Well I haven't been here in a while. (LMS, Intranet, New House, Oh my)

So much is going on right now I haven't been around here in quite some time. Work has me so frazzled that my moment, today I think will have to be a bit of a rant.

The small team I've been working on has been madly trying to find all the bugs, kinks and errors that are ever present in our new intranet and document management system. Of course just as we think we've identified one problem and sent it to the vendor to fix, we find another. We're really close though and have married ourselves to going live June 3rd. Matt, Sandra and I have our fingers very tightly crossed and a bottle of vodka near by just in case of an emergency.

I've been going crazy trying to populate not only my department's pages for the intranet, but also all the material for the education section. One day the education section will be the LMS, but until I get that sorted out I've been forced to put every education event I could get my hands on in as an individual page. I sent out a mass email to the organization asking them to fill out a spread sheet with information on the courses/training they provide. I want the intranet to be a one-stop shop for finding all education opportunities the hospital offers. However, I guess the spread sheet (driven directly from fields in the LMS) was too complicated. Go Figure!

I then set a second mass email telling staff to send me the flyers they've already created for training events. What do you know....a better response. So my education catalogue slightly resembles something that a staff member may search through to find a training event. I think it will take them a great deal of time to search through, but at least it is a start.

As for the LMS. Where do I start!?! I've had a meeting with the company that they want to start planning exactly how we are going to roll out the product, populate it with data, etc. etc. That was suppose to be last week. The intranet, not yet being live, has set me back a bit again with even starting the project. My supervisor flip-flops each day in support of ditching the LMS and finding another (my preferred choice, but now feel every choice is doomed).

I've started yet another college course. Back to the beginning of a certificate. I'm hoping this school doesn't drop the certificate before I finish as did the last institution.

Finally, life has been wonderful in giving me a new house in 10 more sleeps. It's about 20 minutes from where I currently live, but it's one of those "if you live in this town, you don't want to move to that town, it's not nearly as good" situations. I've been jaded since a teenager and need to get rid of the bias of the new town. Funny how these thoughts get implanted into us when we are young.

I'm sure there's much more since the last time I wrote however, all of this has kept me from writing here as I should and from sleeping at night.

My First Second Life Education Experience

I've been experimenting more and more with Second Life and now have my character looking more and more like a real person and less like the initial choices offered to first time users. I'm hooked on this silly thing. I explore all over the place and just this weekend was riding and Orca Whale, Parachuting, and Surfing. Wow I'm so virtually exciting.

I've been searching around for something educational to do though and hadn't yet found anything that really piqued my interest or was like a virtual classroom/discussion. That was where I had set my sights to start. Well today I finally found something.

I'm currently sitting in with NASA leadership, astronauts, scientists, and engineers along with local business, technology and academic leaders and local, state and federal officials discuss the role of space exploration in advancing science, engineering, technology, education and the economy that benefits your community and the nation. Sounds pretty cool.

(If you can see me, I'm in the second row of chairs to the left of centre, behind the guy with the red shirt. I'm the one with blue hair.)

Well it turned out it wasn't a presentation or lecture, but was an open forum. I can't say I understood or could follow all the lines of thinking that we going on as the discussion continued in just text form. Each person who wanted to join in the discussion would just type freely and their thoughts would display in the "chat" area.

It was certainly a neat place to start off to see the some of the potentials of learning in this manner. It was certainly an extremely more interesting and attending keeping method of group discussion than many of the chart rooms and discussion boards I've had to participate in for online college classes.

I shall continue my quest to find a "conference" kind of learning event.

We're Sticking With the LMS....So What Now?

I know a few have been following my LMS journey regarding trying to get it up and running and functioning. Last week I put a call out looking for any help I could in figuring out exactly what pieces I need to look for in an LMS as I wasn't sure mine has what I need. (Thanks again to all who helped).

Well, after a meeting on Monday (which I lost much sleep over) we've decided to continue down the current LMS road. I was really hoping to go with another system, but working in an Ontario Hospital we are limited, as most would be, to a certain amount of funding. If we decide to choose a different product 1) we'd have to find the funds somewhere in the budget [good luck], 2) we'd have to start the whole RFP process all over again [must follow politics], 3) it would take months to accomplish.

So, the vendor came in on Monday and demonstrated version 4 of the LMS....nice I've only been able to see version 1. There are some nice tweaks to the system, however there some significant reporting options that still need to be implemented. I'm happy that they are willing to run with any suggestions I put forward.

I think I've come to a comfortable place (or a delusional place - depends on your perspective) where I'm ready to push forward and make it work one way or another. At the least we have a fairly robust system, considering it's price, that the vendor is willing to work with us to make even better. The system may or may not meet our needs after a few years, but at least we have something that we can utilize, get our staff comfortable with the idea of an LMS, and see how well it is adopted by all before we go to something more expensive. It may actually work out to be the perfect solution and we never have to go to something else. (Wow did I just look at the cup half full????? That's a first).

I Love My Blog Community

I just wanted to give a thanks out to everyone who contacted me an offered their help over the last day. I was fortunate enough to get responses from a few people I have "worked" with in the past. Even more so, I was greatly surprised to have so many new people contact me and offer their expertise.

I love my blog and all that it has given me over the past year. It's amazing how sharing a little knowledge with others builds such a great virtual community and support network among peers.

If you haven't yet begun your own blog, I really suggest you start giving it a try.

Thanks very much to B.J., Christy, Mike, Ena, John, Terry.

LMS Assistance Needed if You Can Spare Some Time

I have these 2 checklists that were given to me of certain aspects to look for in an LMS. There is a column for required, optional, not required. I'm pretty sure I can go through the list and figure out what I truly need and what I can live without, but as peers that have actually lived with and worked with LMS's I was hoping you could take a look through the lists and perhaps give me hand as to what you think should/could/doesn't need to be there in order for me to really have it function. This way I will know much more soundly if I am on track requesting the pieces I think I should have.

Our background is:

• 2500 staff - growing to 2600 probably in 2-3 years
• 10-15 different job types (nurses, admin, physiotherapists, pharmacists, cleaners, etc) - actually captured as 700 difffernt roles within the hospital
• 15 Nurse Educators (probably will manage the LMS for thier staff) - eventual SMEs80
• Mangers (doing the same for staff)
• 1 Admin (me)
• Primary focus is for tracking enrollment, certifications, recertifications, what they are taking classroom, online, external (colleges)
• Online courses will be a secondary phase and we may create internally, maybe outsource courses

If you have anytime to take a look at the checklists I would greatly appreciate the help as there is not really anyone here I can turn to for assistance. Ideally I need them back by the end of tomorrow (Wednesday, May 7th) - any time tomorrow though. I have a meeting with my manager on Thursday. But even before Monday, May 12th would be appreciated as well.

I'm truly sorry to ask as I'm sure everyone has a ton of work on your plates already...doesn't everyone. However, I greatly appreciate anything you can do for me. If you can help please contact me and I will forward the checklists to you.

Sharing web tools with colleagues

I'm doing another short presentation to a network group I belong whose members are primarily in training and development. This group, however, does not have a large knowledge base of many of the web 2.o tools that are out there or some of the ways in which they can be used within organizations for simple collaboration and sharing of ideas.

I'm going to reintroduce them to wikis and blogs and I have discussed these before with them. I am also going to show a few mind mapping tools, social booking marking, and a few survey tools.

I've tried using each of these in various ways, attempting to get my supervisor and other management team members more intrigued by the value that they can bring to the organization. For the most part they are receptive at first, but then do not continue to utilize the tools. Unfortunately this is huge, if not the largest means by which these tools succeed. Web 2.0 tools appear to work the best when people use them and expand the "knowledge" that is with in the tool. This can be files, photos, music, data, and more.

I'm going to show and example of a wiki being used to gather survey data prior to a management retreat. I just set up last week a wiki for sharing files for our retreats to the management team. These would include agendas, location maps, photos, evaluations, and any handouts for team retreats that we may not necessarily want the general staff to view. Finally, I'll be sharing the use of a wiki for collecting knowledge into a form similar to a database. I blogged earlier in the year about trying to find something similar to KBpublisher. Instead I used a wiki with a password (wik.is) to recreate the same database that the customer has set up on their website. I could add answers to group posted questions at any time and the advantage with the new knowledge database being a wiki was that all the users could continue to expand on the data that was stored.

I'm also going to show a blog being used as a newsletter. This is not a new concept for anyone in the blogging world, but may be for my audience. As well as just explaining how it is a great way to capture your own personal knowledge as you work through a project (ie: my LMS journey).

I'm going to show event planning using a mind mapping tool. One that I am fond of is mindomo.com. I'm not a fan of checklists but in creating a mind map of all the items that we needed for an event we hosted last month it didn't seem like such a challenge. My colleagues could also go in at any time and expand upon the items I had captures. I also created one of these late last year to capture new ideas for running our orientation sessions.

I'm going to touch on social book marking as I'm still new to all of it myself. I love being able to get my bookmarks from any computer in the world, but I am still learning more about sharing with others and collecting bookmarks from others. I'm really interested in getting our management team to use Diigo. Christy Tucker got me into using it and I really like the fact that you can create a group of users that can collect bookmarks together. I just need to get this project started at work.

Finally I am going to remind them of survey tools such as SurveyMonkey.com and Zoomerang.com. We use these quite frequently at work to gather data. Usually they are for facilitation evaluations, but occasionally the are used for more intense data collecting as well.

I'll be happy to share my slides on slideshare.net as soon as it is finished and presented this Friday. The slides are mostly just screen shots so that I don't have to rely on making sure I have a great internet connection at the presenting facility.

Where does the time go? Ever thought of tracking it?

I've convinced my Director that we need to dedicate some of my time to be more concentrated soley on the LMS implementation and development. Now that the big projects for the year have either happened or are well under way, my time now is a little more free for flexibility.

The question came up though, once we do decide how much time to dedicate, what do we take away to release some time. So I was asked, "What does my day consist of?" Ever try to answer a question like that when you have a job that would give most butterflies a nervous breakdown. My work day consists of 3 minutes on this task, 2 on this one, 10 on this one, 3 on this one....etc, etc, etc. I don't really remember ever in 8 years having a solid half day, let alone hour to work on something. It just never seems to be that way.

So today I found a simple online timer that I am using to track my tasks. I'm using Work Timer. It has the ability for me to create multiple projects and clock in and out for each of them. There is then an archive button that will record all the in's and out's for a day for the various projects. There is also a task's lists and Today's Projects functions as well. All items can have a cost per hour calculated for them as well.

Here's an example of a piece of my day:
Intranet maintenance -> 0:29:10
Helping with excel, -> 0:24:05
Misc Brenda help -> 0:14:09
Answering phone call -> 0:06:44
AV Trouble Shooting -> 0:02:19
Answering Emails -> 0:02:01
Misc. Walk Ins -> 0:01:16

It's a neat tool for a very nasty task - the dreaded time tracking.

Understanding Generational Differences

I attended a session today on understanding our own generational biases and in turn being able to better relate to working and integrating with other generations. Here are some of the notes I took today.

There are often 5-6 different generations working in any given environment. By the time many of us (30s-40s years old) retire there will be 7 generations.

You can never change your generation, but understanding yours can help you to communicate with the others.

Boomers came to be 9mths after WW2, some say a year after.
- changed health care
- maternity wards needed to be created
- then school systems were changed to cope with the number of children
- universities were created when they were ready to go to grad school
- jobs were created when they were ready to work
- RRSPs are being restructured for when they want to retire
* everything has always been there for them waiting so they expect the world to unfold for them

1 person turns 60 every 7 seconds

Trailing boomers came after wards (got mostly nothing)

Gen X & Y as big as Boomers group

Gen I or Z as big if not bigger than Boomers

2 largest issues always in politics - health care and education
now environmental is eclipsing as top issue because of Gen X, Nexus

185,000 Centenarians in the world - most women
by 2020 there will be 2.2 million - 1/3 will be men - W.H.O stats

Soviet Union has a stat holiday called Conception Day to improve fertility rates - but we are only 7 months out from this initiative

Some see 20 somethings as cocky and arrogant, this is often because they have been a generation that is over praised by parents

Each generation thinks it is the best and knows more than the previous. They also assume the next generation will want to be just like them.

Deloitte is marketing for Gen I's using the new "txt language", ie: Dbriefs U - new tax course at university - making it fun and exciting,
-even marketing to younger generations by having pre-college outreach programs to grades 6 and 7

Most US research is say that Boombers are staying in the work force longer to pay for incurred health care costs or expected costs.

Canada's average age to retire 58-63.

People who use their bodies constantly more like 55-58.

Women are retiring in huge numbers and earlier then men. Many women Boomers are married to men 3 years older. As the man retires at 63, the women is retiring at 60.

Women tend to work longer because it took longer to get their careers started. They also often took 10 years off for raising children and now need to earn back pension money.

30 years and under we need to take great care of because they are the ones to replace our Boomers.

40s are over worked, over looked, ignored, stretched thin and disgruntle.
They continue to work because they were taught "hard work gets you ahead, don't get ahead, work harder, still don't get ahead, work longer".

Generations can be grouped together by those things that bond them, parenting styles, historic moments, pop culture, mass media, and technological advances.

50s+ think younger generations have not respect, not on time, argue, talk back
30s- think they get no respect, bosses don't think they have a life outside of work, think you need to earn your title every day, you don't get respect just because you have a title

US Canada Age
Traditionalists Traditionalists 60s
Boomers Boomers 50s
Trailing Boomers 40s
X Nexus, X 30s
Y, Millennials Y, Millennials, Net, Velos 20s
Z I 10 - late teens
? Wee under 10

X's are adaptive to change and have had to be. They have grown up with 50% their families ending in divorce. They saw that no work was gender specific (laundry, lawn cutting). They lived through co-parenting. Were often the Latch-Key kids. One consistent was always friends. They spent lots of time communicating with their friends by phone because they were latch-key kids (come home, use key, get dinner ready, have no friends over, wait for parent to come home). They are often more comfortable communicating by phone or email (not face to face). We then tried to through them into work environments full of team work and they have grown up more being alone then in groups.

Boomers often came home and then were sent out to play until dark came. They learned to negotiate with one another, life isn't fair, we settle our own differences, more self-sufficient.

Y - some times refer ed to as "why" because people stereotype that they ask this.
Feel they are all unique, all individuals, fast, adaptive, smart.
Velos - they grew up in classes with many different ethnicity in them and often take the best word from many different languages to come up with the word that suits them best. This comes from Velocity.

Y, I, Wee are all working after school on skill development. After school programs (music, sports, etc), then dinner, then internet. We have told them to "use their words", "tell us how you feel", "don't hit". Can you imagine a Gen Y asking a Traditionalist CEO how they feel?

To understand the generations we need to understand:
-demographics (not the same N. America, S. America, to Europe)
-social, political (abundance vs scarcity)
-social and historical perspectives
-human development

(where you fit in a family of 5 siblings may determine where in a generation you feel you fall)

To understand adults we need to examine their childhoods, specifically at age 10 when our minds our at their pique.
-shared significant experiences
-parenting styles
-key messages
-cultural norms and behaviours
-trends and fads
-social values, structures
-roles, responsibilities

At 10 we:
-create filing systems for our thoughts and memories
-what you want to be develops
-more independent (wash, feed, dress your self, can have full conversations)

-important state for them to combing observations with abstract thoughts

Generation X will quit when not being treated fairly.
Generation Y will quite when friends, family, clients, vendors are not treated fairly. Often work in groups and if one quits they all will.

Phrases to Sum up:
in the.....
50s - save now, pay cash
60s - buy now, pay later
70s - spend cautiously, save for retirement
80s - buy now, pay much later, recycle, reduce, reuse
90s - spend fast, spend lots
2000s - first to see stress management introduced in schools (kindergarten deep breathing exercises), info overload, global knowledge, "war against everything" - don't' think this will have big impact though, will be more tolerant of difference (culturally)

Gen I - won't trust big companies, only buy local, eat local (ie: because of toxins in foreign goods, toys, etc.) Will be large germaphobes.

notes taken during a presentation by worklifeharmony.ca

Pangea Day is 14 Days Away

I'm really excited about Panega Day which is happening on May 10th. If you haven't heard of it yet...

"Starting at 18:00 GMT on May 10, 2008, locations in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro will be linked for a live program of powerful films, live music, and visionary speakers. The entire program will be broadcast
– in seven languages – to millions of people worldwide through the internet, television, and mobile phones.

The 24 short films to be featured have been selected from an international competition that generated more than 2,500 submissions from over one hundred countries. The films were chosen based on their ability to inspire, transform, and allow us see the world through another person's eyes. Details on the Pangea Day films can be viewed here.

The program will also include a number of exceptional speakers and musical performers. Queen Noor of Jordan, CNN's Christiane Amanpour, musician/activist Bob Geldof, and Iranian rock phenom Hypernova are among those taking part."

Just as an update the Event Guide is now located here. I also received a link today to get a free t-shirt (+shipping) from this site. Tickets for various live events Rwanda, Brazil, India, Egypt, LA) can be found by clicking each of the links.

I signed up to host an event, however, unfortunately I don't believe I'm going to be able to pull it off. My brother is having his 30th birthday the same day. He has cerebral palsy and would not understand if I did not come to his birthday party because a world event that I also don't want to miss. However, because it means the world to him; it means the world to me. He's also been counting down the days to his birthday since December 26th - he was a little pre-occupied up until the 25th and I bet you can guess why.

At the least if I still can not find a way to attend both, I will wear my shirt proudly (I hope I get it in time) and I will advertise out to my organization to watch it on their internet, tvs, mobiles. Where ever and how ever they can. I really hope you will too.

Have you searched Simple Spark today?

I'm not sure how often you may have looked through this catalogue of web applications, but I think that about once a month I'm looking for something new for one project or another. Simple Spark has updated their look and features in what appears to be a great new format.

They offer over 8500 different applications that are themed by Date, Category, Subcategory, Devices and Icons. A neat feature I think is the ability to organize your favourite apps into groups as well. I've found a few I've like and then struggled to find them again (if I didn't' think to blog them). Drop by and look at some of the other new updates they have added.

Second Try at Second Life

So I was convinced by my friend Angela and by a presentation that I went to by Alan Levine ("I'm busy enough...What do I need Second Life for?") that I should maybe give this Second Life thing a second chance.

I found it hysterical that Angela and Alan had both said that they love to dance in SL. Alan describe that just creating your avatar can take hours to prefect if you really want to test it all out. Creating an object like a coffee cup can apparently take just as long. A good real life reference to this is that I couldn't just go into my kitchen and make a mug. It would take me hours as well to get the clay and mold it and fire it, glaze it, etc., etc. So why would we expect it to take minutes in SL.

One of the issues I had mentioned to Angela and in a previous post was my propensity to get motion sick when game screen spin around a lot. After the presentation and the fun notion of dancing when no one is looking or when I don't have that half-a-drink too many in me, made it all sound a little more intriguing. So I've given it another try and I hope to Angela's much happiness I capture myself dancing. I have no idea where I (Sessifet Fittinger) am, but I figured out how to do it.



I'm not completely happy yet with my appearance, but it's getting there, and no it's not the pink hair I'm unhappy about. It's the silly flip-flops.

I am hoping to walk around more and explore some of the more intriguing learning aspects that Second Life has to offer. However, for my first trip of Orientation Island I'm happy to wander and dance.

One year later and I'm at 275 posts...oh this makes it 276

I was really hoping that by the end of the AG08 I would be at 275 posts and this I achieved. I started blogging when I returned from last year's conference (my first) and since then I've tried to keep most of my posts about elearning. Occasionally I throw in some items that are just interesting to me that I've read about or learned.

I tried to make a "cloud" for what I've posted about over the last year, but the various ones I tried were really messy. So, tip for me to learn from and try for in the next year - be more concise in my tagging. I'm at the airport, passing time, and my battery is about to die so I'll leave this as my last post of year 1.

AGO8 - Wrap UP (Wow Moments, and more)

My Moments
- edit videos into chunks, make interactive with questions (for classroom, but like an elearning course)
- check out udutu, BJs LMS , PLEs, VLEs
- get over SL motion sickness, learn to dance, learn to fly with jet pack
- use QR codes some where at work and see if anyone know what they are

BJ's Moments
-Mlearning
-courses - not everything has to be a course
-scorm is heavy for everyone

Luis Moments
-many still not moving into elearning
-social networking concepts still hard

Angela's Moments
-Education sites in SL
-moving more into elearning

Learner Creation of Content - give points to learners to create more content that they can then use towards other things

Heidi tip
come in one day early to read an article, email a colleague, share some info with someone

2009 Elearing Gathering - back in Orlando March 10

Things I've Learned in My Life So Far - Stefan Sagmeister

Stefan's involvement - design for music, socially responsible design, corporate design, authors

Design for music:
Casa da Musica (sp?) - building is a logo itself, looking at it from various angles. Using software to capture the colour from any image they use these colours plotted on to one of the "various angle shots" and use these as logos for the music, the corp, the president, etc. From Chopin concerts to clubing events to parking garage designs.

Socially responsible design
A group wanting to cut defence budget to education budget. Group is run by corporate presidents.
-inflatable bar charts
-commercial TrueMajortiy.org - pen is mightier than the sword
- cars looking like piggy banks - largest one is the military budget, smallest trailer being towed is education, cost the same as one page add in paper
-"topsy-turvy" bus, similar to the budget
-blimp shopping - still in the works

Corporate design
-heated molded cover that allowed them to show the "power of light" - shot under various lighting conditions


Things I've learned so far.....
- a different quality to ideas that you explore with no pressure
- this must apply to many different roles where creativity exists and needs to exist
(9-3 is client work - the rest is experimental work [ie: google])

- realization that all that a design studio does is about promoting and developing, but that ratio is not right

- clients were willing to allow them to "just be creative", some sense of unlimited freedom. Given the task to design anything for a 6 page spread in magazine.

Designers can just solve a problem from more subjective views, but more and more is becoming boring.

Keeping a diary since he was 12, all of these statements he scribed and took out of it. Then used many of these to create powerful images, billboards, and videos that various places/industries have acquired that match the statements they need to express.

He shared these statements and accompanying images with us:

"Everything I do comes back to me" - other designers tool this and redesigned it as well for other functions.

- second task was a billboard that they could do anything with
"Trying to look good limits my life."

"Everybody thinks they are right." - magazine cover (dueling men peeing into the air to write these words....yes you read that right"

Bali - after the bombing in the night club where 200 people lost their lives, was more than that because most people lost their jobs as well because the tourism was completely stopped and gone. Their response was no retaliation, however all responsible for the act have been arrested.

"Helping other people helps me"

"Over time I get used to everything and start taking it for granted."

"Complaining is silly. Either act or forget." - as billboard faded and there was nothing left, No more complaining.

"Worrying solves nothing"

"Everybody who is honest is interesting."

"Keeping a diary supports personal development"

"If I want to explore a new direction professionally it is helpful to try it out for myself first." - a year of discovery without clients

"Assuming is stifling"

"Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small doses"

"Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid I have to live now"

"Starting a charity is surprisingly easy"

"Being not truthful works against me" - spider web

"Low expectations are a good strategy" - Miami beach

"Money does not make me happy" - wrapped a casino linz with this,

"Self confidence produces fine results"

Website - Things I've Learned in my Life .com

"Having guts always works out for me." - I always have to talk my self into having the never to do stuff.

My Favourite Part of the AG08

Okay...go on....guess....

For a bunch of people immersed in doing everything and all online, digitally, and virtually the one thing I kept hearing over and over (and reading on blogs) was how great it was to meet face-to-face. This too was my favourite part of the whole experience.

The conference generates a billion ideas. Some to implement right away. Some that will take a while. Some that will never see the light of day. A few that will remain dreams for many of us to attain. It's amazing to wonder what the collective genius of the 700 (or so) participants will dream up and create within the next year.

However, as I said above, there is still something unique and special about connect with people one-on-one. It's different then reading their thoughts on blogs. I also find it solidifies and brings greater trust and meaning into the words you read from their posts.

I met a few new people this year, but more so connected with people I have been reading, following, and e-connecting. Some great people I suggest you too tap into for knowledge, guidance, and wisdom are B.J. Shone (eLearning Weekly), Gary Hegenbart (eLearning Development News), Angela White (A Nice Cup of Lizard), Melissa Chiaramonti (elearningguild-ru), and as always Brent Schlenker (Corporate eLearning Strategies and Development). As I said before, with 700 participants here I'd love to list them all, but these are these people I interacted with the most.

Brent's last presentation today started off interesting in that he "knew" everyone in the room (mostly virtually). He joked that he didn't need to do the presentation because we all already new about his topic. Funny thing is for as much as we all know; we continue to learn from one another even on topics in which we are quite skilled. This is the beauty of these conferences and the virtual networking that we do outside of the conference. We feed each other's knowledge continuously and thereby grow and develop our collective genius. How fun is that?!?

I'm here until the end of the conference, but wanted to take this time to thank all the people (Bob Wood, Sandra Sousa, Richard Wilkinson, and the other Bob [sorry I missed your card during the exchange]) that took the time to teach me more this year. It's been another invaluable experience. Hope to see you all again online and in the future at more conferences.

Scanning the Globe, Connecting your Digital World to the World Around You - Brent Schlenker

Using QR Codes, semacode, shotcode, colorcode

Will take off in North America more so once we have more apps & phones using them - but still waiting to learn applications for elearning. This is new, up & coming. There are many different types of codes and not one yet is the fore runner to what will come forward as the best or most useful one.

These codes are quite prevalent in Japan.

QR - Quick Respone Codes
cellphone uses the camera that is has built in. Any size. Centre within screen. The QR code may take you to a web site, send you a text message, many different things.

The QRcode holds much more information because it is 2D

Here is a QR code for my site:

Here is a data code (Nokia) for my site:

Scanlife - is a free download application or Kawya.

Something else in the cluster of tools that we can begin to utilize more and more often for elearning or for further information. (wine labels, food wrappers - contests, nutritional information)

Qrcode.org - standards on how to create, original intent was for shipping and handling in that they can be partially destroyed (on labels for example) yet the data will still come through as opposed to bar codes.

Also called 2d codes, QRcodes are one example of these standards.

Brent's 2d Barcode Manifesto

2d barcodes potential limited only by imagination
mobile devices will define the game
readers integrated into the device
free barcode generators
avoiding fragmentation: emergence of global de-fracto standards
avoiding patent wars
avoiding the "tragedy of anticommons" (too many out there becomes too much of a good thing)
Data Matrix & QR Code emerge as standars (so far..)
unleashing user-driven innovation
enabling 3rd party innovation

Sometimes you should be able to hold up a code to your webcam and scan the code as well.

Wanting eLearning to be more on the fore front of many of these technologies and this could possibly be one of these tools that we need to explore and start learning and developing.

These can greatly lower the barriers to gathering more information - (having to type urls on phones, small buttons, double pressing, everyone all ready has a phone - no need to buy more equipment)

Second Life - Alan Levine

hetemeel.com - Einstein image with any text on chalk board behind him

Presentation will be in slideshare


Virtual worlds - been around for a while, graphics better, virtual worlds are international, video better, computer better, critical mass of people now doing it more and more, more games, more collaboration

Habbo Hotel - Had 7.5 million active users in 2000, Second Life 500,000 in 2003

Many more now in based on tons of children products.

Federation of American Scientists are trying to learn, track, list features of these various virtual wolds

Gartner Groups - says by 2011 80 percent of active internet users will have a Second Life

Levine's Law
START WITH THE &*#& DEMO

Demo:
his org. built on a 64x64 land, a virtual class room. Query in SL do we build real life items or fantasy. Hold a class on a cloud.

You can walk around for hours in SL and not actual run into anyone.

People spend much time and money setting up their avatars. Important though in that it identifies you and what you like.

250 Lindens = 1 real dollar

Use your Lindens to buy real things. Creates a virtual economy as well. Those that can build well can sell their items.

3d shapes are primitive shapes. Apply graphics to these to make them look like other items. All building tools are within the world. Their are free class to learn how to build and scripts that you can apply to them so they become interactive when you interact with them.

10% of people tend to represent them selves as a different gender. Lots of non-human avatars are created. Appreciate it more by getting in, trying, and learning.

"Get a First Life" - parody on this

FoDS - Field of Dream Syndrome - building something nice doesn't' necessarily mean people will access it. It is more then just creating. You can have rich interactions/learning/social interactions without owning any land/items.

Where do people have the time to interact/do this?
Henry Jenkins - South By SouthWest Conference 2008
- what's wrong with America? Bright articulate people are going in creating this content. What can we do to harness the creative & talent energy that these people have. As we grow into greater knowledge collectives we need to grow and adapt to these more. You don't get a user's manual in SL, you need to go in learn on your own, get feedback from a community. They don't get this opportunity at work, but use work so that they can afford to be creative outside in their private lives.

The Skeptics
The Gamer - the graphics suck (okay, but not like new PS3 kind of games), there's nothing to do (no goals, no tasks, the things that happen in SL are because of what you find around to do)
The Fearful - there are strange things that happen in there, you need a good computer, a good internet connection, you need to learn how to walk, talk, dress. It took you 18 years to really become a person in real life, but want it to happen in 18 seconds online
The Boss - How do I make money? - not the place for every type of training, but maybe for simulations and virtual collaboration.
The Traditionalist - I can do that in a chat room? - need to find out more what their interests are

http://www.nmc.org/horizon - looking at 1-2 year horizon, 3-4 years, 5 an beyond (2006 report) Launched and exploration into SL. http://sl.nmc.org/2006/06/12/seriously-engaging-movie

http://sl.mmc.org/2006/07/04/third-time-charm (NASA - lift over, people in room you are now sharing the experience with, remembering old launches, learning from one another, being in a social environment with other people that share a similar interest)

NMC Campus Observer
- have hosted 4 conferences in the virtual world.

You can hire people to go out to design your islands/areas for your space that you wish to design. NMC Virtual Worlds creates these for others. Professional networks can go through this.

"Second Life for Dummies"

Behind every avatar is a real person. During a survey of educators - there is a real feel of embarrassment. People have real reactions to cartoon images of themselves.

couple thousand to invest in you own island. Some places will rent out their space to you.

It is a cartoon world, but in the same sense we react to what we seen within the SL in a very real way (ie: fear snakes).

There is a voice client within SL with no lag time or delay.

Landmarks act as book marks.

Do you need to go to specific places at specific times to get to educational opportunities out of it?
-currently yes, but is is growing and becoming more and more diverse each month.

Many activities are scheduled and are rescheduled to explore. It is all still relatively "Brand New".

Virtual Hallucinations - designed to give you the sense of what it is like to have a mental illness

How do you find out what events are happening and occuring? - Second Life.com has an events calendar.
in the eduation realm - secondlife educator listserv

ie: Daden.co.uk (shows real planes coming into LAX) NOAA
interactive weather maps
second earth - explore earth
Rumsey map collection

You can set up you islands to limit you can come in to your island. You can not really set them up to leave your islands.

Note - I still got motion sick watching the presentation (the spinning of the screen gets to me).

Moodle Goes Corporate: Leveraging Open Source - Michelle Moore

I do not use Moodle, but am interested in finding out more about it, especially with my LMS issues that are currently happening.

Scorm issue - udutu - what they builds works in moodle.

Ease of use, number of features, help community all makes Moodle an excellent tool. Current version 1.9.
Has a new gradebook, more functionality.

Is opensource - anyone can work on it (a developer who works on it), it is free, your developments are requested to be shared if they are not specific to your org., code is open for programmers, full flexibility, full power, development - volunteer work often, many are just passionate in continuing to develop and make it better (programming, documenting, suggestions, needs, etc).

-free redistribution
-access to source code
-allows modifications
-no discrimination
-no warranties

Disadvantages/Myths

• there's no support - their are partners around the world
• it's totally free - if you are going to implement it and implement it well you will need to pay for hosting, training, support, commitment to making it work, save on no licencing fees - but outsourcing support
• low band width - functions well (depends on file sizes, but developed out of Australia)
• not secure - depends on the module you use, security by design - lots of users are looking at it and keeping it updated
• poor documentation -
• no guarantees of continued development - you own what version you have. If it shuts down you don't lose what you have, the large community of developers will continue to build it
• no guarantees of quality - again based on the community

Advantages

• software free
• allows modifications
• community development
• community support - working with every other user helps you to connect with lots of people for help
• escape vendor lock-in
• development not dependent on marketing

Shopping for Open Source:
-reputation
-ongoing efforts, been around for a while (2001)
-standards, scorm others
-support (commercial/community)
-version (still changing)
-documentation
http://wwwoss-watc.ac.uk/resoruces/tips.xml

Used in 41,902 sites and 196 countries
420,000 community members

http://moodle.org/stas

moodle.com - commercial support
moodle.org - community support (people are very helpful, supportive, and kind)
download.moodle.org (latest version) - including laptop version

docs:
docs.moodle.org (wiki - including practical advice)
tracker.moodle.org (tracking bugs and feature requests - developers keep track of and fix
google manuals
moodle books - William Rice - 2008, Jason Cole 2007

docs.moodle.org/en/Case_for_Moodle /Top_10_Moodle_myths
300+ extra plugins out there

Features:

Explore - moodle19.remote-learner.net
click teach and trainer development
click exploring moodle modules

Tools (default)
text page template - single page
web page - uses html editor - single page (can use Dreamweaver and import in or copy in)
book module (multipage creator)
link to a file - any electronic file
link to a website - any url
display a directory - collection of files
SCORM - learning content packages

Communication tools (default)
(people learn best when they can interact - many tools built in for this)
chat - synchronous, transcription
forum - asynchronous (Suburu is using this for sales discussions) - not threads
blog - attached to profiles, but no comments
messaging - one-to-one across site (IM within framework of moodle) (can only attach multiple files by zipping them)
Can these items be turned on and off - yes is Blogs, messaging, chats (not forums). - on a course by course bases
email within courses - no but messaging yes, stays with site, not course specific. Only use their chat if the user is deleted from the site.

Assessment tools (default)
-assignments - learners submit work or files (1.7 version - multiple files)
- choice - multiple choice questions/poll
- survey - research-based; prepared questions (prepopulated with questions, very few use these) - there is a plug in see lower in post
- lesson - present and assess simultaneously (questions, flash cards)
- quiz - online quiz tool (most popular module, t/f, multiple choice, essay, short answer, calculated questions - nice stat knowledge on how students answered and if right), limits (not heard of yet, but not many test over 100 questions, yes will let you import from a variety of question banks)
(anywhere you have access to the html editor you can put in flash, video, etc)
-workshop - facilitates peer review (can be sent around and shared with other students) - perhaps useful for 360 evaluations

(supports single sign-on - Activity Directory, keep up-to-date? as long as a database gets set up this can be done - Jonathan look to for help)
Open University in UK 100,000+ users

-database - record collection tool
- glossary - dictionary, faq, encyclopedia - automatically linked to the word when it shows up within your course, - does not have to be soley teacher created - students can help develop as well (approval process by teacher can be turned on)
- wiki (ie: history of company)

***instruction tends to be more flat. Everything is laid out on the 1st page. You can hide an reveal items (ie: week by week - 1 intro, 2 - module one)

LMS or CMS or LCMS

can dump content in, can get tracking, can get reports (lcms - tags, authoring, etc)
Can you tag what you build in moodle? - no

Integration with Alfresco - you can tag and version control with it. One tool does not often do everything.

Customizing Moodle (from small to large this occurs)
-themes, language pack changes
-modules and plugins, integrations
-significant, individualized modifications

1.9 has a transcript feature - but moodle does not email out to the student it's time to take a course
learner centric and course centric

themes
demo.moodle.org (default)
communication.wcupa.net
speclass.org

moodle.org.mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=319
and
certificate
=614

integrations
Drupal.com
Alfresco.com

more on handouts from the eLearning Guild.

Open University
www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/home.lphp
www.excelhighschool.com

Michelle Moore - michelle@remote-learner.net

Future of the Internet - John Patrick

Here are some brief notes that I took during this keynote:

In theory there is one device that does everything, however more and more we are seeing a ton of devices that are each quite specialized, yet all connected to the internet.

Power of the Click
With this we determine what we want and when we want it.

As with ebay - there is not one click for this and that, but every aspect of selling items from one person to another, in turn they have created a large database of selling reputations.

Website is not for you! It's for the Customer! It must empower the student not the teacher. Internet should not be a tool for collecting data to market better to us.

There is never a downtime for internet now. People are relocated all over the world, yet using local sites.

Compliance should be implied, it is so easy to say no. Challenge what the security problems may be and an item, software, system is turned down. Shift the burden of proof to the compliance/security officer.

Killer application - email
However most emails to companies get unanswered. (you can't call many 1-800 numbers around the world)

Many great points about things that should be simple and obvious to the creators of internet sites that change their focus to that of serving the customer first and fore most.

Schools and libraries will change more and more. More children are being home schooled and the internet will be a large component of this learning. Libraries will grow in size for more space for collaboration of families and authors to meet readers.

Are we going to accommodate the internet or give more and more choice to customers and in turn empower all of those people that we deal with daily.

Bubble 2001-2002 (people lost jobs, investments) - not an internet bubble and had not much to do with it. People got carried away with the thought that investments were profits. People were using internet ideas to solve problems that didn't truly exist.

7 characteristics of opportunities in front of us:

fast

• major carriers are the largest threat to the internet, they don't really want the competition
• japan has yahoo broadband, 10x faster then US and less cost - no break through they just deregulated the components that support the internet
• BPL - broadband power line - gets electricity and internet through
• can the internet handle all this - yes, because it is highly distributed.
• torrents of bits - protocol for downloading huge files (games, movies, software)

always on

• dial is almost all gone, except in some remote areas
• IP everything , all connect to the internet (many appliances)
• WiFi vs WiMax - deliver broadband into a community and then wirelessly deliver to homes. - It would be nice to be connected to internet no matter where you are, that wireless connections exist everywhere. Operators of internet areas (ie: Verizon) do not want this. They want to limit this to protect themselves.
• US ranked 14th in how much broadband is available
• France now is partnering with power companies to ensure everyone has wireless
• *cantenna, largest distance to get WIFI 75 miles (in desert)

everywhere

• where is the internet anyway? PC is synonymous with internet, but the internet should be where ever we are (iPhone, PDA, mobile, etc)
• Opera (Norway) - make browsers for things. Best browser for mobile devices - free. Move the internet off the desktop and onto your "belt" (skyfire, android)
• iPhone has put down the gauntlet - but the technology they use is not proprietary
• cost to actually send data over the internet is pennies, but we are charged a great deal for "long distance"
• Voice 2.0 (1800free411, jingle networks, cellspinsoft, pcmobilizer, tuktumi, ribbit, maxroam, sms services)
• sms - not texting one another, but increasing business applications ie: every charge on you credit card goes through your mobile

natural

• social networking is not just social - business, jobs, networks
• facebook is no longer just gaming applications, but many business and learning applications
• How many profiles do we need all over the net? One profile that other applications access.
• Blogging/podcasting - still early in development, still growing - empowers people (here's what I learned today, here's what I want to share)
• gaming - key skills in elearning - knowing how to collaborate, communicate, get big jobs done with limited resources

easy

intelligent

• semantic web - a name means something, a location, a history. Clicking on one item gives you more information about it
• increasing tags

trust

• security - there are great tools out there, they do cost but they will help you feel more secure
• we don't need more laws - they don't work because of exceptions

We need to think outside in with the internet.

Think big, act bold, start simple, iterate fast

Build a framework for choice and services

Get a taste of net attitude: talk to kids

AG08 Dinner Gathering - Depts of 1

I created a dinner group for Depts of 1 last night which turned out to be quite a wonderful experience. I was able to meet and connect with 9 new individuals that I may not have met any other way. There was quite a wide variety of experience and knowledge at the table. Some were tackling the teaching of large groups, some smaller groups. Everyone was using different tools and lms's so it was really a great opportunity to hear what the pros and cons of so many different items in one setting.

Dinner was quite fun and jovial at Wolfgang Pucks although it took us several tries wandering around the restaurant to find where we were to be seated. However, we joked about turning it into a simulation....."Wrong, Try Again."

I highly recommend attending one of the dinner events or creating one of your own, posting it up and creating a new mini network. A big thanks to my new collection of colleagues.