Proper Language Can Be Confusing

Recently we had a team meeting discussing the scope of practice that we offer through our combined offices of Organization Development and Health Sciences Resource Centre. My colleague upon expanding on some of her duties that are offered through the library inserted this:

"Assistance with capture, transfer, scanning, manipulation & output of
information."

When I confronted her about which of her duties she was referring to; even she was confused by her own words. I jokingly asked if this referred to her having to help staff constantly figure out how to use the photocopier.

Today I modified the sentence slightly and did indeed post it above the photocopier in our office.

MOBILE LEARNING - eLearning Tour Part 1 - Hosted by Corporate Learning Trends and Innovation

One of the hardest things to find are real-life examples of different kinds of eLearning solutions. On May 21, Learn Trends will be hosting a free online
event where the people who have developed interesting eLearning solutions will
demonstrate and briefly discuss what they've done.

Moderators:

Judy Brown - Mobile Learning Solutions
Bob Mosher - Performance Support Tools
Karl Kapp - Games and Simulations
Tony Karrer - Self-Paced eLearning Solutions

Demonstrations will showcase a variety of different kinds of eLearning. We hope they will vary from practical solutions to common problems to leading edge solutions.

Mobile Learning
Everyone should begin to think about mobile learning, not as a replacement, but as an extra choice for the learner.

Many people seem to think that mobile learning is elearning lite, but it is much more than that and there is some much more that can be done with it. This will be our primary device for connectivity in the years to come.

Ideas:

• field guide
• alerts
• geo-blogging
• survey
• audio recordings
• on-demand access
• reporting
• reference
• simulation
• conferencing
• job aid
• check list
• decision support
• polls
• assignments
• presentations
• quiz
• just-in-time
• feedback
• note taking
• test
• reminders
• updates
• game-based learning
• augment reality
• transcription
• geo-exploration
• procedures
• coaching/mentoring
• translation
• capture/share/document

Podcasting

Try a two-person/interview-style podcast. You can even use a computer generated voice (text to speak technology) to ask you the questions you want to answer yourself within the interview.

http://mlearnopedia.com & http://cc.mlearnopedia.com

Opportunities

-good for downtime/deadtime we all have as we travel

-don't always have to be made by a real person

-auto generate podcasts with each new story or posting (use latest versions of text to speech TTS)

More info/discussion forum: http://learntrends.ning.com/forum/topics/innovative-approaches-to?xgs=1 or contact vonkosch@comcast.net

Abilene Christian University - George Saltsman & Bill Rankin

appx. 5000 students (total)

Gave all first year students iPod phones or touches (their choice).

Reasoning - everything is moving mobile very quickly and student value mobility. Looking for something that they could do a variety of things with, need low power resources, and could be used easily during personal downtime.

Started by creating a video and a day in the life. How would everything look differently if every student had an iPod. (VIDEO www.acu.edu/connected)

Portal m.acu.edu (doesn't work as well on Internet explore, but well on Safari & Macs)

Has news, events, campus maps (buildings & maps) {built whole campus in Google 3d}, guide about campus, then my mobile - classes, campus balances -meals, books, etc, files can be sent to students or classes, grades, polling of students)

Also have a live word cloud tool (using the polling) - from the web. Attendance.

Goals:

• Increase student learning
• Increase student engagement
• Increase university awarement
• Advance undergraduate enrollment (and faculty)
• foster a culture of innovation on campus

2/3rds selected phones 1/3rd selected touch (usually because too difficult to switch out of current contracts)

Positives students believe

• increase in their grade, attention, involvement, interest
• increased active learning, contact with professor and teacher, overall class experience

Faculty feedback

• success
• communication
• easy
• regularly

is generally happy of performance (not yet perfected).

Not based on a particular device, but more so what they are offering on the device. Brings the info to them instead of having to find it. Situational learning.

What does it require?

• space for lots of data
• redesign campus facilities for mobility & collaboration
• infrastructure for synchronous and asynchronous access by all
• infrastructure for creation and participation by all
• etc.

saltsman@acu.edu and rankinw@acu.edu

LMS pilot is coming to a close

Well my pilot for my LMS is coming to an end this Friday. I had about 20 participants and at this time only 4 Evaluations have been returned. I don't like those odds too much, however I do know that last minute seems to be a way of life where I work. Granted everyone is over worked, but I had hoped for a larger response without having to remind everyone to submit their thoughts to me regarding the system.

I'll have the results of my pilot here early next week.

Happy May 2-4 to all my Canadian friends!

Waiting for the Results

I'm still anxiously awaiting the results from my pilot launch of the LMS. I set my SME's and a few others loose on it last Friday and surprisingly have not heard much back yet. During the meeting where I gave them all the information and tasks list for the pilot there was a great amount of feedback and questions of does the system do this and that. I'm hoping that they will bring these questions and concerns through to the end of the pilot where I will share the results with the vendor.

I'd like to see that my concerns are mirrored in the needs that they will have for tracking and teaching of our staff. My department believes, and they might be justified, that I'm looking at the entire system to closely and have skewed values for a better system than what truly exists out there at all for our needs. I'm almost sure I'm not mistaken, but we'll see as the pilot progresses.

In the meantime I've gone forward with trying to create templates that my SME's will be able to use to start creating some content for the system. However, this is one of those things that I'm having a little difficulty with finding information on how to best accomplish this kind of process. I'm just "winging it" for now. If anyone has some example templates or good web resources I'd be excited to see them