Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Arizona News Media discovers New frontiers of web in classrooms

This always cracks me up. Way to stay on top of the new trends guys.
There may actually be something to this whole blogging, wiki, podcasting thing ;-)

UPDATE: 2/14
Oh and looky here...apparently, according to this newspaper article iPods have become a big part of distance learning. Wow, thanks Star-Telegram. You've certainly scooped your peers on this one.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://haxa.blogs.com/mr_haxa_does_blogs/2007/02/leveraging_on_w.html

Leveraging on Web 2.0 "Pull Centric" solutions to Transform Learning 1.0 to Learning 2.0

Web 2.0 solutions are "pull-centric" tools that can be used to transform learning from Learning 1.0 (formal e-learning) to Learning 2.0 (informal learning). In another perspective, it is about putting "context" into "content"

Learning 1.0 makes full use of the web medium to "push" synchronous and asynchronous learning solutions to learners. The pull centric approaches enable active-democratic community participation through:

* easy to use content upload capability,
* mutliple discussions channels,
* easy to embed content objects,
* learning community, and
* personalized experience.

This translates to viral marketing that makes full use of every possible media (text-blogging, wiki; audio-Podcasts; syndication-RSS feeds, video-You Tube like solution)

Efforts to put in transforming to Learning 2.0 is to find the best fit to leverage these tools into what matters to the e-learning projects; development, communications, evaluation, and sustainability.

Here are some examples how we can take advantage of Web 2.0 to transform learning solution to informal-rather-democratic-learning-solution, i.e. Learning 2.0:

Blogging,
Great transition change management tool for project communication. It's very up to date posting capability, allow multiple authors (project sponsor, prog. Manager, proj. manager, business analysts, systems analysts) to post their thoughts as well as document discussion. Benefits: Reduce redundant communication.
Blogging content commenting capability allows users to have feedback or discussions among themselves as well as content experts. Some experienced users can share their knowledge and indicate where the next updates should focus on.

Wikis,
Low tech sustainability tools for content updates. Wiki has a dynamic content update tool that?s way better than checking in-checking out. It allows multiple edits by users and these updates are tracked and logged for accountability. Projects can benefit from this when e-learning development team handing over training materials to customers for deployment and sustenance.

Podcasts,
Useful for recording virtual sessions as well as offline asynchronous sessions.
Tailored for audience who prefers audio (higher context)

RSS Feeds,
Really Simple Syndication feeds is a powerful to channel the right information to the right users at the right time
Feeds can come from multiple sources, e.g. SharePoint, Wiki, blogging sites and users can get these updates real time via the RSS reader.
Communication blast appearing in training environment

Other Web 2.0 that's worth looking into:

Digg This:
Allows users to rank sites, content, and comment/blogs on that topic (viral marketing!). In one way, this is sort of like Kirkpatrick's first level of evaluation.

YouTube:
Leverage on Adobe Flash technology that allows easy to upload, share, and discuss video content. Users need not to worry about format. Multiple format input ? one output format.

Opportunities:
1. Corporate support
3. Low tech solution
4. Viral marketing
5. Dynamic language of XML is ubiquitously used by developers

Challenges:
1. Adding more capabilities and updates to current tools
2. Getting project teams to start blogging and make full use of these tools
3. Standardization of tools as well look and feel - same user experience throughout
4. Ability to customize future off-the-shelf learning content management systems

bschlenker said...

Haxa! Welcome to the Learning2.0 revolution. I'm hoping you sensed my sarcasm in this post. I find it funny that the learning community has been talking about this stuff for years now and the traditional media outlets make it out like they've discovered something unique and fresh. UofA isn't the only school doing...they're actually a little late to the party.
But...at least the media isn't bashing it like they normally do. So I'm trying to look at the brite side.
Cheers!

Anonymous said...

Brent, I agree with your viewpoint. The learning community has been following this approach since a long time but now with the limelight and the jargons that have been associated, it has definitely created a ‘woh’ factor today.

Adding further to your and Haxa’s contribution, I would say, today the trend of "mutualisaton” is emerging. The current landscape of elearning adoption is primarily talking connectivism, informal & interactive learning, creating learning interactions, using rapid elearning tools like Raptivity, personal & collaborative learning using blogs and social bookmarking, audio/podcasting, e-portfolios etc. The trends is towards mobile e-learning, virtual work spaces & yes offering digital learning experiences.

At the crux of all this, is the drive to share ideas & move towards a connected global community and certainly it would be ‘better off’ than our yesterdays…