Posted 9:19 AM by George Siemens
Tech's newest trend--decentralization
Quote: "The world is becoming increasingly complex. Companies manage supply chains in real time, while hundreds of thousands of gamers gather in shared virtual worlds. Networks must carry vast and growing amounts of traffic, with no end in sight. Centralized systems eventually crumble under the strain of that complexity."

Posted 9:15 AM by George Siemens
Find
Quote: "Find makes searching for stuff quick and efficient. Here's a quick overview of what you can currently do with Find: Lightspeed search of the content of your emails, Very quickly search your computer for files in any directory by filename, Intelligent indexing returns the information you need in an instant, Scroll through results, with the contents of files appearing in the viewer to the right, Search the Web and fast-cache results for near instant viewing (results remain cached locally for offline viewing), Launch files in their native applications."

Posted 9:08 AM by George Siemens
DSpace
Quote: "DSpace is an open source software platform that enables institutions to:

• capture and describe digital works using a submission workflow module
  
• distribute an institution's digital works over the web through a search and retrieval system
  
• preserve digital works over the long term
  

Comment: This looks very useful...official release is November 4

Posted 8:57 AM by George Siemens
Online Learning Conference Summary
Wrap up site for Online Learning 2002 Conference. Some good notes...as well as very useful recorded audio/powerpoint presentations. In particular, check out:
Learning Technology Standards: The Inflection Point of the New Learning and Knowledge Economy?

Posted 8:22 AM by George Siemens
Preparing Teachers to Use Learning Objects
Quote: "Our article describes learning objects, explores why teachers would want to use them, and explains how to facilitate their use."
Comment: Simple overview of learning objects...especially on how to encourage teachers to use them. Like most articles on learning objects, however, it fails to provide user-level resources for developing learning objects...and makes the assumption that the greatest value of learning objects is their reusability...it's not. This is a value to the teacher/organization. The greatest value of learning objects rests in the ability to create personalized learning for students...but that'll take a few years. Much discussion on learning objects is still at the theory level...which means that as organizations actually start to work with learning objects (versus only talking about them) many currently unseen situations will arise - such as getting teachers to actually use them...and perhaps most importantly - connecting learning objects with the course content and context. This is going to be a HUGE concern. I've spent time exploring MERLOT and other repositories. Currently, learning objects searching is not very efficient...a person has to wade through an incredible amount of resources to get useful items. Intelligent searching is a much needed stage in learning object development.

Important note: "When selecting or developing learning objects, the teacher's first priority is to ensure that the lesson objectives determined by the curriculum form the foundation for the lesson plan; once defined and established, these same lesson objectives should in turn govern the design and use of learning objects. In short, the application of the electronic-learning component should blend with other aspects of a lesson."

Posted 8:07 AM by George Siemens
Making sense of e-learning in a confused market
Quote: "Recent articles in the industry press have suggested that current buyers of e-learning are both cautious and confused. This has come about as a consequence of a series of events in the marketplace: the dot com crash, continuing falling share prices and a stream of vendor mergers and acquisitions in addition to reduced training budgets and stories of unsuccessful LMS implementations and high course drop out rates..."
Comment: Article explores elearning background, buying and managing elearning, vendor selection, etc.