Learning, Technology & Change

It's an increasing trend for myself (and others) to move data online. My bookmarks? Del.icio.us . My Documents? Google Docs . Other lists are now a part of my NetVibes page. Last night I wanted to a look up a book I had heard about the other day. No sweat I'll just check my notes page on my homepage with a special note on books but - Netvibes was down....this is bull$hit i'm paying how much a month for this flaky service?? oh Yeah. i'm paying nothing. So why am I putting so much faith and giving up so much control? It's all about the convenience I suppose. Bookmarks available whenever notes available wherever. Am I putting way too much trust in the cloud?

Rapid eLearning tools are becoming a standard. The ability to quickly create content develop interactions without web developer skills is a necessity. The reduction in the cost of instruction is amazing. The great thing with these tools are that anyone can create learning content. The problem is - anyone can create content. The argument being made is that unqualified people are creating bad content (powerpoint, word documents, Email...). Providing tools to improve the quality of the content can't hurt. I think a larger benefit can be had by automating how we build content. Can we create a tool to help the author analyze the information? Is it declarative knowledge (perhaps more user-friendly questions)? If so then these are the ways you should present the information. Is it procedural knowledge, then try this. Maybe in some sort of wizard format. You create the learning objectives and determine the knowledge type. From there you could drill down and get more detailed. Perhaps som...

Your LMS will not cause cardiovascular disease. Each time you use your LMS is will not shorten your life by 11 minutes. Still, I believe a traditional LMS is similar to cigarette. A Learning Management System is supposed to be about tracking a user’s learning. What progress have they made, what courses have they taken what are their scores? In reality I think this is not quite true. An LMS is about pushing information. Let me elaborate. Cigarettes are a means of delivering nicotine. Big Tobacco has fought this, but that’s the truth of it. There’s a certain image perpetuated, but that’s just the sales pitch. Cigarettes deliver nicotine and all of its “benefits” to your body. It’s a somewhat acceptable means to get a fix (versus chewing tobacco). Learning Management Systems deliver content to users. What about all the other new functionality? Those are how vendors stay relevant and sell new versions. It’s similar to how Microsoft has to keep “improving” the word processor (read: extra f...