Africa Again

As I wrote at the beginning of February, I've been working on my goal to learn all the countries in Africa.
It seems that repetition is definitely the key to success when it comes to memorising this stuff, because after countless rounds of label-that-country via the app I wrote about before, and several instances of scrawling-down-a-list-of-countries, I remember them all.

I can (and do) now watch the TV quiz show Pointless and rattle off a whole list of African countries when a related geography question pops up. And yes, some of those are 'pointless answers'.

So I can call this goal complete!

033. Memorise every country in Africa

Hurrah!

A Post About African Geography

...for want of a better title!

One of my goals on The List is to learn all the countries in Africa. (It's goal #33, in case you're wondering.)
My reason for this - asides from my geography education only going as far as Western Europe - is because whenever a geography question comes up on the BBC quiz show, Pointless, it's nearly always Africa-centric, or African countries at least form a large number of the best answers. There were a huge number that I didn't even know existed!

Since I'm almost at the point of saying 'Yes, I've learnt these', I figure it's a good time to blog about what I've been doing to try and learn all the countries and their position within the African continent.
There are 54 countries in total--55 if you include Western Sahara, which is a disputed territory.

The first thing I did was try to memorise a list of the countries. First going around the African coastline, then east to west in rows across the continent.

Forgot a few each time. Hm.

Next was to get a blank map and fill it in using Photoshop (like above!)

Remembered slightly better, but it was cumbersome.

Newest attempt was downloading this app:

And no, this isn't a sponsored post.

World Countries Map Quiz is completely free, no sneaky in-app purchases (unlike the first geography learning app I downloaded, which was swiftly deleted!)

It breaks the continent into five areas, and works with a simple drag-and-drop style, giving you a list of countries and spaces on the map to drag them into.

When you're done, you can check your answers, and it will tick or cross them depending on how you did. The really helpful thing is that if you get something wrong, it shows you the right answer, so you aren't stuck randomly guessing if you got more than a couple wrong!

If you answer everything correctly in a game...

Perfect!

Confetti!

Now you feel smart!

So it's a good app for checking memory of geographical location, especially since the countries on the list are in a different order each time.

I'm not considering this goal completed yet, as when it comes to listing the countries I still manage to forget one or two. Usually Botswana or Tanzania. Which is ridiculous, because they are right there.

But forgetting one or two is better than when I started this goal, and I was forgetting some 15-20 of them.

Just like learning anything else, I'll test myself again in a few weeks, and see how much I've remembered!

Sell More Stuff and Make it Pretty!

Unwittingly, I completed a goal!

069. Complete an online course

The course in question was Store Design, Visual Merchandising and Shopper Marketing, a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) taught by Claus Ebster for iversity.

I'd meant for this goal to be an encouragement to complete some of the Udemy courses that I've signed up for, but when I received an email from iversity about this course, I was quick to sign up!

Having used iversity before (I studied their Design 101 course back in 2013/14) I knew it was a great interface for learning something new.

I mainly signed up in the hope that I'd pick up more knowledge relating to visual merchandising, but I also found the store design and shopper marketing parts of the course interesting.

The six week course came in the form of several video lectures, which were accompanied by a set of questions relating to the video content. The videos were easy to follow and presented with good humour, and many examples relating to the topics discussed. Each week included a discussion exercise and recommendations for further reading, so it was a really well fleshed-out course!

I ended up gaining lots of new insight into shoppers, and ways a store can be set up to encourage sales. What's more, I had inspiration for the place I volunteer!

Something I like about iversity is that the courses offer two different tracks: an audit track (which is free) or a certificate track (for which you pay a fee, and take an exam or complete graded coursework).
I opted for the audit track, which gave me a shiny Certificate of Participation:

This is also proof of my completing the goal. Of course, I've hidden my real name ;)

I really enjoyed this course and have several pages of notes taken from the lectures, along with lots of inspiration and a better understanding of the psychology of shoppers and the way store design, atmosphere and displays can affect them.

iversity has a number of courses on offer, so perhaps I'll end up signing up for another one...

This is NOT a sponsored post. Any products, brands or services I blog about here are mentioned of my own free will, and I have NOT received any money, goods, or other benefits in exchange for the creation of this article.