Work is learning. Learning is the work.
Attention geeks and coders. The first Atlantic Canada Code Camp will be held in Moncton on 15 October:
This is much too techie for me, but I know many others who may be interested. They’re still looking for presenters for this free event.
Mancomm Performance has just issued a contract call for the development of a calendar function for ELGG. We have been testing ELGG for a while and like many of its functions, such as the integrated blog, easy creation of groups & communities, and its ease of use for web novices.
This contract will pay for the development of a module of an open source system which will then be given back to the ELGG community. Mancomm is the first private sector company offering to pay for ELGG development.
If you’re an experienced developer looking for some paid OS work, then check out the post and contact us at Mancomm.
The NB Chapter of CSTD is holding its annual general meeting in Fredericton this Thursday, 15 September. Go to the LearnNB industry association site for registration information.
From a recent report (Roadmap.pdf) released by The Berkman Center for Internet & Society.
The Problem:
Following last year’s tsunami disaster:
Similar issues have arisen during Hurricane Katrina relief operations.
The Solution = Open Standards
Guiding principles: An Open ICT EcoSystem should be Interoperable, User-Centric, Collaborative, Sustainable, Flexible
Attribute |
Open Standards |
Open Source |
| Nature | Set of Specifications | Software Code |
| Openness of Interface | By Definition | By Design |
| Interoperability | Enabled | Cannot be Assumed |
| Licensing | Various Types | Various Types (GPL, BSD, etc.) |
| Development Model | Collaborative | Collaborative |
Who was involved?
Members from various countries, including one from Canada – Gary Doucet of the Treasury Board Secretariat.
The Results:
An Openness Maturity Model:
Plus – A Framework for a Business Case
Comment: An excellent starting point prior to the development of any regional, national or international web initiative that involves more than one organisation. For instance, the roadmap could inform the initial structure of national learning or health portals.
Here is an excellent quote from BusinessPundit, via Small Business Trends:
This is a good follow-up of an earlier post I made on The Medici Effect, showing that having a good idea may be important, but follow-through is critical.
The Learning Circuits Blog (part of ASTD and Learning Circuits) went on to the Blogger platform a while back and a few regular contributers have started some interesting conversations. The number of comments attest to the level of reader interest. The latest post on the need for a Spanish language LCMS is generating some controversy, as is a commentary on Elliott Masie’s comparison of CNN and education.
If you’re in the training & education field then this blog is definitely worth checking out.
An article on Performative Ties from Knowledge@Wharton (requires free membership) describes how professional services companies use informal transfer methods to leverage their knowledge. In a study conducted by Prof. Sheen Levine, it was found that:
Performative ties, as described in this article, seem to be similar to the weak ties that could help you get a job much easier than strong, familial ties can. The research on performative ties for knowledge-sharing inside corporations shows that loose peer-to-peer networks are effective ways to transfer implicit knowledge.
I think that those same performative ties exist outside these professional services companies, especially amongst bloggers. Reading or commenting on a blog creates a weak tie that can be used to ask a more pointed question via e-mail. I have done this on a several occasions, and have received similar requests. The responses are always quick and candid.
According to Levine, “What they [professional services firms] do well, is move knowledge around effectively, taking the company’s entire accumulated know-how and gathering it quickly to a single point to create a solution for a client.” If that is their prime competitive advantage then looser groups of independent consultants, who share through their blogs, may be just as effective at providing professional services as these more structured companies that currently rule the market. That’s positive news for me and my associates :-)
Jay’s recent post on Another way of Looking at Instructional Design connects well with Rob’s post on Small Pieces Loosely Joined. Jay moves from the traditional ADDIE model of instructional design to a garden metaphor:
Learning is a continuous process, not a fill-er-up course and you’re on your way. The garden metaphor could go a long way in changing attitudes about learning and our approach to training and educational design.
Massachusetts has led the way in embracing open standards, many of which are used in open source platforms and applications. According to CIO Today:
OpenOffice.org uses the Open Document format. It is open source, free and with the impending release of version 2.0 (now in Beta Release 2), even easier to use. Just converting to OOo could save a significant amount in licensing fees and allow anyone, anywhere to use the same office suite for free.
New Brunswick’s "e" initiatives come under the umbrella of eNB. In looking at the site, as well as the latest draft of the eNB Action Plan, I cannot find any reference to open standards – a critical component for long-term accessibility to our own data. So come on New Brunswick, open up.
Update: And one more reason why standards are important is that – "The poor people from New Orleans and the Gulf, who drastically require access [to] the FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] website can only do so with IE on Windows!" As Doc Searls puts it:
Rob Wall talks about what he learnt after his DIY Learning presentation. In his OPML presentation (click on the page to continue the 8 page slide show) on eLearning Processes Using Small Technologies Loosely Joined, Rob quickly goes over the argument against monolithic systems that purport to do everything. The major components of small pieces for learning are – blogs, wikis and RSS. The key message here, which I agree with, is that "The components of the DIY eLearning System are the Learning Objects".
This is still a difficult message to get past many educational institutions and training organisations. You don’t have to spend a lot on the technology. You need to focus on getting the people and processes aligned so that learning happens. Save the money that you would spend on an LCMS and put it into the time to let people develop processes that work for their unique contexts.