Big noise about WebCt - Blackboard merge

It's hard for me to get all that excited about this acquisition. I almost titled this "Big noise about nothing" except of course if you are an educator using WebCT, it's not "nothing." However, these two companies between them had a grand total of, what, five or six thousand customers? If you are a corporate e-Learning practitioner, neither Blackboard nor WebCT was ever a concern for you. 

In the long run, open source is going to split this space with the "roll your own" approach to learning management systems. In the much longer run, our understanding of learning is evolving and will eventually make the current style of learning management (and approaches to authoring systems) completely irrelevant.

WebCT and Blackboard.

Big news in the elearning space: WebCT and Blackboard merge I've put together a pocast of my views: My Take: WebCT and Blackboard. Slashdot dissects the merger as well.

Update: Stephen posts a list of blogger reactions to the merger.

11:40:26 PM    

I'm too much of an idealist. I would love to see learning begin with connections, not content...and for LMS' to be banished only for the most basic forms of knowledge transfer (compliance training, for example)...and for designers to create a dynamic environment (not course!) in which learning would occur. However, reality sets in. Most often, life doesn't permit ideals. Instead, we need to balance technology, resources, needs, work conditions, etc. So in that spirit, here's a short article on Best Practices for Hosted Learning Solutions.

11:40:00 PM    

eLearning works for some topics, but not all.

Gotta love the way researchers make things so clear and compelling: “The analysis resulted in an overall weighted effect size not significantly different from zero….” The bottom line being, "distance education is as effective as classroom instruction." Well, at least it's a study that you can cite when the C-Level demands proof that the investment in eLearning will pay off.

Study: E-Learning Implications - Craig Ullman, techLearning.  [Online Learning Update]

12:01:23 PM    

What's an online degree worth?

Online learning gains ground  but do employers trust it? [Online Learning Update]

11:55:52 AM    

Is the Internet a reliable learning platform?

The Weakest Link in Distributed Education. [XplanaZine]

11:36:43 AM    

WebEx: WebOffice collaboration software suite launches into the SMB market.

WebEx attacks SMB collaboration market.

(InfoWorld) - One month after closing its acquisition of Intranets.com, WebEx Communications is launching an updated, rebranded version of Intranets.com's hosted collaboration software suite, a move aimed at expanding WebEx's share of the SMB (small and medium business) market before Microsoft conquers the space. [More] By Stacy_Cowley@idg.com (Stacy Cowley). [InfoWorld: Top News]

11:30:31 AM    

Geeks are out, common sense is in.

Skills shortage is back. It's all about convergence [The Register]

11:13:33 AM    

Results-Oriented UI: WYGIWYS.

Wiggy-wiz? Wot U Get Iz Wot U C? Can that be right? If the new Office 12 UI becomes the standard, users will specify the outcome they want, and watch it morph as they select different views or different outcomes.

Watch for serious changes in the way we build on-line learning as the dominant user interface metaphors change, on top of our changes in the way we understand learning.

Useit.Com: R.I.P. WYSIWYG. For the last twenty-five years, one user interface style has reigned supreme: the Macintosh-style graphical user interface. It's now reached its limits, however, and will be replaced by a style that partly reverses some of its most treasured interaction principles. [Tomalak's Realm]

Danny Ayers has a different take on this:

Maybe the new Office UI isn't the answer, exactly. (He doesn't like wasted space combined with ugly toolbar clutter.)

The Emporer’s New UI. I just stumbled on this: R.I.P. WYSIWYG - Results-Oriented UI Coming from Jakob Nielsen. Interesting, but the main app cited featuring this result-orientation, MS Office 12, seem rather disappointing. The tabbing of commands does look good (er, not unlike like horizontal menus). But it still seems to fail ... [Raw]

11:03:04 AM    

Looking for podcasts?

Yahoo! has launched podcasts.yahoo.com, a search engine for podcasts. Should make it easier to find topics of interest. You can search for podcast series and for individual podcasts.

• A search on "entrepreneur" returned 16 series and 169 "episodes" (individual podcasts with "entrepreneur" in the title)
• A search on "e-Learning" returned 3 series and 15 episodes (if educational podcasting is so hot, why aren't there more?)
• A search on "network marketing" returned 6 series and 137 episodes

You can listen to, download, or subscribe to podcasts from Yahoo!

10:19:08 AM