Great, Quick, To-the-Point, Video Learning from Ray Jimenez

Ray Jimenez has posted up some wonderful "Wacky Videos" as he calls them on his Videos on 3 Minute eLearning. The great thing is there is nothing wacky about them at all. They are quick and to the point on a multitude of topics. He refers to them as being different because they are not all full of glitz and glam, high budget, action packed, big-star, block busters. Exactly what makes them great.

The learner does not get distracted by too many unnecessary visuals. You only need to listen and concentrate and the clear precise message that Ray shares are wonderful learning tips. Another nice feature is if you are more keen to visual presentations, then there is something to watch Mr. Ray him self. However, if you are a learner who likes to multi-task and listen to material as you work, then no fear as you are not missing charts or animation.

Here are a few that I really enjoyed and learned from today.
2.03 - Two Trainer Dieseases: Control-itis and Content-itis
2.04 - e-Learning Behaviors How People Learn Online
3.02 - What is 3-Minute e-Learning?
4.09 - Reviews and Assessments: Not the Same

(Okay really I liked them all) - Thanks for the production Ray.

The Day After Earth Hour

I was happy to see many places last night observing Earth Hour, even if it was just dimming lights in stores. At least something was being done and participation occured. I happened to be at a Montana's restaurant (Newmarket) just before 8pm and asked if they were participating. I was expecting a yes as all staff members were also wearing TapProject.ca shirts, and that is exactly what I heard. They were indeed dimming their lights.

My friend and I then went in to Chapters (like Borders in the US) and I ask a worker as soon as I went in if they were observing Earth Hour. He informed me that we had just missed the message that they were shutting down as many banks of lights as they could. I can understand in a business where being able to see the books is going to be the only way to sell the product, I was happy to hear/see they were at least reducing energy consumption.

A drive along Yonge St. at 8:40pm showed that the mall had turned off all parking lot lights, most of the store front signs and thier scrolling displays boards were off. McDonald's had dimmed their lights, turned off their "Golden Arches" and all exterior lights. Jack Astor's restaurant was in complete darkness, you could see they were using little or no lighting onon all exterior signs and inside it appeared to be candle lit - an impressive job. Walmart did not appear to be dimmed from outside, but I do know during energy crunches in the summer that they always participate, so I expect that they as well turned off many banks. Then my final destination for the evening was the theatre. Yes, I should have stayed home in the dark, but made my plans without thinking. I was surpised when we pulled up to see so many lights on. But once inside they did have the normal lights over the ticket counter and all around the food stand off. They had the displays off going into each theatre and it also appeared that they were not running any of the normal presentations that roll as one is waiting for the show start time.

More impressive was how dark the town was. Most homes seemed to be quite dark with just the odd one having one light turned on. When I called my mother to see if they were abiding by the no lights I was unsurprised to hear the answer. They had for a little while had all the lights out with just a candle going, then drink got split, someone stubbed their foot on a chair, and....well the lights came back on. Again...at least they tried.

I haven't been able to find great results yet of last night's event but I'm sure more and more stats will become available in the next few days.

EARTH HOUR - MARCH 29, 8:00PM (the year - every year from now on)

Google.ca actually made me laugh today. Yes the Canadian Version. Have you seen their homepage today?

By now I hope you and your families, business, organizations have found a way to participate in tonight's global energy saving venture. Everyone around the world has been asked to turn their lights off for one hour. That's it, just your lights. Now imagine everyone in the world doing the same thing, for one hour, at 8:00pm their time. The amount of energy we are all going to be saving will be astounding.

So get out the candles and the boardgames, find someone to snuggle with, tell some stories, have a campfire, go for a walk, have a nap, sing a song. All it takes is one hour of your time to help save a little energy, the environment, our world.

Another way to edit and share photos

A friend of mine shared this editing site with me today, and "looky-here" it's from Adobe. Adobe Photoshop Express allows the user to upload, edit, and share photos.

The Adobe Photoshop Express beta site has the basic tools that you will find on other sites, but also with some cool tools for editing such as pop colour, hue, tint, sketch, and distort. Here are some samples a photo using these tools:


Original:

Pop Colour Sketch Distort

Here's also a sample of the sharing aspect of the site. The one thing I'm not sure I do like is that once you share photos they are up for puclic display. This may not be something for everyone, however there are some great pictures on the site to scan through.

Is Your Blog Your Own?

Yesterday I was approached by someone who was interested in increasing their writing portfolio and offered to write posts for my blog. They would stay true to "good, useful posts/articles on education/college/online education etc." but would like to make sure they had a by-line and a link to their web page.

I found this idea interesting and intriguing, but also a little invasive. It's my blog after all. So turning to Brent Schlenker, I ask for his opinion and advice (once again). He too thought he may have been approached by the same person; or is it a coincidence we got the same email from 2 different people. Brent suggested that, "if your blog is a brand and you are serving a group of readers then it might be a good thing. In this case, any time you can add value to your brand, whether its your content or not, its a good thing."

I'm still unsure how I feel about this co-authoring. I'm not sure I'm at the point yet to open my blog in this way. I'm not sure that I my blog has a "brand", but that's a great thing to think about and strive towards.

I'm curious as to what other think about this idea. Is your blog your own? Is it only to capture your learning experiences and items you find to be interesting? Or is it something more? Was your blog once yours and now serves a much larger audience?

2008 Annual Gathering 3 Weeks Away

Need I say more.....hope to see some of you there.

LMS Implentation Tips

It's a great feeling that after blogging for almost a year now, that I'm being requested to answer questions and give my opinion on various topics. I certainly am no expert in anything, but it is great to pass on experiences and opinions to others, as I have requested the same from many new colleagues I have met through blogging.

I had someone ask me yesterday about my LMS implantation and could I recommend anything after going through the "ordeal" (oh yes, people warned me, but would I listen...)

Some key primary things I wish I had known then:

• you want a very robust system to create content - interactive content
• content can be created and imported by a wide variety of tools (video, audio, PPT, Doc, xls, pdf, swf, basically anything you can think of and more)
• you want a very robust quiz/testing feature (multiple choice, yes/no, essay, matching games, etc, basically anything you can think of and more)
• reporting structure needs to be flexible so you can get the reports you want, but also have many already included, (by student, by course, by instructor, by date, etc)
• be able to import courses that are pre-purchased
• ability to import courses your self (not by the vendor - costs incurred each time)
• user friendly interface for instructors, administrators, and more importantly the students (staff)
• ability to easily interact with your staff database so that students can be created/updated/maintained easily
• easy ability to modify and change the system to suit your organization's needs (internally or by vendor)

My partner-in-crime here at work, Matt - in charge of the intranet side of this project, reminded me today of "How Projects Really Work". Make sure you take a look at this as most projects feel like this and true to form this currently represents our LMS implementation. Matt and I are determined to make it work, but we also would love to start over knowing what we know now. (I'm currently putting in a requisition for 2 super-hero capes....we'll need and deserve them by the end of it all).

Other posts from my LMS Journey:

Friday, September 7, 2007 LMS - I don't want to be Little Miss Should've
Monday, September 24, 2007 LMS Project....A Little More Progress
Tuesday, October 2, 2007 Creating a Nav Model with Mindomo - LMS Project continues
Thursday, October 4, 2007 Is your HR tracking prepared to take on your new LMS?
Tuesday, December 11, 2007 LMS Training Finally Here
Thursday, January 3, 2008 LMS - lingers on but isn't getting launched as hoped
Tuesday, January 22, 2008 Too many job roles is hindering the LMS launch
Friday, February 8, 2008 Looking for Types of Reports to Get From an LMS
Sunday, March 9, 2008 LMS still not up and going - but I have do have a new question?

Looking for a visual to explain parallel universes?

Well look no further it's very simple to comprehend. You only need to look at Super Mario to understand the complexities of it all.

John Pavlus created a wonderful video that visually displays what the idea of a multiverse looks like and how within we may interact with other objects. Abby Seiff explains further in her post for Popsci.com - "the 134 overlaid (Mario) playthroughs represent the manifold possibilities Mario encounters as he progresses through his world."

Just don't get sucked into watching the game play more than the accompanying explanation.

Help Needed for Naming a Link

We are embarking on pushing out a new intranet in a few weeks and hopefully the LMS will fall into place sometime shortly after.

I need some help for a link on the intranet that encompasses information for:

• classes are called all sorts of things (courses, workshops, sessions, classes, programs)
• are clinical (nursing, rehab, respiratory, etc.)
• are general (team building, management training, computer training)
• AND the link will have a place to login for the LMS (elearning, tracking courses, registering for courses, etc)

Education Programs & Services has been turned down as Programs and Services is what we call our general department areas.

Education Information - doesn't really capture the LMS portion to be housed here

Any ideas or advice on what to call this link? Any help is appreciated.

Elearning Design Course by William Horton Consulting Inc.

For the last 2 weeks (4 hours x 6 days) I participated in an elearning design course presented by Bill and Kit Horton from William Horton Consulting Inc. This was a great class and well worth the time. So many great tips and practical solutions were presented through the entire session. Many of examples can be found on their website.

The class was filled with people around Canada, the USA and a few other countries and I was able to learn a little bit from each of my fellow students. The way the Horton's presented the information was also a great learning experience as to some best practices for synchronous learning. There was a fine balance between lecture, interaction, discussion, homework, and take away job aids.

I was very impressed by the entire experience, but had expected nothing less as I had participated in a session that Kit taught through the eLearning Guild last year on how to get the most of out PowerPoint. I still use the tips and tricks she presented there every day. I highly recommend sitting in on any course you can from the Horton's as they consistently have presented me with sound advice, tools, tips, techniques, job aids, and numerous examples. Best of all their courses are not filled with any extra "fluff" just to fill time.

Great job Bill and Kit - Thank You.

I'm bringing Earth Hour and Pangea Day to my work

I spoke to our Corporate Communications department today about the upcoming Earth Hour (March 29) and Pangea Day (May 10). My colleagues there we excited to hear about the events and also thrilled to think about how our organization could participate as part of the global community.

These two events will be a great way for our hospital and other organizations to show to our local communities that we too care greatly about this world. With a younger and younger work force more in tuned to the environment and events globally surrounding us, it will also be a wonderful way to connect particularly with these staff. I'm excited that they immediately embraced the idea.

It will be challenging to participate as I did mention we are a health care facility, but we have decided we will find a method to at least dim as many lights as possible on March 29. Pangea Day we are hoping to host in our Lecture Hall on site. Potentially 200 community members could come together on our site to watch the days events.

Have you or your organization decided to participate in these events? Did you know Canada is currently leading the way with number of participants registered?

"Last year, WWF’s Earth Hour made its debut in Sydney and it was a huge success. More than 2 million individuals and businesses participated resulting in a 10 per cent reduction on the electrical grid, saving 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide." - http://www.wwf.ca/

Earth Hour


Pangea Day

LMS still not up and going - but I have do have a new question?

Well since my previous posts (Feb. 8, Jan. 22, etc.) until now, about our new LMS, nothing astounding has happened. In fact nothing at all has happened. The only step forward I can speak of is that someone has finally realized that the organization's method for tracking reporting stinks. We have a system that only can tell you who get's paid by whom. No where can you find out who supervises who and that is the way staff think of themselves. Luckily I have a semi-friend in IT who is taking on this task of figuring out a way to truely capture our structure. Leave it to the young folks.

Hopefully that will at least get my "student" list for the LMS for manageable and understandable for those that are going to be using it to track their staffs' learning.

The company that we got the LMS from is gun-ho to get a pilot training session up and running. I'm not comfortable with the admin side of the system. Nor am I comfortable with the student/teaching side of the system. I don't think it's true a good product yet and needs some tweaks and fixes before I would want to even think of a pilot. I'm pretty sure that my learners will think it's fine, but that is only because they aren't as familiar with e-learning. They'll be happy with anything.

Here is my question though... Do I just deal with it and go with something I professionally feel is substandard to get it going at least? Or do I stick to my guns and hold out until I feel it at least is in a presentable format and easily understandable and easy to navigate as a learner.

Sharing Presentations/Pictures/Learning Online with SlideShare

I came across SlideShare through a post by Cathy Moore. Cathy's "5 ways to make linear navigation more interesting" is not only a great post beacuse of the information she shared, but in the way she shared it. She didn't just type text into the post, she used SlideShare to share with everyone a great little presentation she created about linear navigation.

It was a great elearning experience in that I knew exactly by the end of the reading what she was trying to explain. Navigating through the presentation using the same concepts she was describing clearly illustrating the point she was explaining as I read.

From there I began to explore other great slide shows including the one she references as another great example, by Janet Clarey, of making linear navigation more interesting - "Meet Charlene". It too demonstrated a presentation that I wanted to click through to learn more about the topic. In the end I was happy to see that this presentation showed exactly how I was feeling in my home vs. work experience in relation to web 2.0 applications. I'll need to share this with my boss and training network.

Great job Cathy and Janet.

A Reading List of Instructional Designers

I wanted to point out this article from Cammy Bean's post. She added to her blog mid-February a wonderful collection of "Essential Reading for Instructional Designers".

I'm going to capture her post here in it's entirety for my own future reference and book list of things to read.

Thanks for this Cammy.

Essential Reading for Instructional Design?
from Learning Visions by Cammy Bean

As an instructional designer/eLearning professional, what books are the essential tools in your reference library?I'm not looking for the obtuse theory books. I prefer the get-down-and-dirty variety.These are my current faves. Easy-readers (a term of praise, in this case). Practical books with lots of real examples. They might refer to theory, but they don't get bogged down in it:

• e-Learning and the Science of Instruction by Ruth Clark and Richard Mayer
• Michael Allen's Guide to E-Learning by Michael Allen
• Gadgets, Games & Gizmos for Learning by Karl Kapp
  

Last May, I started a bit of a list in this post: Beginning Instructional Designer's Toolkit. Dr. John Curry was kind enough to post a really detailed reading list in his post How to Get an Instructional Design Education Without Paying Tuition (gotta love that title!)

After my appeal for something a little more pared down that I might actually be able to read, Dr. John came up with these essentials:

• The Conditions of Learning and Theory of Instruction, by Robert Gagné
• Training Complex Cognitive Skills, by Jeroen J.G. van Merriënboer [currently unavailable on Amazon]
• The First Principles of Instruction, by M. David Merrill [I couldn't find that listing on Amazon, but there are a number of results for M. David Merrill]
• The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald Norman
  

Other ID books of note that have been recently recommended to me:

• e-Learning by Design by William Horton (recommended by Christy Tucker)
• What Every Manager Should Know About Training by Robert Mager (recommended by Dave Ferguson)
• The Non-Designers Design Book by Robin Williams (not the comedian) (this was recently recommended to me by someone who asked the same question on LinkedIn.

TED2008 Quotes - Great Quotes from this Year's Speakers

I just love the whole TED concept. I imagine being there, in person, to hear so many great thinkers (and "unreasonable people" see below) with unbound imaginations would alter anyone's own personal thinking, imagination, and reason. The possibilities truly do seem endless when you listen to many of the talks. I end up thinking a lot...how could I build on that. If you've even just looked at the topics that are available to watch on the TED site they you know it's like the Discovery Channel and National Geographic wrapped into one great package and then shot with steroids. Okay, maybe that's just me, but I am just in awe of the ideas that flow out of this place.

The TED blog has summarized some fabulous quotes from each day of this year's event. You can certainly see them on their blog, but I'm going to capture them here as well for my own records.

Day 1

"Who are we? We're just an upright, walking, big-brained, super-intelligent ape. " - Paleontologist Louise Leakey

"The first thing we do when we're born is we breathe in, and we cry. And the last thing we do when we die is we breathe out, and other people cry." - Spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, before leading an exercise in breathing and meditation

"Western science is a major response to minor needs." - Wade Davis quoting Mattheiu Ricard

"Why do I believe that it is transformative? It enables you to experience the universe. You can tour it, with astronomers as your guides. It will enable a new generation of stories and storytellers." - Astronomer Roy Gould, while previewing Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope

"I think it is quite likely that we are the only intelligent civilization within several hundred light years" - Stephen Hawking

"I'm not blaming anyone. This is just who we are right now". - Photographer Chris Jordan, whose large-format works illustrate statistics of modern life, like the 40 million paper cups used by Americans every day

“You go in as an individual, but emerge as a community which reaffirms its sense of place on the planet.” - Wade Davis, describing a traditional run through the Peruvian mountains, taking in peaks of 11,000 and 15,000 feet in 36 hours

"It's as if my consciousness had shifted away. I could no longer define the boundaries of my body. Then I realize: I'm having a stroke. And my left hemisphere tells me: Wow, this is so cool; how many brain scientists have the chance to study that from the inside?" — Jill Taylor

"Before the Web, there was just one guy running around saying 'I KNOW!'" - Robin Williams, ad-libbing, after taking the stage during a technical problem in the BBC World Debate

Day 2

"There have been bangs in the past. There will be bangs in the future. We may live in an endless universe." - Physicist and TED Prize winner Neil Turok

“I have the modest goals of replacing the whole petrochemical industry." - Craig Venter, on his work creating synthetic lifeforms to generate alternative energy sources

"The line between good and evil is movable and it's permeable." - Psychologist Philip Zimbardo

“They’ve lowered the transaction cost of stopping genocide.” - Samantha Power on 1-900-GENOCIDE

“Chris Anderson is a computer-fabricated artifact.” - Paul Rothemund, joking about his work manipulating DNA, as if it were a computer program

"A lot of religious people prefer to be right, rather than compassionate." - Religion scholar and TED prize winner Karen Armstrong

“ 'Temes' [technology-enhanced memes] don’t care about us - they simply want to create more of themselves. Don’t think we created the internet for our own benefit - think about temes spreading for themselves because they must.” - Susan Blackmore

“Beauty and truth do not reside in the object themseles, but rather in the nature of the exchange between the object and the viewer,” -Thomas Krens

“Whoa dude, nice equations!” - Garrett Lisi, the "surfer dude" physicist, introducing his talk by displaying an enormously complex equation on screen. He went on to explain his controversial "theory of everything" without using equations

Day 3

“Imagine Martin Luther King saying, ‘I have a dream ... But I don’t know if the others will buy it.’” - Boston Philharmonic conductor Ben Zander, on the importance of persuasive leadership

"Human progress depends on unreasonable people. Reasonable people accept the world as they meet it; unreasonable people persist in trying to change it. Well, I’m Bob and I’m an unreasonable person. And if TED is anything, it is the olympics of unreasonable people." - Musician and activist Bob Geldof (above)

“Why are we ignoring the oceans? Why does NASA spend in one year what NOAA will spend in 1600 years? Why are we looking up? Why are we afraid of the ocean?” - Ocean explorer Robert Ballard

"I think it's the dopamine." - Anthropologist Helen Fisher, explaining to Chris Anderson why she's still optimistic about love, despite understanding its chemical and biological basis

"Relative to the universe, it's just up the road." - Physicist Brian Cox, after referring to Chicago as 'just up the road' from Monterey, CA

“If you think half of America votes badly because they are stupid or religious, you are trapped in a matrix ... Take the red pill, learn some moral psychology and step outside the moral matrix.” - Jonathan Haidt, author of The Happiness Hypothesis

“If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between 'for' and 'against' is the mind’s worst disease.” - Jonathan Haidt, quoting Sent-ts’an, from 700CE China

"The job of the C is to make the B sad." - Boston Philharmonic conductor Ben Zander, deconstructing a piece by Chopin

“How do we give credible hope to the billion poorest people in the world? It requires compassion to get ourselves started, and enlightened self-interest to get serious... If economic divergence continues, combined with global integration, it will build a nightmare for our children.” - Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion

“In order to solve the climate crisis, we need to solve the democracy crisis.” - Al Gore, urging citizen involvement not only on a personal level, but also on a political level

“How dare we be pessimistic? Maybe the future is better than it used to be.” - Peter Schwartz, co-founder of the Global Business Network

“It's important to leave the security of who we are, and go to the place of who we are becoming. I encourage you to let yourself out of any prison you might find yourself in. Because we have to do something now. We have to change now.” - Environmental advocate John Francis (below), who went 17 years without speaking

New colour scheme

It's not that I don't like the snow and the cold doesn't bother me that much, but frankly the dreary grey skies day in and day out are just getting me down. Time to start thinking of something a little warmer. Now I do realize I went a little extreme and used some of my tropical trip pictures, but just after having taken these my computer crashed. I now have neatly stored away my thousands of photos on a hard drive that I can't seem to access. Yet another reminder to everyone.....back up your stuff!!!! My brother-in-law is convinced we can get them off the hard drive, however now that we have each upgraded our computers we are monstering up a mix mash of older components we have had lying around to create something that will "talk" to every so old (3 years) hard drive.

So lessons learned....
1) back up frequently or upload photos/docs to one of the many free web apps out there
2) photos stored on separate hard drives are not necessarily safe
3)always keep every piece of computer hardware you have ever own, never know when you'll need a cable or screw (no dear it's not junk, I might need it one day)
4) ensure your sister or brother marries an IT person (it's always handy to have an IT, a mechanic, a plumber, a carpenter, and someone with some money in the family)

Here's to hoping the sun returns more regularly soon! Hope you're having a great winter.

Want to Explore the Universe?

This is an exciting project that will become available later this spring. The World Wide Telescope. Using Microsoft's Visual Experience Engine "the WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a rich visualization environment that functions as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground and space telescopes in the world for a seamless, guided exploration of the universe."

For a wonderful demonstration and some further explanation take a look at Dr. Roy Gould's talk at this year's TED talk.

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?

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.