A free service is being launched today for authoring RSS feeds by e-mail. We designed the service to help organizations divert to RSS the permission-based e-mails they are sending (or were before CAN-SPAM took effect) to subscribers, such as newsletters. Home-Based Entrepreneur
Saturday, January 24, 2004
This is why we do analysis BEFORE design."Analysis of the data revealed surprising differences in expectations between instructors of online courses and their students of what an orientation to online learning should include. " (From the abstract) -- BB Preparing for Distance Learning: Designing An Online Student Orientation Course - Jane Bozarth, Diane D. Chapman, Laura LaMonica; Ed Tech & Society. Abstract: This paper describes the analysis undertaken to design a 1-credit-hour online orientation course for students new to online learning. An instructional design team, as a part of an advanced instructional design course, worked with a university [Online Learning Update] 4:17:50 PM 
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Low Threshold Applications.This is risky territory, in my opinion. It's risky because: (1) Nobody is going to pay any attention to the recommendation that these uses be kept short, and (2) The idea panders to the mass indoctrination view of instruction and design. The attraction is understandable, but that doesn't make it a good solution. Why can't higher ed put some resources into developing Low Threshold Applications (simple to use, not much of a learning curve for instructors) that actually help people efficiently learn instead of merely perpetuating the notion that lecture is a good way to teach? Yes, I'm grumpy. Especially on this point. And yes, I'm working on an application (or a family of apps) that does this. -- BB Narrating PowerPoint Presentations. I'm a fan of Low Threshold Applications (LTAs) because most instructors don't have time to learn more complicated instructional tools. So many instructors use PowerPoint that it's a relatively easy step to assist them to add narration and put their narrated ppt presentations up on the web. As long as these presentations are done carefully and used selectively--and kept fairly short--they can be a useful part of online and hybrid courses. A few years ago we used RealPresenter at Eastern Oregon University for this job, but since RealNetworks has discontinued support of RealPresenter, we are now planning to switch to RoboPresenter/RoboDemo. This LTA reports on one person's explorations with narration tools. The tools can also be used to narrate tours of web pages, something that is extremely helpful when assisting students to use software and obtain information from web sources. We provide a link the the LTA Archive on our Faculty Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment web page (http://www.eou.edu/ctl . JH 4:07:39 PM
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Friday, January 23, 2004
The Learning Marketplace.This online book by Stephen Downes links a number of essays that have appeared on the web. The book is available for downloading as an MS Word file. Stephen's OLDaily is an important presence in the field of online learning; it's helpful to have a collection of his central ideas about learning objects. JH ____ 11:50:15 PM
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My Left Big Toe is a Learning Object.This is just for fun. I think. -- BB When ever a discussion turns to "defining learing objects" my attention span goes out the door. With more than 500,000 Google-hits (link above), it is not any more clear what a LO is. The "Learning Object Virtual Community Of Practice" bears the cheery acronym LOVCOP, but it has been a ghost town since summer 2003. The virtual tumbleweds are blowing down main street and the saloon is slient. But I have read some things recently where it seems that almost any multimedia lesson created, any web page, every single flash goober, seems to bear the hot label of a"learning object." Therefore, I proclaim that everything that exists is a learning object, including my left big toe, so we can drop the silly jargon and move on to what counts... [cogdogblog]11:47:55 PM
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my.Yahoo beta-testing RSS support.N/C (see my earlier notes today on this subject) -- BB Third-party aggregrators watch out, an old-school portal is on the verge of supporting RSS in a big way. Jeremy Zawodny introduces the approach, featuring a respectful robot and including support for weblogs.com-style pinging ( 8:25:32 PM
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Online Learning Communities.This link will lead you (eventually) to a 14-page pdf. Thanks to Ray for posting the link. -- BB What are the conditions for and characteristics of effective online learning communities? - Australian National Training Authority. This guide is premised on the notion that ‘online communities’ are an increasingly important part of the way we will operate, as teachers, learners, and citizens of a networked world, and, the benefits we accept from these new ways of working. This gui [Online Learning Update] 11:59:05 AM
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UK: National Learning Network.This is new to me, don't know anything about it, but I want to do some digging to find out. -- BB National Learning Network: Paving the way to excellence in e-learning. National Learning Network: Paving the way to excellence in e-learning"The document, Paving the way to excellence in e-learning, has been produced by the National Learning Network (NLN) Materials Team, which is responsible for commissioning and managing the production of hundreds of hours of e-learning materials that are delivered free to the learning and skills sector... The document covers important issues such as pedagogy, accessibility (both design and technical requirements), technical standards and quality assurance." [elearningpost]11:54:26 AM
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Customers can subscribe to RSS feeds via My Yahoo!As noted in the previous post, this may be a way for your customers to get your newsletters without email and without adding a new piece of software to their systems. Should work from behind firewalls, too. It would be better if you could get customers to install a newsreader that didn't require using a browser to read feeds, but this is a good alternative. All they need do is add a free Yahoo account (which many of them may have already). -- BB My Yahoo! RSS Beta Launched. Finally! Better late than never, congrats to Jeremy and the team! QUOTE It's been under development and testing for a while (it even tried to sneak out recently) and is now ready for you to play with. Now you can add nearly any RSS feed to your My Yahoo page. That includes news sites, weblogs, searches, and more. Think of this as the natural evolution of one of the oldest web-based news aggregators. UNQUOTE [Roland Tanglao: WebCMS]11:31:01 AM
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Another report about spam filters blocking legit email.Just add this to the growing list of problems with email. Note that Yahoo's RSS module is now in beta, so it may be possible for customers to easily subscribe to an RSS feed of your electronic newsletter and other customer communications. I will post an entry on this directly. -- BB 40% of legitimate email not going througha recent article highlights an alarming trend. Thanks to our spam friends, legitimate uses of email are being squeezed into non-existence. We use email all the time to notify team members of new project activity. I've notice lately that more and more spam filters are blocking our notifications even though team members want to be notified. I'm guessing that RSS feeds might be the answer but am willing to consider other ideas... [Morrow's Blog]11:25:41 AM
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Thursday, January 22, 2004
Broadcast Builder.Very interesting. Lets you put multimedia into your RSS feed (weblog) so that people can subscribe and get video, audio, as well as the usual text and still images. The enterprise license is under US$100 if you download the application rather than order it on CD. Lots of uses spring to mind for the home-based entrepreneur and for e-Learning. -- BB Broadcast Builder allows you to create RSS (Really Simple Syndication) channels & Weblogs (Blogs) quickly and easily. You can build a channel from scratch or import an existing one from either your own local computer or from a remote resource, and then edit that channel. Broadcast Builder will parse, export, and save the channel for you. [Via Joe Rotello] [Lockergnome's RSS Resource]10:13:40 PM
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More on learning object repositories.
Academic ADL Co-Lab's Database of Repositories. http://projects.aadlcolab.org/repository-directory/ New from the Academic ADL Co-Lab is this searchable database of existing learning object repositories. Most of these are not software you could download to run your 'own' repository but instead existing institutional or subject-based repositories in which you *might* be able to participate (which raises the entirely sticky issue of 'how many repositories do we actually need?' but that's for another post!) In particular pay attention to the 'Advanced Search' feature - it seems to confirm the same set of repositories that support RSS as I have previously discovered, but also lets you do some neat things like find out which repository projects support the OAI Harvesting Protocol, or which ones support Global Unique Identifiers (GUIDs). - SWL [EdTechPost]10:20:58 AM
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Richard E. Clark on the Media and Methods debate.This is an entire chapter from Clark's latest book. The link below goes to a 12-page pdf file. This could be useful if you have to make a point in a discussion about media. -- BB Clark: What's next in the Media and Methods debate. Quote: "The debate about the learning benefits of media has extended over eighty years. While the arguments have evolved, the debate is still very much alive. ... In addition, the recently renewed enthusiasm for distance education has led yet another group of technology advocates to seek media comparison evidence. Thus, the goal of this final chapter is to bring the argument up to date as this book goes to press." 10:18:15 AM
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Another RSS solution for spam."MailbyRSS accepts both text and rich content email, requires no new computer hardware or software, and is invoked by simply emailing content to a secure MailbyRSS account." If you have been sending out newsletters or other customer communications by email, but are worried now that most of the time they aren't getting through, this might be something to take a look at. It's a free service, and you don't have to know anything about RSS to use it. A better explanation than the one linked to below, and the sign-up, are located on the MailbyRSS Overview page.-- BB MailbyRSS - free service creates RSS feeds via e-mail. Very cool must try this out! [SOURCE: Archipelago] QUOTE
UNQUOTE [Roland Tanglao: WebCMS]10:05:04 AM
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What's a wiki?I've said it before on this weblog, and will probably say it again: I am not a fan of wikis. They can be a nightmare to maintain (the black hole in your day), they can confuse the daylights out of learners, and they can become so complicated that finding the content you need is impossible. Plus they are all text. But ... some people like them, and although I thought they were dead seven years ago, they keep coming back, perhaps to your neighborhood. So here is a good explanation of wikis by someone who is their friend. Good luck and don't say I didn't warn you. -- BB Wikis: Hypertext on Steroids. Well. It's been a long time, been a long time, been a lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely time. I've just completed a rough draft of my latest article for UBC's e-Strategy Newsletter. This month, I try to communicate the concept... [Object Learning] 9:50:09 AM
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Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Can You Count On Your Pension?In a word, NO. 74% of millionaires made it by owning their own businesses. And if you pull out your trusty calculator, you can prove to yourself that the only way to have enough to reliably fund your life from age 65 to whenever-you-go-on-to-glory (probably about age 95) is to have about $3 million in the bank/invested. Think again if you think owning a business or having a residual income from network marketing is a crazy idea. Can You Count On Your Pension? [Yahoo News and the Motley Fool] 1:19:34 PM
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Resource: Journal of Digital ContentsStephen Downes links to this journal. Some articles, for example, "Semantics based architecture for e-learning and "The use of ontologies to make feasible e-learning for knowledge and competency management" look really interesting. via [elearningpost]12:56:43 PM
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More on post-industrial learning models.A couple of days ago, I was grumping about how shallow the article was in the January 15 Industry Week on e-Learning. Others are also documenting the disconnect between what can be done in e-Learning and the goals of traditional "industrialized" training. "Unlike prior distance education systems, however, network-based distance education models do not so readily accommodate industrialized forms of education. Indeed, the interaction that network-based models enable between students and course content, teachers and peers ... attenuates the extent to which such teaching-learning transactions may be regarded a form of industrialization." Dense reading, but worth considering. -- BB via [Online Learning Update] 12:44:20 PM
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Note to self: Oops. Need to update this item in "Articles".New page for 'RSS feeds from learning object repositories'. I just noticed today that people still refer to the old page I built illustrating RSS feeds from known Repositories. That page was built on my old Radio site using a simple Radio macro that rendered RSS as HTML. Since then I've moved the site into MoveableType and onto another host, but I have only recently got around to recreating this page. This time, though, I did it using a public Bloglines page (one of the beauties of a web-based aggregator that lets you share!) The new page illustrating the results of these feeds is at http://www.bloglines.com%2fpublic_display?username=EdTechPost&;folder=322938. It's actually pretty interesting to have them in one's aggregator as you get a better sense of how regularly materials are being added (not that regularly). As before, the page includes feeds from:
Originally when I built this it was mostly to try and illustrate for myself the results and the utility of such feeds. The page is still fairly referenced, though, and so I have tried to add new ones as I find them. If you know of other Repositories that offer RSS feeds please let me know and I will add it to the list. Eventually I will decomission the old site, and will probably do something to re-direct this particular page. [EdTechPost]12:32:08 PM
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Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Blended Learning and Business Change.Interesting observations in here about the difficulty many organizations have had in demonstrating a true value return on e-Learning, vs. simple cost savings. This is as serious a problem as measuring e-Learning in terms of seat time (and maybe with the same fundamental cause). -- BB Blended Learning and Business Change: "Over the past few years, training professionals have become more pragmatic in their approach to technology-based media by using it to augment traditional forms of training delivery, such as classroom instruction and text-based materials." CLO, via [elearnspace blog]8:46:18 PM
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Online Learning at Lehigh University.Design Principles - A New Kind of Classroom: "Unlike the traditional classroom, courses are web-based and distributed from a distance, using an assortment of synchronous and asynchronous computer technologies -- and offered anywhere and anytime. In this way, online learning is different from the classic DE model by encouraging decentralized and collaborative learning environments." via [elearnspace blog]8:39:20 PM
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David Krish: Metacognition, Distributed Cognition and Visual Design.David Krish: Metacognition, Distributed Cognition and Visual DesignI've provided the link to Krish's homepage for those who might want to explore his works further. This article targets e-learning environments --"Metacognition is associated with planning, monitoring, evaluating and repairing performance. Designers of elearning systems can improve the quality of their environments by explicitly structuring the visual and interactive display of learning contexts to facilitate metacognition." 8:33:17 PM
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Now that's a good idea!CNET: Macromedia lends helping hand. CNET: Macromedia lends helping hand"RoboHelp X5 will include FlashHelp, a set of simplified tools for transforming static tutorials into interactive Flash presentations." [elearningpost]8:30:40 PM
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Monday, January 19, 2004
Things that make me crazy: The Mythical e-Learning Hour.I am working with a writer whose article addresses a typical project management problem: estimating development time for e-Learning applications. He's doing a good job with the article, and I'm looking forward to publishing it in The Journal. The issue that sparked his article is one that has bothered me for about twenty years now, ever since I began developing e-Learning. That is the mythical e-Learning Hour. There is no such thing, but I keep seeing writers, project managers, and e-Learning entrepreneurs wasting time with it. This is a rant, ok? Why do otherwise rational professionals keep getting sucked into this? Learning is not measured in time, other than in grade school (and it's a bad idea then). Why do executives and managers who put development out for bid persist in focusing on what amounts to a measure of activity, not of results? Why do developers keep falling for it? Here are some reasons that occur to me. Do they seem as misguided to you as they do to me?
Our internal meter is set to measure hours of instruction. Unfortunately, an hour of instruction does not lead to a consistent quantum of learning. For that matter, a consistent quantum of learning (if we could come up with a metric for it) does not, cannot, lead to a consistent quantum of performance, and a consistent quantum of performance (if we could come up with a metric for that) does not and cannot lead to a consistent quantum of results. This is a complex world. The nice measures for "work" from physics or economics most of the time do not apply to what happens in the workplace or in business. Start with defining the outcome you want and the value of the problem that is to be solved. Figure out the steps involved to get to the outcome and to solve the problem (not all of which necessarily involve instruction and practice), the time and cost to achieve each of the steps, and base your estimate on that, not on the fictitious "hour of e-Learning." If you are going to create a series of Flash modules to simulate performance, base your estimate on what it will take to create the series, not on how long you wish it will take the learner to interact with the modules in order to arrive at the outcome. I know that isn't as coherent as it needs to be, but it's a start. 12:51:12 PM
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Industry Week notices e-Learning.This is a pretty shallow profile, but it might give practitioners some idea of where we are in the minds of the people who read Industry Week (middle managers and C-Levels). If the article is correct, then that consciousness is still focused on one-way, lecture-oriented, make-sure-everybody-gets-the-same-message, mass instruction. Very Industrial Revolution thinking (which, given the publication, fits). But maybe this is what sells right now to your clients. Yes, it's dangerous to get too far ahead of your market. The problem is that if your market thinks the three best areas for e-Learning are the three identified in the article, then maybe you need to do some consciousness-raising. These three areas are (a) not value-adds, (b) easily sent to offshore groups that will underbid you every time, and (c) deadly boring to do. -- BB Industry Week profiles e-Learning. Industry Week magazine has a half decent overview of e-Learning with brief case studies from Cisco, IBM, Intel, Rockwell Collins, Autodesk, and National Assn of Manufacturers. Industry Week: Click and Learn Industry analysts cited include: IDC, WR Hambrecht, LogicBay, Centra, and Wayne Hodgins. "What types of corporate training seem best suited for e-learning? Three areas seem to be emerging: new-hire training, new-product information, and situations where knowledge needs to be transferred to a large group of people or to a group of people who are geographically dispersed. " [e-Learning Eclectic] 11:40:00 AM
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Where does "blog" fit in your business plan?Al Nucifora gives a great summary of what weblogs are and how to use them in your business marketing. 11:01:11 AM
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Lecture format ironies.This isn't really about lecture. Read far enough to find ""learning is a social process"- not a procedural one, not a technical one. The more we focus on the technology, ... the more we miss the mark." -- BB This Week RSS Winterfest - Same Old, Same Old Format or Not?. I am curious to "be" at the January 21-22 online conference, RSS Winterfest. Most conferences, in person or online, I generally approach with low expectations-- mainly out of frustration over the years that the only format for professional communication that seems to be used is the 50 minute lecture to a passive audience. I have been at educational conferences where presenters use this format to talk about the need to change the mode of interaction in education, that lecture format must go- the old saw about "Sage on the stage becoming guide on the side...." Their next step is to dim the lights, cue up the powerpoints (and the audience head bob starts). It has happened a million times. Online conferences seem to push the old format the farthest away from its stale equilibrium position and ones where the tools are left open, they continue to have a life of their own long after the event passes. But I digress from this week's event, my words triggered by the email reminder for the RSS Winterfest would be in "45 minute sessions" (lecture?), followed by intermissions of open wiki-posting and weblog activity. Therefore, the most interesting allegory of those dull conferences, the hallway informal conversation, is shoved into the interstices of the online lectures. Better type fast. By setting low expectations, I leave room to be pleasantly surprised. The list of RSS presenters is full of weblog/RSS technorati indeed, but at this glance terribly weighted towards talking about the technology, and less about the process of using these tools, the outcomes, the stories of what people do with them. As well stated by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid in the Social Life of Information, "learning is a social process"- not a procedural one, not a technical one. The more we focus on the technology, the Atoms, XMLs, meta-data, the more we miss the mark. It is not to say the technology is not important, not exciting (as my profession is creating and using it), but often the acronym soup takes center stage when really it should be in the wings. Weblogs are much more a social technological phenomena than a technical one. Wikis are even a simpler technology. But I am curious to see the interstitial social interactions at this online RSS Winterfest- and the first time I have been at an online event where wikis are used in real time. Show up and cause a ruckus. [cogdogblog]10:49:28 AM
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Choose Your Words Carefully.Spam Filters Grab Good With Bad. The growing use of antispam filters that weed out messages containing words commonly used by junk e-mailers is forcing legitimate e-mail senders to choose their language carefully. By Michelle Delio. [Wired News] 10:38:56 AM
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Sunday, January 18, 2004
Subscribe to RSS feeds on eLearning.I have just posted a new article here that contains a link to an OPML file with my eLearning subscriptions in it. Enjoy! 6:50:20 PM
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e-Discussion toolkit.Maish links to e-discussion toolkit. Instructors new to the online environment will find this very useful. [elearnspace] 6:44:34 PM
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Is eLearning right for you?This is a "survey" (self-assessment) to see whether eLearning is a good solution for your personal development. It would be ok for someone who is wanting some personal or professional development and is looking for guidance about ways to get it. I'd like to see a similar instrument designed to serve as a methods-means analysis for a given documented need. In my opinion, that would be far more useful. Still, this might be fun to play with if you have a few minutes. -- BB elearning suitability evaluation. Using simple surveys to evaluate suitability for elearning can be self-defeating - the results can be used for excuses for not trying or for poor results. The survey should always provide suggestions for improving weak areas. With that as a "warning", Elearning Advisor is a survey that takes about 15 minutes to complete, and provides fairly decent feedback determining if online learning suits you. [elearnspace blog]11:58:50 AM
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© Copyright
2005
Bill Brandon
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Last update: 10/8/2005; 1:04:47 PM .
Last update: 10/8/2005; 1:04:47 PM .
