Communities

communities of interest and practice

LearnNB December Event

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The next LearnNB event is scheduled for December 8, 2004 at the WU Conference Center in Fredericton. The event is being held in conjunction with CSTD and the NB Animation Industry. Entitled Fun@Work, the day will feature Marc Prensky, whose presentation is Developing Learning that Digital Natives Will Love.

Registration information is available online and Marc’s presentation will be webcast for free via Elluminate.

“ten technologies that are going to change the way we learn”

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From Luigi Canali De Rossi comes Robin Good’s list of ten technologies that are going to change the way we learn. There is a nine-minute audio/video explanation on the site, as well as many explanatory links.

  1. Search technologies

  2. Data visualization tools
  3. Blogs – Direct publishing and content aggregation tools
  4. Audio and video – increased use of audio and video as communication channels for small publishers
  5. RSS – content syndication, aggregation, re-use
  6. P2P – private and public file sharing networks
  7. Unlimited storage – on the desktop and online
  8. Unlimited bandwidth – Wifi – WiMax
  9. Real Time Collaboration Tools
  10. Collective and Collaborative Filtering – human spontaneous cooperative technology like del.icio.us and FURL.net

I’m not sure if these technologies will actually change the way we learn, but they are ten tools for every instructional technologist, educator or training developer. For sure, they are changing the way we teach, and facilitating learning for some.

If you’re in the business of learning, then you should understand the pros and cons of each and every one of these. It might be a good idea to play with some of these if they’re new to you.

“Blogging is rapidly emerging as a threat to Internet users”

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According to Janus Risk Management, reading this blog may be a risky activity, especially if you work for a corporation. You see, you might actually get some ideas that have not been pre-approved by the powers that be. According to the summary of their latest research document ($1,065.00 for a site license), Janus feels that:

  1. Blogging is rapidly emerging as a threat to Internet users.
  2. While blogs have a legitimate use, online journals pose serious threats to enterprise confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
  3. This presentation is designed for distribution to employees to raise their awareness of the importance of using extreme caution if and when it becomes necessary to visit blogs as part of the employee’s job performance.

But don’t be alarmed. Janus provides corporations with three Blog Acceptable Use Policy options to reduce their risks:

  1. ZERO TOLERANCE
  2. LIMITED USE
  3. PERMISSIONED USE

So for all of you who were concerned that working in the knowledge economy might actually require that you think for yourself; never fear. The corporate elite are ensuring that you won’t have to.

If you continue to read this blog, remember that you have been warned ;-)

Via Wirearchy.

Hey brother, can you spare some feedback?

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Calling on all of you educational technologists and teachers out there. Please give James Farmer some constructive feedback on his new website/service:

We’re a new service set up partly through a frustration with current mainstream online teaching and learning technologies (& the pedagogies they inflict!) and partly through a desire to explore the possibilities that wikis, weblogs, open source CMSs and other emerging technologies offer us.Totally free for individual or groups of teachers, drop by the incsub association or checkout the site for more. – James

James is giving a lot of his time and effort in order to facilitate better online learning. If you have some time, please support his project. He’s asking for input.

Are we entering a post-competitive era?

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LearnNB has taken on the theme of collaborating to compete, showing that organisations in this small region are open to collaboration for business ventures. Dan James, CEO of SilverOrange in Charlottetown takes this one step further, and states that his company has no competitors:

Stating that we have no competitors is not a proud “we are better than everyone else” declaration. It is also not stating that we are the only ones who work in this area of expertise. It is simply saying that we see those who also work in web development as our peers not as our competitors.

Dan and his colleagues are an excellent, local example of collaboration at work. Making collaboration work takes real conviction, but I think that it is the most sustainable business strategy there is.

Terror in the Ad World

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The Cluetrain Manifesto (1999) talks about the new marketplace of the Internet, where customers no longer want to be considered as markets but as individuals. Some people in business regard this kind of idea as much too radical, and stick to more traditional perspectives of markets – just read any business plan. From Laudably/Renewal, I came across this reference to a Wired magazine interview (reported by David Kirkpatrick of Fortune) with Jeff Bezos of Amazon, where he discusses the value of TV advertising:

Bezos explained why Amazon doesn’t advertise on TV. It tried television advertising in two markets as a test not long ago but that didn’t drive enough additional sales to justify the costs. He said the company concluded it was better to use that money to continue driving prices lower and increase free shipping.

He doesn’t worry people won’t find out when Amazon offers something desirable. "Word of mouth is becoming more powerful," he said. "If you offer a great service people find out about it. We’re getting information perfection on the Internet." He predicted that for all businesses, the amount of money spent on marketing and advertising will decline while the amount spent developing better products or services will increase as a result. "If the successful recipe is spending 70% of your money shouting about your service and 30% producing a better service, over the next 20 years that will reverse."



"Is that a bad thing for print magazines that depend on advertising?" Anderson asked nervously. Bezos did not console him. "Terror would be a helpful response," he said cheerfully. I shifted uncomfortably in my own seat.

Amazon is proving that marketing ain’t what it used to be, and the new Medium has obsolesced the darlings of the broadcast model – marketing & advertising. Not everyone gets it yet, but eBay, Amazon and Google do. The rest will eventually catch on or die. I think that the same goes for small business. Don’t spend your time with hit or miss marketing of your wares at trade shows. Focus on better products and services, and then let the ‘Net effect take over. It may take some time to reach the Connectors, but when you do, you will be ready with good products and services, not just marketing hype.

 

eLearning without Cash

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Ismael Pena Lopez has a post on ICTlogy on how to develop elearning at no cost ($) for non-profit organisations. His premise is that there are three main components to elearning – human resources, content and technology. Ismael says that you can develop a programme using e-Volunteers, an open source LMS and freely available content. Of course there is still a lot of sweat equity necessary, but a non-profit could develop some pretty good programmes using volunteers and a simple but robust technology platform, like wikipedia has done, where the content experts do not get a nickel.

My experience with elearning implementation is that most of the costs are incurred by adding administrative controls, like reports and tracking. Reducing administrative control would lessen the demands on the e-Volunteers and you would be left with your hosting costs. This could work fairly well, especially if the volunteers had a simple way to contribute to content development, mentoring, assessment, etc. I am sure that a lot of content and learning specialists in the world would help out with elearning programmes, like The Campus for Peace, if there was an easy mechanism to do so. It could be like a virtual Peace Corps. The key, I believe, is to lower the barriers to becoming a virtual volunteer and ensuring the fewest intermediaries are involved.

By the way, is anyone interested in volunteering to develop elearning programmes on wildlife and environmental education?

Update: And now via ICTlogy comes Blogger Corps, matching bloggers with activists and non-profit groups who want to blog and need help getting started.

Future Business Models

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In many discussions around business model innovation today, three companies are consistently mentioned – Google, Amazon and eBay [no links here, as everyone knows where to find them]. Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay, is working on a number of new projects, and if you want to get an indicator of future business models in the digital economy, then consider his areas of concentration:

Since June we have funded efforts in a number of areas:


* Microfinance

* Bottom-up Media

* Open Source

* Intellectual Property

* Voting

* Social Software

The Omidyar Network has some great partners, including Creative Commons and Source Forge.

Via Kathleen.

Learning States

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RTI International has been developing a framework for international development over the past two years, called Learning States. This is a new approach, with significant funding from various multinational corporations (MNC), focused on the base of the world’s economic pyramid (BOP). As MNC’s see their first world markets becoming saturated, but without a strategy to meet the needs of emerging markets, RTI has created this initiative to foster sustainable job and livelihood development.

The Learning States for Growing Economies white paper, co-authored by Hal Richman, gives an overview of the strategy.

Using the lens of learning and innovation,
Learning States is brokering a series of
partnerships to connect (1) the world’s leading MNCs seeking to grow new markets at the BOP; (2) local business, government, and economic development leaders in emerging market states (EMS); and (3) donor organizations
interested in economic and job growth. These learning partnerships will be guided by a new model for growing markets, jobs, and prosperity. Specifically, the Learning States design process creates a space for innovation by selecting pilot sites where traditional business models will not work. As MNC and local business leaders generate ideas for innovative
products and services, the Learning States team brings in local stakeholder groups, such as educators, policymakers, and government officials, who are committed to identifying new opportunities and creating new value in emerging markets.

Perhaps some of the insights on learning and innovation can also be used here in Atlantic Canada, especially since Hal lives in Nova Scotia.

Free social software sandbox for teachers

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James Farmer is offering a place for teachers to test out social and pedagogical software technologies:

So, by providing free-for-teachers hosting, installation, support and consultation for weblogs, wikis, CMSs and more, I figure I get to learn an enormous amount (which will certainly help me in my career), help some frustrated teachers out and show the light to others who would have a lot of trouble technically getting there. Well worth a few bucks a month I think.

The software suite also includes synchronous tools and discussion boards; and the CMS is Drupal. Go ahead and try it out.