Educate yourself with MOOC provider edX

EdX is an excellent MOOC provider for people who want to learn online, (MOOC is short for massive open online courses). The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University founded edX in May of 2012.

Ever since it's foundation it has been governed by colleges and universities and it is the only leading MOOC provider that is both nonprofit and open source.

As an online educational organisation edX offers high-quality courses from the world’s leading universities and upscale institutions, that enable anyone to educate themselves on an academic level.

Some of the university level courses are free of charge and there are a wide range of courses made available in computer science, languages, engineering, psychology, writing, electronics, biology, or marketing.

Edx also performs research in e-learning, based on how people use their platform.

Their ultimate mission is to provide quality education for everyone, everywhere and increasing access to high-quality education for everyone, everywhere.

Therefor they have developed ways to allow people around the world to get an education that would otherwise be impossible.

Unlike other MOOC providers like Coursera and Udacity, edX is a nonprofit organization and runs on the free Open edX open-source softwareplatform. This online learning platform is freely available.

On June 1, 2013, edX open sourced its entire platform. On GitHub the source code can be found.

With Open EdX, educators and technologists can build learning tools and contribute new features to the platform, creating innovative solutions to benefit students globally.

Also the platform is made freely available to other institutions of higher learning that want to make the same offerings. Several higher-education institutions use the Open edX to provide MOOC services, such as MIT's MITx platform and some private companies also use Open edX to provide training.

With more than 90 global partners, EdX counts the world’s leading universities, nonprofits, and institutions as it's members. EdX university members top the QS World University Rankings® with the founders receiving the top honors, and EdX partner institutions ranking highly on the full list.

It is possible to get a verified certificate after completing a course and also to automatically update the information about the received cerficate on to your LinkedIn profile.

For more information visit the site: Open edX or edX.

Lifehack Finders Nice to Know:

As of 29 December 2016, EdX has around 10 million students taking more than 1,270 courses online.

More than 70 schools, nonprofit organizations, and corporations offer or plan to offer courses on the edX website.

Online education is available via EdX in English, Mandarin, French, Hindi, Spanish

Edx latest tweet says they are excited to announce two new Microsoft Professional Program tracks, Cloud Administration and DevOps.

A book a day with Blinkist

Always wanted to educate yourself more but lack the time to sit and read the relevant books all day long? You can now install Blinkist in the Appstore.

Named one of Europe’s Hottest Start-Ups in 2016 by Wired, Blinkist provides you the key insights of 2,000+ nonfiction bestsellers.

 
These books are available via the app into powerful 15-minute reads or audios. The press has been impressed by this new app and Forbes says:

"Blinkist offers a terrific service – great ideas distilled down to their very essence. For those of us who are deeply curious about new ideas on success, happiness, innovation, progress and more, it’s a great start." 

Boost your effectiveness and timemanagement in self-education.
Over 2 million users have allready installed this app to increase their knowledge and gain new perspectives.

You can use Blinkist to:

• Discover new perspectives on the world with bestsellers on science, economics, history & culture
• Explore personal development with the most impactful self-improvement titles
• Sharpen professional skills with the best business books in your own niche.
• Stay on top of the latest ideas and trending matters in various professional fields

The Blinkist app also enables you to switch between audio and text and you can read and listen offline.

Furthermore you can:

• Create your own unique personalized audio playlists to customize your learning experience
• Listen to audio versions to make a daily habit of learning
• With the Autoplay option learn hands-free, on the way, while working out or doing groceries and/or household chores.

The app offers personalized reading recommendations and suggest titles based on your interests and trading history and has a format based on brain-based learning and neuroscientific research.

It is possible to sign up for a free trial period. Content is tailored to your interests and you can start learning right away. After your trial expires, you can choose a membership that suits you. The premium version offers features like the possibility 'send-to-Kindle' and the ability to sync your highlights with Evernote.

Lifehack Finders Nice to Know:

And what if you are still not ready to upgrade after the trial period? Then you can still read one pre-selected book-in-blinks every day, forever!

How to learn a new language in 6 months: Chris Lonsdale at TEDX

Chris Lonsdale gives a presentation about learning faster. In particular he is telling in this 18 minute presentation how someone can learn any language in 6 months time. 

According to his own experience talent and immersion have nothing to do with learning a new language fast. You can improve your communication skills and learn a new language by modelling and by using these 5 principles:

1. The interconnection between attention, meaning, relevance and memory. Any information that involves your survival or helps you achieve personal goals has relevance. Focus on language content that is relevant to you.

2. We master tools by using tools and we use tools faster when they are relevant to us.

3. When you FIRST UNDERSTAND the MESSAGE, then you will unconsiously aquire the language. Physiological training that create new filters in your brain: if you cant hear it you can't understand it if you can't understand it you will not learn it. 

4.  Talking is practiscing your muscles.

5. Psycho physiological state matters!  Feeling happy, relaxed and curious and not trying to interpret it perfectly straight away makes a big difference!


And  these 7 steps:

1. Listen alot: brainsoaking. 

2. Get the meaning and then the words (by bodylanugage) for comprehendible input.

3  Start mixing: language is a creative process!

4. Focus on the core high frequency content, if you master 3000 words you have mastered the language. 
Toolbox: use your questions to know more about the language, ask the questions in the language you want to learn and not in the language you allready know!
Glue words, improving ypour grammer and completing your sentences: get ready to have simple but whole conversations.

5. Get a language parent, someone who can coach you through with patience.

6.  Copy the face: mimic the facial expressions.

7. Same box different path :link mental pictures to new sounds.

Lifehack Finders Nice to Know: Chris Lonsdale is a psychologist, linquist and educator teaching at Lingnan university. In 1980 he graduated from the University of Canterbury with first- class honours. He is the author of  'The third ear'  which is based on his personal experience of learning foreign languages and his training in psychology.

Nuance Dragon speech recognition syncs with Evernote

Dragon speech recognition software is now ready to be used with the Evernote app, which means you can dictate, store and access your information and documents much faster and more effectively, saving yourself alot of time and energy.

Dragon by Nunace is a speech recognition software, Dragon is not only smart software in getting more accurate as you dictate, it also provides personalized vocabulary and shortcuts.

The productivity app Evernote can be used as a tool to stay organized on your mobile phone. It works well on both Android and iOS. Evernote makes it possible to keep different files like audio, video, images and notes in the same place. An excellent feature of the Evernote app is the list management functionality.

Lifehack Finders Nice to Know: The combination of fast en accurate working speech recognition software with the usefulness of the Evernote App makes this a great timesaver! 

How the weakest link works

Apparently the expression 'at the center of attention'  is not just an expression. Sitting or standing in the middle of a room works like an actual psychological trigger to others, as explained by Richard Wiseman in this short video, we won't bore you with long video's no matter how viral they may be so this one is only 59 seconds. Get wise man, real fast, enjoy.

Lifehack finder's Nice to Know: Richard Wiseman is the bestselling author of many several popular psychology books that have been translated into over 30 languages and is described by  the magazine Scientific American as "…the most interesting and innovative experimental psychologist in the world today".