Proven fact: mowing the lawn can make you focus on what matter and increase productivity.

Well, maybe the research might not point to mowing the lawn exactly but activities that have nothing to do with work help ease your mind, get it off of work and manage stress levels (see Weinberg, Sutherland & Cooper, 2010) . It is perhaps when you’re away from the desk that the best creative ideas come. Like when you’re taking a shower, that epiphany-soaked shower (pun anyone?).

I recently bought a riding lawn mower. Living the Southeast of the US (Georgia), there is a lot of yard work to be done. I got tired of pushing the push-mower for hours in a row. Well, in reality, I just thought riding a riding mower would be fun. Surprise: indeed!

Aside from hobbies and mindless work, fitness programs and exercises should also be seen as a priority at the workplace, as a way to increase productivity, decrease illness-related absenteeism, diminish the effects of stress on employees, along with several other benefits (Theobald, & Cooper, 2011). Working remotely, I have to say it is a challenge to stay focused on fitness and wellness.

It feels good to say I work at a company that gets it. At SuccessFactors not only do leaders invest in performance management, learning and development, but they seek innovative ways to increase employee happiness and productivity such as the Keas gamified fitness program that has employees cooperate and compete in teams for points, badges, and goods for completing fitness and wellness-related tasks at the office, gym, at home, or wherever they may be. Not only is the program a good example of (simple behavioral) game mechanics applied to the workplace, but it is also a great way to have remote employees bond outside of work.

We need to see learners as whole human beings, not just “students”. Their wellness and health matters. It can make or break a learner’s disposition to learn and apply what they learned. It can influence employee productivity.
Now, let me go back to my weekend. Take the previously mentioned (and much needed, especially after yard work) shower, and can think of not only one but several creative (I’ll let my boss be the judge of that) ideas for work this week.

PS.: Ironically, I guess this week the mindless tasks involved in yard work didn’t help with keeping my mind off of work, writing, tweeting while on the lawn mower… I’ll try again next week…

References

Theobald, T., & Cooper, C. (2011). Doing the right thing: the importance of wellbeing in the workplace. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Weinberg, A., Sutherland, V.J., Cooper, C.L. (2010). Organizational stress management. Palgrave MacMillan.

Original Article

Infographics are a relatively new fad. But a good fad: what’s not to like about just the right amount of graphics coupled with just the right amount of textual information and data, all wrapped in a beautiful typographical, visual package? Isn’t that what us in Education strive for: helping others understand and make use of information in practical and engaging ways?

Here’s a fun example a colleague suggested I post here, developed by OnlineUniversity.

Created by: Online University

Original Article

I just came back from an amazing conference with amazing speakers, meet-ups, panels, free food and drinks, crazy people on the streets, advertisement anywhere (people’s bodies, trucks, pedicabs, projected on walls), forward thinking people who want to change the world, and those who want to make a big splashing releasing their new product, people with ideas, people with the money to fund the ideas, people with the guts to build or tear down ideas… people from all over the world.

SWSX Interactive.

Yet, what do many do (myself included), go from session to session with a feeling that “you’re missing something” if you don’t go to every single one of them. A strange feeling of lack of connection if you don’t go to every hip party (and there are quite a few).

The truth is that the most interesting and meaningful connections don’t come from a photo with a famous speaker, or the number of interesting sessions you attended. The interesting conversations happen in the places you are normally too busy or bitter to notice: in line for free food, bumping into people in the hall ways.

So, next time I attend a conference, even more so then now, I will not complain about standing in line, I’ll engage in even more conversations with those around me. I will consciously not complain about people bumping into me as they rush to another session: I will just take advantage of that bump to strike a conversation.

Conversation is the key to connecting forging meaningful relationships. Instead of counting the amount of good sessions you attended, enjoy the fulfilling conversations you had during the event.

That’s what I’ll do. I’ll unattend my next conference.

Original Article

“The concept of a job is going away” (Bersin, 2012) and so should the concept of assessment. At least assessment as we know it. Or the assessment forms that we dearly esteem.

The truth is, most educators teach to assess. Yes, the end goal of the learning experience is to prepare learners to succeed in the assessment. Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture?

Take, for instance, the idea of knowledge in the new Capitalism and how communities of practice are key to helping employees understand the whole company process of which they are part, adapt to fast-changing technologies, markets and work environments, share knowledge and encourage one another. Our role as leaders is to create communities of practice around a goal or interest, and help them generate explicit knowledge from the mostly tacit, extensive, distributed and disperse knowledge shared in the communities (Gee, 2000).  Whether we want it or not, whether we (leaders, educators) create them or not, these learners will find ways to connect to their peers in communities of practice. We can choose start them, participate in them, facilitate the knowledge sharing, eve intersperse “educational content” (I mean that in a formal sense of the word, being it synchronous sessions with a facilitator, guided discussions, group activities, etc.). So, how can we measure success in complex and interactive learning communities?

The word “practice” in “community of practice” is key in identifying assessments that would be authentic to the learners of the 21st century.

• Assessment has to be authentic to the activities they do on the job. Practical. Ask learners to create  a product that related to the goal of the learning experience/community. A sales community/course could, for instance, be assessed on mock sales pitch presentations they create individually or in teams.
• Assessment can to go beyond the finite notion of a single event. What if the learners that just created a pitch could reuse that for a real encounter with a customer? What if an activity in a technical System Administration community is to create a script that performs a certain task on an Operating System, and, after being assessed positively, feedback provided by peers and facilitator, that script could be then used in the real world by the learner on his/her day-to-day job?
• Also, assessment has to be part of learning, not the end goal of it. Why make it a boring quiz when it can be a simulation in which the learners put to practice what they shared and discussed during the course of the community?
• Let members of the community assess one another. Most online community platforms have discussion boards, badges, and other ways of giving kudos to other users.
• Allow self-reflection. “Did you achieve the goal? Did you successfully sell product X to customer Y? What defines “success” to you? What would you have done differently?”
• Let the assessment be fun. Have a competition in teams of who performs the task “better” producing a “better” final product, to be assessed by a judge or the community itself.

There are so many form of alternative assessment (NCLRC, 2000), why are we still so dependent on the omniscient LMS as the most used form of accountability in traditional courses?

We are in the 21st century, yet still defining success with ancient measurements…

A Couple of References

Bersin, J., 2012. The End of a Job as We Know It. Forbes Magazine. Retrieved January 20, 2012 from http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2012/01/31/the-end-of-a-job-as-we-know-it/.

Gee, JP., 2000.  Communities of practice in the new capitalism. J Learn Sci.

National Capital Language Resource Center (2000). Assessing Learning: Alternative Assessment. Washington DC.

Original Article

Apple has changed the way consumers expect to get access to applications, especially mobile applications, with the creation of its iOS App Store and then the Mac App Store. There are several advantages for the use of app stores that might outweigh its most apparent disadvantage: the possibility of creating walled gardens which allow customers to only purchase and update their applications via the app store. This also maximizes the possibility of censorship, as has been the case for various developers that tried to sell applications that were questionably suspended or rejected by Apple. However, if implemented well, and provided the right access rights to developers and consumers, the concept of an app store has several advantages, of which I’ll highlight a few:

• Centralized Application Access: Let’s face it, people like comfort. They like to be able to find the things they want (in this case mobile and/or desktop applications) easily and quickly. The app store becomes then a one stop shop for customer needs. Take this to an individual company’s level and you have a central location for application delivery that you can point customers to and have them find just the application they need from your portfolio.
• Centralized Updates: With centralized access comes “push” updates. The goal here is also to make it easy and quick for customers to have the latest version of a company’s applications (and/or developer applications that work with a company’s services or devices). This also ensure compatibility amongst customers’ applications and server side services, as well as compatibility between different customers’ applications in case of apps using for collaboration. The concept of an app store ensures everyone has access to the latest version of your content anytime.
• Centralized Security Control: Since the enterprise has at least some control over the applications and other content that is distributed through its app store, it can more safely guard the security, policies, and access to apps and content. Isn’t this just what most companies complain about when users ask them “why can’t we use this or that device at work?”

Notice that I purposely repeat the word “centralized” as it’s key to the concept of app stores, and denotes its main advantage over a discentralized distribution of applications.

SalesForce AppExchange

SalesForce, for instance, has its own application marketplace called AppExchange where users can access cloud business applications centrally. One interesting thing about SalesForce’s app store is that it allows third party  developers to publish applications there and make them available to existing SalesForce customers. Also, it allows customers to post a custom app development request and Force.com developers can access the job posting on the AppExchange Developer Marketplace, the customer can choose the developer that best fits the requirements for the job based on rating and skills. Of course, the customer will also rate the developer after the work is done as well, so the community can make sure they only choose the best developers, and so developers drive for best results every time.

Cisco’s AppHQ Cius

Cisco created its own app store called AppHQ for their business-oriented Android App, the Cius. AppHQ lets companies create their own customized app stores with differentiated licensing and distribution control of content and apps as well as a custom storefront. From their AppHQ information page, once can find the following highlights:

• Easy Application Discovery and Search
• Enterprise Wide Application Purchase and Distribution
• Application Bulk Purchases
• License Management
• User and Group Management
• Application Evaluation, and Life Cycle Management
• Private Branding and Customization
• Internal Application Hosting Mechanism
• Application Usage and Reporting
• Rating and Reviews Management

Some examples of custom app stores and related services

If you’re interested in starting your own company’s custom app store, here are some services that could be worth investigating further:

• MobileIron Enterprise Storefront
• Apperian
• Partnerpedia
• Apps2Market 

As a side note, Apple offers app volume purchasing for companies that want to purchase and distribute applications for their employees via they B2B service.

If you’re interested in finding out more about custom app stores, their advantages and disadvantages, and use cases, start by reading “Private app stores: does your company need its own?” by Jon Brodkin (2011) on Ars Technica.

Does your company or institution need its own app store for your (and third party developer) apps and contents such as applications and ebooks?

Original Article

Apple changes the publishing business once again. Sure there are other formats and authoring tools which are supported in iBooks, but this is different: an application that fits tightly in the Apple ecosystem, and as is normally the case with Apple products, simple.

Apple unveiled this new tool in their Apple Education event in NYC. Here are some highlights and features:

Integration with other Apple products and workflow

Template gallery

Drag-and-drop editing

Embedding and customization of elements such as galleries

Support for JavaScript

Support for HTML5

iPad simulator/preview

Accessibility support

Support for widgets

Apple says on their website:

Available free on the Mac App store, iBooks Author is an amazing new app that allows anyone to create beautiful Multi-Touch textbooks — and just about any other kind of book — for iPad. With galleries, video, interactive diagrams, 3D objects, and more, these books bring content to life in ways the printed page never could.

Did I say it is free of charge on the Mac App Store?

This application should facilitate the process for creating custom interactive eBooks that play well, natively, in Apple (and perhaps other) devices. Now all one needs is creativity…

One of the sources: The Official Apple Website, and TheNextWeb.

Original Article

It”s not not uncommon for geeks to do some wishful thinking a line any mortal hoping their tech dreams will come true in the new year to come.

Id like to make some predictions for 2012 as well. Just a few humble predictions and observations.

1. Education everywhere

And by everywhere I don’t mean the whole any device anytime anywhere hype. I mean, everyone in every part of the world (except cultures that don’t accept technology and our views of Education of course) will have access to quality Education and educational technology. We will see more initiatives such as EducateNCare, which encourages professionals to provide some of their knowledge and time to tutors children in developing countries online. With initiatives such as this, others will see the need to equip this on the other end of the connection, the local students and teachers. We’ll be even more aware of the need to capacitate professionals in their own native countries.

2. Open educational content will actually be OPEN

Many institutions offer open courseware and content for anyone to access. What we will see is more open source content out there, not just open access content, but content that can be reshaped, and shared forward with other educators and learners via a license such as Creative Commons.

3. Learning on smart TVs
With all these smart devices proliferating, Education should take more advantage of them and be, well, smart Education. eLearning is made mostly with the old desktop metaphor in mind. But thing about all kids of fantastic learning experiences we could have of we designed for different smart devices. I’m not talking just about mobile devices with gyroscopes, location awareness, multitouch interfaces, I mean even (smart) connected TVs. If even the good ol’ tube is changing; why cant we innovate in how we do education in it as well?

4. Micro-location learning and information

We’re all familiar with the concept of GPS devices or mobile map applications taking you from point A to point B with guided turn-by-turn directions and pop-up traffic/trip conditions and events warnings. However, these technologies are normally only for outdoors navigation. You’re lost inside a building. This is a problem that Google has taken on now with their new solution Google Maps indoors feature, which offers guidance inside buildings such as airports.  However, in 2012 we’ll see the rise of microlocation-based learning, which can provide guidance within buildings and institutions indoors. Imagine the educational uses of such mobile applications: exploring the workplace, accurately connecting with others inside of buildings to share information and perhaps serendipitously  meet up for lunch (yes, learning is about forging relationships with others with whom we share or not interests), on-demand information about machines as a learner walks by it. Better yet,  as the learner walks by that very same machine, s/he will  be prompted by an alert on their location-aware device that there is something wrong with it and that it needs repair, not only that, but the alert will show what exactly is wrong with it and give the user an option to follow an interactive strep-by-step repair “tour”. On the job support, information, and true task-based learning about specific concepts, tools, processes as the learner actually does it.

5. Education institutions will allow more social media

With the advent of better content aggregation and curation techniques, Education institutions will appreciate more of the educational applications of social media and feel safer in letting students access social media resources to learn. Youtube has recently released it’s Youtube EDU which allows educators and schools to allow access (mostly) to content they approve on their channel by using technologies such as filters. Students will be given access to a variety of social media services in school as these services start to offer options for content access based on some of the issues faced by schools, issues such as inappropriate or distracting content.

6. [Bonus Prediction] Motion-based learning gets popular and affordable

As devices like the XBox Kinect and Playstation Move start to become more popular, we should see more affordable motion-based learning experiences in the field. Moreover, we should see precise motion training and job aids coupled with Augmented Reality HUDs as employees try to solve real-life problems in the workplace.

Original Article

A phenomenon that can be classified as anything from multitasking to plain distraction is getting more popular as smartphones get smarter and tablet computers more ubiquitous: the use of the “second screen”.

It is common now to have at least one person (if not everyone) in the living room watching as movie on TV while, at the same time, checking what their friends are saying on Facebook, Twitter, or simply researching the lead role’s biography on Wikipedia. Whatever they are doing on the little screen, it seems that nowadays the big screen is not enough. People crave more. People want to connect with others and with information outside what they see on the big screen. Often, at least in my family, it is an interaction around the content of the TV, tagging it in Into_Now, and telling their friends on Facebook that they’re watching it and following up on comments about the same post.

ReadWriteWeb reports that 86% of people using their mobile device do so while watching TV. Of those, 33% use mobile apps, 37% browse non-related content, 40% are social networking, while 60% are texting with friends and family. It’s the rise of social TV which so far comprises mostly of static content (TV) coupled with dynamic, social activities (social networking, Web browsing, mobile apps, check-ins into shows and movies).

Disney offers an iPad / PC application called Second Screen which live syncs with the Blu-Ray movie on the TV and provides different content that supplements the movie: games, flipbooks, photo galleries with sketches, trivia about the movie, etc.

How would this second screen experience affect Education? What if, instead of banning smartphones and tablets, teachers in K12 encouraged synchronous exploration of concepts “synced” with what the teacher is discussing?What if in corporate Education, we saw complimentary interactions and information that gave students a better understanding of what the instructor is explaining or even interact with other students in a backchannel discussion around the topics in class?

Many already use in conferences, for instance, Twitter streams as a means to have a backchannel discussions in different sessions. Can we to go beyond that, explore other forms of “second screen experiences” at events, in the classroom, outside the classroom?

How can we combat some of the potential negative aspects of the second screen in the classroom, like distraction, lack of concentration? Can we produce second screen experiences that are channeled. guided and enhances attention rather than distract the learners? How can we employ this concept in online learning environments (being them synchronous live virtual classrooms or self-paces asynchronous experiences)?

Many questions, exciting exploration.

Food for thought: here’s a blogger’s take on how second screen experiences could be used not only in entertainment but also in politics, for instance.

Perhaps second screen experiences in Education will be a trend in 2012, with more an more mobile devices in consumers’ hands.

Original Article

There is a vast sea of information out there. In fact, it’s hard not to avoid drowning in it if you, as an educator or learner (which we all are) don’t put strategies in place to organize content by aggregating it using different bookmarking and sharing Web applications (which are a dime a dozen. Tools like Diigo and Pinterest, for instance, are excellent examples of aggregation tools which employ bookmarking and sharing mechanisms.

However, content aggregation can still be an overwhelming task. That’s where content curation comes in play. Services like Smartbrief thrive at selecting target news for users by means of curators. Only the “best content” (at the curators will) are included in perdsonalized newsletters or news briefs which the users can select to receive via email.

Similarly, Youtube is launching Youtube EDU to solve what has been a major pain point for educators trying to use Youtube in the classroom for a long time: inappropriate and irrelevant content. A curation platform for educators, Youtube for Schools allows teachers to select just the right educational videos for their students.

According to Mashable, there are already over 400 playlists curated by Youtube itself in partnership with 600 Education venues including major ones such as the Smithsonian and TED, all organized by grade level, content area (such as Lifelong Learning) and subject matter.

Educators can learn more about producing and sharing their own Youtube videos in the tutorials presented here as well as submit their own playlists to Youtube EDU.

Original Article

Something that bothers me sometimes is the poor search results yielded when one looks for educational resources. So many good projects I know of simply don’t show up in a simple Google search no matter what keywords I add into the search field. Results, in generalm are often irrelevant and require a lot of filtering to finally find GOOD learning materials. That is probably true for intranets in institutions as well.

While the issue goes beyoond finding relevant content,  the lack of a framework for assigning relevant metadata to learning resources (especially on the Web) affects other aspects of learning objects such as accessibility.

There are several metadata projects that aim at being universal in nature such as Microformats, as well as several others dedicated to the taxonomy of learning objects alone. Often, these are too complex. That’s where I think the Learning Resource Metadata Inniciative (LRMI) project comest in play: it claims to make learning object metadata simple. LMRI is an innitiative led by the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP) and Creative Commons that is worth keeping an eye on.

Original Article

Duolingo claims to help you learn a language for free because as you practice translating sentences you are simultaneously helping them translate the Web.

It is not clear to me whether translation is the only methodology behind their language learning approach, and it is so not clear what exactly they mean by the Web to be translated (which websites) or how it is done (where the information is stored, who uses it, how are the best translations of the same sentence selected, where the sentences come from, etc). Relying solely on translation as a method to learn a language can be tricky and ineffective. I hope Duolingo offers more than flash cards and translation questions, otherwise, the only value proposition that makes it different from a flash card software (which there are free AND open source ones out there) is the fact that the students are also doing some greater good by simultaneously translating the Web).

I still need to see the product and play with or for a full review (which I will add as an update to this post as soon as I can access it), but from the video, it does not seem to offer a variety of valid and effective activities that employ different approaches for language learning.

Original Article

The Education & Tech Digest is out! http://t.co/moOiOQ6x ▸ Top stories today via @myincipio @davidginsburg

It’s not about the events at the conference, it’s about the people you’ll connect to during events (and in between). Be open! #L2011 #30u30