User Experience Resource Collection: (Maish) includes a wide range of valuable resources for designers of elearning (some domain specific...others (like information architecture) definitely can be stretched to apply).
I believe I've linked to this knowledge mapping resource before. Some very useful tools listed...though unfortunately, I don't see too many organizations involved in the important activity of analyzing and understanding knowledge flow.
Online Learning and Knowledge Networks (.ppt file)...Stephen Downes has been presenting a fairly consistent messge over the last several years on the future of online learning...particularly relating it to learning objects, metadata...with a recent more explicit emphasis on networks (and in this presentation "learning environments"). With the interplay of learning objects, resource profiles, learning objects browser, back propagation...I'm surprised that greater discussion or "actionable" efforts have not resulted from his work (unless I'm just completely unaware of what's happening). Personally, I think Stephen should open his ideas up to communities of debate (i.e. form a "Learning Innovations Group") committed to promoting and exploring the feasability and implementation of new directions in learning. His message doesn't seem to filter down to people who most benefit from it - end users. Time to begin a marketing effort :).
It's easy to dislike Microsoft...yet they get stuff right sometimes. Their shared source program is a response to the open source movement...and is starting to release some products. The latest is FlexWiki. Info on licensing and decision to host at sourceforge are on the developer's blog.
As we continue to move from technology/internet being "cool" to actually being useful - New MIT web site encourages neighborliness: "Critics say the Internet increases global communication at the expense of real-world communities. To address these concerns, researchers at MIT have created a free online service called I-Neighbors, designed to help neighborhoods strengthen local bonds and social interaction."
I went to the i-neghbors site and set up a home community. Very useful and simple. Great idea!
I was scrolling through David Wiley's nicely redone Plone site when I came across this learning tools site (looks new and in the early stages of development). The timeline tool looks very interesting...have to try it out for sequencing developments of learning theories...
Simulations: "The real promise of e-Learning isn't just as an online textbook, but as a simulator."
Driving Higher Ed Institutions to an Enterprise Approach: "For many institutions, linear expansion of e-learning—adding a program, a person, or a larger server to an existing model—cannot scale to meet current needs or future demands. Moving e-learning to an enterprise level requires institutions to re-think the way they currently support technology-enhanced instruction."
Comment: First, it's important to note that the author is the COO of WebCT (an LMS vendor). Second, certain systems need to be enterprise - systems that have a set, established manner of doing things...and that require a set/established output. Accounting, registration, customer management - these domains are black and white - and lend themselves readily to enterprise implementation.
Learning is different. Learning is by nature multi-faceted and chaotic. Organizations that now lock into enterprise-level systems will be able to do an excellent job of delivering courses. They won't, however, be positioning themselves well for informal learning, performance support, or knowledge management. The concept is simple: one tool can't do it all without losing functionality. The more feature-rich an individual tool becomes, the more it loses its usefulness to the average user. Connected specialization, modularization, decentralization - those are learning foundations capable of adjusting to varied information climate changes.
Knowledge Management: Are You Too Busy to Think?: "Being busy is often an excuse for not doing something you should be doing. For me it has often been an excuse for not thinking, managing, and planning properly. Working hard is no longer the route to success it once was perceived to be."
Semantic Web: "The Semantic Web, coupled with other specifications and tools being developed at W3C, including accessibility standards for disabled people and software for mobile devices, is part of Berners-Lee’s grand vision of “a single Web of meaning, about everything and for everyone.”"
This learning theories resource is worth bookmarking (or furling). Provides extensive links on the most common theories.
Enabling Distributed Learning Communities Via Emerging Technologies - Part One: "Many groups have experimented with learning communities for teachers and for students confined to classroom settings and centered on the instructor and archival materials (in libraries and online) as the primary sources of knowledge. Transformational learning of 21st century skills, instead, requires a bolder strategy of infusing learning communities throughout students’ and teachers’ lives, orchestrating the contributions of many knowledge sources embedded in real-world settings outside of schools - but with teachers still in central roles as facilitators and interpreters."
The New Literacy: (via EduResources)"The challenge to us as educators lies in keeping up with an information environment that has changed dramatically in the past 10 years, a decade during which the very nature of information has changed in appearance, location, accessibility, application, and communication. Thus, it is crucial that when teaching literacy to our students, we emphasize skills that reflect the information environment of the present, not the past."
Wiki software provides free shortcut to cost savings: "Wiki technology, invented by Oregon programmer Ward Cunningham, is server software that allows users to quickly create and edit on-line content using any Web browser ("wikiwiki" means "fast" in Hawaiian). The software is available from commercial developers, and there are also free open-source packages."
ABC's of VoIP (via Maish): "Just a few years ago, only tech geeks and a few hobbyists made phone calls over the Internet. Now, Net telephony is starting to find widespread acceptance among consumers and corporate customers alike."
Blogs continue to force their way into a position of prominence in relation to other media formats. Blogging the Story Alive and A Blogger's Creed detail the media shift as evidenced by the recent CBS incident.
A new service I just noticed for Google in Canada: Google Local. Worked quite well for businesses I tried in my community...neat.
How's Your eLearning?...I love it!: "About two years back, I asked a friend if his institution was doing any eLearning. He said, "Oh, yes, we have an LMS and we are doing all sorts of eLearning stuff." I said, "Having an LMS does not necessarily mean that you are creating meaningful eLearning." He asked, "Meaningful eLearning-what do you mean?""
A lapse of ethics in the on going trend of business-model education: "Clearly, high pressure sales combined with education is a bad mix. But don't dismiss what the University of Phoenix and its 129,000 online students have started. No, this scandal doesn't signal the end of online education. Rather, it will be merely a blip in its never-ending growth."
Links worth exploring on blogging and the business world. Blogs are now being seen less as a personal vanity tool...and more as a practical tool for learning, creating a portfolio, political activism, marketing, etc...taking on many of the same characteristics as more traditional media.
Collaboration First, Then Knowledge Management...and for the elearning world and Learning Management Systems, I would add "learning first, then management of learners/content".
E-Learning business models in the Web services era? (via Stephen): "No system can be 'complete' for long and particuarly not one which swims in the dynamic world of teaching and learning."
Comment: I'm not a big fan of one "do it all" solution (i.e. the word "enterprise" applied to learning and knowledge management results in a rash). I can see the value of enterprise systems when applied to more static/stable processes like accounting, inventory, etc. Learning and KM are too unique, varied, and chaotic to be served well by a single application. Even if a "complete" application did exist today...it's simply a matter of months before some other more complete application is available (think of how often organizations revisit/change their Learning Management Systems to something new and better). The solution to changing needs and tools is not to lock into a system...it's quite the opposite - it's the learning "anti-lock" system...build on distributed tools that communicate and are built on open standards. The entire learning process does not need to be rigid. Areas like learner registration obviously need to be centralized, but the actual learning process can be built on tools that can be extended to include additional functionality.
Games blur news and entertainment: "Digital media, and particularly digital media of a game simulation type, is going to become one of our staple kinds of expressive media..."
Comment: Few arguments can be made against the effectiveness of games as a means of learning, motivation, simulation, and creating shared understandings. Still, in spite of the enormous benefits of gaming, it's an infrequently used tool in learning. Development costs are too high (due largely to lack of effective game creation tools) and skilled developers are hard to find.
It's Not Just Usability: "When you're writing software that mediates between people, after you get the usability right, you have to get the social interface right. And the social interface is more important...Over the next decade, I expect that software companies will hire people trained as anthropologists and ethnographers to work on social interface design."
I use instant messaging occasionally, but I really haven't integrated it into my online communcation habits (perhaps it's too much like water cooler talk - a pursuit that my impatience doesn't allow me to fully develop either). Still, there are some interesting statistics on IM use: ~ 53 million Americans...with 11 million using it at work.
Reusable Media, Social Software and Openness in Education (.ppt) - this is a summation of much of Stephen Downes' work over the last few years. I heard him speaking at an AMTEC conference several years ago...and what he presents here is a logical extension. Short version: learn from the past (i.e. how the internet evolved - what was successful, what failed), understand the two clashing views (closed vs. open), we have to do it ourselves through simple, social, connected tools (formal initiatives are often complex and don't meet the end user's needs).
Lost Knowledge: (via Bill) "Retiring baby boomers are taking with them years of institutional memory in many fields." Short audio presentation on a problem that is quickly gaining recognition. I've previously talked about colleges as being learning outsourcing providers for corporations...this is just one niche to look at - providing organizations with knowledge audits and retention strategies...all part of the remaking of higher education to provide value and relevance in a morphing information needs era. Learners as customers for life - not for 2 - 4 years.
I've added a wiki to the Open Education site. Feel free to stop by, create an account, and contribute to the wiki (which is currently quite anemic).
As organizations begin to understand the value of social networks, knowledge and information flow analysis will grow in popularity. I really can't think of too many trends on the horizon that will provide greater value/return than understanding how knowledge moves through a company. This article provides an overview of the need for multi-faceted information channels to ensure that the message is delivered across the entire organization.
Open Source - Opens Learning (.pdf) - this is a great article addressing a concept I've promoted in this forum over the last several years: the public education market and open source software are natural partners, founded on similar ideologies of openness and collaboration. The article does, however, falsely limit proprietary software as commercial...open source software can be just as commercial. The key distinction is openness - not lack of profit or commercialism.
Everything you wanted to know about blogging but were afraid to ask is an irreverent look at blogging (mostly with the intent of promoting your blog and increasing readership and comments - not really a top concern with most edubloggers (I think)). The real value of the article is found in the bibliography...lots of good links.
Set aside some time to view this presentation (done with Macromedia Breeze)Synchronous Collaboration tools for the Academic World. Robin's central tenet is that large, full featured enterprise synchronous tools don't meet the needs of most users...and as a result, a new breed of simpler, specialized, connected tools are gaining popularity (interesting to see if a similar trend will take hold with LMS').
Collaboration for the Masses: "Is your business spread across multiple offices? Does it work closely with outside clients? Do you spend your day trying to collaborate with faraway people via phone and e-mail? If you answered yes to any of these questions, it's high time you adopted an Internet collaboration tool—a set of graphical applications that lets you easily interact with colleagues via your own private network."
Comment: The article unfortunately doesn't include any of the (often more exciting) decentralized options available - plone, wikis, convea, ACollab, Drupal, etc. A tool like plone, for example, has a healthy development community, is based on open standards, and has many additional modules available (chat, wikis, blogs, discussion forum, etc.).
Dismantling a Culture of Knowledge-Hoarding: "Hoarding" is probably not the best term. People often have very good reasons for not sharing knowledge (timing, nature of the knowledge, etc.). Hoarding should only describe a situation where the organization would benefit from knowledge sharing...but sharing doesn't happen in order to build personal silos.
For most organizations today, a sudden reversal in knowledge hoarding would result in chaos. Information has to be needed in order to have value. Sharing is a waste if it's not properly orchestrated with existing knowledge flow and technology systems. Most people are sick of "next-thing-ism". Give us some that'll work...something that's simple...and something that doesn't force us to revisit most of how we work. The problem is deeper than the problem (makes sense? :))...organizationally, we need to build some type of process first, before sharing will be valued and useful.
Knowledge Profiles "record skills, tools, practices and social networks, it highlights competencies, identifies gaps, helps with learning programs to address deficits, realize opportunities and heighten awareness for the owner and colleagues." KM profiles appear to be e-portfolios for the corporation/organization. I reviewed the links posted at the conclusion of the article...and decided that the profiling technique is somewhat impractical. Besides fabricated knowledge solicitation (acquiring knowledge for evaluative use should closely represent real-life activities), any profile that requires my own input, also needs a validation process to ensure that I'm not misrepresenting myself. I can see how organizations can benefit from profiling their staff...but what's the benefit to the employees? When trying to get people to share what they know...some type of benefit beyond "It'll let us know how things work in our company" is needed. KM starts with the individual and extends to teams, departments, offices, organizations, and globally. Start with the company's needs and the knowledge dries up.
Integrating Learning and KM: "To achieve the projected benefits, we decided to turn the traditional learning model on its head. We decided that we were not going to train people at all. Instead, we were going to put all the procedures, information, and knowledge to provide customer service and process claims in a KM system available on the job. We made the workers responsible for their own learning but gave them what they needed to do the job. This was consisitent with the desire to enable the workers to be more self-sufficient and have more control over aspects of their job."