Mark Bullen’s blog has changed from Net Gen Nonsense to Net Gen Skeptic (I criticized the first title when he set up the blog last May/June. Now I think I prefer it). He reports on a recent survey…
As with any tool that embodies a potentially new medium of interaction, Second Life has been the subject of much hype. Many companies that first embraced SL as a tool for connecting with customers…
Network weaving is a great term to describe how people and organizations interact, connect, share information, and form relationships. In this 20 minute video, June Holley talks about her…
In No more “learners” Jay Cross uses the preacher-congregation metaphor to show the dysfunction in our educational and training systems. Much as the Reformation, sped by the new technology of the…
I voted for Barack Obama, and I’m still a supporter, but I’m growing more and more doubtful that things are going to change much from an education perspective any time soon in terms of leadership…
Libraries are often cited as a dying concept. In my home community, we recently built a new, expensive library…and it looks like a library. Bigger than the older building and with more books. Not…
From Lev Gonick, CIO of Case Western Reserve, in The Chronicle of Higher Ed, writing about “How Technology Will Reshape Academe After the Economic Crisis“:
Indeed, the whole learning process is…
I’m following up on yesterday’s post discussing how established institutions (schools, universities, research facilities) change only after working organizations (businesses, enterprises, social…
This afternoon, we held a wrapup conversation for CCK08…the recording is now available. We discussed a wide-range of topics, including lurking in online environments, lessons learned from CCK08,…
Charles Green got me thinking with this post:
Ideas lead technology. Technology leads organizations. Organizations lead institutions. Then ideology brings up the rear, lagging all the…
Ok. So I’ve been backchanneling all over the place trying to get my mind around what I’ve been trying to get my mind around this week (really… for the past year). I have a couple of questions that…
So I’m thinking the March issue of Educational Leadership (due on their website soon) represents a not so insignificant marker in the continued deepening and broadening of the change conversation…
Jay Cross and I have written and posted The future of the training department on our togetherLearn blog:
Prior to the 20th Century, training per se did not exist outside the special needs of…
Instead of an aversion to pain, I think I have a desire to walk toward it. Last fall, during CCK08, I was blessed with the opportunity to experience Prokofy Neva (Catherine Fitzpatrick). Many…
This will hardly surprise readers, but I’m somewhat partial to a networked-view of the world. Varies organizations/disciplines are realizing that seeing the world as networked helps to explain why…
McKinsey Quarterly tackles web 2.0 in the enterprise. Don’t like the article. Building on an instantiation of change, rather than on change itself, seems rather silly to me. At points in the…
Great article by Clive Thompson in the new issue of Wired (the paper version, so no link to the text right now) about the ways in which netbooks are changing the laptop landscape. And, at the same…
As I’ve stated, I’m trying to make greater use of visuals. Hard to make sense of the value of visuals with poorly presented articles like this: Why communicate visually. Some sloppy research on…
News - of the investigative journalist variety that helped launch Nixon to even greater fame - has been said to be the real casualty of the development of amateur news. I’ve heard this argument…
On 19 February 2004, I went down the rabbit hole and started this blog:
This is where I post my thoughts and comments on ideas, events or other writings that are of a professional…
Our online conference on improving traditional conferences is coming together rather nicely. We start tomorrow and run through until Friday. Speaker schedule is here. Our Ning site is here.
…
Nicola Avery commented on my last post on changing the structure:
How do you bring everyone together though - we do it in learning through various networks and initiatives but don’t know with…
Just finished up a really interesting interview with Carol Dweck, author of the book Mindset, and it’s got me thinking hard about the language I use with my own kids in terms of creating a “growth…
Last night CBC’s Cross Country Checkup discussed the reform of our health care system. There is a sense of desperation in the way in which we are trying to save our current health care system (and…
More and more I’m starting to think that Facebook may just be the engine that drives school change around technology. The numbers right now are pretty compelling. Six hundred thousand new users…
In my Delicious network bookmarks I found this pretty interesting study (pdf) titled “The Participation Divide: Content Creation and Sharing in the Digital Age” which concludes:
…Despite new…
When you come to a fork in the road, take it. - Yogi Berra
As I look at what I’ve learned about business, information technology and learning over the past decade I see two major influences,…
In late January, I presented at Learning Technologies 2009 in London. Had a great time (including spending time with Jay Cross getting depressed in the Imperial War Museum). I’ve posted a paper…
Facebook is creeping into all aspects of information exchange. Celebrities use it to share information with fans, businesses use it as a marketing tool, activists use it to generate support for…
This is the kind of report parents dream of - Video games are good for children: “video games can stimulate learning of facts and skills such as strategic thinking, creativity, cooperation and…
The traditional education system cannot be…
In odd moments of silence, thoughts have a way of creeping in that appear foolish, but on additional reflection reveal something of value. The obvious solution to these random thoughts is to pursue…
Adhering to the motto “a provocative title will surely increase readership”, Atlantic has an interesting article on How the Crash Will Reshape America:
Economic crises tend to reinforce and…
Jim Kunstler spoke to a packed audience at Mount Allison University last night, covering much of the material in his book The Long Emergency with updated data. You can watch his 2004 TED Talk on…
Edutopia writer Sara Bernard is looking for student input in terms of advising teachers on how they might use technology in the classroom. I’m wondering if anyone out there might want to pose the…
For several years I called this blog “Conversations at the intersection of learning, work & technology” and still use that tag line from time to time. During the past decade I’ve worked at that…
Creative Class analyzes the sectors hardest hit by job losses. Traditional manufacturing fields are most impacted. Office, sales, computer, art, and architecture/engineering show large losses as…
Mount Allison University presents:
James Howard Kunstler, fierce critic of suburban sprawl and our automobile-centric culture and the novelist The New York Times described as “provocative and…
Information confined to a physical space may be a thing of the past. Watches, books, newspapers, and even computers are physically constrained. To access information, we must have the physical…
I’ve blogged before about how Wendy and I limit the amount of media time that Tess and Tucker get, that we struggle with knowing how much time is too much or too little to be on the computer, watch…
The Practice of Training in the 21st Century is an online presentation I will be doing for CSTD on 4 March 2009 at 1:00 PM EST. There is a fee for the event which supports CSTD’s work in fostering…
I’m always a bit torn when I’m in a position where I’m designing a course and looking towards creating specific assignments that students must complete. There is a sense in which creating a fully…
Guest post by Graham Watt
Harold’s note: This is the post that I would like to have written, but Graham says it so much better than I could have.
Springfield, a small community in New Brunswick,…
Marks are really rather arbitrary. I have this fear, when marking, that I’ll double mark a paper/project submitted by a student (i.e. I’ll mark it once with comments and a grade…and then, because I…
Ontario in the creative age (.pdf) makes the somewhat obvious argument that Ontario (and many parts of the developed world) are experiencing a “shift from more routine-oriented to…
I picked up a used copy of The Fourth Turning (1997) as I had read some reviews, positive and negative, and for the price figured it was worth it. I won’t go into the entire premise of the book,…
Blindingly obvious statement: how we access information and interact with each other has (disruptive) implications for educational institutions as well as leadership models. Openness and…
The history of humanity reveals information as something we have had to pursue. Through philosophy, research, libraries, and universities, information had to be intentionally sought to be known (by…
