Great Video Lecture: @mwesch - Michael Wesch

Outstanding Video of the cultural anthropologist, Michael Wesch, who created The Machine is Us/ing Us.

A Portal to Media Literacy

My Creation Station - TK09

Welcome to my session on Social Media Soup.

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Microsoft, IBM, Intel cutting jobs - Oh, the memories...

It was just 2 years ago that while presenting at an eLearning Guild event I had a phone meeting with my managers about "re-deployment".  My personal exit strategy wasn't supposed to kick-in for another 6 months, but why look a gift horse in the mouth, right?  I had been cut loose and set free into the wild of new adventures, new media, new web, new jobs, and many, many new friends & colleagues.

As Microsoft, IBM, Intel, and so many others not in the headlines, begin to reduce their labor force, I think about the employees now free to pursue other opportunities. 

First of all, can anyone tell me if training departments are part of these cutbacks?  The eLearning industry believes that we can save companies large amounts of money via our products and services. 

Are classroom trainers actually losing their jobs to be replaced by eLearning?  I know this is a common fear, but I just have never seen it.

Are you ramping up eLearning, or cutting back?  I twittered this same question a few weeks ago and received only a few mixed responses. 

Again, in thinking about all of those effected by corporate cutbacks, I've designed an challenging opportunity for eLearning professionals to showcase their design creativity, and skills.  As part of The Annual Gathering Conference in March we accepting submissions for the gLearning Challenge.  You can find more info at the link, but basically I want to see how creative our community can be in designing an eLearning solution using ONLY the free applications offered by Google.  No, Google is not sponsoring this.  The tools are free and therefore accessible to those who are currently without jobs and access to pricey development tools.  Constraining the toolset to Google products only also forces you to work within boundaries, and that makes you think more creatively and levels the playing field. 
The Guild is offering 100 guiders just for submitting, but the real payoff is getting noticed and exposing your skills and talents to those companies that ARE hiring and do need your help.

iPhone App Updates that ROCK mLearning

This is a quick blog post via iPhone. It seemed like a good thing to
do since I wanted to point out 2 new apps.
Ustream.tv and WebEx
These 2 apps alone take mobile learning to a whole new level. I just
tried out Ustream and it works GREAT. It's only on wifi right now but
that's okay.
I haven't tried WebEx yet but I thought it was worth noting in the
hopes that adobe was reading this and ready to introduce the Connect
for iPhone app. Can I start that rumor or is it out already and I
totally missed it?
Let me know what you thoughts are on theses apps and if there are
others that I have missed.

DevLearn08 Favorite Sessions - Encore Performances ONLINE Jan 15 & 16

The eLearning Guild's January Online Forum is the best of DevLearn08 as voted by YOU, the audience.  Register NOW, here.

Yes, I'm biased, I know, but these sessions really were VERY good.  There's a little in the mix for everyone, no matter what type of training project you are currently working on.  I would highly encourage you to set aside these 2 days as career development for yourself and participate with your eLearning colleagues in these conversations.

Here's the lineup:

Opening General Session
Thursday, January 15 — 8:30a to 9:45a

• Providing Learners with Feedback: What the Research Says…
  Will Thalheimer, Work-Learning Research

Concurrent Session Block 2
Thursday, January 15 — 10:15a to 11:30a

• 201 | Game On!: Transforming Online Learning, One Game at a Time
  Andrew Kimball, Qube Learning
• 202 | Deeper Instructional Design: Cognitive Science & How People Really e-Learn
  Clark Quinn, Quinnovation

Concurrent Session Block 3
Thursday, January 15 — 12:00n to 1:15p

• 301 | The Making of a Blockbuster: Using Cinematic Techniques in e-Learning
  Laura Kratochvil, Northrop Grumman
• 302 | Creating Outstanding e-Learning with Adobe Captivate 3
  Joseph Ganci, Dazzle Technologies Corp.

Concurrent Session Block 4
Friday, January 16 — 8:30a to 9:45a

• 401 | Visually Thinking e-Learning
  Donna Safko, Mudpuddle Creations
• 402 | The Bionic Brain: Learning, Technology, and Social Networks
  Sean Kearney, Patternhunter

Concurrent Session Block 5
Friday, January 16 — 10:15a to 11:30a

• 501 | Elegantly Animated - Getting the Best from Animations in PPT-to-Flash Tools
  Paul Clothier, Accolo Inc.
• 502 | A Better Way to Design and Build Immersive e-Learning
  Robert Penn, Suddenly Smart

Closing General Session
Friday, January 16 — 12:00n to 1:15p

• Learning by Viewing vs. Learning by Doing
  Ruth Clark, Clark Training & Consulting

10 Open Source e-Learning Projects to Watch - They missed Drupal

Okay, so Drupal was not specifically created to support education and e-Learning.  However, its a powerful open source web framework that has grown a supportive developer base over the years and is getting much more user-friendly. 
I'll be posting my review of the new book:  Drupal for Education and E-Learning soon. 

But for now this post is about e-Learning Open Source Projects.  The TechWorld blog has a great post listing 10 of the most popular projects.

MOODLE gets a lot of press but the others are fairly under-represented in the blogosphere.  Have you heard of Fle3, Dokeos, or eFront?  Not me.

Sure, some of these projects are directed strictly at the academic community, but its important for corporate training managers to look at these solutions seriously.  And not because you want to test them all behind the firewall with the hopes of replacing your million dollar SABA implementation. But because these projects point to the future.

So check out the list and see what functionality each project supports.  I think you'll be surprised how many of them just might be all your need for YOUR next project.