From the Wolfram Education Portal: Wolfram has long been a trusted name in education—as the makers of Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha, and the Wolfram Demonstrations Project, we’ve created some of the most dynamic teaching and learning tools available. We are pleased to offer the best of all of our technologies to you here in the Wolfram Education Portal, organized by course. In the portal you’ll find a dynamic textbook, lesson plans, widgets, interactive Demonstrations, and more built by Wolfram education experts.

Check out what it is like to author textbooks using iBooks Author. Everything feels very fluid and it’s obvious that the same team that worked on iWork was also responsible for this product. This isn’t iPhoto for books, by any means, though. While it’s not Adobe InDesign or a complex design tool like either, it’s clearly meant for users who are willing to put in a bit of time to create the best possible product…

My new book on Organizing Digital Information for Others is out. When we interact with web and intranet teams, we find many struggling to move beyond conceptual-level discussions on information organization. Hours on end are spent on discussing the meaning of "metadata", "controlled vocabulary" and "taxonomy" without any strategic understanding of how everything fits together. Being so bogged down at this level they fail to look beyond to the main reason for their pursuit—organizing information for others (the end users) so that they can find the information easily. Web and intranet teams are not the only ones facing this challenge. Staff in companies are finding themselves tasked with organizing, say, hundreds of project documents on their collaboration space. And they usually end up organizing it in the only way they know—for themselves. Team members then often struggle to locate the information that they thought should be in "this folder"! In this short book, we explore how lists, categories, trees and facets can be better used to organize information for others. We also learn how metadata and taxonomies can connect different collections and increase the findability of information across the website or intranet.

An interesting infographic on the changes in the classroom because of technology. "The proliferation and sheer breadth of accessibility that the Internet offers has in many ways redefined the process of "growing up" — this graphic explores this redefinition and provides insight into not just how we learn stuff, but also what we learn from a young age now that we have computers."

eSpark is hoping to be the cure that parents need to get into the education game. "Primary schools (and parents) are adopting iPads at a breakneck pace, but many struggle to find the best learning experiences from the some-100,000 educational apps and eBooks on the iOS platform. So, eSpark is working with more than 3,000 apps and learning experiences (i.e. eBooks, iOS apps, web apps usable on iOS, instructional videos and songs), curating those apps into custom learning profiles and playlists for students based on their individual needs."

Interesting study reported by Techcrunch In the study, simple humanoid robots teach English by drawing shapes and translating their meaning. The experimental study found that 19 children, between the ages of 4 and 8, learned best when the Nao toy robot didn’t always make the correct translation, and could learn from students’ corrections.  

Craig Malloy has argues that LMS, CMS, Social Business Software, etc., are silo-ed attempts at the primary goal of the organisation: knowledge sharing. As frustrated as we may ever be, productivity is still one of the greatest levers any executive has at her disposal. Job satisfaction and employee retention is ultimately all about getting things done, and accomplishing great things as a team. Otherwise, why are we working so damn hard? Everyone wants better knowledge sharing.

PebbleRoad Labs launches Cardinator app - The easy way to create double-sided flashcards for your site. You can use it to create quizzes, show procedures and guidelines and much more. Check out the demo.

From time to time I receive emails from Amazon as I am an eBook author and have published through them (here and here). The latest email was a gem and one that is worthy to share. In the future of work - whether it be with ESNs, innovating management or any number of ways to(...) The post Amazon Nails the Future of Work Paradox appeared first on VINJONES - Kevin D. Jones.

    These words are from General George Patton. And I love them. Lead me to a new way of working.  For the current way is draining me.  And I refused to be drained any more.  There is a better way and I plan to follow you there.  But if you don’t lead me… Follow(...) The post "Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way." appeared first on VINJONES - Kevin D. Jones.

The post Fighting For the Status Quo appeared first on VINJONES - Kevin D. Jones.

Summer is officially over. Not by geopositioning terms, but by cultural terms.  Labor Day has come and gone and now it is time to get back to work. Time to put on your game face. Each week on the first day of the work week I will be posting articles that were posted the week(...) The post The Future of Work, Best of the Best Posts - Sept 2 appeared first on VINJONES - Kevin D. Jones.

Good Monday to you! Why is it a good Monday?  Because you have a chance to change the way you work for the better.  This is your Future of Work and there is no better time than at the beginning of the week to start it. So let’s get started. Throughout this week you have a(...) The post The Future of Work, Best of the Best Posts - Sept 5 appeared first on VINJONES - Kevin D. Jones.

This last week I did a webinar that focused on the future of training.  Which, for all intents and purposes, is the future of learning. As if learning somehow changes. But it does. How we learn today is different than we have in the past. When my six-year-old son asks, "What is the fastest land(...) The post The Future of Work, Best of the Best Posts - Sept 15 appeared first on VINJONES - Kevin D. Jones.

We have cultural norms that are so normal we don’t ever question them.  They just are.  And going against them is craziness because, "That’s just the way things are." But what if they aren’t.   What if what we assumed was correct was only a cosmic fad? My father introduced this idea to me when(...) The post Dare We Challenge The Concept of "Management"? appeared first on VINJONES - Kevin D. Jones.

Stop waiting. Do what you love.  NOW.   Everyone should love their career. The post Are You Waiting to be Buried? appeared first on VINJONES - Kevin D. Jones.

How can we work differently?  These three posts can show you how.  From a review of a book to hands on experience from the CEO of WordPress. They will give you some great ideas to start your week.   Smarter Innovation: Road Map to the Future "We go into great detail about how we work,(...) The post High-Fidelity Companies - Best of the Best - For the Week of September 22nd appeared first on VINJONES - Kevin D. Jones.

Right now I’m sitting in a presentation at NASA on what the space industry will look like in 2100. During the whole thing they talk about what it will take for us to get there.  Near the end of the main presentation they talk about how they will need to go from Conservative to Collaborative.  While(...) The post Why Creating a New Environment Trumps Employee Effectiveness appeared first on VINJONES - Kevin D. Jones.

These weekly-ish updates can magically appear in your inbox.  No.  Really.  It’s true. Sign up by entering your email over on the right  —-> Are Bad Managers Holding Back Your Best Talent? It’s high time for CEOs - as well as business school professors and consultants - to insist that managers be held accountable if they […] The post Best Employee Engagement Posts - May 4th appeared first on VINJONES - Kevin D. Jones.

A life without meetings.  Realistic?  No, but what about a life without unnecessary or drawn out meetings? You bet. Imagine, if you will, a meeting where people are struggling to stay awake.  They are there in person, but not in spirit.  This is the opposite of employee engagement.  For many of you, it won’t be hard […] The post Challenge Your Meetings - a VINJONES Discussion appeared first on VINJONES - Kevin D. Jones.

Do you see the tide shifting?  Are you reading and hearing about how we are focused less on WHAT we do and more on WHY we do it?  Less on PRODUCTIVITY and more on PEOPLE? Here are some articles pointing that way.  Not only on the need, but also on examples of those who are […] The post Best Employee Engagement Posts - May 11th appeared first on VINJONES - Kevin D. Jones.

"To control or self manage?  That is the question." -William Shakespeare My family and I just took a quick trip to the home and neighborhood we lived in when they were little.  One of the memories they were laughing about was that the school would give out "Self-Manager" badges/awards.  They were always trying to get […] The post Control or Self-Management? A VINJONES Discussion appeared first on VINJONES - Kevin D. Jones.

Inside Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh's radical management experiment that prompted 14% of employees to quit "He offered an ultimatum: Embrace self-management by April 30, or we’ll give you a three-month severance package to leave…Can Zappos thrive without a traditional hierarchy? Or will it self-destruct?"(read more…) Why Performance Management needs to be disrupted. Pronto. "Possibly the […] The post Best Employee Engagements Posts for May 18th appeared first on VINJONES - Kevin D. Jones.