2065, it turns out, will be even MOAR FUTUREY than 2054. And here are some things we now know about that future! The post Minority Report Is Back, And So is Its Crazy Future-Tech appeared first on WIRED.

"We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it." This is the preamble to the Agile Manifesto (www.agilemanifesto.org) and it’s one of the most important pieces of the whole thing, as far as we’re concerned. It means we’ve learned this by experimenting, by failing, by tweaking and by trying again. And we’re learning more by helping others do it, too. You see, we have this thing called LLAMA: the Lot Like Agile Methods Approach. It’s our project management approach that combines the best of Agile methods with excellence in instructional design practices. Our business is custom elearning development, not project management training. But we have made a deliberate choice about our teaching. Every time we teach a LLAMA class - and we’re doing this more and more - we learn something new. Sometimes we learn about a technique or a tweak that would improve our work. And sometimes we learn more about the way we do what we do just by getting to explain it a different way to someone else. It’s why we’re writing more and more about it, too. Here’s an article from Learning Solutions Magazine this week with an overview of the approach. In that article, you’ll see a line about Agile helps you "accept and expect change" - that came from an "aha" moment in one of Megan’s 3-day LLAMA classes. A perspective we gained through our teaching. Enjoy. Learn. Ask questions. We’ll all learn something new in the process. Welcome aboard.

Over the past few years, I spend part of December going back through my blog to recap a bit of what some of the key things I’ve learned over the course of the year.  I’ve been doing this the past few years, for example: Learned about Learning in 2009.  And every year I use this as a Big Question - see: Learning 2010.  A lot of it is thinking through where my thinking has changed over the course of the year.  So here are a few of the things that are a bit different for me. 1. Twitter is Much Better than I Thought for Learning I used to say during presentations that I wasn’t quite sure about twitter as a learning tool.  During 2010, I’ve been ramping up my use of twitter as a learning tool.  I’ve had to find ways to filter the flow and figure out when/how to reach out.  It was definitely helpful to spend time going through Twitter for Learning - 55 Great Articles. 2. Learning Coach Model Very Powerful In 2010, I had a great experience where Dr. Joel Harband wrote a series of articles for my blog on Text-to-Speech in eLearning.   Here’s the series: Text-to-Speech Overview and NLP Quality, Digital Signal Processor and Text-to-Speech, Using Text-to-Speech in an eLearning Course, Text-to-Speech eLearning Tools - Integrated Products, Text-to-Speech vs Human Narration for eLearning, and Using Punctuation and Mark-Up Language to Increase Text-to-Speech Quality. Text-to-Speech Examples Text-to-Speech Costs - Licensing and Pricing But what I learned from this was that it was a fantastic way to learn about a topic where I was interested but didn’t have the time to spend researching it.  Instead, Joel would write it up.  I’d ask questions and edit it. It provided high value for me and hopefully value for people reading it. I’m looking forward to doing more of this going forward.  Please let me know if you want to be a Learning Coach for me on another topic. 3. iPad (and iPhone) are Much More Useful Than I Expected I didn’t actually think that I would care about the iPad except as a tool for training and performance support in environments like retail and restaurants where it’s always been an issue having access to machines.  However, now that I have an iPad myself, I’ve found myself sitting on the couch with it a LOT.  And slowly it’s got me to try more applications and then those applications expand off to my iPhone. It’s an amazing device and no surprise it was one of the breakout topics on eLearning Learning this year. 4. LMS and Learning Tracking Still Struggling While LMS solutions continue to get better, more powerful, more diverse, I continue to find myself searching for just the right solution for particular needs.  For example my search for an LMS Solution for Simple Partner Compliance Training didn’t really arrive at just the right solution.  I was also struggling for clients who needed very simple learning tracking but with some customizations.  Marketplace LMS solutions don’t quite fit.  Neither do more complex solutions. And a big part of the problem is just how many there are and how fast they change. 5. Aggregation and Social Filtering Provide High Value eLearning Learning has somewhat become my singular source of great eLearning content.  I use it to filter and find all the best content on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.  And it’s going to become much better in the new year as it moves over to the next generation platform.  I was really glad to see it grow to become one of the Top eLearning Sites.  And the system itself is growing with sites like Social Media Informer.  6. Open Content Potential But There are Challenges This year I spent quite a bit of time looking at where and how open content could get leveraged in different ways.  I’m still struggling a little bit with it, but I know there’s going to be a lot going on around it.  See Failure of Creative Commons Licenses and Creative Commons Use in For-Profit Company eLearning? for more on this. 7. Flash may Die and HTML 5 is Going to be Big 2010 opened my eyes are Flash and HTML 5.  I really think that 2010 marks the Beginning of Long Slow Death of Flash.  This, of course, means some really big changes for authoring tools in the industry. Top Topics and Posts As part of this exercise, I went back to look at my top posts and hottest topics for the year via eLearning Learning.  What I wrote more about in 2010 than past years: Text-to-Speech (8) OCW (3) SharePoint (8) eLearning Strategy (16) eLearning Tools (34) Corporate eLearning (18) Knowledge Worker (8) Authoring Tools (8) Voice (15) Knowledge Work (4) Captivate (11) Adobe Captivate (6) Enterprise 2.0 (6) iPad (5) SkillSoft (2) Social Learning (15) Virtual Classroom (5) ASTD (8) eLearningGuild (2) And here were my top posts based on social signals. Twitter for Learning - 55 Great Articles Wikis and Learning - 60 Resources Teaching Online Courses - 60 Great Resources Top 10 eLearning Predictions for 2010 Top 35 Articles on eLearning Strategy Open Source eLearning Tools 19 Tips for Effective Online Conferences Effective Web Conferences - 41 Resources Augmented Reality for Learning eLearning Conferences 2011 Creative Commons Use in For-Profit Company eLearning? Top eLearning Sites? Social Learning Tools Should Not be Separate from Enterprise 2.0 Social Media for Knowledge Workers Low-Cost Test and Quiz Tool Comparison Using Text-to-Speech in an eLearning Course Text-to-Speech Overview and NLP Quality SharePoint Social Learning Experience Beginning of Long Slow Death of Flash Text-to-Speech vs Human Narration for eLearning eLearning Innovation 2010 - Top 30 Future of Virtual 3D Environments for Learning Failure of Creative Commons Licenses Text-to-Speech eLearning Tools - Integrated Products Success Formula for Discussion Forums in Financial Services Ning Alternatives that Require Little to No Work? Performance Support in 2015 What Makes an LMS Easy to Use? Selling Social Learning - Be a Jack Evaluating Knowledge Workers Learning Flash LMS Solution for Simple Partner Compliance Training Filtering, Crowdsourcing and Information Overload Best Lecture Text-to-Speech Examples Sales eLearning - 21 Great Resources Simulations Games Social and Trends SharePoint Templates for Academic Departments Virtual Presentation - Ten eLearning Predictions for 2010 Information Filtering eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

As news of Ellen Pao's resignation as interim CEO of Reddit spread across the Twitter-sphere, many saw sexism in play. The post Pao’s Reddit Resignation Seen As Setback for Tech Equality appeared first on WIRED.

"Lean Coffee is a discussion facilitation technique that helps a small group agree on topics and a structure for a discussion that otherwise has no specific agenda." As a team of project managers, instructional designers, trainers and leaders, we do like our big box of tools and techniques we can wield at a moment’s notice. Lean Coffee is one of our new favorites. It’s not necessarily just for Lean, and doesn’t have to involve coffee, although that would make it extra special. Lean Coffee is a discussion facilitation technique that helps a small group agree on topics and a structure for a discussion that otherwise has no specific agenda. It requires no prep, few materials, and no special room arrangements. So, that’s pretty lean. Here’s a rundown on the method that we wrote up for the Learning DevCamp blog. So now that you have this tool, what can you do with it? Here are a few ideas. You’ll probably have some more to add. Discuss among experienced peers what’s happening & where they need help Gather recent hires together to share experiences and open questions Follow up a few weeks post-training to see how things are going Review training feedback with learners during beta or pilot periods, letting them take the lead Enjoy! (Ok, you can go get a cup of coffee now…)

I was just asked for some examples of eLearning.  I had collected up eLearning Examples a couple years ago, but thought it was worth going back to look for more.  The following are some very good lists of widely varying examples of eLearning. Elearning samples eLearning Examples Examples of E-Learning Where are Examples of eLearning? Lots Right Here! Two examples of elearning Elearning example: Branching scenario eLearning Examples 100+ Free Websites to Find out About Anything & Everything 100+ places to learn a language online 100+ free sites for learning about business The last three provide a glimpse into the great variation that exists to learn and get help on particular topics.  While a lot of people think of eLearning as being a course, notice how few of the resources in those last three are actual online courses.  Instead, most examples of eLearning actually fall outside of that realm. eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

The latest image of Pluto from New Horizons' LORRI camera shows new geological features emerging on the dwarf planet. The post New Horizons Scientists React to Geological Detail on Pluto appeared first on WIRED.

It’s about time. Are you ready? The world needs you to be a mentor. Megan’s recent blog post on DBusiness Daily News: It’s Time for You to be The Mentor has gotten more than a bit of traction. We think it’s because people are ready to help others grow and, at the same time, grow their own skills and knowledge. The DBusiness blog post touches on some reasons to be a mentor and a number of ways to do it. From an instructional design and performance development perspective, being a mentor allows a seasoned professional to expand his or her skills by creating an opportunity to step back and see a bigger picture. When you mentor, you’re teaching and guiding. This requires you to recall and select from your experiences, generalize what you’ve learned and use it in a new context and guide - not dictate - someone else’s performance. These are all higher-order activities that often require support. (Check out Megan’s September 2014 TD Magazine article on the Nine Moments of Learning for more on how this fits into an instructional design approach.)

I received an inquiry from a reader at a large company that is continuously working on large projects with lots of course content running around.   They have Articulate courses, classroom courses, SharePoint sites, etc.  They have an LMS but not an LCMS.  And they currently manage all of this using what I’ve seen at a lot of companies: network drives, naming conventions, some SharePoint.  Of course, it’s still a bit of a mess.  Sound familiar? A long time ago, the goal of an LCMS was to help to manage all of these kinds of assets.  Along the way, a lot of the LCMS products on the market have become more about a kind of authoring approached with content stored in a database that is transformed into courseware.  This is valuable for large scale authoring and translation of content.  They also handle asset management, but I really have not been seeing the kind of large scale adoption of LCMS products for that purpose. Here are some specifics of what this reader is going for: We need to figure out a way to get information from other departments to make sure we have the most current information available. We need to set up a process to determine all courses the information will impact. We need to make the changes.  Save the previous version in the archives for discovery requests. Save the current version for future updates. These are classic requirements for learning content management.  But I’m not sure they line up with what most LCMS packages provide - unless you decide that you will use it as a super-authoring tool. In Digital Asset Management - LCMS, ECM and SharePoint, I talk to how ECM (Enterprise Content Management) solutions might be a better fit for parts of this.  But I’ve seen organizations cobble together solutions using SharePoint more than I’ve seen LCMS solutions. This seems to be backed up by The LCMS at a Crossroads: Our research has shown that content management needs vary widely from company to company, and some organizations are well served by some combination of social and collaboration platforms, portals, and the lightweight content management functionalities now common to rapid development tools. In fact, because content management is now so ubiquitous in almost all social networking systems (including Microsoft SharePoint), many companies are finding ways to leverage these tools to help aid content development. In LCMS - Not Just a Technology: It’s a Strategy, Bryan Chapman really nails a key issue going into all of this discussion: you need to think about your overall strategy and then make sure your systems support that strategy.  Some key elements in the learning technology strategy that Bryan talks to some of the bigger pictures questions that organizations need to think through.  This is exactly what I discuss in eLearning Strategy.  Without an eLearning Strategy defined and the specific objectives defined, then you can’t possibly figure out the right systems. What are you trying to achieve here?  Is it lower-cost development?  Easier translation?  Faster time-to-market of learning?  Greater re-use? What’s the ROI for spending time doing this? This is what Dawn Poulos talks about in How NOT to adopt an LCMS.  Okay, this is probably too much motherhood and apple-pie.  Yes, you need to figure out the larger strategy, value proposition, what you are really trying to achieve, etc.  Let’s assume you’ve done that.  You still do get back to the core questions: Are people using an LCMS to manage content assets and workflow across the enterprise?  Or are they really using SharePoint or other ECM products for that?  And LCMS products are more a different kind of authoring tool? Curious to get reactions to this.  What are you seeing out there?  Any advice for this person? eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

HBO showed a supercut of some of the best audition tapes from its hit fantasy show during its Comic-Con panel. You can now watch it here. The post Here Are the Best Game of Thrones Audition Tapes appeared first on WIRED.