Riding Big Bird

In a few hours I'll be flying from San Francisco to Berlin to speak at Online Educa and, frankly, to enjoy the Christmas markets, museums, and sites of the Vaterland and London. While time is short, some things are too juicy to resist. Now that my book on marketing eLearning internally has been published, I am ever more alert to stupid marketing tricks. Take this email. Please.

Your privacy is extremely important to us. You are receiving this offer because you subscribed to receive third-party offers at, itsimazing.com, an affiliated site. If you feel you have received this message in error or if you wish to unsubscribe, please see our remove instructions below. Please enjoy the network and all the opportunities it brings you.

For example, this email invited me to pursue an advanced degree at an accredited university. Now, I've already got all the degrees I have the patience to earn, but others are shopping hard. Let's get inside their heads. "Oh, yeah, I want to earn a masters from that university that sends me Spam, contest offers, and a chance to win a color TV. A school that reconciles respecting my privacy while inundating me with uninvited sales pitches. That's bound to be a prestige school." Duh.

HOW DID I GET ONTO YOUR LIST? At some point you registered at an Internet site, specific newsletter or contest that had a Privacy Policy that stated that they may choose a few partners who will send you valuable offers. RhinoRewards was selected as one of those partners. RhinoRewards is committed to delivering special offers that include valuable discounts and sweepstakes opportunities only to people who want to receive them. If you have received this in error, please UNSUBSCRIBE from future mailings by clicking here and following on screen instructions. Or simply write to us at: RhinoRewards.com, Customer Service, P.O. Box 7045, Delray Beach, FL 33482. You can also review our full Privacy Policy. For any questions or complaints, please contact us at: CustomerService@RhinoRewards.com. This e-mail message may be a recurring mailing.

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Spam is to sharing information as pollution is to manufacturing. Or as grafitti vandals are to granite buildings. It gums up the works. It wastes my time. It hurts the environment. Usually (like DeVry's ad above), it's self-defeating. You want my respect? Don't Spam me.

By the way, SpamAssassin runs on my server now and has been throwing away 80% of my Spam before I ever have to look at it. I get the service as part of the package from my ISP.

Picture outage

Don't tell me. I already know. Lots of images just disappeared from this blog. Other crazy stuff is going on, too. It's related to my changing ISPs. Expect random-fu for the next couple of days.

Sight without eyes

Wired magazine has lost the zest it purveyed in the early days but it still comes up with some zingers.

"The brain doesn't care where visual input comes from. So why not see with a camera jacked into your tongue?" asks Michael Abrams in the December issue.

Now if you've ever wondered about reality beyond the visible spectrum, seeing with your elbow can really get you twisted.

Why not crank up the brain implants to take in radio waves? Use your head as a phone? See in the dark?

Furthermore, can you trust your eyes? Photographs are now a form of fiction. How about what you see when you peer at your dog? It's confusing world. All bits.

First entry on Meta-Time.com

As part of my move from www.internettime.com at Interland (which has outgrown its ability to serve its customers) to www.meta-time.com at AssortedInternet, I'm rebuilding my blogs. This is a test entry.

Knowledge blogs are tough

ev reports that rick klau has written up a great piece detailing his exerience with rolling out a klog pilot at work and it's a mixed bag:

"At the end of our first month, it's not a slam dunk. To be successful long-term, we will need to expand the number of people with access to Radio as an authoring tool. We will need to define our objectives - with more specificity than simply identifying how we can improve communications. But this was a helpful start - and a good first step to better understanding how weblogs might make us smarter."

i've had similar experiences in my more limited attempts to evangelize blogging in a work environment. it's a real eye-opener that will level-set any delusions that blogging will revolutionize knowledge sharing in organizations. it takes alot of persistance and i heartily "second" his recommendations. while rick gives his own co-workers the benefit of the doubt, in many ways, the lessons are no different that those learned in more traditional knowledge management arenas. you can lower the barriers to entry to near-zero and find that most people simply don't want to share for all the usual mundane, institutionalized reasons.

as rick says, you "must have a problem to solve", "reward participation", "define what you're looking for" and "ensure senior participation". and that's just for starters. otherwise it's blank stares and business-as-usual.

Encyclopedic design tips site

Best of CHI-WEB and sigia-L, Essays on web design interaction usability experience architecture etc

The chi-web and sig-ia mailing lists are two email based discussion groups on the topics of web usability, design and human computer interaction (the later with a heavier emphasis on information architecture).

Sample topics:
Summary of prototype tools
Web UI Prototyping
Web glossaries
Bad websites for u-testing
Windows UI design refs
World/regional divisions
Email acronyms
Internet usage stats
Browser support flowcharts
Good design firms
Web app workshop

Hoot Hoot

Hoot

by Carl Hiaasen

Normally, I love Carl Hiaasen's books, what with the former governor turned eco-terrorist who subsists on road-kill, the villain with a weedwhacker instead of a hook where his hand used to be, or the theme-park sleazeball trying to peddle a dead Shamu as catfood. Hoot is something else again.

"Has Carl forgotten how to write?" I wondered. "Too much time in the Florida sun?" Hoot is more Jerry Lewis than Dennis Miller, move Bill Murray than John Belushi. Slapstick. Middle of the road. Simplistic.

Only upon finishing the book did I notice that this was Hiaasen's first novel for "a younger audience." An Amazon review notes, "Carl Hiaasen is riding the wave of adult fiction writers down-shifting their word processors to 'Kid Lit' in the wake of Harry Potter."

I find it confusing when an author messes with his brand without informing his customers. How about a big "Kid Lit" sticker to let us know what we're getting?

Creating a Learning Content Strategy

Creating a Learning Content Strategy

Robby Robson (CEO, Eduworks & Chair, IEEE LTSC Committee)
& Ellen Wagner (Director of Learning Technologies, Learnativity Alliance)

This was the fifth and final session of the Learning Object Forum, a track conceived as a catalyst to forming a learning object community of practice. I’ll recount a few highlights – and encourage you to look at the entire presentation when it goes up on the eLearning Guild site.

The Learning Object Forum builds on the Learning Object Symposium a group of us attended in Menlo Park in early September.

Graphics by Sherrin Bennett from the Menlo Park session.

Why do we need a community? To keep the learning in learning objects. Learning has become a business proposition, described by words like competitive advantage and cognitive capacity. Object orientation is a given but today’s object experts are “only one object ahead of the rest of us.” For design to shape what’s ahead, we better get on it now.

Business organizations need a content strategy that shares the goals of their technology strategy. Scalable, access, improved productivity, durability & maintainability, software that doesn’t suck, and LOTS of value. Software isn’t even usable yet, but our history is short – the Internet has been commercial for only seven years. (Robby jokes that I began with the UNIVAC 1.)

If it doesn’t work for the individual, no WIIFM, it’s not going to work.

Great expectations, great disappointments. It’s cheap to transport content. The hype cycle. The net has democratized learning. The Locus of learning control moved…but where? IT? The Marketing Department? Instructional design became more necessary, but less sufficient. (Because we’re building learning environments which involve linkages to information and people. Googol is the most popular eLearning tool today.)

So… every organization needs a content strategy that spells out concrete
goals.

• Building new content and reconfiguring old


• Interoperability


• Manage intellectual property


• Customize with local content

Think of content as a commodity: objects.

What do you get for your efforts?

• Easy and quick to modify content


• Manage at the modular level


• Simplify authoring and assembly


• Match content to learner needs


• Separate content, presentation, and delivery

The picture is becoming more clear.

What is The eLearning Guild?

What is the eLearning Guild?

I asked a dozen people what they liked or disliked about The eLearning Guild’s first Annual Conference in San Diego. Everyone brought up learning from others who were actually doing things. By a show of hands, four out of five people who attended my presentation had seriously implemented eLearning in their companies. The few vendors who made an appearance were unobtrusive and low-key. The program was loaded with entries marked RLS, for “real life stories.”

Compared to a TechLearn or Online Learning, this event was miniscule – a couple of hundred people. When I used to attend industry conferences to promote vendors or scope out the market for them, I favored large conferences that attracted thousands of people and lots of potential buyers. Now that I do more work helping organizations get the most out of eLearning, the size of the event in San Diego seemed just right.

As David Holcombe explained to an audience of members late this afternoon, The eLearning Guild is a Community of Practice of developers, designers, and managers of eLearning. The guru is not on the stage, she’s in the seat next to you. That’s why the Guild’s website is a place where members can keep and share resources (there are 2200 resources online now). The mission is to create a venue for sharing ideas. The Guild sees itself as supplementing, not competing with, ASTD, ISPI, and other organizations.

Statistics: 5300+ members, 4400+ unique visits each week, 3500-4500 journal downloads, 29 issues of Journal, 9 member surveys completed, 4 events serving almost 400 members, 8 months old. And just getting started.

New initiatives include Local Group Directory (keen to support local groups). Job Board. Salary Survey. Guild Technology Guides. Professional Practice Papers. Ongoing Research. Events (face-to-face & online). Certification Programs.

As conferences go, I give this event high marks.

eLearning Guild

eLearning Guild Annual Conference

David Holcombe kicked off eLearning Guild’s first annual conference in San Diego this morning, saying this session differs from other events because it’s for practitioners. There will be plenty of real-life case studies. It’s about learning, not pitching. David, who worked with Elliott back in Ziff-Davis days, pointedly noted that the Conference “is not about me. It’s community, not cult.”

Judy Brown is sitting next to me, taking notes on a tablet PC. It’s about the same size as my little SONY VAIO; it also costs about the same, at $1800. Judy says the handwriting recognition is nothing short of amazing.

Marc Rosenberg is leading the keynote, Reinventing eLearning. Everybody has their own definition of eLearning. To rethink eLearning, we need to rethink learning, blending, access, value, leadership, the training organization, the learner, and ourselves.

We learn all the time but often not from courses. We learn from books, friends, newspapers, experts…many more things.

Learning is an internal process of taking in information and experience. Training is one of many means to facilitate learning. Training’s appropriate when developing meta skills, performance must be automatic, and competence is time-critical. Training’s not appropriate when we’re changing content, not performance, knowledge can be referenced, or when meta skills are applied.

By definition, eLearning must be networked, web-based platform, integrated into a broader architecture of solutions. The architecture includes training and non-training components. The components of the framework:

1. online training, method is instructional design, builds skills
2. performance support, software, assist performance
3. KM, information design, resource for the user

“Blending” is now classroom and online training, interspersed. Marc’s framework includes people (communities) or performance support (which may eliminate courses.) Pulling everything together yields what Marc calls “The Smart Enterprise.”

What’s the role of an LMS now? Rather limited. It can’t deal with KM or performance support. More appropriate, an enterprise portal. The word “My” is the most powerful word on the Internet. Think MyYahoo. I can get what I need to know. The LMS, LCMS, HRIS, etc. is back-office, feeding the portal.

Training organizations must make multi-year investments in eLearning. eLearning will be more independent from traditional training organizations (mainly content). KM must be fully integrated. More virtual organization. Custom and personal. A learning path for everyone. Outsourcing of the entire training effort. Not just B2E (business-to-employee) but E2E, B2B and B2C.

We need to rethink ourselves. What’s our strategy?? Do we have an elevator pitch? Does our approach to eLearning include what happens outside of “the course?” (If not, you’re not going anywhere.) Are we smart consumers?

“That’s just my opinion. I might be wrong.”

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Heidi Fisk & David Holcolmbe

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Googlism.com

Ask Googlism.com what eLearning is and it will tell you:

elearning is not knowledge management
elearning is child's play
elearning is live ·
elearning is burgeoning
elearning is focused on the individual learner
elearning is the next big thing
elearning is technology
elearning is as varied as education itself

elearning is used by organisations that need to re elearning is not important elearning is utilizing technology to increase the effectiveness and accessibility of learning elearning is critical to it's future health elearning is the key by melanie liew elearning is best defined as the category consisting of training and learning over the web elearning is instructional content delivered over the internet elearning is likely to be found in its potential to provide elearning is giving pharmaceutical companies faster elearning is easy and engaging elearning is the use of digital technologies to equip pharmaceutical company employees elearning is a way for individuals or groups to learn new knowledge and skills using computer network technologies elearning is learning that is supported by information and communication technologies elearning is not only changing how we learn elearning is a dynamic process that provides learners with real elearning is the delivery of instructional material in electronic formats elearning is a powerful learning system that makes knowledge and information accessible to you elearning is a elearning is internet based training and instruction elearning is quickly becoming the ?enterprise initiative of fashion elearning is likely to go and how quickly it may or may not get there that we talk about it our other venues and elearning is a unique web site specializing in online instructor elearning is also significant elearning is a hot new area that leverages internet technologies in the delivery of instruction elearning is today the most important area of research elearning is an emerging industry that utilizes high technology to provide learning elearning is often "self elearning is more than using technology for "just in time" training elearning is web elearning is an effective elearning is great elearning is a social reality elearning is being flaunted as a compelling new approach to quickly and effectively learn these necessary new elearning is teaching and learning via the use of digital resources elearning is going to change the world or at the very least our entire learning behavior elearning is modular elearning is cur elearning is based on branded educational content that is proven to be high quality elearning is not about a fresh start elearning is taking a lot of criticism at the moment and remaining focused on the learner is the key to avoiding ineffective elearning elearning is a key strategy that leading companies are using to stay ahead of their competition elearning is nothing like training elearning is the outcome of a demanding supply chain for knowledge ? some have called this multi elearning is elearning is firmly committed to the view that its credibility with its business partners elearning is underperforming elearning is dependent on having a web elearning is learning elearning is part of the learning process but it would be very foolish to ditch what you do in favour of a technology elearning is fairly thin on the ground elearning is growing elearning is growing as the world continues to re elearning is usually implemented over a network elearning is a cost elearning is pleased to announce the completion of a distribution agreement for its wbt manager™ learning management system with elearning is being embraced by schools elearning is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such other web elearning is a disruptive innovation elearning is not practical elearning is the convergence of learning and the internet elearning is fun and enjoyable elearning is a journey for every student to acquire the requisite skills and literacy in the digital world that awaits them elearning is a response to the scalability and cost issues of face elearning is the delivery of content via all electronic media elearning is motivating and enjoyable online learning offers more opportunities elearning is the delivery of learning and training using electronic media elearning is set to take off in europe elearning is not to repeat what has been done before elearning is itself not without its problems elearning is clear elearning is found to be a major part of the elearning is not necessarily easier than the traditional classroom learning elearning is flexible and convenient elearning is becoming an essential component to companies' overall business strategies to attract and retain employees

Advance warning

Coming soon, at the Grand Opening of the Internet Time store, a report on Enterprise eLearning. (Yes, this is just a teaser.)

Learning from TechLearn

Most people who attend a conference like TechLearn forget half of what they learned before stepping foot on the flight home. Use it or lose it. That's the nature of the forgetting curve, and most of us just let it happen.

The Masie Center has posted presentations, audio recordings, and some video of the last week's presentations. By hat's off to Heinrich Koenen, the A/V team at the Coronado, and the Masie Center tech staff for putting this material on the web in record time.

I suggest you review the online material -- and get double your money's worth. (Naturally, you should start with Lance's and my Mega session.)

A couple of years from now, all successful organizations will encourage participants to reflect on what they learn at conferences. They'll wake up to the fact that they have been letting valuable content slip through their fingers, never to be recaptured. Today's pioneering efforts, like TechLearn, will be the norm.

Compare the online TechLearn coverage to the artifacts of your last global sales meeting. Ten days later. Are you doing as well as a handful of people at The Masie Center in Saratoga Springs?

Sound trumps sight

Cut on the sound and click the > button.

Audio blog is housed here. Plug in a microphone and give it a shot! Jeremy Allaire wrote this app.

A new kind of software

Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science is a mind-blowing book. Not that I've read it -- I'm perhaps 50 pages in, a mere grain in the sandbox of this monster tome. But already I've been overwhelmed as Wolfram explains that every scientist before him has gotten it all wrong, and his notions will revolutionize not only physics and chemistry, but economics, sociology, and psychology, too. (My marginal note to myself: Cojones.)

In a nutshell, Wolfram's thesis is that nature can't be described by a bunch of equations. In the real world, processes interact -- and each come away changed. Algorithms make a better worldmeme. Wolfram posits that just about anything can be explained by the interaction of a few simple programs.

If that's all there were to it, Wolfram might have a shot at surpassing Hawking's Brief History of Time for the least read popular book ever published. But today on Wolfram's web site, I happened upon The New Science Explorer.

The Explorer is software that lets you perform Wolfram's experiments as you read along. Wow! For $65, you can follow the original research. I ordered a copy immediately. Maybe when I retire to a desert island, I'll have time to work my way through all of Wolfram's work. This is the way science should be learned!

Brains, minds and teaching

A delightful, short, breezy introduction to how to leverage the brain to learn.

Interesting research looking at brains of graduate school students vs. high school dropouts (through autopsies) have revealed that the first ones have about 40% more connections than the latter. That the state of learning in the general population is not particularly encouraging, on the other hand, is confirmed by the fact that only 50% of the adult population has acquired formal reasoning skills...

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Time is of the essence, especially when it comes to the brain. Our brains go through a natural cycle of rest-activity that lasts about 90-110 minutes. Depending on when you are in the cycle, you may or may not be receptive to the material being presented during a lecture. Attention, the holy grail of every teacher, cannot be maintained for more than 10 minutes at a time, and it always trades off with meaning – you can’t have both simultaneously. People need time to internalize learning, about 2-5 minutes per each 10-15 minutes of learning. All of this points toward some strategies as better than others in both teaching and grading. For example, having students do home assignments or portfolios instead of subjecting them to tests in class significantly improves their response.

If we are in the business of maximizing brain growth, two ingredients are essential according to recent neurobiological research: challenge and feedback. Challenges can be problem solving, critical thinking exercises, carrying out relevant projects, engaging in complex activities. Feedback has to be specific, multi-modal, delivered in a timely fashion, and controlled by the learner to the extent that it is possible. All of this will make for much more engaged and responsive students.

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The brain has two major kinds of explicit memory (plus implicit memory, such as procedural and reflexive): semantic and episodic. The diagram (from Gazzaniga 2000) shows the difference: semantic memory deals with internalizing concepts, episodic memory with specific events that are important for one reason or another.

Both kinds of memory are important for learning. Semantic memory is more closely associated with classic “book learning”, it is difficult, and it comes less naturally, probably because it is still evolutionarily novel. Episodic memory is stimulated by novelty, it is very dynamic, and it comes more naturally. The right panels list the kinds of activities known to stimulate semantic and episodic memory.

Concept maps can be used to learn, to think, and to teach. They can be done with simple post-it notes, using generic graphic software such as Power Point, or using special software such as “Inspiration”.

Exposing Jay

George Siemens has posted an interview with me at elearnspace. Thanks, George.

Visual Thesaurus Update

Navigation has been improved on Plumb Design's Visual Thesaurus. It's worth a visit. You put in a word, e.g. "learning." Here's a snapshot of what you see:

I love tracking a word in this environment -- or even letting it go off on its own, linking one word to the next.

Spam, spam, spam, spam

LockerGnome Windows Daily is such a handy, well-written newsletter that it's on my short list of push media worth reading. Usually it's chock full of hints and great links. Today Chris Perillo starts with a few words on SPAM that captured my feelings on the matter precisely:

Is Internet Time dead?

Wall Street Journal
Boomtown
by Lee Gomes

TechLearn 2002 Summary

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