2003 orientation survey results available

In early fall, I conducted a survey of new employee orientation practices in North America - the results are now available.

My e-line on blogs

My continuing research on blogs is taking one form of output, a 2-part series in my e-Line column for PeopleTalk magazine. The first part, Blogged for Business: Do you blog in public?, has already been published. I am continuing to seek examples for blogs in corporate learning and development, which I'll focus the 2nd part of the series on. It's slim pickin's so far.

Creating employee guidelines on blogs

I stumbled across this page of employee guidelines on blogs on the Groove Networks site. Groove is interesting in that a number of its executives and other key players publish publicly available blogs - check out the Groove blog listing page.

Recording of September 22nd Learning Objects Event

In my blog on September 22nd I talked about a particularly good webinar I attended on Learning Objects. I just tried to update that entry to add the link, but it's not showing up when I refresh, I don't know whay....

Anyways, here is a link to a recording of the September 22nd learning objects webinar

To read my original post after I participated, in which I posted a whole bunch of learning object resources, click here

We are the Problem: We are selling Snake Oil

There is a great dialogue unfolding in the Comments of the Learning Circuits Blog. It's under the post called We are the Problem: We are selling Snake Oil.

PS - This is really worth visiting, as the dialogue really grew, and quite a few people have commented on it. Much of that on the phenomenum of the blog dialogue itself. I think it's an interesting example of how interactive blogs can build community. (note added Feb. 21/04)

Info on eHelp / Macromedia merger -- and the average developer uses 4 tools

I'm finding some answers to what I have been wondering, as to what the impact may be of Macromedia acquiring eHelp. Veerry interesting....

From a Bersin & Associates e-newsletter:

Macromedia - eHelp Acquisition: What Does it Mean?
On October 22, Macromedia announced the intent to acquire eHelp Corporation, makers of RoboDemo and RoboHelp. RoboHelp is one of the leading help authoring tools and RoboDemo, originally designed as a tool to develop application demonstrations, is now a leading product for developing e-learning application simulations.

This acquisition, which is expected to close by the end of this year, is a major move in the e-learning market. Until recently, Macromedia's primary focus was on the creative web developer. This strategy is shifting. With nearly 30% of its revenue now coming from e-learning, Macromedia sees the e-learning market as a fast- growing and highly strategic secondary market.

What does this mean to the e-learning professional? For one, it should be easier and less costly to equip yourself with the tools you need to build e-learning programs by having Macromedia and eHelp tools available from one supplier. No single tool fits all needs. Our research earlier this year (E-Learning DevelopmentTools: What Works) found that the average e-learning developer uses four different tools to build a course - and we expect this to continue.

If Macromedia chooses to further integrate eHelp's products into Breeze (a product obtained by Macromedia through its Presedia acquisition earlier this year), we will see the bar raised on "Rapid E-Learning." This acquisition could ignite a powderkeg to dramatically expand the "Rapid E-Learning" market.

Lego learning online

Ever wonder how Lego is made? Go here and soon you'll know all.

I think this is great example of how orienting new employees to how the business works can be made interesting and kinda fun.

Blog behavior

Check out the Nov 6, 2003 entry on the Learning Circuits Blog, entitled "blog behavior". The posting and ensuing comments explore Peter Jackson's experience with having his comment to a blog entry by Clark Quinn blocked by the interface, "This comment could not be posted due to questionable content." What follows is an interesting dialogue on the impact of the automated so-called-intelligence behind the technology, and the impact on learners. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this one.

EdBlogger Conference in San Fran

There's a conference on blogging very soon, and not too far away, but alas I can't make it. EdBlogger will be held Nov. 22-23 in San Francisco. And it's actually FREE to educators.

While I can't go, I shall certainly spend some time exploring the conference site, there's gotta be some good blogs from the conference floor....

Cool feature on the website: Check out this link to the blogs of the conference attendees.

TechLearn 2003 archives disappoint

Made my way to the TechLearn 2003 Archives tonight.... TechLearn has traditionally made full conference archives available for free, including some audio/video recordings (see the TechLearn 2000 Archives), but it looks like the evolving partnership with Advantstar is resulting in just the common links to PowerPoint slides... still good, but a big disappointment.

Other useful TechLearn stuff:
Jay Cross's review of TechLearn 2003 - start at this link and click forward for the full picture
There's also usually a TechLearn-sponsored Trip Report posted, it's apparently coming soon, watch for it here.
Starved for a video clip? You can still watch this pre-conference welcome video of Elliott: http://www.masie.com/stream/tl2003/

From the Jay Blog

Just as I put my head up from a couple weeks in which busy-ness had me largely offline, and thinking I need to catch up, I get today's issue of Jay Cross' periodic e-newsletter, pointing to some recent highlights from his world, and from his blog. How timely! Of note:

Jay's blogged his review of TechLearn 2003, great perspectives as always. Lots of good stuff, as usual. Almost feel like I was there. I particularly enjoyed this:

"Elliott stressed the importance of context, saying that if content is king, context is queen. His analogy is off. The age of kings is over; kings are mere figureheads. Also, kings can exist without queens, and vice-versa, but content cannot exist without context. In fact, content + context = learning. Jay's metaphor: Content is inside; context is outside; they are inseparable." Well sed Jay!

Plus enjoyed this bite from my general catch up on Jay's blog:
News? - a fascinating ah ha from the providers of Online Learning Reviews

UPDATE: my post upon learning of Jay's passing in 2015

Blogging in the classroom... for me!

I add this blog entry from the classroom myself, living in the student seat for a few days. I am taking eHelp's RoboHelp course, fabulous. And delighted that they brought it to my neck of the woods here in Vancouver. I am also delighted that my instructor is Kevin Seigel of IconLogic, the author of many books on eHelp products.

I bought the full suite a few months back, mainly to get RoboDemo for a project - but was so impressed during my research process that I bought the whole suite from eHelp, which also includes RoboHelp. It was quite an investment for me, but this process is confirming that my decision was a good one. I am very impressed with how powerful this tool is, and I am looking forward to using it for several projects.

Blogging books

By way of the wonder of this online world, today I received two more books on blogging:
"We Blog: Publishing Online with Weblogs", by Paul Bausch, Matthew Haughhey and Meg Haurihan
"Blog On: The Essential Guide to Building Dynamic Weblogs", by Todd Stauffer

I am adding these two to the one title I already had, "Essential Blogging", by Cory Doctorow, et al.

I don't actually think you need a book to create a blog, it's so darn easy. But I've got an interest (ok, an insatiable curiousity!) about how blogs are being used, and what's possible, that I want to learn more. I think deepening my knowledge will be important to how I move forward with blogs in learning.

BTW, I did a bit of digging, and there are half-a-dozen or so books on blogging. I found some great reviews that really helped me figure out which to buy (I seem to recall the reviews were on Amazon).

vancouverlearning.net is emerging

So far, so good on vancouverlearning.net.... I am delighted to be receiving event postings from several new sources, several of which are new to me. I'm pleased that there were over 20 events listed for November when the month kicked off. When I've been out and about in the real world (versus the virtual one!), I'm getting positive verbal comments from people. Starting to get some responses to the feedback survey, also good. Seems I've found a need here. The bonus? So far, made a couple new interesting connections in my personal network.