TED2008 - Opens with a Live Event for All to Enjoy

TED2008 opened yesterday and this evening is going to be streaming live for the world one complete free session.

Dave Eggers, Neil Turok and Karen Armstrong will each be sharing their TED Prize wish ("One wish to change the world. No restrictions. Think big. Be creative.")

I'm so excited to be able to see one of these sessions live. If you care to join in and be a part of this incredible experience you can view the live video feed here on tonight, starting at 5.15pm US Pacific Time and lasting a couple of hours.

The organizers are excited to offer this in partnership with Adobe and are interested to see who participates globally. They ask "if you watch with family or friends, please email us a picture of your group (to jane@ted.com) and/or describe your experience of the session. We'd love to get a sense of the global community joining us for this special moment."

There is also a official TED blog which you can look at to keep up on all the happenings of this year's event.

Second Life made me motion sick.

So I finally have a computer capable of loading and running Second Life on. (thanks mom for crashing my old one) So I made my little character. Fixed her hair. Changed her clothes. Flew around a bit. Then suddenly I realized something.....I was getting a headache, I was feeling unwell, I was a little dizzy, and slightly nautious.

I was getting motion sick sitting still in my chair. I do know I experience this a lot when playing video games. I'm one of those people that when playing a driving game needs to hold the PS3 controller way out to the left or right if I want to steer the car around a corner. So its no wonder I felt ill staring deep into my screen trying to figure out if my avatar had just the right shade of lipstick to match her shoes. It was also completely logical when I started flying around the limited places I could.

Note to self: Sit back, relax, don't stare so deeply and intently, get up from the computer more often.

Top Five Emerging Trends in Learning Technology - SumTotal

I sat in on a great webinar today from SumTotal. I've captured some notes here
that I took during the session, but the slides from it will be available at the link below. I would definately recommend taking a session from Bill again as he was a great presenter. One more thing that I enjoyed even more was this was truly a learning session and not a sales pitch. Very important. I'm more likely to go and look at a product (sponsor) when it's not presented as a commerial.

SumTotal - Top Five Emerging Trends in Learning Technology (Bill Docherty)
www.sumtotalsystems.com (Events)

Emerging Technology - "One whose science, basic principles and theory are understood, and at least some useful applications are recognized. However, the potential is mostly unfulfilled as evidenced by a lack of significant products, possibly by the lack of market demand or need. " -
http://www.bitpipe.com/tlist/emerging-technologies.html

1-Increased Adoption of Mobile Devices

Growth Factors

• number of subscribers/users
• device capabilities
• use in an out of learning applications (ie: maps, movie listings)
• access anywhere/anytime

Limiting Factors

• Not all devices are the same (size, browser, etc)
• Limited tools to develop content
• Vendor solutions limited
• Many companies want mobile learning, but lack a strategy to implement

What can we do?

• Find a pilot project to start
• Determine initial focus - deliver content or tools
• Identify how many different devices are deployed in your org.
• Evaluate available technologies - what can you do vs. a vendor

2 - Blended Learning Environments

Growth Factors

• Blended programs are more effective and engaging
• Some learning demands a blended approach (sales training, new hires,etc)
• Techology maturing

Limiting Factors

• Managing blended learning a challenge
• Orgs. not clear on moving from classroom to blened

What can you do?

• Develop a blended learning strategy
• Define what it means to you and the components that would be involved
• Decide if your technolgoy can manage and deliver blended learning
• Consider the change managment required for user to move to this model

3 - Growth of Talent Management Suites
"Comprises of 4 components Recruitment, Performance, Learning, Compensation"

Growth

• More Orgs seeing the value of centralizing talent management functions
• Helps to promote the org with a competative edge
• New users want to know how orgs will help manage their careers and help them grow
• Vendor offerings growing

Limiting Factors

• TM processes are often built to manage them seperately
• Significant investments still in legacy system

What can you do?

• Do you have a long-tem TM technology strategy (housed in one dept, or many)
• How are your TM strategies made - insure cross-functional participation
• Evalutate vendors for the broadest functional fit
• Start using your soluition in phases, hard to implement all at once.

4 - Integratation of Web 2.0

Defn: "Web 2.0 is all about user generated content. Individual users providing content to grow the overall value of the community." - Bill Docherty

Growth

• Users are more use to "community experiences"
• An orgs greatest asset is it's tacit knowledge (web 2.0 helps to unlock this knowledge)
• Crossing between formal and informal knowledge acquisition

Limiting Factors

• Orgs lack clear vision on how and where to use Web 2.0 technologies
• Hard to measure ROI from the use of these technologies
• "Community experience" bar is high - use to using these technologies more and more

What can you do?

• examples (discussion forums, wikis, blogs, etc)
• Know your audience/culture - will they use the technologies
• Set clear goals for deployment
• Which technologies will provied the best benefit
• Decide if readily available technologies will be sufficient to pilot

5 - Immersive Technologies

Growth

• Creation of technology is maturing and becoming more cost effective
• Immersive learning simulation effective for skills practice
• Users are becoming more use to this type of learning

Limiting Factors

• Still costly and time consuming compared to elearning
• Large generational difference in adoption (more so than other types of learning modes)
• More difficult to deploy because of the hardware and software demands

What can I do?

• Determine if your audience is conducive to this type of learning
• Which programs would be best suited to these techniques
• Evaluate potential partners and immersive technologies available
• example (http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4010112)

Question Period from Participants
How would these technologies be different for a college/secondary school from a work world? There are companies that specialized in school formats and tools.

Where and how does SAS (software as a service option) fit in here? Vendors offer tools they host on their servers or can place directly onto your servers.

Use of avatars? Not a great deal of adoption yet, no clear vision (even in vendor community) how this will be leveraged and used.

Risk of time waste immersive learning? Users sometimes don't take in the learning, they are more likely to remember thier score. However, sometimes it is skill basing. How much can they do now rather than what do they remember.

EARTH HOUR 2008 - Help make a difference

Many North Americans remember the blackout we had in 2003. If you are like my family, we actually had fun when it happened. We actually got together as a family. We sat around and talked, played games, and went outside to enjoy the day. The blackout lasted in our area for most of the day and by the end of it we had out our camping equipment and were cooking up what food we could so it wouldn't spoil. (Please look at the link above to read about the chaos it created too.)

The reason I bring this up though it on March 29, 2008 over 20 major cities in countries all around the world are turning off thier lights for 1 hour. It began in Austrailia last year and the cause has swept around the world this year. Can you imagine how much energy 1 city the size of New York, Sydney or Toronto could save just by turning thier lights off for one hour? It's staggering. Unlike the blackout no one suggests turning off everything especially emergency services. But how many times have you driven into a city at night and wondered why are all the lights on in the office buildings. We all know they've gone home.


"There are two key objectives for Earth Hour. The first is to engage as many households, communities and business to turn their lights for one hour on March 29.By creating awareness and securing engagement of the broader community, the second objective is to measure the change in our greenhouse gas emissions over the following 12 months – aiming for a reduction in the year following Earth Hour."

The Corporate Communication package from the Earth Hour 2008 web site has a great FAQ to read through.

So, get your family together, let your community know, spread the word. For one hour turn off every thing you can, get out the board games, light a few candles, have some fun, reconnect with your family....and best of all......HELP OUR EARTH.

Want to know what Web 2.0 apps are out there?

Have you taken a look before (or recently) at

It's a directory for web 2.0 applications. It came to be in 2006 and as of today has 2033 logos on the site. Each logo will take you to a different application.

There are hair make-over apps, personal radios, apps to create family trees, and tools to change text to sound mp3 files. With over 2000 applications I'm sure to find many that will be of use and just plain fun.

Looking for Types of Reports to Get From an LMS

One of the more useful fuctions of an LMS are the various reports and tracking of student features that are available. Unfortunately this is something I am lacking currently.

We're still working on getting our LMS up and functioning. One of the issues I need to solve is to come up with several different types of reports that I will need. I am wondering if anyone has a suggestion or depository of reports that I perhaps suggest as those we will need.

Too Many Feeds are Covering Up My Learning Path

I mentioned at the beginning of the new year that one of the things I wanted to try to do this year was get back into my regular routine of reading my various feeds to which I subscribe. However, over the last little while as my unread feed counter climbed from 500+ to 1000+ to....well it just doesn't even tell me now. Mostly my reader just feels completely neglected.

I decided tonight (while avoiding other stuff that also feels neglected and trying not to think about the foot of snow I'll be waking upto in the morning) that I should go through my various feeds and start weening out the ones that do not give me something that pertains to my learning regularly. Now that may seem harsh and you may ask "Doesn't every new article give you something to learn?" That is true, but once you being focusing in on a few topics I beleive you tend to develop a little "learning plan" whether we realize it or not.

I started using feeds for the purpose of learning more about elearning tools, technology, techniques, etc. I then expanded that to a few other topics that interested me...and in trying to avoid being termed (as my fiance effectionally calls me) a nerd. I now realize "MY NAME IS TRACY AND I HAVE A PROBLEM" I have far far too many feeds to keep up on. I figure that some other blog or article lead me to some of these feeds for one reason or another. I thought enough of them to keep them for a while and I believe something will lead me to go to these feeds and read them again.
For now, however, I need to get my feeds down to a more manageable number with more pure content that will help me to continue down my learning path. To all those I have read and kept, and to all those I have read and will read again thank you for being a part of that path.

5000 Hits - That's pretty cool!!!

Sometime around 4:30 this morning I was sent an email notifying me of the 5000th visit to my site. That is really cool. I haven't had it up a full year yet, but I'm impressed I've been fortunate enough to have that many people drop by.

I thank everyone who has answered some of my questions, asked questions of me, and especially those that have given me words of encouragement and priceless advice.

Happy Monday!

Plato Describes Elearning

"Someday, in the distant future, our grandchildren's grandchildren will develop a new equivalent of our classrooms - they will spend many hours in front of boxes with fires glowing within. May they have the wisdom to know the difference between light and knowledge." - Plato 428BC - 348BC

When Did eLearning Start?

I read something today that suggested that eLearning started in the 40s with the US Army using training films world wide to train service people on everything from personal hygeine to weapons maintenance. I found this interesting because for some reason, even though in the back of my mine I know eLearning refers to learning by an electronic means, that something such as learning from a film back then did not occur to me as elearning.

"A Hypertext History of Instructional Design" has on its site regarding before the 1920s:

• The first catalog of instructional films was published. (1910)Later that year, the public school system in Rochester, NY was the first to implement the usage of films for instruction.
• National professional organizations were established. Teacher training institutions offered visual instruction courses, and journals devoted to visual instruction were published.
• Thomas Edison proclaimed "Books will soon be obsolete in schools….It is possible to teach every branch of human knowledge with the motion picture." (1913)

Under the 1920's section there is mention of Sidney Pressey who developed a teaching machine like a typewriter that delivered mutlitple choice questions and scores.

I'm curious to find out if others agree with these types of examples as being the first indicators of elearning. Is there something even farther back then that? Do you disagree with this being a form of elearning? Any comments?