e-Learning Centre is the most complete elearning resource I've encountered. The site goes on and on and on...
Jane Knight just informed me of a news page with an RSS feed. Fantastic!
A People, Once Liberated...: "And in my mind, technological change often enables, and is accompanied by, social change. In my view, the provision of an accessible and affordable education to the majority of the world's population is a form of enfranchisement, of emancipation. And though this new form of universal suffrage is not a technological revolution, but rather a social movement, it is also not possible without technology."
Comment: This paragraph sums up much of my interest in elearning/knowledge sharing/technology, etc. The higher goal is the provision of education for people so that they have the opportunity to make better lives for themselves. Technology makes this financially possible (an ebook can be read by millions with the only additional expense being bandwidth costs...a regular textbook has additional expenses associated with each copy). Still, as Stephen indicates, the greater challenge will be social...education seen as an event, dispensed by an institution, needs to give way to education as a process, largely controlled by the learner, drawing from various sources (formal and informal), the elimination of high cost as a barrier. Previously, education was expensive due to physical limitations...the Internet has shown that it no longer needs to be.
This is too interesting to ignore: Newsmap "Newsmap is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator."
The complexity (and availability) of information is leading to some interesting innovations in helping people "get a handle" on things. Newsmap is a good example.
RSS: A Quick Guide for Educators (.doc file). Covers setting up an RSS feedreader, finding RSS feeds, and using them in a classroom. Excellent.
Just came across Spaghetti Learning (via Trainingwatch), an open source elearning platform...looks like it's still very much in development (judging from spelling errors - though it is a translated site/service)...but worth keeping an eye on.
Gates: Hardware Will Be Free: ""Ten years out, in terms of actual hardware costs you can almost think of hardware as being free -- I'm not saying it will be absolutely free -- but in terms of the power of the servers, the power of the network will not be a limiting factor," Microsoft's chairman said."
Learning Goes Mobile: "Mobile learning gives the front-line workforce - such as a retail sales associate, soldier or cable repairman - the access to the critical information sources, learning materials and expertise to learn what they want, where they want, when they want."
Comment: Aside from the very abused term "what, where, when" learning, this article does provide an overview how learning can be delivered through tools many people already have (PDA, cell phone). Being tethered to a computer to receive information doesn't make sense. Information should be accessible to users in the format they need to do their work...they shouldn't have to adjust their work to access information.
If you've ever heard the statement that "only 10% of training transfers to the job" (or some other derivative), Will Thalheimer has some interesting insights: Bogus Training Research
Centralized, Decentralized and Knowledge Sharing:"Of course, big companies don't always take advantage of their full potential for knowledge sharing. And even when they do, gaining the benefit of knowledge sharing doesn't require centralized control at all. It just requires the widespread sharing of knowledge."
Google is now offering a new beta product: personalized search. According to the site: "Google Personalized web search delivers custom search results that are based on a profile you create describing your interests. For example, people with an interest in the outdoors will see different relevant sites for a search on "bass" than people who are interested in music. Google Personalized web search is currently available in test mode on Google Labs, where you can create and save your profile and see results tuned to your preferences. Your results can be instantly rearranged by dragging a slider at the top of the page to go from no personalization to full personalization or anywhere in between."
Sounds interesting...but I have mixed feelings. Sometimes, when searching, I find information that I didn't know I wanted. By defining a profile too narrowly, the serendipity of search is eliminated...but the added convenience of finding more targeted information is very valuable at other times. Same with privacy. Profile requirements are currently quite limited...but if Google develops it more, how valuable is a user's search habits to the company?
Blogging Limitations/Challenges: "To me, the greatest limitation is blogs' lack of integration and 'transitionability' with other communication tools."
Michelle links to a new blog focused more on corporate elearning: e e learning. Looks like a valuable resource...other than Internet Time, I haven't really found a regularly updated blog dedicated to the corporate elearning market. If you know of any, please leave them in the comments section...
The social enterprise: "
Building group memory and team awareness has always been the goal of KM (knowledge management), of course. “But most people,” Nuzum says, “have never had the benefit of mechanized institutional memory.” One reason for this limitation is that KM systems have tended to ask people to dump knowledge into databases without regard for social incentives, habits, or consequences. These are central concerns for social software in all its various forms."
Short article on the role of blogs in learning: Campus Communications & the Wisdom of Blogging
Simultaneous Media Usage Becoming the Norm: "There have been several studies showing the increase in media multi-tasking. Now, there's another out from BIGresearch, claiming 70 percent of media users consume more than one medium at a time."
Comments: Trends like this should shape how we design and create elearning content. Much of elearning is still text with graphics. Multiple media help to meet both the learner's expectations and to improve the quality of the learning.
How to Be an Educated E-Learning Consumer: "What are the specific learning needs of your audience and how many people will realistically use the courses? Does the content really meet the needs of the audience?"
The Cost of Not Knowing...an interesting piece on the effects of not knowing. Organizational and individual content management is presented as the solution. I recognize that content management is critical, but I'm beginning to wonder if the concern of knowledge management isn't more about how people extract and assign meaning to content. In a recent post, I stated that I don't use learning object repositories because I'm unable to find what I need. Stephen Downes questioned that statement: "I think that re-use will be harder to generate than content creation."
On reflection, I think we are essentially saying the same thing...content in context is the real challenge. Or put another way, the extraction of meaning from an object is the real challenge. We can have access to all the content in the world, but if we are not able to find what we need, when we need it, in the format we need it, and for the task which we need it, it's of no use. Content management takes care of organizing resources. The extraction of meaningful content is where systems fail.
Rules for Asking Others to Share Knowledge...good emphasis on common etiquette when asking people to share knowledge with you. IEtiquette especially suffers in digital communications/requests.
Accessibility and usability: "The rule is “Accessibility should not restrict usability”. "
Microsoft aspires to do for game development what it did for software development (take that however you want to): Microsoft details XNA software - "XNA empowers developers to deliver games while combating rising production costs and ever-increasing hardware complexity."
An interesting discussion on the effectiveness of elearning as measured by organizational, pedagogical, technological, etc. dimensions: Evaluating the Effectiveness of E-Learning Strategies . Nice change of pace from many articles that focus mainly on trying to create an evaluation model by only measuring effectiveness through direct return on investment. (via Trainingwatch)
New learning models under scrutiny: "With such a crowded and expanding learning market, how are business schools faring? Executive education, for example, so long the bread and butter for business schools, is also natural fodder for corporate universities. And as distance-learning technology improves, the desire for a "bricks and mortar" business school may wane."
Confessions of an Early Internet Educator (.pdf): "Recently published surveys conducted by the Sloan Consortium show widespread support among academic leaders for the notion that learning outcomes from online higher education degree programs are equal to or exceed those of residential programs, and that those learning outcomes are expected to continue to improve relative to their fixed facility counterparts."
It's A Blog World After All: "Corporate America is jumping onto the blogwagon for many of the same reasons all those journalists, brooding teenagers, and presidential campaigners are already on board. Unlike email and instant messaging, blogs let employees post comments that can be seen by many and mined for information at a later date..."
James links to this discussion on why academics blog. Some excellent questions are posed...with great responses. A few quick responses from my own perspective:
Why do you blog? To work through ideas...to create a history/record of my thoughts and their evolution. To find a pattern in the rapid flow of information.
What keeps you going?Same reasons as why I started...With the added benefit of being involved in a community of people that I dialogue with indirectly (i.e. I speak to them through my blog, I listen to them through theirs. I've largely given up on blog comments as dialogue. Time for revised expectations...:)).
What do you get from reading other blogs? Diversity of opinion...clash of ideas...synthesis...more complete perspective of issues...discovery of new trends before they become mainstream.
Google to find place for Orkut network in search: "One of the problems with search is you can't find people," said Schmidt. "We believe that these social networks will have a tremendous amount of information."
Learning By Design: "Video games, he noted, are long, complex and hard - and yet people spent many hours playing them, involving themselves in complex learning, and even pay for the privilege. The task accomplished by game designers, he observed wryly, "would be like charging fifty dollars to learn algebra."
Comment: This summary of a presentation by James Paul Gee provides a great introduction to what is wrong with learning and right with games. It appears as if game designers understand interactivity and motivation better than many educators. The potential of games in education is enormous...but so are the obstacles. In our department, we've used a variety of games and simulation tools to enhance learning. The results have consistently supported the need for more "learning wrapped in gaming"...but the time and resources needed to develop games are big limitations. The digital divide between "have's" and "have not's" (learners, instructors, institutions, countries) is intensified by use of games. Institutions with resources and expertise can incorporate games...the others suffer. Additionally, the move to game-based learning will substantially challenge idealist's views of open education. Educational institutions will not be the ones to lead the foray into games in learning - it will be for-profit content developers...and the expenses, of course, will be passed on to the learners.
Very few concepts in learning and knowledge managment have more potential than networks. How we learn, share, interact...how knowledge flows in an organization, how critical values are communicated - these all function on the backbone of some type of network concept. In learning, the concept of each learner as a node, the tools (and fellow learners) to "transmit" learning as the connections, and the content itself as the substance in the pipes, makes more sense than almost any other description of the process. The study of these networks reveals surprising results...allowing people to adjust and improve processes for maximum impact. Geek War on Terror offers an example of the potential value of network study.
I like mindmaps...they're very useful for brainstorming and tying together ideas. I usually use MindManager, but recently came across this open source option: FreeMind. FreeMind doesn't have as many features (and it's a bit less intuitive)...but it's a good starting tool for mind mapping.
Superbloggers and the Future of Big Media : "The issue isn't about being free; it's about value."
Pedablogue links to Teaching Perspectives Inventory. While some of the perspectives explored are a bit one-dimensional (black/white), it's nice to pull back occasionally and reflect on personal values relating to teaching. I think most educators have the notion of being "world changers" in the back of their heads...it's the schema that we use to shape our teaching.
Splashing in Ponds and Pools got me thinking about my first experience with Splash several years ago. It looked great, the concept of peer-to-peer repository was (is) great...but I couldn't find resources that I needed. As a result, I didn't integrate it into my list of places to go for information (though I'm sure things have changed).
The paradox of repositories is that most people want to use them, not contribute to them. We want to make our own lives easier.
Serious Games "Debra Lieberman recently posted about the contrast between games being used in a larger instructional context and stand-alone educational games."
Answerbag (via elearningpost): "Answerbag is a universal, user-generated collection of frequently-asked questions. It is built and moderated by you, our users..."
Life on the Edge: "The founder of Groove Networks argues that organizations are becoming increasingly decentralized. Instead of being tightly bound to corporate centers, workers are being unleashed, laptop in hand, to work in different locations or out of their homes."
Emerging Technologies in Elearning (.ppt file)...a broad overview of what is happening/will happen in elearning. Learning objects/repositories have received their share of hype...I'm more interested in slides towards the end of the presentation...focusing on personalization, semantic social network, and "gaming"/environments.
Sketchy Grades for Cyber Schools : "Cyber schools -- where students complete all coursework online using home computers -- are a big hit with parents, who are signing up their children as quickly as the virtual doors open. However, test results for 2003 show students at many cyber schools are not measuring up to state standards or to their peers who attend brick-and-mortar schools."
Comment: Confusing article...not quite sure whether they are criticizing for-profit schools or online learning. Regardless...test results are being used as an indicator of weaker academic performance for online students. Before I would even entertain that as an indictment of online learning, I'd like to see how courses were organized, what types of tools were being used, if students were given assistance adapting to the medium, if instructors were competent facilitators, if learning outcomes were linked to media selection, if....and so on.
Why people don't share what they know: "We may wish for collaborative webs, fostering communities of practice.... but those in charge may be thinking more fortress, walled garden, protect our assets and position."
Interesting: How News Travels on the Internet (via Network-Centric Advocacy)
Reflection is an important component of learning. We form links between known and new knowledge during this stage. Most educators realize the importance of reflection and build it into evaluation, class time, and assignments. I had an experience this weekend with my 10 year old daughter that brings to mind another important related (but not often discussed) concept: debriefing learning experiences.
My daughter has a strong sense of self-criticism. While doing her homework recently, she expressed certain negative viewpoints about her learning skills and abilities. As a parent, I automatically shifted into "instructor" mode and tried to highlight the error of the conclusions she was drawing from her past learning experiences. In doing so, I realized how rarely we focus on the conclusions we draw from failures in learning.
For learners, a negative experience is catalogued as a "I can't do that" statement...and if not questioned, it is perceived as a fact in future encounters. We need to actively promote debriefing in all learning experiences...particularly negative ones. It can help to prevent the formation of erroneous impressions of learner competence.
Here's a few thoughts on the types of questions we should teach learners to ask themselves:
Online communities 'are old-skool': "'Online communities are old-skool. The heat these days is around social networks, buddy lists &blogs -- all bottom-up social tools that place the individual at the center, and grow outward from there. This is a very different design model than message boards, chat rooms and virtual worlds, which are virtual places where where like-minded people congregate.'"
Comment: Actually, online communities aren't "old-skool"...just some of the tools used to create communities. Community creation and fostering is the end goal, now we have more social tools available (blogs, buddy lists) than we've had in the past (message boards, chat rooms).
Dunbar's Number: "This all leads me to hypothesize that the optimal size for active group members for creative and technical groups -- as opposed to exclusively survival-oriented groups, such as villages -- hovers somewhere between 25-80, but is best around 45-50. Anything more than this and the group has to spend too much time "grooming" to keep group cohesion, rather then focusing on why the people want to spend the effort on that group in the first place..."
Myths of Open Source: "The arguments for and against open-source software get trivialized. It's not a technology issue; it's a business issue."
Comments: I would extend that thought slightly - sometimes, open source is also an ethical issue...most of the time, however, it's a world-view issue. If I adhere to central "command and control", top-down viewpoints, proprietary software is attractive. If I believe in decentralized, collaborative, open environment, open source is attractive. These are, obviously, generalizations...but accurate enough to detail each camp. It's important to note that it is not a money issue. I'm all for democracy and earning money. However, the only way to ensure that our future is democratic (and gives people the ability to innovate and create an income) is to preserve openness now. With that said, I'm not against proprietary software. If someone writes a program and wants to keep it "closed", that's their decision. Let the market decide...but don't stack the market in favour of either one.
The High Cost of Not Finding Information: (Innovation Blog)"The very complexity of the decisions we make and the products we manufacture makes it impossible to check, test and retest them adequately enough to be sure that they will function properly in any circumstance. Information disasters are a growing threat, and one that few businesses can ignore."
Comment: According to the article, knowledge workers (whatever that means) spend up to 35% of their time looking for information...compound that with extra time spent creating information that could not be found...and it's easy to understand why this is a growing problem. Unfortunately, solutions being offered are not sufficient. Simply creating a single interface for people to access information is not enough. The solution to information overload requires:
Sometimes Google Knows Too Much: "Google is in many ways most dangerous website on the Internet for thousands of individuals and organisations, writes SecurityFocus columnist Scott Granneman. Most computers users still have no idea that they may be revealing far more to the world than they would want."
Every few months, bloggers run through a cycle of trying to describe blogs. Personally, I'm less interested in what they are and more in what they allow me to do. Here are a few links of the current discussion: blogging as conversations, social infrastructure, blogging as the proverbial elephant, and comments (I particularly related to Stephen's comments: "The third thing I'm looking for I can't really describe. It's like trying to find the feel of the net. I style myself as being like an Idoru, as Gibson says, an intuitive perceiver of patterns. It's like finding a wave, a current (or usually, an undercurrent). And still - it has to fit into one of my themes, and not merely be an eddy or undertow.")
Learning as object-related pattern finding: Our Brains Cheat During Learning: "Researchers have shown that our brains might cheat when learning, switching to 'automatic pilot' mode whenever it's possible. Instead of trying to answer a question by reasoning, our brain explore a catalog of previous answers to similar questions just to save time and avoid thinking."
Same trends in teaching/learning: On conversations again: "News organizations in recent times have operated as if the news was a lecture -- we told you what the news was, and you bought it (or you didn't). Tomorrow's news reporting and production will be more of a conversation, with huge implications for producers and consumers of news alike, because the lines between them will blur."
Jay Cross has interesting comments on Edubabble. Many of the popular terms being thrown around in education (learning styles, multiple intelligence, brain-compatible learning...most which I link to here. Whether you agree or disagree with the theories, Jay's thoughts are worth exploring. Sometimes, after much abuse, the terms themselves take on different meanings.
I'm in favour of individualized instruction (against clear objectives), variety in learning, flexibility in classrooms...etc. All of these concepts should not be an end to themselves. They should ultimately result in "better" learning, which results in increased competence, which results in better skills/knowledge/ability, which results in a better society. Theories should be a reflection of reality...or a vision for it...not a replacement.
Conceptual Maps: "Conceptual maps are artefacts for organising and representing knowledge...Their objective is to represent relations between concepts in the form of propositions."
Six essentials for effective engagement: "What does it take to engage public agencies, business, non profits and others in collaborative processes that go beyond 'tick the box' consultation?"
Plagiarism Resource Site (via Kairosnews): "Intended to serve as a clearinghouse for information on plagiarism, this site is especially concerned with news and developments that relate to undergraduate teaching and learning."
For the under-achiever in all of us: Secret to Success: Go for "Just Enough": "Being the very best in your chosen field is, paradoxically, a matter of accepting your limitations."
This article captures the fundamental shift between central command and control and more open models: VoIP : "It's clear what the consumers want -- the maximum amount of experimentation with all sorts of models, and not being forced to choose between new features and backwards compatibility." The same shift has confronted RIAA (music sharing)...and they've failed to adjust. It's happening with the telephone industry, education...pretty much every aspect of life. Control pushed across the network...in an open, collaborative environment...has proven to be a far more effective model than control held in silo-style knowledge/decision structures.
Learning in Communities: "With the discussion and - dare I say it - hype surrounding online courses, learning objects, and other forms of online content, people have to a large degree stopped talking about the idea of the learning community."
Comment: As I've said before, community-based tools like Drupal, Convea, Groove, etc. are much more effective learning tools than LMS'. An LMS begins with the focus of learning content as objects to be managed. Community tools begin with the focus of learning as a means to creating, not only consuming, content.
One challenge to any network is the excessive value given to certain nodes. In theory, all should be equal. In reality, blogs, like traditional media (and all of life), assign supernodes. The problem is that the "best" knowledge does not always reside there. Much of the new stuff happens on the edges. Organizationally the challenge is to get all nodes heard in an efficient manner - without giving increased worth to certain nodes based on popularity...idealistic, isn't it? Warning: Blogs Can Be Infectious : "When they plotted the links and topics shared by various sites, they discovered that topics would often appear on a few relatively unknown blogs days before they appeared on more popular sites."