Mobilemind

Vacation time for me. I'll be back with more posts soon. Tom
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When I was in high school, feedback was Pete Townshend manipulating his guitar to eeke shrieks and squeels out of Hi-Watt amps. By college, I thought of it as feedback loops and bio-feedback. In grad school, it became assesments and course evaluations, and applying the Kirkpatrick model. In my early CBT days feedback was capturing student comments *while they were in the lesson* (wow, cool, huh). In the business world "feedback" morphed again, into "soliciting feedback" and trying to get comments, opinions and input from others (like colleagues, customers, learners) via email or questionnaires. We talk about rapid elearning. I think we need rapid feedback too. Let's get dynamic and real time like Pete. Lets loop-it into the mix and change what we're teaching or presenting *while we're doing it*. Oh, and by the way, lets add some real data collection too. Real time. Real data. Real cool. Next time you do some Live elearning, include questions, surveys or polls. Be ready to act on the responses and adapt in real time. Heck, be ready to write some new questions in real-time, on-the-fly. No reason why data at almost any Kirkpatrick level can't be real-time. Act on that inner feedback loop during the session. And afterwards, go for the big loop. Play back the tape, analyze the data and plug THAT back into the amp for the next time you go live. "Ka-whang... waheeeeeeeeeeeee." Send me your feedback (but not on reel-to-reel, 8-track, cassettes or MP3s, please). If you've got my email address, use it. Otherwise, try this one: mobilemind@pobox.com
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Spot. Not the dog. Not the Microsoft internet watches. Nope, it is "Spot learning". It sounds a lot like what Macromedia has been talking about as "rapid elearning" (Nov 2003 ELearning Day, white papers). Well, not just Macromedia, many others too. For example, Bersin & Associates has been talking about rapid elearning for some time (Training 2004 course from Feb-Mar 2004). Anyway, here is an article that instroduced me to "Spot Learning". It is from Elearn Magazine, an offshoot of ACM (Association for Computing Machinery). The interview starts with an analogy, so I was sold immediately. Plus it is only 2 quick pages. A worthwhile read if you like making connections and finding new resources. “Spot Learning”: An Interview with Jonathon Levy So that is the upside, connections & validation. Now for me, there are only so many (overtime) hours in the day. Thus, the question becomes-- is ACM yet another association I should (re)join to keep up on elearning? I'm going to follow Elearn Magazine for awhile and I'll keep you posted.
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Almost Live was a great local sketch comedy series done in Seattle. For years (1984-99), a troupe of talented Seattleites did topical humor and inside jokes on Boeing, Microsoft, and local neighborhoods. It came on right before Saturday Night Live, and was the best 25 minute warm-up that SNL never knew it had. Even if you've never lived through grunge rock, slipped on a slug, or been near the Microsoft campus, you'll enjoy bits like "What's Weak This Week", "Sluggy Come Home", "COPS- In Redmond" and the Dibert-eque "Middle Management Suck-ups." Sometimes re-runs show-up on Comedy Central. Look for it. Breeze Live is another little gem, and one that makes me proud, since I'm involved with it. This quarter we're running a whole series of Live sessions on elearning topics. I'm acting as moderator and am focusing on topics that you'll care about from knowledgeable guest speakers. Topics like "The Future of Elearning", "Rapid Elearning", and "Understanding SCORM". Speakers include, Jay Cross, Sam Adkins, Chris Howard, Nina Pasini, Bryan Chapman, Eric, Shepherd, David Holcombe and others. See more topics and register for upcoming Spring/Summer 2004 sessions here: Elearning Seminar Series. I will also try to keep the Events links on the right side of this page up to date with topics and dates. Breeze Almost Live is my name for the archived sessions from the Breeze Live Elearning Seminar Series. Some sessions are recorded meetings, others are self-paced Breeze presentations. All are good, (credit the speakers, not the host). Even better, you can "time travel" without a Tivo and catch these at your leisure. More recent sessions done with Breeze 4 offer an automatic index into the session based on layout changes, chat entries, key words and a few other key events. Breeze does all that automatically when recording. The thumbnail below highlights the "toggle" for the index and search and shows the index/search pane. See the archives for yourself here: eLearning Recorded Seminars

Labels: events

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This was supposed to be a post on the intersection of Knowledge Management and elearning, but the research brought be around to Marc Rosenberg's book [Amazon.com - eLearning] and the review on Jay Cross's web site. Marc has a deep background with AT&T and is well respected. Rather than retread I'll retire and refer you to Jay's review Book notes - eLearning by Marc Rosenburg
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According to recent research conducted by the Dubai based Madar Research Group, the market is expected to grow at a compound average growth rate (CAGR) of 32 per cent in the United Arab Emirates. The growth in the e-learning market will cover content providers, technology providers... [Online Learning Update] Clearly this "e-learning thing" is neither a "North America-only" nor an "English-language only" phenomenon. Tools, content and managment is neeeded globally. Originally found on Bill Brandon's eLearning Entrepreneur blog, as Why is e-Learning a great opportunity. I'd have to agree.
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To me, a good blog is a personal encounter that provides news, resources and experience. I'm going to try to do just that for elearning, right here. I enjoy a blog with the kind of stuff that Google can find, but I'd never know to look for. The news and resources stuff is obvious, since we've all stumbled on gem-quality links that way. I hope you'll find some of those here. The challenge will be to make this blog personal and experiential-- those are the things that turn bits of data into bits of wisdom from someone you know and trust. That will take time and a few more posts, but I'll try to do that too. How? I'm not entirely sure. 15 years of experience will help... I've earned my M.A. in Instructional Design, done it for a living, built custom CBT/elearning, sold tools, helped design/build/popularize an LMS (and elearning standards) and more. The most valuable part of all that was the good friends and good contacts I've made along the way. I'll do my best to benevolently exploit all of them. Oh, and watch for quirky puns, analogies and anecdotes. Those are things that make context and make something memorable. I may forget the exact content of this Jay Cross post on "mobile learning", but I will forever remember his boyhood home phone number-- 2. "When I was a little boy growing up in Hope, Arkansas..."
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