I'm trying to wrap my head around the relationship between elearning, knowledge management, and electronic performance support. I'll start with general definitions of each:
Elearning: Learning enabled by technology...improving accessibility and effectiveness...placing the learner in control...the model of learning for today's societal/organizational needs (linked, connected, open)
Knowledge management: the blending of technology, people, information, processes to create organizational awareness of what is known/exists...and to utilize the "known/exists" to create value for the organization. (KM is tough to identify...if you don't like my ad hoc definition...feel free to suggest a different one...:). More KM definitions: What is KM).
Electronic performance support systems (EPSS): Electronic help/support available to employees/students when it is needed. More info: What is EPSS?
Okay, so elearning is basically about learning, KM is about generating organizational value from "what is known/exists", and EPSS is focused on providing support for people at the time of need.
To align them by strategic role in an organization: elearning is created to ensure staff/student competence in a certain area...knowledge is captured and placed into the "system" to ensure information is "fresh"/current...EPSS delivers the blend of elearning/KM to people when needed. Currently, they are not at all integrated in most organizations. I think they should be...they should all feed off the same database...any thoughts?
Windows RG (Really Good) vai The Shifted Librarian
Comment: Very amusing...I spent far too much time on this site...but for some reason, it was very cathartic...Windows users will understand.
Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education
Quote: "To help education institutions increase their capacity for knowledge-based decision making by maximizing the use of information and information technologies."
Comment: Not sure how long the site has been up...could be a valuable resource, but it is somewhat sparse for content at the moment. I did, however, find some good articles under "Resources"
Open Content Network
Quote: "The Open Content Network is a collaborative effort to help deliver large, freely-downloadable content using peer-to-peer technology. The network is essentially a huge "virtual web server" that links together thousands of computers for the purpose of helping out over-burdened web sites.
Using various web browser plug-ins, users can download open source and public domain software, movies, and music at incredibly fast speeds from this global, distributed network."
Whiteboard Courseware System via SiT
Quote: "Whiteboard is a fully-featured and -integrated courseware system, targeted toward colleges and universities. It supports multiple departments and courses (including cross-listed courses); simple migration of courses to new semesters; grade storage, checking, and calculation; assignment submission and testing, and submitted assignment retrieval; documents; announcements; and discussion boards. It is written in PHP with a MySQL back-end, and is fully administrable through its web interface."
Comment: Looks interesting...a demo is available on the site.
Innovation as a Deep Capability via elearningpost
Quote: "It is well understood that in today's world of discontinuous change, there is no continuity without constant renewal. At Strategos, we conducted a survey and found that more than 90 percent of large organizations are committed to innovation, as evidenced by a recent annual report or speech in which top management affirmed innovation as a critical capability for the organization. Yet when we asked people inside these companies to describe their corporate innovation system, almost none of them could do it. And when we asked them, "Is innovation rhetoric or reality?" they said overwhelmingly, "It's rhetoric. We don't see the reality."
Not Your Father's Encyclopedia
Quote: "Last week, the English-language version of Wikipedia, a free multilingual encyclopedia created entirely by volunteers on the Internet, published its 100,000th article. More than 37,000 articles populate the non-English editions."
Comment: Wikis are the closest thing I've seen to true collaboration...and once again, it is a simple, effective tool. I currently have a zwiki in pilot stage, that will eventually be used as the basis for creating a college-wide FAQ for staff (zwiki runs on Zope...a big selling feature, as I'm currently working with Plone (also Zope-based) for content management). For instructors in particular: get to know wikis. They have incredible learning potential.
Bluetooth: An Overview
Quote: "Ideally, Bluetooth would connect all the electronic data oriented devices in your home into a Personal Area Network (PAN). Your Computer, PDA, mobile phone, stereo, computer peripherals, and others would all be interconnected, and could exchange data cooperatively as needed."
Comment: Wireless is growing rapidly...this article of describes Bluetooth clearly...and then moves into a basic technical overview.
In Tune With The Times: Berklee Media's Custom LMS
This article from eLearning Guild (which means you need to register to access a .pdf file - not the best process...) focuses on two concepts I've talked about before: the need for education to get closer to the open source movement, and the need for LMS that are user focused (i.e. learning tools, not teaching tools). Also offers a detailed overview of the process of selecting an LMS.
Elements of digital stories
This was posted on the Online News list...looks good. I like the simple design.
When I used to be in the hospitality industry, I focused on teaching employees contact points as a means to ensure quality guest experiences. A contact point is any form of contact a guest has with a business, and in the process forms an impression. My view was (and still is) that if the contact points were well managed, the overall experience would be positive.
Every industry/field has its own contact points...and here are some (not exhaustive, but broad overview) that I feel are important for organizations to manage in order to provide quality experiences for learners
Contact Point #1: Registration...how simple is the process? How long does it take? Has it been piloted (i.e. have people been observed going through the process)? How is payment handled? Is the process designed for the benefit of the learner or the organization?
Contact Point #2: Technology...is the technology easy to use? Has it been selected carefully to achieve specific objectives? Does the technology inhibit or enable learning? Are tutorials available? Remedial resources? Has the technology used been evaluated via an observation pilot (watching a learner)? Have various circumstances been considered (bandwidth, problems, students support)?
Contact Point #3: Course Content ...was information provided for course access clear? Is the content designed with a learner-focus for navigation as well as content itself? Visual-rich? Focuses on learning styles? Brain-compatible? Accessibility audited?
Contact Point #4: Instructor...has the instructor taken an online course? Does the instructor understand the role of facilitation online? Can he/she handle potential challenges (student disagreements, technology failures, etc.)? Are expectations for learners clear? Has a personal connection been made with each student (welcome email, "thank you for you last provocative post")? Instructors, more so than any aspect of the elearning cycle, determine student success.
Contact Point #5: Support...Are guidelines for support clear (hours, how soon concerns are addressed during evenings/weekends)? Various forms of contact available - IM, phone, email? Do help desk staff understand the centrality of learners to the organization? Has a FAQ been compiled to allow learners to "help-themselves"? Are support forums established within a course to allow learners to help each other?
Sam Adkins posts some thoughts on artificial intelligence on the Learning Circuits blog...I visited some of the links he offered...spent quality time dialoguing with Nicole and Phyllis.
About six months ago I encountered similar intelligent agents on the Groove website - as a learning tool. We'll see much more of this in elearning/emarketing in the future.
For more info, I a resource page on elearnspace on Artificial Intelligence
Connectivity: Spike Hall's RU Weblog...great posts recently relating to knowledge building, learning to learn, klogging and discipline, etc.
Chaos, Inc.
Quote: "Each of them is massively parallel: they have many quasi-independent "agents" interacting at once. (An agent might be a single firm in an economy or a baggage handler at an airline.) These agents are adaptive: they are constantly responding to each other (the baggage handlers interact with their bosses). And they are decentralized: no one agent is completely in charge (baggage handlers may not always follow management's directives). Like all complex systems, then, the overall behavior of an airline's freight operation emerges spontaneously from myriad low-level interactions."
Comment: Very interesting - complexity science is a new term to me...but the concepts expressed and exlored are worth a quick read. The process involves mapping out low level interactions...creating agents...and then running complex simulations to evaluate how everything works together (and adjusting agent behaviour to evaluate impact on the whole "organism")
Dave Barry Blogs
Comment: Another mainstream journalist blogs...
Baseball Test May Show if Web Video's Time Has Come
Quote: "Baseball officials say the time is right for a video service that will cost $6 to $10 a month because nearly 20 percent of American homes have high-speed, or broadband, Internet connections, which can handle high-quality video Webcasts."
Comment: Aside from the bigger question of creating a business model for selling content on the Internet, web video has a future. Earlier this year, we experimented with a course taught via streaming video...results were generally positive, but the experience highlighted that video is still not ready for "prime time learning" - bandwidth, learning the ins and outs of video, understanding how online video is different from regular video, making video interactive (we used a chat tool to add question and answer...but because of buffering, we had to deal with a 10 - 30 second delay...so answering questions required going back to points already covered), etc. Still, even with its limitations/challenges, streaming video has much to offer elearning...
From Lone Star to Team Player
Quote: "Many companies have focused on knowledge management the last couple of years. While that has been a good start, it is only one part of the overall challenge of creating an effective collaborative organization. KM is only a special case of instilling a collaborative organization, which also includes coordinating activities and doing joint work across organization boundaries."
Comment: Instructors/teachers/trainers are typically "lone stars" - they're used to having control of their course, classroom, curriculum. Elearning is a collaborative process that involves many specialized skills (graphic design, web design, information architecture, instructional design, etc.). The subject matter expert is only part of the whole equation. This is a difficult mindset for instructors to overcome...some resistance to elearning may be rooted in feeling a sense of fear over losing control of course content and final decision making. Collaboration is a great concept...jas long as it doesn't impact what an instructor does each day...:)
Project-Based Learning
Quote: "In project-based learning, students work in groups to solve challenging problems that are authentic, curriculum-based, and often interdisciplinary. Learners decide how to approach a problem and what activities to pursue. They gather information from a variety of sources and synthesize, analyze, and derive knowledge from it. Their learning is inherently valuable because it's connected to something real and involves adult skills such as collaboration and reflection. At the end, students demonstrate their newly acquired knowledge and are judged by how much they've learned and how well they communicate it. Throughout this process, the teacher's role is to guide and advise, rather than to direct and manage, student work."
Comment: Good introduction to Project Based Learning. PBL is an effective way to mirror current skills needed in today's workplace. Most problems do not present themselves the way curriculum is designed...they are usually much more ambiguous. The value of PBL is not only learning...but learning the process of learning.
TouchGraph via Kairosnews
An interesting tool that graphically represents connections and links for URLs. Try it with a few different sites - it can be addictive!
I've posted a new article: Content Management: Our Organized Future. In the article I attempt to give a broad overview of content management, the components, benefits, process, etc. and then define content management systems, content conversion, trends, etc.
I'd appreciate any feedback on the article.
Why Blog? via Emergic
Quote: "In general, though, the reason I have a weblog, and the reason I advocate to others that they ought to maintain weblogs themselves, is because I think it's important for people to have a place to express their opinions and thoughts, and to get feedback on those ideas."
Comment: Yes! I would add one other point - I blog to learn...as I write, I self-evaluate, attempt to express nebulous thoughts...connect ideas, build on others' ideas...and grow in the process.
Meet the B-Blog
Quote: "A few savvy businesses have caught on to the fact blogs essentially present an opportunity to build communities where like-minded people gather to establish interactive dialogues on issues of their choice. And in the business world, large communities gather. "Business-blogs," or "b-blogs" (a term I coined here and now), are perfect for the corporate world."
Comment: Busines is a natural use of blogging (Macromedia's already doing it)...will this give rise to a new field of paid bloggers?
Kevin Kruse has a short list of trends for 2003...including: open source growth, bite-size is in, analytic focus. Good, quick read.
Play Anything
Quote: "Today's PCs have become entertainment machines. They have processors, large drives, sound and video cards, and CD-RW drives designed for multimedia. We routinely play music on our computers, convert music into MP3 or WMA format for portable music players, and download or stream audio and video from the Internet. But to get the best experience, you still need the right media player."
Comment: Roughly everything you ever needed to know about various media player options...
Technology Anthropologists
Quoting Ernie the Attorney: "Anyway, I sometimes find myself observing people as they interact with technology as an anthropologist would observe, say, gorilla behavior. Now, I don't mean that I think that I'm somehow superior to others and I therefor see them as apes. What I mean is that I am fascinated by how the rapid intrusion of technology into our lives has forced us to grapple with strange tools. The gap between the capabilities of the tools and our understanding of how to best make use of them is somewhat akin to the gap between two closely related species."
...and extending it: "Another term to throw into the mix is "ethnography." While usually associated with doing anthropology in the field, it's also become a legitimate research tool in organizational settings. I find an anthropological approach particularly useful in the realm of technology..."
Good links on topic maps: Cognitive Maps and Topic Maps and Topic Maps
The next front[ier] in the disruption of traditional media
Quote: "Enthusiasts have been prophesying a new era of media, one founded on the principles of participatory journalism - otherwise known as Web logging or blogging...But putting publishing tools in the hands of the people is one thing. Delivering it to their doorstep - or desktop - is the next frontier.
That's where RSS comes in."
Comment: RSS completes blogging...it is a natural extension...and with great potential. Now most people talk of syndicating blogs...in the near future, it'll be about syndicating anything digital. This article provides a decent introductory look at RSS.
Brief History of Artificial Intelligence via Semantic Weblog
Comment: Nice overview...but doesn't really focus on intelligent agents (which will probably be the first impact on elearning).
Search On
Quote: "Employees are a lot like consumers when it comes to search. "The thing businesspeople get wrong is that they treat their employees like a captive audience," Berk says. "They're as fickle as consumers, and they have more hang-ups about search.""
Comment: Article presents basically two concepts of search: complex, involved tagging, and Google. Both work for different purposes...but the social uptake of a Google-like system is much higher than complex content management systems with mind-numbing taxonomies.
Learning Objects Development Center
Comment: Series of links and resources relating to elearning development from Macromedia (who seem to "get" elearning better than most)
"Do You Trust Me...?!?"
There are times in life when certain messages seem to converge and I see the same ideas or themes over and over again. Things that you rarely have the opportunity to think about appear again and again, so that you can't help but begin to contemplate their significance. Lately, everywhere I turn there seems to be something that relates to the issue of trust...
One of the great things about having a four-year-old niece is that this gives me a solid reason for watching tons of Disney cartoons. We were recently watching Aladdin. One of the scenes that I vividly recall involves Aladdin asking the princess "Do you trust me?", while holding out his hand as he tries to convince her to take a leap from a great height. One of the wonders the Disney folks accomplish is to make this episode seem so easy - the princess takes hold of Aladdin's hand and they both jump, without much of a thought or sense of doubt. When you think about this scene, I can't help but be amazed at how difficult a decision it would be to trust someone I barely know and to also put my life in their hands...but I guess that's what action-packed animation is all about.
I recently experienced trust-shock personally. A few weeks earlier, I decided to fight off a bit of boredom by mischieviously trying to reset one or two of the setting's on a friend's PDA. Rebel that I am, I thought they might enjoy having their clock set to Papua New Guinea standard time. They were looking a little pale, and I figured they could use the exposure to the tropics (...yeah, that's it... :-) ). Of course, I was caught in the act. I figured that while I was being a bit of a pain, it was not a big issue in the whole scheme of things, since this was a harmless prank there was no chance of anything embarrassing resulting from this. At worst, I was being a minor nuisance (which I excel at, on occassion). Last week, I was sitting in front of the same friend's computer and, being bored, I opened up a web page they were working on and started to read through it. I was stunned when they told me to close the file for fear of me making potentially embarassing changes. Now this is a person that I've known for years. We've shared a ton of personal information with each other - ideas, dreams, shortcomings, disappointments...very personal stuff. I was really surprised that this person could believe that I could even contemplate embarrassing them publicly; that there were threads of trust in our relationship that were so short and brittle, when in my mind I believed we were at the point of weaving ropes of trust.
Trust is also rearing its head in the form of articles that have popped into my e-mailbox. These relate mainly to issues of trust in schools and businesses, where trust or a lack of it can impact people significantly. Do e-educators need to concern themselves with these kinds of details? Despite the faceless nature of the virtual classroom, trust is still something that needs to be cultivated in online courses. If we are to structure these courses around a community of learners, trust is of the utmost importance. Yes, this online environment can remove some of the inhibitions people feel about putting forward thoughts, comments, ideas in public, but does this mean that people automatically feel comfortable being honest with each other, despite the fact that they are not sitting face-to-face with other learners in the class? In order for people to be honest, they need to feel that they will not be vulnerable as a result of those actions. In online courses trust is needed to create an environment where people are willing to put forward their honest thoughts and their experiences in order for the discussions to have any meaning. Since so much of many online courses revolve around discussions between learners, a lack of trust could reduce the learning that occurs to superficiality, irrelevance or silence.
Will these articles help you figure out how to create a trustful environment in your online course? They might contain a few helpful ideas, but I wouldn't necessarily hold my breath. It is more likely that they just might stimulate your thoughts enough to get you started in that direction...to be perfectly honest, that's my hope, at least.
I trust that we'll see you back again next week. Until then, happy reading!
Steve
'Trusting' School Community Linked to Student Gains
Quote: "Should anyone view their research as a plea for a warm-and-fuzzy approach to student learning at a time when data-driven proof of learning gains is so avidly sought, Mr. Bryk and Ms. Schneider take pains to note that it is in such times that trusting relationships in schools are needed most. Trust reduces the sense of vulnerability that comes with the risk of change and facilitates the collective decisionmaking necessary to such change, they write. It helps staff perform well without intensive monitoring and it sustains their ethical imperative to advance children's best interests."
Comment: Newsflash - a trust-filled environment improves student learning and helps teachers do their job better. I'm surprised that they required a study for this! One of the thoughts I had when reading this articles was whether it was the collection of good teachers that created the environment of trust, or whether a school's environment of trust helped to attract a group of good teachers...
Quote: "If trust is established at the core of an organisation, it is likely to spread, as trust begats trust. Two people who have established trust can create more value in their relationship as each has more access to the other's resources. One can compensate for the other's weaknesses and each is more free to focus on the things they are personally best at. Two people who work together well will be more able to connect with a third person, and so on. Contagious trust can build fantastic creative communities. (Similarly, once distrust is established between two people, their energy gets channelled into defensiveness. Which reduces openness, and further diminishes trust, in what can be a vicious circle.)"
Comment: While this article focusses on the value of trust in the business organization, I think many of the ideas presented can also apply to the online classroom - after all, these concepts look at strengthening trust in a community. In addition to the author's thoughts, this article also has a record of all the discussion that it has spawned - and the trail is a lengthy one!
Karen Stephenson's Quantum Theory of Trust
Quote: "For example, one easy way to improve the level of trust, anytime and anywhere, ist simply to increase the speed with which people respond to communication. When people return our calls and e-mails quickly, it sends a signal that we can rely on them because our connection, however distant, is important enough to claim some of their attention. 'Human beings always keep an internal accounting system of who owes what to whom.' says Steve Haeckel, director of strategic studies at IBM's Advanced Business Institute, who has collaborated with Professor Stephenson for 10 years on some of the trust-related research she's done. 'Response time is one indicator of the degree of trustworthiness of the other individual.'"
Comment: The quote above provides one potentially useful way to build trust in online courses. The majority of this article will probably not provide such helpful tips, however, it does provide a very interesting look at how trust impacts the workings of organizations. A worthwhile read. You will probably have to register to get access to this article, but it is a quick and painless process.
One Standard For All: Why We Don't Want It, Why We Don't Need It
Comments: From a Power Point presentation...great resource. Some slides of note: " We want to be able to describe learning objects, and to allow them to communicate with each other. In order to do this, we need a language. But for this language to be useful, we need a language that is extensible, that depends as much on context as it does meaning.(slide 25)"
"If we attempt to restrict the vocabulary used to describe learning objects, then because of pragmatics we are almost guaranteeing that the words in our vocabulary will lose their fixed meaning. This will make it impossible for machines - as well as humans - to understand what is being said." (slide 47)
"Objects are best described using multiple vocabularies. There is no way to determine which vocabulary will be relevant to either an author or a user of a given objects. Trying to stipulate a canonical vocabulary a priori needlessly reduces the effectiveness of a system of communication." (slide 77)
10 Emerging Technologies That Will Change the World
Quote: "Technology Review identifies the developments that will dramatically affect the way we live and work-and profiles the leading innovators behind them."
Linux Mainstream? (free registration required)
Quote: "The evidence is now overwhelming that Linux, once a symbol of software's counterculture, has become a mainstream technology."
Comment: Open source + education...a natural fit - but underutilized. See also Time to Try Linux on Your Machine
Discussion Lists and Newsletters - User Centered Design via Column Two
Preliminary Heuristics for the Design and Evaluation of Online Communities of Practice Systems
Quote: "Online communities...communities of practice...knowledge management...human capital. For some time now, companies have believed that they can be more effective-and more profitable-if they could only get their people to talk to each other and share what they know...To address this need, companies have built or bought knowledge management portals, tools for growing communities of practice, and other expensive, often complex software systems."
Comment: The article treats knowledge management and communities as being similar/same thing...which I think is the wrong view. Communities of practice are best left alone to grow on their own - give them tools (point 7 in the article: "A rich set of discussion tools, including support for dialog, negotiation, and collaborative problem-solving")...and let the users make and create connection. Communities are not knowledge management tools...the are knowledge creation...very different purposes for employees than the goals of managers. Managers would like employees to share their knowledge so it can be identified and put into a database...so that staff turnover doesn't impact the organization (there are other reasons - some positive, some negative - but this is often listed as the main one).
The management objective, however, is completely against the grain of what CoPs are...these are communities to connect with others in order to solve problems and grow. Trying to use communities as a tool to achieve purposes beyond it's natural role may kill their real value: connecting/sharing.
Update: Just reading OLDaily...Stephen is 100% on the mark with his comments: "So what should a proper - and original - article about learning communities in 2003 look like? It should shift the focus from an institutional environment to an individual's access to a set of services. It should discuss the creation of a distributed network of interacting knowledge workers (or knowledge seekers). It should talk about fostering a set of communication channels - such as email newsletters, aggregator websites, IM advice circles. It should address combining the roles of gaming, simulation, correspondance, commentary and assessment. It should emphasize the skill sets required in order to foster the creation of knowledge through a collaborative process."
Understanding Information Architecture
Quote: "...defined an information architect as "the individual who organizes the patterns in data, making the complex clear.""
Comment: Part of a series of articles on information architecture...great links, including: What's in a name and IAwiki
Creating a Culture of Ideas
Quote: "Innovation is inefficient. More often than not, it is undisciplined, contrarian, and iconoclastic; and it nourishes itself with confusion and contradiction. In short, being innovative flies in the face of what almost all parents want for their children, most CEOs want for their companies, and heads of states want for their countries. And innovative people are a pain in the ass."
Comment: Excellent article, which states that a culture of new ideas needs: diversity, listening to the younger generation, encouraging multiple view points, being interdisciplinary, encourage risk, and openness and idea sharing
A proposal for school district deployment of a CMS
Comment: Nice "sell job" on blogs...I like the agenda for training bloggers-to-be at the end of the document. Could be a structure for a blog workshop I'm hoping to deliver in the next several months.
Sometimes we use words as machetes, when scalpels are needed. Several recent conversations I've been involved in have highlighted the ambiguity of words...and the degree to which our own assumptions of what a word means impacts our ability to communicate. We're speaking, using similar words...but meaning very different things.
This is obviously a concern. Terms like elearning, content management, knowledge management, collaboration, community, learning objects, repository, etc. need clear definitions. Sometimes it's misunderstanding...sometimes it's not understanding. Hundreds/thousands of colors/shades are used to create a picture...and each is distinct, but together they create the whole. In elearning, we haven't even named and agreed on the colors to use...
Some processes are similar (i.e. KM and elearning) and they are then assumed to be the same thing...even though their ends are unique (or at least the application of the "end" is unique). Think of VHS and DVD...the process of watching each is the same...however, DVD has far greater ability for storage, review, additional footage. Seemingly small difference...with big application.
Convergence is also a factor...we seem obsessed with trying to get everything to converge and work together. By trying to assimilate, we obscure differences.
What does this mean? When selling/promoting/discussing elearning patience is needed to first ensure the same language is being spoken. From my experience, it most often isn't.
Searching in Two Directions
Quote: "But Google is sitting on the one thing that everyone needs when they're on the Web. Isn't that worth paying for?"
Getting a Handle on Learning Content Management Systems
Quote: "BODIES ALONE do not determine the value of human capital. It is the combination of the information that employees possess, their ability to act appropriately on that information, and their ability and willingness to share it with the rest of the organization that determines its value. A company's competitiveness is largely determined by the quality of its people, the quality of their information and how tightly the two are linked."
Comment: Performance support (EPSS), knowledge management, and elearning will converge (eventually). Elearning develops organizational competence (often in explicit skills), KM adds new information to the system (both tacit and explicit), and EPSS ensures that employees have access to organizational resources when needed (and that the resources are "fresh"). This article posits the notion that the convergence will happen via an LCMS (learning content management system). Perhaps my view of an LCMS needs to be revised, but I think the author is wrong. An LCMS is primarily a tool or system for storing and retrieving learning objects. As such, it requires a fairly complex process of metatagging documents and resources...too involved for people to use to record thoughts/observations/experiences. Blogs fill that roll much more effectively.
I think that an LCMS is part of an overall strategy for knowledge and learning - but it is mainly a developers resource. Tools are needed for users (don't like that term...but have nothing better...) to quickly record knowledge...and quickly search. What would that look like then? LCMS + LMS + blogging + collaborative tools + search + effective interface that integrates the components and makes it a transparent process for the end user...thoughts?
DESIGNING COURSES: Learning Objects, IMS Standards, XML, SGML, etc. via EduResources
Comment: Great listing...
Huminity via ia/
Quote: "We believe that now that such a global map of connections exists and is available for free download and access, it will facilitate interaction between people and create bonds and friendships throughout the world."
Comment: At quick glance, looks like it has some value for social network analysis.
Supreme Court Upholds Extended Copyrights
Quote: "Mickey Mouse and The Walt Disney Co. scored a big victory Wednesday as the Supreme Court upheld longer copyright protections for cartoon characters, songs, books and other creations worth billions of dollars."
Comment: Lawrence Lessig, a key figure in this case, has previously posted four points relating to copyright:
Content Is Crap
Quote: "Creative Commons is based on a naive ideology that believes that raw content is gold, which then gets stolen by the evil media companies. In reality, the economics of content are that most of the value-added comes from the filtering process, not the creation process."
Comment: The notion of value-added through filtering is mostly accurate, but the premise that all "content is crap" is false. Content is pretty neutral. If I'm a conservative, then a liberal document will be "crap" to me...and vice versa. I think the greatest value of content on the Internet is not the filtering, but rather ability to spiral, shape, and build on each other's ideas.
Presentation to Management
Comment: Excerpts from an elearning presentation by Jay Cross...I strongly agree with "Learning is social. 90% of corporate learning is informal yet 80% of corporate investment is in formal learning. Building community, fostering collaboration, and setting up virtual water coolers returns a bigger bang for the buck than loading on more courses."
Putting metadata to work
Quote: "Metadata is 'information about information', used to describe, categorise and manage the content in a content management system (CMS).
Metadata is often seen as secondary information, to be sorted out once the CMS is up and running. At worst, it is seen as a bureaucratic burden to be ignored if at all possible.
It is neither of these things. Instead, it is the most valuable information stored within the CMS, and it offers many benefits."
Looking towards the future of content management
Quote: "Content management systems will become a "commodity" over the next couple of years, as products become established, and even more solutions flood the market. "
Comment: Short article detailing possible trends (open standards and convergence being the most significant).
More style guides lists links to "style guides" (standards for organizing and presenting information) from various corporations/universities.
Last week, I posted some thoughts on encouraging knowledge sharing. My rather informal conclusion was that knowledge is best facilitated, not managed. In fact, more time should be spent on the design of an environment conducive to sharing...and less on the formalized capture of organizational knowledge. The environment has the greatest value.
Some components needed in a well-crafted environment suitable for knowledge sharing:
Where oh Where is Plug & Play?
Quote: "In the long, hard battle to achieve common technology standards for e-learning content and administration systems, the first major goal is to achieve plug-and-play interoperability. That doesn't sound very sexy, as human aspirations go, but Sheldon Ellis falls asleep every night wishing that the industry would hurry up."
What's Wrong With Distance Learning?
Quote: "The fundamental issue here-what's really wrong with distance learning-is a flaw inherent to many design situations: well-intentioned managers and designers so totally fall in love with designing and building that they get disconnected from those who are stuck trying to use their stuff. "
Flash Penetration
Quote: "This is the fastest adoption that Flash Player has ever seen, and is probably the fatest adopted software runtime in the history of computing."
Comment: Macromedia's Flash is its most valuable asset - not only because of the software itself, but because it exists on so many computers. While Quicktime, Media Player, and Real Player battle it out, Flash has quietly become the most popular media format..."the Flash Player is by far the most available video technology on the Internet, and as other bloggers have noted, should open the floodgates on broadcast and two-way video applications like never before." According to rumours, Microsoft has expressed interest in purchasing Macromedia...and Flash is obviously the justification. Microsoft doesn't buy good software...they buy "valves" that they can use to corner/control/dominate markets.
Jay Discovers Zope
Comment: Jay discovers Zope...and comments on it's value for collaboration...and the prospect of Open Source Elearning. At RRC, I've spent time working with Zope and Plone (for content management). I have a very rough draft site here: Hospitality Department . Judging from the increased buzz in articles, blogs, and listservs...it feels like Zope (and possibly Plone) are on the verge of explosive adoption.
Education As a CRM Tool
Quote: "Employees are more loyal to companies that invest in their education. Can we extrapolate this idea and say customers are more loyal to companies that invest in their customers' education? I think the answer is yes. Customer education can be a vital tool for both acquiring and retaining customers and should be factored into CRM strategy."
Comment: Learning is often perceived to be a school/university based experience. Our current hyped knowledge economy requires learning to be a perpetual process, not a periodic event. One area that I think will be a huge market for education is in corporate presentation of how to use their products and services. Rather than simply selling a product, a corporation provides users with the learning needed to best use the product. Think about it...a future elearning position may well be "Product Use Instructional Designer"
Brains, Minds, and Teaching
Comment: This excellent link, provided by Clark Quinn via the Learning Circuits blog, is a great introduction to brain-based learning. Current research in this area is challenging existing beliefs...for example, the introduction of "motivation chemicals". Worth the 5 minutes needed to skim.
Crossing the Bridge of Weak Ties via SiT
Quote: "My concern, rather, is that we'll get hung up once again on applications and protocols, and miss the big picture. Ultimately, it's not about RSS any more than it was about NNTP. It's about the evolution of our species toward shared consciousness."
Grid-dy determination
Quote: "A grid computing system is a distributed parallel collection of computers that enables the sharing, selection and aggregation of resources."
Comment: Originally research and academic based, grid computer is moving into more public circles. Concludes with the statement that: "Within five to 10 years we'll be talking about grids the way we talk about the Internet today."
Vanishing Act
Quote: "Elsevier Science, it seems, is working on a disappearing act, and that has university librarians fuming...As more and more scientific literature is moved from print to a digital environment, they fear, holes in databases could leave researchers ignorant of why certain articles were considered questionable -- and may even lead to poor medical treatments and faulty scientific research."
What is it that prompts people to share knowledge? I've been struggling with this for the last few months. A central facet of a knowledge economy is the free flow of ideas/concepts/knowledge...this may be in the context of a formal knowledge management project in a corporation...or in physical classrooms...or in an elearning course.
Often, we assume that people share based on "what's in it for me"...i.e. sharing of knowledge happens because I think it will help me some how. That may be true...but I wonder if there is such a thing as sharing simply because it is the most natural thing to do with certain things. For example, when something good happens to a friend...we share it with others. Do we do this because of "what's in it for me"?...or do we do it because the thing we are dealing with is something that needs to be shared - because of what it is?
There are many obvious benefits in sharing knowledge: ego satisfaction, giving back because you've been helped, status, even altruistic. It seems that many organizations/courses are built on the concept that we need to create means of coercing people to offer up knowledge. I'm not convinced it's the best approach.
Perhaps we are further ahead if we simply create a system/means/forum for knowledge sharing...and then turn people loose in that environment (like blogging). If something is important, and in our possession, and we are in an environment that possesses means for sharing, and we don't lose anything in the process...I think most people share, even without external motivating factors.
What if current approaches to knowledge management are wrong? What if an employee is not viewed as a container from which to extract knowledge? What if the shift is made from coercing knowledge to creating an environment conducive to dialoguing? What if the problem of knowledge management is misfocused - and it is the organization that is inhibiting knowledge sharing by treating the process as a transaction (employee has knowledge...organization negotiates its release through pay, etc.)? What if the real value is not the knowledge itself, but the environment in which it flourishes? Are we trying to manage the ends when we should foster the means?
Microsoft and Watches
Quote: "Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced Wednesday that the world's largest software software company was mounting a new push to move beyond personal computers and into everyday objects using technology Microsoft calls SPOT, for Smart Personal Objects Technology."
Comment: Another expression of the current technology trajectory: technology as an embedded feature in daily tools and activities.
Teamrooms: Tapping the Collaborative Learning Advantage
Quote: "Teamrooms are Internet-based collaborative tools that enable a team or network of people to communicate by posting messages and documents that can be accessed at any time from any place. Teamrooms host a whole suite of features, including threaded discussion, shared documents, chat, Web conferencing, calendars, whiteboards, application sharing, and project management tools."
Comment: Article begins by exploring the disparity between prevalence of collaborative tools...and their lack of actual use..."Why has email not only caught on, but become a tool without which we are unable to run our businesses? The answer is fairly simple: ease of use, pervasiveness of the technology, immediacy, and the fact that email comes to us, bidden or not."...followed by: "This wonderful boon to business in the last decade has now become a major barrier: Much wasted time is spent on sifting, filtering, or preventing unwanted email from flooding our inboxes."
The solution to email overload? Why teamrooms, of course!
Usability Testing: Myths, Misconceptions and Misuses
Quote: "In this article, I identify and try to straighten out some common misconceptions about usability testing."
Comment: Kind of interesting how a field moves in a certain direction...and then someone comes along and challenges existing terminology (though not necessarily the concepts the terms express). This is one of those articles - attacking usability terms...but very much leaving the concept of usability unscathed... With that said - it's a great article.
Reducing Knowledge Loss via Column Two
Quote: "In today's job market, organizations have come to realize the impact of knowledge Loss. More and more of their best employees leave every day. Even when new people and their knowledge are brought in, chances are that those new people will leave within four years."
Comment: The problem of knowledge loss is a significant driver of knowledge management (though it's a negative driver...i.e. we do this because we have to...rather than we do this because it makes us a better organization). Organizations (particularly higher education) will have a huge exodus of staff over the next several years (I think the baby boomers still get the blame for that)...the wealth of experiences and failure-induced wisdom is walking out the door daily...
West Point Creates Campus Wireless Network After Overcoming Security Issues
Quote: "West Point officials believe the wireless network they now have is secure, which makes it unlike most wireless networks on college campuses. But to secure the network, West Point had to pay about $625,000, about five times what the network itself cost."
Comment: Wireless networks (while convenient) are very insecure. We do all of our departmental testing online...and students have access to test/project/assignment marks online...if this were moved to a wireless network, security would (potentially) compromised. As this article highlights, securing wireless networks is a significant expense - in terms of money, and perhaps more importantly, time. These current limitations are only a small speed bump in the development of wireless...the potential of wireless is so great (as I've said before: wireless makes the Internet "complete" - anytime, anywhere) that issues like security will do little to alter its direction (though it might slow it slightly).
Combat Power and Enterprise Effectiveness
Quote: "Companies such as GE that do have it (distributed information for shared awareness) are among the most successful. The U.S. military has spent millions of dollars demonstrating that shared situational awareness improves combat effectiveness. Let's look at some examples, and then let's apply the same ideas to intranets and to corporate use of the Internet. Does better distribution of corporate information lead to shared awareness and increased business competitiveness?
Comment: Takes an unusual approach (flying, ships, troops) to enterprise effectiveness...but then makes an important observation: "Enterprises want to use the Internet as a critical business service, to replace leased lines, and to provide new services. They want to do this to get lower costs, more capabilities, and broader reach. Better distribution of military information leads to shared awareness and increased combat power...Shared information inside a corporation and with its allies and customers provides greater information richness and reach, and produces shared awareness. Shared awareness in turn enables faster operational tempo and sustainable competitive advantage. This all spells increased competitiveness."
After Losing Millions, Columbia U. Will Close Its Online-Learning Venture
Quote: "Columbia University announced on Monday that it will shut down Fathom, its for-profit online-learning venture, which had been designed to sell Web-based courses and seminars to the public. "
Comment: Fathom was a high profile, multi-institute attempt "to connect with lifelong learners". Many other similar projects have already closed (notably NYUonline). What I find interesting about the story is that it is a cookie cutter public response (someone out there owns a PR manual that tells online learning failures how to release information of program failures): the economy is bad.
Fathom (like others) took an expensive, complicated approach to elearning. Most "businesses" grow into their markets...they don't carve them according to a prescribed model. This is what happened with elearning. Organizations caught a glimpse of the potential...so they invested great amounts of money trying to force a market into maturity. Doesn't work. Elearning is still emerging and developing. A cautious, user-focused, needs-based approach is required. The problem with these for-profit initiatives is primarily a result of not understanding the industry, the customer, and the direction of market growth. Is the education market learning from these lessons?
VoIP is a simple idea and simply works
Quote: "Rather than wondering whether Voice over IP is viable, we should be asking whether traditional telephony is viable. Why are cordless phones so bad and why are cellular phones getting so weird? Why is the telecommunications industry so dysfunctional?"
Comment: I've used voice over IP (basically using the Internet for verbal communication...rather than traditional phone networks)...several times for instruction with Groove and PalTalk. VoIP has great potential for learning...replicating some of the dialogue that occurs in classes. Biggest problem I noticed was quality of the connection. Depending on the network connect, the quality went from great to unacceptable. See also: Phone Calling Over Internet Is Attracting More Interest (free registration required)
Weblogs and blogging for knowledge management via Seb
Quote: "Blogging is a great enabler of knowledge sharing. It plays on people's natural inclination to share their thoughts and help others - the inverse of the widely accepted myth that people are reluctant to share knowledge.
Comment: Short article about KM and blogging. I think blogging is one of those "it's so obvious it's not taken seriously" type of tools. As great as the idea is...it's a bit ahead of its time (or at least, it's just in the beginning stages of growth). For all the hype, only a small percentage of people in society/organization are bloggers. When I'm in the "blogosphere", it's an easy process to share and build knowledge. However, when I'm back in the college environment, I find very few people are even familiar with what blogs are. Kind of frustrating to see such an effective tool underutilized...
Europe's Net users will pay to play
Quote: "The Internet's reputation as a haven for freeloaders is beginning to lose some meaning as research suggests the majority of Western European online users are willing to pay for digital content."
AOL Doesn't Get it
Quote: "Having made short work of the AOL executives whom he briefly reported to, Logan now speaks warmly of the company's future. But you get the feeling that he still doesn't really believe it -- that once you get past the monthly fee and the obvious revenue streams, the growth path that he sees looks less like a road map and more like a Rorschach test. There are a number of reasons why AOL's glory days may be in the rearview mirror, but let's reduce it to five. "
Comment: This article has far less to do with AOL than it does with the Internet as a whole. The author explores 5 areas that AOL doesn't get: interoperability, quality, lack of creativity, user-needs focused strategy, the Internet is about community not commerce.
These five points are significant issues that template well to elearning - LMS are currently making ALL five mistakes..."schools" are trying to provide elearning content as a revenue model, SCORM and other standards bodies are trying to raise THEIR platform as the standard, etc.
Issues important to consider: Content provision is not (currently) a feasible revenue model - service provision, however, is. Interoperability needs to be simple, not complex (think HTML), the user is king - their needs should drive product/elearning development, quality is a must - current text-based poorly designed courses are giving the industry a black eye (coupled with high profile elearning failures based on expensive LMS implementations that weren't focused on solving a particular problem, or linked to an organizational strategy).
Copyright, Ethics and Theft
Quote: "The relation between copyright and ethics is not nearly so clear as supposed. While it is easy to piously pronounce that people who copy online content are unethical and even evil, it is also wrong. The copyright debate is not a case of the morally right trying to maintain the defense against the morally wrong. It is a debate about what should even count as morally right or wrong."
Comment: Provocative article, challenging the current conception of what is. Instead of viewing copyright as the protection of an original idea, the author explores the process of idea creation - we build on the work of others - and the inevitable outcome of respected/powerful people/corporations receiving credit for ideas they personally acquired from others...leading Stephen to state: "copyright the deployment of copyright has led to as much abuse and injustice as it has tried to prevent."
The Internet is a connection medium. There is a real risk that attempts to shut down the "spiral" nature (I build...you add on...it's stronger/better) of the Internet will result not in attributing ownership of ideas to original sources...but rather giving ownership to people savvy enough to play the system properly (or who are in positions of respect that merely by repeating others' ideas, they receive credit (formally or informally).
Virtual reality helps cure many of phobias
Quote: "Studies by Hodges and his colleagues show that 95 percent of those who've tried his fear-of-flying therapy were able to get onto a plane and fly without alcohol or drugs."
Comment: Virtual reality (VR), like streaming media, have so much promise and potential...yet it often seems like it's all hype. Rarely is anything concrete/practical presented. This article is a great example of why VR is so hyped...the potential to help users experience a simulation so real that they can overcome phobias...wow!
The Blogging Phenomenon via Doc
Quote: "In this paper, I will seek to explore the meaning and significance of the blogging phenomenon. I will begin this exploration by looking at the definition of the term, the origins of the phenomenon, and how individual blogs might be classified. From there, I will look at the strengths and weaknesses of the medium, and finally examine the phenomenon though several theories of Mass Communications."
Comment: Part 1 offers a basic overview of definition, history, and status of blogging. Part 2 focuses on the impact on mass communication, conluding "While its effects are not as easily seen, as say the advent of graphics on the World Wide Web, it does appear that blogging is reshaping the way we look at journalism and holds the potential of unlocking the previously unrealized promises of egalitarian online publishing opportunities."
Taxomita
Quote: "Taxomita is a web-based authoring application that lets you create distributed, hierarchical, faceted metadata, and use it to index any page on the web."
Comment: Version 1.0 is not yet available...but you can sign up for an email to receive notification.
Training Design
Quote: "Instructional designers have a favorite statement: You can have any two of these three: faster, cheaper, or better.
During the past 10 years of instructional design, I have discovered that it is possible to have all three (faster, cheaper, and better) by using unconventional strategies. My colleagues who have embraced these strategies agree with me. We all feel that faster, cheaper, and better are strongly associated with each other."
Comment: Teaching/learning has often been experienced as lecture/content presentation. Like Thiagi details in this article, focusing on activities is a very effective way to include not only learning, but also increase the rate (and increase the quality) of design. 18 quotable principles are offered (including: Accept the fact that you are never going to produce The Final Version of any training package...Combine delivery and evaluation with revision activities...Shift a significant part of the responsibility for training design and delivery to participants themselves).
Faculty Development and the Diffusion of Innovations
Quote: "Faculty are being asked to adopt, and adapt to, a number of information age innovations in teaching. While some have adopted these technologies enthusiastically, the majority of instructors have been much slower to integrate these new tools in their teaching. Faculty developers remain frustrated with professors who appear to resist technology integra- tion or those who clearly refuse to use these innovations in their teaching.
What's needed is an examination of the source of the resistance."
Comment: Resistance to technology adoption is primarily about resistance to change. This article details gaps between early and mainstream adopters...and suggests a framework for addressing the needs and expectations of each group.
The model: "Our framework suggests the creation of a faculty development structure that uses multiple "spaces," with each space providing a different point of entry into the structure. The spaces can include both physical and online tools and resources, but online tools would be used as a central starting point. The "Learning Modules" space would include direct instruction in the form of self-paced tutorials and guided practice activities. The second space-"Effective Practices"-would provide access to a database containing success stories of technology integration. In the "Communities of Practice" space, faculty would engage in conversations with others with similar interests in order to plan technology integration."
Kewl
Quote: "(KEWL) was developed at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) to facilitate research into online learning. It was built as a comprehensive learning management tool that could be modified and used to investigate the online learning process, particularly in the context of Africa and the rest of the developing world. KEWL has been made available at no cost under an open source license (GNU Public License). KEWL is suitable for use in any online learning situation, including in school, corporate training, and higher education."
Bazaar
Quote: "Bazaar is a flexible course management system that delivers courses online and provides various discussion tools for its users. It incorporates a host of essential educational delivery features that are completely extensible and openly accessible. Bazaar is a particular cut above the rest because its flexibility allows course instructors and developers to customize not only Bazaar's appearance, but also the types of resources and features within Bazaar itself."
Comment: Another option to an expensive LMS...I've stated it before, but open source and education should really get to know each other better. Projects like this are a great step in the right direction. With the current open source products (Movable Type, Zope, Plone, PHP, MySQL, etc.), an insitution can begin offering online learning for, oh, let's say FREE. Obviously there is a time commitment to learning new tools...but for mature products documentation and support is excellent. There are options to expensive, closed systems. Unfortunately, many institutions are so deep into some proprietary platforms...that even free seems too expensive.
Quality Standards in Elearning via Online Learning Update
Quote: "Most institutions of postsecondary and higher education are creating or adopting quality statements, standards, and criteria regarding their niche of the "eLearning enterprise." In doing so, they have a tendency to reinvent the wheel. This article summarizes current published quality standards in the US, and analyzes and organizes them into a nine-cell matrix."
Comment: Nine areas listed for quality are: institutional commitment, technology, student services, instructional design and course development, instruction and instructors, delivery, finances, regulatory and legal compliance, evaluation.
Three Tiers of Identity via Doc
Quote: "There's a big difference between an issued identity and an identity for which an individual has assumed true and unconditional ownership and accountability. This article examines the concept that there are in fact at least three distinct types of identity, for simplicity sake, referred to as Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3. Each of these identities are vastly different in their value to the individual, and the vendors who facilitate their existance."
Comment: Explores the distinction between identity that is assumed (personal), assigned (corporate), abstracted (marketing). Some aspects of identity sharing (credit rating, social insurance number, etc.) are important to smooth functioning of society...others are not. Most discussion of digital identity fails to make this distinction. A system needs to exist that accounts for the different uses and needs of my/our/their identity.
User-Centered Design
Quote: "The problem wasn't one of features and functionality -- the software did everything they wanted it to do. The problem was one of design -- learning how to use this system was quite difficult, and often ran contrary to how people currently worked."
Comment: Nice user experience development diagram. Transfers very well to elearning design.