Podcasts are a convenient way to learn on the run and they are fairly easy to create. So why aren't you podcasting?Post from: The eLearning CoachUsing Podcasts For Learning-Updated

Command and control is out. Open and collaborative is in. Find out why.Post from: The eLearning CoachELC008: Creating A Connected And Engaged Organization

The post Video of the Week: The Learning Designer Project appeared first on Designed For Learning.

Think like a journalist for a compelling approach.Post from: The eLearning Coach5 Journalism Techniques To Borrow For eLearning

Well I made it to BETT this year by staying over in London after Learning Technologies. I had hopes that the new Learning at Work specialist conference thread would be useful but on the day I was there it was poorly attended and both sessions that I went to had little to do with learning technologies. The whole thing felt like a last minute add-on to try and attract some corporate L&D people. It’s a pity I missed Day 1 because both Nick Shackleton-Jones and Steve Wheeler were speaking - I’m guessing they drew a bigger crowd! The show itself was massive - probably four times the size of learning technologies but of course there are a lot of schools and colleges buying a lot of IT kit in the UK. The big hardware vendors were there including Apple, Dell, Acer and Samsung plus specialist PC education suppliers such as RM and Viglen. Microsoft and Google were also there promoting their education software and services. As I’ve noted before BETT is about technology in the classroom. It’s main audience are teachers in primary and secondary schools. For this audience online learning is something that isn’t going to happen in their schools anytime soon. Having said that there were a number of VLE vendors but it most cases the VLE simply provides an extension of the classroom experience. Children can access homework tasks, do some research, complete a quiz while parents can monitor their child’s progress. Moodle was on show by Webanywhere and the good guys at Synergy Learning but it’s used once again to extend the classroom rather than replace it. There is of course lots of fun stuff at BETT - programmable Lego, cool physics experiments and all sorts of learning games designed to be used in a classroom environment. There are also stacks of interactive whiteboard vendors and people who make charging and security trolleys for iPads that can be rolled from class to class. Is BETT changing? In the education market is the technology finally breaking out of the classroom? Only very slowly. The post BETT Show 2013 appeared first on Designed For Learning.

No straight line from point A to point B.Post from: The eLearning Coach10 Things You Should Know About Design and Design Thinking

I popped into PC World  yesterday evening after a client meeting in Plymouth. PC World is now the only physical PC superstore in the UK since the loss of Comet in January. I wanted to check out a Windows 8 laptop, and in particular a touch screen one. Why have a touch screen on a laptop? Good question and one that I have been grappling with as the time has come to upgrade my travelling office which currently comprises: Dell Studio laptop with a super high resolution 15.6 inch  screen running Windows Vista (nice PC but weighs a ton) Acer AspireOne Netbook with a high resolution 11 inch screen running Vista very slowly (but it lasts 8 hours on a charge and is super compact) iPad (the original one that I won at an E-Learning Network event back in 2010) iPhone 4 So back to that touch screen question. Steve Jobs (my eulogy here) said that they would never catch-on. His view was that no one will find using a touch screen in an upright position comfortable. You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not gonna be pleasing to the user. Tim Cook from Apple on convertible tablet PCs Well I’ve been playing and I’ve come to the conclusion that a touch screen really adds to the laptop experience. In fact since I’ve been using an iPhone and iPad I am now in the habit of touching ALL screens just to see if they respond or not! I had great fun in PC World seeing if the the laptops on display would respond to my delicate touch. Not many responded but the ones that did were a revelation. So many things we need to do are just better done with a touch gesture. Accessing photos was magical. So were a lot of scroll and zooming actions. Interacting with e-mail and calendars and tasks was also really intuitive. Obviously I was limited in what I could achieve on the demo machines in the store but overall having a touch screen seems like the way to go - especially for tablet junkies. The only downside is that it has to be a Windows PC. Touch screens are a glaring omission from Apple’s line-up. Will this change now that Steve Jobs has gone? I think it probably might. See also: Surprisingly, touchscreen laptops don’t suck Here is my fave touch screen PC from my visit to PC World - the Asus VivoBook S400CA 14-inch at only £599 The post Touching your Device Screen appeared first on Designed For Learning.

You can learn how to make better explanations from Lee LeFever of Common Craft Videos.Post from: The eLearning CoachELC 009: How To Make Better Explanations

Find out how to use Twitter for informal learning.Post from: The eLearning Coach10 Ways to Learn From Twitter

Earlier this month I attended a TEDx for the first time at the University of Exeter. I was underwhelmed. It wasn’t the speakers - they were inspirational in all sorts of ways - but the format. First of all the theatre venue was quite depressing - dark with the audience in full auditorium style. Great for packing people in but poor for audience interaction. The lack of natural light was also a problem. Ideas are much better shared under sustainable natural light. It seems that most TED events happen in the dark - maybe it’s to do with the fact that everything is videoed for putting on the web. Each speaker speaks for 18 mins, they share some slides (it seems important that they stand in the red spot), the audience claps and if the talk is really good there is a standing ovation (we had a couple of those). There is no opportunity to ask the speakers any questions at the end and therein lies the big issue with the TEDx format - apart from the clapping there is no audience interaction all. Zilch. I left early. This is my audience interaction. To finish on a positive note I was inspired by: Matt Harper’s poetry Tom Crompton on the ‘The Conscience Economy’ Kirsty Schneeberger’s Question - ‘How old will you be in 2050?’ The TR14ers’ dancing Keister Brewin’s celebration of pirates More: http://tedxexeter.com/events/tedxexeter-2013/ Next year I might give TEDx a miss. Update 23 April: Over the years I have attended hundreds of conferences and though in the main I have found them positive, sometimes I come away feeling that the real beneficiaries are the organisers and the sponsors (and even these stakeholders struggle to get value sometimes). For a conference to be successful it needs to balance the needs of many stakeholders and this is always a challenge. I’ve been contributing to a collaborative effort (based in the Westcountry) on re-designing the conference - "How do you design the Ultimate Conference Experience?"   I’ve also attended a couple of ‘Unconferences‘ based on Open Space technology. Clearly the Unconference is quite a radical disruptive approach and I can’t see many professional conference organisers going down this route any time soon but maybe it’s time to at least introduce some ‘ideas worth spreading’ into the conference format. I’ll leave the last word to TED. TED isn’t a typical conference. The TED audience has high expectations of the speakers; the TED speaker team works with speakers well in advance of the conference to help shape a presentation that will succeed on the TED stage. TED is the place to give the talk of your life. The post TEDx Exeter, 12 April 2013 appeared first on Designed For Learning.