June 2009
57 posts
Connecting ideas with communities →
I use the chasm model to explain my professional work of 1) seeing what is ready to cross the chasm by 2) staying connected to the innovators & being an early adopter so that 3) I can help…
Lawsuits? What Lawsuits? →
Arrived at NECC in time for the morning keynote debate about whether or not bricks and mortar schools impede learning. It wasn’t a great question to begin with, because I don’t think anyone really…
Beyond Management: Personal Learning Environments →
Stephen Downes’ presentation at ED-MEDIA 2009 is available: Beyond Management: Personal Learning Environments. The talk is an advancement (integration) of Stephen’s ideas over the last several…
Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online... →
This report will get a fair bit of attention: Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning (.pdf). It joins a long list of meta-analysis by researchers like Abrami, Bernard et al….
Management Rewired - Review →
Management Rewired: Why feedback doesn’t work and other surprising lessons from the latest brain science by Charles Jacobs covers many of the areas discussed here, such as learning,…
Learning Leaders Fieldbook →
Masie Center’s Learning Leaders Fieldbook offers a diverse-perspective overview of leading learning in an organization. Topics include talent management, role of CLO (including lifecycle, basics…
The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital... →
I encourage you to read this report from the MacArthur foundation, published by MIT Press The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age (.pdf). If you’ve followed this blog - and many…
Friday’s Finds #6 →
It seems that Twitter has been the only subject discussed here this week, so I promise to broaden the subject matter next week. Here’s my synthesis of some of what I learned on Twitter:
Business…
A Global Reset for Advertising →
Advertising revenue for newspapers, TV, magazines, and other mainstream media will rebound once the current economic situation improves, right? Not according to Ballmer: “”I don’t think we are in…
Why free web services aren’t really free →
There are many reasons to love emerging technologies - ease of use, features, ability to connect with family/friends. But for most people “free” is a prominent reason. Unfortunately, it’s not the…
“Cuddle Bug” I’m Not →
A couple of Friday nights ago I may have made a big mistake: I went to bed at 11. It’s not that I stayed up too late. Instead it’s that I might have gone to bed too early. If I’d had my wits about…
Learning and micro-blogging →
I’m presenting on Twitter and its uses for education and learning later today, as I noted in my last post. During the past few weeks I’ve been looking at my own uses of Twitter and…
Social Media: Trends and Implications for Learning →
I’m looking forward to this project I’m involved in with Dave Cormier: Social Media: Trends and Implications for Learning. From the AACE site: We’ll will explore emerging technological and…
Attention and distraction →
Educators and trainers face competition for attention from mobile devices and social networking services. Of course, prior to the development of these technologies, we faced a similar challenge of…
Failing new grading approaches →
This confuses me. Basically, a prof doesn’t have the funds available to hire teaching assistants to help with grading, so he adopts a peer-review model: learners grade each other. In this…
Twitter for Faculty →
Image by Matt Hamm
I’m giving a presentation on Twitter for Faculty in collaboration with the Learning Resources Network (LERN) on Wednesday 24 June at 3:00 PM EST (cost $35):
…
Postdigital - putting language to what we know →
I’ve just come back from an amazing couple of days with 52group over in the UK. We got together to look back at some of the work we’ve been doing for the last couple of years and to look for new…
Friday’s Finds #5 →
From the Twitter files:
The big news this week was the Iranian election and almost all of the news was via social media, as the broadcast media were shown to be powerless against the Iranian…
Cloud Books →
Steve Hargadon hosted a panel discussion the other night on the topic of “The Future of Books and Reading” and I was honored to take part with Maggie Tsai of Diigo, Travis Alber and Aaron…
Barriers to Collaboration →
In Why Businesses Don’t Collaborate, Stewart Mader and Scott Abel ask 523 workers about their information sharing habits. In reading through the responses and sample comments, it becomes obvious…
Writing on the Internet →
Just a couple of quotes that I’ve run across of late to add to the reading and writing conversation. I love this one by Donal Leu:
Another difference from earlier models of print comprehension is…
What a difference 20 years makes →
I’ve been somewhat lulled into complacency with statements of how fast technology is changing. The true pace of change is overlooked by its constancy. The depth of change is revealed in a simple,…
Language and connectedness →
Not only are we socially connected in our learning, but the concepts that form our understanding of a subject also reveal network attributes. Understanding is a certain constellation (pattern) of…
Opera Unite →
Periodically, new software appears that has the feeling of a game changer. I had this feeling when I first tried Yahoo Pipes (even though the service still remains somewhat obscure) and Wolfram…
Integrating Learning and Work →
Tom Gram discusses the integration of learning and work (my professional passion) and gives a list of ten strategies for integration, of which three are discussed in detail in Part 1 (I’m already…
#IranElections: Why We All Need to be Editors Now →
If you’ve been following the news out of Iran the last few days, odds are you’re following it very differently from even a few years ago. Ten years ago, most of what I would have learned would…
Disaggregation of Higher Education →
At E-Learn 2008 in Las Vegas last year, I finally met David Wiley f2f. He’s one of the most sincere, engaging, and thoughtful people I’ve had the honour to meet. At the conference, he presented on…
Data Center Overload →
Ever stop to think about what happens behind a search request? Or the infrastructure required to upload an image to Flickr? I personally don’t spend too much time thinking about the complex system…
Foreverism →
We can always use new terms and buzzwords in the English language. Foreverism crops up occasionally. I hope the term goes away soon…but the concept of conversations that are never done and data that…
Social. Networks. Learning. Organizations →
Through LearnTrends, we are hosting an event on June 18: Social. Networks. Learning. Organizations . From the session overview: “Social learning and social networks continue to grow in prominence…
Why group norms kill creativity →
Collaboration, cooperation, communities of practice, collective intelligence, and similar concepts have become very popular concepts in society, business, and education. Any system of organization…
Web2landia - what Higher Ed can learn from Henry... →
(note: this isn’t really finished thinking, but i’ve been rethinking stuff lately and my blog is suffering, so the two of you who are still reading will have to suffer through posts even less…
ED-MEDIA 2009 →
ED-MEDIA 2009 is less than two weeks away (disclaimer: I’m program co-chair). We’ve been experimenting with twitter, Ning, flickr, and blogging. It will be interesting to see how the increased…
Friday’s Finds #4 →
This week marked six years as a free-agent. I announced it on Twitter and received many kind words - thank you. Once again, my weekly sense-making from the Twitter files:
@ellenfweber “Since…
Social Network Analysis: An introduction →
I am a big fan of Barry Wellman. His pioneering work in networks has a history that extends well beyond current hype in social networks. In my work with connectivism, I’ve found Wellman’s work…
Flow →
Scott Leslie has put together a number of media resources on the concept of the educator as disc jockey (DJ), including:
Open Educator as DJ Wiki
OE as DJ on Prezi (cool)
Metamedia Links &…
A Cocktail Party Filled With Educators →
The American Press Institute is making a number of recommendations to newspapers to create successful new models, and their number one suggestion is:
BECOME PART OF THE SOCIAL WEB. Newspaper…
Bridging innovation and commercialization →
Events during the past week have re-focused my attention on research, innovation and commercialization, especially as it pertains to learning technologies. I was engaged for my second time as the…
The Web as Human Development →
Had a great conversation with my friend and former colleague Rob Mancabelli the other day about the challenges that individual teachers face in understanding and, more importantly, practicing…
Tool making and language →
Discussions of language results in controversy that falls broadly into two camps: language is innate or language is cultural and interactive in formation. Chomsky, Pinker, and others occupy the…
That failing newspaper industry… →
Transformative changes in other information-based industries should capture the attention of educators. A few recent newspaper-related stories:
From Terrible to Terrifying: “The stats show that…
Old meets new →
I’ve been in Italy for about a week - first a trip to Milan to present at the International Enterprise 2.0 conference organized by Open Knowledge. Videos of presentations are available here…
Manage what matters - collaboration →
Knowledge is personal and it cannot really be managed, though we continue to try. Artifacts of knowledge can be managed and in many cases they can be helpful to others. Learning is the same, I can’t…
The Future of My Kids’ Work →
So in case you don’t know it, I’ve got kids. They’ll be 12 and 10 this summer (omg) which makes me perk up when I run across magazine covers like this one from Time last week titled “The Future of…
Academic disruption →
Jon Husband referred me to The Impending Demise of the University, an interesting post but similar to many others on the subject.
Enter Don Tapscott, who is looking at the challenges the…
From Plato to Perl: the Problem of Sociality and... →
I’ve long enjoyed Chris Lott’s contribution to learning and technology. He brings his passion of poetry, philosophy, and technology into an informed world view. First time I met him face to face,…
If We Could Start Over, What Would We Build? →
So it’s been a while since I’ve turned to my blog, obviously. Just felt like I needed a break, some time to get some balance and reconfigure my thinking a bit. It’s been good, and for what it’s…
Friday’s Finds #3 →
From the Twitter files;
Some thoughts, ideas & comments that caught my attention this week:
Canadians are being set up by music/movie lobby groups & our politicians in a rather cozy…
Privacy online: Google is watching →
I’ve noticed a surge in interest in privacy and tracking. Several family members and friends have closed Facebook accounts, set Twitter and FriendFeed sites to “private”, and stopped using Chrome…
Where we are spending time… →
Facebook and Twitter are recording enormous increases in amount of time spent on their sites by visitors. Twitter records an increase of over 3700% (year over year). Understanding which sites are…
