Knowledge and Learning In The News - 5/31/2005

Concept Maps Go to School Cmaps can be used to assess student knowledge, encourage thinking and problem solving instead of rote learning, organize information for writing projects and help teachers write new curricula. Free download (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, Solaris). A Conversation with James Surowiecki: The Promise and Perils of Collaborative Tools James started the conversation by expressing his optimism about the upside potential for collaborative technologies, which are "immense, in the sense that we can learn from each other, and pass critical information to each other." eportfolios Eportfolios are the current blog-volume trend. Scott Wilson provides an excellent overview, Stephen Downes links to an extensive report and also provides his own views on the future of online learning (.ppt)...and I just came across this link to a facilitator's guide to portfolio development. Students Imagine Design's Future Spread through several rooms and halls in two different school locations, projects in this year's show range from computer animation to high-tech ecology to innovations in software. More of the student's work can be found here. Link to the school's homepage. AI Seduces Stanford Students Psychologists and salesmen call it the "chameleon effect": People are perceived as more honest and likeable if they subtly mimic the body language of the person they're speaking with.

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 5/30/2005

Brain Region Linked to Metaphor Comprehension Metaphors make for colorful sayings, but can be confusing when taken literally. A study of people who are unable to make sense of figures of speech has helped scientists identify a brain region they believe plays a key role in grasping metaphors. Thwarted innovation: what happened to e-learning and why This study debunks three failed assumptions: 1)If we build it they will come, 2) The kids will take to e-learning like ducks to water, and 3) E-learning will force a change in the way we teach. With link to PDF file. Taking The E-train Online training programs continue to flourish on the plant floor and in the office. Implementing knowledge strategies: lessons from international development agencies This study emphasises that the ideal entry points for knowledge and learning are largely organisational specific and that within this context the suggested Knowledge Strategies framework may help with a gap analysis and priority setting. With link to PDF file. Weblog Video Using weblogs in the classroom video.

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 5/28/2005

How to be a Good Learner PowerPoint Slides and MP3 Audio on Stephen Downes’ survey of the three major characteristics of good learning behavior. Innovation: Core Competency for the 21st Century Despite the growing recognition that innovation is the only sustainable source of growth, competitive advantage, and new wealth, fewer than 25 percent of companies believe innovation performance is where it needs to be if they are to be successful in the competitive marketplace. Brain Plasticity The history of KM has been one of hype, failure and disappointment. Video Storytelling: Rule of Thirds How do you frame your pictures for maximum effect? (with video) The World is Flat A video with Friedman discussing his latest book, The World Is Flat, describes the unplanned cascade of technological and social shifts that effectively leveled the economic world, and accidentally made Beijing, Bangalore and Bethesda next-door neighbors. From elearnspace.

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 5/26/2005

Make Mine a Grande Frappuccino Landed.fm Executive Producer Dawn Fotopulus reports from the recent Human Resource Institute's Issue Management Conference titlted "Next Practices in People Management." Presenters at the HRI conference included HR executives from Starbucks, Coca-Cola, and Shell. (With Podcast) 11 steps to a better brain It doesn't matter how brainy you are or how much education you've had - you can still improve and expand your mind. Boosting your mental faculties doesn't have to mean studying hard or becoming a reclusive book worm. There are lots of tricks, techniques and habits, as well as changes to your lifestyle, diet and behaviour that can help you flex your grey matter and get the best out of your brain cells. We Gather Together For many reasons we hear about community: podcasting communities, learning communities, online communities. Where are these communities going? What are the elements? (With Podcast) New study supports use of humor in online courses "We did not expect to find differences in performance and we did not find differences in performance, because our view is that humor itself is not some learning potion," Shatz said. "Humor is more of a social lubricant. It can facilitate interactions, and that is exactly what we found." Full Spectrum Warrior debate Some people are criticizing the US Army's involvement with the computer game Full Spectrum Warrior. Peripheral vision and ambient knowledge We filter incoming data (typically processing about 10% of available inputs) and perform intuitive pattern matching to make sense of a situation.

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 5/24/2005

Learning from Google Should humanity survive the next few hundred years, we'll look back at the early decades of 21st Century and think of that time as the learning revolution, much as we now think of the turning decades of the 19th century as the industrial revolution. BusinessWeek's Special Report on PodCasting Includes a podcast on podcasting. Several interesting features. The virtue and vice of audio Audio is a special medium: It's impossible to skim. When we listen, we have to hear every word in the order intended. We are taken from a start to the finish. And, of course, the nuance of the spoken word adds incredibly rich metadata to the mere content. There's a reason that "listening" implies appropriating what's being said in a way that "reading" doesn't. Why some of us choke under pressure Some people - even people who really know their stuff - just don't "test well." You can talk to them face to face, and they seem perfectly well informed and intelligent, but when the money's on the line, when they've sharpened their number 2 pencils and it's time to sit down for the big exam, they just crumble. The size of topics The Encyclopedia Britannica has about 65,000 topics spread across 32 volumes, for a total of 44,000,000 words. So now we know that that the average size of a topic is 676 words. This is deceiving, though, because the Britannica is famous for running articles up to 10 times longer than previous encyclopedias. The New Profile of the Long-Term Unemployed Today, the unemployment rate is relatively low at 5.2 percent and overall hiring has started to pick up again, particularly for younger workers coming out of college and professional schools. But the presence of middle-aged women and better educated white-collar workers among the long-term unemployed has increased.

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 5/23/2005

E-learning becomes a workforce stimulant Most learning management systems are purchased for specific business projects, but it isn't long before they start catering for employee interests, too - such as superannuation or share-option plans. In fact, organisations typically go through at least five phases until they reach full utilisation of these systems. The Space Between: Creating a Context for Learning This is about context on how groups of people create the context that makes information matter. How video games help us learn: Searching for the mechanism When asked to remember the locations of the buildings, passive viewers remembered significantly fewer of the objects inside the buildings than the navigators did. Once and future KM Let's pretend it's the mid-1990s, and you're thinking big. You’re just getting wind of the relatively new concept of knowledge management, which, at it simplest—getting the right information to the right people at the right time—makes perfect sense. Corporate T&D Market Will Grow 8 Percent to $11 Billion This Year Fueling that growth is e-learning, including virtual classrooms, Web meetings and conferences, which is forecast to grow by 30%. Ontology Is Overrated: Social advantages in tagging One of the problem users have with categories is that when we do head-to-head tests — we describe something and then we ask users to guess how we described it — there’s a very poor match.

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 5/22/2005

The Role of Critical Thinking in the Online Learning Environment Research indicates that critically reflective learning provides students with an opportunity to evaluate concepts learned and apply them to their experiences, contemplating its affect on future learning. Conceptual Framework Learning Object Navigating questions, processes, and steps of a conceptual framework. Blog Research Although blogs are currently used by only a small number of online consumers, they've garnered a great deal of corporate attention because their readers and writers are highly influential. Forrester believes that blogging will grow in importance. This leads to a PDF: Blogging: Bubble Or Big Deal? eLearning shortens the curve One of eLearning’s more significant developments is the use of interaction between the user and the media system to ask and answer questions or to exercise other learning activities to make the user think. What is significant about interactive presentations is how much they improve understanding and retention. Where's e-learning headed? e-learning has gone from a hyped-up novelty to a practical, beneficial enterprise learning resource.

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 5/21/2005

Small Scale Intelligence Collection, Collation and Dissemination Tools for competitive intelligence. Hyperlink Obsolescence in Scholarly Online Journals Hyperlinks to resources available on the Web are commonly used in footnotes or citation of references in scholarly online journals. A review of three well-established online journals revealed that nearly half of such links are broken, raising questions regarding the archival integrity of the published material. Where To Submit Your Podcasts: Best Podcast Search Engines And Directories Podcasting is making audio files (most commonly in MP3 format) available online in a way that allows use to automatically download the files for listening at their convenience. Publisher's Guide To RSS This new online reference is free to access and it provides a five-step process to support effective RSS publishing on the Web.

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 5/16/2005

Intrinsic motivation doesn't exist Reiss, a professor of psychology at Ohio State University, argues that a diverse range of human motivations can’t be forced into these categories of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. No Wrong Answer: Click It Professor Ross Cheit put it to the students in his Ethics and Public Policy class at Brown University: Are you morally obliged to report cheating if you know about it? The room began to hum, but no one so much as raised a hand. Still, within 90 seconds, Cheit had roughly 150 student responses displayed on an overhead screen -- 64 percent said yes, 35 percent, no. Bricks and Clicks: A Comparative Analysis of Online and Traditional Education Settings The two methods of instruction do not need to be rivals, as both possess advantages that meet the needs of different students and faculty. Professorial trend spotter predicts end of written word A respected scholar gives the written word until 2050 to become a curiosity of the past. Such talk may inflame those who cherish the written word and make educators shriek.

Knowledge and Learning In The News - 5/15/2005

Keys for successful video: Produce cheap, be immediate, and be flexible Lessons learned about producing video for the web and for mobile devices (streaming or dowload video). The Role of Metaphor in Interaction Design Metaphor -- That’s how the whole fabric of mental interconnections holds together. Metaphor is right at the bottom of being alive (PDF). Horizontal Classrooms This is what happens when you move from a vertical (command and control) classroom to a much more horizontal (connect and collaborate) flat classroom. Synapse: The future of news It’s mobile, immediate, visual, interactive, participatory and trusted. Make way for a generation of storytellers who totally get it. Values Training Value and ethics training in a value organization (NPR audio - podcast). How Microsoft plans to beat its rivals Microsoft has a multi-billion dollar pile of cash ready to invest, and Bill Gates has a strategy to fight his rivals.