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The Summoner's Guidebook: A League of Legends guide to guides
The goal of The Summoner's Guidebook is and always has been to encourage the development of player skill in League of Legends, especially for beginner and intermediate players. The focus on developing individual skills means that we do fewer in-depth guides on specific elements of the game. When I write about why you should not always buy Deathcap, I'm trying to help you develop the critical thinking skills to look at items and make in-the-moment value decisions about which item is better. I could use any item, but Deathcap has a lot of little things to think about. Either way, there are other guides out there for League of Legends. Let's not kid ourselves here. There are thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands?) of guides out there. Actually, there are probably thousands of websites that provide information on LoL of some kind or another. The Guidebook is really just a drop in the ocean. Therefore, this week I'm going to talk about them.
SUNY partners with Coursera for massively open online course experiment
Massive open online courses have the potential to alter how we teach and learn as a society, but unlike other methods that are steeped in centuries of trial and error, the MOOC concept remains experimental and unproven -- often criticized as better suited for edification than rigorous education. Like edX, Coursera is working to challenge that assumption, and today the online course provider announced partnerships with ten public university systems that'll integrate lessons from Coursera into the classroom. Most notably, The State University of New York is participating, which boasts 64 campuses and an enrollment of nearly half a million students. While its implementation remains up in the air, SUNY aims to introduce Coursera materials this fall and over the next few years as part of its Open SUNY initiative. Like SUNY, all partner schools may adapt lessons from Coursera as they see fit, and professors will have the opportunity to develop online courses for Coursera. Most significantly, the pilot programs will give universities an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of Coursera material, which could go a long way toward legitimizing the MOOC concept. As another happy consequence, universities may choose to offer for-credit courses from Coursera to non-matriculated students. For a greater understanding of this grand experiment, just hit up the source links. [Image credit: Dave Herholz / Flickr]
Olympia Circuits' Arno Shield lets Arduino newcomers bring their own board
While there have certainly been attempts at easing the Arduino learning curve, many of these still demand a new board or simplify just one aspect of a much larger universe. Olympia Circuits' new Arno Shield could help strike a better balance between starting fresh and diving into the deep end. It includes all the buttons, lights and sensors needed for 40-plus educational projects, but grafts on to existing boards such as the company's LeOlympia or an Arduino Uno. Owners don't have to add parts or wires; they just remove the shield once they've learned enough to create their own masterworks. The shield kit won't be cheap when it arrives on May 2nd for $60, but it may prove the real bargain for tinkerers who want a full-fledged Arduino board as soon as the training wheels come off.
eduPad takes 80 percent off its iTooch lineup of educational apps
eduPad is known for its iTooch line of educational apps for elementary and junior high school students. The apps have a clean, ad-free interface and extensive problem set that adheres to the Common Core Standards. They are also on sale through April 28 for 80 percent off. The iTooch series covers math, language arts, science and health for third through eighth grades. You can buy individual subjects or a multi-subject pack that is grouped by grade level. Each subject includes over 1,500 exercises to reinforce the skills students need to master that subject. With the multi-subject app, you'll get 4,500 problems that'll challenge your child throughout the school year. The iTooch apps usually cost US$9.99 each, but eduPad is offering the titles in its series for $3 or less. You can grab the individual subject apps for 99 cents and the multi-subject apps for $2.99. Links to all the discounted eduPad apps are provided below for your convenience. iTooch 3rd Grade [iOS Universal; now $2.99] iTooch 4rd Grade [iOS Universal; now $2.99] iTooch 5rd Grade [iOS Universal; now $2.99] iTooch 6th Grade Health [iOS Universal; now $0.99] iTooch 6th Grade ELA [iOS Universal; now $0.99] iTooch 6th Grade Math [iOS Universal; now $0.99] iTooch 7th Grade ELA [iOS Universal; now $0.99] iTooch 7th Grade Math [iOS Universal; now $0.99] iTooch 8th Grade ELA [iOS Universal; now $0.99] iTooch 8th Grade Math [iOS Universal; now $0.99] iTooch Music for Grade 7 and 8 [iOS Universal; now $0.99] iTooch TOEFL Prep [iOS Universal; now $0.99]
Productivity Tip: Read the manual, or take a class
There was a time when Mac owners scoffed at their PC-loving counterparts, who had to pore over paper manuals to grok the essentials of a software program before they tried to use it. When graphical user interfaces were introduced, a lot of focus was on making software intuitive and easy to use. There were also hardware constraints -- not much CPU power or memory, minimal storage, low-resolution displays -- that forced applications to be simple by design. Modern applications, whether on the desktop or on mobile, have a lot more room to maneuver, and consequently may arrive with a much steeper learning curve While your average iOS app may seem simple enough, quite often there are bells and whistles you might not know about. iPad apps may use the increased screen real estate to add more (and more obscure) options, and Mac or web applications can be far more complex than anything available on mobile platforms. While it might seem like cheap advice to "read the manual," I find very few people actually do. There's an entire industry built around learning software tools, like the Take Control series, which I find immensely helpful. Granted, most software manuals are written in plodding, feature by feature style and not as entertaining "here's how you solve this problem" books, but even that dry documentation can be vital to your efficacy when using the software. When I started using iBank, shortly after its debut, I was lured in by its accessible design. "This seems simple enough," I said as I started entering transactions. Over time it became apparent that I had barely scratched the surface of iBank's functionality. I eventually gave up on the program -- only to return over a year later, armed with more clues. This time I read the manual, in no small part because almost every question I looked up on the IGG Software Knowledgebase had an answer in the manual. Another example: Productivity software. While applications like Things are simple enough, there's often a lot of functionality hidden in the manual. You may not understand how to tap into these features if you're just reading "This does that" in the documentation. This is where additional help may be required. In my case, for task management I use OmniFocus (after trying every other "to do" application under the sun). OmniFocus isn't a simple list maker; it is a powerful database which can help you sort through mountains of tasks to allow you to focus on what exactly needs to be done next. You could likely spend days reading the manual and still come away with the "what now?" feeling. You could buy a book, but sometimes books on niche products turn out more like dry manuals. There's another answer, however. For deeper, more powerful applications, I recommend paying for additional learning materials. I bought an excellent book on DEVONThink Pro from Take Control and I no longer feel overwhelmed by the powerful software. For OmniFocus, I knew I needed to use it better, so I upped the ante and bought into the Asian Efficiency series of posts on using OmniFocus. Take Control books are great, but (for me) sometimes the low cost can cause a lack of motivation. Asian Efficiency is more like an online course, and the cost is much higher than just a book. It's a powerful motivator to know you're wasting more than an evening of poker's amount of money with a course if you ignore it. This goes double for any app that's crucial to your business workflow; if you're earning your rent with Adobe's CS suite, don't stint on the training or courseware as you move from CS 5 to CS6. The hour you save searching for that missing dialog box or hidden feature might be billable. We're starting to see some really amazing ebooks arrive on the iBookstore, too. These leverage all the multimedia functions in iBooks and if you're a visual learner, they can be vastly more effective than reading text alone. A great example is Markdown by David Sparks and Eddie Smith (our review here). By using video and audio in addition to text, there's almost no chance you'll walk away scratching your head. The downside is these media-enabled iBooks will quickly fill up your iPad's storage. I also recommend going to focused conferences, or events like Macworld/iWorld, where there are sessions aplenty on various software packages and workflows (several TUAW folks have given talks at Macworld). Often these give you a bigger picture and show you how to integrate multiple tools into a consistent workflow. You'll also have the opportunity to ask questions of speakers and attendees, and this can often be the most helpful thing of all as you share tips and tricks and learn what matters most to you. Finally, don't be afraid to seek out a guru who knows the app backwards and forwards. Many app experts share their tips and training suggestions on Twitter, Facebook or Google Plus, or on application-specific forums hosted by the developer or third-parties. Be polite, show that you've done your legwork first (if the question could have been answered by a fifteen-second scan of the manual, it's not a good use of your time or the guru's wisdom), and you might be able to draw on some help from above. This is the first in a series of weekly productivity tips here on TUAW. If you have any of your own, send them in via our feedback page.
Babbel acquires PlaySay in bid to bolster US language learning presence
Babbel's been doing a solid job of picking up users as it attempts to help people around the world learn new tongues over their lunch breaks, but evidently, it's not picking up steam in the US as well as it would like. The remedy? Buy the market share one so desires. Today, the company has announced the acquisition of San Francisco's own PlaySay -- a language learning company that has been tearing up every app store it approaches since launching at TechCrunch Disrupt in September of 2011. With that, however, comes some pretty unfortunate news for users. PlaySay apps are going to be yanked 45 days from now, with website visitors funneled over to Babbel's site. Moreover, we've confirmed that none of PlaySay's technologies will be integrated into Babbel's programs, and that only PlaySay's founder (Ryan Meinzer) will remain on staff as an "adviser." We've got nothing but love for Babbel's software, but what this means for consumers is simple: one less player in the space, and a dead-end for the technology that was developed in order to launch PlaySay. Of course, we aren't going to pretend that this type of thing doesn't happen all of the time, but alas....
Babbel brings 11 language learning apps to Windows Phone 8, for free
Yours truly has had some pretty positive experiences with Babbel's existing product line, with the latest being a subscription-based alternative for iPad that makes it a lot more affordable to learn the basics of 11 different tongues. After launching last October on Windows 8, the outfit is showing Microsoft's other major OS a bit of love today. Babbel is bringing its 11 language learning programs to Windows Phone 8, with the apps scheduled to hit the 'Education' segment of the Windows Phone Store any moment now. For those who've yet to give it a whirl, Babbel uses a mix of repetition, visual cues, spelling exercises and voice recognition, and it does a pretty stellar job of segmenting things into digestible lessons for those who only have five or ten minutes at a time to spare. The apps themselves are free to download, with a company spokesperson explaining to us that the WP8 builds "are mainly vocabulary trainers with 3,000 words broken down into themed lessons." Ideally, the phone apps would supplement a user's learning on their main platform (iPad or desktop). So, at $0.00, your last remaining excuse to not understand what the locals are chatting about in Moorea has been obliterated. Vous êtes les bienvenus.
iTunes U content downloads pass the one billion mark
Apple completely revamped its iTunes U app last year to include full course materials and it looks like that work is paying off, as the company just trumpeted its billionth content download. Over 250,000 students are enrolled in the service, which now boasts "thousands" of iTunes U learning materials, according to Cupertino. The company added that 60 percent of those downloads came from outside the US, with educators in 30 different countries -- like recent additions Brazil and Turkey -- able to create content. OHU prof "Dr. Fus" Stoltzfus said that students using his materials range from students around the world to retirees, so if you've been thinking of a knowledge upgrade, you've got no excuse. For more, check the PR after the break.
Essential Anatomy is the future of touch-based anatomy learning
If you've read a lot of my articles over the years you may have picked up that I'm a bit of a human anatomy buff. Yeah, that sounds weird, I know. Some people like understanding their cars and computers better, I like understanding my body. And it's thanks to the iPad that the study of human anatomy has never been easier, or more interactive. There are several nice anatomy apps available for the iPad, but I've been testing one for the last few weeks that makes its predecessors feel as cold and dead as a cadaver. That app is Essential Anatomy by 3D4Medical. I've written about 3D4Medical's apps before. The company was groundbreaking from the start. I even predicted that it was so revolutionary that one of its apps would appear in an Apple commercial. And then it did. However, no matter how good their previous apps were, 3d4Medical's new Essential Anatomy app surpasses them in every way possible. That's because the company spent the last 18 months building a proprietary graphics engine designed specifically for the iPad. The graphics engine enables real-time rendering of the most highly detailed 3D anatomy structures ever seen on a tablet. Using the app on my fourth generation iPad, I'm able to interact with the anatomic structure with zero rendering or lag time. Fading or hiding certain muscles or other structures happens instantaneously. And the details of the structures themselves will blow you away. Besides the new graphics engine and completely new 3D structures, Essential Anatomy offers correct audio pronunciation for every structure in the model, 3D models of most major systems (including muscles, nerves, arteries and veins), an incredibly easy-to-navigate -- yet comprehensive -- UI, and a number of learning features including Latin nomenclature for each anatomic structure, quizzes, the ability to take notes and a number of sharing options. Like their previous apps, Essential Anatomy is an app every doctor, physiotherapist, OT, nurse and medical student should own. I'm also certain it's an app that will soon be required material at medical schools. Using the scalpel tool users can easily remove muscles individually or layer-by-layer and turn on or off arterial, venous and nervous systems. The touch-based navigation and zooming features allow users to see anatomical structures from any angle they want. Make no mistake about it: Essential Anatomy by 3D4Medical is the future of touch-based anatomy learning. The app itself won't be live in the App Store until tomorrow. Until then you can check out the gallery below. Essential Anatomy will cost US$29.99 and is compatible with the iPad 2 or later. It also requires iOS 6 or later. Once it goes live, you'll be able to download it here. %Gallery-178751%
Universities to offer free online courses with credit, let us try before we learn
It's not really practical to give universities a meaningful test drive. Not without ample amounts of money and time to throw at a practice semester, at least. It's about to become comparatively trivial. Arizona State, the University of Cincinnati and 38 other institutions are teaming up with Academic Partnerships to offer the first course from certain online degrees for free -- and, more importantly, to make it count as credit. Money only matters to participants (and Academic Partnerships) if they move on to the full program. Prospective students will have to wait until the spring to sign up for what's ultimately a freemium education, but patience could be a virtue if it means understanding the workload before committing to what may be years of higher learning. [Image credit: Dave Herholz, Flickr]
McGraw-Hill reveals the SmartBook: an 'adaptive' e-book for students
McGraw-Hill is taking on the one-size-fits-all approach to textbooks with its freshly unveiled SmartBook: an e-book that is claimed to adapt to student's learning patterns. Aimed at college students, the SmartBook service peppers users with questions as they read and determines what topics it should present to reinforce learning. Come sometime this spring, the SmartBook will be available for more than 90 course areas starting at $20. It'll be joined by a handful of similar tools for driving home the curriculum, including something called LearnSmart Achieve, which is designed to serve up videos and other interactive embellishments in response to automatically detected areas of weakness. When you're ready to hit the books, just be careful they don't hit you back.
Pearson buys a small stake in Nook Media, wants a fast track for digital education
Publishers often want to work closely with e-book outlets -- possibly a little too closely -- but it's rare that they involve themselves directly. Pearson is taking that uncommon step by making a 5 percent, $89.5 million investment in Nook Media, the joint venture between Barnes & Noble and Microsoft. Some of the reasoning won't be made public until Barnes & Noble provides holiday sales results on January 3rd, but Pearson is clear that it's furthering its online education plans: it wants Nook Media's distribution skills to make a "seamless and effective experience for students." Just when we'll see this harmony is still up in the air, though. Nook Media has yet to outline what Microsoft's partnership means for e-books and e-readers, let alone how Pearson factors in. We're not expecting a sea change until companies start speaking up.
OS X video tutorials available at the Mac App Store
Noteboom Productions has announced Tutor for OS X Mountain Lion, a complete video tutorial is now available on the Mac App store. In Tutor for OS X Mountain Lion, the user watches videos to learn how to use OS X Mountain Lion, Apple's latest operating system. The video tutorial is designed for the new user to Mac and consists of 49 video chapters on various subjects. The tutorial are aimed at both users new to Mac OS X and users new to Mountain Lion. The tutorial also includes a note-taking feature so you can jot down notes while you are learning, then email or print them out. That's a very nice touch. Topics include migrating from Windows, Security, Saving and autosaving, using iCloud, Mail, Contacts and Calendars, and much more. I sampled the tutorials and found them nicely informal and packed with useful information. The whole package, more than four hours of video, is available for US$4.99 through the Mac App Store, and is a 750 MB download. It requires OS X 10.6 or later. If you're coming from Windows, or just want to make sure you don't miss out on the new features in Mountain Lion, this is a very reasonable introduction. It's a nice companion to some of the pieces our Erica Sadun has been doing on getting the most out of Mountain Lion. You can get a look at a sample of the tutorial at this link. The company has also done videos for Final Cut Pro X, iMovie 11, Keynote and Bento 4 to name a few.
iPads in the classroom reinvigorate teachers
We often hear about the iPad's impact on students and their academic achievement, but a new article in Edudemic also discusses the effect iPads are having on teachers. The report comes from Fred Sitkins, principal of Boyne City Elementary School in Boyne City, Mich., who writes "I've never observed anything else that has had the impact on teacher personal learning like the introduction of the iPad." Teachers are invigorated by this new learning tool in their classroom and are changing their teaching style as a result of this technology. Rather than pushing rote knowledge, teachers are becoming "facilitators of student learning." They are helping their students learn how to process information, not just memorize it, and they are increasing their own skills as well. "I've observed the collective knowledge base of our teachers grow at a rate that far exceeds any other period of time in my 13 years at this school," writes Sitkins. You can read more about Sitkin's positive assessment of the classroom iPad in his article on Edudemic. The article also appears in the November issue of Edudemic's iPad magazine. Via @schooltablet and @iEducator]
German robot arm learns ping-pong as it plays humans, might rival its masters
We like to tell ourselves that learning by doing is the best strategy for improving our skills, but we seldom apply that philosophy to our robots; with certain exceptions, they're just supposed to know what to do from the start. Researchers at the Technical University of Darmstadt disagree and have developed algorithms proving that robot arms just need practice, practice, practice to learn complex activities. After some literal hand-holding with a human to understand the basics of a ping-pong swing, a TUD robot can gradually abstract those motions and return the ball in situations beyond the initial example. The technique is effective enough that the test arm took a mere hour of practice to successfully bounce back 88 percent of shots and compete with a human. That's certainly better than most of us fared after our first game. If all goes well, the science could lead to robots of all kinds that need only a small foundation of code to accomplish a lot. Just hope that the inevitable struggle between humans and robots isn't settled with a ping-pong match... it might end badly.
Rovio and CERN teaming up on education: hopefully the Angry Birds help us this time [update]
The last time CERN and an angry bird met, it didn't end so well: the Large Hadron Collider overheated after a feathered creature reportedly dropped its breakfast on outdoor machinery. Things should go much more smoothly this time around, with CERN and Rovio partnering on an educational initiative that will be unveiled in full at the Frankfurt Book Fair on October 12th. Although the two are shy on just what's entailed beyond the presence of some Angry Birds material at the event, the union will mark the start of Rovio's learning brand and likely represent more in the long run than another Angry Birds Space tie-in. We're mostly wondering if subatomic physics research will explain why we still can't three-star some levels in a physics-based game. Update: Rovio and CERN announced "Angry Birds Playground" this morning, which the company describes as, "a learning program for 3- to 8-year-olds based on the Finnish National Curriculum for kindergarten." In so many words, CERN and Rovio are partnering on an educational initiative aimed at young children which employs the iconic Angry Birds characters. It's unclear whether the initiative will spawn games or books or ... what exactly, but there you have it.
Google offers historical exhibitions, wields its search powers to tell untold stories (video)
Google has been taking advantage of its sheer domination of search to act as a custodian for human culture, whether it's famous artwork or wonders of the world. The most direct example of this archival impulse may have arrived today through the launch of historical exhibitions at the (virtual-only) Google Cultural Institute. Starting with 42 exhibitions, the project delves into major historical events with both a guided, mixed-media tour as well as the kind of free-form exploration you'd expect from Google, such as hunting down a specific person, place or time range. The focus helps Google tell both textbook-level history as well as private stories. Though small at present, the collection is taking further submissions that could lead to a much broader internet resource for learning -- an expansion that we can't help but embrace.
Marvell and Stanford create SMILE Plug cloud computer, SMILE Consortium to get companies and devs to build a better education system
Last time we saw the SMILE Plug cloud computer, it was nothing more than a render -- an alabaster box with dual external antennas and a glowing green (or red) visage to let you know when it's functioning properly. We were told that it would be a dev kit that creates an ad-hoc network within a classroom that serves up to 60 devices at once using Arch Linux ARM, and can run off a wall outlet or a battery pack. Well, that bit of vaporware has coalesced into what you see above, and it seems that Marvell has delivered everything it promised. The final SMILE Plug packs 512MB of RAM, a 2Ghz single-core Armada 370 SoC and an enterprise-class 802.11 a/b/g/n Avastar WiFi chip to ensure high connectivity and power efficiency at a low monetary cost. It also has two Gigabit Ethernet ports, dual USB 2.0 plugs and a microSD slot for folks needing more than the 512MB of onboard storage. As currently configured, the SMILE Plug will cost around $30, and it'll start shipping to Stanford's SMILE (Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment) pilot programs next month.%Gallery-165788% Marvell doesn't plan to be the only one building these cloud computers, however, which is where the SMILE Consortium comes in. You see, the SMILE Plug is but a reference design, and Marvell and Stanford are trying to get OEMs building their own SMILE Plugs. The consortium is dedicated to "developing innovative education solutions on an open platform" and is seeking both hardware manufacturers and software developers to meet its goal of changing educational environments around the world. What kind of classroom do Stanford and Marvell envision, and how does the SMILE Plug fit into it? Join us after the break to find out.
Google releases Course Builder, takes online learning down an open-source road
Google is well-known for projects with unexpected origins. It's almost natural, then, that the code Google used to build a web course has led to a full-fledged tool for online education. The open-source Course Builder project lets anyone make their own learning resources, complete with scheduled activities and lessons, if they've got some skill with HTML and JavaScript. There's also an avenue for live teaching or office hours: the obligatory Google+ tie-in lets educators announce Hangouts on Air sessions. Code is available immediately, although you won't need to be grading virtual papers to see the benefit. A handful of schools that include Stanford, UC San Diego and Indiana University are at least exploring the use of Course Builder in their own initiatives, which could lead to more elegant internet learning -- if also fewer excuses for slacking.
Cambridge University helps new Raspberry Pi users break the crust with free guide, tutorials
It all looks so simple, doesn't it? A little board, a cute name -- why, you'll be up and robot-ing in no time, right? Well, just ask one of our techiest editors, who tried to learn a similar product, the Arduino -- and failed -- boards like the Pi are not cake. So, to push you in the right direction, Cambridge University is offering a free guide to creating a simple OS for the device called "Baking Pi." It's part of a course for new students of the institution's computer lab (who each get a Pi as part of their tuition), but the guide and a tutorial series are free to the public, as well. Programming experience is not required "if you are smart and persistent," but it will certainly be easier if you have some, according to the Pi website. The campus, which is the seat of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, certainly has a vested interest in getting new coders to the board -- not that they need to create any more demand. Check the source and coverage below for the guide and tutorials. [Image credit: Mark Foss]
