TweetI’ve been using SmartDraw since 2003 when I first looked for a Visio replacement to create diagrams and other visual graphics. My initial search had me looking for something cheaper than Visio, and at the time, SmartDraw was about 75% cheaper. I purchased SmartDraw 6, actually wrote an unpaid endorsement for the product and became [...]
Filed under: Technology | 57 Comments »
TweetAlbert Ip has changed the name of his blog from Random walk in elearning to Random walk in learning. Albert says that there are no specific learning technologies, just technologies that can be used for learning. Of course we can talk about how to use a certain technology in a certain way to help some [...]
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TweetI’ve just watched Reds, Whites and the Blues on CBC TV, described as “Four savvy teenagers from the Rez take us to their White high schools and show us why most native kids don’t graduate.” I watched four kids record video for several months as they go through school. What struck me was that these [...]
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TweetObviously, there are some big software vendors that just don’t know how to be good citizens. For many, it’s all about the bottom line, no matter what. Anyone in the learning technology space knows about Blackboard’s greedy grab for intellectual property that was originally created by the community (yes, the initial suit is against D2L, [...]
Filed under: OpenSource | 3 Comments »
TweetMark Oehlert has set forth the following challenge: So here is the challenge – think of six word lesson plans. Use just six words to describe the objective(s) of a course, a unit, a module, a lesson, an entire college career – whatever your preferred length of instruction is – This made me think about [...]
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TweetThe MacArthur Foundation launched its five-year, $50 million digital media and learning initiative in 2006 to help determine how digital technologies are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. Answers are critical to developing educational and other social institutions that can meet the needs of this and future generations. [...]
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TweetOne of the reasons that I’m fascinated with informal learning is that it has not been studied anyway near as much as formal learning (education & training) and my experience with workplace performance has shown how important informal learning is in getting the job done. A ten year study of Japanese education methods by the [...]
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TweetI was introduced to Roger Schank through his book Engines for Education and still find his Student Bill of Rights an excellent reference point from which to discuss educational reform. In a recent article published in The Pulse, Schank talks about the implementation of story-centered curricula: These are story-centered curricula. Students work in teams in [...]
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TweetHere’s a comment e-mailed to me by Graham Watt, friend & neighbour, in response to my post – A Greater Need for Trust: The communication of bias My argument against the centralizing use of planners for developing creative thought can be placed within the Harold Innis idea of the periphery being the source of ideas [...]
Filed under: Communities | 1 Comment »
TweetWhen we ran our last Informl Learning Unworkshop this Summer, we tried out several technical configurations, but the standard for international, online, synchronous group sessions was a Skypecast for voice and Vyew for slide sharing & text chat. I know that there may be more robust [expensive] platforms for web conferences, but both of these [...]
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