The Future of Learning

LearningCamp London 2010

Learning Camp London 2010 will take place on Saturday 10 July, and will be hosted by the University of East London at their presitgious Docklands Campus.

Registration for this event is now open.  Note, this is not a conference in the traditional format, as is explained on the website:

We recognise that the approach is a little different to typical elearning conferences, in that we’re asking you to book your place before we have an agenda, but this approach has been used really successfully for ‘unconference’ events. As we see it there are several advantages:

• It reduces the barriers to becoming a speaker – if you have something to share, submit a session
• The content is relevant because as attendees, you pick the sessions
• If you know someone that has a great story to tell, you can invite them to submit a session
• As organisers we’re not driven to cover any topics, other than what you want

Come and join us- and let us hear your story!

LearningCamp London 2010

Idea Paint - Paint yourself a collaborative space

Yesterday, I wrote a posting on how Stanford d.school was creating a physical collaboration and creativity space.  I saw one tweet that suggested that being surrounded by whiteboards or chalkboards was not ideal.  So what is the solution?  Write on the wall!

Of course, you'll need special paint, and that's exactly what Idea Paint provides

"Idea Paint turns virtually anything you can paint into a dry-erase surface and any room into a hub of creativity and collaboration."

I'd love to do this in my office. Unfortunately the paint is not yet available in Europe.  But even if you can't get it in your area, take a look at the website, just to see its potential.

Idea Paint

UPDATE

IdeaPaint is now available around the world.  Here's a list of international distributors

How to create a collaborative physical space

Dr Joy Salmon wrote to tell me about an article in Fast Company that describes how Stanford’s d.school is creating a collaborative physical space to enhance creativity/learning. 

Joy thought "the ideas for creating these physical spaces could apply to those moving toward creating collaborative e-spaces/culture".  I think she's right too. The ideas in the article are worth following up.

Here's the link to the article: 11 ways you can make your space as collaborative as the Stanford d.school.

Thanks Joy, for telling me about it

Flowr - Real-time collaboration and knowledge exchange

What is Flowr?

"Flowr enables real-time Collaboration for your Enterprise. Enterprise Collaboration is often associated with use of emails, intranet file shares and wikis. Experiences have taught us that more is required to encourage extensive collaboration."

Here's a 2 minute screencast

How much does it cost?

Free for up to 10 users and 2 groups; Premium price plan coming soon; Appliance pricing also available

Where's the link?

Flowr

What other similar tools are there?

See Microblogging services

EmbedArticle

Recently I and some of my colleagues have found that our postings are being copied wholesale by other bloggers and re-posted without any attribution to the original author. Jay Cross blogged his thoughts about this practice in his posting Do the right thing, don't steal. Unfortunately modern-day blogging platforms make it all too easy to re-post articles.  However, this tool, which I came across on a MakeUseOf posting, may be a way forward.   It states:

"See big benefits by allowing people to embed your articles

• Every embedded article contains a link back to the article source
• Earn revenue displaying your ads within article embeds
• All embedded articles are invisible to search engines
• Reporting and control over which sites are embedding your articles"

How does it work?  This is what they say ..

"After registering you’ll be given a couple different integration options

Simple:

This is done by dropping a small piece of code inside your website’s template and you’re good to go. Our simple integration is invisible to your readers until they try to copy your content. The Embed Article widget window will activate whenever more than 10 words are highlighted and there is a copy command.

Advanced:

Our Advanced Integration requires a basic knowledge of HTML. It allows you the option to place one of our Embed Article buttons (basic or counter) on your website to encourage use."

There's also a Wordpress plug-in.  Find out more here:

EmbedArticle.com

Workplace Learning: The 5 Stages

Take a look at the posting on my Social Media and Learning blog for my view of the 5 stages of Workplace Learning and what it takes to move to Stage 5.

Elgg as an important social and collaboration platform

Following my postings on the future of the LMS, take a look at a prime contender for a social and collaborative platform in this posting.

What is the future for the LMS?

Take a look at my thoughts on the future of the LMS on this posting on my Social Media in Learning blog

UTweet

It's a May Day Bank Holiday in the UK today - so here's some fun!

Turn your latest tweets into a video using Utweet.  Here's mine.

You can make your own at Utweet - just enter your Twitter ID or some keywords.

[More Twitter tools here]

Twitter and face-to-face Workshops

Read my experiences of using Twitter in  face-to-face Workshop in this posting on my Social Media in Learning blog