Social Learning Systems

The Learning Experience as a Mobile Endeavor

I often ask my parents what college — and, therefore, learning — was like before the Internet came to be.

Because when I enrolled at Indiana University in 2005, the Internet ran the show. My classes were organized, registered and configured online, and assignments were often distributed in virtual environments. Moreover, tests, quizzes and assessments were also often administered via the Web — most of the time as I sat in my underwear with a big bowl of cereal, a side of beef jerky and a healthy helping of Steely Dan. Those were the days.

Point being, my entire adult learning experience has revolved around learning through technology. Much of what I know about learning today (I am 24 years old) is filtered through the use of e-learning, or learning technologies.

So when I sat down to chat with my younger sister, who started her freshman year of college a few weeks ago, I was astonished to find the progress that’s been made — particularly in the mobile learning space.

Read the full article here.

via blog.clomedia.com

Mobile Learning Handbook

This ADL Mobile Learning Handbook is compilation of mobile learning resources. This is a living document and will be regularly updated. Please send any suggestions for additions or changes to [email protected]. There is a condensed version (called the ADL mLearning Guide for demo use on a mobile device) also available through a browser at http://mlearn.adlnet.gov or in various platform stores.

This Handbook is separated into ten sections:

1. Basics - What mobile learning (or mLearning) means, its capabilities and use opportunities, potential benefits and common concerns.
2. Planning - List of choices to consider for appropriate use of mobile devices in learning, including questions to assist in planning.
3. Examples - Examples of mobile learning projects and initiatives of interest.
4. Best Practices - Lists of tips for instructional designers and developers.
5. Learning Content - Tips and best practices for mobile learning.
6. Development Options - Tools, native applications and mobile web apps; pros and cons of both types.
7. Design Considerations - Information on hardware models, features, operating systems, displays, accessibility, connectivity and other advanced mobile capabilities.
8. Mobile Learning Tools - Products available for the creation, deployment and management of mobile content.
9. Resources - Recommended links for additional information on mobile learning.
10. Glossary definitions.

Note: ADL does not endorse any products mentioned in this handbook. Specific devices and applications are provided for informational purposes only to help introduce the concepts related to mobile development for learning or human performance support.

ADL LINK

via sites.google.com

From The Ashes Of Oracle's Hostile Takeover Of PeopleSoft, Workday Rose To Fight Back

Aneel Bhusri was a top executive and board member at PeopleSoft in 2004 when Larry Ellison's Oracle made its hostile takeover bid.

After they lost a bruising 18-month battle, he and cofounder Dave Duffield quietly left the company and nursed their wounds.

A few months later, they teamed up to start a competitor: Workday.

Like PeopleSoft, the company started by focusing on human resources, although it's also moving into financial management.

But unlike Oracle, which has been slow to get into cloud-based services, Workday has been based entirely in the cloud from day one.

Read the full article here.

 

via www.businessinsider.com

Focus on Observed Errors to Make Training Efficient | trainingmag.com

I took tennis lessons for years when I was a kid, and they were boring and mostly ineffectual, as evidenced by my weak tennis game. So when I signed up for my first lesson in 25 years while on vacation in Mexico, it was due more to boredom than to any thought that it would seriously improve my skills. I told my instructor, Rick, a crusty former touring professional from South Africa with a right forearm like Popeye and a complexion like tanned wildebeest hide, that based on past experience I didn’t expect a lot either from him or from myself. Rick asked me what my previous lessons were like, and I told him they had involved lots of verbal instruction and artificial drills. He laughed and said, “Don’t worry, doc, I don’t think you’ll have that problem today.”

Read the entire article here.

via trainingmag.com

Customer Engagement is Key for SaaS

Cultivating Customer Engagement

Cultivating customer engagement requires an organizational culture that focuses on customers and their needs.

1. Know your customers 

It’s easy to fall into the trap of treating your customers as unknown, faceless people. After all, chances are no-one in your organization ever met them. They probably live far away and may even speak a different language. But you can’t afford to do that.

A company must develop or achieve tools that will help them measure customer behaviour on their service. These tools must be capable of presenting the users behaviour once in your application and answer relevant questions such as:

• Have the users tried the service more than once?
• How much time are users investing in your service?
• Which features have they used?
• Have they been exposed to your core features and do they fully understand the value-propositon of  your offerings?
• Is momentum growing or declining within the organization?
• Are they potential buyers?
• Etc.
  
  Read the entire article here.

via blog.totango.com

Apps: Learning at the Point of Need - Chief Learning Officer, Solutions for Enterprise Productivity

Organizations are harnessing the smartest smartphones, handheld PCs, tablets, the iPad, netbooks, as well as devices such as the iPod touch to deliver mobile learning applications.

“This is a resurgence and change in something that’s been proven for many years to work — electronic performance support,” said David Metcalf, director of the Mixed Emerging Technology Integration Lab at the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Simulation and Training. “Apps are enabling that in new and creative ways to have just-in-time learning right at an employee’s fingertips.”

Read the entire article here.

via clomedia.com