eLearning Weekly

JULY 26, 2011

One of the best pieces of advice my father gave me was, “Discover what you’re good at and then learn how to make money at it.” Just like most obedient young boys, I totally ignored my father’s advice. Even though I’ve been drawing and cartooning my whole life and developing elearning for the past ten years, I never put the two together. I’m a decent artist but most artists are their own worst critics, and even though I was passionate about it, I never once considered earning a living doing it.

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eLearning Consultant eLearning Strategy eLearning Tips 57

Experiencing eLearning

JULY 18, 2011

During the July 7 early #lrnchat about social media and social learning, there was a lot of discussion about lurking. In response to the question “What are some ways you learn through social media that aren’t collaborative, with other people per-se?&#. I replied : I do a fair amount of lurking (ie “legitimate peripheral participation&# ).

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Social Media Wikipedia Forum RSS 308

Making Change

JULY 5, 2011

Do you want a checklist you can use to evaluate elearning? Here’s my contribution (PDF). I’m calling it a checklist because several people have asked for one, but it’s not really a checklist. Instead of checking a box to say, “Yup, got that covered!&# you choose a spot on a spectrum between “action-oriented materials&# and “information dump.&#.

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eLearning eLearning Tools PDF Evalution 279

Upside Learning

JULY 12, 2011

Google Plus is making waves among technology savvy social networkers. Like so many other Google products, this one is in beta and is gradually opening up to more users. One unique aspect separates Plus from other Google services. Unlike Facebook or Twitter where one accesses the ‘firehose’ of data that one subscribes to and is dependent on the Friends/Following, and where users mostly use features like groups/lists etc to sort out noise from the stream, Plus uses a different approach

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Social Networks Social Network Network Social 267

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Our profession is undergoing a transformation, moving away from rigid, one-size-fits-all methodologies. Instead, project managers are embracing dynamic and adaptable frameworks that carefully consider project and product variables to determine the most suitable development approaches and project life cycles.

Project

Kapp Notes

JULY 21, 2011

When most people think of video games, they think of combat and battle but not all games need to include battles and many corporte games (serious games) avoid combat. So, Daniel Floyd over at The Escapist share in this video clip his thoughts on non-combat gaming and I think a few of the ideas should be incorporated into some corporate or academic serious games.

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Games Ideas Video Design 243

Jane Hart

JULY 29, 2011

Tweet. This is the third in a series of posts about how L&D departments can move forward from their traditional role of creating, delivering and managing formal learning. The two previous posts in this series were: The Smart Worker : learning continuously with social media. The Smart Worker : needs immediate access to solutions to performance problems.

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Course Job Performance Support Summary 233

Experiencing eLearning

JULY 7, 2011

If you are starting out as a freelance instructional designer or consultant, what do you need to know and do? I am currently exploring my options for freelance work. I know many of you out there have made the leap from regular employee to consultant. I’m interested in any words of wisdom you might have. Do you have any favorite resources or books?

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Making Change

JULY 5, 2011

Do you want a checklist you can use to evaluate elearning? Here’s my contribution (PDF). I’m calling it a checklist because several people have asked for one, but it’s not really a checklist. Instead of checking a box to say, “Yup, got that covered!&# you choose a spot on a spectrum between “action-oriented materials&# and “information dump.&#.

eLearning 279

eLearning eLearning Tools PDF Evalution 279

Upside Learning

JULY 26, 2011

Find a problem with learning or performance first , think about learning next, and mobile learning last. This is somewhat analogous to “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Look for a learning/performance problem and analyze carefully if mobile learning is a possible solution and not the other way round. Ask if there will be a real benefit for the user.

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Mobile Learning Mobile Simulations Learning 262

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Dashe & Thomson

JULY 12, 2011

How Many Accelerated Learning Phases Are There? In the training world, the optimum number seems to be “four.” There are four learning styles, four stages of competence, and a four-level evaluation model. There is also a four-phase learning cycle. There are different ways of thinking about the learning cycle and different numbers of phases. Some educators have proposed four phases, while others have proposed five or even six.

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Learning Learner Learning Styles Simulations 211

Challenge to Learn

JULY 26, 2011

Because it is the holiday season we decided at the LCBQ to take on a light subject for this month: “How do you make e-Learning fun&#. Well I think that you shouldn’t. In the eighties I wrote a series of textbooks on bookkeeping (I know that there isn’t much fun in that). After I wrote the first book I sent it to the publisher, they corrected it, illustrated it and I got a printed draft version back.

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Learning Version Course Games 208

Jane Hart

JULY 27, 2011

Tweet In the second of a series of blog posts on helping L&D move forward, I look at how we need to help workers gain immediate access to “learning&# that solves their performance problems. Jeff Bullas pointed out in How the iPad is changing our lives , that. “The “Now&# generation wants their news, entertainment, information and access to online stores instantly whether that is on the bus, bedroom or even on the beach.&#.

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Experiencing eLearning

JULY 17, 2011

Ed Tech and Instructional Technology Related Programs in the United States. Curt Bonk’s collected list of masters and doctoral programs in instructional technology. tags: instructionaldesign highered newid. Future Work Skills 2020 (PDF). Drivers that will change the landscape of work and key skills needed in the next 10 years (sense-making, social intelligence, novel & adaptive thinking, cross-cultural competency, new media literacy, virtual collaboration, etc.). tags: career 21stcentu

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Diigo PDF Virtual World Instructional 262

Speaker: Chris Paxton McMillin, President of D3 Training Solutions

There are plenty of great authoring tools for developing eLearning, but the one you select could directly impact your course's outcomes. Depending upon your learners’ needs and your organization’s performance goals, you could be overlooking considerations that impact the both effectiveness of your courses and how long it takes to finish them. From general capabilities to specific workflow structures, some aspects are critical when it comes to learning objectives and deadlines.

Authoring

Making Change

JULY 12, 2011

Branching scenarios can be a pain to design. Happily, you can use a simple tool called Twine to easily draft the scenario and produce it. In this post we’ll look at a scenario that I wrote to demonstrate Twine’s basic features and to make a point about teaching through stories. In the scenario, you’re a journalist in a hurry to get to a hot story in Zekostan, and your “guide&# can’t speak English or drive.

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Examples Sample Tools HTML 275

Upside Learning

JULY 7, 2011

In my recent play sessions with my six-year old (soon to be seven) I realize that one critical element of children’s play, and indirectly learning, is the ability to tell stories and just plain make them up going along. As adults, I think some of us lose that ability somewhere along the way; perhaps its one reason why society values storytellers and makers so much (writers, singers, film-makers, animators…).

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Cognitive Asynchronous Synchronous Toys 250

The Performance Improvement Blog

JULY 29, 2011

Trust seems to be in short supply these days. Democrats don’t trust Republicans. Israelis don’t trust Palestinians. Christians don’t trust Muslims. CEO’s don’t trust employees and vice versa. It’s a sad state of affairs, given that trust is essential for compromise, collaboration, and co-existence. We will not follow a leader nor will we be engaged in the task unless we trust that leader.

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Trust Guide Behavior Assessment 206

Integrated Learnings

JULY 27, 2011

By Shelley A. Gable. The recency effect tells us that people are more likely to remember information from the end of a sequence. In other words, when taking an eLearning course, learners are most likely to remember how the course ended, although the stuff in the middle might blur together. Why? Cognitive theorists believe that as new information enters the working memory, earlier information is pushed out.

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eLearning Course Cognitive eLearning Tools 204

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

We’ve all been there. You’ve been given a pile of dry content and asked to create a compelling eLearning course. You’re determined to create something more engaging than the same old course that learners quickly click through, but how do you take this “boring” content and create something relevant and engaging? Many instructional designers will say, “Boring in means boring out.

Content

Jane Hart

JULY 25, 2011

Tweet. In the first of my blog posts on helping L&D department move forward, I want to focus on how we can help others learn continuously using social media. As I have mentioned in a number of places, L&D just won’t be able to provide everything that their people will need to do their jobs, and as Conrad Gottfredson in an article in Learning Solutions magazine, The other side of learning: performance is everything explains. “today’s work environment doesn’t toler

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Social Media Media Social Learning 218

Experiencing eLearning

JULY 3, 2011

Big Dog, Little Dog: Five Years later: A Review of Kirschner, Sweller and Clark’s Why Minimal Guidance during Instruction Does Not Work. Review of Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark’s paper bashing constructivism, discovery, and problem-based learning, plus some context and research on the other side. tags: learning training pbl constructivism research inquiry.

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Cognitive Diigo Theory Instructional 255

Making Change

JULY 12, 2011

Branching scenarios can be a pain to design. Happily, you can use a simple tool called Twine to easily draft the scenario and produce it. In this post we’ll look at a scenario that I wrote to demonstrate Twine’s basic features and to make a point about teaching through stories. In the scenario, you’re a journalist in a hurry to get to a hot story in Zekostan, and your “guide&# can’t speak English or drive.

Examples 275

Examples Sample Tools HTML 275

Upside Learning

JULY 4, 2011

This takes on a post I wrote several weeks ago, that spoke about four themes that will (and not five) predominate learning in the future. As we prepare to iterate development of Upside2Go, we will need to start figuring out what sort of features our users (learners, managers, administrators) would really like from a mobile LMS. While our current system offers some cool features, we must look further into the future.

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Mobile Learning Learning System System Mobile 250

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ID Reflections

JULY 20, 2011

Lurking and its role in communities has been on the forefront of my mind for the past few days. It has received a lot of attention in the past from the thought leaders in the realm of learning and the role of communities in personal as well as organizational learning. I have recently taken on enterprise community facilitation and was curious to see how people are interacting on our enterprise collaboration platform.

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Communities of Practice Community IBM Jive 203

Vikas Joshi on Interactive Learning

JULY 15, 2011

Flash is a free cross-browser plug-in that allows interactive content to play on most browsers and computers.The sophisticated Flash development environment allows programmers and designers plenty of room for creativity. No wonder then, a lot of e-learning is built using Flash. If you are considering the on-going use of Flash for developing e-learning, here are seven traps to avoid. 7.

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Flash Flash to HTML5 Conversion eLearning SWF 203

Integrated Learnings

JULY 13, 2011

By Shelley A. Gable. We know that meaningful images provide a memorable and efficient way to learn information. Yet, in the tradition of building bulleted lists in PowerPoint, text dominates many eLearning courses. As a text-oriented person myself -- someone who finishes reading an article's text and then goes back to view the tables and charts -- translating text into images does not come naturally for me.

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Images eLearning Tools PowerPoint eLearning 202

Dashe & Thomson

JULY 19, 2011

Over at the Learning Circuits blog, the big question for July is “How do you make eLearning fun?&# They are not asking for much there, are they? As my grandmother used to say, Uff Da… Before I write myself into a tips for fun eLearning quagmire, I think it would be prudent to back up a little bit and ask “Should eLearning be fun?&# My answer to that, in classic consultant fashion, is it depends.

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eLearning Consultant eLearning Strategy eLearning Learner 200

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Jane Hart

JULY 22, 2011

Tweet. A few days ago Epic began their Summer 2011 debate. The motion this year is. “This house believes that as social learning increases, so the requirement for traditional training departments shrinks&#. . I was asked to participate in this debate, and chose to speak FOR the motion. I chose to speak FOR the motion not because I believe the requirement for training departments will shrink, but because I believe the role for TRADITIONAL training departments will shrink.

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Social Media CLO Performance Support Social Learning 198

Upside Learning

JULY 27, 2011

While doing some research, I came across this interesting article ‘Can India lead the mobile-internet revolution?’ (registration required) that McKinsey published in February of this year. Three things in the article struck me as being spot on. “Even though typical Indian consumers have no Internet access, they have a remarkable appetite for digital content.

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The Logical Blog by IconLogic

JULY 6, 2011

by AJ George   The push for mobile learning (mLearning) has been a surprisingly long one. Last year we talked about how mLearning wasn't quite ready , but we threw out some technical tips in case you were ready to dive in. Almost a year later we noted that the Horizon Report slated adoption of mLearning for one year or less. And now a recent T+D magazine features the article: " At Last: M-Learning Going Mainstream.

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Flash to HTML5 Conversion eLearning Strategy eLearning Tools SWF 193