December 29, 2004 – 12:03 pm
Here are some items related to e-learning that have caught my interest lately. TOP OF THIS LIST: “Keyser Soze and Organizational Learning.” One of Maish Nichani’s favorite films (and mine) is “The Usual Suspects.” In this article, Nichani describes the key scene where the incognito mafia kingpin Keyser Soze (Kevin Spacey) uses random bits of information in a police interrogation room to spin a bizarre but believeable story which throws the cops off track. Building on that insight, Nichani writes, “A rich experience base is what distinguishes an expert from a novice. One way to build an experience base is to wait for experiences to come to you. This is the natural way. The other way is to create an environment where experiences can be accelerated. This is the realm of training. But how much of our training is based on accelerating experiences? How many training outcomes are based on interpretation and sensemaking capabilities?” An excellent question. Nichani explores it briefly, but I’d love to see other e-learning creators and participants discuss this further. (Read the rest of this list…)
December 21, 2004 – 3:14 pm
Today, as promised, Kris Smith posted the second half of our wide-ranging talk from last Friday. See his podcast “Croncast: Amy and her friend Kris Ep. 2.” Today’s show starts with a discussion of women in podcasting — or rather the current lack thereof, definitely on the creator side and probably on the audience side. I was fairly pointed in my observations on this topic, so I wouldn’t be surprised if some people take issue with what I said. Well, as always, if you question or object to anything I have to say, e-mail me (editor@contentious.com) or comment to this post (or on “Croncast”) and we can discuss it. In the second part of this conversation, Kris and I explored the potential overlap of podcasting and e-learning or distance learning. Here are some links, side notes, and stuff I forgot to mention…
December 21, 2004 – 11:44 am
Learning overload has become a perpetual undercurrent of my psyche. I continually feel overwhelmed by how much I need to learn in order to do things I want to do or just keep up with life…
December 16, 2004 – 2:28 pm
Here’s another line of thought spurred by my ongoing cross-blog conversation with Maish R. Nichani of elearningpost – which I’m enjoying immensely. In his Dec. 16 article “It’s all about rich e-learning experiences,” Nichani wrote: “Amy Gahran points out that a task-oriented approach is more effective in most e-learning than an information oriented approach. My point is that a decision-making or an execution-based approach is even better. Decisions are what business organizations are about. The need to perform a task or to acquire information really depends on the decision you are trying to make. Thus, know-how is equally important as know-why or know-what, it really depends on the decision.” …That’s a very good point, and I’d like to respond to that. I think we might both be circling around the same goal here…
December 16, 2004 – 1:56 pm
Between our two blogs, Maish R Nichani and I are having an intriguing conversation about e-learning. Yesterday in “elearningpost” he zeroed in on a concept that strikes a strong chord in me: e-learning as a narrative technique. See his article, “It’s all about rich e-learning experiences.” Here are a few quick thoughts to follow up on some points that Nichani raised in that excellent article…
December 15, 2004 – 10:44 am
My recent posting Corporate E-Learning: Focus on Tasks has attracted a surprising amount of traffic, mainly because Maish R. Nichani blogged it in elearningpost, and added a good idea to my theme…
December 10, 2004 – 5:24 pm
I’ve seen how several companies go about offering training via e-leaning channels, and it can be pretty dismal. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In my opinion, too much corporate training is basically an information dump rather than skill development. It doesn’t have to be that way…
December 8, 2004 – 5:59 pm
Here are several items on the general theme of online learning that have caught my attention recently… TOP OF THIS LIST: Learning in Communities, by Stephen Downes, LearnScope, March 4. This is some of the clearest thinking about online learning that I’ve read in a long time. Downes writes: “With the discussion and — dare I say it — hype surrounding online courses, learning objects, and other forms of online content, people have to a large degree stopped talking about the idea of the learning community. But they shouldn’t. Learning — even online learning — still occurs for the most part in communities. Students take part in online classes and seminars, they exchange thoughts and ideas in mailing lists and on discussion boards, they work in project teams and work groups. The concepts of learning and community are almost inseparable, even for the self-study student. …There remains a great deal of misunderstanding regarding the role and implementation of online discussion and online communities in online learning. Probably the greatest misapplication of online community lies in the idea that it is an adjunct to, or following from, the creation and design of an online course. This is perhaps most clearly exemplified by the existence in itself of course discussions. In more institutions that I can count, when a course is offered online, the discussion community is created with the first class and disbanded with the last. The community owes its existence to the course, and ends when the course does.” Brilliant! This should be required reading for everyone in the online learning world. (Read the rest of this list…)
October 31, 2004 – 2:05 pm
Here’s a few items that have recently caught my attention on the theme of e-learning. TOP OF THIS LIST: “Categories of eLearning,” eLearnSpace, Oct. 18. Whenever I tell people that I’ve gotten involved in the e-learning field, most of them give me a blank stare — or think I’m only referring to college courses that you can take online. This excellent primer by George Siemens describes and differentiates each of the main types of e-learning. (Read the rest of this list…)
October 1, 2004 – 2:49 pm
I love e-learning (whether on the internet, or on a standalone computer or independent network), mainly because I believe this approach holds tremendous potential for education at all levels. With that in mind, I’d like to draw your attention to an excellent and highly disturbing series recently published by Baltimore Sun writer Alec MacGillis: “Poor schools, rich targets.” In a nutshell, the message of this series is that
many US schools are increasingly using educational software as an easy and generally teacher-free way to prepare students in poor schools to pass federally mandated testing. The often unstated intent is to prevent schools from flunking new national education standards. But, as most educators and students know, “teaching to the test” rarely fosters real learning…
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