Experiential eLearning

H20 Free Online Classroom Tools from Harvard’s Berkman Center

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is an “entrepreneurial nonprofit” whose mission is to “explore and understand cyberspace; to study its development, dynamics, norms, and standards; and to assess the need or lack thereof for laws and sanctions.”  Basically, they study the relationship between the Internet, law, and society through a number of fascinating initiatives, many of which involve some of the celebrated intellectuals and authors in fellowship at the center.  Some of these initiatives involve tools that better enable educators to utilize, and be supported by, online and technology-based platforms.  We invited Kendra Albert, research assistant at the Berkman Center and assistant to noted Berkman steward and Harvard Law School Professor Jonathan Zittrain, to visit with us at Harvard Business Publishing and give an overview of some of the free tools and platforms they’ve developed for education.

Why Educational Simulations?

Experiential learning and simulation guru Clark Aldrich has a great new piece called "Why Educational Simulations? Designs to Develop Competence Plus Conviction" in the UK magazine Inside Learning Technologies & Skills.  It's a great short piece that distills his theories of "learning to do" (vs. "learning to know") down to two powerful value propositions for educational simulations: the ability to foster Competence and Conviction in users.   For more on educational simulations, experiential learning, and serious games, see the collection of works and articles at the Clark Aldrich Designs website.

Designing and Building a Platform for eLearning Delivery

For years, Harvard Business Publishing (HBP) has offered online courses on a number of management topics such as Finance, Financial Accounting, Quantitative Methods, Spreadsheet Modeling, etc, for sale to academic customers.  This eProduct line has been very successful and has been deployed to thousands of users annually, both for educational institutions (many of whom use the courses for program prematriculation gating or benchmarking) and for individual managers who can purchase the courses via the Harvard Business Review website.  The platform on which the courses were hosted was a proprietary application built by the Harvard Business School (HBS) Educational Technology Group, since many of the courses were offered both to HBS students and to academic customers via HBP.  After years of successful delivery, a decision was made to phase out this original platform and consider adopting a more robust and modern delivery platform.  This blog provides an overview of the considerations and ultimate design and development plan for this new platform.

Mobile Learning in Higher Education

I recently attended a NERCOMP event on Mobile Learning in Higher Education.  NERCOMP - the NorthEast Regional Computing Program -- is an EDUCAUSE affiliate.  The "day of discovery" was hosted by Kristin Lofblad Sullivan, Manager of Instructional Technology at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education.

'Guerrila Publishing' Options

The post-Web 2.0 world has a lot to offer those seeking channels and tools to publish and distribute their content.  As I work for a small-to-mid-sized, 'official' publishing house, I'm biased at some of the content, services,  and options that we can still offer that smaller players and systems can't always match.  But the quality and quantity of self-publishing options is still impressive and growing.  Here is a quick recap of a few options for 'small industrial' distribution and beyond.

Technology and the Future of Higher Education

I recently attended a forum entitled "Technology and the Future of Higher Education" with Diana Oblinger, CEO of EDUCAUSE.  The seminar was part of the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Askwith Forum series.  Many of us involved in educational technology have been familiar with Ms. Oblinger's writings -- she was one of the first to articulate the evolving learning styles of Gen X'ers and Milennials and was also an early advocate of games and learning. She was formerly Vice President for Information Resources and the Chief Information Officer for the University of North Carolina system, Executive Director of Higher Education for Microsoft, and IBM Director of the Institute for Academic Technology. She was also on the faculty at the University of Missouri-Columbia and at Michigan State University and an associate dean at the University of Missouri. Her presentation (and this blog entry) was based in part on the recent EDUCAUSE report "The Future of Higher Education: Beyond the Campus".

Tools of Change for Publishing

Last month some colleagues and I attended the O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing conference in New York.  This conference explores new business models for publishers, new avenues for digital distribution, evolving content workflow models, etc. Here's a recap of a few of the sessions.

A Publisher's View of eLearning Predictions

It's budget planning time for us again, which in our educational publishing environment means we get to try and make the case for incorporating new technologies into our product development and distribution plans.  And the time of year means that any survey of emerging technologies invariably surfaces the annual eLearning prediction lists.  These lists are frustrating.  As an educational technologist, the list of tools and technologies is exciting -- the options for exploring and assisting learning in new ways is evolving at an unbelievable pace.  But as a publisher I find myself using a much more practical lens -- partially due to the perspective of the part of the industry we occupy, but also due to understanding the real world constraints that cause me to temper some of the hype.  Here's a review of some of the prediction lists and some immediate reactions.

The Complete Guide to Simulations and Serious Games

It's a great week for anyone interested in and involved with the world of simulations and serious games.  Clark Aldrich's new book is out: The Complete Guide to Simulations and Serious Games: How the Most Valuable Content Will be Created in the Age Beyond Gutenberg to Google (Pfeiffer).  Clark spoke about this book during the simulation interview I did with him a few months back.  We're big fans of his blog and all of his work -- looking forward to getting a copy and diving in.

Publishing for Kindle, eReaders and eBooks: A Landscape Survey

It's an exciting time for consumers of digital content as a variety of eReader and eBook formats and channels are becoming available -- the market is clearly growing (although perhaps not yet cannibalizing print).  That makes it a challenging time for content providers and publishers since there is obviously no one standard or channel or device for reaching content consumers.  Here's a high-level snapshot overview of some of the key players at this time -- this will quickly change but hopefully the details should provide some insights that endure for a bit longer.

This post is divided into:

• Technical Formats
• Content Creation Tools
• Content Conversion Vendors
• Hardware Device-Based eReaders/Channels
• Software-Based eReaders/Channels
• Additional Resources

In reality these categories can quickly become blurred -- Kindle is simultaneously a device and a format and has its own channel.  So you'll see some names repeat across categories. But approaching it from this perspective is helpful and is one of the only ways you can maintain some clarity when exploring this complicated environment.