I recently attended the 3DTLC conference, as I reported before.  Chuck Hamilton presented on his (IBM’s) take on affordances on virtual worlds. Given that I’ve opined before , I asked for more detail on their take, and he was kind enough to forward to me their definitions.    I like what they’ve done, but it led me to try to refine what I see as some confounding (they actually separate several of their 10 into two separate ones), and try to capture what I think are core, what can be enabled, and what then arise from those capabilities. through the internet). MORE >>

I come to check briefly on what’s happening, late on an evening, and find a flurry of discussion that prompts reflection. It’s been an ongoing debate, with notables like Ellen Wagner and Brent Schlenker weighing in.  In reading another post pointed to by Cammy Bean, I see a cogent discussion of how processes can be stifling or supportive. was reminded of a story told many years ago on a listserve, where both new and experienced (10 years) graduates of several ID programs were asked to design projects.  The projects by the new graduates were categorizable by school.  MORE >>

Cathy Moore has a lovely post with a slideshow that talks about using action mapping to design better elearning, and it’s a really nice approach.  While I don’t know from Action Mapping (tm?), I do know that the approach taken avoids the typical mistakes and focuses on the same thing I advocate: what do people need to be able to do ? The presentation rightly points out the problems with knowledge dump, and instead focuses on the business goal first, and then asks you to map out what the learner would need to be able to do to achieve that business goal.  Recommended. MORE >>

The Big Question of the Month is “How do I communicate the value of social media as a learning tool to my organization?&#.  Now, this is late, but it’s because I’ve been getting ready for and then attending DevLearn (as always, was a great event), but Jay Cross and I spent a day talking about this issue in the larger picture of social learning in the media. Then, in last night’s #lrnchat , the question was asked again as part of the usual 3 question format.  So, I decided to pull out my tweeted contributions and elaborate on them a bit as my response.  Good luck! MORE >>

How do you systematically design learning experiences that effectively engage the learner? This was the question I set out to address more than 5 years ago.  Based upon years of deep investigation into learning & instruction theories and design processes, and practical experience in designing games, I wrote Engaging Learning: Designing e-Learning Simulation Games. The book was based upon work I’d published as an academic, but was focused very pragmatically.  Subsequently, books by Gee, Shaffer, and others have highlighted the opportunities. Similarly with experience design.  MORE >>