The Learn Tracker
...life-long learning: structured, organized, searchable...

My name is Edward Tanguay.
I have a Bachelors degree in Philosophy, a Masters in Education, and am currently working as a web developer in Berlin, Germany.

I watch over 200 college-level MOOC lectures per year in subjects such as history , psychology, science, religion, art, philosophy, and IT development in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian, and record my notes here.
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edward [at] tanguay.info

Learning Activity by Month:

The primary goal of this Learn Tracker project is to build a web site which serves as one place to record the notes of everything that I am learning from MOOC classes, to foreign languages, to useful code examples and technical how-to notes, so that I not only have an overview of what I have learned, but can search and recall these notes at any time.

The secondary goal of this Learn Tracker project is to work together with companies, universities, and MOOC providers to build software that allows employees, students, and learners to record what they are learning in an efficient way so that it serves not only as (1) a record of what they have learned, but also (2) a place for them to review and search what they have learned.

Since January 2013, I have watched and recorded notes on over 300 MOOC lectures from over 30 different courses in both English and French, and have watched and recorded notes and flashcards on over 50 foreign language videos in Italian, French and Spanish. (I am curently still adding notes I took from 2013 and plan to be caught up by the end of January 2014.

October 2015 Learn Certificate
Watched and took notes on 19 college lectures:
Learned 3 vocabulary words:
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Learned about 2 people:
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Corrected 7 misspelling:
calvary, accomodate, incumbant, absense, inocuous, refridgerators, noticable
Recorded 48 Flashcards from MOOC lectures:
  • All that which we seek to do
                        
  • Aristotle would certainly have liked
                        
  • As it happens
                        
  • Everytime we do something
                        
  • I should not only consent to die
                        
  • It is thus that one resolves one of the questions
                        
  • Platon will show us that we are first attracted by a beautiful body
                        
  • Someone who has permeated the whole of science for centuries
                        
  • That's what you need to remember
                        
  • The sages are therefore wrong as well
                        
  • The simple fact of life is obviously something that
                        
  • Then comes the sensitive life
                        
  • There is in the dog a life that
                        
  • There remains some practical life
                        
  • We must remain on a modest path
                        
  • While other philosophers
                        
  • a flock of philosophers
                        
  • a life that relates to the rational part of the soul
                        
  • a life that we have chosen
                        
  • a life that will be our according to our own quest for happiness
                        
  • and even if fate leads me to understand that
                        
  • based on know-how
                        
  • but the tentative part
                        
  • but there is an interlocking of these goals
                        
  • cloud of philosophers
                        
  • each good refers to another good
                        
  • from his pack or from his master
                        
  • had a hand extended toward
                        
  • if it makes sense, it is often inaccessible
                        
  • in connection with
                        
  • is often the opinion of the crowd
                        
  • it can never be absolutely successful
                        
  • it relies on a psychology
                        
  • on the way here, I heard a girl say
                        
  • rooted his ethics precisely in nature
                        
  • some are rooted
                        
  • that will be taken into account to consider ethics
                        
  • that will seek to find its path
                        
  • the pursuit of pleasure
                        
  • to understand what makes us feel good
                        
  • try to remove misconceptions
                        
  • which aims at a goal
                        
  • which does not account for the contingency of life
                        
  • which is held in
                        
  • which refers to no other good
                        
  • who advocate a healthy diet
                        
  • who has the finger pointing to the sky
                        
  • will seek to maintain
                        
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
ALEXANDER THE GREAT, Wellesley College
•
during large, set-piece battles that Alexander fought
•
companion cavalry usually stationed on right-hand side
•
on the left-hand side, the Cavalry of Thessaly
•
1800 man strong unit
•
commanded by a Macedonian officer... view all notes
Friday, October 2, 2015
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY, University of Pennsylvania
•
Aeolus [Αἴολος]
•
foreign kind who has control of all the winds
•
has all the winds stuffed into a single bag
•
his sons and daughters marry one another
•
even in Greek mythology, brother and sister marriages count as prohibited... view all notes
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
THE EMERGENCE OF THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST, Tel Aviv University
•
dramatic change with the balance of power with Europe
•
up until the middle of the 18th century, the Ottomans could feel to be on an equal footing with Europe
•
and before this period even superior to Europe
•
in the last quarter of the 18th century, a dramatic change began to took place
•
the gab in science, technology, military and economic power was shifting in favor of the Europeans... view all notes
Monday, October 5, 2015
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
REASON AND PERSUASION THROUGH PLATO'S DIALOGUES, National University of Singapore
•
if you're a logician, then argument means something like:
•
a set of two or more propositions
•
at least one of which is a premise
•
at least one of which is a conclusion
•
a rational structure in which premises give reasons for conclusions... view all notes
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
HISTORY OF ROCK, 1970-PRESENT, University of Rochester
•
bands from who continued what they were doing in the first half of 1970s also in the second half
•
The Rolling Stones
•
1976 Black and Blue
•
"Fools Cry"
•
1978 Some Girls... view all notes
Thursday, October 8, 2015
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
A HISTORY OF THE WORLD SINCE 1300, Princeton University
•
a mass upheaval in the 1850s
•
with echos around the world
•
would bring down both
•
the East India Company
•
last of the Mughal empires... view all notes
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
JESUS IN SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION, University of Notre Dame
•
after Joseph revealed his dreams to his brothers
•
Jacob, foolishly, sends him off to check on the well-being of his brothers
•
and return report
•
Genesis 37:17-12
•
they conspire against him to kill him... view all notes
Vocabulary:
sepoy, n. derived from the Persian word sepāhī, was formerly the designation given to an Indian soldier in the Mughal Empire, yet its most common application historically was the term used by the British East India Company for an infantry private, special trained Indian native British units at the service of the East India Company to service as the local agents of control for the firm, their uprising in 1850s led to what is known as the Indian Mutiny of 1857.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO IRRATIONAL BEHAVIOR, Duke University
•
fudge factor
•
due to our flexible cognitive ability, the fact that we can rationalize things very quickly, as long as we cheat just a little bit, we can both benefit from cheating, and we can still see ourselves as honorable people
•
the moment we start creating a dishonest behavior, there is a range before it invokes a different concept of ourselves, and in that range, we can both be dishonest and think of ourselves as honest people
•
people try to balance two forces
•
1. feel that we are good, moral, honest people... view all notes
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
WAR FOR THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST, Boston University
•
Operation Eagle Claw
•
America's war in the greater Middle East began over 30 years ago
•
no shots fired
•
Americans didn't engage their adversaries
•
but 8 American soldiers died... view all notes
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
INTRODUCTION AUX ÉTHIQUES PHILOSOPHIQUES, University of Geneva
•
il n'y a pas une définition de l'éthique
•
dans le débat contemporain, il y a une pluralité de conceptions de l'éthique, qui se rattachent à des courants divers
•
parmi ces courants, certains s'enracinent très loin dans notre histoire occidentale
•
l'éthique inspirée d'Aristote
•
il enracine son éthique précisement dans la nature... view all notes
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
INTRODUCTION TO ITALIAN OPERA, Dartmouth College
•
when we think of Italian opera, we often think of Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan
•
yet in the late 18th century, much Italian opera occurred in Vienna
•
Mozart
•
Antonio Salieri
•
Martín y Soler... view all notes
Vocabulary:
eudaemonism, n. [yoo-DEE-min-ism] a system of ethics that bases moral value on the likelihood of actions producing happiness ⇒ "It is Kant's great service to moral science that he purified it of all eudaemonism."
People:
Epictetus (55-135 AD)
[Ἐπίκτητος]
  • Greek speaking Stoic philosopher, lived in Rome until his banishment, when he went to Nicopolis in north-western Greece for the rest of his life
  • taught that philosophy is a way of life and not just a theoretical discipline
  • all external events are determined by fate, and are thus beyond our control
  • we should accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately
  • however, individuals are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline
  • the foundation of all philosophy is self-knowledge, that is, the conviction of our ignorance and gullibility ought to be the first subject of our study
  • no writings of Epictetus himself are known, but his pupil Arrian compiled The Discourses of Epictetus in which he noted that he wrote down "whatever I heard him say, word for word, as best I could, endeavouring to preserve it as a memorial, for my own future use, of his way of thinking and the frankness of his speech."
Vicente Martín y Soler (1754-1806)
Spanish composer of opera and ballet in his day compared favorably with his contemporary, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as a composer of opera buffa
  • born in Valencia and studied music in Bologna under Giovanni Battista Martini
  • he has been called the Valencian Mozart
  • in 1777, he travelled to Naples, where he composed for the Teatro di San Carlo
  • in 1785 he moved to Vienna, where he enjoyed great success with three operas composed to texts by Lorenzo Da Ponte, who was simultaneously collaborating with Mozart and Antonio Salieri
  • the three comedies were Una cosa rara (1786), Il burbero di buon cuore (1786), and L'arbore di Diana (1787)
  • in 1788, Soler was invited to the Russian court at St. Petersburg, where he wrote three Russian language operas: The Unfortunate Hero Kosmetovich (1789), Melomania (1790), and Fedul and his Children (1791)
  • moving to London for the 1795, including La capricciosa corretta (the libretto again by Lorenzo Da Ponte and partly adapted from Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew)
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
AMERICA THROUGH FOREIGN EYES, Rice University
•
Africa
•
extremely heterogeneous place
•
second largest and second most populous continent after Asia
•
54 different countries
•
1 billion people... view all notes
Friday, October 16, 2015
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
THE BIBLE'S PREHISTORY, PURPOSE, AND POLITICAL FUTURE, Emory University
•
how can we explain the demographic decline of Judah after the Babylonia conquest
•
where did everyone go?
•
were they all deported to Babylon?
•
wars in antiquity
•
death tolls were usually quite high, due to:... view all notes
Monday, October 19, 2015
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
CHINESE THOUGHT: ANCIENT WISDOM MEETS MODERN SCIENCE, University of British Columbia
•
strength of the Confucian strategy
•
taking cold, abstract system 2 knowledge and build it into our hot system, so it becomes automatic
•
creating moral skills
•
give you flexibility and autonomy
•
don' need to rely on your system 2 cognition... view all notes
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
INTRODUCTION AUX ÉTHIQUES PHILOSOPHIQUES, University of Geneva
•
l'éthique d'Aristote
•
est une éthique téléologique, qui vise un but
•
est une éthique eudémoniste, ce but, c'est le bonheur
•
s'appuie sur une psychologie
•
la méthode d'Aristote... view all notes
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN’S FAIRY TALES, Hans Christian Andersen Centre
•
artistically, socially, and culturally, Hans Christian Andersen was a mold-breaker
•
"The Fairy Tale of My Life", autobiography
•
described himself as a bog-plant which had its roots deeply anchored in mire and mud
•
but which reached up and stretched for the light and the sun
•
born in Odense in 1805... view all notes
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY, University of Toronto
•
theory of mind
•
our ability to perceive what others seem to be perceiving
•
put ourselves in someone else's place and have a sense of what they are feeling
•
critical for social behavior
•
pro-social... view all notes
Monday, October 26, 2015
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
BUDDHISM AND MODERN PSYCHOLOGY , Princeton University
•
what do we make of this thing we call the self?
•
the thing that we call the self, the conscious me, the thing that we think is running the show, may not be running as much of the show as we think
•
we may be attributing much more power and control to this concept than it really deserves
•
this idea goes back to pre-modern psychology
•
Freud: the self is controlled in large part by unconscious forces... view all notes
Vocabulary:
promulgate, v. promote or make widely known (an idea or cause) ⇒ "These experiments suggest that the conscious self can promulgate and apparently believe wildly untrue stories about what is actually true of the natural world."
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
A HISTORY OF THE WORLD SINCE 1300, Princeton University
•
Charles Darwin
•
developed an early fascination with natural history
•
educated at Edinburgh and Cambridge
•
advisers encouraged him to explore his world
•
a world that was becoming both interconnected and interdependent... view all notes
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