Get With the Program: Smart Strategies for Online Teaching This is a theme that came up on several occasions at NLII in San Diego. As the blurb says, "Corporate trainers would do well to watch how high-school kids learn online." The article covers an number of other good lessons for people developing online learning: customize learning, allow anyone (and everyone) to enroll, and let people work their way at their speed. Oh, and share your notes. By Anni Layne Rodgers, Fast Company, January, 2002.[Refer]

Googlewhacking: The Search for 'The One' I just love stuff like this, and there has to be an online learning angle in there somewhere. Doesn't there? Ah, what will internet culture produce next? P.S.: frizzles jalopy By Gary Stock, , 2002.[Refer]

Linking Their Thinking When most people think of the future of learning, they think of things like online learning or technology supported classrooms. This article, a lengthy but very very well written description of the MIT's media lab, should shake those preconceptions. From using digital cameras to understanding history and development to name tags that exchange information to sustainable education projects in Brazil, the Media Lab's Future of learning group is stretching the boundaries of - and our conceptions of - technology and learning. At the end of the article, a list of links you must visit (if you haven't already), especially the Future of Learning group page. By Andrew Trotter , Education Week, January 30, 2002.[Refer]

'The Blue Planet': A Sense of Wonder Under the Sea I saw an installment of this series while I was in San Diego and would add to this glowing review that it combines education with art. The Blue Wonder is visually stunning and - as the review asserts - educational. Though I have no particular interest in marine biology, I was kept captivated throughout. This is a must-see, even if you have to use old technology (television) to view it. The series is a product of the BBC's natural history division and co- produced by the Discovery Channel. Oh... and I think that the assignment of this reviewer for the series was no coincidence. Heh. By Julie Salamon, New York Times, January 27, 2002.[Refer]

E-Learning Value Chain Useful article outlining - in a convenient diagram - major sectors in the e-learning industry. The link is in the article; when you follow the link (and you will follow the link, right?) be sure to click on the different parts of the diagram to get an expanded description. The column also looks at the e-learning inductry in British Columbia, Canada, listing - with links - more than fifty companies in that province. Impressive. By Paul Stacey, T-Net British Columbia, January 25, 2002.[Refer]

Connecting the Dots: Cost of Higher Education, Reduced Resources and Distance Education On the one hand I compete with Farhad Saba's Distance-Educator.Com, a daily newsletter about online learning. But on another, more important, hand, I am a regular reader of the newsletter and support a lot of what Saba has to say. A case in point is this column. Saba point out, accurately, that despite a massive infusion of teconology into the system, the cost of learning has not gone down. Indeed, if anything, it has increased. Why? As he has argued in previous columns, higher education institutions suffer from an organizational underdevelopment. But what we need from Saba is a plan. How would he fix this? How, especially, considering the entrenchment of current organizational structures? By Farhad Saba, Distance-Educator.Com, January 30, 2002.[Refer]

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