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Nikio

freelance paradigm

An update

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These past few weeks were really exciting. Beside graduating from college (not that I want to boast... but... woooohaaaa.. I'm a Jedi now :hat: :wizard:) I did a lot of other interesting stuff. There is a book design that goes to print on monday (an other one is on the way) and several educational projects as well. On top of that I did (and planned) a couple of photoshoots.



I spend the first half of this weekend in Ankaran at a conference dedicated to teaching of extra talented students. I was there to present my own little 18 minute speach (I have set up those 18 minutes myself as if it was a TED conference :D) about my experience at UMMI summer camps. Other speakers were professional teachers, psyhologists (etc). I must say that it was an interesting event. There were some very good points expressed in all of the presentations. For example; hightly talented kids often present a special discord towards the rest of the society and tend to alienate themselves. How to teach them social skills? And is it OK to do it at an expense of diminishing their gift(?) - which is my own unspoken question. Or is it better to try to find them a company of their own level?

I came to Ankaran a day before because we had the first meeting on the evening before the actual thing. Since I still had come early, I spent the afternoon relaxing with my new iPod which was filled with inspirational TED and iTunes U content.


I must admit I felt like a real professional - it was the first time for me that I was not just payed to give a Keynote presentation (if you have an Apple, you say must say and use Keynote instead of Powerpoint), but also offered to stay in a fancy hotel for the night. Needles to say, under these conditions, you must give a hell of a keynote talk. So I was rehearsing the whole evening prior to the event in my room.


I don't actually have any photos of me speaking... But this is a psyhologist dr. Mojca Juriševič who spoke after me about her research on highly talented kids. She was the last speaker of the conference and before that I was too nervous to take photos. In fact, I felt quite uninspired for photography for most of the time. But my presentation succeeded quite well, actually (not as well as I planned, though, but well enough to get invited to some future events).



So yes; I also have a MacBook now :D

My trip to south of France, vol. 2The Leader

Comments

eyemreli 26. October 2008, 04:58

Hello Nikio, how are you?

Congratulations on your graduation :hat: I wish you best of luck either if you continue your studies or start working :smile:

dantesoft 26. October 2008, 09:28

Congratulations! Stay away from the dark side :D

I don't like to hear Powerpoint/Keynote instead of "slideshow". What happens when you use OOo, say "a Presentation presentation" ? :smile:

Is dr. Juriševič's presentation available somewhere? What was the doctors' conclusion? I for one would support splitting the students into groups of peers, the age criteria seems to have little merit. Not to mention having just colleagues living within 3 km of your home.

Nikio 26. October 2008, 09:52

Thanks guys :wink:

I am afraid that Dr. Juriševič's presentation is not availabe. Her research was covering diferences in learning aproach for extra talented students (as opposed to average students).

According to the research (and my notes from the presentation), talented students expressed higher preference for the class to include:
- field work
- practical experiments
- humor
- excercises that have relevance in real life
- interdisciplinary aproach (combining more fields of science in one excercise)
- teacher-student interaction

Long story short: these are some of the things that motivate them more than others.


Your idea, dantesoft, of age having less relevance is actually very good!!! From my experience I couldn't agree more. It is actually a common point of interest that is far more important. I usually work with gorups of students that vary +/- 2 years in age, but they share a common goal, and for all I can say, age plays no significant role in their contribution to the group or personal development. Thanks for pointing that out - I would never thought of it, even though it was it was before my eyes. :D

mildz 27. October 2008, 00:25

great update, congratulations! :hat: :drunk:

dmfalmeida 27. October 2008, 18:40

ahhhhhh macbooks are gorgeous... :cheers:

Dan

Cynthia23 28. October 2008, 19:23

:yes: Nikio! Congratulations!

Schalandra 29. October 2008, 08:19

Congratulations.

@dmfalmeida
I think of them more as "overpriced". :lol:

Nikio 29. October 2008, 08:31

Ha ha ha :D You have pushed a button, Schalandra. :D
I also have an iMac for a year now and during that time i had to do zero (=0) maintenance work for it. No viruses, spam, adaware, crashes, missing links or shortcouts... Nothing. When a new OS came, i just installed it and all of my files and programs were still there. Now if you count the hours you need to spend just to get your PC working or reinstaling programs and calculate them into money - you pay a lot more for a PC. This reasons go beyond their looks :wink:

Schalandra 29. October 2008, 09:53

My last PC I had for 3 years... no virus, no spam, no adware, no crashes, no Windows, no MacOS. Nothing. When a new version came out, I just compiled and installed it and all of my files were still there. If I count the zero hours I needed to spend just to get my PC working... I still have zero hours to count, which means no money at all... and my OS and hardware were both far cheaper than yours. :yes:

And my new Windose-PC is the same. I really know what I'm doing (studied IT), so I spend no time in it to get it working, it just works. When I bought it, I entered a name, a password and a name for the PC. That's all. Ever since I had no problems at all. There are some prejudices against Windows that might not be wrong, but they are not true for everybody. :rolleyes:

Still... if you like your MacBook it's fine with me. :coffee:

Nikio 29. October 2008, 09:58

I agree with you. We just both speak from our own experieces. Perhaps the differences between users (or rather their preferences) are bigger than the diferences between tools. :wink:

vivalamuerte 29. October 2008, 22:11

Hey, congrats to your graduation :smile:

This conference you mentioned sounds quite interesting to me, as I am partly studying educational sciences myself. I think I'll read your blog very closely in future, when you write about such issues. This is something absolutely fascinating.

Nikio 29. October 2008, 22:49

Long time no see, Marcel! Good to have you back and I hope you'll indeed come again and perhaps write something yourself :wink:

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