Of all commercial LMSs, I probably have the most hands-on experience with GeoLearning ’s various products and services having managed an enterprise implementation several years ago. It was a multi-phase implementation (LMS, LCMS, Talent Management) that went off pretty smooth and the team at GeoLearning was great to work with. I found them very responsive even when I was a giant pain in the ass. I’ve been to their beautiful home office in West Des Moines, Iowa but didn’t get a chance to meet Will Hipwell who is GeoLearning’s Senior Vice President, Marketing & ...

H.M. died on Tuesday. He was a severe amnesiac. At the age of 27 he underwent surgery to correct severe and debilitating seizures. When he awoke, he was unable to remember much of anything ever again--at least not anything in the declarative memory system. He lived life as the most famous experimental subject in the history of cognitive psychology and neuroscience. I remember reading about him as a graduate student in the late 1980's and 1990's. What researchers learned by studying him was that there was more than one memory system. This information led to a revolution in our ...

This month's big question - What Did You Learn about Learning 2008 is almost an annual tradition of asking people to look back on the year and provide some inkling of their aha moments. In reality it does an incredible job of surfacing the themes of each of the bloggers and give a sense of them. I'm hoping more people will take us up on this as I find it really surfaces some good stuff that I didn't quite recognize at the time. Themes of : Ken Allan - takes us through his evolution of thinking about blogging and what his readers want. As you go through his posts, you can see how ...

An average day for me consists of heavy reliance on Google. Search. Email. RSS. Earth. And much more. What do I know about Google? Not enough. I’ve created a wiki page on Google: Hidden Ideology of Search for a workshop I’ve delivered in the past. But, like most people, I don’t have a deep understanding of what makes the company tick, where it’s going, and what it’s doing. Techcrunch links to a presentation I need to spend more time reviewing: Everything you wanted to know about Google.

At OEB there are several things happening, one of the initiatives I like a lot are the Special Interest Group lunches (SIG). This noon I joined Jay Cross at his lunch initiative: what can the learning world expect/tackle in these times of crisis? All of us agreed that the economic crisis will be here for a couple of years, resulting in job losses. Seeing that in the past the learning department was one of the first departments to be cut in companies, estimates are that nearly 70 to 80 % of the learning budgets will be cut in the next couple of years. So we all better gear ourselves to ...

Some random notes, hoping that you can make sense of them. Moderated by Shafika Isaacs from South Africa . Shafika is a very energetic and knowledgeable person with an amazing humor (yes, I love humoristic people its seems, because I keep filtering those out of the crowd). And very engaged in elevating global poverty. In Africa the main revolution is a mobile revolution. Unfortunately we underestimated the use of mobile phone. 95% of mobile cell phone use is for social reasons, so it would be interesting to put out much more useful content with evidence of developmental ...

Much of the discussion here at Online Educa in Berlin has been around the challenges posed by a new generation of learners, the so-called Generation Y. Given that a good half of the participants at the conference are from higher education and that, as a result, most if not all of their students are from Gen Y, makes this emphasis understandable. But for the rest of the audience, with a responsibility for workplace learning, the impact of Gen Y is only just being felt. It was interesting to hear such a wide range of perspectives on the issue: That Gen Y characteristics are not ...

Ben Dilts wrote to tell me about LucidChart, an online collaborative flowcharting application that he has developed as a result of his "headaches and disappointments with Gliffy". Here are some of its features: Creating crisp, attractive flow charts for the web or print has never been so fast and easy. Everyone works on a document at the same time. Collaborators get your changes immediately when you save. Share your flow charts as a web page, PDF, or image. Publish an always-updated image of your work. Any computer with Internet Explorer 6+, FireFox, Safari, or Chrome works ...

Michael Wesch has been social mediated innumerous times because he pushes the learning agenda forward. He was keynoting at OEB08 and it was a blast. He managed to mix humor, storytelling, self-relativation and content. The topics he raised were not that new if you follow the learning sphere, but he put everything in an inspiring framework. Michael Wesch works at Kansas University and he mixes anthropology, ethnology and culture into the new learning equation. He does not only talk about it, he immediately uses it. For a quick intro, visit his youtube channel. His most famous video is ...

Having saved the baby , conserved the bathwater and rinsed out the bath, I should get real, and properly address Tony Karrer's question which was, ‘ what did I learn in 2008 '. In May: I learnt to blog. Here's the summary . In doing that, I learnt that there's a heck-of-a-lot of people out there who (obviously) enjoy reading blogs but who don't blog AND who don't comment much. I've had that confirmed a few times since then, while studying Google Analytics and AideRSS. In June: I learnt that the age-old rivals, training and education , were still as nebulously and ...

Here is an article describing what a CEO from a marketing company envisions Web 3.0 will be. It will be interesting to see how the next phase of the Internet really does take shape and how the learning community can (hopefully) capitalize early on in the evolution. For other insights into what Web 3.0 means, take a look at the Wikipedia entry for Web 3.0 (ahhh...the irony of checking Web 2.0 technology to see what Web 3.0 might be like. I think that is part of the issue, until someone sees Web 3.0 in action, it's difficult to pinpoint for the broader community).

My job at large Fortune 100 company involves the optimization of web collaboration and knowledge sharing. One primary task I have is trying to help my users find relevant information on our intranet. Thus, it's 10 pm ... where is your metadata? Seriously, how many of you use standard corporate templates for Powerpoint or Word documents? Have you ever stopped to see what is contained in the document properties? or do you just re-save your work with a new file name? In that case, many of your files have exactly the same name as far as a search engine is concerned ... such as <IBM ...

You know that feeling. You are in the middle of a creatively fertile period in your "professional" life. The response and feedback you receive has been constructive. You feel "productive". Certain puzzles are beginning to make sense. You go on a lengthy vacation - long planned and looked forward to. Leaving behind multiple bits of unfinished mental business. Away from the computers and cell phones and social media tools. Away from anything that reminds you of "work" or "profession" or career You return, only to find yourself staring at the bit of rubble wondering how you were planning to ...

I enjoy reading edubloggers. From my experience, conversations now occurring with edubloggers is several years ahead of what happens in journals and conferences. I can’t think of a more innovative, intellectually fertile space. Over the last several months, however, I’ve been evaluating the diversity of my reading. Almost overwhelmingly, I read blogs with a left-leaning slant. Now, there could be various reasons for this: progressives are more likely to adopt new technology, educators are generally left-leaning, or, the left-view of education is the more sensible one to take.

As I reported in Google Blog Search Problems , Google seems to have included the full text of blog pages (including blog rolls) in their blog search. I just saw this post which both confirms that Google changed something which is causing the problem and that then intend to fix it. According to Jeremy Hylton of the Google Blog Search team , they now index the full content of the page. This means that not only do they index the full post even if the blog publishes a partial feed, but it means that they index the non-post parts of the pages as well. This is mostly an improvement, of ...

One of the first hurdles myself and other rookie Moodle implementers have to overcome is increasing the maximum file upload size. Moodle defaults to a measly 2 MB maximum file upload size which is pretty limiting. Through my research I found that many other people struggle with the same problem especially when Moodle is installed on a hosted non dedicated server which is the situation I am in. Here's a brief rundown of how I was able to increase the max file upload size for moodle on a hosted server. The key to confusion is when you search for answers to this problem on Moodle ...

I just wanted to quickly share this article from SocialComputingMagazine.com .  The KM community has seen themselves as uniquely different from the eLearning community as well.  However, from where I'm sitting its starting to look like Social Media technologies are slowly devouring both fields...and others.  Okay, so devouring might be a strong word.  But taking the best of Social Media, Knowledge Management, eLearning, User Assistance (and others) and combining them together gives us Enterprise 2.0 solutions.  The leader in the area of Enterprise 2.0 is Andew McAfee of Harvard ...

The eLearning Guild is offering a $400 early-bird discount if you register for their March Annual Gathering by December 19th. Check it out . Note: I'll be presenting a workshop (with Roy Pollock) on Learning Measurement , and speaking several other times, so this conference is well worth your while. AND, by saving $400, you can easily afford our symposium.  ...

The OEB08 session in which I spoke was amazingly rich in content (talking about the other participants). They all had great applications making use of language technology, sms, multimedia and all combining it in mobile examples. Because I was the last one to speak, I was too nervous to take notes while they were giving it. I looked up links to them: Gavin Cooney, Learnosity , Ireland on 'Voice: The Killer Application of Mobile Learning'; Mathew James Constantine, IE Business School , Spain on 'Mind the Gap - Narrowing the Distance to the Learner' Sarah Cornelius , University of ...

The New York Times published an article today saying that college tuition may be out of reach for most Americans. This, of course, is stunning news. If true, it will rip a gaping hole in the very fabric of our society. It will also, make the job of work-learning professionals that much harder. More remedial training. More training that teaches meta-cognitive thinking skills. Dealing more with splinter groups and labor unrest, as we further divide into the haves and have-nots. Dealing more with globalization as professional and managerial jobs are shipped off-shore. Dealing ...

Stephen Downes has once again come out with complaints about how the Edublog Awards are being handled this year. It makes me wonder, do "You Like Awards?" OK, so the edublog awards nominations are out. I honestly don't know what they were thinking this time around - there's something like twenty or so nominees in some categories (and I'm not sure what to make of the result that this website is not among the twenty or so considered for best individual weblog - it's not sour grapes, I'm just bemused). Also, there has been confusion about the rules; people have been posting their ...

Tony Karrer's Big Question for the month of December is, ‘What did you learn about learning in 2008?' This has certainly been a year of learning for me. I was involved in several projects, not all of them employment related. But they were all to do with teaching and learning. The long and the short of it all is, that I've learnt so much about learning this year; I can't possibly cover it all in one post. So I've prioritised my list down to one item. Bookshops as big as supermarkets: Fifteen years ago, I listened to a soliloquy from a work colleague, at a meeting on learning ...

Online Educa 2008 Keynote, December 4, 2008 Harold Elletson 2064 registered delegates from 91 countries Sweden 76 Finland 79 Spain 88 Poland 90 Norway 149 Netherlands 237 UK 247 German 291 Optimism is here, a small bright light in a world dark with the credit crunch and Mumbai terrorism. Joseph Pierre Ndiaye , Sengal. Senegal is host country for eLearning Africa this year. Permanent secretary to the minister of education. Il parle en Français. Il lit son papier. Alors, pas de spontanéité. How can a wi-fi net be soooooo slow? It takes me five ...

Speaking of alumni (see yesterday's post ) This month ASTD's magazine T&D featured one of Bloomsburg University's Instructional Technology alumni, Rachel in their article FUTURE LEADERS 2020. The article is about up and comming folks and what they are doing in the field of learning and e-learning. Here is what the magazine said about Rachel: Rachel Troychock is technology based learning manager at KPMG. Currently, she is leading an initiative to incorporate the use of Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs and wikis into learning. Previously, she was an instructional designer responsible ...

Here's another new site I was emailed about; this time from Michelle. Search the entire Internet or select a specific topic for a tailored search experience. Want to find out more? Watch this video. Spific

Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day appears in the final nominations list for the Best Resource Sharing Edublog 2008 category. Thanks to all those who nominated it to get its place there, and thanks to all of you, of course, if you vote for it!! The full list of nominations in all the categories is available at the Edublogs Award . Congratulations to all the other nominees.

The Learning Circuit’s Blog Big Question for December is “What did you learn about learning in 2008?”  It’s good to reflect, and using the end of the calendar year is a traditional time.  Consequently, I trolled 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).

Chill Out Win a trip to the Ice Hotel in Lapland Navigation - link to other main sections from here Skip Navigation Martin Johnson faces some brutal decisions Stephen Jones News Comment Business Money Sport Life & Style Travel Driving Arts & Ents Video Archive Our Papers UK News World News Politics Environment Weather Tech & Web Video Photo Galleries Topics Mobile RSS Times Online Times Archive Google Where am ...

If you've never listened to the Science Ig Nobel Awards, you have never lived. Many techies dream of the Nobel Prize for their scientific work ... for the rest of us there is Science Ig Nobel . Link to Nation Public Radio's podcast and find out! This is one of my favorite podcasts to listen each year.

Measuring Up 2008 (.pdf) is a report on state of the American higher education system. Lessons can be gleaned for other countries, particularly with regards to costs as barriers. Tuition has increased by 439% between 1982 and 2006, far out pacing the increases other costs in society (medical care only increased an anemic (in contrast) 251% during the same time period - see p. 8 of the report). While online learning has many more advantages beyond a reduction of costs (in theory at least - costs are often as high, or even more so, in online learning versus face-to-face), figures as high as ...