Michael Hotrum :: Blog

http://choicelearning.blogspot.com/2008/08/training-materials-developmentd

Bryan Chapman culled these from Brandon Hall surveys of real life experiences - in answer to how long does it take to develop training materials? development time: delivery "seat" time -

Ratio for each Type of learning

34:1 Instructor-Led Training (ILT), including design, lesson plans, handouts, PowerPoint slides, etc.

33:1 PowerPoint to E-Learning Conversion. Not sure why it takes less time then creating ILT, but that’s what we discovered when surveying 200 companies about this practice

220:1 Standard e-learning which includes presentation, audio, some video, test questions, and 20% interactivity

345:1 Time it takes for online learning publishers to design, create, test and package 3rd party courseware

750:1 Simulations from scratch. Creating highly interactive content

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Here are the bibliographies for each, in case you want to cite these in research:

34:1 Chapman, B. and the staff of Brandon Hall Research (2007). LCMS Knowledgebase 2007: A Comparison of 30+ Enterprise Learning Content Mangement Systems [online database, no page numbers]. Published by Brandon Hall Research, Sunnyvale, CA

33:1 Chapman, B. and the staff of Brandon Hall Research (2006). PowerPoint to E-Learning Development Tools: Comparative Analysis of 20 Leading Systems. Published by Brandon Hall Research, Sunnyvale, CA, p. 20.

220:1 Chapman, B. and the staff of Brandon Hall Research (2006). PowerPoint to E-Learning Development Tools: Comparative Analysis of 20 Leading Systems. Published by Brandon Hall Research, Sunnyvale, CA, p. 20.

345:1 Private study, done for a consulting client, information was not published. No bibliographical reference.

 750:1 Chapman, B. and the staff of Brandon Hall Research (2006). Online Simulations 2006: A Knowledgebase of 100+ Simulation Development Tools and Services [online database, no page numbers]. Published by Brandon Hall Research, Sunnyvale, CA

Of course I would add two more ratios with innumerable citations:

It Depends: 1
get it Done or Else: 1

http://choicelearning.blogspot.com/2007/12/teens-top-online-creators.html

Just another set of facts to indicate higher education better get it's shared space, social networking act together -

A new study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that the next generation is switched on and producing content.
59% of all (U.S.) teenagers engage in at least one form of online content creation. Of those 35% of all teen girls blog, compared with 20% of online boys, and 54% of girls post photos online compared with 40% of online boys. Boys however like their video, with 19% of boys posting video online vs. 10% of girls.
39% of online teens share their own artistic creations online, such as artwork, photos, stories, or videos
33% create or work on webpages or blogs for others, including those for groups they belong to, friends, or school assignments
28% have created their own online journal or blog, up from 19% in 2004.
27% maintain their own personal webpage
26% remix content they find online into their own creations

Students will want to be active learners, dealing with authentic, relevant content, and dynamically collaborating in the development of new content. And they will want personalizable learning spaces where they have access control.

http://choicelearning.blogspot.com/2007/12/old-world-copyright-does-not-co

Fair Use Vs. Free Speech in the Internet Age: The Lane Hartwell Problem

Item: non-profit music group Richter Scales create mash up video to present with their new song "The Bubble" - a parody on making it in the next big net bubble

Problem: after a million views on YouTube, video taken down because photographer Lane Hartwell objected to the unauthorized use of one of her photos in the video, then put up again with the offending photo replaced and a list of credits at the end for all the images used.

Real problem: the norms of the offline world and the emerging norms of the Internet are in conflict. People communicate on the web by sharing - reshaping images, audio - if you make it available expect it to be used. If you want to be part of a community - expect to share.

Solution - Payback: think of other forms than buying rights - maybe licensing - maybe trackbacks, leading to paid work

P.S. I just mashed techcrunch text - even stole straight lines. Copyright issue?

http://choicelearning.blogspot.com/2007/12/hosting-communities-and-trust.h

Further to Stephen Downe's discussion on trust and communities. Eduspaces, a free elgg powered community space managed and hosted by two entrepreneurs (Ben and Dave), fostered an active environment of educators discussing the use of and demonstrating the use of educational technologies. Eduspaces is being used by faculty, individuals and institutions for a variety of purposes - learning delivery, research space and respository, personal blogging, community creation, resource sharing, touchstone for learning, community of practice.

Now, seemingly out of the blue, the site is going down in mid January and folks are being advised to port their data elsewhere. Understandably, criticism has followed the surprise of this announcemnt. It is untimely. It is abrupt. It is unexpected. But is it a callous disregard for those who have invested data and time into developing their own spaces in Eduspaces? Have Ben and Dave, as Graham Attwell suggests, broken a bond of trust - a necessary component for community building - and impacted on the future acceptance and adoption of social software environments?

But it is always risky to have your activities housed on an external host. Eduspaces was a free service, hosted and moderated (without compensation) by two individuals interested in the advancement of free, open source software for use by the educational community, we should be a little thankful.

Many schools and faculty are making use of proprietary web services - like Facebook. If it should shut down I doubt there would be much chance of retrieving data. Were Dave and Ben great communicators? That's debatable. Were they funded and supported by those who benefitied from the use of Elgg and eduspaces? Hmm? No. And Elgg isn't suffering as an environment simply because Eduspaces is shutting down. Heck, even if Elgg shuts down we will continue to use the elgg installations we have on our server, and we will continue to add functions as required. Dave and Ben have established a platform, and made it available for personal customization. They have also left a legacy by contributing to the demise of proprietary learning and content mgmt systems and adding social components to authentic, reflective learning, and the creation and development of learning communities that thrive within and without and beyond the confines of program length and institutional membership. Lifelong, lifewide learning and the integration of formal and informal learning is now a true possibility thanks to advances like Elgg.

I agree that their actions are rushed, and they didn't 'discuss" with the community. And the optics aren't good - especially since eduspaces was a demonstration site of Elgg - Elgg may suffer as a result.

But the real question, as Graham rightly points out is that there was no organization to the comunity. We talk about organic development of free and open learning space like elgg, (eg. eduspaces) yet we often don't put an organizational framework around it (not management framework). What are the roles and responsibilities of site managment, moderation and of community members?

What the actions of Dave and Ben have demonstrated is that organic growth should not mean a hands off laissez-faire approach to community development. Organic Communities need cultivation. Trust must be earned , but it cannot be assumed. We trusted that Eduspaces would always be there for us, even if we as part of that community never contributed to its management. perhaps dave and Ben never saw eduspaces as their community - it was ours. maybe we are the ones who never established trust. Inevitably, all things come to an end. Even free, open, organic spaces.

http://choicelearning.blogspot.com/2007/12/when-i-die-who-mourns-my-cyberl

NITROREV: Virtual Wake As I see Eduspaces - a social network I am part of - about to die and untimely death - I was wondering how to mourn the loss of those connections I made through this network. Then I encountered Stephen Taylor's blog entry where he muses about an actual incident of cyber friendship loss. It caused me a moment of thought. When I physically die, my cyber identityt continues on. The data remnants of my cyber activity exists - how will those I never met physically, yet socialized with electronically express condolences and grief? What happens to me cyber properties - do they revert to my heirs who have no interest in maintaining my blog entries and other data? Are they parsed out to my cyber friends? Further to this discussion I have a number of social software sites I maintain for educational institutions. Students post comments, reflections, artefacts and compile eportfolios. If a student does die, what is to be done with their entries? Do we just arbitrarily delete their account or maintain it in a condolences area? The expressions of grief, condolences and maintenance of cyber properties upon one's earthly death - these are issues we are yet to grapple with.

http://choicelearning.blogspot.com/2007/12/cormiers-top-ten-ed-stories-200

Dave’s Educational Blog Dave Cormier lists his top ten tech ed stories of 2007 - number 10 is connectivism, number 1 is the action of one hacker to remove filtering software - what permeates all selections is openness and freedom and the need for effective education on the safe and efficient use of that openneness and freedom - kudos to Dave - always insightful

http://choicelearning.blogspot.com/2007/11/new-ma-program-in-online-commun

New MA program in Online Communities at USCUSC's pioneering Charles Annenberg Weingarten Program on Online Communities (APOC) is the first master’s program in the world to recognize that online communities are the future of our economic, political, and social lives. They are the most successful application of “Web 2.0” concepts, and are increasingly popular as well as critical to the success of a wide array of industries. APOC students learn, gain firsthand experience, and then create an online community, attaining a master’s degree in just a single year.

http://choicelearning.blogspot.com/2008/05/bb-and-facebook-control-of-lear

Oh, no - this is all wrong... Blackboard believes our students want to add social networking to their learning experience. Well yes, I agree. Bb thinks that this can be acvhieved by integrating our Blackboard experience with Facebook. What!!!?

“Let’s face it,” the app’s introduction page says. “You would live on Facebook if you could. Imagine a world where you could manage your entire life from Facebook — it’s not that far off!”
But there’s one exception: “You have to access a different system to get your course information and you don’t always know when something new has been posted or assigned, so it’s difficult for you to stay on top of your studies. We get it. That’s why Blackboard is offering Blackboard Sync™, an application that delivers course information and updates from Blackboard to you inside Facebook.”

What are we after in any educational environment we develop? Security, privacy, permanence - these should not be sacrificed in search of convenience, data and profile portability. We can have it all - we just have to look beyond the proprietary systems - elgg integrates w Blackboard and Moodle - open ID can give us the profile portability - why go to bed with proprietary systems?

Facebook owns your data, covets your connections, mines your profile and postings, and Blackboard confines your learning and harbours your artefacts. Educational institutions need to start taking responsibility for student lifelong learning - create and host personal learning environments that include social networking, collaborative tools and link to any learning mgmt system - then a student has a life wide space to post, share, socialize and throughout their life they can access their artefacts and connections.

http://choicelearning.blogspot.com/2008/05/everyone-wants-to-own-me.html

Item 1:
The Alumni Association at a Canadian University is offering a life time email account in cooperation with Google mail. maybe a note of caution is usefule here - Note that Google mail's terms of agreement include a statement of ownership:

11. Content licence from you
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.
11.2 You agree that this licence includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.
11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this licence shall permit Google to take these actions.
11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above licence.

So, Google wants to own me, my data and what about my security...

Item 2:

My Space, Facebook and now Google have announced a desire to be the central node for your personal profile and friends list, and allow you to move from social network to social network...

" Social networking site Facebook is following rival MySpace's lead by letting users transfer their personal profiles to other websites. Facebook will implement a system that allows its 70 million users to copy pictures, personal information and other customized applications established on its site to other websites without additional effort.
Users' privacy settings on Facebook will also remain in effect on external websites.
"We believe the next evolution of data portability is about much more than data," wrote Dave Morin on the social networking site's developer blog. "It's about giving users the ability to take their identity and friends with them around the Web, while being able to trust that their information is always up to date and always protected by their privacy settings."
Facebook's larger rival, MySpace, made a similar announcement on Tuesday. The social networking site, which has 120 million users, said it will allow users to move their profiles and media to partner websites, which so far include Yahoo Inc., eBay Inc., Photobucket and Twitter.
One of Facebook's initial partners will be news-ranking site Digg.com. Morin said Facebook will add more partners.

Ok here's my two cents:
I want data portability. I want to have an openID. I want to move in and out of various social networks - freely. I want a central homebase where my web identity lives. What I don't want is someone owning my data, my connections and my networking activity. Will any proprietary service alow me this freedom? No. is there another service available? No - not yet. We need a non-profit foundation to step in and act as the central hub for social network users - this is especially necessary in the educational arena as we move to lifelong learning and the development and maintenance of electronic portfolios - where will these perosnal learning maps reside? They certainly can't reside alongside the Google life long e-mail, nor should they reside on any proprietary learning management system.

We have a battle on our hands to ensure our web life remains (becomes) within our control.

http://choicelearning.blogspot.com/2008/02/blackboard-and-facebook-integra

"CourseFeed phishes for information - CourseFeed is a security breach." Do students want to connect academic and personal social networks? Do Institutions want to connect with a proprietary system that "owns" the data and mines the data? Security breaches, confidentiality ocncerns, data ownership, access to licensed resource material - headaches galore.

Why not create your own centrally maintained social network using a tool like Elgg?

Still, here is what CourseFeed sells...

I'm a little late to the game here - and missed this one. Coursefeed (facebook app site) connects "you with your classmates and connects you to your school's online course content system. Browse your courses, post messages to the class, share notes – all without ever leaving Facebook. CourseFeed (product site) also alerts you when your professor posts announcements, tests, or content to your course. And you’ll get alerts when classmates post to the course wall and share notes."

Features:
Without an online content system:
* Course Wall
* File storage for Course Notes, etc.
* Course feed display of what's new posted by others.
* Connect with others in the course.
* Profile display to let friends know when you're in class.

With an online content system:
* See everyone in your course – guaranteed accurate course roster.
* View all online course materials without leaving Facebook
* Course feed shows when professor posts announcements, files, etc. to your course.
* View all announcements, new or old, in the announcements area.
* One-click access into your school's online content system and auto-navigation that takes you right to the item.

Here's who owns CourseFeed...

Coursefeed is a free product from ClassTop, a proprietary content management and communication tool that synchronizes with major learning management systems. ClassTop is “a quick and easy way for instructors who are teaching multiple sections of one course to upload data into those courses all at one time.” With Blackboard, adding items to multiple courses involves logging on repeatedly to add items to each course. With ClassTop, only one login is required; instructors drag and drop files to place them. The files are synchronized with the LMS all at once at the end of the session. teachers can also make changes offline and have them uploaded when they connect online.


Here's one sad story...

"In order for CourseFeed to work with Wesleyan's network to access Blackboard and send notifications over Facebook, it needed user's usernames and passwords. When students added the application to their Facebook profiles, they had to give out this information, which put them in direct violation with Nebraska Wesleyan University policy and compromised their NWU accounts.Not only did CourseFeed use account information to send out Blackboard notifications, but it also accessed Blackboard accounts to send messages in students' names to their classmates, inviting them to add the application as well. It was these email messages and submitted complaints about them that first alerted Computer Services to the dilemma.Students also sent CourseFeed complaints to Facebook who then contacted ClassTop who, in turn, dutifully contacted Computer Services to work with them in finding a solution to the infringement of student accounts. Computer Services first blocked ClassTop's access to Blackboard and ClassTop also blocked students from accessing the CourseFeed application via Facebook. Next, Computer Services collected information on which accounts had been compromised and proceeded to change their passwords. Students were notified of this change through duplicate hard-copy letters sent to their mailboxes and home addresses; they were also informed through a notice that was posted on the NWU website. It is important to note that ClassTop's intent was not to create a malicious program that would infiltrate NWU's network. " But, it did.