I recently reviewed a 2010 Ted Talk by Sir Ken Robinson where he argues for change in education. He warns us against the industrialisation, systematisation and standardisation of education – how this linear, ‘one size fits all’ treatment of education stifles the organic nature of learning. Are we creating a ‘fast food’ standardisation mentality with e-learning courseware?...Read More

Question from a client: We’re rolling out workshops about a new people development process. We want to use e-learning to reach the people we miss. How should we go about it? Should we use e-learning via the LMS or video on the intranet? This is a good question. Of course the question should be linked directly to purpose,...Read More

I have just released episode 22 of the Connect Thinking E-Learning Academy free video and audio podcast series. This is the third and final video of a podcast series on Learning Management Systems (LMS). This episode explores the limitations of many existing LMS and what features might be included in future personal learning environments (PLEs). You can...Read More

My EdD Supervisor is Emeitus Paul Hager, an educational philosopher who keeps it ‘real’ for me when it comes to the inter-relationship between learning and technology. I recently read a number of Paul’s papers about learning in the workplace. Paul and colleagues have described the evolution of learning theories in the context of workplace learning, and...Read More

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to attend the inaugral LearningCafe Unconference last Thursday. I hadn’t been to an unconference before, and was looking forward to some serious debate and critical thinking about some important issues facing our practice. Unfortunately I did miss the final 2 hours of the program, and so I did not hear...Read More

Part of my job is to provide e-learning strategy support to clients. I have a number of processes for this kind of engagement, and E-Learning Academy members to have access to an e-learning course on Strategy, and a number of other tools and resources. Top line tips for developing an e-learning strategy 1. Talk with other organisations about...Read More

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about social media tools for learning, and made the statement that such learning strategies are usually best managed decentrally. There may be a central role in purchasing social media platforms (with stakeholder input). However, the sense of community generally required for social media to become imbedded in an...Read More

I have just released episode 21 of the Connect Thinking E-Learning Academy free video and audio podcast series. This is the second of three podcasts examining corporate learning management systems (LMS). This episode is about implementing a corporate learning management system. You can download our free e-learning tutorials from iTunes. Or read the podcast 21...Read More

I was recently asked to define social media. At this time I define it as: Content expressed as thoughts, experience, expertise, opinions…created in text, multimedia, pictures…and shared by individuals for different reasons. It is mediated by technology platforms whose functionality determines the distribution, retrievability and useability of the content. Social learning, on the other hand, is learning...Read More