Thursday, September 02, 2010

5 Ways the iPad Changes the Learning Marketplace

The iPad will accelerate many changes in the learning space. I think there are specific capabilities on the iPad that will dramatically impact the production of learning applications and learning content going forward.

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1. "Occasionally connected computing" comes of age making any learning environment viable for computer use whether bandwidth is huge, weak, or non-existent.

The iPad fulfills on the promise of the uber-rich client that draws what it needs from the Web and renders it in the most optimal way for the user.

The sci-fi images of the user moving their hands side-to-side through holograms to manipulate a user interface is not far off.

2.  Price. User's receive the richest available interface at the same price level as a smart phone.

The beef with tablets and handhelds and phones has always been the nature of their usable interface. Built to be small. Modeled after a keyboard/mouse interface.

The rocket science here is that the pricepoint is right AND the interface provides the ultimate user experience (not the least appealing experience). The expectation that the laptop/desktop experience is the ideal or preferred experience is gone!

3. Trust of the experience from Enterprise users.

The iPad is inheriting the best of the iPhone experience and it is seeing a universal groundswell in demand from the Enterprise user.

Large enterprise organizations, e.g. entire sales forces, are demanding the experience because it not only works as a hi-fi experience for training themselves but training (or demoing to) a customer by just holding up the iPad has real impact.

Who expected that the Enterprise would so rabidly (correct spelling) adopt the device?

4. Content and apps catalogs assumed as a default behavior of coursework.

iTunes tamed music and the iPad will tame coursework. The music labels used to control all the production and distribution of music.

With digitization, followed by stores like iTunes, the democratization of music production and consumption shifted radically.

Edu content will feel the same shift. Major providers of content will feel the shift of production of content into the hands of the distributed marketplace. Expect the aggregation of content from major providers and others into agnostic catalogs. Much of the content will be authored by indie providers. Much of the content will be consumed in short snippets (a single song rather than a entire album).

Expect "Kayak" for "Coursework" to make the iPad an even more powerful learning tool.

5. Collaboration as an experience will be assumed.

Like an OS, the features that accelerate collaboration will become assumed as part of the learning experience.

a. Location: I will understand who and what is nearby that is relevant to my learning and interests.
b. Opinion: I will see what others think of what I am learning. I will see what they think, how they classify my learning, and how they advise me and others to proceed. I will trust these people because either I know them or others I trust have ranked them as ideal sources.
c. Presence: I will be able to connect in real time with people interested in or knowledgeable about the same things I am interested in. Live voice, video, chat, and sharing will become instantaneous and easy in all of my learning on the iPad.

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Undoubtedly the iPad is cool. What is really exciting is that the learning marketplace, including the corporate learning marketplace, appears to have adopted the iPad in a way that is unique and lends itself to becoming the tool of choice for transforming the learning space.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

10 myths 10 Minutes 10 tweets for Opening Night of #SWSF Learning

This presentation was delivered at Startup Weekend San Francisco #SWSF just after Eric Ries's. No talk track or audio on this Slideshare. But do ask if you want to hear what I said.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Ignite Your People Knowhow: Learning Anywhere, Everywhere

http://bit.ly/bDpJgL

Tuesday, 24 August 2010, 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM (GMT -04:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)

As your organization seeks new ways to outperform the status quo, ensure you're harnessing and multiplying the knowhow and performance of your people. Traditional work styles have given way to today's networked way of working, where the norm is highly “connected” people operating in a fluid environment and fast changing pace. Today's new work style means that learning needs to happen as part of work rather than as a separate, formal event. This means enabling learning where people work, where they travel, outside of work, connected, disconnected, practically anywhere and everywhere. Now more than ever, your organization needs to embrace all the ways in which you can give people and teams the knowhow necessary to effectively compete and succeed.

Register for this web seminar on Igniting People Knowhow to explore:

• How learning processes have evolved to incorporate formal, informal and social aspects

• How new approaches in learning delivery can transform the user experience

• How your corporate portal can become a one-stop solution for critical learning and process support

• How to assemble the experience of your choice with embeddable business processes

• How to deliver learning to individuals across the globe in offline and mobile situations

• How your learning initiatives can directly impact your company's revenue, profits and business agility

Join David Koehn, head of Saba's Learning Strategy group, and learn how organizations of all sizes are redefining the learning experience to accommodate the new way of working, thereby multiplying the productivity and knowhow of their people and improving their business agility.

Register here: http://bit.ly/bDpJgL

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Sidewiki Pop: Wish I Had a Side Wiki that Could Handle Everything

Yeah, Sidewiki is cool. But not nearly as powerful of a tool as I need. I worked on a product called Webster that was shitcanned in its time that did everything I need.

What I need...or at least what I wish I had is a side-wiki that could highlight an area of a page, in different colors if need be, allow me to comment on sections of the page, and even store off each and every entry in hierarchical bookmarking. Further I wish it worked across the Web, and my outlook, pdf, .xls, .doc. and all image type filess too! Give me that (or let me build that) and I'll be impressed.

in reference to: Google Sidewiki (view on Google Sidewiki)