Last month I wrote about ways to take free online courses in this post, and I promised to follow up with more tips. While you’ll still have to wait a little while before I get around to posting on that topic again, I did want to let you in on a search engine I just found.
Say that you were interested in taking a MOOC (massive open online course), but you didn’t really want to sort through all of the results you’d get if you searched that topic.
What would you do? Continue reading
If you spend anytime on a post-secondary campus at this time of year, you wouldn’t even need to be told that final exams are underway because the stress and anxiety are actually palpable in the air. Nearly every student you walk past has their nose buried in a book or computer screen, some sort of legal stimulant within reach, and a frantic look in their tired eyes. Continue reading
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire”
– William Butler Yeats
There’s nothing I love better than mastering a skill or gaining a new piece of knowledge. I find learning to be one of the few vices in life that are both addictive and good for me. Considering I often indulge in those other vices that aren’t really in my best interest, I try to get a big dose of education as often as I can.
But here’s the catch: school can be really expensive.
Most courses will set you back a few hundred dollars even if they only take a few hours to complete, and that’s only to pay for the privilege of sitting in the classroom. The cost can double (or worse) once you factor in miscellaneous expenses such as gas, parking, and textbooks.
As much as I may love education, I’d much rather learn something new without having to break the bank to pay for it.
If you feel the same way, here are a few tips that can help get you schooled for free online… Continue reading
A few months ago I wrote about having the great fortune to discover that Heritage Minutes are available for viewing online. Canadians of almost any age will remember this series of history videos that began airing on television in 1991. Each Minute depicts a significant moment, person or event that influenced Canadian history and they left many a viewer (including yours truly) transfixed back in the day.
If you didn’t grow up watching Heritage Minutes, you likely a) are not Canadian and b) have no idea that history can be interesting enough to make you anticipate commercial breaks. If either of those options apply to you, dear reader, I am truly sorry. While I can’t help you with the first issue, you should check out this post to resolve the second issue. I’ll wait for you to come back…
…okay, now that we’re all on the same page about history commercials being cool, you should brace yourself because Continue reading
Graduation season is upon us, which means that billions of snapshots are currently being added to family photo albums all over the world.
As a student, one of the ways I paid the piper was by working at the university I attended. Come June you would find me handing out thousands of caps, gowns, and hoods so students could look the part when they walked across the stage to receive their degrees.
Spending that much time around strange robes and even stranger hats makes you wonder about the history of academic regalia. For instance, why do students receiving undergraduate and graduate degrees wear hats (mortar boards) that look like skull caps? And am I the only one who’s noticed that all grads look like monks?
As a diligent student of life who has access to the Internet, I decided to consult the Oracle to find the answers I sought. Here’s what I found out: Continue reading
Note: this post contains nerdy academic content pertaining to quantitative and qualitative research methods (aka the quant/qual debate). Since YouTube has a video for everything, here’s a primer on the subject for those of you who think I just typed the same word twice:
Okay. Now that we’re all on the same page, I should probably tell you that (according to this video) I’m one of those smelly hippy types. Anyone that knows me in the real world has had to suffer through at least one of my rants about statistics. It’s actually a little surprising that I haven’t gone off about the subject on this blog yet….until now, that is. Continue reading
While doing some research for this post a few weeks ago, I stumbled on a few classic Canadian “Heritage Minute” videos on YouTube. I was thrilled to find out that they’re available for viewing online because these videos used to leave me transfixed when I was little…and apparently they still do today.
Heritage Minute videos first aired on television in 1991, and each one depicts a significant moment, person or event who influenced Canadian history. I know that Canadian history may seem like a really boring topic, but we’ve actually done some pretty amazing things over the years! From creating Superman and basketball, to our roles in Vimy Ridge and helping free American slaves through the Underground Railroad, these vignettes make your Canadian heart swell with pride.
Whenever a Heritage Minute would come on tv when I was a kid, I used to cross my fingers and hope it was a story I hadn’t yet seen. The minute-long videos were fairly frequently aired over the years, so it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a new one. But through the magic of the internet, you can easily access over 70 of them on the Historica Dominion Institute website.
Here are a few examples of the reasons Canadians have to be proud of our collective heritage: Continue reading
Cultural Quirks 