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?