Posted 6:09 PM by George Siemens
A colleague approached me earlier this week and said "Why are you so negative on classrooms? It's really coming through in your writing. You're a classroom teacher, after all." Thought about that for a while. I've concluded that I'm not negative on classrooms - I'm negative on the inefficiencies and abuses found in many classrooms.

Too many instructors view teaching as lecturing...so, lectures become little more than a one-sided, egotistical spoutings of knowledge. No (or little) attempt is made to ensure learning has happened. This is not a function of classrooms - this is a function of poor teaching...and it is poor teaching I'm ranting against.

Only critical content should be presented via lecture and then explored through application and interaction. Learning occurs as a result of reflection on, and validation of, content...this process is most often initiated through interaction. In this model (and online), content is not less important. The difference is in how content is explored...and to a degree who provides it - teacher, student, or both.

Effective teaching requires equipping students with the skills and beliefs to be able to provide for their own learning.

Posted 10:53 AM by George Siemens
Jay Cross' blog has a new look...he switched to Movable Type from Blogger (as elearningpost did several months ago). Looks good.

Spam hits 36 percent of e-mail traffic - I believe it...it's getting worse (daily)

Posted 10:50 AM by George Siemens
Blog Days of Summer
Quote: "Blogs have grown from their sparse, grassroots days into a burgeoning forest of information and opinions for two reasons. First is the software, which has helped take some of the technical load off users – you don’t really need to know anything about HTML or FTP to blog — and significantly lowered the barrier to entry. Second is the form itself. Blogs, which are time stamped and posted in reverse chronological order, read like a diary or journal. They are often brief, opinionated, and personal stream-of-consciousness etchings with links to other bits or blogs or news items or websites."
Comment: We are still at the beginning stages of a love affair with blogs. Traditional media, academia, and organizations are falling over themselves saying how great blogs are...and they are right. Only a matter of time, however, before the expectations of blogs far exceed what they actually can do. Blogs are about communicating and connecting...corner stones to organizational transformation - but that's it. If we make the simple concept of blogging complex, we lose their real value.

See also: Choosing a Blogging Package for Students via SiT
Quote: "I was recently commissioned with the task of selecting an appropriate blogging tool for our upcoming Intellectual Property Weblog class. Selecting blogging software is becoming increasingly tricky, in part because there are so many packages out there, and because so many of them are so good. All have been appending each other's features as time goes on, making their advantages progressively less distinct."

Posted 9:48 AM by George Siemens
Think elearning is a quicker, simpler way of getting an education? Virtual Degrees Virtually Tough presents a slightly different perspective...it seems that the process of getting an online degree is just as rigorous as traditional education. The acceptance, however, by employers is still not great (though many schools no longer differentiate between classroom/online degrees.