I’ve never met Dr Weber in person, but we have been in contact via Twitter, and I chalk this week’s BOTW down as a success for microblogging.
Dr Weber is the CEO of MITA (Multiple Intelligences Teaching Approach), and a former teacher, so she is mostly focused on education rather than on work-based L&D. All the same, her blog – Brain Leaders and Learners – provides plenty of food for thought, as it’s based on a good understanding of what actually happens in the brain during learning, rather than on pop-psychology.
It’s impossible to pick a best three from this site, as I normally would. It’s too full of good stuff. Instead, I recommend you visit and enjoy looking around. If you really want a place to get started, try here 25 Facts to rejuvenate your brain, or here: Multi-Task for Bottlenecked Brain.
The second is Britain’s own Phil Bradley, the librarian with attitude, whose Twitter Search – 20 alternative search enginesactually contains more utilities that I have found useful, because they are all about search. The worst thing about Twitter is that it’s endlessly ephemeral. Neil Lasher has compared it to ’shouting out of the window while driving the car”. A lot of the shouts are nonsense. Some are really valuable.
My two favourite utilities:
Tweepsearch - lets you find people you might actually have something in common with based on key words in their biographies
Monitter – provides a live feed on key word searches of tweets. Automatically refreshes. Like Tweetscan, but for three words at a time.
One that I think is useful, but can’t quite make my mind up:
Tweet Effect – tells you how many followers you picked up or lost on each tweet. Just how interested are people in your comments about your morning coffee?
Not all organisations are equally open to technology-supported learning. Also, not all organisations are equally affected by the downturn.
The result is a 2×2 picture of what arguments you can use to support the adoption of e-learning or other technology-supported learning in your organisation:
The title says it all, really. If you’re tired of trying to work out how to use various aggregators to get all your favourite blogs in one place, try no longer.
Just visit the LT2009 Speaker Blogs widget on the left.
Please note: this is still in beta, and if the contents are not as you would expect, or not there at all, it will either get sorted out in the next few weeks, or I’ll delete the widget. (And if the feed does fail, an error message will show, and you can still get your daily blog fix from the widget listing speakers at the bottom of the column on the right.)
A new area of discussion has emerged over the past few months that looks like more than a flash in the pan: the state of professionalism in Learning and Development (L&D), or the lack of it.
Patently L&D is not a professional in any formal sense. It has no governing body, no membership and no regulation of behaviour. But we talk of ‘the L&D profession’ quite frequently, and of acting professionally.
What does it all mean? Are we growing more professional as a group, or are we just kidding ourselves?
Our January key note, Jay Cross, has kindly produced this mash up of the conference:
Next week I’ll post the written summary of the conference. Not for comparison of content – they do different things – but for comparison of sensation. We all have different ways of absorbing information.
Josie Fraser talked at the Learning Technologies Conference in January, and her blog is on our official blog roll (look left), yet unaccountably Josie’s blog has not yet been a BOTW. Time to put that right.
Actually, you have to be specific what you’re talking about, because Josie Fraser lives Social Networking and Web 2.0, so let’s be specific and say Josie’s Social Tech blog. If you really want to know where Josie’s at you need to follow her Twitter micro blogging at http://twitter.com/josiefraser.
The reason for adding the blog is simple: if you want to know about social networking, this is the place to start. It’s also the place to come back to. Given the importance of social networking, that makes it a crucial reference to be using.
That’s just three examples. What I particularly like about Josie’s blog is that although the entries are not necessarily frequent, they are always considered, well-written and full of stuff I didn’t know.
Dr Thalheimer believes in something very important: research, which is why I love his work. If you read the two reports, you’ll find a lot of substantive research backing up 23 recommendations on how to give feedback as part of learning. And giving feedback right is a crucial part of effective training.
I summarise the 23 principles and recommendations below. If you don’t agree with my summary, download the reports. If you want to learn more, download the reports. Hey, just download the reports and give your mind a good workout.
I was delighted to host Phil Green on the first of the Learning and Skills Group webinars yesterday morning. (Group members can visit the group web site and go to ‘Events’ to see the full list.)
Ending a presentation in which he’d shown some pretty impressive PowerPoint development tricks, Phil said something like:
This may not be perfect, and there may be many ways in which it could be improved. If you have any comments to make, please let me know. I am always keen to learn.
Now, Phil’s been on the scene a long time, and this could sound like false modesty. It isn’t. He genuinely believes – and I share this belief – that we need fewer gurus and more sharing of information and skills. Nobody knows everything, and through sharing we all learn a little more.
This may sound like a cue for a love-in. It isn’t. Sharing reasons why we disagree with each other is an important part of learning, too. Arguably it’s even better, because we are forced to examine our beliefs and justify them.
Posted by donaldhtaylor 
Posted by donaldhtaylor 
Posted by donaldhtaylor 
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