I was on Nigel Paine’s blog on Friday when I saw and commented on his post The Mash-up Begins. There have been countless blog posts about the theoretical potential of the iPad on mainstream media, most notably eBooks, so it was nice to see a real-world example of static content and video done in a way that equals, and even improves upon, the quality and design of the magazine layout.

Obviously, my mind shifted to learning as Nigel’s example got me immediately thinking about how we can apply these same mash-up concepts to traditional instructor-led training materials like study guides, manuals, and presentations. While training departments have been busy spending ridiculous amounts of time and money converting these training materials to e-Learning, Steve Jobs has (surprise!) changed the game by providing us with a new direct channel for ILT materials – the eBook. While eBooks of course aren’t new, the iPad now affords training departments the opportunity to add dynamic and interactive media to textbooks and other traditional learning media. In his insightful Influential Marketing blog post How The iPad Will Transform Mainstream Media (But NOT The Web), Rohit Bhargava provides a great description how the iPad will affect traditional textbooks:
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Technorati Tags: eBooks, elearning, ePub, ILT, iPad, learning content, Single Source

Dawn Single Source, Standards eBooks, elearning, ePub, ILT, iPad, learning content, Single Source

I’ve been in the training and development business for nearly 20 years now. Things certainly have changed a lot in that time.

My first job out of graduate school was as an Interactive Designer for a small but growing multimedia development firm. I was hired to be part of a multi-million dollar project for a major automotive manufacturer. We were creating CD-ROM based training for service technicians. Each course cost over $1 million dollars! They were fantastic, cutting-edge, pushing the envelope in every way.
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Technorati Tags: blended learning, elearning, instructor-led training, single-source content development

Stuart Instructional Design, Single Source blended learning, elearning, instructor-led training, single-source content development

February’s collection, enjoy!:

Jay Cross is rethinking the agile instructional design approaches and expands on some fresh ideas in his very interesting blog posting ”Agile instructional design”.

“E-learning: the fad that’s lasted 30 years”: Clive Shepherd is blogging about why e-learning is not a fad.

“Anatomy of a classroom: think out of the box” (My personal favorite for the month): Donald Clark is questioning the boxed-in traditional classrooms and taking his arguments back to human nature and how learning should be unboxed. A must read!

In his blog posting Konrad Glogowski analyzes key findings of the Living and Learning with New Media (Ito, Horst, Bittani, et al., 2008) report published at the end of 2008.

Technorati Tags: classroom learning, elearning, Instructional Design, knowledge management

Despoina Industry Talk classroom learning, elearning, Instructional Design, knowledge management

eLearning Weekly: Blogging on the article “E-Learning NO How: 7 disastrous decisions sure to sink any e-learning implementation”. Some tips to avoid failure.

Will at Work Learning: Lists of Myths That the Business Side Has About Learning (according to learning professionals).

Josh Bersin: Informal Learning becomes Formal – That is to say Informal Learning is made real and valuable.

Dale Waldt: Will XML Help this President? XML and related technology is a powerful tool for government. “I think there is a very big role for XML and related technology in the aggressive, sweeping change promised by this administration”.

Interviews: Some Instructional design insight shared by Instructional designers. What skills they feel are important for instructional designers, and what they feel the future of the field will be. Students interested in instructional design, you might want to listen to this!

Technorati Tags: elearning, informal learning, Instructional Design, XML technology

Despoina Industry Talk elearning, informal learning, Instructional Design, XML technology