Daily

Zines

Newsletters

Metasites

Magazines

Mail lists

Conferences

Analysts'
White Papers

Books

Groups

Editorial Page

Glossary

Implementation

Sources of eLearning News & Information

What's eLearning? -- White papers, articles, opinions

Daily

elearningpost free, daily Links to corporate learning, community building, instructional design, knowledge management, personalization and more.

Tomalak's Realm free, a daily source of links to strategic Web design stories. Covers e-commerce, usability, intellectual property, electronics/technology futurism, more.

Zines

Learning Circuits, ASTD's free zine on digital learning, monthly. Stuffed with information. More hands-on than LiNE Zine, with features on topics such as synchronous learning, knowledge management, customer-focused eLearning, and learning objects. Regular features on news, career, eLearning 101, conferences, and (for ASTD members only) product reviews.

LiNE Zine, free, quarterly. LINE = Learning in the New Economy. Edited by chaord Marcia Conner. Provacative, high-quality, original.

Journal of the Hyperlinked Organization, free, David Weinberger's hilarious send-up on knowledge management. Intense learning + entertainment = the way life should be.

eLearn Magazine, free, ACM

Newsletters

TechLearn Trends free e-newsletter (Masie Center). The oldest (since 11/97) and once the pacesetter. TechLearn Trends is personal, another venue for Elliott Masie to channel his outsize personality and prescient observations to his fans. Breezy.
OnLine Learning News free e-newsletter (VNU Media/Bill Communications)
Online Community Report free e-newsletter (Forum One)
Technology for Learning print newsletter. $189/year (Bill Communications)
Virtual University Gazette another free e-newsletter (geteducated).
Rapidly Changing Face of Computing (reborn!)

Metasites

eLearningPost Features -- a series of astute essays on such contemporary topics as serendipitous learning, grassroots KM, LCMS, digital game-based learning, personalizatation, building community, and article-based instruction.

LINEZine past issues -- great articles, plus interviews with John Seely Brown, Mary Catherine Bateson, Michael Schrage, Alan Webber, Gary Becker, Michael Dertouzos, Peter Capelli, Howard Rheingold, and others.

The MASIE Center -- Elliott Masie is the guru of online learning. In addition to his site, subscribe to his free zine, TechLearn Trends. Back issues of TechLearn Trends show the rise and fall of various eLearning fads.

Learnativity -- home of the Training and Development FAQs, definitive sources on standards, and lots of other interesting things from Marcia Conner and Wayne Hodgins.

ASTD Learning Circuits archives -- original articles on many topics. Tom Barron's stuff is particularly enlightening.

The Training Supersite -- back issues of Training magazine, Online Learning, and more.

eCLIPSE ~ "the e-Learning Centre's e-Learning Intelligence Service - People, Systems and Environments." Great pointers to articles, conferences, vendors, and more.

CIO eLearning Research Center -- one-liners and links to articles from CIO, Online Learning, eLearning, Industry Standard, Fortune, InfoWorld, LineZine, Learning Circuits, Forbes, etc.

EPSS Central

Performance Centered Design

Cisco eLearning

Educause Effective Practices and Solutions

ASTD -- generally broad but shallow.

Gerrit Visser (Europe)

HR Executive Work Index, Workforce, SHRM Online

Check the magazine sites, too.

ERIC research on Adult, Career, and Vocational Education
Information Technology Association of America -- 900,000 jobs to fill!
Institute for Human Machine Cognition -- concept mapping is us
Software Design Smorgasbord -- KM, visualization, UI, performance support
Don Clark's Reflections on eLearning, Big Dog's awesome Training Handbook
Education Organizations Resources Directory, U.S. Department of Education

Magazines

Learning
T+D (formerly Training & Development -- ASTD
CIO -- excellent on knowledge management, IT training
Online Learning-- (formerly Inside Technology Training) VNU Media, still going strong
Training -- VNU Media
e-Learning Magazine -- Advanstar
IT Training -- Haymarket Business Publications, U.K.
Performance Journal -- ISPI, instructional design
Certification -- MediaTec Publishing

Knowledge management
KMWorld
KM Magazine
Knowledge Management News -- well-sifted clippings and pointers from Brad Hoyt
CIO Magazine - KM Research Center

In 2000, most magazines began making past issues available online.

Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education/Distance Learning daily
T.H.E. Journal (Technical Horizons in Education)
The Technology Source
The Educational Technology Journal

great list of online journals

Maillists

TRDEV at eGroups is the unofficial heir to TRDEV-L

roinet for discussion of ROI

Tip: Select the "Digest" option unless you want your emailbox to overflow.

TRDEV-L -- the mail list for trainers

Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 07:26:18 -0400
From: David Passmore
FROM THE LIST OWNER: TRDEV-L Is Terminated

Conferences

The Masie Center
Conferences for eLearning managers, executives, vendors and more. Each fall, everyone comes to Orlando for TechLearn. No exhibit hall (which is good and bad). Hosted by larger-than-life Elliott Masie.

e-Learning Europe 2001
The Business of e-Learning
e-Learning Briefing
TechLearn 2002
Digital Collaboration
e-Learning Pacific Rim

Our report on TechLearn 2001
Our report on TechLearn 2000
Our report on TechLearn 1999
Our report on TechLearn 1998

VNU Business Media/Bill Communications (formerly Lakewood Publications)

Training 2002 February 18 - 20, 2002 Atlanta, GA
Online Learning 2002
Online Learning 2002 Europe March 5 - 6, 2002 London
Online Learning 2002 Asia
Training Directors Forum

Our report on Online Learning 2001
Our report on Online Learning 2000
Our report on Online Learning 1999
Our notes from Online Learning 1998

Avanstar

eLearning Conference & Expo April 8 - 11, 2002 Washington

Intermedia Exhibitions

eLearn Expo February 5 - 6 Paris
eLearn Expo June? Amsterdam
eLearn Expo June 20 - 21 Vienna
eLearn Expo August? Hong Kong

Our report on E Learning Expo 2001 Paris

American Society for Training and Development

TechKnowlege 2002 February 4 - 7, 2002 Las Vegas
ASTD2002 International Conference, May 31 - June 06, 2002 New Orleans

Our report on ASTD 2001
Our report on Web 99
Our report on Defcon 8

Online Educa Berlin, November 27 - 29, 2002 Berlin

Our report on Online Educa 2001

Here are 800 pages of astute analysis of eLearning structure, vendors, and trends. Use it wisely.

Keep in mind that the best company to invest in is not necessarily the best bet for learning. What investors call a "pure play," I call a "one-trick pony."

Analyst Reports

Corporate eLearning: Exploring A New Frontier, 3/2000 (WR Hambrecht & Co.) The first report to focus exclusively on corporate eLearning and still one of the best out there. "At the beginning of the new millenium, corporations view learning increasingly as a competitive weapon rather than an annoying cost factor. Corporate executives are beginning to understand that enhancing employee skills is key to creating sustainable competitive advantage."

The Knowledge Web, 5/2000 (Merrill Lynch) "Technology is the driver of the New Economy, and human capital is its fuel. Finding, attracting, and retaining knowledge workers will be mission-critical. Companies providing online human capital solutions have the potential to bring together both richness and reach, creating a powerful and revolutionary user experience." Corporate eLearning: Feeding Hungry Minds.

eLearning, the Engine of the Knowledge Economy, 7/2000 (Morgan Keegan) "The critical and distinguishing strength of countries, organizations, and individuals lies in their intelligence and knowledge in this new economy." "Virtually no emerging industry has ever experienced dramatic growth without a set of common standards.... eLearning standards will allow eLearning content to be easily accessed and reused in various formats and will enable the inteoperability of learning technologies from difference vendors."

eLearning: The birth of a vibrant industry, 7/2000 (Goldman Sachs) "Why corporate eLearning? Sustainable competitive advantage: More for less. It's scalable. Customizable. Consistent. Assessible. Relevant. Convenient. Less costly."

Riding the Big Waves, A White Paper on the B2B e*Learning Industry, 3/2000 (Thomas Weisel Partners) "Today, corporate learning and the corporate learning organization have ascended to a position of strategic prominence in the context of managing and growing the extended enterprise. Bearing this out, the number of corporate universities has grown four-fold to 1600 in the last ten years. Even more telling is corporate learning's move to the executive suite. The result -- an emerging $11.4 billion opportunity for companies providing B2B e*Learning solutions."

Helping Investors Ride the eLearning Curve, 11/99. (US Bancorp Piper Jaffray) "We liken the evolution of eLearning to the evolution of ERP software, which is going through a very similar metamorphsis." Go Web! Go ASP!

The e-Bang Theory, 9/99. (Bank of America Securities.) Howard Block was the first analyst of eLearning to "get it." This report set the agenda for all that came later. Astute and entertaining.

Intellectual Capital for the Knowledge Economy, Proprietary Higher Education, 1/2000, Sun Trust

E-Knowledge, New Ways to Build the New Economy, 8/99, Wit Capital

Industry Analysts
IDC
Gartner
Forrester

Books

The Social Life of Information by John Seely Brown & Paul Duguid argues that the medium is not the message. The world is not binary, things exist (and persist) for a reason, and you can't separate content from its container without losing something in the process. "Generations of videoconferencing are still far from capturing the essence of a firm handshake or a straight look in the eye." In 1938, the New York Times predicted that typewriters would make the pencil obsolete.

"Computer scientists have a tendency to count "1, 2, 3, one million,…," as if scale were insignificant once the first steps were taken."

"The more cavalier futurists sometimes appear to work with a magical brand of computer not available to the rest of us. It's hard to believe that if they had to deal with the inexplicable crashed, data corruption, incompatibilities, buggy downloads, terrifying error messages, and power outages that are standard fare for most, they could remain quite so confident about the ease of hot desking and home working."

"The desire to show that with a computer one person can do everything may look not forward, but back to the stage in social evolution before anyone noticed the advantages of the division of labor."

First three chapters of Social Life... from First Monday

"Coming away with a degree is much better than wearing a T-shirt saying 'college of the streets' or 'university of hard knocks.'"

e-Learning: Strategies for Delivering Knowledge in the Digital Age by Marc Rosenberg. Excerpts in Knowledge Management mag have whetted my appetite. "An effective e-learning strategy must be more than the technology itself or the content it carries. It must also focus on critical success factors that include building a learning culture, marshaling true leadership support, deploying a nurturing business model and sustaining the change throughout the organization. It must be pursued by people who are highly skilled and capable of executing effectively. And it must move us to a view that sees learning in the context of the intellectual capital of the firm and the enabling of higher individual and organizational performance. More than training Learning and training are often thought of as synonymous; they are not. Training is the way instruction is conveyed; it supports learning, which is our internal way of processing information into knowledge. But since there are many ways we can learn, an effective learning strategy must transcend training." Companion website. MORE.

Jay's notes on The Social Life

This how-to book on web-based learning will go far. Instead of blindly hyping the web or trashing its application in learning, the author describes what works well on the web and when it's better to turn to another medium. The book lives up to its title: The Web Learning Fieldbook. Using the World Wide Web to Build Workplace Learning Environments. It's practical.

The Web Learning Fieldbook by Valorie Beer. ISBN: 0-7879-5023-8w99. $39.95. Check out the companion web site.

The most thorough guide to building community explains how to build, nurture, and grow groups in cyberspace. From "nine timeless design strategies" to nitty gritty examples from eBay, the Well, and game sites, Amy Jo Kim proves her contention that, "People may come to your community for the content, but they'll stay for the relationships -- and your job is to help your members establish and develop those relationships."

Community Building on the Web : Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities by Amy Jo Kim. ISBN: 0201874849 . $29.99. Check out the companion web site.

Trying to please their top-end customers, high-tech producers overshoot what most of the market needs. Think of over-featured Excel and over-powered Pentium chips. This gives an opening to disruptive technologies to enter the market. Inferior at first, they win out by meeting the market's needs at a more reasonable price.

Hence, Digital Equipment didn't see the PC coming because their customers couldn't us it. DEC kept margins high to support sales; the PC, with lower margins, wasn't as attractive. Java is a disruptive technology if you're Microsoft. A new business model built on a disruptive technology is tough for an established player to gravitate to. This is the Innovator's Dilemma. There's always another innovator just around the corner.

The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christianson

This is a significant book. The message is that shareholder value (AKA market cap) is a function of competitive advantage, and organizations achieve it by focusing on core. Everything else is context, and context is a needless distraction.

Unless eLearning is your core strength, you should outsource it. MORE