Les nouvelles tendances dans le e-learning
Nice summary (in French) of my presentation at RIMA last week. The report is part of an overall summary of the conference on the WikiFing wiki, part of the Fondation Internet Nouvelle Génération website. More...

Emerging Trends in E-Learning
PowerPoint slides from my presentation today at RIMA IECF - not a whole lot of text, but I move through five concepts: learning objects, object repositories, content syndication, social software, and learning environments, demonstrating a progression through these five concepts to the learning systems of the next ten years or so. More...

Innovations in Online Learning: Moving Beyond No Significant Difference
Via Spartacus today comes a link to this longish presentation encouraging readers to think beyond the old paradigm (when the telegraph was introduced the Pony Express reposed by getting faster horses) and toward what is enabled with online learning, beginning with personalization. "As long as we continue to replicate traditional approaches online—and continue to treat all students as if they were the same—we will once again find the "no significant difference" phenomenon vis-à-vis quality, and we will make only a negligible dent in the access problem rather than taking full advantage of the networked environment." This is pretty much my position as well. More...

Defence Rolls Out E-learning Platform in Double Time
Deciding it couldn't wait, the Australian department of denfense converted its pilot program to a full fledged roll-out (albeit with some limitations in functionality). More...

Patrick Henry College Grooming Conservative Leaders
One of the outcomes of online learning has been enhanced support for home schooling. And one of the outcomes of the rising home schooling movement has been the development of colleges that target support to this sector. However, this development has been noted with concern by some, since the movement has allowed for the development of educational institutions with specific political and religious leanings. More...

IDEO: Stanford Center for Interactive Learning
Most of the places I've worked - including my current location - have been really badly designed for any sort of academic work. Even new buildings seem to focus on long, narrow hallways into which people disappear into their offices. Not that I dislike offices - I do, and I wish I had one, because people need their privacy. More...

Online Communities 'are old-skool' says Amy Jo
George Siemens picked up this item citing Amy Jo Kim, known for a book about online communities, suggesting that the wave of the future is centered around social networks, buddy lists and blogs. Of course, this is a change only if you felt previously that online communities were top-down creations, which while characteristic of some accounts (such as hers) is not universally believed. More...

E-Learning Provides Answers
Outline of a talk by a Namibian government minister Joel Kaapanda touting the benfits of online learning for the education of local government officials, part of coverage of an Electronic Distance Training in African Local Governments on Sustainable Development conference (EDITOSIA). More...