It’s old news that Blackboard has been acquired by a private equity firm for $1.64 billion. An education company being acquired is hardly novel – we are entering a period of dramatic change in education and the change will largely be led from outside of the education system. billion – that is novel. Why is Blackboard worth that much? If you speak with academics and students, the product and company is almost universally disliked. This largely stems from their D2L lawsuit a few years ago and the concerns that generated around patents in the educational technology market. MORE >>

In the course of work as an instructional designers, its routine to trawl the web constantly looking at ways people visualize ideas, concepts, processes. It’s an entire wonderland of variety out there on the inter-webs, in addition to the beauty one finds in various books on graphic design. Instructional designers then tend to be ‘inspired’ and apply those visualization techniques to whatever it is they seek to communicate. One emerging aspect of graphic design is the use of the visual tools to represent vast quantities of data. Right now, the visual.ly MORE >>

Lynda Gratton, author of The Shift: The Future of Work is Already Here , has an excellent post that summarizes the key points of her new book and outlines the 10 things you can do to future proof your career: Know the trends that are shaping work and careers. Learn to be virtual. Search for the valuable skills. Become a Master. Be prepared to strike out on your own. Find your posse. Build the Big Ideas crowd. Go beyond the family for support. Have the courage to make the hard choices. Become a producer, rather than a simple consumer. . Become a Master at the Valuable Skills. This is a biggie. MORE >>

A client asked me today about approaches to evaluation, and this got me thinking about how advocates of different approaches get very dogmatic about what works and what doesn’t work. Kaliym Islam, in Developing and Measuring Training the Six Sigma Way , says “none of the four levels in the Kirkpatrick model capture business feedback or business reaction to the training product”. Jack Phillips, the Return on Investment guru, argues Kirkpatrick’s four levels are at best inadequate and need ROI as a fifth level. It seems no sooner is a new approach in use than someone is rubbishing it in print. MORE >>

With all the politician in DC trying to balance the budget, I bet I can do a better job, and I get the chance with this neat little game that lets me get a taste of balancing the United States Budget. Play it and you can enjoy creating your own plan for the federal budget. You can see how your choices on issues like the war in Iraq, health care reform, taxes and the environment play out in government spending. See if you can create a budget based on your values, without busting the federal bank. Give it a try at Budget Hero. Games MORE >>