... swimming. just keep swimming". Have you pushed yourself today? What are your limits? What do we learn from pushing ...

It's that time of year when I realize that all of my shoes have become too smelly and abused to be worn. This year, I've decided to stick to comfy shoes. This may be an old age thing, but I would like to walk when I get older. All of my shoes are black (save for a black and white pair of saddle shoe golf spikes and 1 pair of brown heels). I see cool shoes in interesting colors on other women, yet I still buy boring black. In an attempt to get myself out of this rut, I bought a pair of Army Green Crocs (just like the ones pictured above). And yes, they are just as ugly in real life.

... brought to my attention by Stephen Downes ) added fuel to the fire. On the one side are the learning and development ... learning by resorting to the ultimate killjoy that is science. You can guess which side I'm on. No-one doubts that learners differ in terms of personality and preferences, but whether these can be usefully categorised as learning styles ... nature of the learning to be achieved (concepts, principles, rules, facts, social skills, psychomotor skills, problem ... than their personality and preferences, for example: their motivation to learn the subject in question (if ...

... organizations, Wisc-Online has created a large database of online, multimedia learning objects on dozens of topics. There are even ... (WTCS) and produced by multimedia technicians who create the learning objects for the online environment. These objects ... learning objects cover topics such as: Math Science Health General Education Technical Subjects (HVAC, Plastics ... access to other learning objects developed under the direction of Terry Bartelt of Fox Valley Technical College on ...

... supporting the next generation workforce. And speaking of data... The eLearning Guild 360 Report on Synchronous Learning Systems was released today. A beautiful, comprehensive study well worth a read. SLS will be a huge part of the learning ...

The Learning Circuit’s Blog Big Question for December is “What did you learn about learning in 2008 ... back through a year of blog posts.  Whew! I saw several recurrent threads, but the strongest one is on learning to learn.  I think we’ve seen more focus on that this year, particularly with Tony Karrer & Michelle Martin’s Work Literacy effort, and a lot of the discussion at the Corporate Learning Trends conference (most recently). It ... TogetherLearn thinking, where it’s about helping people help themselves, but not taking the self-directed and learn ...

The other day at a presentation, a participant asked me how many companies have adopted mobile learning...was it widespread and if they where behind because they didn't have a full blown mobile learning roll out yet? The answer is that mobile learning is just now starting to get a foothold but it is not widespread by any means. In fact, two separate surveys indicate that m-learning is just now starting to become of interest to organizations. Although there are a number of contributing factors to m­learning only recently becoming of interest to organizations, the three biggest seem to be ...

For some time now I have been unhappy with my own working definition of blended learning: A blended learning ... learning media. By 'learning media' I mean the channels through which learners interact with content, peers and tutors ... circumstances (depending on the nature of the learning requirement, the characteristics of the target audience, and the practical ... posting It's the method, not the medium , the medium has a relatively insignificant influence on learning effectiveness ... example, lecture, presentation, Q&A. It seems to me that, if you want to enhance the effectiveness of a learning ...

Following on from my posting last week, So what is blended learning? , which attempted to define a workable definition for blended learning, I have been trying to clarify in my own mind whether the issue is of any real importance. Is blended learning useful and, if so, in what circumstances? The argument for blended learning is really very simple. Each of the most common approaches to learning and development has its own extensive array of advantages and disadvantages ... capable of contributing to the effectiveness of a learning intervention and of getting in the way. Each has its ...

When you offer someone a choice of ways in which to undertake a learning activity, you may be doing them a favour by ... workbook and some web links. In themselves useful, but not enough to stimulate a complete learning process. How about a ... most common blend - that's a face-to-face event in the middle, with some self-study e-learning before and after. OK ... get it all prepared, so a blended learning solution must be devised to cater for different learning requirements, the ... more of a struggle now when as a shopper you are bombarded with thousands of possibilities, so the selection of learning ...

Try this trick at any training expo: (1) approach any booth that advertises expertise in blended learning, (2) tear off the sticker that contains the words 'blended learning', and (3) find the word 'e-learning' underneath. Yes, blended learning is, more often than not, simply a re-branding exercise for e-learning vendors still smarting from criticism that e-learning fails to deliver on all its promises. These vendors have even hi-jacked the term 'blended learning' and tried to convince us that it means e-learning (the essential component) combined with other media, typically some form ...

... delivery to a blend that involves self-study e-learning prior to the face-to-face event. Nothing unusual in that you might think. About time too! However, in my experience, HR is not the easiest audience to convince of the merits of e-learning - the typical cop-out response being that e-learning doesn't fit their learning style. Anyway, SHL, who are of course ... learning experience. Apparently they like their learning very practical / case study-based and modular, in short pieces - ...

Last night I attended an award ceremony for the UK National Training Awards and was delighted to see one of my blended learning designs for the child development charity Plan International recognised with a national award. The Plan Certificate in Management, a one-year programme for middle and senior managers around the world, was designed in conjunction with Learning and Development Manager, Karen Coleman and course tutor, Gary Ford. The solution had not only to be economical in terms of travel requirements, but also practical in the way it could be deployed in third world ...

Yesterday I wrote about being a Learning Facilitator - not getting in the way, but connection people to other people to learn - On or offline.  Then I stumbled upon TEACHSTREET.com .  They help anyone find courses on anything.  Photography in Portland, OR ?  Done.  There were a number of courses for all levels. This is about connecting those who want knowledge with those who have it. Gather, control, teach and require has turned into aggregate, open, facilitate and house. What can this teach us about what we might do in our organizations?

Once again I am participating in the The Working/Learning blog carnival. This carnival has one broad theme: work at learning; learning at work. The idea is for many blogs to createin posts that relate to how individuals can go about their own learning, and how learning happens in the workplace. This week it is being hosted by Rupa at One Stop ... . Learning at work is both accidental and purposeful. Often a person will learn from a co-worker, a boss or even a client. Sometimes they will learn what "not-to-do" as well as what they should be doing. Sometimes learning will be from ...

Blended learning is now inadequate - it is only mediocre.  Let me explain why I think so. Blended learning ... two or more methods of delivery of instruction. A typical example of the delivery method of blended learning would be a ... materials online. The term can also be applied to the integration of e-learning with a Learning Management System ... about you, but when I think of blended learning I think of combining ILT with a job aid with some online training with a ... with True Blended Learning, which was presented at DevLearn08, was described this way: This session will ...

Gadgets, Games, and Gizmos for Learning Book Tour (coming to a Blog near you September 24th, 2007). When all else fails ... "learning" as if it is something that could be sold. I ran into a issue trying to post my comment, but borrowed an idea ... just too long), so instead they look at the goal of training and education and try to sell you the goal (learning and performance). I'll help you take up your cause and ask to see "a learning" We do need to be careful when we use the term learning (or performance for that matter) that we really to mean the outcome of what training and education hope ...

I've been busy again thinking about the nexus between LEARNING and LEARNING MEASUREMENT. You can peruse some of my previous thoughts on learning measurement by clicking here . Here is a brand new article that I wrote for the eLearning Guild on how to evaluate Learning 2.0 stuff. Note: Learning 2.0 is defined (by the eLearning Guild) as: The idea of learning through digital connections and peer collaboration, enhanced by technologies driving Web 2.0. Users/Learners are empowered to search, create, and collaborate, in order to fulfill intrinsic needs to learn new ...

Preparing a presentation on mobile learning for a conference 2, 3 October 2007 in New Brunswick, Canada. Getting all ITM's mobile learning projects into a creative, informative presentation takes a bit of time and thought.

Passion!!! By far my favorite episode is titled Learning to Learn (episode 53) Its a great twist on what we are all ... are just passionate, successful guys that learned their craft in a particular way. Its a must listen.

Okay, so I borrowed this from Marc Cantor of PeepAgg . He actually calls them Digital Lifestyle Aggregators which works for me too because we are all talking about Life-longer learning as the new cornerstorn by which we do all that we do. So Life, Learning, its all the same to me. If you've stopped learning you've stopped living. DLAs are definitely the future. At least the concept is right on the money. What tool or how we aggregate our digital life remains to be seen, but its AWESOME to think about it. I've refered to it as the Learning Dashboard in the past. Its the ...

For those who haven't seen it, Will Thalheimer is doing a series of posts over the next couple of days on Learning ... involved in learning measurement are fourfold: The performance of the learning-and-performance field is severely deficientâ€"often creating learning that is not remembered and/or not utilized on the job. Of the forces that control and ... practices provide us with poor and biased feedback about our performance as learning-and-performance professionals ... learn regarding proper measurements.

From his posting , Stephen Downes sounds like he didn't really enjoy giving his talk on personal learning environments here in Boston yesterday, what with all that having to connect with "corporate e-learning industry types". I can ... -based learning and there's a great deal of good thinking and practice that has arisen from a more educational context ... with what a personalised learning environment might be over and above what I already have now. Donald Clark makes the ... personal learning? Perhaps Stephen was suggesting something much more, but I didn't quite understand what it was.

Back in May 2006, I was fortunate to take part in a UK government mission to the USA to explore what lay "Beyond eLearning" (click the link for the final report). Travelling to both coasts (Boston and Silicon Valley) we met a great mix of academic (MIT Medialab, Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning) and corporate organisations (Cisco, Fidelity Investments, Microsoft, IBM to name a few).

... looking to learn to be better at what I do. From the game design point of view, these are important reasons to read different genres of books (ok, so I’m lax on reading bodice rippers, I have to have some limits), but my learning ...

... to make the point: "It's not the fastest of the e-learning that survives, not the flashiest, but the ...

In my post last week, Whatever happened to inductive learning?, I complained how difficult it was with current rapid development tools to write more conversational inductive questions in which you as author are able to comment on each selection that the user makes. This facility is important because (1) with inductive questions, you are building on a user's past experience rather than assessing knowledge, so the idea that an answer is correct or incorrect is of no relevance, (2) even if you are assessing, in many cases there are no 'right' answers, just different perspectives, and (3) ...

Here is a video from CNN that discusses "race" and learning. Obviously, this is a very sensitive topic, but one take away is that the emphasis is unfortunately put on "race" and "learning styles" when it should be put on the individual. And if you are wondering why I used quotes around the term "race", here is an excellent talk on why "race" does not exist...most people mean to use "ethnicity" rather than "race".

Join mobile beta (see below). A very informative session on mobile learning applications John Traxler gave a great overview of the impact of mobile on all societies (have broadcasted it, will put up the link soon) Gabor Kismihok Very interesting pilot case!! blended mobile learning example, things I picked up: Tool: adaptive testing all content based on educational ontology (I need to look up the educational ontology slide) integrated mobile forum in CMS! profs give ... the choice in which mobiles they use for learning. Better than pushing a mobile on to them. he asks to get involved ...

Don't you just love the concept of sharing information for free? I sure do. So I wanted to quickly blog a link I would like to revisit in the future. Jane Hart from the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies (aka C4LPT), has assembled a running list of websites that hold free content from e-Learning books. For example, some of the items on the list are sample chapters from publisher websites advertising print books. The list is very useful and shows that even a little bit of free sharing can go a long way when someone takes the time to assemble the sources into one ...