D Foster Associates

To follow up on yesterday’s post on Social Networking tools, I wanted to share an article about some of LinkedIn’s new tools.  Basically, LinkedIn is working to allow other sites to embed “in” links within their content so that as you are reading it, you can see if/how you are connected to people, companies, or industries in the article.

Take a minute to think about using that within an online training course where a learner could see who else might be taking the training now, or if they are linked to some of the experts referenced in the course.  This may make more sense when the training is more collaborative using a tool like a wiki than with formally developed and structured content.  When reading information within the wiki, the learner could see their relationship to the people that contributed content and have a better understanding or comfort level of the quality of the content.  They also can potentially make new links with people that are interested in the same topics that they are.

If you haven’t done it yet, join LinkedIn and take a look at their Answers section.  You will see what questions people in your network are asking, and who is providing answers.

Have fun!

I’m a big fan of Social Networking, and feel that it helps create multiple avenues for collaborative learning opportunities. I just found this great article on how to get started with Social Networking. It was a pain to link to on the site, so I have re-printed the whole article here.

Social Networking with Training Wheels
Ten ways to get started with social networking today
By: John Jantsch

Look, I don’t really think that the mySpaces and Facebooks of the world are that important for the typical small business as they stand today. There may be very practical business reasons for some to actually use these and other, what are called social networks, for business gain, but most people that have jumped on the social network bandwagon have found themselves left with a “is this all there is” kind of feeling.
(more…)

I was at a great MIT Enterprise Forum event last night focused on robotics. It was interesting to hear that one of the challenges that many of the panelists discussed was the need for better training of both the users of the robots and of the future robotic engineers.

Rod Brooks, the co-founder and CTO of iRobot, showed a great example of reducing the need for user training by simplifying the user interface for their PackBot by adding a game controller! Suddenly, their target audience (18 - 20 year old males) could pick up the controller and just “play” with the robot and figure it out.

Deborah Theobald, the CEO of Vecna, is working to provide schools with robotic tools and teaching supplies so that more students have the opportunity to work on robots. Her goal is to help increase the number of experienced students moving into the robotics industry.

I think if you took some of the tools Vecna is providing to schools and combined it with a Collaborative Learning process that would allow students, their teachers, and robotics experts to share their ideas and experiences, we could rapidly increase the innovation in the Robotics Industry.

As part of my talk Moving from Training to Collaborative Learning I talked about how to reinforce learning in a seminar by following it up with assignments and discussion.  If you came to the talk and would like to participate in that, or if are interested in the topic.  Please fill-out the comment info below, and I will include you on some e-mailed assignments to help with the follow up and reinforcement of the session.  This will provide a nice Blended Learning solution for our talk. 

There was also some talk about doing a Second Life meeting in the future.  That is new for me, so if you are interested, let me know and we can set something up.  It is always fun to try out new technologies for learning and collaboration.

I saw this great video during a discussion about how we all learn informally.  It was part of a discussion about how we (meaning the participants at the talk) would research Web 2.0.  I like it because it really shows you examples of things in such an innovative way.  The fact that it is the top video on You Tube when you search for “Web 2.0″ and is #6 on Google for the same search is pretty impressive.  So maybe you have seen it already, but if not, it is a must watch video.

Today at the eLearning Guild’s Annual Gathering a number of people asked if I would post my handouts.  They claimed that they couldn’t make my presentation on Moving from Training to Collaborative Learning and wanted a copy of the handouts.  You should know that the handouts don’t really stand on their own really well.  You miss all the hand gestures and discussion that happens during the presentation.

But, in the interest of Collaborative Learning, you can download them, and then post your comments and questions here and we can get a discussion going.  In fact, if enough people are interested, we can do follow-up exercises from the talk and use some of the collaboration tools that I discuss to help further define the topic. 

My presentation “Moving from Training to Collaborative Learning” which won the 2006 NELA Choice Award has been selected by the eLearning Guild for the 2007 Annual Gathering.  Take a look at the conference info, it should be a great event.  I’m also being interviewed for a podcast prior to the event, and I will post a link to that as soon as it is live.

I hope to see you there!

I was talking to a colleague about a seminar we both attended recently.  We each enjoyed the seminar and took away a few key pieces of information, but it had been so jam packed with info that we both felt that we hadn’t been able to take advantage of everything that was covered.

This led to a long discussion on how I would re-design the seminar into a blended learning process to help improve the knowledge retention of all of the participants.  As I started to write it up, I realized it was too long for one post, so I’ve broken it down into a couple of steps.

(more…)

Last night at the NELA Choice Awards my presentation “Moving from Training to Collaborative Learning” was selected by the audience as their top choice.  The competition was fun and very challenging, with all seven presenters working hard to get their points across in just five (okay really six) minutes.

I have posted my full presentation here on the site in web format, but it may not work on all browsers and without me explaining all of it you may be a bit confused.  I will work over the next week or so to write up parts of it to post here and explain what the concept is.  But for now, feel free to comment here and ask me questions and I will answer as best I can.

Thanks again to Pat O’Malley, Allan Cole, and all the presenters for their hard work and for making this such a fun event.  And thanks to the audience members for voting for me… I’m sure I owe a couple of you the drinks that I promised if you voted for me!

My presentation “Moving from Training to Collaborative Learning” has been accepted for the NELA Choice Awards coming up on Wednesday the 14th.  If you want to see me talk for just 5 minutes (not easy for me) then you should register and come on by.

There are a number of other great presenters, and the event will allow you to see eight different presenters give what they feel is their best 5 minutes of content.  Then the audience will vote for their three favorites.  So, please come by and vote for me!

It has been quite an exercise for me to try and get my ideas for collaborative learning down to five minutes, but I’ll be giving it a shot.  I’ll be posting my presentation and comments from the event here on Thursday.