Learning

Learning

What we all want

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According to Dave Pollard, here is what the blogosphere wants.

Blog readers want to see more:

original research, surveys etc.
original, well-crafted fiction
great finds: resources, blogs, essays, artistic works
news not found anywhere else
category killers: aggregators that capture the best of many blogs/feeds, so they need not be read individually
clever, concise political opinion (most readers prefer these consistent with their own views)
benchmarks, quantitative analysis
personal stories, experiences, lessons learned
first-hand accounts
live reports from events
insight: leading-edge thinking & novel perspectives
short educational pieces
relevant “aha” graphics
great photos
useful tools and checklists
précis, summaries, reviews and other time-savers
fun stuff: quizzes, self-evaluations, other interactive content

Blog writers want to see more:

constructive criticism, reaction, feedback
‘thank you’ comments, and why readers liked their post
requests for future posts on specific subjects
foundation articles: posts that writers can build on, on their own blogs
reading lists/aggregations of material on specific, leading-edge subjects that writers can use as resource material
wonderful examples of writing of a particular genre, that they can learn from
comments that engender lively discussion
guidance on how to write in the strange world of weblogs

I think that we all have our work cut out for us. Any comments?

Telling Stories: Narratives of Nationhood

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The Confederation Centre of the Arts on Prince Edward Island has created an impressive online learning resource entitled Narratives of Nationhood. Available in French and English, this website offers a wide array of learning activities focused on the art at the centre. There are hundreds of lesson plans available for school teachers, and a wealth of digital art displays. A lot of time and effort has gone into this resource, and it is available in a Macromedia Flash as well as an HTML version. Nice to see that some people are still designing with accessibility in mind.

Thanks to Nathalie at the Justice Knowledge Network for telling me about this.

Looking for Stories on Learning Outsourcing

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Hal Richman and Eilif Trondsen from SRI Business Consulting Intelligence are writing a series of three articles for ASTD’s Training and Development magazine (Sept-Nov 2004) that build on their recent report on Learning Outsourcing: Strategic Opportunity Perspective.

We are interested in stories, anecdotes from training staff in any organization that has undertaken training outsourcing.

If you have interesting stories that you would like to share, check out the post on Passion4Learning.

Students in Favour of Laptops in Schools

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Via Seb is this discussion (in French) about laptops in schools. The students at this northern New Brunswick school were asked on the Haut-Madawaska Learning Centre blog – what do you think of the Education Minister’s request for schools to participtae in a laptops in schools project and should we participate? The responses, which seem to be all from students, range from "computers will enrich our IT skills and increase communication in class" to "access to more computers would help us to access our existing class blogs" and "it would make research a lot easier" and "Wow, what a good idea".

Even the 2nd Grade class thinks that laptops in 7th and 8th Grade are a good idea. Of the estimated 100 comments, only one was slightly negative. So there it is. The students (learners) are resoundingly in favour of laptops in school.

I have always believed that the key to learning is motivation, having been influenced early on by Gagne’s events of instruction – where the first instructional event is "activating motivation". These students are already motivated!

More on ASTD 2004

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The best coverage so far on ASTD 2004 is from e-Clippings. These posts include an overview of Harold Stolovitch’s session, quoting Harold on the definition of "technology":

Technology is the application of organized and scientific knowledge to solve practical problems.

This is the correct definition of technology when applied to Human Performance Technology [my field] – which is NOT about information technology, but solving problems in an applied way.

Thinking like nature

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Please read Dave Pollard’s post on William McDonough, a true visionary in the field of design and natural systems. Pollard lists McDonough’s four websites, all of which are absolutely fascinating. The Green Blue organization site includes a unique set of concepts that you should read, if nothing else. For example:

Good industry
The current conversation about environmental and social challenges too often points to industry at the enemy. This is a mistake. The true villain is bad design, and the solution is an industry that makes intelligent, informed design decisions. Cradle-to-cradle thinking is the key to these decisions.

After looking at McDonough’s information and concepts, I feel much more motivated to try to address some of those really big and messy issues that most of us just avoid. Yes, we can design a better world.

New (and Improved) LearnNB Website

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The new LearnNB website was launched today. There’s much more content, and we will be using this as a portal for many other initiatives, such as our R&D community of practice. Learn NB’s aims are:

Promote the export of New Brunswick’s experience, knowledge, expertise, products and services in e-learning and related fields.
Facilitate partnerships between the private sector, governments, universities, and non-governmental organizations in pursuit of the above.
Assist the Province of New Brunswick and the Atlantic Region through the ongoing development of our human capital and, in so doing, to be able to more effectively export our collective competence in e-learning capacity building.

The site is brand new today, and I’m sure that there will be a lot more information soon. Once we get some blogs, wikis, trackbacks and RSS feeds on this site we’ll know that we’re getting somewhere ;-)