SFGate: Probing tech’s heart Social scientists seek technology’s human side
SFGate: Probing tech's heart Social scientists seek technology's human side"Patterns of online interactivity -- from how many posts you make on a discussion group to how long you take to answer an e-mail -- say a lot about the people typing the messages, researchers are finding."
Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, August 20, 2003
Wired: Learning to Love PowerPoint
Wired: Learning to Love PowerPoint"Having never used the program before, I found it limiting, inflexible, and biased, like most software. On top of that, PowerPoint makes hilariously bad-looking visuals. But that's a small price to pay for ease and utility. We live in a world where convenience beats quality every time. It was, for my purposes, perfect."
Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, August 20, 2003
KM Magazine: The ‘‘Other’’ Knowledge
KM Magazine: The ''Other'' Knowledge"I very rarely ever think in words at all," replied Albert Einstein when asked how he comes up with his ideas. This is a universal truth. We all, at least initially, think in images and symbols contained in our unconscious. Later, we use language to approximate these perceptions, at which time they become concepts, or to put it slightly differently, interpretations of perceptions.
knowledge management Add tag Permalink | Tuesday, August 19, 2003
Harvard Working Knowledge: Project Planning: Fuzziness = Failur
Harvard Working Knowledge: Project Planning: Fuzziness = Failure"Studies of exceptional project managers in fast time-to-market industries show that the initial phase of a complex project, often referred to as the fuzzy front end, has a disproportionately large impact on the end results. All the recommendations that follow flow from one counterintuitive insight: The traditional operational focus of project management will doom a complex project."
Add tag Permalink | Tuesday, August 19, 2003
Intranet Journal: Gathering Requirements: The Crux of the Matter
Intranet Journal: Gathering Requirements: The Crux of the Matter"Perhaps the most important piece of any application development project is requirements gathering. After all, if you're not clear on where you're going, how will you know when you get there? Here are critical success factors for successful requirements gathering."
Add tag Permalink | Monday, August 18, 2003
Learning Circuits: MotivatingOnline Particpants
Learning Circuits: Motivating Online Participants"In order for online learning to be successful, developers need to create environments in which people can effectively learn. Participants need to be open to learning in this new way, and confident that their time invested in professional development is well-spent. So, how do we motivate our online participants? Keep this list in mind when designing your online courses and interacting with your learners and you may be amazed at what a difference a little motivation makes... ."
Add tag Permalink | Monday, August 18, 2003
UIE: Field Studies: The Best Tool to Discover User Needs
UIE: Field Studies: The Best Tool to Discover User Needs"The most valuable asset of a successful design team is the information they have about their users. When teams have the right information, the job of designing a powerful, intuitive, easy-to-use interface becomes tremendously easier. When they don't, every little design decision becomes a struggle. While techniques, such as focus groups, usability tests, and surveys, can lead to valuable insights, the most powerful tool in the toolbox is the 'field study'. Field studies get the team immersed in the environment of their users and allow them to observe critical details for which there is no other way of discovering."
interface Add tag Permalink | Monday, August 18, 2003
New Book: Knowledge Networks: Innovation through Communities of Practice
New Book: Knowledge Networks: Innovation through Communities of Practice"There have been a large number of academic papers about Communities of Practice but, so far, only a few books. Most of the books have, by necessity, taken a rather theoretical approach. This book however will examine CoPs from a practical viewpoint; it is directed at the general reader rather than a specialist audience. Our aim is to draw on the experience of people who have researched and worked with CoPs in the real world and to present their views in a form that is accessible to a broad audience."
community, innovation Add tag Permalink | Thursday, August 14, 2003
CNET: Aus study debunks e-learning myths
CNET: Aus study debunks e-learning myths"The research, which involved 18,000 full-time students in 2002, dismisses popular beliefs that online schools are dominated by males, are only for the young and that students living in rural areas are disadvantaged."
Add tag Permalink | Thursday, August 14, 2003
MIT Tech Review: India Turns to Community Computing
MIT Tech Review: India Turns to Community Computing"cheap information kiosks are helping India bring computing power to the masses, providing a model for how to bridge the digital divide."
community Add tag Permalink | Thursday, August 14, 2003
Common Craft: How I Would Implement Weblogs in Business
Common Craft: How I Would Implement Weblogs in Business"In retrospect- a Weblog could have been extremely valuable to me and the company. Using a Weblog, I could chronicle the daily activities, learnings, experiences and developments of the community. As the community grew and interest spread, the Weblog could have become the best single resource for understanding the internal workings of the community, why it works, what we'd learned, what the manager does, what the members think, etc. I could have reserved 30 minutes a day to post what I'm thinking, doing, learning."
blogging Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Fastrak: Training the e-trainer
Fastrak: Training the e-trainer"Before looking at the skills needed by e-trainers (those that run virtual classrooms), it makes sense to reflect on what a good virtual classroom session would look like if you were to meet it. Anyone who has attended a number of sessions is likely to have already encountered the dreaded
Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Workforce: The Bookstore Battle
Workforce: The Bookstore Battle"Trying to make your company stand out from your competitor? You
Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Working Knowledge: Cheap, Fast, and In Control: How Tech Aids Innovation
Working Knowledge: Cheap, Fast, and In Control: How Tech Aids Innovation"We need to appreciate that new knowledge comes as much from failure as it does from success. Innovators learn from failure: Understanding what doesn
innovation Add tag Permalink | Tuesday, August 12, 2003
Useit: Information Pollution
Useit: Information Pollution"Each little piece of useless chatter is relatively innocent, and only robs us of a few seconds. The cumulative effect, however, is much worse: we assume that most communication is equally useless and tune it out, thus missing important information that's sometimes embedded in the mess."
Add tag Permalink | Tuesday, August 12, 2003
MCLI: Syndicating Learning Objects with RSS and Trackback
MCLI: Syndicating Learning Objects with RSS and Trackback"Learning objects repositories are growing in number with no end to arguments about definitions, meta-data, granularity, etc. The discovery process is ultimately limited to what one can search within a single collection. We propose that, with very little technical effort, the content of these repositories could be easily "syndicated" in numerous formats with existing RSS standard formats."
Add tag Permalink | Monday, August 11, 2003
Gestalt & Typography
Gestalt & Typography: Principles of Proximity and SimilarityNice Shockwave presentation showing how proximity and similarity affects readability.
Add tag Permalink | Monday, August 11, 2003
BBC: The Life of Mammals
BBC: The Life of MammalsHere's another excellent project from the BBC. I liked the way they've designed the quizzes.
Add tag Permalink | Monday, August 11, 2003
Donald Norman: Emotional Design: People and Things
Donald Norman: Emotional Design: People and Things"Our studies lead us to suspect that just as we might be able to classify products along three dimensions of attractiveness (visceral), functional and usable (behavioral) and high in prestige (reflective), we can also classify people along these dimensions. Visceral level people will be strongly biased toward appearance, behavioral people towards function, usability, and how much the feel in control during use. And Reflective level people (who would seldom admit to be one), are heavily biased by brand name, by prestige, and by the value a product brings to their self-image
Add tag Permalink | Friday, August 08, 2003
Poynter: Why Designers Matter
Poynter: Why Designers Matter"The central act of journalism is reporting, the gathering and rendering of important information. But don't stifle your journalistic imagination. If you think of reporting as only a writer's act, you're missing the big play. A graphic artist who researches a diagram of how a new vaccine works is a reporter. A photographer who captures images from a war zone is a reporter. The designer is a reporter."
Comment: Mix learning design skills with online journalistic skills and you have a balanced repertoire for creating effective and engaging e-learning content.
Add tag Permalink | Friday, August 08, 2003
Computer World: Smart Rooms
Computer World: Smart Rooms"The Barn and its Thinking Surface have been constructed to facilitate meetings whose goal is to produce some kind of design, whether software, hardware or a consumer product. It's for brainstorming, idea generation, knowledge generation and knowledge transfer."
Add tag Permalink | Friday, August 08, 2003
Learning Circuits: Strategies for Building Blended Learning
Learning Circuits: Strategies for Building Blended Learning"There
instructional design Add tag Permalink | Thursday, August 07, 2003
Darwin: Science Sites Worth A Look
Darwin: Science Sites Worth A LookThe list of sites mentioned here are quite interesting. Some innovative learning strategies are used. For example, I found the use of basic and advanced to explain black holes very thoughtful.
Add tag Permalink | Thursday, August 07, 2003
Darwin: E-Learning Needs Analysis
Darwin: E-Learning Needs Analysis"Creating e-learning content should not simply be about throwing your course books onto a website. Instead look at how the Web can enhance and improve the content of a course book.
Add tag Permalink | Thursday, August 07, 2003
First Monday: The Augmented Social Network: Building identity and trust into the next-generation Int
First Monday: The Augmented Social Network: Building identity and trust into the next-generation Internet"The ASN is not a piece of software or a Web site. Rather, it is a model for a next-generation online community that could be implemented in a number of ways, using technology that largely exists today. It is a system that would enhance the power of social networks by using interactive digital media to exploit the transitive nature of trust through the principle of six degrees of connection. As a result, people will be able to inform themselves and self-organize more effectively -- in non-hierarchical, rhizomatic social formations -- leading to more opportunities for engaged citizenship."