Posted 7:24 PM by George Siemens
Encourage Your Employees to Play...via Stephen's Web
Quote: "Simulations have become increasingly complex and realistic in the last few years. They have also become increasingly popular, both in universities and in corporate training settings."
Comment: For more information on game/simulation learning see Games & Simulations

Posted 10:51 AM by George Siemens
Improvising Your Way Out of Trouble
Quote: "Why do some people suffer real hardships and not falter? Why do some organizations overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to prosper while other companies cave in at the slightest adversity?"
Comment: Great article discussing bricolage. Many designers and online instructors should be able to relate...often it seems the whole process is one of innovation and pulling together disparate resources.

Posted 8:28 AM by George Siemens
Spent the better portion of the weekend working on the "Teaching Online" course that we are developing to Distance Education. Going through the resources, I'm surprised at how difficult it is to truly "transform" rather than "transfer" content online. We have been focusing on making interaction the larger part of the course (versus content dumping). Two thoughts on that: 1. It's more difficult to design learning where students explore resources than it is to tell students what to think. When communicating, I feel I have to tell people what I want them to know. Not so online...I have to direct them to information and then, through effective assessment, ensure that learning objectives were achieved. 2. It is easy to get lazy as a designer and throw up links that aren't directly related to the intended learning objectives. Developing online resources requires constant focus on outcomes and objectives. In a classroom, if the design process has some inefficiencies, I can always "cover up" through instruction. This crutch is gone in elearning.

Question: I'm always surprised at how proponents of a new way of doing things utilize old techniques to communicate their concepts. For example, several years ago, I attended a session where the speaker focused on the end of the lecture as a means of communicating information. Guess what?...she lectured to get her point across. Or, people yip about how courses are changing...and the instructor is no longer the provider of knowledge (but a guide)...and we use a course to communicate this new approach. Seems silly. So, I'd like to set up a mailing list for approx 12 weeks that is a "non-course" course. Instead of providing any content, at the start of each week, I would post a concept and a link. From there, the group (max 15 people) would dissect and analyze the subject - providing the content through interaction. Not instructor, only a guide. At the end of each week, I would summarize comments and post them in essay form on elearnspace

Interested in this type of learning experience?? See Non-course Course. (It's free...12 weeks...would take some time commitment each week to contribute...done through Yahoo Groups. I'll send a list of weekly topics to anyone who expresses interest.)

Posted 7:39 AM by George Siemens
The 99 cent KM solution
Quote: "I am not opposed to big, expensive, all-embracing KM solutions. I'm just suspicious of them. There is a difference. And I get more suspicious of them as they promise to automate more."
Comment: Much like Low Threshold Applications, this article focuses on simple, cost effective approaches to Knowledge Management. I think the biggest benefit to this simple approach isn't cost-saving - it's the increased likelihood of adoption. Simplicity gets used at a user level - complexity is often a "make work" project for boardrooms and consultants (and huge $$ wasted).

Is our children learning?
Quotes: "Each year more than $5 billion is spent on computers in the classroom. But it's the tech companies that benefit...Training teachers to use technology, however, doesn't turn technology into a better teacher."
Comment: While this article is overly negative on the use of technology in education, it makes a very valid point: integrating education and technology often does not result in better content learning. I encountered this frustration when I first started with elearning at Red River College. Everyone I spoke with directed me to technical people. The focus was technology, not learning...and technology for technology's sake is useless.