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?

2008 Annual Gathering - looking for attendees

Angela White put out a nice comment today on how much last year's event meant to her and how much it enspired her personally and in a career capacity. I feel very much the same and feel quite privledge to be given the opportunity to be going again this year (BIG thanks to my boss).

Last year was quite exciting from the keynote speakers to the concurrent sessions, to the many new friendships I've acquired through blogging. Blogging was the most wonderful tool that I have ever learn in my life. I have learned so much though my own blogging and much more so through the reading of other's blogs.

I hope to meeting many fellow bloggers at this spring's gathering. Angela and I would both like to hear who else may be attending.

On to a New University and a New Certificate

Well, I was last year working on an elearning certificate from the Univeristy of Calgary. I was able to complete the core courses, however, they dropped the certificate from their roster and I have been unable to pick up the rest of the courses that I need.

I have just proudly enrolled into the University of Toronto and into thier Elearning Certificate program. I'm quite excited for many reasons. One is that it gave me a SUPER-GREAT reason to buy a new computer. That and the fact that a family member killed my old one. (I might even be actually able to get Second-Life to work on my computer now, I could barely get to the info screens previously). Second, is that the people in my class all seem to be really interesting, all enrolled for very different reasons, but all working towards something exciting in elearning. Third, it's just always fun to continue to expand your mind through new people, new experiences and new adventures.

I'm sure you'll all look forward to my papers required for these courses.

ZENN Cars - Zero Emissions No Noise (Canadian)

I found this extremely interesting and typically Canadian.

Someone shared with me a video from the Rick Mercer Report about the ZENN Car. This zero emission, zero Noise car is manufactured in Canada, sold all around the world, and if you can believe it....illegal to drive on Canadian roads.

The cars meet all transportation standards, however there are no laws regarding low-speed vehicles. Come on Canada....it's time to seriously help Earth.

Looking for assistance finding a knowledge database?

I've been given a question about someone's knowledgebase. On their website they have a link to a knowledgebase (or is it knowledge database?). They are a little unhappy with the format of the page that appears on their website and are looking for something new.

This is something completely new for me. I'm looking for any help that can be suggested on how to do this in the cheapest and easiest way. Members in this group post a question in their Google Groups page. Other members answer the question. Then another person (maybe me) takes those answers, compiles them into the knowledgebase. The kb is then accessible by a link on the website.

Is anyone aware of a simple to use web based applications that would manage this? Any and all suggestions are welcomed. I need to report back to them by January 30th so any help I can be before then is greatly appreciated.

OEDb Releases Online College Rankings for 2008

Every so often now I get a request to blog about various web tools and sites. (I must be moving up in the blogging world).

Today I had a request to take a look at the Online Education Database's 2008 College Rankings. Not being familiar with U.S.A. colleges/universities I can speak much to the precise content of the site. However, I am impressed with the way they have gone about creating their rankings.

They have used 8 different metrics: acceptance rate, financial aid, graduation rate, peer Web citations, retention rate, scholarly citations, student-faculty ratio, and years accredited.

Too many job roles is hindering the LMS launch

Well if you can believe this, my LMS (yes I'm calling it mine now) is still not quite up and running. We have a few issues with the deployment and I think I have already mentioned that one of them is the fact that the majority of our staff do not yet have a way to access it from home. Of course we don't have enough computers/kiosks internally for them to access it from either. So...we wait for the IT department to work on their "EMAIL FOR EVERYONE" project.

We've decided instead to start/aim smaller and use the LMS for registering and tracking education. However..... we have 770 different job titles within our organization. Very crowded, cumbersome, and difficult for the system we have purchased to navigate through. The thinking behind the billion different titles is that being in a health care facility we have, as an example, RNs (registered nurses) in every clinical area (say 30 areas), we then have fulltime, partime and casual RNs in each area (30x3). At this point I've already shown you a possible 90 different roles. Then then are technologists, unit clerks, clerical staff, professional resources, etc, etc, etc.

Now I have the task of trying to take the unique rolls within each department and see if we can try to narrow them down to more generalized categories. Our intent is that each category (with a dept) will have specific educational needs. For example all ICU RNs would take CPR, all Emergency Unit Clerks would take Computer Order Entry.

Too bad no body realized early in our history that we had sooooooo many rolls being created.

Have You Discovered - TED

I love looking through and exploring the various presentations that are available through the TED website. If you haven't yet taken a look please do. The filmed talks are fascinating and explore a wide variety of topics. Basically they flow around one of three ideas Technology,Entertainment or Design (TED). "The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). " There are many, many speakers you've already heard of (Richard Branson, Bono, Bill Clinton) and there are many more that you should hear.

I watched another neat little video that was recently posted from a talk given in March 2007. Take a look at David Gallo's talk on "Underwater Astonishments".

WebStats 2007 - MEME

Tony Karrer started a meme on 2007 webstats on blogs. I started blogging mid April 2007 and began using Google Analytics in October. I certainly don't have the same number of visitors as anyone else I read, but I like to look every so often to see how my blog is received. Here are my stats from G.A. from Oct. on wards.

My stats from Blogcounter.com have me at 4647 hits since June 2007 and I've had visitors from at least 24 different countries. I love how easy blogging globally connects people.

eLearning Programs (referenced)

In looking towards improving and continuing my own education, I came across a great discussion from many readers on Tony Karrer's blog and wanted to draw some more reference to the post.

The post "Online Programs that Offer Training in eLearning? : eLearning Technology" had many comments with suggestions of schools in which to take elearning certification courses.

Women to Watch for and Read

I use a nice little feature of Google called Google Alerts. If you haven't discovered it yet, you can put various key words/phrases and if they come up during the day/week in blogs, videos, news sites, websites, etc., then an email is sent to your inbox as a notification. I have my name and blog set up this way and it lets me know if I get mentioned some where. (As a bit of a side note here...because I put in my name I get a lot of basketball articles...lol).

So why do I bring this up....Janet Clarey posted a wonderful comprehensive list last week called Recap: Women in the edublogosphere 2007. She very kindly included my blog in the list and my alerts let me know. Janet brings up a good point in that women bloggers tend to be a little less "HERE I AM" and she's taken it upon herself to help us all be heard. She compiled a great list of some very fascinating bloggers all of which are women (mostly education based), and all of which are worthy of taking a visit to their blogs.

Ready to Start a New Year of Blogging

Well I just got back from a wonderful and sunny trip to Huatulco, Mexico. I went down for a wedding, but more importantly a much needed vacation. I highly recommend if you can visit the area to do so. It was beautiful, even if it hadn't rain since October. The people of the resort and local town were incredibly friendly and if you like to barter there are some wonderful local crafts to be found. I really recommend renting a ski-doo and going on a snorkeling tour.

So, now onto an new year of blogging. How challenging is this going to be? Well as long as I add it into a daily routine (or weekly at least) it should be good. What I'm finding more challenging is keeping up on reading my collection of feeds from other bloggers that I enjoy reading and learning from. There is my resolution for this year...figuring out a better way to accomplish that. The last few months of 2007 proved to make that task very challenging. Along with a new year, comes a whole load of new work in my office as well. We tend to start up many new projects as a new year comes around. I've got staff satisfaction surveys to put out, core curriculum to administer and mark, a new intranet going up (luckily I don't have a big role in that), a new LMS system to figure out how to use and even more so how are we ACTUALLY going to use it, we have a large corporate wide training day, year ends, and then all the day to day activities that go on. Ugggg where does it end....maybe June, July...hmmm.

Well a very happy new year to all my blogging friends I hope you find this year wonderful, exciting, prosperous, challenging, full of fun, learning, and new adventures.

LMS - lingers on but isn't getting launched as hoped

Oh I was warned, but did I truly listen....I guess not. I've been putting off writing this post purely because of how discouraged I am at our entire LMS launch.

We have now been advised that the great change that was suppose to take our insufficient email to a whole new wonderful level, has in fact put us back right where we were. We were over capacity with accounts:server space. The new system and server were to fix this, but the new system has gone over capacity in a matter of months due to an unforeseen glitch (every time one sends an attachment organization wide...it gets copied onto the server X number of times...guess how bogged down the system is?).

So what bearing has this got on the LMS? Well, because of the server/email issues the organization wide roll out of email for all (and usernames/passwords) is not happening when expected. This in turn is blocking us from creating an extranet (intranet available at home) and that in turn is not allowing external access to our LMS.

We are now at a point of.....what now?!? We have a few options from which to choose.

1. We can use the system purely as a course registration and tracking system for educators and my department (Organization Development).
2. We can use it for point 1 + elearning for internal staff access only (limited students allowed to access)
3. We can purchase an external host to host the LMS giving all staff (home) access.
4. We can put off the launch until we are completely ready to go full out.

So we have many ideas which each have their positives and negatives. Frankly I'm a little overwhelmed and discouraged by it all. I've decided a holiday is the best way to cope with it all.

With that, I'm hosting one more education session in an hour for our educators and then I'm off for a week. Perhaps I'll have a brilliant idea while sipping fancy drinks in pineapples with umbrellas coming out of them. I shall continue the LMS saga shortly for you.

No need to spend money on computer software

Here's an article from a while ago, but lots of these products/sites are picking up more and more momentum.

How to Never Spend Money on PC Software Ever Again -- 11/3/2006 By Chuck Gray, CRRL Staff answerpoint.org

Welcome to 2008; let's start it off right with some free stuff

Stumbling around today I came across a Business Week article from Nov. 19, 2007 listing 101 of the best freebies to be found on the web. Some of my favourites ideas were:

• BBC Languages
• Sterling Silver Jewelery Club
• Free iTunes Downloads

But especially one that we can all "Click" and help out with The Hunger Site, where you just have to click to have the sponsors help donate to those in need around the world.

Amazing what you can do with MS Paint and some talent

Wasting away some time I came across this incredible video. It's from earlier in the year, so my apologies if you have seen it. If you haven't watch the first little bit so you can see it is definately done in MS Paint and then if you want, fast forward to the end to see the final result. It's about 4 min long, but quite amazing.

I'm a PS3 Widow

My friends said I was foolish. They said I was nuts. I was crazy. They asked if I knew the consequences. I of course ignored them. I wanted to spoil. I wanted to be the best. I wanted give something wonderful.

And now......

Now I'm a PS3 Widow. I haven't seen my fiance since Christmas morning. I've been demoted to the portable dvd player. I'm watching old tv show dvd sets. I haven't been out the door.

Where was my mind??????

Looking for input on a new job title

I'm looking for any suggestions for a new job title. Perhaps there is something standard out "there" that would be appropriate and make sense to others outside of my organization. Currently my title is Education Assistant and I work in the Organization Development department. We generally look after corporate education, training and development needs. This includes everything from computer training, team building, management training/development, to assisting in the creation of corporate behaviour standards.

I refer to my position as lackey. I tend to do many of the background activies that makes the department look good during their training. I offer one-on-on computer training sessions for various programs. I offer some training on temperament theory and administer corporate wide core curriculum training. However, starting NOW I'm also adding to my plate the tasks of ruuning, administering, controlling (insert thunder, lightening, evil laughter here), monitoring, training, etc the LMS that just came to life (more evil laughter).

So now I'm stuck wanting to find a new job title. One that demands respect (ha, yes that's a bit of a dream). One that perhaps puts me into a new corporate income bracket (that's actually slightly more of a possibility). Any suggestions anyone can put forth regarding this and help me out with my corporate domination....I mean furthering my career, would be greatly appreciated.

2008 eLearning Guild Annual Gathering Announced

Okay, call me excited. I received a wonderful email last night in my inbox....

"Annual Gathering 2008 Registration Now Open! "

So immediately I start wondering..."hmmmm, is my boss actually going to approve me attending in April? Just how to I get her to understand this is a good idea (again)?" So I started this morning printing off everything I could, registration costs, flight, hotel, agendas, etc. I took all my papers into her office and said guess what I just got in the mail?

Well, much to my surprise she was almost more excited then me. So now I need to thank the Guild for putting this info out right near my birthday and Christmas time. I think this time of year puts bosses in the more giving and sharing mood.

So I'll see you there!!!!!
Love you Mickey Mouse!

School wasn't a complete waste....

Good news Mom. All that money spent on my education (that's still continuing to this day) hasn't gone to a complete waste. Changing jobs a billions times, being a jack-of-all-trades master of none, has allowed me to succed with my blog obtaining a readability level of Postgrad College. Yippee!!!

LMS Training Finally Here

Well Yeee Haaa!!! I'm finally getting my training as administrator for our new LMS. I've been collaborating, or to put it more accurately, giving my two cents in on the new intranet that is 80% ready to go. We've got our layout all set up with minor fixes to change. The content needs to be inputted or transferred from our old site. We are surprising still scheduled for a January launch.

And now.....the LMS. Now that we have an intranet look and feel, the LMS design has be created so that the two compliment one another. I finally get some training on how to use the system and design courses. If all goes according to plan, it too will be up and running January. I'm a little less optimistic about that, but if it's before March I'll be ecstatic.

I'm even going to be thrilled if it purely is a management system for a while with no elearning. I need some sort of concrete package to track all our training and in a hospital you can image that there are lots of different programs going on all the time.

I shall keep you posted as events unravel around this new adventure.

What is Proper Etiquette for Conversing with Another Blogger?

An interesting thought came up last night as I yet again was contacting Tony Karrer for advice and "how to's". What is the proper way to ask a question of another blogger? Many times you might see an element they have added to their page and wonder, "Just how did they do that?". Other times you may know they are an expert in a certain field and want some advice on how to proceed with your own project.

I have thought it best that if the blogger offers their email address within their profile, or better yet directly on their blog that is the "international symbol" for FEEL FREE TO EMAIL ME (with questions/comments of course). However, maybe it is better to use the comment fields that people set up at the end of their posts. I however, have not used this method when my question is of no relation to the post. I figured it would be cluttering up the bloggers post and more so taking away from the intent of the post.

A bit of the challenge though is that, my question may be of interest to many others. So how does anyone else answer it or read the answer to the question if it is only ever hidden behind the scenes in email.

Tony and I agree that neither of us mind getting emails, but also were not sure what others may think either about the whole subject. So, I've added a couple of polling questions to my blog. Hopefully you'll take a moment to answer. Perhaps we will agree as bloggers-united that if you see an email address as contact information that it is indeed the "international symbol" for "I WELCOME YOU TO CONTACT ME".

Opening you Mind, Eyes and Ears with Facebook and YouTube

One of the applications I do like through Facebook is the FunWall. My friend Peter seems to find and share some of the best videos on YouTube. Certainly ones that are guaranteed to make me laugh out loud or stop everything I'm doing to look and listen intently to what is showing on my screen.

What I love is that Facebook as a tool is a great way to share those interesting videos that just spark something in your imagination. YouTube is a great tool for posting, sharing and searching out more of those moments that make you go....Cooool!

Peter sent me this one other day of the a cappella group Straight No Chaser and I just loved it. Especially for the holidays. What it did though was trigger that "I need to find out more" itch. Once again in a matter of a few minutes I've found the group's website, more video clips, where to buy a cd, and more and more.

I hope the clip inspires you to dig and explore a little further to see, listen and observe things you wouldn't always stop and give your attention.

check these out too 1, 2, 3, and for a little fun 4 (the funniest)

Blearning - yes it's new, it's exciting, it's cheap, it's free

Well my blogging buddy Brent commented on a post of mine today regarding the DevLearn 2007 DemoFest winners. One type of topic I like blog on is webinars and web meetings or more specifically taking notes during them and posting the info onto my blog site.

I do this for 3 reasons, one is that I can share the info I learn and gather with others, secondly I can take notes and keep them for my own reference later on (and being in a blog they are searchable). Third, I have found that it has become a great way for me to really concentrate more fully on a webinar. Often, and I've seen this polled a bunch of times during webinars, that most participants are doing several tasks at once while listening to a webinar. From answering emails, to filling reports, to having meetings with others as people walk in the room. Blogging for me as I listen/participate in the webinar forces me to pay more careful attention so that I can better "report" what it is I hear, learn and see.

Brent commented that he has looked at a couple of just such postings of my and jokingly referred to it as perhaps a new modality for learning. "B"learning. Now, I'm going to give him full credit on the term, but if it somehow turns into the "B" standing for Brent-Learning then I may just have to re-term it T-Learning....and I like the hyphen...looks meaner (i.e. T-Rex).

DemoFest 2007 Winners from DevLearn 2007 (eLearning Guild)

DemoFest Winners 2007
Based on demonstrations run during the DevlLearn 2007 in San Jose, CA Nov. 2007.
Winners
Seal Works - Ariel
Can Do It, LLC, 3-D Instructions
Sun Microsystems
OnPoint Digital, Sales Quenchers - mLearning
KPMG - Expense Reimbursement Training
Oxygen Education - Emag machine

Nick Floro - Ariel - A Reader's Interactive Exploration of Literature

Team of 6 people, 6 months to create
Budget of $80,000.

Goal: gain resources to better understand literature content
Objectives: creating a cdrom, or webserver could deliver content along with book.
Audience: college students
Created from scratch not existing technology or solution.

Used 5D's of project management
Discovery
Define project
Design
Develop
Delivery

Created a flowchart for each author flowing through the content of the book.
Each would have some activity associated with them.

Tools used:
Html, flash

Created wire frames on how to interact with the content.
27 authors
Wanted interactivity (on web, or cdrom)
Each author had their own logo and a font based on their particular work.
Banner, Content in middle. Left side user choices to pick a particular piece of author work, picture, or audio related to author.

Glossary based on material, but could be pulled from and turn into a pop up within each author window content.

Project management tools used.

Basecamphq.com (recommended by Nick and participants within the online too.)

Program had a poem creating tool such like fridge magnets.

Nick@sealworks.com
http://tinyurl.com/3y8pyx


John D'Amours - 3D Instructions, An EPSS Prototype (Can Do It LLC)

Mission: Deliver low-cost 3d Assembly instructions and lead consumers to expect this quality level for all do-it-yourself tasks (eg. Ikea products, not just using paper instructions)

Tools:
Deep Exploration (5.1 beta)
Right Hemisphere (alpha and beta version)

Items are displayed on screen in 3D, user can shift screen perspective to see each angle of item being put together.


Sorry I don't have more notes than this....I had to leave the demonstration early to go to another webinar. Recordings of the presentation will be found on The eLearning Guild website.

9:15pm...later this evening....I just saw that Cammy Bean posted information on a few of the other presenters at this webinar. (thanks Cammy)

So Just What is a Blog?

Another great production from the Common Craft Show. Blogs in Plain English is well done and follows similar formats to other pieces done by the group. I especially liked about 3/4 of the way though when they explain why people use them, or what's more important is how you use them. I like how blog communities are explained because it is one of the greatest advantages I have found and experienced since starting my own.

Tools & Technologies for Mobile Learning - eLearning Guild Online Forum

Tools and Technologies for Mobile Learning by David Metcalf, University of Central Florida (notes from the eLearning Guild's online forum)

What is mlearning?

• laptop, micro pc
• cell phone
• tablet pc
• player
• PDA/handheld
• Ebook reader
• game device

Wiki - seeking lesson in small, manageable formats that can undertake when it suits them.

No consistent answer as it is still developing, growing, being explored.

Polls of participants
experience with m-learning projects - most haven't started
delivery are you using - most using podcasting
devices you are targeting -most were using ipods, blaceberries, smartphones/pda, cell phones,

Why consider it?
2 billion handsets by end of 2006
40M multimedia phones in US, 279 digital tv phones in US by 2010
More than 100 billion handsets with touch screens
3.25 billion mobile phones use

First Building Blocks
Learning

Second Building Block - performance support
- on the job
- task specific
- support at time of need
- coaching, mentoring
- paper based job aides

Need a consistent base of knowledge base
- repository of knowledge
- sharing of best practices & lessons learned
- connect with experts

A learner knows what they need to know - they just need to find the information.

Example - sports theme learning, sent through phone. Lesson is about a math course. Questions scored as a game. More points, they can win ring tones, prizes, sporting even tickets. (MySportsPulse). Using Moving Knowledge.

Example (Tyco)
Using vXML - book on tape style learning. For customer service management instructions.

One could also use a specialized device. ( Ie: PocketPC Symbol). Videos can be downloaded directly to the device. Best to use closeup shots. Can record messages.

Development Tools
Flash Lite
Zirada, lectora publisher
Camtasia Studio
iQuiz Maker
iWriter
quiz building for the ipbo
mobipocket ebook reader
interactive video technologies
emantras mobls
podquiz maker
kallisto
classinhand
quizzler pro
zirada mobile publisher
hot lava software
mobile and devises developer center
mobile chalkboard
talkshoe
tourcaster
pocket podcast
podtrip podcasting new
Captivate
Studymate
MobiGlam
mscape
tribal CTA
Profcast.com


Look for more on www.mlearnopedia.com (free site to look at).

Free tools:
Mob5
MobiSiteGalore
Winksite

Check what you have http://mr.dev.mobi/

Test/Quiz:
FlashcardExchange
GotestGo
iQuiz maker
Mobiode (surveys)
Studycell.com


Misc:
Apresto podcast
emantras' mobls
Giunti
Instancy
Liquid Talk

Communication:
CampusReact
clearTXT
Gabcast
Mobilesphere
Mogopop
MovingKnowledge
Podlines
Rave Wireless

Technical Areas to Consider:
types of devices
wireless connections
does your corp have standard devices
content providers
Wireless service providers

Platform options can make things difficult since there are many types. (blackberry, Palm, pocketpc, smartphones with WAP, JWME, tablets, handtops)

Overall this was a fairly good presentation. I was one of several in the session having trouble with audio and video files during the presentation. Another issue for myself it felt very business oriented. Not entirely, but that is a strong focus I find often of the mobile teaching. They speak of on the job tools, training as you need it, performance support. However, it generally seems related to sales. There is a huge world out there that needs more training then customer service. I'm in the health care industry and at a facility that has a great deal of RN students....how great for them to have a bedside "companion" with them to reference a wound for proper treatment, medication references for dosages (these greatly exist in the mobile world I realize). I'm not sure where we are going with this as an organization yet, but this session wasn't quite what I was thinking of, although there we a ton of useful sites, tools, and info for me to go explore. Great job again by the Guild.

Finding new Web tools by looking and digger a little deeper

I have a follow up presentation to do this Friday to see how the Training and Organization Development Network (Greater Toronto Area) is enjoying and utilizing the online community I set up for them. Long story short, in the spring the group met and was discussing that they were getting tired of keeping track of the billion emails flying around filled with questions, replies, and attachments. I suggested setting up an online community. Got it up and running in the summer and now that it is fall we are revisiting the idea to see if it has worked as we (I) had hoped.

What's this got to do with my post heading....well....my first presentation I included a couple of those great Common Craft in plain English videos. A better way then I could ever attempt at explaining some of the web tools out there to use. I wanted to come back at this presentation time and show another cool video that explains and showcases more of what is happening in the digital world. So I remembered Prof. Micheal Wesch 's video "The Machine is Us/ing Us". If you haven't seen it yet, take a look it's a wonderful piece. From an interview with the professor:

"As I tried to illustrate in the video, this means that a change in one area (such as the way we communicate) can have a profound effect on everything else, including family, love, and our sense of being itself. Second, everything is connected throughout all time, and so as anthropologists we take a very broad view of human history, looking thousands or even millions of years into the past and into the future as well. And finally, all people on the planet are connected. This has always been true environmentally because we share the same planet. Today it is even more true with increasing economic and media globalization."

Through looking at his site I came across Creative Commons (which I have seen before but never really looked into).

Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved."

Watching Prof. Wesch's video I saw him using/referencing an interesting site that I could see had lots of little window panes with rss feeds in, blogs, news items extra. Really liking the look of it I wanted to know what it was being used. Pause the video, rewind the video, step-by-step the video....I was just about to do a screen capture and send the image to a friend to ask if they knew what it was and....I see on the web address line...netvibes. Type that into my browser and there you go....that's it. Another neat little tool to try out and see if I like using it as a reader.

I feel like Columbo (sorry for the 70's reference, but I still like him) discovering, exploring, finding clues, solving puzzles. There's something I always find really satisfying when I discover something new (at least new to me) on the web. I wonder how many more feel that way?

The Price to Buy 12 Days of Christmas

From article out of the Toronto Star, Dan Nephin (Associated Press).

Shopping list
Prices of items in the Christmas carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas," according to PNC Wealth Management:

1 Partridge, $15 (last year: same)
1 Pear Tree, $150 (last year: $130)
2 Turtle Doves, $40 (last year: same)
3 French Hens, $45 (last year: same)
4 Calling Birds (canaries), $600 (last year: $480)
5 Gold Rings, $395 (last year: $325)
6 Geese a-Laying, $360 (last year: $300)
7 Swans a-Swimming, $4,200 (last year: same)
8 Maids a-Milking, $47 (last year: $41)
9 Ladies Dancing (per performance), $4,759 (last year: same)
10 Lords a-Leaping (per performance), $4,285 (last year: $4,160)
11 Pipers Piping (per performance), $2,213 (last year: $2,124)
12 Drummers Drumming (per performance), $2,398 (last year: $2,301)

My sister was quite surprised that 10 Lords a-Leaping was cheaper then 9 Ladies Dancing....oh no...I hope I'm not getting 10 Lords a-Leaping for Christmas....where would I put them?

Yes Virgina, There Are Other Search Engines

A co-worker of mine (the one that went to India, who I'm still trying to convince to blog) is working on a course that discovers various ways to do literature searches for research among other things. Every so often she comes across a great "new" little tool that she gets really excited about and shares with me. Now I'm excited too.

Have you visited KartOO?

It's a visual search engine in that once you put in your search topic you get up a picture representation of the most relevant pages.

Here's an image of when I searched my own blog.

Th largest icon on the visual map is a small capture of my homepage, and the large bluish blob that lies in the background has labels on it letting you know the basic site topic/category (ie: blog, guide, photos, deals, tours, etc).

The upper left has a list as well of the major key words found on the pages that are showing. If you roll over a website page icon then you will see a brief description of the site as well.

It's actually a fun way to search and to "see" what might comes up.

Mobile Survey - Online Demo

This is not a commerical...I'm just sharing. I thought I would sit in on the Zoomerang Webinar: Capture "in the moment" feedback with mobile surveys. I've enjoyed using Zoomerang in the past for deploying surveys, and thought it's at least worth a look to see what they are offering in mobile ideas. If nothing else, online webinars are a great way to see what is out there and new to use.

If you are intersted here is the link they have sent me to register for this free seminar:

Reserve your spot today.

Who knew that Costco and Zombies go together?!?

Okay, I'm a little late on this one....

Common Craft posted this one at the end of October that I just had to look at and killed my self laughing. Great way to leave the office on a Friday.

Zombies in Plain English

Online Conference Starts Next Week (Corporate Learning: Trends and Innovations)

I'm quite excited to be participating as a learner at the upcoming Corporate Learning: Trends and Innovations Online conference which begins next Thursday. There is a terrific line up of speakers presenting a wide range of topics over the course of 4 days.

What's great is like a face-to-face conference you can pick and choose which sessions you wish to attend that are of interest to you. Best yet, you can stay home in your pajamas and learn. (hee hee). Seriously, there are 15 or so presenters to learn from. There are over 800 people registered to participate globally. It's all free. Did I say that loud enough FREE!!! How can you not stop in and listen.

I was sent an email today from the organizer George Siemens that linked participants and speakers to a wonderful site that was new for me; Attendr. What a neat representation of attendees, where they are from, who they know and connecting them to who the would like to meet.

Elearning Blueprints Needs Beta Testers

Cathy Moore is looking for some beta testers to try out a new elearing design tool she has been working on.

Elearning Blueprints are online tools that walk you through the process of designing and writing lively elearning content. Beta testers will get access to:

• Design and write clear, engaging elearning materials on any subject
• Immediately apply the ideas to your current project
• Use research-based best practices that will make your elearning more
  powerful
• Find and share creative ideas
• Streamline your elearning development

The premise seems like a great idea and I hope Cathy gets all the feedback necessary to get the project up and running.

eLearning Guild Gives More to Members

The eLearning Guild is upgrading it's membership perks. Associate members can now access 237+ archived issues of Learning Solutions eMagazine and Guild Research 360° Reports will now be available to all Guild Member, Member Plus, and Premium Members.

Thanks to Brent Schlenker's update on this today. You can see much more info from his blog or directly from the eLearning Guild site.

Just in time for my LMS launch.

PC Magazine - Top 100

PC Magazine's latest edition has three great lists to peruse through and try out. They have their picks for:

• Top 100 Undiscovered Sites - "top new or under-the-radar sites of 2007"
• Top 100 Classic Sites - "these sites are best-of-breed in their respective categories"
• Favourite 100 Blogs

Now I just need some time to look through them all.

Flickr Related Tag Browser

Here's one more I found and thought was quite neat. [Link] This site allows you to enter any search term and it will give you a matrix of 36 photos related to that tag. You can click any of the photos to see it enlarged beside the matrix. You can also scroll through the thousands and thousands of other photos with that tag.

The interesting part that gets you to keep exploring here is as you move your mouse away from the photo matrix you are presented with about 40 unique tags related to the original. For example if I start with CAT, I am presented with 1.3 million+ photos. As I move my mouse out other tags that I can now choose from are Baby, Meow, Kitty, Dog, Sleep, Nature, etc. I picked nature and am now sent to 2 Million+ photos to look over with a whole new series of tags to explore.

Truly an interesting way to view photos that have been posted, but also a great demonstration of the power of tags and relationships.

Want to try something really different & uncomfortable?

Okay this may sound like I'm losing my mind, but give it a try first. Stumbling around the internet I found a site called Don't Click It by the Institute for Interactive Research. Basically it is a series of different experiments, games, exercises in trying to use your mouse only as a rollover tool. NO MORE CLICKING the mouse buttons. As this is apparently a waste of our valuable time as computer users. One now simply moves the mouse over the menu we want to expand or circle over a button we want to activate.

The premise sounds quite interesting, but give it a try first. Play around on the site for 5 minutes and you will instantly see how "weird" it feels not to click any thing. Try out several things and see if you get the "warning screen". I did, but only once.

Stumble Upon - Discover New Sites

A colleague I work with sent me an interesting link today. As part of a course she must learn the latest and greatest ways to search the web for content. She found out that 80% of the web is not located through traditional search engines.

Wow....do you know what that means is out there?

Well if it's true, I just googled (I love that's a verb now) the word "the" and got 5,130,000,000 hits. If that is only 20% of what is out there then there are potentially 25,650,000,000 sites that are really in cyberspace. Okay maybe not exactly, but I'm sure the premise is real. Not everyone knows how to set their site up properly to be found by search engines, so it makes sense that many are hiding.

The site my friend referred me to is called Stumble Upon.

When you set up your account you are given the option of choosing which types of sites you would like to see from about 500 different topics. Some examples of categories are alcoholic drinks, internet tools, astronomy, crafts, physics, iraq, online games, open source, and web development.

A toolbar is installed in your browser that when you click it you are sent to a webpage based on one of the topics you have chosen. The pages are ranked by users (3,727,921) and are delivered to you based on the preferences you have chosen.

It's a neat little tool if you are looking around for some different content you've never seen before, if you love to just websurf, and/or you just want to learn what's out there.

Obviously it isn't too new if there are 3.5 million+ users. However, content on the web is always expanding and changing and it's seems like a good way to see what's out there and have your say on ranking a few of the sites.

Not only can you "stumble" through websites but also photos, news articles, videos, and a specific topic. I could lose a lot of time playing with this one.

Some neat ones I stumbled onto (for now....):

Hubble Image Heritage Gallery

Earth Album

Solving a 50-Year-Old Moon Mystery

3000 Hits Today and Still Going

I had my 3000th reader today. That's really cool. I thank you all very much, especially since I have fallen back a little on my posting frequency. The LMS project and other work (not nearly as fun) has taken more of a front seat.

I'm still completely engaged in blogging, reading and learning from one another and try to promote this to my colleagues as often as possible.

I have a follow-up education session at the end of November to see how the T&OD Network (GTA) is liking the online community that I set up for them. Instead of emails flying all over the place we now have one central place (hosted on Yahoo! Groups) to house share files, policies, job postings, speaker reviews, and questions posted to each other. A wonderful feature (true of many web applications) is it's all searchable. I'm hoping that they group votes to continue as currently we have about 75 users on the site. That's about half the group so I need to sell it to the rest of the members.

I'm sharing the same idea with the PPNO next week as well. They too are looking for a central idea to store their posted questions to members and responses. As well as house files, newsletters, calendars, etc. Online communities are great for this purpose.

Thanks again to all my readers and please continue check back frequently, subscribe to the feed, and comment often. I promise to do the same in return and together our knowledge will continue to grow.

Are you coming to "Corporate Learning: Trends and Innovations"?

Well I can only schmooze up to the boss so much without her realizing that I am trying to scheme something out of her and I have been denied to attend the eLearning Guild DevLearn 2007. Disheartening? A little, however I've been able to find lots of great online conferences and learning workshops through the Guild's monthly Online Forums (highly recommend), some through Elluminate and now this great excitement....Corporate Learning: Trends and Innovations.

There are some great speakers participating in this entirely online conference.
7.1 Tony Karrer
7.2 David Snowden
7.3 Jay Cross
7.4 Rebecca Stromeyer
7.5 Richard Straub
7.6 Clark Quinn
7.7 Steve Mahaley
7.8 Gaurav Rastogi and Jai Ganesh
7.9 Keith Resseau
7.10 Donald H. Taylor
7.11 Janet Clarey
7.12 David Wilson
7.13 Rae Tanner
7.14 Bill Bruck
7.15 George Siemens

The conference runs November 15th to the 20th and is free, but REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED.

If you haven't taken a look yet at all the conference has to offer, wander over to the conference wiki that has been set up. Even it is a great example of what you can create with a wiki.

A little off topic - Blog Action Day Stats

As I said a little earlier I've been a little off topic lately and more behind in posting then I would like, but the CBT training is almost over and the LMS/Intranet/CMS meetings are progressing more smoothly.

I was happy though to see a thank you email in my inbox today from the Blog Action Day Team. They posted on thier site some stats from this year's effort.

• 20,603 Blog Participated
• 23,327 Blog Posts (Google Blog Search)
• 14,631,038 RSS Readers

"Impact on the Blogosphere: The graph below shows the frequency of terms appearing in the blogosphere courtesy of BlogTrends. Additionally "Blog Action Day" was the top Technorati search term AND tag for the day."

Blog Action Day - What if we do nothing about global warming???

Today is Blog Action Day. Today 15,000 blogs are focusing in on the environment today. Some are writing, some are donating their earnings. All for the same cause though. We will be hitting potentially 12 million readers today.

So what do I write about. I've been thinking about that for a few days now. I found something I truly want to share and it is this guy's video labelled "The Most Terrifying Thing You'll Ever See". From his description he is a "burnt out high school teacher" with a great message that everyone should wonder about "What will happen to the world should we disregard even the slightest chance that global warming is indeed happening?"

Look up more videos by this gentleman and you find a fun trailer for his sequel "How it all ends". This production is broken into many smaller segments all around global warming and us as a global village taking action NOW and the consequences of not doing so. He presents the argument in a clear and easy manner that even a high school student would understand and more over stay compelled to listen to the entire piece.

I'm sorry that I can't give him credit other than this as I haven't found his true name yet. Thanks to him for opening my eyes a bit more....a lot more.

One more thing you can do today....
Take the time today to see some more blogs focusing in on the environment.

Selling Web 2.0 (again)

I haven't been posting as much as I would truly like. I've been so swamped with work, including trying to prepare our selves to get the LMS up and running. I have however been introducing a few more people to the fabulous use of blogs and wikis.

I have one friend that loves to write poems and has been using the Facebook feature of Notes to capture them. I suggested that if she wanted something a little more private then she could open a blog and use it as a private journal. She also writes collaboratively with another friend. The two of them take turns write a paragraph of a story and see where it goes and ends up. For this I suggested and set up a wiki for them to try out. This way they can go in and read each other's work, make edits and suggestions. They can also create a new page for each story or for each theme of stories and can keep it private or share it as well.

My final sell this weekend was using a blog for a newsletter instead of a paper based item. Currently they create a newsletter in Publisher and then email it out. They only send electronically and do not print it to paper. Sounds like a job for something webish. I took their articles from their last newsletter. Created a new post for each article starting with the last one first. This would allow a reader once they open the blog to read the first intended article as the most recent post of the blog. The last article of the paper copy would appear as the last post as well. The first post they open was titled "In this Issue", with the month and volume/issue number. Then a listing of the post headings as links to each article.

My arguments for them using this system were:

• articles can be tagged for reference and searching (ie: volume 6, issue 3, meeting, agenda)
• articles are all searchable by any word
• articles are all archived individually and monthly
• links on the main web page can be added to the newsletter blog and back to the web page
• because of the flexibility of posting, special articles could be added at times other than regular newsletter issuing dates
• members can subscribe to updates, rss feeds
• the blog can have stats tracked regarding usage.

I'm still waiting for responses on all 3 "new ideas" that I've put out for my colleagues. Now just waiting to see if I sold it all properly.

6 Days and Counting -Blog Action Day 2007

Just a reminder to my blogging friends and readers that Blog Action Day 2007 is fast approaching. Take a few minutes to think about what you can write about, share, and maybe even change the world.

Is your HR tracking software prepared to take on your new LMS?

The on going LMS saga....

TIP 5: If your HR system is not already tracking reporting structure throughout your organization, you may want to start working on that now.
TIP 6: The more information you can use to identify your employees the better to track and report them.

We are still going through the motions of getting our new LMS and our current systems to function together so that 1) we have a comprehensive data base of employees that needs to only be adjusted in one location (HR), and 2) so that managers can track the learning/training progress of employees that report to them.

Currently if we run off a report of our employees we can only break them down into which funding centre pays which group of employees or who looks after their weekly pay. This is not necessarily the manager that they report to; aka. the person responsible for their mandatory learning requirements. This has come up several times in the past and now that we need several new systems, besides the LMS, to talk to the HR system Human Resources is now forced to some how start added new fields to the employee database and use existing fields to better sort reporting structure. This is a daunting task with 2500 employees, but imagine if you are a company with thousands more.

So today's tips are to make sure that your employee database is filled with as much information as possible. It will and can only come in handy later as more and more systems are automated and upgraded.

Speaking of Virtual Frogs

Follow up to my posting about see through frogs....

Here is a link to a site that will give you a free cd-rom digital frog disection. Or if you want to take it further there are several links here for even more animals.

(yes, I too am finding this a little creepy, but better then the smells I remember from my biology classes)

Creating a Navigational Model with Mindomo - LMS Project continues

The LMS we are working on (if you can call it that) is one part of three. The other two parts are the policy and procedure component, and the intranet which will house it all.

I've been working the last couple of days on the lovely task of trying to create our navigational model. The main links that users will use to navigate around the intranet and then some of the lower tiers (or clicks).

We are suppose to produce something that looks like: The blue rectangles would be our tier 1 navigation (the main headings) and the pink rectangles are the tier 2 navigation (sub headings). More tiers can fall under these, but the rule is to try to only have users make 3 clicks to get to any topic. An example: Tier 1 - Directories, Tier 2 - Staff Directory, Tier 3 - Voice Mail.

We have a simplified intranet now composed of Word docs, Publisher pages, pdfs and web links. I wanted to first map what we have to try and decide what tiers we want included in our new intranet. Excel wouldn't let me move items around as easily as I wanted to and PowerPoint has a limited screen size so I thought I would try a web application mind mapping tool. I then started with Mindmeister (a suggestion from Brent Schlenker) - which I do like, but not quite right for this exercise. Then I moved to Bubbl.us (a suggestion from Angela White) - I really like the look and feel of this one, but again just not quite the set up I was looking for this project. Then I came across Mindomo and this is just what I needed.

It's a nice mind mapping tool that allows similar functions as the others, but I seemed to be able to manipulate around the branches of my chart a little easier. I'm able to colour code items, link some together, bound others and expand and expand and expand.

Here's a screen shot of a piece of our current intranet (left zoomed way out, right just a small piece):

The green lines are relations ships, the green/orange squares are items I've highlighted and the red line box are bound items.

My next step is to translate this back to the simple square model above.

If you don't want to do it virtually...how about see through

I've always wondered with technology the way it is, why are students still dissecting animals for biology classes. Why not use a computer program that's been around for 15+ years and just do it virtually? No more sad little screams of "YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT TO THE FROG?!?!"

Well Japanese scientists have come up with another way that maybe teachers will latch onto instead. How about a see through frog? No need to cut Kermit open when you can now instead watch all his organs, veins, and eggs (Kermit's sister) develop over the span of its life.
Photograph by Ho New/Reuters

Microsoft Surface Makes Guest Appearance on CSI Miami

Well to my delight the new season of fall shows has begun. Thank goodness for satellite so that I can watch one show, pvr another and then catch another one during a different timezone showing.

Last night I was catching up on all the new episodes of CSIs; Miami, New York, Las Vegas, NCSI. During CSI Miami I was quite excited to see that they were now using right in the middle of their lab a Microsoft Surface. A parole officer had been killed by one of his parolees. So how better to find a list of call his charges but to look through his Blackberry. How better to get the data off the Blackberry then to place it down onto a Microsoft Surface. If you've looked at the Microsoft promo spots on their site then you would recognize the telltale ripple marks that immediately appeared when the mobile was set down instantly linking the two (pic). Then, like some magical ballet, the character Calleigh begins to wave her hands over the Surface and sorts all the bad guys instantly into lists of bad to evil, and one MO from another.

Now I wonder if it was a one shot product placement or if the Surface will have a recurring role.

Developing an e-Learning Strategy and Architecture - Lance Dublin (Elluminate Webinar)

Developing an e-Learning Strategy and Architecture - Lance Dublin

This was my first Elluminate webinar and it was quite neat to see a different format then I have seen before. One tool I haven't used before was a whiteboard that participants can add too and slides can be altered as the presenter speaks. All participants can use a mic if wanted.

Webinar points:

Yesterday's communication - same time , same place (ie: meetings, phone calls)
Today's Communication - any time, any place (ie: chants, blogs, wikis, virtual offices)

Strategy - the way we get there:

eLearning Pathway might have been as.....(9 elements)
discover, envision, understand, analyze, define, enlist, plan, implement, learn

Doesn't really happen this way. Much more like putting several pieces of an elearning architecture together. It is more like including the above 9 elements, but not in a particular order.

Discover - what is the purpose of your organization, type of environment, how your place works
Envision - create a vision, something to draw and motivate people
Understand - identify gaps you may have in getting to where you want to go with your learning
Analyze - learn about all the types of learning options that you may have
Define -
Enlist - emplementing, business case (next webinar)
Plan and Implement - (next webinar)

Architecture - the place you want to get

Ad Hoc Model:
do you have info - documents, websites, etc.
do you have training - paper based, instructor lead, videos, etc
do you have elearning - we had a course and now we deliver over the internet

Foundations for Learning (Bloom) (Rube Goldberg):
Need for Knowledge - job aids, remembering info
Comprehension - job aid and on the job training
Application - self-paced training, and OJT
Analysis - instructor led and OJT
Synthesis - developing training for others

Now we need to find/develop the right learning product for the right learner and the right situation.

Ensuring Performance:
we could give a person more support, tools, information, learning

Fastest way to improve their performance
Most participants chose the answer as TOOLS.
The slowest way to get there is Learning.
A great way is support - bringing the info when they need it.

Process Perspective:
Performance can be helped/enhanced by taking data/info through requirements, using tools like job aids, webinars, etc, creating some applications, that the user can then take to better their performance.

Content Perspective:
Sometimes organizations want to push content/courses. (formal)
Sometimes staff need to find info and pull it from searches, OJT, mentors, chats, collaboration.
Sometimes it needs to be embedded into the work, performance support systems, expert systems, workflow learning

Time/Place Perspective:
Physical ----
same time same place - classes, ojt
same time, any place - webinars
Virtual----
any time, same place - job aids
any time, any place - elearning

Question is...how do you blend them successfully all together? This is the world we are moving into.

Examples:

Strategy--Technology
Learning from collocation--face-to-face (learning labs, mentoring, role playing)
Learn from collaboration--collaborative (e-labs, virtual classrooms)
learn from interaction--multimedia
learn from information--internet

Moving from Aware, to conceptual, to functional, to competent, to expert using...
basic information, structured information, applied learning, action learning

LMS Project....A Little More Progress

Well, where to start. Nothing has been happening since our last meeting in August, or so we thought. The LMS vendor has been working on there part but not quite according to the time lines we had initially set out upon. After a brief meeting today we set up weekly phone conferences between our LMS provider and the 3 project leaders (and some of their support members) here at work.

TIP 1-3 See (LMS - I don't want to be Little Miss Should've and Tony Karrer's LMS Gotchas)
TIP 4 - make sure you set up these meetings right from the beginning. Don't assume they are going to happen. This is the first way to ensure the LMS vendor is doing what they promised and that your team is doing what is expected of them to move the project forward.

We are now going to attempt to move a little more quickly then initially planned out. What does this mean? We are having several meetings (by phone) over the next few days to hammer out details of server preparation, staff database transfers and some remote training. We are going 0 to 60 without trying to go too fast. We are also aborting the idea of setting up the intranet first, then the CMS and then the LMS. We have decided to push at least the intranet and LMS forward at the same time. Amazingly enough though they (the vendor) is still convinced they can stick to the November go live date even with the several weeks of silence we've just gone through.

Meeting Werner Berger

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting Werner Berger as we were talking with him to come and speak to our organization.

"Werner is the oldest North American to have stood atop the summit of Everest, and we believe him to be the fourth oldest person in the world to have accomplished that feat. Werner is the oldest North American to have completed the 'Seven Summits'."

Some of the key ideas and thoughts that came from him out of that meeting I wanted to capture and decided I would place them here.

• The Mountain doesn't care what I do, it is I that must rise above and not be a victim of circumstance
• Visions/Mission - you need a desired outcome, that is time sensitive and tangible, then decided what steps you will need to get there and just do those
• Vision yourself there and then visusualize how you got to that point
• Be clear on what you want
• Open and honest communication always needed
• Need the ablitity to challenge that which is causing trouble, permission to speak up without being penalized
• reframing your mindset not to see the problem, but the solution and the steps that you took to get to the solution

Showing The Value in Web 2.0 Tools to Create Buy-in

I listened in on Clark Quinn's presentation for the eLearning Guild yesterday and two comments hit me hard:

"You're not about training/learning, you're about empowering performance."
"You're not about computers or web, you're about all technology."

I draw from these thoughts that I can't just be the only one using these web applications. I need my colleagues to start playing with them and learning how to use the tools. I need to be more of an advocate for how the tools could assist their productivity and promote more often.

I have already successfully had the management team to try out a wiki as a tool for capturing answers to questions instead of sending out a survey and having to compile the data manually. I also have the team fully immersed in using online survey tools such as Zoomerang and Survey Monkey.

Today I decided to share the idea of mind mapping or brain storming online using the same type of principals as a wiki. Users can each go into the map and add their thoughts at their convenience. I suggested that when an occasion occurred for such a tool to let me know and I would help get one established for the team to use. The comment was put to me by my co-worker, "I really need to see the value of it to know if I'd want to use it."

Then, amazingly ten minutes later an occasion has come up to try it out. We teach a course several times a year where three of us each teach a different topic for a full day. We have decided that because there are key messages we are trying to spread through out the organization, we should make sure that we are each touching on these messages during our training sessions. Since finding meeting time together right now would prove very difficult we are going to use a mind mapping web tool to plan out what messages/themes we currently each deliver and then how we can tie them together to match the organizational plan.

My co-worker immediately said, "That's a great idea....I see value in that." Now after she uses the tool once she will be able to see how it could be applied to other situations. I just had to discover the perfect stepping off point in which to start and grab hold of her attention and willingness to discover something new.