eLearning Development Conference 2008

Lucky me! At sort of the last minute, I was offered a chance to attend this conference in Salt Lake City over a few days this week. I am currently sitting in a session where we're talking about "Why Wikis Wrule," which is about the widespread use of wikis, as well as some practical tips about different wiki options out there, as well as ideas on how and why to use wikis.

I wanted to share a few tips that I've picked up; partly for the sake of my own memory and partly for the good of sharing with those who are interested.

I've used PBWiki a little bit for school projects; it has worked well in several situations - writing a paper, keeping track of team assignments, and "just playing" around. Debra and Betsy in my cohort at CUDenver have both had success in their wikis, from what I can tell (I will add a link to their wikis later when I have time to look them up).

Our presenter just talked about Tiddlywiki, which looks very interesting and exciting. He uses PMWiki, but acknowledges that it takes a bit more programming knowledge if something needs to be customized.

I'll also post a link to our presenter's wiki once he makes it public - it hasn't made it public yet because he has a few sessions left to present and doesn't want it changed before he has a chance to present the things he needs to address. :-)

e-Learning pioneer

I received this email from one of my classmates, Michelle. Check out the blog entry, but more importantly, check out the presentation. Later, when you have time!

http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/5-secret-tips-from-e-learning-pioneer/

Trap Neuter Return Podcast

I just finished a unit for my Learning Process in ILT class on podcasting. This is the final assignment I turned in. Because most of my classmates live elsewhere, I included links to help them find more information on organizations in their state; Colorado, Washington, and Tennessee (I hope I didn't leave anybody out!).

My podcast lives on a site called archive.org and you can click this link to have it open in a new window. I'm not sure how to embed it in my blog, but I'll put it on my portfolio site when I get that all worked out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have spent a lot of time, energy, and money dealing with a colony of about 15 feral cats in our neighborhood. I have taken 12 cats through this TNR process and the cats are totally fine. They continue to hang out and have even earned names from my husband and me.

For more information on TNR, in Colorado, click here.

In Washington, click here.

In Tennessee, click here.

The Book of Learning and Forgetting

Note, I started this blog back on January 31 and somehow, just never published it. Oops.


It's a brand new semester and one of the classes I'm taking is Learning Policies in Information and Learning Technologies (ILT). One of the required books for the class is The Book of Learning and Forgetting by Frank Smith.

The author discusses two educational trains of thought - the classic view and the official view.

In a nutshell, the classic view says that learning is easy. We do it all the time without even trying. Kids learn to roll over, crawl, walk, talk, cry, get Mom or Dad's attention, etc ... without trying. We join "clubs" and that's how we learn. You learn about music from other people who are interested in/good at music. You learn about history from others who are interested in/good at history. We learn from those we most identify ourselves with. Think of the person who knows every piece of trivia there is to know about his/her favorite sports team. That's classic learning.

The official view of learning is that it's hard work. We have to fight to learn anything, it's all about memorization, we have to take tests to measure our learning, and we forget almost everything as soon as the test is done.

By the way, according to this book, the official view of learning was modeled after the Prussian Army in the early 1900s. This book says official learning isn't effective, but no one wants to admit it.

One story he tells is that a student gets a poor grade on a test. The teacher says "you didn't learn very much did you?" But on the contrary, the student learned a lot. S/he learned to recognize that look of disappointment or distaste on the teacher's face. S/he learned the feeling one gets in the pit of their stomach when they're told they've done something wrong. And the student learns - again - that learning is hard.

Smith doesn't believe these are the lessons we want to teach our children, or ourselves. It's only a 100 pg book; those of you in education might especially find it interesting and useful. I did!