Knowledge and Learning In The News - 4/30/2005

Change or Die All leadership comes down to this: changing people's behavior. Why is that so damn hard? Science offers some surprising new answers -- "Behavior change happens mostly by speaking to people's feelings." Knowledge services "What next?" After Y2K, dotcom and the BPO boom, the next big opportunity waiting to be tapped is knowledge services (KS) or knowledge process outsourcing (KPO). Innovation is important for its success and KS has created an opportunity to provide innovative offerings in the services space. Youth Abandoning Old Media A new US report reveals that less that a fifth of 18-34 year olds rank newspapers as their primary source of news, while 44% check out internet portals such as Google and Yahoo for updated information. Mentoring for Learning Impact Four effective types of mentoring programs offer a variety of experiences, from one-time to long-term events. When administered carefully, even a one-time event can change an employee’s perspective and create that "aha" experience. Dream teams thrive on mix of old and new blood Unsuccessful teams are isolated from each other whereas the members of successful teams are interconnected, much like the Kevin Bacon game, across a giant cluster of artists or scientists.

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 4/28/2005

Podcasting: Making Waves Just when we grasped what blogging was all about, along came podcasting, which in some ways is even more disruptive and exciting than blogging. Training is priceless, and firms are investing A survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting says 49 percent of companies expect to increase their training budgets this year, while just 2 percent plan to spend less. Arranging Change There's an interesting blog discussion going on between Frank Patrick's Focused Performance and Gaping Void about what drives change -- new tools, or new processes and relationships among peers. Youth abandoning old media A new US report reveals that less that a fifth of 18-34 year olds rank newspapers as their primary source of news, while 44% check out internet portals such as Google and Yahoo for updated information. Watching TV Makes You Smarter With Dallas, the modern viewer doesn't have to think to make sense of what's going on, and not having to think is boring. Many recent hit shows -- 24, Survivor, The Sopranos, Alias, Lost, The Simpsons, E.R. -- take the opposite approach, layering each scene with a thick network of affiliations. You have to focus to follow the plot, and in focusing you're exercising the parts of your brain that map social networks, that fill in missing information, that connect multiple narrative threads.

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 4/24/2005

Emotional Intelligence Good background on subject with video interview of Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence. Audience Analysis: A Lesson Plan A series devoted to composition and writing courses. The focus of this unit is audience analysis. The goal is to make writers more aware of how to shape an argument based on who one expects to read the article, and how to persuade them. Theories of Multiple Intelligences This multiple intelligences module is designed for a two to three-hour class or training. Includes video and other resources, such as PowerPoint slideshow. Creating a Culture for Engagement Filmmaker Woody Allen once said that 80 percent of success is showing up. Unfortunately, this insight accurately describes the mindset of the majority of today's workforce. Lectures have to compete with Web In classrooms across America, students are logging on and zoning out, thanks to wireless Internet access.

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 4/23/2005

Tapping into the brains behind human behaviour Scientists' understanding of the brain will one day be so profound that the brains of serial killers and paedophiles could be "rewired" to stop them offending, according to a leading scientist. Best take(s) on Adobe-Macromedia deal Now that everyone has thrown in their two-cents, I thought I'd pull together some viewpoints on the Adobe-Macromedia acquisition . Creating Connections: A Pilot Study on an Online Community of Learners A pilot study that investigated the uses of computer-mediated communication. Results showed that the case studies helped the students make sense of the concepts and theories being studied in class, while communication with the teachers helped the students see the practical applications of the information they were learning. Infomania worse than marijuana The study by Hewlett Packard warns of a rise in "infomania", with people becoming addicted to email and text messages.

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 4/21/2005

De Bono and 'Serious Creativity' "Creativity" is too large a word and "design" is too small a word. He prefers "idea change," which he says better captures the "skill in thinking" aspect of creativity. Furl and Del.icio.us: Almost Perfect Together Two web-based tools for keepng track of important or interesting online information. Both tools help you to file links that you wish to remember or recommend, and allow you to share that information flexibly. del.icio.us del.icio.us is becoming a critical tool to manage web experiences. Origins of the “Knowledge-Based Firm" Since it’s inception, the Corporation has been an enigma organizationally. In some cases, experts refer to "the DIGITAL mystique." Others define it in simplistic terms as organized chaos…or the chaotic organization. In fact, it is neither. It is a networked, "knowledge-leverage" form of learning organization positioned for 21st century sustained profitable growth. Blogs Will Change Your Business Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out: Catch up...or catch you later.

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 4/19/2005

ADL Releases Multiplayer Online Gaming Technical Report This report reviews relative online gaming research literature and proposes 15 primary experiments pertaining to massive multiplayer online gaming (MMOG), first popularized in the entertainment world and now finding growing interest in education and training environments. Why Wikipedia started working - Part 2 This is a good place to explain why Wikipedia actually got started and why it worked (and still does work, at least as well as it does). Learn Video Blogging Online Gabe McIntyre teaches vlogging to film students at the Utrecht college of arts. Now he teaches you how to videoblog online. Creative Archive Rip it. Mix it. Share it. It Was the '60s, Man Moore's article, buried on page 114 of the now-defunct magazine's April 19 issue, set the pace for the chip industry, which has become a significant driver of the global economy. Over time, the observation would be called "Moore's Law." It has set a guidepost for technologists around the world for four decades -- and counting.

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 4/18/2005

The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia: A Memoir Wikipedia became what it is today because, having been seeded with great people with a fairly clear idea of what they wanted to achieve, we proceeded to make a series of free decisions that determined the policy of the project and culture of its supporting community.

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 4/17/2005

Training Pays Off The education and training variable is the most significant predictor of an organization's success as compared to price-to-earning ratios, price-to-book statistics, and measures of risk and volatility. Technology: An Update on Stuff That's Cool This is a "where are they now?" report (Like Google's Photo Maps & Skype) (requires free subscription to N.Y. Times) Knowledge Management: Knowledge services to generate 40 M jobs India’s emergence as a knowledge services hub, with 40 million new jobs in the sector, is expected to generate a $200 billion market by 2020. learning: Game for Learning "What stands in the way is what I call the 'fact fetish'," explains James Paul Gee, author of What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. "For me, learning an area like biology should be about learning how to 'play the game' of biology, that is, learning to think, act, and value like a biologist."

Knowledge & Learning in the News - 4/16/05

Knowledge management: Designing Knowledge-based Organization The source of the crisis is coming from two different, yet related, sources. First, it is the transition of our society into a knowledge economy. The series of recent high-profile business fiascos including Enron, WorldCom, or Global Crossing, just to name a few, is not just a result of a moral hazard of a few individual executives or the lack of government regulations. Rather, it is a result of a fundamental shift that is taking place in society and the economy. It is the transition from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy. This web-site helps managers and students to explore different tools that they can use in designing new products and new organizations. It uses videos clips that demonstrate design and rapid prototyping. eLearning: The biggest eLearning companies on the NASDAQ A glance at the latest quarterly results and the development of the shares of those eLearning companies quoted on the NASDAQ manifests a situation between hope and fear. Saba and SumTotal Systems showed a positive tendency. Blackboard had good results. Knowledge management & eLearning: Podcasts Catching on with iPod Owners Twenty-nine percent of U.S. adults who own MP3 players like Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod say they have downloaded podcast programs from the Internet, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found. That means more than 6 million people are listening to a form of communication that emerged only last year. Learning & Change: Engineering workplace turnaround Change management is a critical process that needs the full support of all employees. Pallavi Jha advises on how employees can be motivated to join in the process. eLearning Efficiency Moving to an online paradigm to brief hundreds of employees on compliance issues saves time and money; augmenting, not replacing, instructors. Knowledge management: Knowledge: The Essence of Meta Data -- The Repository vs. The Registry The title of the article is "The Repository versus The Registry," so does that indicate that there are differences between the two? Our organization has been using the terms interchangeably for years. But, this conversation made me rethink that philosophy, and a new theory has emerged. In today's environment, they are two different methodologies that serve many different functions. elearning: Korea, US to Develop e-Learning Standards Korea will spearhead the development of global e-learning standards with the U.S., as the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Korea Institute for Electric Commerce (KIEC) for a business partnership, according to the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy (MOCIE) Thursday.

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 4/12/2005

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 4/10/2005

April 10, 2005
Performance: Workforce needs polish, U.S. businesses declare As lawmakers and educators struggle to improve high schools in the U.S., businesses and labor unions say they are alarmed that even job seekers with a diploma can't function in the workplace. Knowledge: When it comes to information overload, two heads may not be better than one In an age of e-mails, databases and online catalogues, two heads may no longer be better than one, according to new ESRC-sponsored research into the effects of information overload. Knowledge: Making perceptual categories Experts learn not only how to classify items they have seen before, but they also learn a process that helps them classify new items within their field of expertise. Innovation: Apple's Blueprint for Genius Handling its own design work is one reason for best-sellers like the iPod and Shuffle. Steve Jobs is the other. The Workplace: Challenging the Venus and Mars theory Men and women may not be as different as previously thought when it comes to feeling emotion

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 4/9/2005

Mapping the Terrain of Online Education Although quality has always been difficult to define, let alone measure, academic officers participating in the Sloan-C survey acknowledge that online (and by extension, distance) education generally “has some distance” to go before it provides comparable outcomes to more traditional, classroom-based offerings. Why Online Teaching Turned Me Off (free subscription) Then a bright young teacher said: "Actually, it's not hard at all, getting online so often, because the course is all set up. I don't even have to think!" Trusting Times The New York Times in April is relaunching nytimes.com, one of the most trafficked sites on the Web. The changes are going to embed The Times straight into the Web's content infrastructure. Mr. China, and "Mr. China" China is an economy ruled by caution, fear, and self-interest, paralyzed by decades of state control. But is also is a nation of human beings, as glorious and as flawed as the rest of us.

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 4/4/05

The Invisibility of Knowledge Work In the digital world, bringing visibility to the process of knowledge work is the first step in making it more effective. Continuous Improvement -- Just-In-Time Training Manufacturers can't afford to waste time or money on non-value-added training.

Knowledge and Learning In The News - April 2, 2005

How to Battle the Coming Brain Drain By forcing out the employees with the most experience, companies may be inadvertently pushing critical knowledge out the door. Extreme Learning: Decision Games What separates novices from experts is the way they size things up. Experts assess a situation with less information than novices. Designers start by teasing out the "thin slices" that experts pay attention to when making rapid decisions.