E-Learning News

3-D TVs are now on store shelves.

Samsung and Panasonic 3-D TVs are in stores this week.

Here’s a video of a Samsung 3-D TV cube:

(TW)

3-D TVs are officially here, cost $3,000

About 6 months ago I thought I would start a wiki on comparing learning technologies across all the countries of the world. Once I realized what a time consuming and massive job it was, I moved on to easier things, like writing a book. Now a group of academics affiliated with Anadolu University in Turkey has produced a two-volume e-book that describes e-learning in 39 countries, those surrounding Western Europe. The countries included are: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Ukraine, Slovakia, Moldova, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Turkey, and Greece, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Iran, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Russia.

The book is called E-Learning Practices, and Volume 1, which covers the first 483 pages of this 1094 page work, is available to be read or downloaded from Scribd. You can have it as a PDF or as a text file, and there is even a mobile version. There is not a lot of comparative work in the field of e-learning, so this is a welcome addition. (GW)

Some university professors are banning laptop computers from their classroom and forcing students to take notes using (gasp) paper and pen. The laptops, say the professors, are distractions, not learning tools.

Wireless Internet connections tempt students away from note-typing to e-mail, blogs, YouTube videos, sports scores, even online gaming — all the diversions of a home computer beamed into the classroom to compete with the professor for the student’s attention.

According to this article, the laptop ban is spreading in academe as lecturers attempt to get students focused on the course content. According to one professor, four-fifths of students reported higher engagement after six weeks of laptop free classes. (RN)

Wide Web of diversions gets laptops evicted from lecture halls | The Washington Post | Daniel de Vise | 8 March 2010

There are a number of timeline tools around, but Preceden's a new one I've just come across.  Features include:

• Create a timeline for almost anything
• Add multiple layers to keep events organized
• Keep your timelines private or share them with others
• Preceden is completely web-based and 100% free

Preceden

[More timeline tools in the Instructional Tools section of the Tools Directory]

In a post entitled Work Smart: Avoid Office Distractions with Time Blocking, Gina Trapani outlines the hazards and lost productivity of being distracted with too many tasks at the same time. She says, “The most important decision you’ll make today is about what to pay attention to and what to ignore.”

In an interruption-driven culture, it’s too easy to let everyone else decide where your attention goes and how to spend your next 10 minutes. If you jump every time your phone rings, a new email arrives, your Blackberry buzzes, or someone stops by your desk, you’re undermining your most important work and costing your company money. A recent study shows that unnecessary interruptions costs the U.S. economy $650 billion dollars in lost productivity per year.

Gina advocates a technique called “time blocking” to solve the problem. Watch the video to learn more, then focus and get back to work! (GW)

Work Smart: Avoid Office Distractions with Time Blocking | Fast Company | Gina Trapani | 8 March 2010

HP’s Slate, to be released later this year, will support Flash.

This will be of interest to e-learning folks because so much online learning content is Flash-based.

Here’s a video:

(TW)

HP Slate Demo Shows Off Flash Support | 8 March 2010

Recruiters and HR departments are increasingly browsing social networking sites to vet potential job candidates.

The Online Reputation in a Connected World report conducted by Cross-Tab Marketing Services noted that 75 per cent of recruiters said their companies had formal policies that required human resources teams to research applicants online and 63 per cent had visited candidates’ social networking sites before making any hiring decisions

Job seekers are responding by changing their identities online and cleaning up their friends lists to ensure nothing they post may negatively affect being hired. (RN)

Students do an about-face on social network | The Montreal Gazette | Andrew Katz | 8 March 2010

Pakrati.us = Twitter + Delicious.  Find out more in my posting on Social Media in Learning

Pakrati.us = Twitter + Delicious. Find out more in my posting on Social Media in Learning Jane Hart

Caspian Learning, developer of Thinking Worlds, a commercial software platform that enables the rapid development of 3D immersive learning simulations and serious games, has announced plans to launch their first Serious Games Challenge.

The challenge will pit instructional designers of all experience levels against each other in a 30 day Serious Games Challenge to create the most innovative learning simulation using drag and drop Thinking Worlds technology.

The Serious Games Challenge will be launched from Caspian Learning’s ‘Experience Lounge’ exhibition stand at the Game Based Learning conference on 28th March 2010. The £3000 Serious Games Challenge will be open to everyone, whether individual or corporate, and will last for 30 days. Entries will be valid until the 30th April, at which time, Caspian Learning’s design team will select a winner from the entries.

The winner will be the designer (or team) that submits the most innovative 3d learning, training or performance simulation by the 30th April 2010. The winner of the challenge will also receive a licensed copy of Thinking Worlds Standard, worth £2999.

To take part in the 30 Day Serious Games Challenge, all you need to do is download a free trial copy of Thinking Worlds and submit your entries by April 30th, 30 days after the Experience Lounge launch. Download your free trial from the following  http://www.thinkingworlds.com 

Caspian Learning, developer of Thinking Worlds, a commercial software platform that enables the rapid development of 3D immersive learning simulations and serious games, has announced plans to launch their first Serious Games Challenge. The challenge will pit instructional designers of all experience levels against each other in a 30 day Serious Games Challenge to create the most innovative learning simulation using drag and drop Thinking Worlds technology. The Serious Games Challenge will be launched from Caspian Learning’s ‘Experience Lounge’ exhibition... Jane Hart

Learning in classrooms is mostly cerebral – it usually all about thinking and remembering what we are supposed to learn. The learner’s body is almost irrelevant, locked down behind desks.

Not so with “location based learning“. Here we are embedded in an environment that is the source of learning, and bodily actions make a difference. We are actors in a situation, and learning is about interacting with the things and people that surround us. Now, mobile phones equipped with GPS and the ability to augment the world with additional information allow location-based learning to go beyond a simple interaction with an environment to a richer experience.

In a long but fascinating post in the Instructional Design Open Studio (IDOS) blog, Eruditio Loginquitas writes about location-based learning and points to many resources. Worth checking out. (GW)

Location Based Learning | Instructional Design Open Studio | Eruditio Loginquitas | 7 January 2010

Wonderful post from Tom Kuhlmann about how to become an e-learning pro without spending a dime.

His tips include:

O  Join your software’s user community (for example, the Articulate community) and follow people who can teach you.

For example, check out David Anderson’s 130 Screenr e-learning screencasts. (You can follow him on Twitter.)

O  Practice.

O  Share what you learn.

(TW)

Become an E-Learning Pro without Spending a Dime | 2 March 2010

Caspian Learning, the U.K.-based provider of Thinking Worlds, a software application to create 3D immersive simulations and learning games, has launched a contest. Participants are invited to download a complimentary copy of their software and “create the most innovative learning simulation using drag and drop Thinking Worlds technology.” The winner of the contest will receive £3000, about $4500 US. The contest runs from March 28th until April 30th 2010. (RN)

Caspian Learning Announce £3000 Serious Games Challenge | Caspian Learning

In a couple of previous postings in December 2009, I mentioned that the real-time collaborative authoring tool, Etherpad, had been acquired by Google to become part of Wave, and then that Etherpad had been opensourced.

Chris Pirillo and Jake Warner have now "frozen the Etherpad code in time" and released it as Type With Me. 

TypeWith.Me

[180+ Document and Presentation Tools in Learning Directory 2010]

In a couple of previous postings in December 2009, I mentioned that the real-time collaborative authoring tool, Etherpad, had been acquired by Google to become part of Wave, and then that Etherpad had been opensourced. Chris Pirillo and Jake Warner have now "frozen the Etherpad code in time" and released it as Type With Me. TypeWith.Me [180+ Document and Presentation Tools in Learning Directory 2010] Jane Hart

In a couple of previous postings in December 2009, I mentioned that the real-time collaborative authoring tool, Etherpad, had been acquired by Google to become part of Wave, and then that Etherpad had been opensourced. Chris Pirillo and Jake Warner have now "frozen the Etherpad code in time" and released it as Type With Me. TypeWith.Me [180+ Document and Presentation Tools in Learning Directory 2010] Jane Hart

Comdex, perhaps the granddaddy of tech trade shows, will be reborn this year as a pure virtual trade show.

Interesting development, both in terms of the trade-show industry and in terms of virtual-conference technology…

(TW)

This week’s Economist (Feb. 27 – Mar. 5) has a 14 page special report on the tsunami of data and information that is hitting the world. It’s astonishing:

Everywhere you look, the quantity of information in the world is soaring. According to one estimate, mankind created 150 exabytes (billion gigabytes) of data in 2005. This year, it will create 1,200 exabytes. Merely keeping up with this flood, and storing the bits that might be useful, is difficult enough. Analysing it, to spot patterns and extract useful information, is harder still. Even so, the data deluge is already starting to transform business, government, science and everyday life (see our special report in this issue). It has great potential for good—as long as consumers, companies and governments make the right choices about when to restrict the flow of data, and when to encourage it.

The editorial for this special issue is online, but you will have to buy a copy of the magazine to read the full report. (GW)

Gary Flake, a Technical Fellow at Microsoft, recently demonstrated Pivot, a new way to browse and arrange massive amounts of data on your screen. Pivot uses the Seadragon technology that is also behind PhotoSynth, another Microsoft property. It allows spectacular zooms in, out and through big databases, enabling the discovery of new patterns in the data. The demonstration was at the TED conference. Check out this short video:

(GW)