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July 21, 2006
Podcasting, Wikis, Blogs, Mobile Solutions, Serious Games Workshops Scheduled
Seriously Mobile Series Update:
We have had great response and feedback with our initial Podcasting and Seriously Mobile Solutions seminars so we have scheduled a new series of ½ day workshops to further help colleagues understand and apply hot technologies that are making a difference in organisations today.
All workshops will be held in Central London at 7 City Learning. Cost is 99 GBP + VAT for each ½ day seminar or 160.00 GBP + VAT for two.
To register, just send an email to seriouslymobile at ambientperformance.com indicating your interest and a booking form will be emailed back to you.
These workshops are also being delivered on-site for Learning colleagues & stakeholders and are often combined with project planning. Contact us if interested.
Seriously Mobile Series Q3 & Q4 Workshops:
September 22: (Morning) Podcasting I: How To Podcast Hands-On Workshop: A hands-on introduction to the fundamentals of finding, making and using podcasting: how to find and subscribe to Podcasts, how to create them, how to publish them and how to market and distribute them.
September 22: (Afternoon) Podcasting II: Podcasting in Organisations: This seminar will focus on introducing and implementing Podcasting in organisations: planning for success, increasing Podcast quality, production and equipment advice, capturing content anywhere and anytime, and ideas & tactics for introduction and implementation.
October 6: (Morning): Wikis and Blogs in the Enterprise: How are Wikis & Blogs being used for Collaboration in organisations? What value are they adding? What software is available? How easy are they to implement and use? What are best practices for implementing and managing them?
October 6: (Afternoon): Serious Games in the Enterprise: How are games and game technologies being used beyond pure entertainment purposes? What types of games should be considered for various purposes? How much do different approaches cost? We will provide practical advice for getting started including finding the right partners and overcoming barriers.
October 20: (Morning) Mobile Solutions that Work: An overview of Mobile Video, Performance Messaging & SCORM trackable content production to address: What are the applications for mobile video? What’s available “off the shelf”? How can you create and distribute video to mobile devices. What tools are available? How can intelligent messaging sent via email to BlackBerrys or SMS to mobile phones be used to assess organizational knowledge and compliance/regulation/product understanding? How can targeted messages help boost performance? How can SCORM & IMS compliant content be created, distributed and tracked to mobiles?
November 22: (Morning): Wikis and Blogs in the Enterprise: How are Wikis & Blogs being used for Collaboration in organisations? What value are they adding? What software is available? How easy are they to implement and use? What are best practices for implementing and managing them?
November 22: (Afternoon): Serious Games in the Enterprise: How are games and game technologies being used beyond pure entertainment purposes? What types of games should be considered for various purposes? How much do different approaches cost? We will provide practical advice for getting started including finding the right partners and overcoming barriers.
December 8: (Morning) Google Earth & Mobile Location Based Services Business Applications: Location-based services have now arrived on desktops and on handhelds/mobiles. Now that you can locate your customers in time and space what services might you offer them? What value can you add to you existing services – from marketing to logistics? This introductory seminar will focus on how geo-location is being used and will tour a range of exemplar services now available on the web.
Posted by Ron Edwards at 11:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 16, 2006
Google Trends: Podcasting, Wikis & Blogs
I took a look at Google Trends to see where the interest is in these globally and found that interest in Wikis is rapidly growing and is as high as blogging in many places (based on Google searches using the terms).
Here are a few charts (Red line is Blog, Blue is Wiki, Orange is Podcast)
Global
UK - Wikis overtake Blogging!
US - interest in Wikis growing this year
Australia - Higher interest in Wikis!
Australia is a hotbed of interest in each of these and mobile learning in general. There is also a lot of interest in Japan, and Germany.
You can take a look at the top 10 cities for Podcasting here.
Glad to see London at No. 9 with our upcoming Podcasting I & II workshops July 27!
We'll continue to run our popular mini-workshops focussed on helping people to use and apply these technologies in organisations. We're scheduling the rest of Q3 and our Q4 worshops now which will include our fourth Podcasting worskhop in September, Wikis and Podcasting in Organisations in October, Mobile Video Applications in October, and Google Maps + Location-based services in November.
Stay tuned!
Posted by Ron Edwards at 04:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 06, 2006
My Games for Learning Presentation @ ELN 7 July
I'm kicking off the eLearning Network conference 'What Can We Take From Games and Simulations tomorrow with the following presentation, I hope to see you there!
Considering Adding Games to Your Learning Mix?
Video games have permeated our culture and are capturing more eyeball time than other media for many of the people we’re trying to reach. This presentation is based on recent experience and research and will explore:
• What is it that motivates people of all ages to play games? How pervasive are they?
• What can we learn from them and apply to our learning and change initiatives to increase reach, fun and effectiveness?
• What are viral games and what role might they have in corporate training?
• What are the challenges of using games in organisations and where should they not be used?
Posted by Ron Edwards at 08:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
London Podcasting Workshops 27 July Announcment
Following on from the success of its’ first Podcasting workshop, Ambient Performance is pleased to announce a pair of linked Podcasting workshops to be led by Ron Edwards of Ambient Performance on the 27th July 2006 in Central London:
Podcasting is the method of distributing multimedia files for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. Increasingly, mobile phones are the personal playback device of choice as they are available to be used anytime and anywhere. Podcasting now provides organisations with a powerful and personal new communication channel to reach both employees and customers. Podcasts can be packaged to alert listeners to anything that can be disseminated by audio or video: new product/sales information, important updates, CEO’s message of the month, re-inforcement learning, performance support and so on.
9:30-12.00am – ‘Podcasting I: How To Podcast Hands-On Workshop’. The workshop will be a hands-on introduction to the fundamentals of finding, making and using podcasting: how to find and subscribe to Podcasts, how to create them, how to publish them and how to market and distribute them.
1.00-4.00pm – ‘Podcasting II: Podcasting in Organisations’. So you know how to create and publish a Podcast? The workshop will focus on introducing and implementing Podcasting in organisations: planning for success, increasing Podcast quality, production and equipment advice, capturing content anywhere and anytime, and ideas & tactics for introduction and implementation
These limited places workshops will be held on 27 July at the new offices of 7City Learning in Central London. Cost: £99.00 GBP + VAT per single workshop OR £160.00 + VAT for both sessions. To reserve your place just email your interest to: Seriously Mobile and a booking form will be sent to you.
Posted by Ron Edwards at 08:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 05, 2006
Futurelab & Policy Unplugged Event + Mobile Collaborative Learning
I attended the Futurelab/Policy Unplugged Generation@ event yesterday:
Generation@ will provide an opportunity to explore a number of related issues including:* The implications of the extraordinary popularity of social networking websites, what we can learn about how young people conduct themselves in these new digital spaces
* The potential application of social and collaborative software to education and learning
* The idea of a peer-production approach to learning (as found in the open source software scene) and how this could affect the relationship between developers of education resources and users
We did indeed explore these issues. A summary report should be available soon.
I started a small group discussion on 'Mobile Collaborative Learning'. It was an interesting and lively conversation with 20 or so people from a variety backgrounds. I was hoping that we would explore the 'collaborative' component a bit more than the technology (mobile) and the content (Learning) but we did hear about the challenges of mobile user interfaces, the necessity to produce quality content in small bites, challenges of the 'mobile digital divide' and the challenges in the UK of using phones with school age students as they are banned for health reasons!
We were fortunate to have one of Futurelab's authors in our group who shared some great examples of how contextual mobile learning enabled by GPS and other technologies was becoming available (with a new Futurelab tool to be released in the fall). Check out their new publication on 'Social Software and Learning' here. It is a great overview of leveraging web 2.0 technologies for learning and suggests a new term 'c-learning' (community learning, collaborative learning or communicative learning). I've been advocating adding the 'C' learning designs to better engage experts and peers for several years as many of you have heard in my conference presentations - it's great to hear thought leaders adding emerging approaches to the mix and extending it to all ages.
I mentioned a mobile tool called Winksite in the discussion group. Here is information on it and a link to those of you interested.
'Join The WINKsite Mobile Community. In minutes, you can set-up a mobile space that's available worldwide on a web-enabled phone, PDA or desktop PC. Each mobile site is outfitted with easy-to-use mobile channels including chat, blog, mobile feed reader, surveys, journal, forum, calendar, guestbook, bookmarks, email and more.
Overall, my impression is that we are at very early stages with mobile phone based collaborative learning. While the tools are increasingly becoming available, awareness of the mobile web itself remains low today and therefore ideas on how to leverage it are only just now being explored.
Posted by Ron Edwards at 09:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 03, 2006
Informal Learning Goes Mobile - Video Archive Available
The Moving Learning Conference produced by Learning Guide was well attended by a great mix of people interested in informal learning and performance support. (post conference press release here). Most of the presentations with video (produced by Datmedia) can be found here
My presentation 'Informal Learning and Performance Support Goes Mobile' can be accessed directly here.
I highlighted a few important trends including the profliferation of consumer devices finding thier way into corporate environments and the opportunity to deliver engaging video content to them, increasing use of interactive messaging to help address performance needs, contextual performance support based on location and the value of mobile use of RSS which is just becoming available. I also shared a few thoughts on mobile viral games and gave a few suggestions based on our Performance Pathfinder for implemention success and avoiding pitfalls.
Posted by Ron Edwards at 07:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack