Stephen's Web

OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
April 21, 2008

Chicken Chicken Chicken
I saw a dog get hit by a car today (it's OK, he's OK). I spend the entire day doing paperwork. I have a horrible cold. So I say that this was easily the best 4:06 of my day. Via Cathy Moore. yorambauman, YouTube, April 21, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Surman On Philanthrocapitalism
David Wiley responds to some of my criticisms (no word on the lack of disclosure though). I'll let him have the last word, though I have to say I'm disappointed. He doesn't seem to realize that his stealth commercial enterprise completely discredits his assertions that everyone should use licenses that allow commercial use, and makes it look like these assertions were made simply for commercial gain. If you knew he was setting up a commercial enterprise, you'd read this somewhat differently, wouldn't you? And this. David Wiley, Iterating Toward Openness, April 21, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Building a Collaborative Workplace
White paper on collaboration in the workplace. Worth a read. While the authors note that "older models of collaboration tended to focus on teams and formal, structured collaboraion," we have, they say, more options now, including "community collaboration" and "network collaboration" (what I would call 'cooperation' rather than 'collaboration'). There's a checklist that allows you to evaluation your own organization's "collaboration culture" (it's pretty simplistic, though). Still the suggestions on how to improve collaboration - of any of the three types - are well taken. PDF. HTML Launch page. Via elearningpost. Shawn Callahn, Mark Schenk and Nancy White, Anecdote, April 21, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning, Networks] [Comment]

Our Apologies
I really feel for the administrators of the EDUCAUSE website after they were really maliciously hacked over the weekend. I'm sure it will be no consolation to them to know that the stuff went out over their RSS feeds, too. Ouch. It just goes to show, I guess, that it happens to the best of us. Administrator, EDUCAUSE, April 21, 2008 [Link] [Tags: RSS, EDUCAUSE] [Comment]

What's the Problem with Kirkpatrick?
Clive Shepherd writes, "I'm going to take some convincing that Kirkpatrick isn't a reasonable starting point for assessing effectiveness, both qualitative and quantitative." And yet, he notes, "in practice, we don't do that much of it - according to an ASTD survey, 91% of organisations evaluate at level 1 (reactions), 54% at level 2 (learning), 23% at level 3 (behaviour change) and 8% at level 4 (impact on results)" (Level 5, ROI, as he correctly notes, was added later). The problem with Kirkpatrick's measure - or any similar measure, for that matter - is that it is trying to measure a complex phenomenon as a linear result. A change in behaviour associated with learning, for example, may be the result of a perceived change in threat level from management, and have nothing to do with the learning. You don't get at such things with simple measures. Related: James Kariuki, ROI of e-learning. Clive Shepherd, Clive on Learning, April 21, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning] [Comment]

Nokia USA: It's Not Your Intermediaries, It's YOU
Companies pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get this sort of feedback. Amy Gahran gives it to them for free - good, solid advice that should not be ignored (I like the video from blip.tv too). Apple should take heed - they made me pay $79 for my free replacement of an iPod that bricked for no good reason less than a year after I bought it. Amy Gahran, Contentious, April 21, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

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