Learning2.0 : Journey to about2findout.com

There is a list of the top 100 blogs on education and you can find it here:
http://oedb.org/library/features/top-100-education-blogs

It has categories such as e-learning. Personally I just added these blogs to my reader:

http://clive-shepherd.blogspot.com/
http://www.connectivism.ca/blog/
http://www.digitalchalkie.com/
http://elearnqueen.blogspot.com/
http://informl.com/

Another place you will find blogs on education is http://edublogs.org . But that seems more a teacher-to-teacher kind of thing.

BTW, like this quote taken from the 'e-learning queen blog':
For the average MySpace Generation individual, Blackboard is a virtual detention hall.

I finished reading Lies about learning. Every chapter in the book covers a specific topic of the learning industry and the associated 'lies'. The editor is Larry Israelite who took the initiative because he was fed up with hearing these self-fulfilling lies over and over again.

The best thing about the book is its title. I didn't say the book sucks but the title is very very good :-). For someone in the learning business who has been keeping up the book will not bring a lot of new knowledge or insights, but it is nice to see it all brought togeter in a short and understandable way. I think it will make a great addition to my book shelve and I can take the book back anytime I want some pro/cons kind of story on a learning topic. Of course, don't expect any of the 'lies' to be in favor of the learning industry. There is for example a chapter on instructional design ("is it dead?"), written by someone with a hearthwarming passion for his field. You have to remember the source.

Some examples:
- Lies about learners: learners already know what they need to know
- Lies about the design of learning: is instructional design irrelevant or more needed than ever?
- Lies about careers in learning: training professionals don't get any respect
- Lies about Chief Learning Officers: CLOs have a seat at the management table
- Lies about consultants and vendors: the client never tells lies
- Lies about managing the learning function: outsourcing is good/bad by definition
- Lies about e-learning: E-learning is new
- Lies about learning technology tools: the merger will benefit customers
- Lies about learning to lead: leadership can't be learned, it's born
- Lies about learning organisations: we want to become one
- Lies about research: who paid for the research?

Labels: book review, Lies about learning

IBM since yesterday helps you out coding on the Second Life platform. For IBM 3D virtual environments are a main focus this year, so it makes sense they help out developing them. There is a new island called IBM Codebase, where you can get help how to program Second Life platforms and objects. The island has a script centre, and a maze (looks like a chip from above) where you can build a robot. I'm not a developer myself, so I just took some touristic screenshots :-)
The island is branded with IBM, the Rational software brand and Eclipse, the open Java development platform.

More on:
http://www.informationweek.com/software/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=198100512

And as I was on SL again, I just visited the Forbidden City. When I visited the real thing in Beijing last summer it was packed with people. In the virtual version I was all alone. Gosh, Second Life is a lonely place...

Labels: IBM, Second Life

One drawback of the Windows Mobile platform I have on my brand new toy 'E-ten Glofiish M700' smartphone is that out of the box it only synchronises with Microsoft Outlook. I do have contacts in Outlook, but for my private mail I use Firefox, and for my calendar I'm using Google Calendar. In fact, I'm using 3 different calendars in Google: one private, one project based and one for our 'household' shared with my friend.

I looked at two free solutions to let my Windows 5 Mobile calendar synchronise with Google. The first one I tried was the free and open source GMobileSync. As a prerequisite you need the .NET Compact Framework 2.0 installed on your device otherwise the program won't run. The tool works OK, but only synchronises with your default calendar, and you can't configure which one. So I uninstalled it and I'm now using OggSync. This tool also requires the .NET Compact Framework 2.0, and also synchronises over the internet without needing ActiveSync. However it comes in a free and paying version. The paying version allows you to synchronise multiple calendars. The free version just one, but at least they let you select which one.

If you try either one of these tools out: don't forget to set your timezone offset to the same value as the one on your PDA and your Google calendar.

Labels: E-ten, GMobileSync, OggSync

One of the things you get when you install Google Desktop, is the Google Sidebar. (Being Google, it is for free of course.) It sits at the side of your screen and you can populate it with all kinds of free plugins or 'gadgets'. For a list of available gadgets, click here. If you would like to have sport results or your stocks displayed on your desktop sidebar, I'm sure you'll find gadgets for that. I'm not really interested in either, so my gadgets include :
- Google calendar : shows the appointments in my 3 Google Calendars
- Clock (it ticks too)
- Weather in Leuven
- Desktop search
- E-mail messages (FireFox)
- Virtual flowers : this is cool because I always either overwater or underwater my plants. These virtual flowers don't die on me!

The concept isn't new. In fact Microsoft tried to have us add little applets to our desktop with something called Active Desktop (remember?). It were ActiveX components at that time, but the concept was the same. It failed miserably. But maybe it was too early. At that time there were no web services and web2.0 things around. So maybe now 'gadgets' will really take off.
In the new Windows Vista platform, there is also a Sidebar with Windows Gadgets available. Same concept but I'm sure uncompatible technologies :-) .

These gadgets are easy to program, and offer hugh potential for learning. I'm dreaming of gadgets that will recommend new learning activities for you based on your interests, development targets and your friend's recommendations. Who will make a learning gadget and let me know?

For reasons that don't concern you I was a bit depressed in February. So I spent some money to make me feel better :-). It worked. I bought myself a new mobile phone. Actually, I bought myself the brand new E-Ten Glofiish M700. This baby is a Windows Mobile phone and has everything: PDA, Camera (2 megapixel), cell phone, GPRS, wireless (802.11), sliding keyboard, built-in GPS,... It replaces my old PDA and mobile phone. I bought it via the internet on GSMTrack.nl and their service is correct and fast.

I'm quite happy with it, everything I tried out works. The only annoying thing is when I go abroad I keep receiving weird messages from the network. Like last tuesday I was in Germany and every 15min or so I kept getting some number code from the network. Weird.

The number of mobile applications and services are ever growing and also mobile learning is no exception to the hype. So I had to try out my first mobile application. As always, it is a quick and simple experiment with my 6C Quotes site. It turns out it is quite easy to add mobile support to your web application via ASP.NET and Visual Studio 2005.


1. Open Visual Studio and open an existing or new project.
2. Add a new item 'Mobile Web Form' to your project.
3. Put controls from the 'Mobile Controls Toolkit' on the page (These are visible on the toolbar in design mode.)
4. Do your page layout, logic and event handling as you would with any other ASP.NET page.
5. Debug and compile your page as normal
6. Deploy to a web server and test out.

There are also smartphone and pocket pc emulators available for free on the Microsoft site, but I haven't figured out how to use them yet. I used my real device to test and you can see the results on the screen shots.

The screenshots are taken with CapturePro from TekSoft. In the trial mode it displays a black cross but you can use it in trial mode as long as you like. Just install it on your PC, connect your device via ActiveSync, start up CapturePro and follow the instructions.

Try my first mobile page out for yourself : http://www.about2findout.com/6CQuotes/DefaultMobile.aspx .

Of course this is a basic test. I would for example like to find out how to automatically redirect to the mobile page and some other more advanced things, but you have to start somewhere!

Labels: 6C Quotes, CapturePro, E-ten

Ebay is without doubt one of the most succesful internet companies. It survived the '1.0' area and associated bubble, and is together with Amazon.com referenced by every speaker on every topic even remotely related to the internet.

I'm not a frequent Ebay visitor. That's because I'm not a frequent shopper, in real life or on the net alike. Today I had my first 'seller' experience on Ebay. I'm selling my old IBM All-In-One PC. It is one of the most beautiful PC designs ever made (not counting Apple computers), but too slow and too limited in terms of CPU, RAM or disk space for my needs. Basically I hope I'll get enough for it to pay for the extra memory I installed in my current computer (Medion from Aldi if you must know).

What I like about the Ebay concept is how they invented the notion of virtual trustworthiness via the 'reputation'. On the seller pages they have a yellow guidance on the right side of the screen and the whole experience is very user friendly. It even includes the typical web 2.0 dialog box to adjust the form template. Other strong points include PayPal, the leading payment tool on the web and their follow-up. They regularly send you mails but just below the point where it would become spam. I especially liked their campaign right after Christmas to sell the stuff you got and didn't like. :-)

On about2findout.com I'm not going to have auctions but I will remember the guidance they give users and the concept of reputation.

Just added quote number 200 on the 6C Quote site. If you have another quote related to learning, please submit it via http://www.about2findout.com/6CQuotes/ .

The most famous example of a wiki is wikipedia. The online encyclopedia allows for everybody to update or submit any article. It is available in a bunch of languages at this time and figures among the top 5 most popular sites. The software that is used for wikipedia is also available as open source in case you want to have one of your own. (www.mediawiki.org) Of course, there are many other open source or commercial wiki softwares available.

When I first learned how to work with a wiki I found it a quite frustrating experience. Somehow the navigation within a wiki is not something I find natural. I love a wiki page when I'm linked to it directly from another site or just to look up a particular definition or term. But I'm having trouble to find my way in a wiki documentation site.

One example of a wiki I wanted to mention here is TikiWiki, a wiki for eduction. It is mainly an initiative from Spain, but it shows ways that academics and school teachers are experimenting with wiki's.

The good about a wiki is also the bad: anyone can update it. Do you believe anyone saying anything? One of the founders of wikipedia is starting his own version now (can't even remember the name) where only authenticated users can edit articles, and where editors are paid for their contributions/reviews. He hopes the articles will be more reliable and people will be able to pay for that. I remember that when the movie 'Borat' was shown in movie theatres this summer, they had to close down the article about Kazachstan because people kept updating it according to how the country is depicted by Borat (woman before the carriages instead of hourses etc).

Starting a wiki also means you need to reach a critical mass of visitors to actually get a lot of quality content. There are many wikis out there that started with a basic structure put in by the creators, but never got much more 'meat'. As always: there are more takers than givers.

I'm still not sure how wiki's can be successfully integrated in a learning program. You might use it to keep your content up-to-date in an easy way. You might use it to write down a learning journey, just like a common scratch pad. But like with a forum, or a blog the success will be depending on the number of people willing to contribute to it. That is the critical success factor, and nothing else.

Labels: wiki

I am not dead yet. Sorry if I made you think so.