Clark Quinn writes about 'minimalist instruction'. And I subscribe to it. We're living in a day and age where the information to 'fill in the gaps' can be assembled easily. We have to focus on the essentials of the learning. "We develop full courses to incorporate motivation, practice, all the things non-self-directed learners need. But there are times when we need to provide new information and skills to self-directed learners. When we’re talking to practitioners who are good at their job, know what they’re doing and why, and know that they need to know this information and how they’ll apply it, we can strip away a lot of the window dressing. We can just provide support to a SME so that their talk presents the relevant bits in a streamlined and effective way, and let them loose. That, to me, is the role of rapid elearning."

The Cognitive Daily has a nice test that shows the experts do not really remember more stuff than non-experts; they just remember more details.

A wealth of ideas in this talk by Sir Ken Robinson on personal talent, education and more. Wonderful stuff. [Via e-wot].

Steve Baty has written a detailed article on analyzing research findings. I do agree with him that we don't have many analysis techniques in the interaction design literature. Here are the analysis techniques he describes. Deconstruction Manipulation Transformation Summarization Aggregation Generalization Abstraction Synthesis

Jakob Nielsen provides timeless advice for online writing: Assume your information will be used out of context. Content might be either displayed in different contexts or users might read only a selected bit of the full page. (The hints above can help you determine whether your information works out of context.) Modularize your information, so that each content chunk addresses a single issue. If you cover two things in one chunk, the second will often be overlooked. Use specific language. Concrete terms are more likely to help people who have a different perspective on the content. Generic or broad terms can be misinterpreted — or overlooked, as we saw in the example.

Matthew Clark writes about the components of a web collaboration model: Collaboration is action-oriented. People must do something to collaborate. They may exchange ideas, arrange an event, write a report, lay bricks, or design some software. To collaborate is to act together and it is the combined set of actions that constitutes collaboration. Collaboration is goal-oriented. The reason for working together is to achieve something. There is some purpose behind the actions: to create a web site, to build an office block, to support each other through grief, or some other human goal. The collaborators may have varying motivations, but the collaboration per se focuses on a goal that is shared. Collaboration involves a team. No-one can collaborate alone. Collaboration requires a group of people working together. The team may be any size, may be geographically co-located or dispersed, membership may be voluntary or imposed, but there is at least some essence of being part of the team. Collaboration is co-ordinated. That is, the team is working together in some sense. The co-ordination may follow some formal methodology, but can equally well be implicit and informal. There needs to be some sense at least that there are a number of things to be done, some sequences of actions, some allocation of tasks within the group, and some way to combine the contributions of different team members.

Peter Tittenberger and George Siemens have crafted the Handbook of emerging technologies for learning wiki with a goal of helping educators use new technologies in their teaching and learning activities.

An article by Christina Wodkte published in A List Apart on the 3 attributes of social architecture and how to cater for it: Identity, Relationships; and Activity. "While your designs can never control people, they can encourage good behavior and discourage bad behavior. The psychologist Kurt Lewin developed an equation that explains why people do the crazy things they do. Lewin asserts that behavior is a function of a person and his environment: B=f(P,E). You can’t change a person’s nature, but you can design the environment he moves around in. Let’s explore some of Alexander’s patterns I’ve observed in my work and the design work of my fellow practitioners."

Issue 1 of the Journal of IA is now available for download. Here are the contents: Dorte Madsen's Editorial - Shall We Dance? Gianluca Brugnoli - Connecting the Dots of User Experience Helena Francke - Towards an Architectural Document Analysis Andrew Hinton - The Machineries of Context James Kalbach - On Uncertainty in Information Architecture

Patrick Walsh continues his analysis of managing intranets the lean way and comparing it to how car manufacturers manage their factories the lean way. "So, there you have it. Basically, in the Lean Intranet, information professionals will be removing barriers, minimising and assessing content and continually improving their intranet using a customer-focused approach. Hard to achieve? I won't say that the transition to a lean approach in intranets will be without problems but I know it's possible. I've seen ‘lean' working for many years in the automotive sector helping to produce better cars through more efficient processes. Why not better, more efficient intranets?"