching and training?

We want to suggest that these developments are for the benefit of everyone—from organizational development strategy devised in the C-suite, via content creation/curation by instructional designers, right through to the learners, as well as coaches and trainers who work with the learners.

 

 

If learning is easy, it's here today and gone tomorrow...like footprints in the sand on a beach

Excerpt:

While studying I misjudged the depth of my knowledge. I confused familiarity with knowing.

When you passively consume information like reading books or watching courses and things start to make sense we often tell ourselves: “Oh, easy. I understand this. Got it.”

But it’s wrong to think you can access something from your memory if you can recognize it.

 

Now we just need a “Likewise TV” for learning-related resources! [Christian]

Likewise TV Brings Curation to Streaming — from lifewire.com by Cesar Aroldo-Cadenas
And it’s available on iOS, Android, and some smart TVs

All your streaming services in one place. One search. One watchlist. Socially powered recommendations.

Entertainment startup Likewise has launched a new recommendations hub that pulls from all the different streaming platforms to give you personalized picks.

Likewise TV is a streaming hub powered by machine learning, people from the Likewise community, and other streaming services. The service aims to do away with mindlessly scrolling through a menu, looking for something to watch, or jumping from one app to another by providing a single location for recommendations.

Note that Likewise TV is purely an aggregator.


Also see:

Likewise TV -- All your streaming services in one place. One search. One watchlist. Socially powered recommendations.

 


From DSC:
Now we need this type of AI-based recommendation engine, aggregator, and service for learning-related resources!

I realize that we have a long ways to go here — as a friend/former colleague of mine just reminded me that these recommendation engines often miss the mark. I’m just hoping that a recommendation engine like this could ingest our cloud-based learner profiles and our current goals and then present some promising learning-related possibilities for us. Especially if the following graphic is or will be the case in the future:


Learning from the living class room


Also relevant/see:

From DSC:
Some interesting/noteworthy features:

  • “The 32- inch display has Wi-Fi capabilities to supports multiple streaming services, can stream smartphone content, and comes with a removable SlimFit Cam.”
  • The M8 has Wi-Fi connectivity for its native streaming apps so you won’t have to connect to a computer to watch something on Netflix. And its Far Field Voice mic can be used w/ the Always On feature to control devices like Amazon Alexa with your voice, even if the monitor is off.
  • “You can also connect devices to the monitor via the SmartThings Hub, which can be tracked with the official SmartThings app.”

I wonder how what we call the TV (or television) will continue to morph in the future.


Addendum on 3/31/22 from DSC:
Perhaps people will co-create their learning playlists…as is now possible with Spotify’s “Blend” feature:

Today’s Blend update allows you to share your personal Spotify playlists with your entire group chat—up to 10 users. You can manually invite these friends and family members to join you from in the app, then Spotify will create a playlist for you all to listen to using a mixture of everyone’s music preferences. Spotify will also create a special share card that everyone in the group can use to save and share the created playlist in the future.


 

Guiding Young People Not to Colleges or Careers — But to Good Lives — from edsurge.com by Rebecca Koenig

Excerpts:

“We should not be designing programs and interventions without the direct input of young people,” says Allison Gerber, director of employment, education and training at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a philanthropy based in Baltimore that makes grants to expand education and skills-training for youth and adults. “The more engagement and ownership young people have in the entire thing, the more likely it will meet their needs, they’ll want to stay, feel a sense of belonging, and it will be attractive to them and their peers.”

Along the way, you’ll meet teenagers:
dealing with STRESS, seeking INDEPENDENCE, searching for job SATISFACTION, engaging in EXPLORATION, honing their LEADERSHIP skills, dreaming of HELPING OTHERS, worrying about MAKING MISTAKES, craving STABILITY, and AIMING HIGHER to make their families proud.

 
 

Want Students Who Think for Themselves? Let’s Eliminate Our Standardized School System — from edsurge.com by Zachary Morita

Excerpt:

It is a wake-up call when a student feels defeated by an educational system that focuses on standardizing students who feel like they are “the problem.” We can’t expect students to understand the purpose of education on their own. They need educators, leaders and supporters to guide them to create the education system they deserve to succeed in life. I stand by what I share with all of my students: that we must reimagine and redesign our education system so that students are NOT the problem.

Instead, we must ensure that learners are intrinsically motivated through learning activities that are challenging, purposeful, relevant and empowering.

 

Students Co-authoring Their Own Learning — from gettingsmart.com by Tom Vander Ark

Key Points

  • By inviting learners to co-author learning experiences, journeys and records, we help them build the most important skills and dispositions they’ll need to succeed in a changing world.
  • Helping learners weave together learner-chosen and co-authored experiences into coherent pathways is the new learning design challenge.
 

Picturesof learning spaces at KU Leuven, Imperial College London, University of Amsterdam, Oulu University of Applied Sciences, Finland

Clockwise from top left (KU Leuven, Imperial College London, University of Amsterdam,
Oulu University of Applied Sciences, Finland

.

A virtual tour of four advanced hybrid learning spaces — from zacwoolfitt.blogspot.com by Zac Woolfitt

Excerpt:

What are the next developments in the Hybrid Virtual Classroom? What kind of spaces might we be teaching in soon?

On March 16th we glimpsed the future. Colleagues from 4 higher education institutes gave virtual tours of their technology rich learning spaces in Belgium, England, Finland and the Netherlands. Media and Learning arranged the session [i]. (Disclosure: Zac is on their advisory panel of Media and Learning).

From DSC:
Here in the U.S., some would promote the use of the word “Hyflex” here instead of hybrid or blended learning — as it sounds like they are simultaneously teaching students in a physical classroom along with online-based learners.

 

Contrasting Cases: A Simple Strategy for Deep Understanding — from cultofpedagogy.com by Sarah Levine

Excerpt:

Contrasting cases is a valuable tool for any cognitive work—in any subject area—that involves going beyond surface traits and considering deeper connecting principles, or reflecting on specific features of a thing.

In my field of study, literary interpretation, using contrasting cases is especially useful to help students enrich their reading experiences and build interpretations of many kinds of texts, including fiction, poetry, or political speech. But you can use this approach in any subject where you’re studying rhetorically powerful texts, like advertisements, headlines, art, primary historical documents, and film.

 

World Maths Day -- March 23, 2022

Below are some excerpts from the information that Amanda Donnelly recently sent to me:

World Math Day takes place every year on March 23. It’s an annual global holiday where students are encouraged to solve mental math problems, find uses of math in their everyday lives, and utilize online games and platforms to enhance their skill sets in the subject.

Brainly, the largest online homework help community, has firsthand insight into the average American child’s relationship with math. Despite the love/hate relationship many people seem to have with the subject, according to a survey of 900 American students conducted by Brainly, math ranks #1 in students’ favorite subjects:

When asked to select their favorite subject in school, students answered:

  • Math (26.4%)
  • Science (20.3%)
  • English (20.1%)
  • Social Studies or History (18%)
  • Other (15.2%)


Over the last year, 1.3 million math answers have been shared on Brainly US, and 41% of answers shared so far this year are math. To address these questions, Brainly created Math Solver, an online feature focused specifically on providing step-by-step solutions to complex math problems.


Brainly Introduces Math Solver Providing Access to 24/7 Math Help — from the Brainly Insights Team with a special thanks to Amanda Donnelly for this information and these resources


 

Reflections on “Do We Really Want Academic Permanent Records to Live Forever on Blockchain?” [Bohnke]

From DSC:
Christin Bohnke raises a great and timely question out at edsurge.com in her article entitled:
Do We Really Want Academic Permanent Records to Live Forever on Blockchain?

Christin does a wonderful job of addressing the possibilities — but also the challenges — of using blockchain for educational/learning-related applications. She makes a great point that the time to look at this carefully is now:

Yet as much as unchangeable education records offer new chances, they also create new challenges. Setting personal and academic information in stone may actually counter the mission of education to help people evolve over time. The time to assess the benefits and drawbacks of blockchain technology is right now, before adoption in schools and universities is widespread.

As Christin mentions, blockchain technology can be used to store more than formal certification data. It could also store such informal certification data such as “research experience, individual projects and skills, mentoring or online learning.”

The keeping of extensive records via blockchain certainly raises numerous questions. Below are a few that come to my mind:

  • Will this type of record-keeping help or hurt in terms of career development and moving to a different job?
  • Will — or should — CMS/LMS vendors enable this type of feature/service in their products?
  • Should credentials from the following sources be considered relevant?
    • Microlearning-based streams of content
    • Data from open courseware/courses
    • Learning that we do via our Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) and social networks
    • Learning that we get from alternatives such as bootcamps, coding schools, etc.
  • Will the keeping of records impact the enjoyment of learning — or vice versa? Or will it depend upon the person?
  • Will there be more choice, more control — or less so?
  • To what (granular) level of competency-based education should we go? Or from project-based learning?
  • Could instructional designers access learners’ profiles to provide more personalized learning experiences?
  • …and I’m certain there are more questions than these.

All that said…

To me, the answers to these questions — and likely other questions as well — lie in:

  1. Giving a person a chance to learn, practice, and then demonstrate the required skills (regardless of the data the potential employer has access to)
    .
  2. Giving each user the right to own their own data — and to release it as they see fit. Each person should have the capability of managing their own information/data without having to have the skills of a software engineer or a database administrator. When something is written to a blockchain, there would be a field for who owns — and can administer — the data.

In the case of finding a good fit/job, a person could use a standardized interface to generate a URL that is sent out to a potential employer. That URL would be good for X days. The URL gives the potential employer the right to access whatever data has been made available to them. It could be full access, in which case the employer is able to run their own queries/searches on the data. Or the learner could restrict the potential employer’s reach to a more limited subset of data.

Visually, speaking:


Each learner can say who can access what data from their learner's profile


I still have a lot more thinking to do about this, but that’s where I’m at as of today. Have a good one all!


 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian