Saturday, October 3, 2009

Class without rooms - by World Mag

I often read World Magaizine and was particularly glad to see their perspective of online higher education in "Class without rooms".

One good quote that actually came from a Washington Monthly article...
...the day is coming—sooner than many people think—when a great deal of money is going to abruptly melt out of the higher education system, just as it has in scores of other industries that traffic in information that is now far cheaper and more easily accessible than it has ever been before.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

tweetGrid

Nice little website grid for monitoring several twitter topics at once. This is more entertaining than watching all the scrolling lines on CNN or MSNBC.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Government Cloud Computing

Obama administration is making a push for the Government to utilize cloud computing. They've opened http://www.apps.gov/. In the article, they also talk about Google dedicating a Government cloud. Obviously, this won't be for everyone, but should help cut down costs for the largest IT user.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Cost of eLearning

Great post by Tony Karrer on eLearning costs. Summarizes several methods and tools for estimating elearning costs.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Maintaining Technology Currency

At ASTD 2009, I discovered that Elearning! was going to start offering a Government version to their magazine. Given the specific target audience for this magazine, I anticipate several good articles coming out of this publication in the future.

Here is an article on Currency and Learning Technology. The article provides a good exercise to help you evaluate how well your organization does in terms of conceptual adoption. A couple of good quotes...
Creating training environments that reduce time away from the core business activities while increasing speed to competence should be the holy grail of any effective training department.

Conceptual adoption is a fundamental barrier that trumps all other barriers to adopting new technologies, including funding, IT support, and development time.

Rapidly identifying the potential benefit of a new technology certainly is a determining factor of successful corporate learning.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Issues with eLearning

A SlideShare on eLearning, games, engagement, and flow. No references to back up the stats, but I think we've all seen example eLearning courses like slide #8.

Monday, September 7, 2009

September Big Question

After a rather lengthy absence dealing with some difficulties with the birth of our second little girl, I'm working on getting back into regularly reading and posting blog entries.

Some low hanging fruit comes in the form of the Learning Circuit's Big Question for September. The question investigates working with SMEs. I once heard the statement that SMEs make the worst trainers. While it's certainly a generalization in order to make a point, the truth is that SMEs may often breeze through critical information that a novice would not understand. On the other side of the coin, it's obvious that ISDers can't work without SMEs (i.e. we all can't have SME level knowledge in the variety of disciplines that we will work on over the years).

I've "worked" with several SMEs who thought they knew everything and would not accept any help in their instructional endeavors. There will be a small percentage that will not change...and I think you need to just wait for them to retire or move on to a different position:-) For the rest, there is a certain level of education that will need to be done on both sides. Coming from the learning standpoint, we must show value added. This could involve very briefly summarizing key learning theories; it should involve outlining potential pitfalls; it should involve asking questions to help formulate the needs.

Most importantly, I've found that it helps out a lot when you emphasize that our emphasis is increasing learning. When SMEs see that we value students/learners/trainees as much (possibly more) than they do, it will help break down barriers.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

NEWSeum app

Here is a nice little Flash application of Web 2.0 technology. This is a nice little tool to browse the news, but it is also extremely valuable if you are an analyst that needs to constantly stay on top of the news in different parts of the world.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Accessible Government

In a two for one deal...this Sunday's edition of the Washington Post also had an article showcasing Arlington County's new virtual presence. The Arlington County Government has a cyber-office where visitors can read promotional posters, meet with economic development officials, gather market research, and conduct presentations and brainstorming sesssions with the intent of promoting economic development. As the article notes, the hope is to give visitors an idea of where the county is going in the future and let the visitors be a part of it.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Schools Got Game

This Sunday's edition of the Washington Post had a very good article on the role of serious games in schools. It mostly had a very positive spin on the role games can play in education. I don't think the article will be particularly "enlightening" to anyone that has been tracking the emergence of serious games, but it is good to see the article made the front page (granted it was the front page of the "Metro" section which is the third section...but still, it's progress; two years ago the article probably would've been buried in "Lifestyles" section).