by Dwayne Phillips I still learn new things. I still want to learn new things. I recently learned how to make the em dash and en dash characters in OS X with keyboard shortcuts. I no longer have to go to the “insert symbols” function to insert these special characters. One of the disappointing results […]
Entries Tagged as 'Learning'
The em dash and Learning
July 10th, 2014 · No Comments
Tags: Education · Learning · Writing
But I Had a Great Time
May 29th, 2014 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Once again I delve into the question, but what was the objective? I find myself planning events more than previously. At least I find myself involved in planning events. And, as I have written before, I tend to ask some variation of, “What is the objective?” I have been involved with many […]
Writing Doesn’t Scale
May 15th, 2014 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips There is something about attempting to write a longer piece that makes writing a sentence much more difficult. I’ll start with something that is probably obvious to everyone else in the world: Writing doesn’t scale. Explanation: People who can write a two-page piece, flop when they attempt to write a 20-page piece. […]
Tags: Education · Learning · Writing
Advise vs Assist
March 24th, 2014 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips If possible, assist instead of advise. I worked in a government bureaucracy for over 25 years. A favorite practice to this day is the review board. Some unlucky and usually young engineer works really hard for weeks and then brings the work before a group of older engineers. The older engineers pick […]
Tags: Learning · Management
Obvious to the Casual Observer
January 2nd, 2014 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips I often heard “it is obvious to the casual observer” in grad school. I even read it a few times. Guess what? That is not a true statement. I used to hear that in grad school, “It is obvious to the casual observer.” That was sort of a joke when we were […]
Tags: Communication · Learning
AWS EC2: Hello World – Forward to the Past
December 12th, 2013 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips I enter the world of cloud computing and learn that, once again, we go forward to the past. I finally did it. I entered the world of actual virtual cloud computing. Not just Facebooking or DropBoxing, but actual computing. Well, not much computing, but making a few bits move. Earlier this year […]
Tags: Computing · Internet · Learning · Linux · Technology
HealthCare.Gov – An Excellent and Terrible Teaching Example
November 14th, 2013 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Take care when choosing an example for teaching. Often what seem to be great examples are terrible in that people concentrate on the unintended. I have taken a lot of courses related to project management. I have taught a few. I have read a lot of books on project management, and, as […]
Tags: Communication · Education · General Systems Thinking · Learning · Teaching
The Personal Learning Environment
October 17th, 2013 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips I learn a few things about learning environments. I recently attended a conference on innovation in education at George Mason University. I am not a professional educator and, to be candid, I never thought much about professional educators. To show that I am not all cold hearted and stone headed, I learned […]
Prior Experience
September 26th, 2013 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Every organization and endeavor is unique to a degree, but not absolutely unique. Learn the prior experience of each person and find a way to benefit from it. LikeĀ many of my (hi)stories, this one is from yet another experience with morons in government. I had 20 years experience in the larger […]
Tags: Learning · Management · People
Public Funding of Research
March 11th, 2013 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Once again we have a controversy about who owns publicly funded research. There is much debate recently about who owns the results of research that is funded by the public. See here for one article on recent policy statements. The simple answer is that when the public funds research, the public should […]
Tags: Government · Learning