Showing posts with label e-learning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label e-learning. Show all posts

E-Learning Uncovered: From Concept to Execution Review

E-Learning Uncovered: From Concept to Execution
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E-Learning Uncovered: From Concept to Execution ReviewThis is a great "how to" book on launching an e-learning course for your organization.Provides you with step by step directions on what you should consider from the persepective of a customer and a business, along with clearly laying out all of the possible features in the top e-learning platforms (articulae, lectora, etc).E-Learning Uncovered: From Concept to Execution Overview1. What Is E-Learning? 2. Developing an e-Learning Strategy 3. Managing an e-Learning Project 4. Tools of the Trade 5. The Analysis Phase 6. The Design Phase: Broad Strategies 7. The Design Phase: Course Features and Functions 8. The Development Phase: Writing the Course 9. The Development Phase: Putting the Course Together 10.The Implementation Phase 11.The Evaluation Phase 12.Preparing Yourself for the Future

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Beyond E-Learning: Approaches and Technologies to Enhance Organizational Knowledge, Learning, and Performance Review

Beyond E-Learning: Approaches and Technologies to Enhance Organizational Knowledge, Learning, and Performance
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Beyond E-Learning: Approaches and Technologies to Enhance Organizational Knowledge, Learning, and Performance ReviewOnce again, Marc Rosenberg shows us the way to really transform our organizations into efficient, effective knowledge-centered enterprises. He warns that e-Learning, like training in general, is often done the wrong way, for the wrong reasons. He busts myths right and left (the section on "the myths of e-Learning" alone is worth the purchase price!), and steadfastly refuses to be swept along by fads, technologies -- or even traditions of training.
What Rosenberg does is to lay out a vision of the Smart Enterprise, in which the focus is on performers rather than learners. He argues persuasively that technologies such as e-Learning, classroom learning, knowledge management, communications and collaboration technologies are best viewed not as individual technologies (or fads), but rather as complementary parts of a balanced strategy for performance improvement in enterprises which effectively translate data to knowledge to information to performance. Detailed chapters then discuss each of the key components of this strategy for performance improvement, including practical advice on how to implement them and where the pitfalls are. Examples and issue sidebars featuring luminaries in the field and corporate success stories add weight to the argument.
This is not just another "business book of the month" full of quick-fix half-truths. It is a mature, broad and comprehensive view of what it really takes to make any knowledge-intensive organization get what it needs to reach its goals. Senior line organization managers will find it essential; training managers will find it liberating and exhilerating -- or threatening. It's required reading for everyone responsible for making their enterprises smart.Beyond E-Learning: Approaches and Technologies to Enhance Organizational Knowledge, Learning, and Performance OverviewA follow-up to his best-selling E-Learning, Beyond E-Learning explains the most current thinking on how organizations learn and apply what they know to be successful, and explores the increasingly important role that technology plays, not as an end in itself but as a vital means to get there. The book also provides a clear path for helping to integrate learning—including e-learning—knowledge management, and performance support, and will help training professionals and the organizations they serve go beyond common myths and misconceptions about training and e-learning, focus training/learning activities directly on organizational know-how, and implement a framework that can (at last) be a catalyst for true organizational learning.

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Moodle JavaScript Cookbook Review

Moodle JavaScript Cookbook
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Moodle JavaScript Cookbook ReviewOne of the mayor 'complaints' about open source lms systems such as Moodle is the fact that the 'looks' can be a bit dissapointing. Now with the surge of HTML 5 (javascript) for those who can, it is possible to make moodle look great or make it even more interactive.
In the moodle community there is a lot to find about not-so-technical stuff, but for those who want to get deeper into it, you may be on your own a bit. This book will help those technical guys and girls. You may need to know some php, html but you do not need to know any javascript for this book.Moodle JavaScript Cookbook OverviewThis is a cookbook that contains a list of recipes explaining step-by-step how to use JavaScript in Moodle. The first two chapters concentrate on the basics of how to start working with JavaScript and the YUI while the later chapters show how to use these techniques as a basis for implementing more complete functionality. This book is aimed at developers and administrators comfortable with customizing Moodle with the use of plugin modules, themes, and patches who want to make their site more dynamic. If you have prior knowledge of HTML, PHP, and CSS and a good working knowledge of the underlying structure of Moodle, then this book is for you. No prior experience with JavaScript is needed.

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A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change Review

A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change
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A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change ReviewStandardized educational systems face the great challenge of adapting to a time where facts, knowledge, research, methods, tools, interpretations, applications, and contexts available regarding any piece of information are expanding and changing by the moment. "A New Culture of Learning" gives insights into how, what, and why we learn in the information age, including a powerful message that we "know more than we can say" when learning is approached intuitively, with intrinsic motivation, and with the interplay between peers learning and working naturally toward common goals. How the educational system can guide and evaluate such tacit learning, which seems more effective and valuable in many contexts than rote memorization, seems to be the core of the dilemma the system faces. As a medical student at an institution undergoing some radical changes to the curriculum structure, I'm making sure a few copies get into the hands of the administration.A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change OverviewThe twenty-first century is a world in constant change. In A New Culture of Learning, Doug Thomas and John Seely Brown pursue an understanding of how the forces of change, and emerging waves of interest associated with these forces, inspire and invite us to imagine a future of learning that is as powerful as it is optimistic.
Typically, when we think of culture, we think of an existing, stable entity that changes and evolves over long periods of time. In A New Culture, Thomas and Brown explore a second sense of culture, one that responds to its surroundings organically. It not only adapts, it integrates change into its process as one of its environmental variables. By exploring play, innovation, and the cultivation of the imagination as cornerstones of learning, the authors create a vision of learning for the future that is achievable, scalable and one that grows along with the technology that fosters it and the people who engage with it. The result is a new form of culture in which knowledge is seen as fluid and evolving, the personal is both enhanced and refined in relation to the collective, and the ability to manage, negotiate and participate in the world is governed by the play of the imagination.
Replete with stories, this is a book that looks at the challenges that our education and learning environments face in a fresh way.

PRAISE FOR A NEW CULTURE OF LEARNING
"A provocative and extremely important new paradigm of a 'culture of learning', appropriate for a world characterized by continual change. This is a must read for anyone interested in the future of education."
James J. Duderstadt, President Emeritus, University of Michigan

"Thomas and Brown are the John Dewey of the digital age."
Cathy Davidson, Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, Duke University

"A New Culture of Learning may provide for the digital media and learning movement what Thomas Paine's Common Sense did for the colonists during the American Revolution— a straightforward, direct explanation of what we are fighting for and what we are fighting against."
Henry Jenkins, Provost's Professor, USC

"A New Culture of Learning is at once persuasive and optimistic — a combination that is all too rare, but that flows directly from its authors' insights about learning in the digital age. Pearls of wisdom leap from almost every page."
Paul Courant, Dean of Libraries, University of Michigan

"Brilliant. Insightful. Revolutionary."
Marcia Conner, author of The New Social Learning

"Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown portray the new world of learning gracefully, vividly, and convincingly."
Howard Gardner, Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education

"Thomas and Brown make it clear that education is too often a mechanistic, solo activity delivered to the young. It doesn't have to be that way—learning can be a messy, social, playful, embedded, constant activity. We would do well to listen to their message."
Clay Shirky, author of Cognitive Surplus

"Anyone who fears, as I do, that today's public schools are dangerously close to being irrelevant must read this book. The authors provide a road map—and a lifeline—showing how schools can prosper under the most difficult conditions. It is a welcome departure from all the school bashing."
John Merrow, Education Correspondent, PBS NewsHour

"American education is at a crossroads. By illuminating how play helps to transform both information networks and experimentation, and how collective inquiry unleashes the power of imagination, A New Culture of Learning provides an irresistible path to the future."
Joel Myerson, Director, Forum for the Future of Higher Education



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E-learning Tools and Technologies: A consumer's guide for trainers, teachers, educators, and instructional designers Review

E-learning Tools and Technologies: A consumer's guide for trainers, teachers, educators, and instructional designers
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E-learning Tools and Technologies: A consumer's guide for trainers, teachers, educators, and instructional designers ReviewThis book dives deep down into the process of selecting the precise software and hardware one needs to create, deliver and access e-learning. As in his previous books, Horton has done an admirable job at presenting the tools, and the process for selecting them, into small, step by step discussions.
However, I have two significant quibbles with this book.
First, it begins with chapter after chapter on all the individual tools you might possibly use and concludes with the process for deciding what you need. To me that is akin to starting off a book written to help someone decide what type of home they want, with chapters on all the different types of roofs or windows there are, rather than first walking readers through such important questions as: how big is your family? and do you intend to entertain?, which instantly narrow your best options. Reading this book, I found myself quickly bogged down in deep detail on tools I learned I might not even need.
Secondly, many of the e-learning tool categories overlap in functionality, and some tools do it all. If this book had provided specific reviews of the best tools out there and how their features co-mingle, it would have been a big help. Instead, he neutrally lists scores of products in several of the categories discussed.
I did come away from this book with a solid understanding of the tool categories. Unfortunately, I am still pretty befuddled as to how to wade through all the complexities of those tool categories and how they relate to my objectives to decide which tools to buy.E-learning Tools and Technologies: A consumer's guide for trainers, teachers, educators, and instructional designers OverviewA comprehensive guide to help you cut through the hype in order to select the best E-Learning tools and vendors for your specific needsWith its ability to both reduce operating costs and train more people, E-Learning is an attractive option for companies that are trying to balance business and educational goals. But in order to implement an E-Learning program, you'll have to wade through hundreds of learning management systems, learning content management systems, authoring schools, and collaboration environments to determine what solution will work best for your situation.In this in-depth book, recognized E-Learning experts William and Katherine Horton survey the entire field of E-Learning tools for you. They provide you with a systematic way to identify, evaluate, and choose products and services based on different E-Learning scenarios.In this no-holds barred look at E-Learning tools, the authors:* Arm you with a complete list of questions to ask vendors before you commit to a product* Describe product limitations throughout each chapter and include special Rant sections that you must read* Present tips and tricks as well as common mistakes to avoid* List potential vendors and contact information by tool categoryThe companion Web site contains design forms, checklists of features to look for in the various tool categories, spreadsheets, and lists of specific tools and vendors.

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Moodle 2.0 for Business Beginner's Guide Review

Moodle 2.0 for Business Beginner's Guide
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Moodle 2.0 for Business Beginner's Guide ReviewMoodle 2.o for Business is part of the Packt Moodle series and is co-written by Jason and Jeanne Cole and Gavin Henrick. It's refreshingly different from the other Moodle books in that its focus is not on students in an educational institution learning, say geography; rather; it concentrates on another major global use of Moodle - commercial enterprise. It shows how a company, whatever size, can benefit from Moodle's features to improve its recruitment, training, staff development and internal communication processes. Written as a "Beginner's guide"; its language is accessible and, despite being collaboratively authored, it reads smoothly in a consistent style. (Hands up -I was one of the three technical reviewers of the book.)
Chapter 1 starts us off by suggesting ways to download Moodle to experiment/play with it before using it "in anger" - as the modern saying goes! We learn the very basics of course administration, adding resources and a discussion space. I particularly liked the "E-learning framework for implementing Moodle" section where we consider ADIME (Align/Develop/Implement/Measure/Evaluate) and also the case study at the end of the chapter. The inclusion of real-life case studies is an inspired Plus to this book, I believe, setting in a genuine context the features explored in the chapters and sharing Moodle experiences from the world of business.
Chapter 2 explains how potential employees can create new accounts (safely!) on your Moodle site and how the assignment module can be used to allow them to send in their CVs. Employers can use the assignment grading facility to rate the applications; the quiz module can serve as a means of administering competency tests and the choice module can help schedule interviews. This whole chapter appealed to my mindset because I love tweaking/adapting/manipulating Moodle to do what you need it to do, and here were whole scenarios I hadn't considered before.
Chapter 3 handles the need to provide product knowledge both internally and externally. (Incidentally, an added bonus for me reading this book was that not only did it give me some ideas about using Moodle for business, it actually also taught me about business!) We looked at different course formats, created a glossary f0r specific terminology, a chat session for role-playing and a database for peer reviewing created product knowledge sheets. Another case study at the end of the chapter gives, in this instance, AA Ireland the opportunity to pass on advice for businesses planning to implement Moodle.
Chapter 4 can be downloaded as a freebie taster! Its focus is how to use Moodle to deliver in-house staff training such as legal compliance or health and safety to selected groups of employees. Here, the authors take us through the Lesson module and explain how to put groups and groupings to good effect. Completion tracking, whereby employees can track their progress is also explained in this chapter, leading usefully on to the (new to Moodle 2.0) concept of course completion.
Chapter 5 is a very thorough explanation of the use of outcomes in Moodle - a feature I sometimes think is underused (but maybe that's just me?) Outcomes can help with competency tracking and the reader is shown how to add an outcome to an assignment and grade it. I actually learned something myself too - how to import outcomes via CSV- how cool is that?!
Chapter 6 discusses how to make the most of Moodle's features to support informal communities of practice. So we are talking forums, wikis and collaborative glossaries and databases. The reader also gets to learn about how enabling RSS feeds can improve communication
Chapter 7 is about web conferencing. Moodle doesn't have a built-in web conferencing tool so the authors discuss the various alternatives that can plug in to Moodle - one of them being Adobe Connect Pro (which I assume you have to pay for) and the other being Big Blue Button (which is free) I have experience of both of these and they are both very valuable additions to an online training program. Once more, at the end of the chapter, we have an informative case study - this time from Moodle Partner Remote Learner (for whom the authors work)
Chapter 8 concentrates on repositories and portfolios -ie, how, in Moodle 2.0, you can bring in content from external sources such as Google Docs or Alfresco and you can "push it out" to external sources such as Mahara. As I increasingly use Mahara myself, I can see it as an essential add- on to a commercial Moodle site - indeed, maybe the authors should consider writing Mahara for Business next?
Chapter 9 is about enrolment plugins (how best to get your users onto your Moodle, allowing them to keep their existing corporate usernames and passwords. It also touches on themes as having an attractive corporate image on your Moodle site is essential - themes in Moodle 2.0 are much enhanced and easily customisable. Finally, and just as important, we learn how to change the words on Moodle. By default, Moodle uses terms such as "teacher", "student" and "course" as its origins are based in the educational environment - but it is a simple move to alter these to language more suited to your own organisation.
In summary -if you are thinking of using Moodle in a commercial enteprise, then this is an extremely valuable book :) On a personal level, I enjoyed it because it shows Moodle being used differently from the norm I am familiar with, so it was an inspiring read :)
Moodle 2.0 for Business Beginner's Guide Overview

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Advanced Web-Based Training Strategies Review

Advanced Web-Based Training Strategies
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Advanced Web-Based Training Strategies ReviewTHE FOLLOWING BOOK REVIEW HAS BEEN A REQUIREMENT FOR MY DEGREE COURSE CALLED EDUCATION AND THE INTERNET AT CSU LONG BEACH. IT IS QUITE LONG SO GET SOME COFFEE!
Book Review
Book Title: Advanced Web Based Training Strategies, By Margaret Driscoll & Saul Carliner
Something I did not enjoy was the unexpected flow of the first chapters. Chapter 1 is called Using a problem-based Approach to designing e-learning, chapter 2 is called Philosophies and Theories Guiding the design of E-learning and then suddenly chapter 3 is called storytelling and contextually based approaches to needs assessment, design and formative evaluation. I see many faults in this organization. These are:
«The titles of the chapters are confusing. You do not get the message of the chapter clearly.
«The drift between chapter 2 and chapter 3 is very unexpected
«There is no chapter on how to identify goals, set learning objectives and identify prerequisites when designing digital learning environments
I like the idea of having high level design strategies and then detailed design strategies since some tactics are very similar for many approaches such as simulations and Live Virtual Classrooms. Thus, the authors are not repeating themselves over and over again.
I enjoy the quality of the last chapter. Suggesting ideas outside the box such as learn a topic on your own online or play a computer game, this chapter attempts to make the reader realize that even if s/he memorizes the whole book, it does not mean s/he will be able to design and produce high quality e-learning projects.

Criticism
The authors suggest on page 5 that there is no cookbook-like approach which will provide guaranteed success in e-learning. They feel that designers should use a problem-based approach when developing e-learning projects. They also conclude that designers must take an approach which is characterized by critical thinking and creative solutions. This seems a bit contradictory to me. This is because they have written a book which is very hierarchical and structured. They never mention the words creativity, imagination or other words of similar nature. They also never demonstrate how to go about being a critical thinker which as they say it is of vital importance when designing an e-learning course.
There is no cookbook-like approach the authors suggest. However the title of their books contains the word ¡§strategies¡¨. If you look up the word strategy in the dictionary you will very surprised to see that a strategy is similarly defined as a cookbook-like approach; a strategy is defined as an elaborate and systematic plan of action.
The book is called Advanced Web Based training strategies. The definition of the word Advanced is ahead in development; something which is complicated or intricate. I have not read the whole book but I went through all the chapters and I could almost guarantee that there is nothing in this book which could be called advanced. Most of the book is about defining the various technologies that could be used for designing a web based training course, their benefits and drawbacks and examples. Therefore, I feel that the title is misleading to the reader. For example, the chapter on simulations has the following organization: Define simulation, obstacles to the adoption of simulations as an instructional energy, benefits and limitations, description of nine types of simulations that a designer could be used, and examples. I am not suggesting that this material is not important. A designer should be aware of the facts and examples of simulations. However, this is not enough. If you want to create engaging simulations or any other learning environment you need as M. Allen suggest three common features : Engaging material and presentation which will motivate the users but also a meaningful and memorable learning experience. M. Allen for example, provides a whole chapter on motivation and I am sure that you could write dozens of books on motivation without even touching the subject.
I feel that the authors either missed the point of web-based courses, or they just wanted to write some facts down as an introduction to the world of designing internet based courses. They wrote a book on what (e.g. what is virtual classroom) and on how (e.g. how does a virtual classroom work or look). They however failed to demonstrate what skills and talents designers need to have in order to design courses which lead to flow as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi would have said it.
On the other hand, I believe that the examples given on each of the technologies can be very helpful indeed to comprehend the various technologies and how they should be used properly in action. Furthermore, I have to say that although the book is about digital learning techniques and strategies, ironically it is just too dull in my opinion. The book is written in a style that is very formal, dry and is not very engaging. I'm a little disappointed that a book about instruction techniques is not better written and setting a good example of it's content. Moreover, it reads like a university textbook rather than a helpful resource for e-learning designers and developers.Advanced Web-Based Training Strategies OverviewAdvanced Web-Based Training Strategies fills the gap in the literature available on this topic by offering a volume that includes meaningful, applicable, and proven strategies that can take the experienced instructional designer to the next level of web-based training. Written by Margaret Driscoll and Saul Carliner -- internationally acclaimed experts on e-learning and information design- -- Advanced Web-Based Training Strategies provides instructional designers, e-learning developers, technical communicators, students, and others with strategies for addressing common challenges that arise when designing e-learning. Balancing educational theory with the practical realities of implementation, Driscoll and Carliner outline the benefits and limitations of each strategy, discuss the issues surrounding the implementation of these strategies, and illustrate each strategy with short scenarios drawn from real-world online learning programs representing a wide variety of fields including technology, financial services, health care, and government.

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