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.
Hundreds of free, self-paced university courses available:
my recommendations here
Peruse my collection of 275
influential people of the past.
View My Class Notes via:
Receive My Class Notes via E-Mail:

VIEW ARCHIVE

Contact Me via E-Mail:
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.

June 2017 Learn Certificate
Watched and took notes on 15 college lectures:
Learned 1 vocabulary words:
...loading...
Learned about 3 people:
...loading...
Corrected 11 misspelling:
ambivelance, resistence, deliquency, pallette, committment, disobediance, viscocity, imminant, Morroco, absense, hueristics
Recorded 69 Flashcards from MOOC lectures:
  • A few examples
                        
  • Develop basic knowledge on
                        
  • I have a cold
                        
  • I'm hungry
                        
  • Let's try to understand better what we are dealing with
                        
  • You are good at exams
                        
  • ahead in our path
                        
  • an infectious rhinopharyngitis
                        
  • and in the exams we take
                        
  • and say something more about
                        
  • are always linked to studying
                        
  • as well as correct
                        
  • at a bargain price
                        
  • common or technical lexicon
                        
  • different, for example from novels
                        
  • i.e. that of the university
                        
  • in his path to graduation
                        
  • in the reports and in the theses we write
                        
  • it was decided to stop
                        
  • much more complex books
                        
  • occurs in a particularl context
                        
  • or rather there is something different
                        
  • taking notes
                        
  • teaching
                        
  • than we are accustomed to
                        
  • that we attend
                        
  • that we find in books and articles
                        
  • to give us directions
                        
  • we refer to
                        
  • when we take an exam
                        
  • which we use to book a hotel or buy a sandwich
                        
  • written in the books we study
                        
  • In the 18th century already (FRENCH)
                        
  • We are witnessing (FRENCH)
                        
  • a burst of knowledge (FRENCH)
                        
  • a contempt for science (FRENCH)
                        
  • all that does not rest on (FRENCH)
                        
  • an ideal out of reach (FRENCH)
                        
  • are all translations of bourgeois prejudices (FRENCH)
                        
  • as a matter of fact (FRENCH)
                        
  • but of a self that would not be transparent to itself (FRENCH)
                        
  • by denying my freedom (FRENCH)
                        
  • does not allow fro certainty (FRENCH)
                        
  • fragmentation (FRENCH)
                        
  • led to think of different things (FRENCH)
                        
  • masters of suspicious (FRENCH)
                        
  • our duty (FRENCH)
                        
  • pushes (FRENCH)
                        
  • restrictive (FRENCH)
                        
  • should only be settled by (FRENCH)
                        
  • suspicion (FRENCH)
                        
  • that if it succeeds (FRENCH)
                        
  • that this is not self-evident (FRENCH)
                        
  • the great merchants (FRENCH)
                        
  • the me between the superego and the id (FRENCH)
                        
  • the register of knowledge (FRENCH)
                        
  • there are many scientific fields (FRENCH)
                        
  • while (FRENCH)
                        
  • will shake the centrality of (FRENCH)
                        
  • And we'll see each other soon
                        
  • Double
                        
  • We've already seen
                        
  • You all remember
                        
  • You all see the similarities with
                        
  • already
                        
  • now
                        
  • revision
                        
  • so we can compare it with
                        
  • this applies to all verbs
                        
Thursday, June 1, 2017
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
A HISTORY OF THE WORLD SINCE 1300, Princeton University
•
China face threats from inside and out
•
over the course of the 19th century, China was forced to sign humiliating treaty concessions to external powers
•
European
•
Japan
•
also participated in slowly dismantling the sovereignty of the Chinese empire... view all notes
Saturday, June 3, 2017
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
LINGUA E CULTURA ITALIANA: AVANZATA, Wellesley College
•
altri verbi che sono completamente irregolari al congiuntivo
•
i verbi dare, sapere, e
•
dare
•
che io dia
•
che tu dia... view all notes
Sunday, June 4, 2017
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
THE BIBLE'S PREHISTORY, PURPOSE, AND POLITICAL FUTURE, Emory University
•
instead of dying heroic, noble deaths, the warriors venerated in Biblical literature died in peace
•
Book of Judges
•
deaths are either not told are depicted as occurring peacefully in an advanced, old age
•
Gideon
•
one of the most celebrated names in the book after Deborah... view all notes
Friday, June 9, 2017
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
LINGUA E LETTERATURA IN ITALIANO, Università per Stranieri di Siena
•
quando parliamo di italiano accademico ci riferiamo alla lingua dell'università
•
quella usata dai docenti per tenere le lezioni, i seminari o i laboratori
•
quella che troviamo nei libri e negli articoli che dobbiamo studiare
•
quella che serve per scrivere un documento, una relazione o una tesi di laurea
•
quella che usiamo per esprimerci quando sosteniamo un esame... view all notes
Sunday, June 11, 2017
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF ANCIENT ROME, Sapienza University of Rome
•
Rome
•
1st century
•
the largest city in the Roman Empire
•
one million people
•
9th century BC... view all notes
Friday, June 16, 2017
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
THE RISE OF SUPERHEROES AND THEIR IMPACT ON POP CULTURE, Smithsonian Institute
•
after WWII there was a growing threat of communism and the impact the Soviet Union was having on the world
•
it was beginning to have influence on other countries, e.g. in Eastern Europe
•
fears began to build
•
America has a political response to this fear
•
House Un-American Activities Committee... view all notes
Sunday, June 18, 2017
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
POSTWAR ABSTRACT PAINTING, The Museum of Modern Art
•
Barnett Newman (1905-1970)
•
1950 The Wild
•
a very tall, extraordinarily narrow painting
•
the painting is as deep as it is wide
•
he has stretched his canvas over a solid piece of wood... view all notes
Tuesday, June 20, 2017
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
CHINESE THOUGHT: ANCIENT WISDOM MEETS MODERN SCIENCE, University of British Columbia
•
Mozi's ideological unity
•
the importance of
•
getting people together on the same page in terms of what the right thing to do is
•
job efficiency
•
chapter: Honoring the Worthy... view all notes
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
WINE TASTING: SENSORY TECHNIQUES FOR WINE ANALYSIS, University of California
•
what is wine
•
the self-preserved juice of the grape
•
a pleasant alcoholic beverage
•
a complex liquid sensory stimulus
•
grapes used for making wine seldom taste like the wine they are going to make... view all notes
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
JESUS IN SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION, University of Notre Dame
•
disciples were concerned with the worry that others might be doing good in Jesus' name
•
but the power of Jesus cannot be reduced to a narrow circle
•
Jesus' teaching does not apply only to a set of righteous people set off from the idea of the unwashed masses
•
but as Jesus says, anyone who gives water to the thirsty will gain the reward which is their due
•
Mark 10:32-34... view all notes
People:
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778-1850)
French chemist and physicist known mainly for his discovery that water is made of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, together with Alexander von Humboldt
  • produced the degrees Gay-Lussac used to measure alcoholic beverages in many countries
  • in 1802 he formulated the law, Gay-Lussac's Law, stating that if the mass and volume of a gas are held constant then gas pressure increases linearly as the temperature rises
  • in 1804 he and Jean-Baptiste Biot made a hot-air balloon ascent to a height of 7,016 meters in an early investigation of the Earth's atmosphere, collecting samples of the air at different heights to record differences in temperature and moisture
  • in 1808 he was the co-discoverer of the element boron together with Louis Jacques Thénard and Sir Humphry Davy.
  • In Paris, Rue Gay-Lussac lies between the Palais du Luxembourg and the Sorbonne
Saturday, June 24, 2017
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
WESTERN MUSIC HISTORY THROUGH PERFORMANCE, Curtis Institute of Music
•
in every generation, we tend to think that music and other facets of society have declined to new lows
•
Johann Joseph Fux (1660–1741)
•
an Austrian composer, music theorist and pedagogue of the late Baroque era
•
most famous as the author of Gradus ad Parnassum (1725), a treatise on counterpoint
•
a common but not very accurate meaning of classical music is used to refer to any music that is serious... view all notes
People:
Johann Joachim Quantz (1697-1773)
A German flutist, flute maker and Baroque music composer in Frederick the Great's court who produced hundreds of flute sonatas and concertos, and wrote On Playing the Flute, a treatise on flute performance
  • born in Oberscheden, near Göttingen
  • father was a blacksmith who died when Hans was not yet 11 and on his deathbed, he begged his son to follow in his footsteps
  • began his musical studies as a child with his uncle
  • from 1714 on, Quantz studied composition extensively and pored over scores of the masters to adopt their style
  • in 1716 he joined the town orchestra in Dresden and studied Baroque counterpoint
  • between 1724 and 1727 Quantz completed his education by doing a tour of Europe as a flutist
  • he studied counterpoint with Francesco Gasparini in Rome, met Alessandro Scarlatti in Naples, befriended the flutist Michel Blavet in Paris, and in London was encouraged by Handel to remain there
  • in 1728 Quantz accompanied August II on a state visit to Berlin where he impressed the court
  • the Crown Prince, Frederick the Great, decided to study the flute and Quantz became his teacher
  • Frederick II became King of Prussia in 1740, Quantz finally accepted a position as flute teacher, flute maker and composer at the court in Berlin
  • Quantz is best known today as the author of Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen (1752)
  • Quantz remained at Frederick's court at Potsdam until his death in 1773
Monday, June 26, 2017
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
SEXING THE CANVAS: ART AND GENDER, The University of Melbourne
•
John Lavery (1856-1941)
•
an Irish painter best known for his portraits and wartime depictions
•
1913 lived and painted in Morocco
•
Lavery was living in Northern Morocco in the city of Tangier with his wife and daughter
•
they lived in that city from time to time over a 30 year period... view all notes
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
HUMAN EVOLUTION: PAST AND FUTURE, University of Wisconsin
•
Laetoli footprints
•
Tanzania
•
first evidence of bipedal walking by early hominin
•
preserved in volcanic layer
•
not only has hominin footprints but other mammals... view all notes
People:
Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890)
An English explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer, and diplomat, known for his travels and explorations in Asia, Africa and the Americas, as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures and for translating One Thousand and One Nights into English
  • Burton defied many aspects of the pervasive British ethnocentrism of his day, relishing personal contact with human cultures in all their variety
  • works and letters extensively criticized colonial policies of the British Empire, even to the detriment of his career
  • although he never finished his formal university education, he became a prolific and erudite author and wrote numerous books and scholarly articles about subjects
  • a characteristic feature of his books are the copious footnotes and appendices containing observations and information
  • one of his best-known achievements was a well-documented journey to Mecca, in disguise at a time when Europeans were forbidden access
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
FAKE NEWS, FACTS, AND ALTERNATIVE FACTS, University of Michigan
•
what do you need to know to be a good democratic citizen
•
you can't just know nothing
•
this will lead you to make sub-optimal democratic choices
•
democracy is essentially a combination of four things
•
1. people have the ability to vote or in some way make their voices heard... view all notes
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
INTRODUCTION AUX ÉTHIQUES PHILOSOPHIQUES, University of Geneva
•
la conscience est le siège de ce qui en nous nous oblige à suivre notre devoir
•
on peut douter que la conscience puisse faire cela
•
Adam Smith
•
les personnes d'un groupe social estiment en conscience être leur devoir, correspond en réalité à ce qui naît de l'interaction de ces personnes entre elles
•
les grands marchands, qui ne rencontrent que des grands marchands et la conscience du petit peuple, qui vit en Écosse à cette époque, est assez différente... view all notes
Vocabulary:
heuristic technique, n. [εὑρίσκω, to find or discover] an approach to problem solving, learning, or discovery that employs a practical method not guaranteed to be optimal or perfect, but sufficient for the immediate goals, often used where finding an optimal solution is impossible or impractical ⇒ "In the process of being informed about the world, we encounter a variety of pieces of information and out of necessity are forced to use information shortcuts and heuristics in order to make decisions in the absence of the best possible informed environment."
show all recorded days