Have you ever wonder what has been going on in your alma mater after you graduated? Eliademy recently partnered with Aalto University School of Economics, Mikkeli Campus to launch their student Bulletin online. Mikkeli Campus houses the one and only International Business … Continue reading →

Here is a free, Open Source eBook from The MASIE Center: Learning Strategies!Including articles from CNN, CIA, Farmers Insurance andothers.104 Pages - Edited by Nigel Paine. Download: http://www.learning2011.com/strategies.

The Premier Train-the-Trainer Program.This three-day workshop is a practical, how-to overview of the entire training function. It prepares new trainers with critical training skills and introduces seasoned practitioners to the latest techniques for delivering powerful training. This includes being introduced to the ASTD Competency Study, which forms the foundation of the ASTD Training Certificate.More Details: Train the Trainer Details Nov 12-14, 2012 - San Francisco, CA Nov 28-30, 2012 - New York, NY Dec 11-13, 2012 - Chicago, IL Dec 17-19, 2012 - Atlanta, GA Jan 27-29, 2013 - San Jose, CA Feb 06-08, 2013 - Alexandria, VA Apr 15-17, 2013 - Los Angeles (El Segundo), CA May 16-18, 2013 - Dallas, TX Jun 17-19, 2013 - Alexandria, VA Jul 10-12, 2013 - Seattle (Kirkland), WA Sep 16-18, 2013 - Philadelphia, PA Sep 18-20, 2013 - Alexandria, VA Oct 02-04, 2013 - Toronto, Ontario Dec 04-06, 2013 - New York, NYInvestment:Member Price: $1,395List Price: $1,695Program Details           Registration Details         Certificate ProgramsTestimonial:              I just want to mention how life changing the certificate program was. I don't use those words lightly. I had never attended anything like the ASTD Training Certificate and my eyes were opened to the world of training and development. I was energized to reach new heights with my training. It's not often that something is not only career changing, but life changing.Mark, a past participant of theTraining Certificate Program

Saying "thank you" to each one of you is not enough. Eliademy is happy to announce its nomination for the Edison Awards, related to innovation and innovators. Edison Awards have recognized the most innovative new products, services and business in … Continue reading →

A few days ago, Paul Cornies tagged me in a meme to write a post on four favourite posts on my blog. I played about with Paint.net, a fantastic Web.2 image creating and editing tool, to make the image for the post. After splicing together bits of four images that I’d used on each of the selected posts, I managed to create some sort of collage.When I published the post, I thought, "wouldn’t it be neat if I could link each part of the collage to its respective post?" The next day I did a few Google searches and found all I needed to help me with that idea.You can inspect the result on the image collage of my previous post.Images, pixelsand coordinatesAn image on a web page or blog post is made up of rows of coloured squares called pixels.It is as if all the pixels of an image are lined up along streets that run parallel to one another.Finding the exact position of a particular pixel could turn out to be a real headache if it weren’t for the two useful numerals called coordinates that can be assigned to each pixel.The first numeral is the house number of the pixel in its street.The second numeral is the street name. So the coordinates of a pixel that lies at number 4in street 5 is written as 4 5.Usually there are hundreds of streets in an image, and hundreds of houses (pixels) in each street.For instance, a pixel that lies at number 239 in street 117 will havethe coordinates 239 117.Mapping a part of an imageMapping a shape on part of an image is a bit like joining the dots.On the orange face of the cube shown below, the positions of pixels in each corner define its shape. There is a white pixel with coordinates 239 117 at the top right corner. The other three orange pixels are labelled.All four pixels - 8 117, 239 117, 239 348 and 8 348 - map a square.How do you find pixel coordinates in an image?One of the sites I learnt about is Poor Person’s Image Mapper. Despite its ‘frugal’ title, it provides a rich means to help you see how image mapping works. You can easily map the pixels in an image.All you need to do is to paste in the address (URL or location) of an image displayed in a post or web site. The Image Mapper returns the coordinates of any pixel on the image that you click.You can use the image shown above for this. Copying the image location needs instructions dependent on the browser you use.Listed here are methods for Firefox and Internet Explorer:Firefox:Right click on the image.Select Copy Image Location.Internet Explorer:Right click on the image.Select Properties.Copy the Address (URL) - make sure you copy all the data displayed as sometimes only part of the address is shown on right click - you may have to experiment with this.Copy the image location.Click this link to take you to the Image Mapper, paste in the copied address and submit it to see how the Mapper works. Clicking on parts of the displayed image will return the coordinates of pixels selected.In part 2, I will show how you can link areas of an image to sites of your choice, using the coordinates obtained from the Image Mapper.

 by  Jenna Dutcher, School of Information in Berkeley University More than 6.7 million students took an online course in 2011…were you one of them? Education and Skills 2.0: New Targets and Innovative Approaches , a new book from the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Education and Skills , says that at scale, higher education’s migration to online... Read More ›

Living in Houston, the heat index is always a concern - especially for those who work outdoors.  The OSHA Heat Safety Tool allows workers and supervisors to calculate the heat index for their worksite, and, based on the heat index, displays a risk level to outdoor workers. You can get reminders about the protective measures that should be taken at that risk level to protect workers from heat-related illness—reminders about drinking enough fluids, scheduling rest breaks, planning for and knowing what to do in an emergency, adjusting work operations, gradually building up the workload for new workers, training on heat illness signs and symptoms, and monitoring each other for signs and symptoms of heat-related illness. Check it out:  https://market.android.com/details?id=com.erg.heatindex&feature=search_result OSHA's Heat Illness website - http://osha.gov/SLTC/heatillness/index.html

The First International Conference EdCrunch dedicated to new educational technologies will be held October 17-18 in Moscow, Russia. The conference will be attended by the founders and directors of the leading educational platforms - Daphne Koller (Coursera), Anant Agarwal (edX), … Continue reading →

ASTD has created this resource to highlight the five best practices of learning professionals that enable you to concentrate your efforts, be more strategic, and maximize your impact on your team and organization.Each of the best practices highlights a specific concept or tool and explains:who would use itwhy you would use ithow you would benefitwhy your boss would carewhy your organization would care << Download Your Free Copy Now >>

I wonder about the wisdom of perpetuating a craze that appears to have created a division where none exists. I read, hear and see a lot of evidence to suggest that young people born into this age are more accepting of its digital equipment and the development of this than some who were born decades before. This is entirely to be expected.My personal experience is that the young don't necessarily have any better command of the use of the technology nor keener vision of its potential.Innate tendenciesThe terms ‘native’ and ‘immigrant’, used in a digital context, place unnecessary and unwarranted barriers between older people who have a command of present-day technology, and yet are labelled ‘immigrants’, and the similarly able individuals who are younger, and are labelled ‘natives’.Humans have an innate tendency to isolate people into groups, through criteria that involve seemingly peripheral and irrelevant differences. These can be of gender, age, skin or hair colour, height, girth, voice accent, ethnic origin or religious belief. You identify it; a category will exist for it.The unfortunate use of the terms ‘native’ and ‘immigrant’ tends to bring to mind times or situations when these were used commonly in derogatory contexts. Their use can provoke prejudice. I’ve actually seen this happen. It isn’t pretty to watch.A + B = CCriteria for distinguishing so-called digital natives from so-called digital immigrants, some of which is seriously flawed, have been drafted since the beginning of this century. And they continue to be refined. I see more references to their mythical existence every day. The recognition of that is as if it were something clear-cut like 1 + 1 = 2.This is despite recent and not so recent findings and reports that clearly indicate there is more to becoming digitally savvy and acquiring acumen with present-day technology than being born close to 1990. Just check out some of the references cited in Sharon Stoerger’s article, 2009.One thing that’s clear from my experience as a teacher of both children and adults, is that young people, new to present-day technology, are no faster at understanding it and getting useful command of it, than newbies who are mature and perhaps decades older than they.Those who are born into a digital-technology-rich environment are familiar with it, certainly. But it is in a way similar to how all of us in the western world are accepting of a 24/7 electricity supply, the technology to record sound and ‘moving pictures’, or the capacity to be able to make a direct call - Skype with video if you wish - from one side of the globe to the other.I make no apology for this rant. It’s been a long time coming.

This free event will highlight the latest in IT Process Management, Adobe, Cisco and Microsoft Technologies.  You'll be able to choose your own learning path by attending educational breakout sessions that are relevant to your specific needs. Also enjoy a complimentary lunch and be eligible to win terrific prizes! Topics covered include: Microsoft Office 2010 Windows Server 2008 R2 SharePoint 2010 Exchange 2010 And more Agenda:  http://www.spectechular.com/houston/agenda.html Register: http://register.nhcomputerlearning.com/events/EventDetails.aspx?eventCode=8771429

ASTD has created this resource to highlight the five best practices of learning professionals that enable you to concentrate your efforts, be more strategic, and maximize your impact on your team and organization. Each of the best practices highlights a specific concept or tool and explains: who would use itwhy you would use ithow you would benefitwhy your boss would care why your organization would care << Download Your Free Copy Now >>

So hey look at this - a new blog post!  Crazy I know.  For those of you that have been waiting, my apologies.  I totally underestimated the effort of onboarding at a fast moving company like Learn.com.  The good news is that I’m back and with a bang… I’ve written two articles in the past month for Learning Solutions magazine and I’m doing a webinar this coming week with none other than Ray Jimenez.  Hoo ra!  Then just a few weeks from now, I’ll be doing a webinar with Claire Schooley of Forrester, then another with Bersin & Associates.  And in October, I will be writing the featured article for Learning Solutions. Crazy right?  But wait, that’s not even half of it — I’m also speaking at the the CLO Symposium, ASTD VOS, ASTD Ohio, ASTD Boston, and a virtual ASTD Benchmarking forum.  If that wasn’t enough, I’m also doing two briefings on the future of learning for two very large Fortune 500 companies.  And all of this happens over the next month and half!  Needless to say, I am pretty damn busy. So here are some of the upcoming gigs and some links: Next week on Tues, September 22nd at 1:00 pm, Ray and I are going to be doing a webinar on the Learning Long Tail.  I’m going to present the meat of the article I did for Learning Solutions, and Ray is going run through his learning framework, specifically addressing how the introduction of social learning changes roles, behaviors, and responsibilities for learners, SME’s, and instructional designers.  This should be a really solid event.  We’re planning to leverage Twitter and chat pretty extensively during our session. On September 29th at 1:00 pm EDT, Claire Schooley and I are doing a webinar on the "The Top 5 Reasons LMS Implementations Fail and How to Plan for Success."  I’ll have details on this one shortly.  Claire is going to present some of her findings on this topic, but we’re not doing a standard webinar presentation — we’re going to do it interview style.  How cool is that? I’ll have more to share in the coming weeks.  Thanks for your patience.  The bad news is that I kept you waiting.  The good news is that I’m back with a vengence.

This web-based tool provides quick and easy access to extensive knowledge on how to conduct business effectively with people from countries around the world. The program includes: Rich, country-specific information related to the practice of key global business skills in 65 countries — available online, in printed report format, or on-the-go from your mobile device A simple, validated, self-assessment questionnaire, available in 14 languages, that instantly creates an individual’s profile of work-style preferences Video scenarios and interactive exercises that illustrate core cultural dimensions that play out in the work place Audio recordings of key names and phrases, spoken in the local language of the country Check it out:  http://www.globesmart.com/

In part 1 of Do-It-Yourself Image Mapping, I explained how pixels in an image can be charted by their coordinates. Part 2 shows how a mapped section of an image can be used to link that part of the image to a site.Following the instructions given here does not need a lot of technical know-how, but it does need an awareness of Hypertext Markup Language (html) and some recognition of its quirks and symbols.I do not recommend that you use the instructions in this post unless you have had a little experience in using the html editor on your blog posts.For those who can forage through a plethora of tags in a page of html gobbledygook, and have understood the ideas presented in my previous post, here’s how to map part of an image and link it to a site.Select a suitable imageMapping an image permits areas within it to be coded so that they respond to a mouse-click by linking to a preselected site. The active area effectively becomes a hyperlink. The best images to use for this are those with clear-cut shapes or at least with geometrically shaped areas that are easily identified on the screen.Publish your post firstBefore an image can be mapped, the post must be published with the image that you’re going to use already in place. This makes it possible for you to copy the image location before using the Poor Person’s Image Mapper.Html uses standard words and abbreviations to define the shape of the area that can be mapped. For instance, a rectangle or square shape on an image is coded rect. A circular shape is coded circle, and other geometrical shapes such triangles and polygons are coded poly.Rectangular or square shapes are the easiest areas to map and link to a site by editing the html.Squares and rectanglesView the published post and copy the location of the image you are about to map. Then use the Poor Person’s Image Mapper to find the exact coordinates of the corner pixels of the chosen square or rectangular shape on the displayed image.Start with the top left pixel moving clockwise round the shape. Make a careful note of these coordinates. A typical list of recorded coordinates might look something like this:8,117,239,117,239,348,8,348Notice that the numerals are all separated by commas. The first two numerals 8,117 are the coordinates of the top left pixel on the rectangle. What follows are three pairs of coordinates for the three other pixels, one in each of the remaining corners.Using the html editorWhen you have recorded the coordinates for the four pixels, the next step is to view the post in the html editor to inspect the code for the image.To find the image in the html code of a post, you will need to look for the tag img src= followed by the address of the image in quotes. Using a search-and-find facility can help with this. Knowing the file name of the image also helps you to identify the code for the image, as this will appear in the last part of the image address. Code for a typical image might appear like this:Code of this type usually begins with the tag div . . . which is really a signal to the browser that a block of related code is about to follow. It is always closed at some later position (not shown in the section of code above) in the html by the tag . . . /div. This is the signal to the browser that the end of the block of code is reached.It pays to study a bit of codeBefore editing the html code, you should identify the tags div . . . and. . . /div for the image. You should also check that the image source tag img src= is followed immediately by the location of the image. This information should lie somewhere between the tag div and its associated tag /div. In the unlikely event that the div tags are absent, and this can happen, it is important that you identify the parts of the code associated with the image you intend to map.I recommend that you spend a few minutes running your eye over these parts of the code in the html of your post, making a mental note of roughly where they lie within the html code for the post.Every map has a nameThe map you define on the image need to be given a name that will form part of the code you edit. I’ve used the map name CUBE.The html must then be edited by inserting the additional piece of code usemap="#CUBE" within the img src tag. This extra bit of code must follow after the image address that’s enclosed in quotes as shown below. Its function is to tell the browser what part of the image to make active.Check your edited html. Any small typo will confuse the browser and may well display an error message when you attempt to publish the edited post.Now locate the associated tag /div that lies further along the html code, and insert the code map name="CUBE" immediately after the tag as shown here:The next part must be entered immediately after this last edit and on a new line. A single tap of the Enter key will bring down a new line. You can then enter the code for the mapped area and the site that it’s to be linked to:Update 1/08/09: in Blogger the code "poly" is used instead of "rect"Notice that I used the sample numbers for the coordinates here. You will have your own set of recorded numbers that you must use instead of these.Also note that there are 3 sets of enclosed quotes in this bit of inserted code: "rect", "8,117,239,117,239,348,8,348" and "the address of the site" that the active area will link to on a click.Check, check and check againCheck that you have entered the coordinates correctly at this stage. Between the quotes, there should be eight numerals and seven commas.A further check on the address of the site that the area is to link to is recommended before republishing the post.Publish the amended postOnce you have published your amended post, inspect the image by accessing the post in the browser.Check that the area mapped actually links to the site you selected!A further check can be made by moving the mouse, without clicking, over the mapped area and reading the site address displayed at the base of the browser window.The displayed address should correspond to the site you selected. It is also a good way of checking the boundaries of the area in your image map. You can see how this works by rolling your mouse over the circle and triangle on the face of the cube in the image above.Any error, such as a wrongly transferred numeral in a coordinate, will show when you perform this inspection. The symptom to look for is that the area you think you mapped does not respond by displaying the site address on the task bar when the mouse is moved entirely and only within that area.Triangles and other straight-line shapesEssentially the same method that’s outlined above applies to mapping a triangular or polygonal shape. The only real difference is the use of poly, instead of rect, for the area shape tag:area shape="poly" coords=Here’s a typical edit for a triangular shape:Of course, if your shape maps a triangle or a polygonal shape other than one with four sides, you will have a different number of coordinate numerals. All shapes will have twice as many coordinate numerals as the number of sides enclosing the shape. This means that a triangular area will have 2 X 3 = 6 coordinate numerals, whereas a 5 sided shape will have 10 coordinate numerals.CirclesA circular shape on an image requires you to record only the coordinates of the pixel at its centre, and the radius of the circle in pixels. Finding the rough centre of a circular area is easy. Finding its radius needs a careful eye followed by a simple calculation.Suppose the centre pixel of a circular shape has it’s coordinates 35 38. It is an easy calculation to find its radius when the coordinates of the pixel at the top of the circle are also known. In this case the top pixel has coordinates 35 12, as in the above image.A simple subtraction of the (street) coordinates gives the radius in pixels: 38 - 12 = 26. In this case, the radius is 26 pixels.So to map a circular area you need to find the coordinates of its centre pixel and then the coordinates of the pixel at the top of the circle. Perform the calculation described above to find the radius in pixels.The coding for mapping a circular shape is more or less the same as for the other shapes above with only a few minor differences.Use circle, in the area shape tag area shape="circle" coords= . Enter the coordinates for the centre of the shape followed by the radius of the shape.Here’s a typical edit for a circular shape with centre at 35 38 and radius 26 pixels:Good luck with your image mapping.

I’m presenting a new deck tomorrow at a pretty big company.  I’m not sure that I can name them so I’m going to err on the side of caution.  The basic gist of the talk and the follow-up workshop is ""typing" your social learning initiative."  Many months ago I came up with this idea of "typing" learning needs in a similar fashion to a Myers Briggs.  I’ve chronicled the history of this idea and related ideas in other posts. So I’ve taken this to the next level and created a kind of learning needs assessment framework.  I call it the ECCO model, borrowing from the terms Harold and Jay used in describing some of the underlying concepts.  ECCO is Emergent, Codified, Collaborative Opportunity Model.  You use the framework to determine whether your primary learning needs for any given opportunity or initiative are Emergent, Codifed or Collaborative.  From there, you map to interventions.  It still needs work, but I think it’s a good start.  The deck and the Word doc provide some additional explanation and descriptions, but I’ve also included the raw text here to make it easier to find via search: The ECCO Model (Emergent, Codified, Collaborative Opportunity Model) For each of the questions in each category, answer on a 1-10 scale.  For percentages, round to the nearest 10% and reduce to a 1-10 number. Average the score for each overall category by adding the score for each question and dividing by 10. Plot the score for each category on the provided chart. Emergent Questions To what extent will your business or initiative be dependent on the creation of new ideas, new processes, new products, or new services to drive key performance indicators? (10%, 20% etc…) _______ How much of your team’s intellectual effort will be expended in solving novel challenges or problems? _______ How much of your team’s intellectual effort will be spent creating new solutions to existing problems or new problems? _______ What percentage of your team’s best practices will need to be based on principles and theory (as opposed to concrete steps and rote processes)? _______ What percentage of your best practices will emerge "from the trenches"? _______ To what extent will you need to rely on knowledge sharing among diverse groups either within or outside the company walls to drive key performance indicators? _______ When you think about a core contributor on your team, how much of his or her expertise is a result of superior synthesis, invention, or sense-making sorts of skills? _______ For the majority of your core initiatives, how important is a diversity of perspective or expertise in achieving your project goals or key performance indicators? (1-10 with 10 being the highest) _______ In terms of succession planning and talent identification, what percentage of your existing "experts" and leaders were identified because of the admiration and esteem of their peers? _______ How often do coordination and issue resolution happen through the ad hoc assembly of networked teams or individuals (versus through formal hierarchies)? _______ Total Score for Emergent Questions _______ Average Score for Emergent Questions _______     Codified Questions To what extent will your business or initiative dependent on the efficient execution of known best practices or processes to drive key performance indicators? (10%, 20% etc…) _______ How much of your team’s intellectual effort will be spent training on known best practices and processes? _______ How much of your team’s intellectual effort will be expended in ensuring adherence to known best practices or processes? _______ What percentage of your team’s best practices will need to be based on established steps and rote processes? _______ What percentage of your best practices will emerge "from on high" - SME’s, senior leaders, compliance officers etc…?   _______ To what extent will you rely on efficient execution of homogenous, geographically co-located teams to drive key performance indicators? _______ When you think about a core contributor on your team, how much of his or her value is a result of the correct application of accepted processes, rules, or physically repetitive actions? _______ For the majority of your core initiatives, how important are a shared perspective and acceptance of authority in driving key performance indicators? _______ In terms of succession planning and talent identification, what percentage of your existing "experts" and leaders were identified through longevity, established metrics, or manager opinion? _______ How often does coordination and issue resolution happen through existing teams and formal hierarchies? _______ Total Score for Codified Questions _______ Average Score for Codified Questions _______       Collaborative Questions To what extent will your business or initiative be dependent on collaboration to drive key performance indicators? (10%, 20% etc…) _______ How much of your team’s execution is dependent on specialized knowledge? _______ How much of your team’s execution is dependent on the sharing and coordination of distributed expertise? _______ How much of your team’s intellectual effort will be expended in collaborating to develop known best practices or processes? _______ What percentage your best practices and domain expertise are known in "pockets" organized by geography, shared interest, or network affiliations? _______ What percentage of your best practices will emerge "from group consensus"? _______ To what extent is your team organized around common job roles and functions? (Retail or early childhood education would be 90% or more - identical job roles in multiple physical locations.  A biotech or high tech would likely be far less - similar jobs in some cases, but dissimilar responsibilities.) _______ What percentage of the problems faced by your team members are likely faced by other team members in identical job roles? _______ When you think about a core contributor on your team, how much of his or her value and influence is a result socially recognized expertise? _______ To what extent are key performance indicators driven by socially-validated domain knowledge? _______    Total Score for Collaborative Questions _______ Average Score for Collaborative Questions _______   CEC - Codified, Emergent, Collaborative

I'm enrolled in a program called "The Smart Worker’s Guide to using Social Media - in 30 days (Autumn programme)".  I'll be sharing tips from the program - and how I've been improving my use of Social Media. This program is a part of the Share&Learn platform - a collaboration platform (set up by Jane Hart of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies [C4LPT]) where members can share links, resources, ideas, experiences, tips, etc about the use of learning and performance trends, technologies and tools, and learn from one another - both informally and formally! You can join the group for free. Check it out:  http://c4lpt.co.uk/shareandlearn/

Postmodernism is rationale for responsibleadults to behave like reckless adolescents.For almost ten years I have lived with this inside me hoping that some morning I’d wake and find it’s just all been a dream. Or maybe I would start seeing things differently. I recall conversations with colleagues in 2001 and watching them recoil when I spoke of postmodernism. Some had never heard of the term; others who had would nod scornfully and turn away.Over the years, however, the word postmodern has crept into the lingo of educators. Now I hear it used freely by educators in the same way as artists talk of Cubism or historians speak of the Renaissance.Just recently a good friend and colleague was listening to me bemoan the seemingly senseless happenings in education when he said with a smile of recognition, "You should read The Triumph of the Airheads. I’ll lend you a copy. Read it for yourself." I thought he was having me on.Shelley Gare’s The Triumph of the Airheads and the Retreat from Commonsense was first published in 2006 by Park Street Press.Bruce Hammonds reviewed the book early in 2007. I’m half-way through it, and still not used to the déjà vu I get at every chapter. The world that I've observed this century, and that I was slowly becoming convinced must have been only in my imagination, sits bolt upright like a pop-up on every page.From the cover of the book:"The airheads are winning. We live in an upside-down world where celebrity matters more than substance; correct spelling is considered less important than knowing how to do PowerPoint; bright maths and science students go into investment banking so they can make truckloads of money; and small girls seriously regard a trashy hotel heiress as a role model. We have an American president (2006) who gets Sweden and Switzerland mixed up and Australian politicians who spend millions on spin doctors while schools and hospitals go begging. The age of the airhead has one message. Commonsense doesn’t pay off.If you’re smart, be smarter: play dumb."It is astute. It is funny. It is insightful.It is about how society is losing the plot.Gare summarises seven key features of the contemporary airhead:voracious consumerism,obsession with statistics,aversion to reading books,selfishness,short-term thinking,love of hypothesis and the jargon that goes with it,a tendency to bully.She mentions other elements:conceited ignorance,dislike of things serious,remorseless when things go wrong.We are in a world where it’s not only blissful to be ignorant, it also has to be celebrated.Gare speaks of Paris Hilton as a postmodern Marie Antoinette. "Doesn’t anyone realise this woman - who hated the sight of books but loved to spend and party - got her head chopped off? Or why?"Gare is knowledgeable of Newton’s third law - for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction - and explains how airheads seemingly rise above this fundamental principle:"Airheads, at their most extreme, can worry only about themselves and the rest of the world can go to buggery. Airheadism thrives on concerning itself with the next five seconds because, with any luck, the next five minutes, days, months, years may, like, you know, never happen . . . or at least, if something does happen and it’s bad, it won’t happen to you. The best place to see all this in action is not in a Krispy Kreme doughnut store, or watching a twenty-something flashing a credit card on a Friday night over a $300 meal. It’s in the business pages of our newspapers, and on page one. Short-term thinking is the scourge of our times . . ."I think of the recent global financial catastrophe and read Gare’s words as (an historical) prophesy.Check out:The Sweet Smell of Success - Shelly Gare - The Australian NewsPodcast - Shelley Gare on the language of Airheadism (ABC Radio National) introduced by Kate BochnerThe Triumph of the Airheads and the Retreat from CommonsensePark Street Press - ISBN 1-876624-54-X

Kevin D. Jones and I are doing a session at Training 2010 titled Defining Your Social Learning Strategy.  As prep for this, we’ve put together a comprehensive checklist of Social Learning Strategy topics that learning professionals and executives should consider when thinking through their objectives and plans.   Here is a link to the doc, but if you would prefer to read it in-line, the full body of the doc is below.  Let me know what you think we missed and we’ll update it.  In the event that you want to use this for your own initiatives, all we ask is that you adhere to the  Creative Commons Share Alike license. Introduction to Social Learning Strategies Organizational adoption of social media as a comprehensive learning strategy is one part software rollout, one part transformational change, and one part large scale corporate initiative.  Depending on your initial focus, it might involve a single cohort group, your whole company, your partners or suppliers, your clients, or even the public at large.  Regardless of your scope, there are a number of critical items that you must address in order to achieve success.  While you may not need to address all of the issues below on your particular initiative, you should at least consider the implications and issues for each item below, and where necessary, develop a plan of action to address those that are relevant to your situation. Checklist of Social Learning Strategies Cultural Issues Related to Social Learning What do you want it to be?  What is it today? Openness vs. planning?  Where is your balance point? Autonomy and self-direction vs. top-down mandates?  Where is your balance point? What do executives, key stakeholders and "rank-and-file" think about social media and sharing? What are your organizational attitudes about transparency? To what extent do learners take personal responsibility and accountability for their learning? Social Learning Approaches and Methods What "kind" of  Social Learning models are you pursuing?  How do they integrate? Codified? Collaborative? Emergent? What kinds of social learning interventions do you need? Do you need focused Communities of Practice or decentralized social learning that is part of all learning experiences?  Or both? Will you pursue a federated model and use best-of-breed from multiple provides with a single or multiple aggregation points? Will you use a unified suite that offers core social media applications, such as SharePoint or Jive? How will your social media elements interact with your Learning Management System? If "social learning" happens outside the LMS, what will happen where? If "social learning" happens outside the LMS, how will you see a unified view of learner activity? Where will you keep the "profile" of record to avoid having multiple learner profiles across multiple systems? If you use a federated approach or multiple systems in any way, how will ensure that learners can discover people through content, content through people, content through content, and people through people across your systems? If you use a federated approach or multiple systems, how will you search? If you use a federated approach or multiple systems, how will develop recommendation, reward, and recognition strategies? If you use a suite approach, how will you address gaps - missing wiki, missing microblog etc…? Social Learning Planning Who owns what?  How will get from point A to point B?  How will you mitigate risk? What kinds of social media are already being used in the organization? For what purpose? Who owns them? What kinds of learning communities do you want to help along through hands-on nurturing? What kinds of learning communities do you want to more proactively manage and plan? What are the problems you are trying to solve? Who is your target member for your community? What are the problems your community members are trying to solve? If the problems are solved, what does success look like? If the problems are solved, what is the impact of success? What is your Social Learning Policy? What is your plan when these policies are breached? What is in your Miss Manners Guide to Social Learning? Who is on your Social Learning Governance Board - IT, Legal, CLO etc…? How will social learning activities factor into key performance indicators and performance reviews? What does IT own?  Some suggestions:  security issues, archiving, technical issues, deployment, options, aggregation, report consolidation, integration fulfillment, report fulfillment. What does Learning own?  Some suggestions:  strategy, cultural readiness, "tools" training, moderation, member management, community management, programming, integration requirements, reporting fulfillment with built-in reporting tools. What does Legal and Compliance own?  Some suggestions:  archival strategy, social media storage requirements, approval strategies for sensitive content (which might be all content), member management and "flagging" policies, reporting requirements for all of the above. Who will support your organization’s use of social media?  Technical support?  IT?  Learning? What is your start point in terms of participants and technologies? What is the long-term rollout plan?  What social media tools will be turned on when?  When you do turn on new functionality, what is the trigger - time, membership, activity? Will you organize content topically, hierarchically by division, unit etc…, or by functional area? What is your launch strategy to drive participation? (more below) What is your moderation strategy? What is your reporting strategy? Who will own your programming schedule? How will you identify champions and key influencers prior to roll-out and on an on-going basis? Who will be responsible for defining content categories and the overall ontology of your social learning content? What is end of life or end game for your learning community?  Does the community evolve into something else?  Is it archived?  Is there a planned obsolescence because it’s a one-off in response to external factors what will change? Social Learning Launch Activities How will you quickly achieve critical mass?  How will you sustain and grow the initiative over time? What other corporate initiative(s) is the launch point tied to? How will you drive traffic and participation in the "early days"?  Some suggestions:  competitions, rewards, "forcing" through changed process, well-planned programming schedules, middle management expectations, senior level management modeling, social media events - wiki barn raising, live chats, team video jams etc… Who will be responsible for enforcing your policy and procedure changes?  For example, if learners are not supposed to answer questions of each other via email, but through the wiki or an FAQ discussion board, who will be responsible for enforcing the change? Who will be responsible for "seeding" content before go-live? Who will communicate the launch? How will you ensure that learners have the necessary skills and tools to participate in the conversation and sharing?  Things to consider:  training on the social media tools, training on social media concepts, lots of early recognition and praise. Social Learning Technical, Legal, Compliance Issues How will this effort fit into existing corporate governance strategies? What is your security plan to prevent unauthorized viewing of sensitive data? What is your data recovery plan in the event of corruption, server failure etc…? What is your plan to communicate the security so that users can help safeguard sensitive content while feeling secure enough to freely share within the defined parameters of the site? What is your records retention policy? What is your content permissions policy? Do you need a "contact" permission policy to prevent your SME’s or other experts from being overwhelmed? Do you have a "Do not discuss via Social Media" list?  What is it and how will it be communicated? What kinds of topics require "pre-approval" before posting live to the site? What kinds of topics must include "report violation" options after they go live? Do you have a list of keywords that should be redacted or replaced? Do you have a keyword list that should trigger notification to SMEs, Legal or Compliance personnel? What is your reaction plan to a breach of policy?  Who owns it?  Who enforces it? Social Learning Communities in the Extended Enterprise Planning for community members who are "outside" the company walls… If you have external audiences, suppliers, partners, clients, etc… in addition to internal audiences, what is your plan for all of the above for your external audiences? What is your strategy for leveraging public social media channels? Is the Learning group the lead or is Marketing, Customer Support, Product Management, etc…? How will your social learning strategies compliment your marketing, customer support, product, etc… strategies? How will you leverage content between various constituents? Do you need to have "blended" areas where clients, employees, suppliers etc… co-mingle in a shared space with access to shared content? What role do your external members play in community management, programming or moderation? Social Learning Community Management How will you manage and grow your community over time? Who will be in charge of community management? What is your moderation strategy? Who is responsible for moderation? How many months in advance will you publish your programming schedule? How will you reward and recognize key contributors in ways that increase internal motivation? What sort of member management policies do you need? Who enforces member management? What role will senior leaders play in contributing to the learning community? How will you market your successes and the growing value of the content? How will you promote new content, new members, new groups, and new topics? Social Learning Professional Development, Skills, Competencies What kinds of skills and competencies do you need to develop as a learning professional? Become a Social Media tools maven - wiki, video, podcast, blogging, microblogging, etc… Understand key concepts of Social and Cultural Anthropology Understand key concepts related to Team Building and Team Dynamics Understand key concepts in Social Psychology Understand key issues of self-efficacy as it relates to social media: trust, belonging, self-confidence, self-direction, motivation, skills Knowledge of moderation strategies and key moderation concepts like seeding, facilitating, autonomy, respect, and flow Knowledge of key community management strategies including programming, reward and recognition models, advertising and awareness campaigns, member management Ongoing professional development by networking outside the company through social learning

Eliademy is taking one big step further to democratize education with technology. Now we invite you to go beyond with Live Sessions to engage, share and spread knowledge through real time online video tutoring. This new functionality, available only on the Premium … Continue reading →

A learner model, also called a student model, refers to the model constructed from observation of interaction between a learner and a learning system or instructional environment. " The learner model is a model of the knowledge, difficulties and misconceptions of the individual. As a student learns the target material, the data in the learner model... Read More ›

Smart Workers Guide to Social Media online programme:   http://c4lpt.co.uk/the-smart-worker/ Google Guide Google Guide is an online interactive tutorial that helps make searching easier.  If you don’t have time to work through the whole tutorial, try the Cheat Sheet, which is also available as a printable PDF. A Google a Day A Google a Day - agoogleaday.com- is a daily puzzle from Google; there is no right way to solve it, but there’s only one right answer Further reading How to use Google, WikiHow Become a Google expert in minutes How to use Google search like a professional user, Ismail Ghazi, (YouTube video) Activity Put your new Google skills to the test? Try the PlentySmart Google quiz

Slides I had the great pleasure to present a keynote address yesterday at Training 2010.  While I’ve presented at dozens and dozens of conferences over the years, this was my first true keynote.  Was I nervous?  Yeah, I have to admit, just a bit.  Complicating matters was the fact that the other keynote presenter (they had two back-to-back) was significantly delayed as a result of air travel issues.  So my directions were to basically go on stage not knowing whether I was going to need to be on for 30 min, 45 min, 60 min or even more.  The conference was also using an audience response system for the first time which I insanely decided to use.  I’m happy to report that it went off pretty seamlessly despite all sorts of potential for disaster. The good news is that I was able to get the data from the audience response system and boy was it interesting.  I don’t want to spoil the fun, but suffice to say, the training industry is a mess in terms of it’s understanding of it’s role and responsibilities. For now, I just want to give you the slides.  Tomorrow or perhaps over the weekend, I’ll do a full write up on the preso and the audience polling.

The Interactive Media Lab is an R+D+i centre at the University of Barcelona, specialised in the field of Education and Media, recognised by the Catalonian Authority -2014 SGR 604, has started using Eliademy. We warmly welcome them and we expect … Continue reading →