I have had a mailing shot about a conference in Dublin in March, Computer Assisted Learning.

It seems to be about why technology has not been disruptive so far in education.

There is mention of 'informal learning' but it may be mostly about educational structures.

My guess is that if you include all forms of learning there has already been more disruption than is realised in academic research.

I had a look at Computers&Education in St Luke's library. Print journals make a break from the screen. There is an interesting article on 'Rethinking scaffolding in the information age'. More on this later.

The article was recieved 27 May 2004 and accepted on 24 Jan 2005. Claimed publication date April 2007 so not sure when it was actually available.

I wonder if Elsevier are aware of any 'disruption'.

I have done a draft story about Learning Technologies for OhmyNews

Not sure I have been clear enough about my intention. If there is not some comment about quality from a credible source I might not make it up exactly, but add a comment of my own. I think there is some basis to suggest the Learning Technologies show is moving towards quality but it may need some probing.

Please add comments here or get in touch if you would like to edit the text. It may end up in OhmyNews.

Back in the Easy Cafe on the way to Olympia. I almost forgot that I plan to do this year in reverse so far as online is concerned. So a quick Google has recreated some of the Online Information show through the IWR blog.

The first few items show a bit of a pattern.

There is now a UK version of Pubmed Central with technical support from the British Library, University of Manchester and the European Bioinformatics Institute.

A link to blogger Peter Suber reports a decision by libraries in Norway to just say no to Blackwell charges.

And Wolters Kluwer have decided to put their education publishing up for sale.

My guess is that some people in journal publishing may be close to deciding that the 'creative commons' sort of approach is reducing the chances for ample margins.

Search on 'BETT, open source' in Google News shows there is a debate on what sort of discount might make Vista sensible at some point.

More later.

I have been looking at the 'Technology Enhanced Learning' project that is now part of Teaching and Learning Research. They have started some seminars and two of them are available online.

My opinion is that 'learning' is an adequate word even if used casually without formal agreement on what it means. I think the web is now widely accepted so even adding an "e" serves no great purpose. coming up with the term "technology enhanced learning" seems to be making it more complicated just to invent a subject. I recently found a tape of a Douglas Adams talk on Radio 4 where he explains that "technology" is a word used about something that is not working yet. So electricity is not technology. Nor is the web a lot of the time.

The EU seems to be the source of this new term so I have looked on Google and found a Cordis page explaining a bit more.

"With the shift towards the knowledge society, the change of working conditions and the high-speed evolution of information and communication technologies, peoples' knowledge and skills need continuous up-dating. Learning, based on collaborative working, creativity, multidisciplinarity, adaptiveness, intercultural communication and problem solving, has taken on an important role in everyday life. The learning process is becoming pervasive, both for individuals and organisations, in formal education, in the professional context and as part of leisure activities. Learning should be accessible to every citizen, independent of age, education, social status and tailored to his/her individual needs.

To meet these social challenges is a leading issue of European research on the use of technology to support learning in the 6th EU Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (2002-2006)."

Why not just accept that the web is part of this and stay with this as a description of 'learning'?

The seminars seem to be looking at research for designing learning environments. There is a lot happening on the web already, some of which can be described as informal learning. I think that engaging with the web in general could be a useful form of 'research'. There was mention on the video of 'the educational blogosphere' but I got the impression that the printed journals were the centre of the discussion and that 'technology enhanced learning' is on the way towards becoming another defined subject.

I have done a Google doc as a draft for next year. Thinking about online in reverse order makes more sense as it puts the digital print and then the bookfair after the online information.

This will make more sense later.

The Information Today blog has a lot of photos and pretty full coverage.

Commenting on the keynote, Michelle Manafy writes

"I won't go into a lengthy analysis of my first impression of this sprawling and dislocated show (uh, right now I mean physically as the show is so far from the floor--but we'll see if I can draw larger inferences from this comment later). Anyhow, first take from the keynote: something we’ve been saying at EContent for a while now… content is not just that which is produced proactively AS content. This is too narrow a view and will limit the success of any organization. All organizations must view content as, in large part, a byproduct of doing actual work. Keynoter Thomas Stewart from the Harvard Business Review, sees three types of “knowledge”: instilled (yielding smarter products), distilled (knowledge turned into a product), and black box knowledge services (we know a lot about what we do and can help you do it too). I’d extend it to content, quite happily: knowledge collected as a byproduct of your employees’ work or better, as a byproduct of how your customers use your product, services, or even content can help you work better and offer them more."

So knowledge is in the context of work, or at least some form of activity. I'm not sure if the academics at the show accept this, but it makes sense for me.

This report from CMS Wire shows connections with Web 2

Found through Google News

The Information World Review blog is covering the main points from the conference. See previous post for link.

I have added a comment to a general post so I now know the first official blogger. I am not sure if the IWR blog will cover the free seminars tomorrow on social software, blogs etc.

More later. I have got as far as Easy Internet Cafe on High Street Kensington. So next post may be from the actual show.

Online Information this week. I am still in Exeter but plan to be there Wed and Thur.

I have done a draft article for OhmyNews.

Please add comments here if you have something to add to the draft. You may be quoted in an eventual story. Deadline over the weekend.

The November e.learning age includes an article by Donald Hunter suggesting that education is struggling to keep pace with student expectations about technology and presentation. Mobiles are assumed and Google is familiar. "Simply put, today's students learn differently to previous generations. They have come to expect information to be presented in timely, dynamic and entertaining forms."....."deep down we expect students to learn the way we did"..."what this adds up to is a paradigm gulf that separates students from the learning experience."

This is confirming the idea that I should just take a look at what is happening, rather than worry too much about the theory behind a design. I have so far more or less ignored the conferencing features in Acrobat 8. I still think the JDF for print is worth continuing with but I have written in the IPEX 2002 blog about imagining some time travel to move the world of print on towards 2008. More on this later. it may make sense eventually.

So I hope to spend the next few months observing what happens with forms of collaboration such as Breeze or now Acrobat Connect. It is not yet available outside the US. It seems to me to combine featurea available elsewhere. The whiteboard idea, videoconferencing and internet chat or phone are all available and have been for a while. I still prefer text but this is probably dated so is due for reconsideration.

There are some reports coming out about the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco. I am struck by this photo of Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, by JD Lasica from Ourmedia. He looks the part for a solid business event. Last year Tim O'Reilley in a suit was not quite as convincing.

I am not sure how Google will be seen during the Online Information event in London. A couple of years back there was some resistance to Google winning an award. There is still some opposition from publishers to the idea of scanning books. But it is clear that Google is viable so there is a base of people working with them even if that is not an overlap with the entire Online Information world.

Recent posts in other blogs connect with learning.

In IPEX 2002 I have noted that the availability of Acrobat 8 is a defining moment for me in that I realise what I like about all the previous versions. The addition of Flash through Breeze or Connect is not really what I am expecting and I don't yet see it as engaging. Making the server support for collaboration in PDF avaiable at a price more people could consider would to my mind be more of a welcome change. The effect though is that I realise I am now ok with online documents as PDF replacing print. The PDF design on screen is familiar froma paper experience. Breeze and Flash are moving us into video and animation. I am slowly getting used to this and am not at all convinced that it helps collaboration.

Also on wifi Exeter I have come to think that wi-fi is not contributing to festivals in real space and time so mucgh as extending the normal web outside of space and time. Not sure how this works as learning but the effect of video on YouTube and Google appears to work as souvenir and promotion of future events. More on this later, maybe linked back here as learning.

I have now started another Google custom search engine on JDF. This is still a major concern. I may be going back in time but hard copy is still a lot of what is going on. The main group still stays as PDF-IS9000-quality-learning. JDF is not as widely known as PDF so could put this out of balance if added.

Google are linking to an article by Eric Enge on how to do this customising a search engine.seems somewhere between quality and learning so I will keep coming back to this.

The search engine approach is making more sense but I still don't understand the theory of it. The 'Network Management Learning' discussion has questioned 'communities of practice' as an explanantion of the web given the weakness of the links. Search engines are about as weak as links can get.

There is a lso a lot of theory about language and contested words. The ones that are interesting for me at the moment are

Antiperformativity

Co-op

Learning

Engagement

Communication

These will come up more in the swickis than in the Google customised search engines (GCSE may not take off as a term in the UK)

Google co-op? Surely it is a quoted corporate? It may not have done any evil as yet but there could be more pressure on it if the sales growth ever hits a bump. We just don't know. Meanwhile the ICA has a claim to the co-op word. Whether the ICA has taken web technology as far as it might is another question that can be returned to.

Chris Grey has written 'Against Learning(PDF)' in a way that prioritises education as in established structures and disciplines. A search engine about 'learning' is connected to online even without an e as in "e-learning" or some other new set of words. It may include informal learning or just adult experience. "Anti-performativity"

"Engagement" is a word Adobe use to describe a new platform including Flash as well as html, pdf and xml. My problem is that I don't usually find Flash engaging. Not just the annoying banner and popup ads. Flash paper is likley to be followed by a reader that moves PDF into Flash. Maybe some people will like this but there is no way to copy text out for your own comments or to combine with something else and construct new meaning.

Video is ok as such and I realise Quicktime files are usually larger but it is possible to edit them. Streamed Flash content has gone. Maybe this is good for content owners but it is not engaging.

I have yet to meet anyone from the London College of Communication who would not prefer to back to the College being known to be about Printing. Maybe the word 'communication' has yet to be explained and promoted. Maybe other words would help explore this. The 'Knowledge Based Economy' may have started with printing. Maybe earlier but print technology gave it a boost. I will try to check out the KBE again. It may just be mostly words but there may be some basis as well.

I have started some search engines with the new Google approach to customisation. I still think Eurekster and Swickis will survive as they are more like a network. The design tolerates muddle and ambiguity, at least the way I use it. The Google approach seems to be looking for where to concentrate for maximum traffic. This is not always the best way to make new connections or allow for changes.

On the learn9 site there is a diagram 'hello spiders' where the swickis more or less fit together.

The Google ones are just about four things -PDF, ISO 9000, quality and learning. There is an overlap but you would have to do the same search in more than one of them. this assumes I manage to build some influence into them eventually. So far they seem to largely follow the main Google system.

'Learning' seems to me to be a good term, the fact this is an online search engine is enough of a clue without using e-learning, or ICT, or technology enhanced learning or networked management learning or information systems or whatever is claimed to exist at the moment. Last week at the LCC Futures Conference there was a fairly convincing case made that most e-learning projects have failed in their stated intentions as designed. However in the discussion on web design and Web 2.0 there was frequent use of the word 'learning', just to describe something that happens in normal life. Normal life includes the web so the technical term may be 'blended learning' though 'learning' has a meaning for most people.

There is one about ISO9000 as I realise this is still important. The learn9 swicki gets more searches on this than I expected. The 'quality' one will have a much wider scope, including critique of ISO9000 and alternatives.

There is another one about PDF, a scope that includes print and web. As an Adobe fan, i try to keep an open mind about Flash but I think PDF will be a focus for a while yet.

Links to the new search engines-
PDF
Learning
ISO9000
Quality

Trying out how to embed video. The link works ok in the previous post but I am inspired by an example on Buzzmachine from Jeff Jarvis.

So here is a copy of some YouTube code-

Email may not be junk. I recently got a newsletter from Epic that makes more sense than most of what I come across about e-learning. Steve Barden's article is headed "Latest Leadership Thinking – Let 'Me' Be Your Leader". It looks at how informal learning is taking advantage of technology.

"To a great extent I think the learning culture in many organisations has moved faster than the culture of training. Learners have taken to doing it for themselves through Google and a whole range of new online collaborative resources and tools. Informal learning has eaten into training territory on the back of this online expansion and significantly affected the learning culture."

It seems to me that YouTube could be included here. There is some mindbending rubbish but also some detailed instruction. Until recently, searching on "Bert Jansch" found almost nothing by Bert Jansch but several home videos of private performances. There is an extensive discussion including requests for detailed views of how a tune is played. See for example . The comments include some criticism that is then accepted, so don't take this as the best example for the little finger.

The discussion also covers the correct spelling of "Anji" or "Angie" quoting use over fourty years of history. "Angie" may be a different tune, only based on work by
Davey Graham. Since October 5th there has also been an extract from a BBC4 tv session. This may reflect the new acceptance of YouTube or it may not last very long. Suggest Bert Jansch fans check it soon.

If this is the "new thinking on leadership", we seem to be going back to some of the ideas around the "learning organisation". Energy from people directly involved in the process, that sort of thing. Maybe the Epic thinking is for practitioners and academics are finding "leadership" more interesting as a focus. YouTube could offer some stories for more than one approach.

I have added a poll at the Squidoo lens on W.E. Deming.

It asks if the Deming approach ever been tried in the USA?

It is known that Deming was listened to in Japan in the 1950s. Apparently he was listened to by Ford and others in the USA in the 1980s. Did they actually understand what he was saying?

Keep scrolling down, the poll is at the bottom of the page.

I am beginning to get stats on my Adwords program. Five actualk clickthoughs so far but lots of info on words that are used.

"search constructed knowledge" has had no interest at all so I have taken it out of the copy. Replaced by "learning with search". "Learning" has a following so this may work better.

Following Google University I have been thinking more about words and numbers and how to link in to advertising. Looking again at Eurekster it turns out they have started to include advertising so I have added this to each Swicki. I am about to get some actual stats on a global basis, well not global exactly but from the web as a whole. Previously trying to reach a UK audience has been confusing, all the stats show a 15% UK audience or close to this.

Information World Review is now covering 'Office 2.0' as well as 'Enterprise 2.0'. As the Wikipedia prefers 'enterprise social software' I have decided to add all the options to the learn9 wordcloud. They are each very small at the moment. For 'enterprise 2.0' there were 130,962 sites earlier today. The 'Enterprise Social Software' in Wikipedia showed up ahead of the ZD Net blog. 'Office 2.0' finds 215,755 but I think some are just about Office in general. 'Enterprise Social Software' finds only 45,012 but they ae mostly interesting, extended blog writing for example. 'Information 2.0' finds 461,301 but I can't see any pattern in this. It is a term for the Online Information show. i may add it if something else happens. I may take them off again, but it seems a good way to track some of the discussion through the conference phase.

This photo from Google University at AdTech. I plan to compare this with the Online Information event later this year. In the UK normally you need the Privy Council to agree to the use of the name "University". Somehow the US approach is gaining strength that companies can set up a university as well.

More on the content later. A lot of it was round the idea of a 'quality score', mostly based on how relevant your advert would be to a particular search query. I am thinking about how this fits with other quality theory.

Meanwhile Google Video seems to have given up the struggle with YouTube and opted for the high ground and more academic content. UC Berkeley have deposited a mass of course records. I liked one about search quality but it took them a while to get the slides working. The video just rolls on, this approach is not very mysterious.

The Online Information event is around the theme of "Information 2.0". Not sure what this implies but I am trying to mix it around "Web 2.0" just to check out what the official information scene has to offer. Open Access Journals for example do not yet carry the same weight as the expensive ones but some form of knowledge exists just through search and the web in general.

I have put a comment on the official blog, following on from David Weinberger last year. The IWR blog seems to be questioning the "Web 2.0" term as suffering a loss of meaning over time. The conference in San Francisco will surely come up with something though.