Exploring How We Learn

Interesting Learning Techniques

Here are some interesting ideas on how we learn, what keeps us from learning and progressing in a field of study, what kinds of tools we can incorporate in our learning to get beyond the frustration and resistance so many of us experience while learning.

Dr. Barbara Oakley wrote a great article for LinkedIn about her experiences of moving from one field of study, where she used different techniques to learn a foreign language, to a move later in a direction she had never considered - mathematics and engineering. Great article on how she found her way and pushed through, used her "beginner's mind" to stay open to the possibilities.

Dr. Oakley describes her experiences and teaches an online course through Coursera, Learning How To Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects. I'm going to commit to setting aside time to take this online course. I don't quite know the costs yet, but there is a certificate of completion that can be posted to LinkedIn profile.

Links mentioned

• Dr. Barbara Oakley - great article for LinkedIn
• Dr. Oakley course on Coursera - Learning How To Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects.

Linux and Open-Source Resources

Resources and Links for Linux and Open-Source Presentation

This section contains the links shown in the Linux & Open-Source Software presentation: Linux info, open-source projects, Women-in-Technology sites, and web sites for training and education.

Linux Resources

This section contains resources mentioned during the course of my presentation about Linux, some of the wonderful people we have to thank for their hard work, different "flavors" (or distributions) of Linux.

• Here’s the YouTube video of IBM Linux kid courtesy of Linux Foundation.
• Here’s another commercial by IBM spotlighting Linus Torvalds.
• Another simple message (commercial) with Mohammed Ali for IBM - “Shake Up The World”
• IBM history of their involvement with Linux, including IBM's $1 Billion investment in Linux development!
• Home of the Ubuntu Linux - great Linux distribution for Linux beginners and beyond!
• Home of the Linux The Fedora Project sponsored by Red Hat Linux.
• Very cool how-to on setting up a sub-system of Linux to run within Windows 10 - get all the command line/bash, Linux utilities goodness.
• Mention of using Linux to bring an older computer or laptop back to life - here's a great list of different Linux distributions that work great on older hardware.
• Here's a Linux distribution based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, specifically developed for the scientific community by Fermi Labs - Scientific Linux is well-designed, with lots of software and utilities for research and data processing.
• Here's a cool option to try out different Linux distributions online in a terminal via a web interface
• Here's a great resource for Linux users, new and experienced, for tutorials, news, blog articles: Linux Journal.
• Here's the Linux Counter site that shows the number of registered computers that have either have registered their system(s) at some time in the past or are currently running Linux. This site provides a snapshot of Linux systems.
• Wikipedia article about Linus Torvalds (Linus Benedict Torvalds is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and, for a long time, principal developer, of the Linux kernel; which became the kernel for operating systems such as the Linux operating system, Android, and Chrome OS.)
• Article about the supporting role Linux plays in Hollywood Linux in Hollywood.
• Popular Hollywood Movies made with Linux.
• Article with a list of movies made with free, open-source software such as Blender and others on Linux.
• Link to award winning animated short Big Buck Bunny and info about the movie.
• Link to another animated short film created with open-source software and Linux: Elephants Dream.
• Another animated short film created with open-source software and Linux Sintel and info about the movie. Watch the movie on YouTube.
• The Linux kernel and the collection of tools, software included are known to users as a Distribution (or "distro") Link to DistroWatch - which shows the most popular distributions that users have downloaded during the past week.

Open-Source Software Links

Here are links to articles and books about the Open-Source phenomenon and how it grew with the help of the Linux software creation/development model:

• Free Software Foundation (FSF).
• Wikipedia article on Free Software Foundation founder, Richard M. Stallman.
• Here's a great description of the differences between software that is free, as n speech, and software that is "free", as in free beer.
• Some new programming languages specifically for beginners.
• Writings by Eric S. Raymond on the foundations and beginnings of the open-source software movement. Cathedral and The Bazaar.
• Definition from the Free Software Foundation (FSF.org) on what is “free software.”
• A Datamation magazine article on list of Open-Source software.
• A Wikipedia page with a Free and Open-Source Software Packages.
• Here's an incredible list of Google's open-source software and training materials that Google lovingly bestows upon the world. Dig the trippy presentation! A more standard layout is available via the Block of 9 in upper right corner.
• Firefox web browser produced by the Mozilla Foundation.
• Link to virtual machine management software, VirtualBox - published by Oracle Corp.
• Here's a Kids On Computers web site for info about program, donations, etc.
• Site for the intellectual property licensing of all types of content Creative Commons
• Great site to find open-source images Open Clip-Art for use in presentations, web site, etc.
• Link to OpenOffice.org, a Microsoft Office compatible suite, OpenOffice.org, - published by the Apache Foundation
• Link to another great office suite of applications, LibreOffice - published by The Document Foundation
• Link to the powerful photo editing tool similar to Photoshop GIMP (Graphic Image Manipulation Program).
• Link to the versatile and powerful media player, VLC Media Player - published by VideoLAN.
• Link to the famous web blogging platform, WordPress - the blog hosting site, WordPress.com is operated by Automatic.
• Link to the VOIP telephony server, Asterisk - have your own telephone service for your whole house or business, run from a local PC.
• Link to free astronomy software: famous space simulation software, Celestia and link to free, open-source planetarium software, Stellarium.
• Link to free, parametric modeling software for Computer Assisted Drawing, FreeCAD.
• Link to the wiki publishing software, MediaWiki the originally for use on Wikipedia.
• Link to the free, extremely capable open-source desktop publishing software, Scribus.
• Link to the GPG (GNU Privacy Guard) OpenPGP for email and file encryption/signing for authentication.
• Link to the outstanding FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client, FileZilla.
• Link to free, powerful 3D animation software Blender.
• Link to extremely powerful, vector-based drawing similar to Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw: Inkscape.
• Link to the open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software hardware and software: Arduino.
• Here's a link to a couple of open-source, basic geometry programs, Dr. Geo and GeoGebra.
• Link to a portable command-line driven graphing utility gnuplot
• Link to an historically significant math processing system, Maxima - is a system for the manipulation of symbolic and numerical expressions, including differentiation, integration, Taylor series, Laplace transforms, ordinary differential equations, systems of linear equations, polynomials, sets, lists, vectors, matrices and tensors.
• Link to free open-source mathematics software system, SageMath.
• Link to SciLab - math computations, data analysis, visualizations, optimization, statistics.
• Link to Linux-based multimedia center, DVR for home entertainment system, MythTV
• Link to Nagios network and services monitoring software.
• Link to famous Nmap network mapper, investigation tool - published by Fyodor.
• Link to Wireshark - foremost network protocol analyzer.
• Link to the famous web server software, Apache HTTP Server
• Link to the rising star in web server software, Nginx web server
• Links to two open-source, popular Learning Management System (LMS) projects, Moodle and Sakai.
• Link to KeePass - a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way.
• Link to PDFCreator - create “Acrobat” Portable Document Format files.
• Link to free, open-source document reader (PDF, eBook, MOBI, ePub and other file formats) Sumatra PDF reader.
• Links to remote desktop viewing/management applications: TightVNC, UltraVNC (Virtual Network Computer).
• Link to OpenVPN - network traffic encapsulation and encryption, "use all of the encryption, authentication, and certification features of the OpenSSL library to protect your private network traffic as it transits the internet."
• Link to Handbrake - a tool for converting video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs.

Links to Online Learning Resources

There are many online learning opportunities that range from free to quite spendy. Free resources like:

• Link to incredible amount of online courses, available at reasonable cost: Udemy. (Available on mobile devices.)
• Great resource for cyber security, White Hat hacking, defensive programming online courses - free with completion certifications: Cybrary. (Available on mobile devices.)
• Link to great resource for deals for online courses and products: StackSkills.
• EdX - MIT, Harvard, others offering online courses.
• Link to CodeAcademy.
• The Skillshare site offers a decent number of courses for free and an enormous number of other courses for a monthly or pre-paid annual subscription. Technology, art, business, management courses available. Click here to try the Premium version of Skillshare for a month!
• The Mozilla Foundation training materials including links to other training sites.
• Courses in programming and Dev/Ops, some free, others low-cost at Eduonix.
• Service that provides tech courses taken on the web or mobile devices: SoloLearn. (Available on mobile devices.)
• Service that provides "nano-degrees" on webdev, Dev/Ops for monthly or annual subscription: Udacity. (Available on mobile devices.)
• Service for many online course offerings: Coursera. (Available on mobile devices.)
• Online tech courses on Linux, Dev/Ops tools, etc. with access to your own servers, training and support mentors, monthly cost or annual pre-paid courses Linux Academy.
• Link to "open source" university classes from institutions like MIT, Johns Hopkins, University of Michigan, University of California collectively known as OpenCourseWare.
• Here's a great option through the GitHub code/project sharing service that is heavily used in open-source software projects: GitHub for students.
• Want to learn cloud-based web services/computing for free? Check out Amazon Web Services (AWS) with your PCC student email account for free tier access for one year! Here's the FAQ page - with answers about the free options for students. You might be able to sign up for the much more extensive service, AWS Educate, offered by Amazon - lots of training resources, extensive monetary credits toward using the training/learning services.
• A similar service offered by Microsoft, Microsoft Azure for Students, offers student access to cloud compute services with a submitted proposal of your need for such free access. Microsoft typically uses the DreamSpark service to register services for students who are most often involved in Computer Information Science (CIS) courses
• Of course, not to be outdone, Google offers the same type of deal for Computer Science students to have free access to the Google Cloud Platform for Education with submitted proposal.

Links to Women in Technology

Talking about Women in Technology - links for local resources, online support, women-focused mentoring.

• Pima Community College has a very informative Twitter account specifically about promoting Women in Technology - check them out and give them a Follow!
• A wonderful series of videos from PBS/Nova on Women in STEM.
• Activism and information site to improve the role of women in tech with strong emphasis on getting young women involved with technology Geek Girl Camp.
• Here's a video from Microsoft showing young women so many wonderful possibilities of what technology they can use to reach their dreams and then "BAM!!" - throw some horrible stats at them, blame women for their failure to reach their goals! Link to blog post on how Microsoft made a huge mistake in trying to blame women for lack of participation in Technology and STEM!
• Thanks to Shannon Morse (Shannon Morse on Twitter, co-host of fantastic web series, Hak5) for providing this link with statistics and insightful info about the challenges facing women in the workforce.
• Another great site provided by Shannon - professional organization for Women in Security and Privacy.
• Here’s the Gnome Foundation’s Outreachy program specifically targeting women 18 and older to work 40-hour weeks in an open-source project.
• Here's a great list of "bad-ass" women - slide zero is awesome for woman who was major player in getting Apollo missions to the Moon with her code.
• Women Techmakers Tucson HackaThon at UofA - October 22 - 23, 2016 Hackathon.
• Here's the Women Techmakers Facebook page.
• Link to organization with focus on women in technology: National Center for Women in Technology.
• The Boys and Girls Clubs of America offers great programs for kids of all ages with so many benefits and positive outcomes for the children served Here's one program, Tech Girls Rock!, that is focused on young women to learn about technology and STEM.
• Internet Society - Shine The Light project "is an international campaign that encourages people to boost the profile of incredible women around the world who are pushing boundaries using technology."
• GirlCamp site mentioned in this blog post.
• Pretty amazing story about the success of the Girls Who Code programs during the school year and the Summer Immersion Program.
• Link to info about how you can get involved with Girls Who Code clubs to help and mentor younger girls and technology.
• Good article on Wired Magazine (UK) on the incredibly brilliant and talented Dr. Christine Corbett Moran and her impressive achievements in science and contributions to society.
• Twitter - Women to follow: Dr. Christine Corbett Moran on Twitter.
• Here's the Rape Prevention and anti-harassment mobile app site, Circle of 6 app that Dr. Corbett was a part of as Chief Technology Officer (CTO).
• Good article by Gnome Foundation executive director and open-source lawyer, Karen Sadler - how do we bring more women to open-source software.
• Article about the hows and whys about women in technology - flawed interview processes, outright discrimination by professors and leaders, Hire More Women in Tech.
• Great web service, BeVisible - career and business networking site, supporting for Latinx (Latin Millennials) - bring more diversity into the work force and support this segment of the population.
• Great article about Women engineers send a probe to Mars.
• Really brief list of famous women in technology - (Ada Lovelace, Hedd Lamarr, Navy Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, Radia Perlman, Dr. Erna Hoover).
• Another list of Successful Women in Technology.
• Another list of female founders in technology to follow on Twitter - Female Founders in Technology.

Linux and Open-Source Software

Welcome!

You have been directed to this page by clicking on a QR-Code or a shortened URL from my Linux & Open-Source Software presentation. The presentation is actually located on GitHub linked below.

Here's the link to the PDF version of the presentation given on Wednesday, April 26, 2017 at Link to GitHub repository for PDF file of Presentation Linux and Open-Source Software, Women in Technology, Computer Information Systems (CIS) courses available with Pima Community College, Northwest Campus G-105 Lecture Hall.