I have written over 250 posts classified as Friday’s Finds. These are compilations of what has passed by me on social media over the past week or two. Originally these were posted once a week and now once per fortnight. With a critical mass of posts I now have an additional resource to mine for... Read more »

Often we find the term "green energy" or "clean energy". What does that mean exactly? In simple terms, this means that the source and method of energy that does not pollute the environment. The system is linked to the nature of the source and therefore, if the source is chosen correctly, the levels of pollution ...

Kathryn Cave, Editor at IDG Connect writes, "What role will robots play in tomorrow’s office?"This is a London street in 2040. A throng of workers are demonstrating in solidarity with their robot brothers and sisters. The banners read:"Robot Rights!" - "Equal Pay For Robots!" - "I Love My Robot - Jayne - She Deserves MORE!"Photo: IDG ConnectThe role of robots in the workplace is developing at a furious pace. This looks set to continue. And while the portrait above may be pure fantasy, it is not inconceivable. So, how are robots likely to develop in the workplace?Ocado Technology is currently working on a new project to build physical robots to offer a second pair of hands to employees. This will use artificial intelligence, machine learning and advanced vision techniques to find out where human workers need help with technical maintenance jobs. It should be complete in five years. As Jonathan Wilkins, director at European Automation puts it, in future combined with M2M, robots will have an "increased ability to learn and make predictions based on previous scenarios". This can be seen in virtual assistant Amelia by IPsoft or the experiment where a neural network of 16,000 processors taught itself to recognise cats after a week of watching YouTube videos.At present work robots are still in their early stages though. And as usual cultural differences come into play. In the West they are mostly being used in manufacturing and, occasionally, a high profile receptionist. In the East they emerge in more ‘caring roles’.The Japanese, particularly, have always had a distinct relationship with machines. And this June, Pepper a humanoid robot, which can feel emotion and helps people by talking to them, made the headlines as its entire run of 1,000 sold out within one minute of going on sale.It is this more human side of robots that will always draw the most fascination. This is the stuff of science fiction. And the film Her has already explored the relationship between a man and his virtual assistant. While Dr Helen Driscoll from Sunderland University Psychology Department believes that:"Robophilia may be alien now, but could be normal in the near future as attitudes evolve with technology".This is a long way off. But things do seem to be moving in that general direction. "Robots are likely to offer different kinds of human machine interactions by encompassing social skills. It means machines will talk to people - in limited ways - but they will be able to trigger some kind of actions in our normal day lives," says Dr. Antonio Espingardeiro, Senior Member of the IEEE.Read more... Source: IDG Connect 

This whitepaper by Charles Jennings in association with The Open University, explores the overlooked factors beyond technology that really make modern blended learning developments successful.Download NowIn the foreword Mike Dutton, Executive Director, The Open University, writes "This white paper by Charles Jennings, a leading thinker and practitioner in learning, development and performance, looks at where technology has brought L&D and considers its potential for now and the future. He looks particularly at blended learning and what needs to change, exploring how learning professionals can increase their skills and understanding to harness technology and expertise in a way that increases the impact, efficiency and return on investment of L&D."I hope that you find the insights and recommendations in this paper valuable. As an organisation that has both used and led innovations in technology and teaching to deliver learning to individuals and employers for over 40 years, we welcome the opportunity to contribute to the thinking on ways to deliver learning with greater impact.AbstractTechnology has a big role to play in most modern learning and development strategies, but the effectiveness, impact and success of these strategies is almost always due to factors beyond technology.Without robust design principles and capable and experienced professionals who know how to harness the technology and exploit the ‘best’, then technology offers little. Blended learning is a start, but we need to move ‘beyond the blend’.Download NowSource: TrainingZone

One of the participants in my Toxic Workplace Course brought up the discomfort that comes with acknowledging to herself that she's in a toxic work situation. If she admits this then it opens up the question that she must DO...

By Joy Church Millard, Sr. Editor, Expertus Editor’s Note: Welcome to the sixth interview in our "Learning Luminaries" series — where we showcase conversations with the brightest and most innovative minds in the world of enterprise training and development. This month, we feature John Leh, CEO and Lead Analyst at Talented Learning, LLC. John is an LMS selection…

Building a module of online learning is like developing a lesson plan that you will deliver in a vacuum. You will not see or hear the reaction to what you deliver and you will have no clues to tell you if your audience is engaged, bored, or still there. In this article I will share some insight on content curation in order to help you engage and entertain your online learners. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

The 9th European Conference on Games Based Learning (ECGBL 2015) will be held at the Nord-Trondelag University College, Steinkjer, Norway on October 8-9, 2015. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Follow on Twitter as @IWroteThisForU"I have a clear memory of my father's thesis which earned him his PhD in accounting. The big red leather book sat on a table in our entrance hall and it was one of the first things you saw when you walked in. I also, just as clearly, remember my older brother's bedroom wall covered with certificates and awards for his ridiculously high academic grades in math, science, geography, biology, computer science and so on.  according to Iain S. Thomas, South African born #1 bestselling poet behind the I Wrote This For You project and blog, under the pseudonym 'pleasefindthis.'And me? Well, I was pretty good with words and pictures but in the context of my older brother and father that didn't seem to count for much. Not that they were ever mean to me or purposefully made me feel inadequate. On the contrary, my father was the kindest, gentlest person I've ever met. And I love my brother, as much now as I did then. But regardless of the loving environment I grew up in, I was sure that it didn't actually matter how good I was with words or pictures because of how bad I was at math and science, the things they were good at. Because what I was good at was so different from the examples I had of successful behavior and skills, I was sure I was destined for failure. And to be clear, by failure I mean destitution: Living in a cardboard box on the street without a penny to my name. I still wake up at night, absolutely sure that everything I've done will be taken away, that someone will tap someone else on the shoulder and say, "We really shouldn't be buying this guy's books, clearly he's an idiot." More than 100 000 books sold later, I still need to talk to my therapist about it often...I don't have a PhD in accounting, but I know that there are pilot programs and researchers working out how we can do better, by all of us. Those programs, ideas and the people testing them, who are much smarter than me and my pretty words and pictures, need our support because there are writers, artists, humanitarians and philosophers on par with Aristotle, Picasso and Hemingway flipping burgers somewhere next to a highway because that's what they have to do to survive. What if the question "What would you do if you could do anything?" wasn't a question we asked once as a thought experiment but an everyday expectation for all of us? A robot can flip burgers. Let's let Hemingway write books.Read more... Additional resourcesHow to be Happy: Not a Self-Help Book. SeriouslyCentral Avenue Publishing is proud to publish another book by the widely acclaimed poet Iain S. Thomas. As many have noted on various social media platforms, there have been some issues that have led to the delayed release of this book.I Wrote This For You (blog)Source: Huffington Post

‘Small Is Beautiful’ - A popular quote, derived from the book of the same name, is synonymous with the world-renowned British Economist E F Schumacher,who picked it up from his teacher Leopold Kohr. The 4-part book (‘The Modern World,’ ‘Resources,’ ‘The Third World,’ and ‘Organization and Ownership’ captures the brilliance of the economist, who believed […]