Best of eLearning Learning March 1, 2010 to March 14, 2010March is off to a great start! And it's nice to see that in the hot topics, the Big Question has had an influence.

1. Nine Information Alternatives to the Now Defunct Training Magazine- Kapp Notes, March 2, 2010
   Unfortunately, Training Magazine is folding up shop on its web site, print magazine and conferences. This post offers some other places to get information about training.
2. Constructivism in Workplace Learning and Development- The E-Learning Curve, March 10, 2010
   Constructivist-based workplace learning and development addresses the demands of the real world.
3. Collaboration’s Engine & Heart- Engaged Learning, March 12, 2010
   SHARING is the engine behind collaboration.
4. Virtual Team Management- ID Reflections, March 8, 2010
   I recommend this simulation to all those who either are handling a globally distributed team or a project, and to all managers who feel that effective communication is one of the keys to business success.
5. Flash Tutorials on Screenr- MinuteBio, March 7, 2010
   As a Adobe Flash addict, I am always on the lookout for tutorials and new tips and tricks that can make Flash development easier. Every now and then I peruse Screenr.com for Flash tutorials. Because screencasts on Screenr have a five minute limit, they are usually very succinct, which is what I like.
6. Game-based Learning: recent readings (2)- Dont Waste Your Time, March 4, 2010
   Even when I try and get on with something else, I keep finding excellent resources about game- and simulation-based learning.
7. Creative Commons Use in For-Profit Company eLearning?- eLearning Technology, March 9, 2010
   As part of the Big Question this month Open Content in Workplace Learning? , I’m exploring whether Open Content can be used by for-profit companies. Related post: Noncommercial Isn’t the Problem, ShareAlike Is.
8. 6 Reasons To Use Amplify for Collaborative Learning- The Writers Gateway, March 8, 2010
   I recently came across this website called Amplify that works just like Twitter and other social networking sites. However Amplify seems to be a much more effective tool for collaborative learning than any other freely available learning tools today.
9. Great FREE Software Downloads- The eLearning Coach, March 8, 2010
   I don’t mean to sound dated, but sometimes I use the type of software that installs on my hard drive rather than an online application. And every so often, some great software comes along that saves time and frustration and can be downloaded for free. Here’s a list of free software downloads I’ve collected that I wanted to share with readers—some I’ve used and others have been recommended.
10. Envisioning the Post-LMS Era: The Open Learning Network, March 4, 2010
    Educase piece. Good stuff.
11. Social snake oil- Learning and Working on the Web, March 1, 2010
    Knowledge management (KM) was a most promising field until it was hijacked by software vendors who were selling IT systems for six figures. Will the same thing happen in social?
12. Packrati.us = Twitter + Delicious- Social Media in Learning, March 9, 2010
    This site provides a useful and very simple bookmarking service for Twitter. They follow your Twitter feed, and whenever one of your tweets contains a URL, they add it to your delicious.com bookmarks. You can optionally, bookmark URLs in @replies to you, and they''ll even even add a delicious
13. Prove it with a prototype- Making Change, March 8, 2010
    Are you dreaming of an immersive simulation while your team members plan yet another Jeopardy game? If you want stakeholders to expand their horizons, a working prototype is your best friend. A working prototype has simple placeholder graphics, but the clicking and dragging work as they will in the final
14. The 2010 Horizon Report: What Learners Look to Us to Learn by Paul Signorelli- Learning Solutions Magazine, March 5, 2010
    Technology tools that might still be on the periphery of our personal e-Learning radar screens are about to be adopted widely by those we serve, a newly released report shows. If we don’t develop an understanding of and familiarity with them now, the learners who currently turn to us for assistance may leave us behind.
15. Become an E-Learning Pro without Spending a Dime- Rapid eLearning Blog, March 2, 2010
    Great post on how to get yourself started in eLearning.
16. It’s the performance, or, what every manager should know about Bob Mager- Dave's Whiteboard, March 8, 2010
    Last week, I found myself in a couple of discussions about the difference between training and learning. I only took one philosophy course in college,and later on I hollowed out the book to hide a gag gift, so it’s clear I’m not that contemplative on this issue. To oversimply, many people in more traditional training jobs felt strongly that there is such a thing as “training” and that it has the potential for great value.
17. Learning powered by technology- elearnspace, March 12, 2010
    The National Education Technology Plan reads like a somewhat random mix of concepts that have been discussed in various blogs and forums over the last decade: connected learning, 21st century skills, data-driven improvement, learning networks, life-wide learning, etc. Nothing new here.
18. PKM: a node in the learning network- Learning and Working on the Web, March 7, 2010
    Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy , or, in other words, digital networks enable multiple connections, so organizational communications are no longer just vertical. Somebody else, outside the hierarchy, is only one click away, and perhaps easier to deal with and a better source of information and knowledge.
19. ADDIE and the 5 Rules of Zen- Big Dog, Little Dog, March 8, 2010
    While ADDIE or ISD might look like an overblown, time-wasting toolkit, we need to realize that we do not need every tool within that kit. Every project requires a different set of tools.
20. Implementing Enterprise 2.0 : some examples- Social Media in Learning, March 12, 2010
    Over the last 6 months I've been on the look out for documented examples of the use of social media within workplace learning for my Social Learning Handbook. 0160; My list now contains examples of its use for both formal social learning as well as for enterprise sharing and collaboration.
21. What Will Disrupt Literacy Learning/Instruction as We Know it?- Litmos, March 9, 2010
    'By 2020 over 50% of all courses will be delivered online'
22. Time Blocking- Nigel Paine, March 9, 2010
    Great little video in Fast Company about the need to take time to think and focus on big tasks rather than let yourself be continuously distracted. Simple to say, more difficult to do! The brain takes 15 minutes to declutter itself and prepare for a deep dive, yet many tasks get less than that time before the first interruption!
23. Eight 3D Virtual World Design Principles- Kapp Notes, March 8, 2010
    Your competitors are leveraging the power of 3D learning environments to encourage collaboration, exploration and genuine competitive advantage. Are you? To avoid the perception that virtual immersive environments are a fad or inappropriate for corporate learning, make sure you design the virtual immersive experience around these eight principles: Instructionally Grounded.
24. Five Mobile Learning Implementation Tips- Upside Learning Blog, March 1, 2010
    There really is very little different about designing mobile learnin g from other forms of learning. The guidelines that apply for effective learning are really not much different but for the change in context. These are five tips I give customers who are setting about implementing some form of mobile learning, even if it is the smallest component in a blended solution .
25. Teacher to Instructional Designer: Interview Questions- Experiencing eLearning, March 12, 2010
    I received a question from a current classroom teacher who is hoping to make the career move to instructional design. Specifically, she wanted to know how to prepare for an interview for an instructional design position. Any sage wisdom?
26. Why do we label learning?- Sticky Learning, March 3, 2010
    I was just reading comments from my post on Autonomous/Formal/Informal Learning and thought I'd put some of my thoughts down in a post as they come!
27. Workplace Learning Paradigms Characterized- The E-Learning Curve, March 2, 2010
    All phases of product development require workers to have both depth and breadth of knowledge.
28. A new vision for IT customer training- Clive on Learning, March 2, 2010
    A month back I had the fortune of being asked to present to CEdMA, an association of senior training managers in large IT companies who have the responsibility for training up their organisations’ customers in their various products. It was clear from their discussion that the market was changing: Customers are demanding shorter courses. Customers are demanding more online delivery. Customers are becoming more savvy about the fact that large-scale knowledge dumps in the classroom don't work. Customers are turning to lower-cost, third-party providers. It seems unlikely
29. The two faces of blended learning- E-learning in the Corporate Sector, March 1, 2010
    What is blended learning? Well, it depends on who you ask. For example, someone might say it’s a mix of pedagogical approaches, while someone else might say it’s a mix of theory and practice. Most of us, though, say that blended learning is a mix of modes of delivery .
30. Learning: traditional or independent?- Internet Time, March 5, 2010
    This post continues the discussion among the members of the Internet Time Alliance about appropriate terminology for learning in the network era.
31. Informal Snake Oil- Informal Learning, March 1, 2010
    “As soon as the software vendors and marketers get hold of a good idea, they pretty well destroy it,” writes my colleague Harold Jarche in his post on Social Snake Oil .
32. Top five tips for writing an effective, engaging compliance course- Spicy Learning, March 9, 2010
    Compliance training has a bad reputation for being little more than a box-ticking exercise. But here are Saffron we believe it’s absolutely possible to create effective, engaging training that achieves both competence and compliance. Read on for our top five tips for breaking the mould and delivering gold standard compliance training every time.
33. Authentic Elearning?- Blogger in Middle-earth, March 9, 2010
    When a learner is in an environment that is relevant to what's being learnt, the likelihood for effective engagement is high. Learning by doing is supposed to be one of the most successful ways to learn. Both these factors – the relevant environment and the doing – are thought to provide jointly the greatest incentive for a learner to take interest in what is to be learnt.
34. Open Content in workplace learning- Good Practice, March 8, 2010
    Tony Karrer asks in the March Big Question; ‘How do we leverage open content in workplace learning?’ 8217; Some very quick thoughts based on our experience of the last ten years of integrating content into the workplace. Open content has a place and professional providers like us have to make sure we can continue to provide value beyond that of
35. e-Learning Authoring Tools: Industry Research Reveals New Insights- Vikas Joshi on Interactive Learning , March 7, 2010
    eLearning Guild's lastest research paper presents a survey of Rapid e-Learning Tools. The paper, authored by Dr Patti Shank, reveals interesting facts and new insights in the evolving landscape of content creation applications. Some key takeaways: Users select tools for specific features they want, that's their #1 selection criterion - cost figures as #2 Many respondents use multiple tools (typically 4 or more), which often include at least one tool from Adobe.
36. Converting Live Workshops to an Online Course (Part II)- Web Courseworks, March 7, 2010
    When you are taking a live workshop and putting it online, you do not have the pressure of designing a sixteen-week curriculum like K-16 educators — All you have to do is cover the equivalent of four to six hours of instruction. The challenge is the intangibles of face to face — the social behavior like bonding and talking. In Part I, Deb Adair’s comment stressed the importance of building social presence to replace live interaction.
37. What is microsharing?- Adventures in Corporate Education, March 6, 2010
    I’m working on podcasts for my Multimedia class and my internship, and the topic is microsharing. I thought I’d define it here for a couple of reasons. First of all, blogging always helps me reflect on what I know, and putting this in words will help me write my scripts.
38. 3 Ways to Spice up Linear Navigation in Elearning- Free as in Freedom, March 5, 2010
    Who doesn't want to create engaging elearning? But when managing projects, you're often balancing time, cost, money, scope and team. Sometimes, the mix of these factors means that you end up having to design simple and quick, linear courses - where every learner moves along only one predictable path in the course.
39. Educational Games are a BIG SCAM!- eLearning Acupuncture, March 5, 2010
    Have you heard someone say that educational games are a big scam? They are just a way to generate a new revenue stream for game designers? That some of them have more entertainment value then educational value?
40. 5 Reasons Why I Decided to Buy Articulate Studio 09- Blender - Training Solutions, March 3, 2010
    I'm just finishing up my test drive of Articulate Studio 09 and I am sold on driving my own version off the lot. As I discussed in my post " Articulate, Captivate, Both, Or....? ", I have been using Adobe Captivate but would like something that integrates with Power Point and speeds up the development process. Articulate has definitely proven that it provides what I was looking for and many other benefits that I was not aware of.

Hot Topics Organizational Learning (11)

1. Constructivism in Workplace Learning and Development, March 10, 2010
2. The Science Behind Learning: Cognitive Tips and How Tos for Corporate Training, February 28, 2010
3. Workplace Learning Paradigms Characterized, March 2, 2010
4. A Holistic Approach to Workplace Competencies, March 3, 2010

Mobile Learning (22)

1. Five Mobile Learning Implementation Tips, March 1, 2010
2. Moodle and iPhone update: the movie, March 8, 2010
3. iPhone on Moodle update: a growing team, but where is Apple?, March 4, 2010
4. Join us on Friday 19 March for testing the iPhone/Moodle web-application, March 12, 2010

OER (9)

1. Noncommercial Isn’t the Problem, ShareAlike Is, March 11, 2010
2. Open Content in Workplace Learning?, March 1, 2010
3. Creative Commons Use in For-Profit Company eLearning?, March 9, 2010
4. Why Open Content is Not Yet Adopted in the Workplace, March 9, 2010

Platform (34)

1. Envisioning the Post-LMS Era: The Open Learning Network, March 4, 2010
2. Moodle and iPhone update: the movie, March 8, 2010
3. Great FREE Software Downloads, March 8, 2010
4. PKM: a node in the learning network, March 7, 2010

License (15)

1. Noncommercial Isn’t the Problem, ShareAlike Is, March 11, 2010
2. Creative Commons Use in For-Profit Company eLearning?, March 9, 2010
3. Envisioning the Post-LMS Era: The Open Learning Network, March 4, 2010
4. Join us on Friday 19 March for testing the iPhone/Moodle web-application, March 12, 2010