Boost your brain this summer: Coursera, edX, TED-Ed and other online learning resources

I declared my summer 2012 as a summer of learning. I love learning new things by myself and I have already reflected on the topic of self education here a two and a half year ago. There I listed several resources that are generally still actual, however some new great opportunities have emerged for self-learners. MIT OCW, for example, seemed to be one of the greatest things, however, when digging into it, you might get just partial information (just lecture notes, just assignments, etc). I was more looking forward to a real online class, with video lectures, assignments, deadlines etc. 

Google Education resources

Earlier this month I learned about an online course of power searching offered by Google. I signed up for it partly because of I was interested to learn the methods and media used in the course, then surely also to learn new things on search. They were 6 classes, each comprised of lessons (video lectures) and activities (quizzes). There was a mid-term assignment with a deadline and a final assignment. One could attempt to take them as many times as needed and just the highest score was being counted. The certificates were being sent out to those who got at least 75% score. I got 100% :) Now the classes are online for everyone, without the assessments, however.

Hopefully, more courses like this will be offered by Google!

Coursera.org

I had heard of Coursera since months ago, however signed up for it just recently, after I watched its co-founder Daphne Koller talk at TEDGlobal 2012 (the talk is not yet up on TED.com, I watched the webstream, upd. 03.08.2012 - the talk is now live!). There were several interesting courses starting in September, January 2013 and even later. The first course I signed up to, started on July 23 - "Internet History, Technology, Security".
It features video lectures every week, quiz assignments and peer-graded assignments. The platform has a basic wiki for additional resources and also a discussion board, where students discuss various topics (except for the quiz answers :) and even form study groups (there is one for Armenians as well).
I really love the coursera platform and look forward to completing several courses there!

Interesting read: Is Coursera the Beginning of the End for Traditional Higher Education?, Forbes
upd. TED blog featured 12 great free online courses. (03.08.2012)

TED-Ed

This is TED's educational initiative, was presented at TEDxSummit in Doha, and launched in spring. It features animated videos on various topic that can be used in classes.
Here is one of the most recent lessons: "How do pain relievers work?"

Here is one of my favorites: The cockroach beatbox

edX.org

First it was MITx, now it's edX - ambitiously announced as the future of online education. It's MIT and Harvard that teamed up to create online courses for interactive studies on the web, free for everyone.

EdX's goals combine the desire to reach out to students of all ages, means, and nations, and to deliver these teachings from a faculty who reflect the diversity of its audience. EdX is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is governed by MIT and Harvard.

Few days ago edX announced its 7 courses for Fall 2012 on Computer science and Chemistry from MIT, Harvard and Berkeley. Currently I'm looking forward to new courses that would be of my interest.

Interesting read: Universities Reshaping Education on the Web, The New York Times.



p.s. Some reflections on current educational system in Russian: habr.ru/p/148356/

Adios to my *Desire* and welcome *Simply Stunning*!

The time has come for my old Android phone to retire ... numerous scratches are reminders of the passionate kisses my phone had with the streets of Rome, Amsterdam, Doha, Warsaw, Cologne, Prague, Paris and others. The saved wi-fi networks could make a separate page in my memoirs :) - TOUR_EIFFEL, Den Haag Nieuw Centraal, Starbucks, TEDx2012, The_Bulldog, ViennArt, UEFAEURO2012, MosaicHouseHotel, ictQATAR_iParks, Hilton Gdansk, ING Internet Gate .... scrolling through that list always makes me travel back in memory and smile :)

My HTC Desire served me for whole 2 years.. I flashed it once with a new rom a year ago and it had a little more better battery life then. The worst thing about HTC Desires is the awfully small internal memory.. I couldn't install new apps for months.. had to constantly clear the browser cache and choose between the apps - which ones to keep. It was too annoying and I finally found the substitute :)

My A. bought himself a cool white HTC One X - the latest and one of the most powerful smartphones... I was hesitating between the X and S and eventually chose the latter, for difference. And my geeky self is HAPPY!!!

I installed some 30 apps the first day and of course - started instagraming :D I now enjoy the ICS Android and the dual-core processor performance..The camera is just amazing.. I can take quality pictures while videoing! and it has the Beats Audio™! 

I bought it from VivaCell-MTS, as it added me a "smart-bonus" worth half the price of the phone. I basically now have unlimited viva calls, texts and 3G internet!!!!!!! which is just awesome :) Listening to online radios on the go? no problem! :P

and here are the specs:

Wanderlust

.at, .cz, .nl, .de, .fr, .ae, .qa, .ru, .pl .. nkr.am :)) 

My check-ins from the last 6 months include this many countries :) [in reality, I didn't travel in all of them, .ae and .ru were transit points] .. traveling is my drug, my motivation, the trigger for my accomplishments, inspiration and for mental "restart".
I have estimated that I need at least 2 trips abroad a year, in order not to feel travel-sick. 
I know that I need to work hard to achieve this and I have found out which direction to work on :)

It's twice as awesome to travel with someone dear ;) [recent discovery, haha]

So here is a thank you shout-out for you, my dearest, for making this all awesomeness happen to me!

over the clouds...

p.s. my previous post on traveling.

great'n'tough week...

I'm having a TOUGH week…. And it's in a very positive sense :)

Just thought I should take time to write a couple lines for my dear blog.

Today, I've reached an important milestone. I have presented a paper at an international conference about media ethics. All the participants were YSU/YSLU professors, and the audience included some students and academic staff.
My small report will be published in a guidebook for journalists, disseminated among universities that have journalism faculties and media organizations.

Later I'm going to deliver 2 sessions at a training on the effective use of the social networks for museum workers.

I have submitted an application for a very ambitious program, gathering all the required documents, writing all the statements, etc.
I am preparing my documents for an even more ambitious competition :) lots of papers to gather.. and things to write.. i can make it...

Yesterday I was on a TV talking about the cases of companies asking for employee passwords.

Starting from today my face can be seen on HSBC ads - billboards, web banners, and in a commercial on a TV, my voice can be heard in a radio ad :) … never thought I'd be offered to feature in a commercial and moreover, never thought I'd need to sign a document stating that I'm not a parliament elections candidate (TVs required it).

These days we are actively working on the organization of the TEDxKids@Yerevan event and another smaller TEDx event.

In my workplace, I'm managing a new big project (while finalizing the previous one) and also working on the proposals of some new interesting projects.

I am organizing Foursquare Day 2012 and received a cute swag from Foursquare itself and hope we'll have a great meetup!

In two days I'm leaving for an amazing new country I never thought I’d have a chance to visit. I will participate in a huge and exciting event with more than 700 participants from different countries. I will participate in some interesting and useful workshops and even make a small presentation myself. There will be opportunities to experience some amazing activities I could only see in movies before.

Besides, I'm very energetic and full of love because I have some GREAT people around me and I got convinced that the reality can feel even better than in the sweetest and cutest romantic situation seen in a music video.

I will be posting updates about my exciting activities in my FB and twitter pages and hopefully also eventually post a detailed post in my blog...

March Equinox

Oh my... so many things happen to me daily. I'm engaged in so many activities, that I can't attempt to count all the roles I'm acting as on daily basis.
Sometimes, when I'm hell tired like this, I start to look for the guilty party and eventually I blame myself for constantly challenging my own abilities and being unable to say no to new opportunities. I don't know where the limit is, but I'm nowhere near to reaching it at all.

You never know what opportunity is going to land in your inbox at any moment... --couldn't be truer!

“You are a mashup of what you let into your life.” - Austin Kleon

I hope I'll be able to share here some part of the awesomeness I'm experiencing currently, all the amazing events, discoveries and experiences.

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

Chapter One
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost …. I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.


Chapter Two I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend that I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in this same place.
But, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.


Chapter Three I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit … but, my eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.


Chapter Four I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.


Chapter Five I walk down another street.


by Portia Nelson

Thank you, 2011

The January is almost over and I've finally got to finalize the post about my 2011.

Here are the top events that made my year so awesome.

1. Was a trainer on Personal branding and online reputation management, on effective use of social networks and twitter in particular, did a session for a training of trainers.
2. Tuned my public speaking skills with several presentations at various events.
3. Visited some interesting locations in Armenia and met some great people.
4. Became part of the geeks community with some very cool people :)
5. Helped with organization of some interesting and geeky events like Foursquare Day, BarCamp EVN 2011, TEDxYerevan 2011.
6. Did a presentation on "How to date a geek girl" at BarCamp Yerevan 2011, which later became viral on the web, and Slideshare's presentation of the day, of the week :)
7. Was a speaker at TEDxYerevan 2011, a huge milestone reached. Met some wonderful people thanks to the event. (Side effect: made my shoe collection famous :D)
8. Had a ride on a helicopter and applied for a parachute jumping (pending).
9. Was on TV live several times... as an expert on ebooks (haha), email communication (interesting), blogger (when did i last update my blog? :D) and stuff like that)))
10. Was a maid of honor for the first time in life and enjoyed my title a lot :)))) 
11. Applied for a license and became an official TEDx organizer and organized my first TEDx (out of 4 to be organized within a year) end of November.
12. Attended a live show of one of my favorite bands - COLDPLAY!
13. Went to Eurotrip - 5 countries and 8 cities in just 12 days. Saw the Paris, climbed the Eiffel, crossed the whole Germany from West to East on a car, and all of this - with my best friend :)
14. On my 4th visit to Amsterdam, I finally tried a space-cake....my advice: whatever it is... be sure you have someone to take you home afterwards :)
15. Reconnected with a special friend, who later became an even more special one to me :)

Watch my 2011 in photos that matter :) 180 photos that showcase moments that mattered during my 2011. The music is: Coldplay - We Found Love.

I'm a TEDx Organizer!

I have already told you how much I love TED and about the TEDxYerevan conferences that I took part in (also as a speaker).

I decided to actively take part in spreading the ideas of TED becoming a TEDx Activator. Now let me tell you what it is and why I'm so proud now :))

TEDx Activator is an experiment in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to support TEDx organizers who are using TEDx events to spread ideas in the developing world and unprivileged communities. Any community that does not have access to TED and TED.com qualifies.

TEDx - is an independently organized TED event by an individual who has to be granted a free license from TED. The event can be just viewing TED talks, or can have live speakers as well. TED rules state that if it's a full-day event, total 25% of talks have to be pre-recorded talks from TED.com.

In reality, TED is very strict about rules for TEDx and I actually enjoy being part of this!!! There is a strong community with many virtual collaboration tools which somehow reminded me of my beloved youth organization - AIESEC.

In the framework of the TEDxActivator program, each of the Activators will be organizing 4 TEDx events in 1 year, for the above mentioned unprivileged communities.

The first event I planned was for teenagers of various backgrounds, the others most likely will be in the regions of Armenia.

TEDxTumanyanPark organizers :)

The first event me and my friend Gohar organized on November 30, was for TUMO kids exclusively, named TEDxTumanyanPark, and made possible with the help of TEDx Activator Manager and TEDxYerevan licensee Kristine Sargsyan.  It was a viewing event with the theme "Creativity in tech". We invited 100 kids (announcing it on Facebook) to the cinema hall of TUMO.

We selected 5 short to mid-length talks with many visuals. We made sure the Armenian translations of the talks (most of which were done by me and Gohar) were there and were correct. We prepared small intros for the talks and also were telling the main points of the talks in Armenian, since some of the kids couldn't manage to read the subtitles or understand the English speech. We had a great support from the TUMO staff and it was a pleasure to work with them!
And based on what we heard from the kids - they really enjoyed it! I hope we will see TED speakers growing up out these kids who were just getting acquainted with TED :)

Here are a few official numbers about TEDx:

• TEDx began in March 2009.
• # of TEDx events 2009: 279
• # of TEDx events 2010: 952
• # of TEDx events 2011 so far (Nov. 29): 1645
• Total # events: 2876
• Countries: 118
• Languages: 40+
• Licensees: 3450+
• Videos (TEDxTalks): 10,500+
• Across various platforms, TEDxTalks videos have been viewed over 50 million times. 

Here are more pics from the event, made by my lovely cousin Semira Martirosyan.

P.S. My status msg on FB about becoming a TEDx organizer got 120 likes and 30 comments. As it turns out, there were rumors in the city that I had quit my current job and now I'm a full-time TEDx organizer :). Dear all, i'm still PanARMENIAN Arpik and I have no intention to change my job. Being a TEDx organizer does not require full time efforts, thankfully :)