Designing #mLearning Book Review – Chapter 1

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I intend to provide a brief synopsis of each chapter of ‘Designing mlearning‘, but more importantly I intend to answer the questions that Clark poses at the end of each chapter and then pose those same questions back to you ‘Dear Reader‘

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Chapter 1 – Overview

OK, so I’m off to something of a false start here as I’ve just realised that there are no questions asked of ‘The Reader’ at the end of this short introductory chapter, but we are provided with a list of very realistic and pragmatic situations in which a range of ‘everyday’ roles and occupations can/could/do harness the benefits of a mobile device to increase their performance and value.

And guess what?

Only one of the examples is to undertake a compliance ‘course’! This (thankfully) fleeting mention of a ‘course’ provides me with a warm, fuzzy feeling that the rest of the book won’t be trying to convince me of the benefits of shrinking down desktop learning onto a smaller screen.

He also provides us with a definition for mlearning that he admits the eLearning Guild mobile learning research team struggled to come up with:

“Any activity that allows individuals to be more productive when consuming, interacting with, or creating information, mediated through a compact digital portable device that the individual carries on a regular basis, has reliable connectivity, and fits into a pocket or purse”

(eLearning Guild 360 Mobile Learning Research Report, 2007)

He finally reminds us that the pace of change in this area is so fast that any suggested, specific solutions would be unlikely to stand the test of the publishing process time, so instead explains what the book is really about; preparing the reader to take advantage of the mobile revolution.

I’m hooked.

I’m reading on…..

View the original article here

I’m speaking at #DevLearn 12…

It appears that US conferences have a slightly different view of accepting vendors as speakers compared with the UK conference circuit, which meant that following my submission of a proposal to speak at DevLearn 2012 I was pleasantly surprised to be accepted as a speaker at this years conference. (note: I am no longer working within a vendor environment, but fortunately my new employer is supporting me in meeting my commitment and of course to attend the wider conference activities).

Of course I’m excited to speaking at such a renowned conference but I have to admit that I’m more than a little intrigued by Neil Lasher’s blog post comparing the US to the UK conference circuit – I guess I’ll be able to take a look for myself soon!

In preparation for my session, I’ve put together a short video that I’m hoping attendees will watch prior to attending the session (previous experience at an eLN event demonstrated that the take-up of this approach was woefully low!) therefore maximising the precious face-to-face that we will have during the session. In the meantime, why not take look at the video yourself (it’s the first movie I’ve created on my Macbook using iMovie) and leave your responses in the comments section below.

View the original article here

What Learners Want – Part 1 – The ‘why’

Towards the back end of 2012, my organisation formally entered into a working relationship with Towards Maturity to help us better understand our Benchmark results and help us work towards creating an L&D strategy.

During one of those initial meetings Laura Overton made an almost throw away remark about a ‘Learner Audit’ (I’m not overly keen on the name, so we’ve labelled it as a Learner Survey) that she had undertaken some time in the past and that she was considering resurrecting as an offering.

Unlike the Towards Maturity Benchmark survey, which tends to rely on answers by those in an L&D role/perspective, the Learner Survey allows every single employee in the organisation the opportunity to comment on

how they access content that supports themfrom what devicesfrom what locationswhat methods and media they find most effectivewhether they are members of social networking siteswhether they are/would be willing to share their knowledge and practices with others etc

My eyes lit up at this point as I am about to assist in the development of our L&D strategy, so of course being able to hear from about our learners about their preferences, expectations, etc would be hugely beneficial.

Needless to say we took Laura up on her offer which as this press release explains made us the first organisation to do so.

If you’d like to hear more about the rationale behind the survey, here’s a short video of Laura explaining further.

In my next blog post in this series I’ll go into a little detail about the construction of the survey and how we worked together to provide a bespoke survey that would still allow multiple surveys to feed accurately into a wider-benchmark.

View the original article here

Recording your Skype calls

A couple of days ago I received a tweet from Di Dawson asking if I had screenshots or video files from any virtual classroom sessions that I had previously facilitated for a programme that she was putting together.

My unfortunate answer was “no” as I have admittedly been shortsighted in my use of them in the past and had never anticipated needing to ‘capture’ the session itself as a resource in its own right. (of course I captured sessions using the Blackboard Collaborate tool that I had access to whilst working at URENCO, but I no longer have access to those). Not wanting to let Di down, I did a bit of thinking and thought about how I could kill 2 birds with one stone.

How could I help Di out and also do something that I often get asked about, which is how do I go about recording my podcast audio.

So I came up with the idea of producing a screencast outlining the tools and process that I use to record my podcast audio and then actually call Di up ‘live’ within the screencast and show the recording in progress.

Here’s what we came up with….

If you want a word of advice, I’d only watch the first 5 mins 15 secs of this screencast and the last 90 seconds. They are the parts of the screencast that are visual, the rest of it is purely audio and it’s quite a long time to just stare at a boring Skype screen just to hear the conversation between myself and Di, but don’t fret, my next podcast will be that very conversation.

Relevant links:

Scribie/CallGraph

Skype

DawsonLoane website

View the original article here

Pre-#LearningLive session via Google Hangouts

In this previous blog post I suggest some simple ideas as to how the conference experience could be enhanced and specifically talk about ‘pre conference’ online sessions

Let’s be honest, when your conference attendees have a number of concurrent sessions to select from, other than previous experience/recommendations of the facilitator, all they’ve got to go in is the session overview on the conference website. Why not invite each speaker (and potential attendees) to participate in a 10 minute online session in which they pitch their session and take part in a Q&A. It may also give the potential attendees an insight into the presentation skills of the speaker (AKA are they going to rattle off a load of bullet points at me?)

I’ve not yet seen this taken up by any conference organisers so I thought I’d take the bull by the horns and set up my own online sessions ahead of Learning Live to allow people up to ask any questions they may have about my session, make sure it’s right for them etc.

I’ll be using Google Hangouts to deliver these bite sized sessions which I know may prevent some corporate folk from attending due to Google Hangouts being blocked, so I’ve scheduled an evening session too.

Here are the dates and times: (all sessions are scheduled for 15mins)

30/08/13 – 0930hrs BST

03/09/13 – 0930hrs BST

04/09/13 – 1930hrs BST

To participate, visit the relevant link above a few minutes before each session commences, set up your speakers/microphone and let’s chat!

See you online?

View the original article here

I say “tomato”, you say “redvinegrownvegetableation”

Let’s be honest as Learning Folk who have an interest in using technology to add value to our organisations and our learners, we have a tough job on a number of fronts. Not least of which is the challenge in positively influencing those people in our organisations who are responsible for giving the ‘nod’ or putting their hands in their pockets.

So why do we make it hard on ourselves by (at times it seems) making up words or at best picking an existing word to explain what we are doing i.e. curation and gamification???

Surely a couple of words or even a sentence to explain what we are doing is better than trying to cram our plans into a single word?

I have been working with a published author Fiona Talbot for a few weeks now and she has been telling me of some work she has been doing with Corgi/Gas Safe to rewrite their manuals by putting them into Plain English. Interestingly the rewritten version is slightly longer than original version.

Because sometimes in order to make things clearer to people we need to take the time  (and word count) to explain things in Plain English as opposed to using jargon or overly complex words in a vain effort to sound ‘with it’ or dare I say it…. ‘buzz wordy’!

I’ve been thinking about this for some time, however a recent blog post from Saffron Interactive prompted me to respond to. I suspect that there may be some problems with Saffrons commenting system as I left the comment over 29 hours ago and it still hasn’t been moderated so I though it best that I reproduce the original post (and my comment here)

This is a report back from my first day working at Saffron Interactive. Apologies for the short delay, but you’ll understand that I have been very busy for the last month! In an exciting start to my Saffron career I spent my first day attending the Learning and Skills Group (LSG) conference at Olympia – a great way to be introduced to the world of e-learning.

I do not come from an e-learning background but I have always had a keen interest in technology and games and one particular talk really captured my imagination. I’m sure most people are familiar in some form or another with the world of video games whether through PCs or a range of consoles covering all ages and tastes. Gaming however is now beginning to have an effect outside of our leisure time and is becoming prevalent in everyday life, for example the way we shop, network and … learn.

For those unfamiliar with Gamification – a new and growing concept in the world of e-learning – the idea is based on the use of gaming mechanics to increase user engagement whilst delivering key learning objectives. For those still somewhat mystified by the term I have included a definition below;

“Gamification works by making technology more engaging, and by encouraging desired behaviours, taking advantage of humans’ psychological predisposition to engage in gaming.”

Radoff, Jon (2011). Game On: Energize Your Business with Social Media Games. Wiley. pp. xxxii. ISBN 9780470936269.

At the LSG conference, this was explored in depth with a talk from Alicia Sanchez who has been appointed “Games Czar” at the US Defense Acquisition University (DAU).

Alicia’s talk presented some interesting examples, in this case based on military procurement, an area that apparently requires regular and incredibly stringent compliance training. By using the setting of a game, a far more positive response was generated from the workforce in digesting the necessary content for their roles. One such example was a simulation where the user would carry out compliance checks on weapons on the premise of preventing an alien invasion.

What’s more as gaming has begun to take on a social aspect, this can be incorporated into e-learning for even higher levels of engagement. For example, in the same way that Xbox players use “gamer scores” to celebrate achievements and relate to their peers, the DAU allows players to build online profiles giving added value and a social element to their learning achievements. This is also great from a learning provider’s perspective as it provides a method for demonstrating the impact that its courses have on user groups.

If you take this social aspect in combination with a Gamification style of e-learning further, it is also clear how learners working together could gain huge additional benefits in terms of organisation and teamwork given the right environment. In a previous organisation I worked at, the Sales Director actually mused:

“If teenagers can work together in World of Warcraft to be organised and achieve common objectives I do not see why our sales force cannot do the same!”

It will be interesting to see if many of the positive side effects of massively multiplayer gaming would become increasingly prevalent as an additional benefit for this type of delivery. Although I would add a caveat here that had the sales force assembled itself into a 30 man raid group and stormed customers offices (a la World of Warcraft) it may not have gone down well. I do hope however you can see the point I am making In terms of cooperation between departments and employees.

Of course there are limitations to the Gamification of learning. Budgets are always under increased scrutiny and is there as one of my colleagues put it an assumption that “if its fun it can’t be good for you”? Even taking these issues into account it will be interesting to see if this is a view that shifts if Gamification style courses begin to build up a backlog of case studies with quantifiable results. The other long term factor here could be as younger generations of the workforce come into management positions with a greater familiarity with the culture of gaming there will be an increasing appetite at senior levels to champion this as a style of learning.

As a final note I would like mention one of my favourite solutions of this type currently on the market: a revision of House of the Dead which is not only guaranteed to improve users’ typing skills but also looks like great fun!

I look forward to giving some further updates on Gamification from the Saffron perspective in the coming months.

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Educating for Cosmopolitan Ideals and Reducing Hegemony

Educating for Cosmopolitanism and Reducing Hegemony

 The world is becoming more global and American diversity is increasing. Therefore, we need educators today who are comfortable with diversity and passionate about fostering cosmopolitan ideals without becoming hegemonic (Childress, 2010; Diamond, 2006; Friedman, 2005; Jarchow, 1993).

David Hansen (2009) describes cosmopolitanism as a controversial and multidimensional construct. Hansen explains that many scholars feel that the utopian approach and array of variables included within this term make it too broad and unrealistic for serious discourse. However, he also points out that as a concept many scholars have found it useful, and have engaged in deconstructing the topic. Hansen further notes that cosmopolitanism is interdisciplinary in nature and scholars and practitioners may never completely agree on its essence or application. Hansen (2009) deconstructed cosmopolitanism which includes some of the following orientations: 1) political (including: global citizenship, transnationalism, and humane responsiveness), 2) moral cosmopolitanism (including: justice, equality, and open-mindedness), 3) rooted (including: local tradition, personal dignity, universalism) and 4) cultural (intercultural fusion, cultural critique, and choice).

In a recent study I am working on, 23 faculty at two community colleges were interviewed about globalizing their work (research, practice & service). The key part of cosmopolitanism they tended to agree on was the ideas of global citizenship: being part of one global community and the importance of engaging in global morality. This included the idea that there are numerous global problems to solve (environmental decline, poverty, human rights issues, access to education….) and working together across academic disciplines and societies we will have a better chance of solving them. This supports the idea that educators need to facilitate learning around these global problems and inspire students to interact in a meaningful way with their local community and the global world.

One important consideration in moving to a cosmopolitan educational pedagogy at any level is the moderating variable of hegemony. Hegemony the idea that a single dominant group has control over all others (Litowitz, 2000; Nartowski, 2003). Teaching about cosmopolitan ideals may unwittingly embrace hegemony if the educator is not privy to this concept. For example, Americans embrace volunteering and philanthropy. This is a wonderful characteristic to have as a country. The issue comes in when we want to “tell” others what to do to help themselves instead of working with them to find a sustainable solution that works in their environment. Also, giving can be one sided which may take away individual control, identity, and self-efficacy in the recipient. Therefore, promoting exchanges where people from a privileged class and/or country give and receive from another group.

For example, two faculty in the study I am working on felt that the privileged class in the U.S. sees community colleges as places for second class citizens; and is not so concerned that these students will transfer two four-year universities and engage in community leadership positions (local to global). These faculty participants felt that this dominant focus on community colleges as predominately training centers and technical schools, for the poor and marginalized, produces an infrastructure that places heavy teaching loads on faculty without the time and support to focus on major complex, intellectual, and global pedagogy. Being able to do so, they argued, would better prepare students to rise above their current constraints, improve their lives, and contribute to the betterment of the global society.

Therefore, I am interested in learning more about specific ways educators can globalize their practice by incorporating the concepts of cosmopolitanism and hegemony into their curriculum and pedagogy. I am especially passionate about using service-learning in a way that builds people up in a disadvantaged situation by allowing them to give as well as receive. I think taking part in a reciprocal exchange with people from different backgrounds and/or countries can be a powerful learning experience for the privileged and marginalized.

View the original article here

All change

Little did I suspect that my attendance at the Learning Technologies 2010 (LT10) conference would lead to such a welcome career change…

…over the last 12 months or so I have become to realise that my L&D career to date has been very ‘traditional’; by traditional I mean that I hadn’t fully recognised the breadth of technology that was available to enhance learning activities. Sure I had seen, participated in, and even designed a number of traditional ‘click next’ e-learning modules, I had downloaded and listened to podcasts (mainly from the Ricky Gervais camp!) and had even dabbled in Facebook (but gave up on it after getting one too many ‘nudges’). However I had never fully recognised how these and other tools (or having attended LT10, I now term ‘Web 2.0 technologies’) could be used to such great effect for learning purposes.

I returned to my organisation on a ‘high’, not only from having been surrounded by like-minded L&D professionals for 2 days, but also from the thirst for knowledge that had been created for all things ‘technological’.

It appears that this personal ‘high’ was not lost on my organisation who have offered me a change of role from L&D Adviser to Learning and Communications Technologist. Whilst the role profile has not yet been written it will involve looking at how as an organisation we can better harness technology to enhance both formal and informal learning activities.

If you have any advice that you would like to offer as I take this new role forward, I shall look forward to hearing from you.

View the original article here

Oh no, not another ‘getting started with mobile’ blog post…

…. well….. Yes and No.

“Yes” in so far as it is about introducing the concept of mobility into your L&D approach…

…. and “No” in so far as it’s not about a lengthy, decision riddled, strategic approach, it’s about simple, pragmatic approaches that you can adopt (and indeed may already be doing) that can help you get your foot in the door, prior to moving onto other things.

Most of the slides used in the screencast below were inspired by the JISC Mobile infokit by Doug Belshaw – so thanks to Doug and JISC for providing the inspiration for this.

View the original article here

Unfortunately in my world…

…. a significant number of the technologies mentioned in the recent blog post ‘Tools to look out for in 2011‘ are already dead in the water; allow me explain why.

For those of you who know me, you’ll know that I am more than keen to try out both current and emerging technologies to see how they can enhance and enrich the learning experience not only for myself, but also the learners within my organisation.

My struggle over the past 12 months (again, this is ‘old’ news for those who know me) to utilise these technologies within my workplace has left with me something of a pessimistic and admittedly perhaps a defeatist attitude.

It is with a slightly ‘brow beaten’ resignation that I thought I would add my own little perspective on the fantastic blog post that was brought to my attention via a tweet from @ColinSteed

Unusually for me I am going to ‘lift’ the original blog post in its entirety, however the original post can be found here and very worthy of a read in its own right. My comments are shown in red italics.

Artificial as the year’s end might be, I can’t help but look back in amazement at the technology trends and changes we’ve seen and speculate about how we will learn and enable learning experiences in 2011.

Some of this year’s technology trends are based on disruptive innovation while others are based on changes in outlook and awareness. Here are my observations. Please add yours in the Comments section below. (see source website)

There are more than 550 million people on Facebook and 65 million daily tweets on Twitter. Opportunities for learning through social media technologies abound and should grow ever stronger in the coming years. As a growing number of people look outside their training departments to meet their professional learning needs via social media, new services will most likely emerge to meet the greater demand.

For example, learning professionals currently use Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and other services to share links and posts throughout the day and night. Online learning-related chats and discussions engage people from around the world, shrinking the geographical and cultural distances between us.

We’re bound to see new services that integrate across all of our devices to improve online collaboration, sharing and discussion, and ones that help people form smaller, more intimate digital and location-based communities.

This year proved to be one of great debate surrounding the future and necessity of the Learning Management System. Much of it boils down to whether employee learning should be controlled and tracked, particularly when much of workplace learning occurs through informal channels.

Although most organizations aren’t throwing away their expensive systems any time soon—particularly those in highly regulated industries—the debate does seem to have placed a crack in the armor.

At the very least, there seems to be a growing awareness among learning professionals that non-structured learning can be valuable, that alternative approaches to learning don’t require tracking and that social media technologies just might have a purpose in the workplace. As a result, some LMS platforms are transforming into a broader model, where structured learning is just one part of a larger learning community that enables collaboration, knowledge sharing, and social networking. - Unfortunately for most parties involved we ‘kind of’ have an LMS, I say unfortunately because it is a SAP based solution. For those of you who have experience of the SAP LMS, perhaps you would like to leave your own description of the system in the comments box at the bottom of this page for the uninitiated! Add into the equation that we have ‘chosen’ to switch self-service off and you kind of get the idea as to where we are with LMS.

The ubiquitous presence of video in our connected lives got a serious boost from super-portable pocket video technology this year. Started by the Flip and now with many impressive competitors, these small, convenient recorders produce HD video, enable easy uploading to YouTube and other sharing sites, and run for under $200 US.

More than ever before, amateur videographers are teaching, demonstrating and sharing their knowledge and expertise. With 2 billion videos viewed daily on YouTube, this service has become the second largest search engine in the world.

The demand for video is sure to bring about new online services that enhance how videos are integrated into our world for just-in-time, informal learning. According to Ravit Lichtenberg from Ustrategy.com, “In the coming year, gaps in our video experience will be filled with the integration of filtering, tagging, editing and locating tools into each and every video feed.” Sounds good to me. – Bit more of a success story here. During my recent internal move within my organisation I recorded some ‘talking head’ footage of myself describing some of the projects that my successor would be taking over, ‘loose ends’, along with a general overview of the L&D function. We have also linked some of our rapid elearning modules to a couple of YouTube videos. Unfortunately, I think the Innovation Prevention Department are onto my trail…. (so that’s probably the next site to be blocked then)

Due to improved infrastructure, slick mobile operating systems and smartphone market penetration, we seemed to hit a tipping point of readiness for mobile content this year. From mini-courses to collaboration to performance support, mobile learning could go mainstream in the near future.

In terms of converting legacy courses, it will mean streamlining everything—paring down over-sized multimedia elements as well as implementing a ‘less is more’ philosophy. In terms of new development, designers will have to manage the limitations of a smaller screen and decreased memory capacity. When mobile learning hits critical mass, people of all ages and occupations will reap the benefits. – “there are incredibly strict controls over cameras in my organisation. – Whilst employees are allowed (at the moment) to carry their own personal phones with them, there is little chance of the forthcoming site-wide handset upgrade being to a handset that would lend itself to mobile learning. This is backed up by the Blackberries that are issued to certain people having their cameras disabled!

Although you may resent the fact that Apple won’t support Flash (yet, that is), you have to admit that the iPad continues to push the world of interactive content. The combination of a gestural interface with fine aesthetics, convenience and portability appears to be a game changer. New interactive books and magazines as well as educational and social apps are breaking ground.

But even though the iPad has sold well in the consumer and academic markets, its ability to penetrate into the workforce remains to be seen. Other tablet makers plan to support Flash and considering that over 70 percent of today’s online video uses the Flash format, we may be more likely to see alternate tablet technologies invading the workplace in the future. Note: Adobe Flash CS5 can convert .swf files into HTML-5 for some level of compatibility with the iPad. - I quote - “we don’t support Apple products”, “if there is a camera in it (or going to be) then forget it”, ” we don’t (and will never) have Wi-Fi on site”

To find out about the latest learning trends in the virtual sphere, I contacted expert Karl Kapp, author of Learning in 3D and professor at  Bloomsberg University. Dr. Kapp sees 3D Virtual Worlds headed in three directions in 2011.

“One, I see an increase in 3D Virtual World software being used to replace 2D PowerPoint-based virtual meetings. People loose focus quickly in 2D meetings staring at slides on the screen with a disembodied voice. So more companies are adopting 3D virtual worlds—where the environments look like conference rooms or offices—to avoid the mind numbing presentations. This is basically a replacement strategy of virtual worlds.

The second, and I think more interesting, is the use of 3D virtual worlds as enterprise-wide portals. In this trend, I see a 3D virtual world as a place of entry, when a person goes to work (virtually or drives somewhere and logs on). The person can then access social media tools, documents and other applications all from within the integrated 3D platform. This trend is fascinating in that 3D virtual worlds are creating an entirely new interface between employees and the systems they use at work.

The third trend is using 3D virtual worlds as multi-learner simulations. So instead of one person participating in a simulation, multiple people can participate and work together while learning the facts, knowledge and procedures required to collaborate. This is being used primarily with first responders and medical applications.” - “our network struggles as it is, never mind trying to engage in Virtual Worlds”

Gary Woodill, Ed.D., a Senior Research Analyst at Brandon Hall Research and author of The Mobile Learning Edge, was kind enough to contribute his perspective on the trends affecting Augmented Reality related to mobile learning.

According to Dr. Woodlill, “Augmented Reality (AR) is one of the most disruptive applications for mobile learners. It is an example of location-based services, where information is provided to you based on your location, and even the direction that your phone camera is facing. With that information, your smartphone can supply additional textual information about what you are looking at, or can blend computer generated objects with the video or still image on your screen.

AR can also supply clues and problems to you through your smartphone based on your location, allowing for both training applications and learning games while on the move. For example, there are AR applications that can add historical objects to the picture of your surroundings as you move through a town, giving you a richer sense of the historical significance of an area.  Another AR application tells you the tenants of a building as you point your camera in its direction.

Because mobile learning is showing raid growth, and because Augmented Reality is one of its most compelling uses, look for rapid growth in the next five years in learning applications that use augmented reality concepts.” - ” we don’t (and probably never will) allow Smartphones/portable devices to be fully enabled amongst the entire workforce”

According to Technorati, the blog count reached 70 million last year. Even though a quarter of them are most likely bot-created spam blogs, the quantity of content ‘in the cloud’ is still staggering. Blogs give everyone a voice to communicate, teach, spout opinions, learn and network. And with RSS technology, blog posts are quickly pushed to subscribers for easy access.

Although blogging has always had hints of social sharing, this is more evident than ever before. Jon Sobel, of Blog Critics notes that, “Bloggers’ use of and engagement with various social media tools is expanding, and the lines between blogs, micro-blogs, and social networks are disappearing. As the blogosphere converges with social media, sharing of blog posts is increasingly done through social networks.” With this much information available through so many forms, blogging should continue to prove a worthy medium for teaching, discussion and learning. - We don’t have any internal platform to host these Blogs, even our intranet is so functionality-free that it prevents us from doing so. Given the natural caution surrounding the nature of our Industry, any blogging platform would need to sit within our firewall, which would mean involving the Innovation Prevention Department……..

The digital book publishing revolution is thriving as a result of improved electronic readers, the introduction of the iPad, the open ePub format, and a growing popularity of downloadable books in .pdf format sold by authors. With the advent of ‘always on’ devices, eBooks present one more path for learning and content distribution.

In the future, forward thinking training organizations will provide their print materials in downloadable formats for employees to study or reference as needed. And as more digital readers become Internet-ready, books will hyperlink to other sources of information, providing a richer reading experience. - Hmmmm, this looks promising, although  Amazon’s ‘licensing’ surrounding their Kindle edition appears to make this a ‘non-starter’ for use as a shared resource i.e. amongst multiple users.

A QR Code is a type of barcode that can be read by QR scanners and mobile phones with cameras, using a QR reader app. Capable of  holding text, data and URLs, QR codes have a greater capacity than the old fashioned 10-digit barcode because they’re two-dimensional. Okay, these weren’t a booming trend in 2010, but we’ll probably see more of them in the future.

Librarians and educators have found inventive uses for bar codes you might find inspiring. For example, QR codes containing a hyperlink have been placed on shelves in libraries. The code links to additional information about a related subject. In her blog, Instructional Design Fusions, Diane Rees writes about ways to use QR codes to explore stories in non-traditional locations to enhance educational activities. - “Erm…. dont QR codes need a camera to read them? (see various references to cameras above)

View the original article here

QR codes? sounds like something out of a Bond film!

I’ve been aware of QR codes for some time now after reading one of many blog posts on the subject from @jamesclay, but I had never really seen the benefits to them for learners in my organisation (or maybe that should read that I had never applied myself to researching the benefits!)

Blog posts from @jamesclay and @hopkinsdavid have provided me with some great ideas as to how QR codes could benefit learners. Admittedly I may be held back a little due to certain restrictions on the use/carriage of mobile phones on my site, with the primary phone being a very attractive brick

However, for those people who do own Smart phones we have started to use QR codes in our Learning Centre and here is a short video to prove it…

Are you already using them, if so let me know how?

If you are planning to, then why not share your ideas with us all?

View the original article here

An award entry – with a difference

Over the Summer of 2013 I submitted an entry into the LPIs annual Learning Awards in the Learning Professional of The Year category.

I know that’s somewhat narcissistic of me but it was the only category I felt I could provide actual evidence for at the point I wrote and submitted the entry. All the other categories would have, I felt, required me to provide evidence, examples etc that I no longer had access to (I did contact my ex-manager on several occasions, but have yet to to receive a reply……)

I wanted to submit an entry that caught the judges attention, so I used iBooks Author to create an interactive entry using text, image carousels and embedded video. I also provided a PDF version for those without an iPad.

Screenshot of the cover of my iBook submission

I was short listed as a category finalist and presented to the judging panel in November 2013.

I was keen to pitch my entry not just against the Learning and Performance Institutes and my own ‘criteria’ but also against what many of you considered to be indicative of a modern and effective L&D professional.

I’m prepping my @YourLPI awards pitch Can you help me? What 3 behaviours/characteristics/attitudes etc should a modern L&D pro demonstrate?

— Craig Taylor (@CraigTaylor74) November 20, 2013

Here’s what some of you came up with

Learning Awards submission Wordle

What words, behaviours, characteristics etc do you believe are missing from this Wordle?

View the original article here

Get your foot in the door – Delay Repay

Do you travel by train?

Do any of your work colleagues travel by train?

If the answer to either of the above questions is ‘Yes’, then read on…

As many of you will know I’ve recently started working on a 6 month contract with an investment bank in the City of London, which means I’ve reluctantly joined the ‘not so exclusive’ commuting club!

Commuting has it’s downsides:

Long daysNot seeing my kids Mon-Friday (they’re in bed when I leave / get home)Having to pay a small fortune for the joy of being transported from A to B and back again via dirty, draughty, poorly maintained and very often delayed trains.

That’s why I was very pleased to discover an online service called DelayRepaySniper. Their site has been recently updated to a rather nice responsive design, thus making it far easier to use the site from a mobile device, which let’s face it, is what you’re likely to have available during a delayed train journey! (Train Operating Companies (TOC) take note in terms of your Delay Repay online forms!)

iPhone view of notifications page

The website allows you to input a number of journeys i.e.

Newhaven Town – London VictoriaLondon Victoria – Newhaven Town

and the site will then email you every 24 hours to let you know of any delays that have occurred on that route. (think of it as a ‘nudging’ reminder)

iPad/desktop view of notifications

You can then either make the claim yourself via the Delay Repay system of your TOC or DelayRepaySniper, for an additional fee, can process the claim on your behalf.

There’s obviously a lot more to it that that and I’d encourage you to take a close look at the site to see if this could be of use to you too.

iPad/desktop view of site

So how could this be used to get your ‘foot in the door’ with mobile learning?

Let’s be honest, people would rather have their hard earned salary in their pockets than in the pockets of a service provider who has failed to meet their service level agreements! Why not research this more closely, discuss and demo it to your work colleagues (on your smartphone / tablet) and if people within your organisation would benefit, then you’ve got a wonderful opportunity to ‘get your foot in the door‘ and prove the worth of performance support via mobile devices.

Why not take a look at the site and consider whether you might want to direct your colleagues towards them.

Delay Repay Sniper

If you’d like to find out more about ‘Delay Repay’, here’s a list of Google results – just look for your TOC

Google search results for ‘delay repay’

Inevitably there will be some people who do not have a mobile device and will bemoan the fact that you are offering their colleagues who do have a mobile device something that they themselves are unable to benefit from – don’t let this put you off.

Simply tell them to carry on using whatever tool or process they have always used – simples!!!

Good luck and let me know how you get on

The blog post that started it all

View the original article here

Bringing elearning back ‘in’house

During the early part of 2009 my organisation made the decision to bring its ‘self-paced’ elearning back ‘in house’ after a number of years of outsourcing.

The interview below was conducted earlier this month to celebrate 12 months of the system being ‘live’.

The interview was then broadcast over the info-screen system that we have around our site in order to celebrate the efforts of everybody involved, to maintain the profile of elearning and to provide a glimpse of what the future may have in store for us…

During the interview I mention some research that I have done into the use of Learning Technologies within schools, HE & FE, a real eye-opener for me was when I attended @jamesclays Mobile Learning Bootcamp.

It is my intention to give a little more detail over some of the modules we have created in forthcoming blog posts.

Keep your eyes peeled….

View the original article here

My top 10 Learning Tools for 2011

It’s that time of the year again folks when Jane Hart is reminding us all to submit our ‘Top 10 Learning Tools 2011/of the year’.

This is something that I contributed to for the first time last year and it was interesting to see where my preferred tools came in the ‘Top 100' ranking structure that Jane works out from all of our submissions, it is also a great place to catch wind of any new tools that are out there.

I am once again contributing to this years list, however I have decided to take a different tack. Whereas my list last year probably (I say probably because I can’t specifically remember) contained things like:

TwitterYouTubeGoogle ReaderSlideshareetc

I have decided to approach things from a different angle this year and have decided not to concentrate on the actual platform, but to think more carefully about how I get access to that platform. After all, it’s no good being a member of some of these wonderful online platforms if you can’t get to them. There are also a few in there just to remind us all that sometimes the answer doesn’t need to be a ‘click‘ away at all! I think it’s also worth mentioning that I have only very recently started working in a new organisation, Epic. What better time to consider what tools have been effective for my personal learning, within a real-time learning moment.

So here’s my Top 10 list of learning tools, in no particular order.

1. My phone (this allows me to phone people up and ask them a question, at which point I find Tool No 6 to be particularly useful)

2. My iPad (this allows me to review online information and communications in order to bring me up to speed on a given subject, of course without Tool No 4 I am somewhat limited in what I can do)

3. My laptop (not only can I do everything on this that I can do on Tool No 2, but I can also far more easily create content, which of course allows me to reflect upon what I am creating thus adding to my own personal learning experience)

4. Internet signal – WiFi/3G/4G/Ethernet (come on admit it, how many of you who submitted an entry into Janes Top 100 tools, overlooked the fact that *most* if not all of the tools you suggested rely upon being able to gain and maintain access to the t’internet?)

5. Falling over – not literally of course, I mean making mistakes. What more powerful tool can there be for learning than those amazing synapses in our brains firing adrenaline, emotions such as guilt, worry, embarrassment, shock etc after we have realised we have made a mistake. Sometimes bruised egos, flushed cheeks and yes – scraped knees serve us very well indeed.

6. My ears – let’s be honest, they’re in ‘receive mode’ far more than our Internet signal. Next time you’re amongst your team colleagues just allow yourself to listen to what’s being said….

7. The Epic intranet – a purpose-built repository of the specific ‘must/should/and could knows’ of my organisation. This has been of immense use to me over the last couple of weeks and no doubt will continue to be so in the future.

8. The guy who sits opposite me – His name is Andy Costello and he has been a godsend to me during my first few weeks working at Epic. Not only providing support when I have asked for it, but also providing it when he anticipates I am approaching a ‘just in time’ moment. Truly contextualised, semantic performance support.

                 

9. Books/magazine etc (not fussy about the format)

10. My Son and Daughter – watching them grow up, evolve, learn, make mistakes etc provides me with some wonderful ‘lightbulb’ moments. Seeing how they navigate the challenges and problems that you and I take for granted, like carrying a plate without spilling its contents reminds me that all the learning challenges that you and I face are surmountable, I mean look at everything else that we have achieved in our lives!

View the original article here