I've been using Skype since their first beta release. Anyone involved in instructing (or communicating for that matter) online should use this tool. It's excellent (if you're not familiar with it, it's basically a tool that allows you to make phone calls online (for free if the other user has a skype account as well)).
S & B has a nice overview of Skype:
"One of Skype’s most high-powered adherents is former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell, who said in January 2004 at a telecommunications conference at the University of California–San Diego: “I knew [the traditional telephone system] was over when I downloaded Skype…. The world will change now inevitably.”"
A simple case study detailing the transition from instructor-led to blended learning: Building a Successful Blended Learning Strategy
A really nice set of video interviews on the increased social nature of learning in contrast with the "industrial model": Interview - Etienne Wenger on Communities of Practice (via Stephen)
Call them what you will - eportfolios or personal digital libraries: "People are capturing and storing an ever-increasing amount of digital information about or for themselves, including emails, documents, articles, portfolios of work, digital images, and audio and video recordings. Computer processing, storage, and software tools available to individuals are increasing in power, volume, and ease of use, year on year. Many issues arise from this more informal and increasingly empowered landscape of personal collection, dissemination, and digital memory, which will have major future impacts."
Our ability to manage and access our own digital resources (and as an extension, our learning). We are still largely shaped by the schema of our physical realm. We think that knowledge and resources must exist "somewhere". Yet as digital tools develop, knowledge (information is probably a more accurate term) can exist where it is needed and used. Instead of a library, we carry information (and access to information) with us where ever we go. Most importantly, it is a combination of public information (i.e. like the internet or public library) and personal information and reflection. It's like going into a library and being able to mark up books with personal comments and reflections. There is much hype around eportfolios currently...and for a good reason. Eportfolios are a very practical user-centered tool for learning. They will grow at incredible rates over the next few years.
Social Bookmarking: "This article looks at the evolving crop of social bookmarking tools, their functionality and examples of use."
Personal Media: "...The deer now have guns,"... With a PC, a $100 web camera, a $200 piece of real-time TV production software that includes a teleprompter, free blog software, FTP access to a server, a small digital camera, editing software, and an imagination, anybody can be a TV station, a newspaper or a multimedia news operation. In order to do so, however, the person running the enterprise needs to know how to do everything."
Comment: Educators are starting to feel that learners are no longer passive receptacles for knowledge. A student versed in basic online search can easily verify, extend, or challenge what is taught in class.
Death of Hierarchical Folders: "Hierarchical Folders have dominated info organization since they first appeared over 40 years ago. But in industry after industry, a strange thing is happening: hierarchy is under severe attack, and even dying out."
Comment: Hierarchy was my main form of personal organization until about four years ago. Now, I blog what I want to keep (to search for at a future date) and I Furl what I don't want to blog, but want to reference. I don't use favorites in my browser window either. Files on my computer are "findable" via Google desktop search. Eventually, I hope we get to the stage where we just dump all our content/resources into a bin...and intelligence is applied at the point of search. Our personal knowledge management tools are still far behind the changed environment in which we now function.
Skills for Access: "The comprehensive guide to creating accessible multimedia for elearning" (via Curb Cut Design).
Comment: About two years ago, accessibility was a fairly prominent topic in elearning design (and the internet in general). Lately, it's dropped off. It's nice to see projects are still moving forward in this area. Accessibility should be an important, built-in design process. It's not something we do to elearning after it's done. It's something we design into the process.
Several months ago, I wrote that Keyhole (a new Google purchase at the time) was an excellent tool for instructors/teachers to incorporate technology into classrooms. Google announced a new release today (without the previous subscription cost): Google Earth. It's a wonderful resource for educators (and a fascinating way to burn up many hours!).
Living Taxonomy: "The Living Taxonomy Project is a collaborative effort aimed at creating a global set of open source, standards-based taxonomies for education. The purpose of these taxonomies will be to provide a free cataloging structure for the collection and sharing of education materials around the world."
Seb Schmoller forwarded this link: The real digital divide: "Plenty of evidence suggests that the mobile phone is the technology with the greatest impact on development. A new paper finds that mobile phones raise long-term growth rates, that their impact is twice as big in developing nations as in developed ones, and that an extra ten phones per 100 people in a typical developing country increases GDP growth by 0.6 percentage points."
Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags "Today I want to talk about categorization, and I want to convince you that a lot of what we think we know about categorization is wrong. In particular, I want to convince you that many of the ways we're attempting to apply categorization to the electronic world are actually a bad fit, because we've adopted habits of mind that are left over from earlier strategies.
I also want to convince you that what we're seeing when we see the Web is actually a radical break with previous categorization strategies, rather than an extension of them."
Smarter than 99.9% of the rest of us -
A very interesting article on super-intelligence: "At least half of what people call 'intelligence' is really just having an excellent memory for detail. The rest is being able to see patterns." (via Eide Neurolearning Blog)
This afternoon, I facilitated and enjoyable learning object discussion (with Brian Lamb, Scott Leslie, Jody Baty, Alan Levine, Scott Wilson, and David Wiley). The presentations are available here:
The New Gatekeepers: "The sins of the gatekeepers (editors, really) are now identified: professional. elite. official. sanctioned...The new technology has a potential to change this. What boosters promise about the new media and skeptics hold out for as well, is a true meritocracy of ideas and their creators."
Comment: Indicative of the education market as well.
Learner managed Learning: "A research and development centre, exploring pedagogical aspects of LML [Learner Managed Learning] in virtual learning environments, the higher education curriculum and corporate development."
Why RSS and Folksonomies Are Becoming So Big: "I think the reason Del.icio.us is so successful at bringing the appropriate audience to good material is because they track the changing web by using people to calculate what is essentially ‘page rank.’ They get access to decent fuzzy logic for a fraction of the cost and the democracy of the system allows anyone to get their idea of what deserves face-time into the system almost immediately."
Comment: It's unusual to encounter an article that knocks Google as out of synch with the nature of information online. The author of this post, however, does exactly that, stating that the web is changing too rapidly (Google's page rank system was created when blogs really didn't exist, and the web was mainly about static content)...and that by tracking the nature of the dialogue through tags and RSS, tools like technorati are effective and giving end users what they want, when they want it.
The Open Cellphone: "The personal computer for the rest of the world isn't going to be the personal computer. It's going to be the cellphone...Communication is more important than computation on the human hierarchy of need."
Comment: Elearning designers and developers need to be aware of this trend. Most often, we're focused on the laptop/desktop computer as the device learners will use to access learning. Cellphones (and other mobile devices) are rapidly becoming the preferred tool for accessing online content. I recently asked a student what her main motivation was for using a cellphone for browsing online. She stated: "when I need to know something right away - movie listings and places to go". Just-in-time, just-for-me learning will come (actually is coming already) via a cellphone.
Are Computer Games Rebooting Our Minds?: "...you have to sit on one side of the fence or the other...either games have no effect and we should rip them out of schools, or they have an effect and we really should think about it."
Paradigms in E-Learning: "...the traditional model of online learning contains enough vestiges of traditional classroom and distance learning that it is tempting...to begin to think that there's nothing really new happening here, that the use of computer technology does not really introduce any new affordances, doesn't really force us to reconceptualize what it is that we are doing, doesn't really offer, indeed, an alternative to what has gone before."
Comment: I think we are quite close to a reorganization of both learning and learning delivery models (i.e. classrooms). Lately, I've had several engaging conversations on the subject of how elearning is poised to break out of its current image. The issue isn't technology, as is often assumed. The real issue is that the world has changed, and at this point, technology-enabled learning most closely matches those changes. Rapid knowledge development requires a flexible and adaptive design and delivery model. Classrooms certainly have a role, but they need to be augmented/adjusted to reflect information flow. Again, it has nothing to do with technology or classrooms - it has to do with people being able to function in a similar manner and pace as the climate in which they live and work. Our existing educational models are creaking the weight of rapid change in the surrounding environment.
Social network analysis (learning network analysis?) is really the key to the interaction aspect of formal and informal learning - Who Knows Whom, And Who Knows What?: "Companies that have been frustrated by traditional knowledge management efforts, such as Mars, are increasingly looking for ways to find out how knowledge flows through their organizations. Looking at the company org chart, it turns out, often doesn't tell the real story about who holds influence, who gives the best advice and how employees are sharing information critical for success. This all takes on greater urgency as millions of baby boomers prepare to retire over the coming decade. Social network analysis provides a clear picture of the ways that far-flung employees and divisions are working together, and can help companies identify key experts in the organization."
The Social Fabric - A bit of a different slant than this article proposes, but I can see the concept of network visualization playing an important role in understand how learning occurs in both classrooms and informal environments. As interaction grows in prominence in learning (content is a secondary aspect of learning - it's actually the least durable. The connections we form during the learning process have greater value than transient content), this type of approach can provide very useful information to individuals and organizations.
Learning innovations: "So what does the future hold? I’m happy to report that learning will thrive, but trainers will have to merge back into operational roles. Oh, and Training Departments are dead, at least as we know them. As are Learning Management Systems and any other relics of centralized distribution of learning. Learning that is informal, collaborative, contextual, real-time, and peer-generated, will be the mode of tomorrow."
Comment: I agree that the rise of informal learning will be a significant trend in the elearning industry. I don't think, however, that we will see LMS' disappearing. The situation drives the tool. In formal, course-based learning, many organizations will continue to adopt an LMS. I'm personally much more excited about informal, collaborative learning than I am about LMS-based learning. But learning isn't a one dimensional experience - it has many facets, requiring many different approaches. Hopefully, advocates for informal learning won't take the same "our way is the only way" approach adopted by proponents of formal learning. There is room and need for both.
Coming soon, video games in a big way: "D.E.L - digital entertainment lifestyle - is shorthand for the notion that all media - movies, music, games, cameras, phones, TVs - are becoming digital media and that’s changing how we relate to them and how they relate to one another. They’re merging into a single integrated, portable, customizable media gestalt."
Focused on American bloggers, but provides important considerations for all bloggers: Legal Guide: "Like all journalists and publishers, bloggers sometimes publish information that other people don't want published. You might, for example, publish something that someone considers defamatory, republish an AP news story that's under copyright, or write a lengthy piece detailing the alleged crimes of a candidate for public office."
The Sharing Economy: "When you're looking at an area of radical technological, economic, and social transformation, we need to know what's happening in the social and economic domain, why it's happening in technological terms, and what are the technological possibilities."
Last week, I mentioned the significant trend of "mass amateurization". The Power of Us displays how that trend is challenging and altering long standing economic models.
Communities of Practice and Complexity : Conversation and Culture: "Communities of practice (CoP) have been hailed as the perfect vehicle for knowledge transfer and competence development, and the associated theory presented as a bridge between the theories of organisational learning and organisational performance " (via Nancy)
LMS Survey Results - basic survey of LMS deployment, features and satisfaction. I'm disappointed at how much emphasis is given to integration, and how little is given to end user satisfaction and learning success. Also missing is a focus on the most valuable part of learning online: connection and network forming.
If it has to do with blogging, an unspoken requirement exists "Give it the most absurd names possible". In keeping with that spirit, Crunkie: "The idea is that you can leave location-based posts in certain places for your friends. And they pop up when your friends appear." Think of the "contextually-appropriate" learning opportunities a tool like this would provide. (via emergic)
I've been impressed recently with Educause as a larger educational resource that seems to accurately reflect grassroots trends within learning (note articles by Stephen Downes on educational blogging and Brian Lamb on wikis). Educause's new Learning Initiative site is a nice addition.
Mass amateurization is one of the most significant trends that I see unfolding in society today. Anyone can create a blog, podcast, or video blog - often without any expense. In some cases, hosting is free. In this model, connections, not hierarchy rules. Traditional media has dominated by controlling and filtering information. Now, the doors have swung wide open. It's a bit unnerving for many who prefer information nicely packaged in a news program. Still, the growth of amateur experts (how's that for a contradiction?) is rapidly due to the recent availability of technology. Here are a few recent articles relating to the subject: We the Media, Limbaugh podcasts.
E-Learning: A Kaleidoscope of Options (.ppt) - a great presentation for those interested in how various trends (work flow learning, standards, LMS', eportfolios, games, and simulations) are developing. It's promising to see an ecology of diversity developing. In the realm of technology, most good ideas eventually merge, or at least "speak" to each other.
June/July issue of Innovate is now available. Topics include: the next step in education and technology, mobile learning, instructional blogging, etc.
Great resource on blended learning: "Blended learning combines online with face-to-face learning. The goal of blended learning is to provide the most efficient and effective instruction experience by combining delivery modalities."
I've harped previously about how trends in media are precursors to trends we'll face in education shortly. Changing Channels presents discusses changes in the TV industry...and changes that I'd suggest will be faced by educators in the near future - "The resulting industry shake-up is changing the way TV is produced, distributed and consumed."
At times, a complex argument, attempting to weave various financial, political, social and technological trends over the last century - Networks and Globalization: (via Network-Centric Advocacy)"We live in a "network society", we work in a "network economy", we interact in "social networks." Inasmuch as our lives are mediated by electronics, they are mediated by networks...But new technologies regularly create entirely new industries for new capitalists, and new technologies have created havoc for traditional monopolies as the pendulum has shifted back towards global competition. The rhetoric of entrepreneurism, contingency, self-employment, etc. has led to an economic atomization that contradicts monopoly."
The Only Exciting Thing In Tech?: "If the seers are correct, within a year your cell phone will be capable of live television, music downloads and playback, videogames, storing movie clips and viewing everything from photo albums to digital home movies. In short, more than you may have ever thought possible."