Cave Of Dreams: Simulations in Higher Education It seems like pre-history, but it was only eight or nine years ago that my colleague Jeff McLaughlin and I developed the Painted Porch MAUD, a multi-user learning learning environment based on a MUD (or, as most educators would say, a MOO, though a MOO really is quite different technically). I mention this because one of my pride and joys in the Painted Porch was a simulation of Plato's Cave - Jeff and I were philosophy instructors, after all. So it brings back fond memories to read this article which introduces the topic of simulations in education via the metaphor of Plato's Cave. And while, as the author observes, Plato spent a great deal of time trying to convince people to leave the cave of illusions, researchers today are developing increasingly realistic simulations with an eye to persuading all of us to spend more time in the virtual world. Hey, I'm OK with that. But I would not have made a very good Platonist. By Susan Abdulezer, ConVerge, December, 2001.[Refer]

Web Services Three part series from WebReference. Part One introduces the concept and some major underlying principles, such as SOAP and UDDI. Part Two describes how to call a web service. Finally, Part Three describes web service behavior and its four supported methods. You may also want to see this site containing information and resources for creating web services using Perl. By Unknown, WebReference, December 3, 2001.[Refer]

What's a Web Service? Experts Want to Know Web services are the Next Big Thing and they will be infiltrating your online course development environment any day now (if they haven't started already). But what are they? This article attempts an explanation - it's not too technical (which left me a little frustrated) and spends a lot of time talking about what experts think they are (or might be). But I saw some web services in operation just the other day, and while neither I nor this article has a handy-dandy definition, I can say with some certainty that you will use web services. Trust me. By Matt Berger, InfoWorld, January 17, 2002.[Refer]

ASTD Certification Institute Launches E-Learning Courseware Certification Program Article announcing the launch of the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) online course certification program. The program has actually been on the ASTD website for several months, so this announcement is a little out of date. No mention in the article of the costs involved: ASTD charges up to $8,000 to certify a course. You can find this tidbit and more information on the ASTD certification website. By Unknown, E-Learning Magazine, January 11, 2002.[Refer]

Plugfests Help Standardize Online Learning Technology A little bit about the organizational history of ADL and the SCORM standards sandwiched inside a description of ADL's 'Plugfests,' events organized that "seek to test the compatibility of the learning software in real time." By Elizabeth G. Book, National Defense Magazine, January, 2002.[Refer]

E-learning and the Professional Development of Trainers and Vocational Teachers This new survey of trainers in Europe replicates results I have seen elsewhere. The vast majority of them undertake some form of learning and the amount of learning is increasing. Noteworthy is the fact that most of their learning is informal learning. While web based learning isn't a huge part of their learning, most of them predict that they will increase the learning they do online. This in spite of the fact that they see most online learning as fair to poor. By Unknown, European Training Village, January, 2002.[Refer]

Research on Learning and Performance Following an email conversation this week (yet another bug report - I need to spend some serious time with my web site this weekend) I took a wander through Jay Cross's Internet Time Group website. Of particular interest for readers of this list wll be his elearning weblog. Prepare for a bit of a sit-down - there are many good nuggets here, thoughts, themes, items that should be essays but aren't (mental XML, for example, five fundamental learning styles for asynchronous instruction, and metalearning society - the rules). By Jay Cross, , .[Refer]

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