Blog posts

Consider our happy little edublogger world. Some members have been blogging for a long time (notably Stephen Downes, Will Richardson, Jay Cross). Through their established networks, they can serve important roles of guiding and directing others to resources and concepts. Their experience enables them to put new developments into a historical context. They assist others to create networks...but they do more. They serve as curators of ideas, connections, philosophies, and world views. They create frameworks of interpreting and understanding history, new technologies, and trends through their work and public dialogue.

<p>I believe there are three primary reasons why an enterprise would want to “manage its knowledge”:</p> <p>One, to share learning, so that the same mistake is not made multiple times.</p> <p>Two, to share learning, so that activities get sped up.</p> <p>Three, to share learning, so that people are motivated to learn and to teach.</p> <p>To share learning.</p>

Knowledge management is not really about the content, it is about creating an environment where learning takes place. Maybe we spend too much time trying to create an environment where teaching takes place, rather than focus on the learning.

What is a good length for a module? Through countless hours of instructional design, field testing, and client feedback, I have found that 30 minutes is about the maximum, and less than 15 is too short.

But what information is it that is actually being "leaked" through Facebook by these irresponsible employees ?<br><br>The article gives no specifics, making me wonder if the threat is real or just imagined by the corporate control freaks.

By far the researchers' most significant finding was one that simply matched previous research: students who had a more racially diverse group of friends and classmates <em>outside</em> of the study tended to write essays with higher ICs. Again, however, this finding is only a correlation, and cannot on its own show that racial diversity improves learning.

I was touched by her comment of near resignation when she says "<em>Besides, I know that realistically our organization is not going to stop using a traditional LMS, so this is a thought exercise for me."</em> Christy, the hope of friendlier, more useful and adaptive tools is thankfully a 'thought exercise' for most of us. Those ideas will spawn the tools that will swallow your LMS.

The research suggests that kids who live online understand the process by which knowledge is produced and shared in an online environment, whereas those kids who come in within 10 minutes, they're trying to get the answer and get off. So they're not as critical of a corporate Web site, for example. That's just one example of some fundamental inequalities in access to social skills and culture competencies between the information-haves and have-nots.

Really this becomes the basis for the new hidden curriculum. We now must say those kids who are raised in an environment where they have regular access to the online worldï¿??have a different way of learning that prepares them for school--to do better in school and in life--than those kids who were being left out.

The Scholar360 Network Learning Environment integrates the best features of a learning management system with the best features of a social network. Instructors can teach online courses, dialog with students via discussion boards and blogs, manage automated tests, lessons and grading. Students can share files, build an eportfolio, blog, build a peer and mentor network.

Virtual schools are growing fast, though, at an annual rate of about 25 percent. Estimates of elementary and secondary students taking virtual classes range from 500,000 to 1 million nationally, compared with total public school enrollment of about 50 million.

Arguing for the development of aesthetic literacy, Sykes states, "What is at stake is not just another course in the curriculum but the recognition that the qualitative dimension of life, the sense of who we are as human beings, has a place in general education."

Only 4% of the students said they'd ever had an online conversation that made them uncomfortable, and only 2% said an online stranger tried to meet them in person. In fact, after surveying 1,277 students, the researchers found exactly one who reported they'd actually met a person from the internet without their parents' permission — and described this as "0.08 percent of all students."

In fact, 76% of parents expect social networking will improve their children's reading and writing skills, or help them express themselves more clearly, according to the study, and parents and communities "expect schools to take advantage of potentially powerful educational tools, including new technology."