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It's all about rich e-learning experiences. Here are my thoughts on the current discussion between focusing on tasks and focusing on information in an e-learning course. Amy Gahran points out that a task-oriented approach is more effective in most e-learning than an information oriented approach. My point is that a decision-making or an execution-based approach is even better. Decisions are what business organizations are about. The need to perform a task or to acquire information really depends on the decision you are trying to make. Thus, know-how is equally important as know-why or know-what, it really depends on the decision. For example, if you are a research analyst looking into mergers and acquisitions, knowing what to look for is as important as knowing how to perform an analysis. The decision you as an analyst have to make is to figure out if there is compatibility in the two companies seeking to merge. This brings me to learning objectives. Amy mentions that a learning objective can clarify what kind of approach is needed. For example, if you have to use ¡§know¡¨ or ¡§understand¡¨ then an information-oriented approach is suggested, but if you use ¡§list¡¨ or ¡§order¡¨ or ¡§assemble¡¨ then a task-oriented approach is suggested. This is true only for micro-level instructions. In business organizations, people demand the micro only when the macro is justified. Too much of e-learning is focused on the conditioning mindset ¡V provide the cheese crumbs to the caged mouse and he will ¡¥learn¡¦ to find his way to the exit. This is where the behaviourists have ruled for so long. The sanitizing and listing down of bullet-objectives with carefully selected words that make complete sense only to the instructional designer is the most visible indication of a behaviourist or a Fredrick Taylor-ian slant. So, what¡¦s a better approach? Write a simple 1-2 paragraph blurb of how learning the content or the steps to a task will help you execute a decision in your practice. See how HotWired does it. Treat learners as humans and they will love you for it; treat them as cogs in a wheel and, well, they¡¦ll just click the Close button! I¡¦ like to tell a simple story from Learning To Fly which describes British Petroleum¡¦s knowledge management journey. Professor John Henderson of Boston University tells this story to senior BP managers. I interviewed a colonel. Now this colonel was a colonel in the 82nd airborne, one of the more elite groups in the US Army. He got a call on Saturday morning at 8 o¡¦clock reminding him that a hurricane had just hit.  He was told that the current administration had very strong ties to that particular part of the country that they did not believe that this should be left to the reserve group because they wanted no ¡§screw-ups¡¨. So the orders to the colonel were very clear: go down there, provide any support necessary to the people after this hurricane and don¡¦t screw up. Clear orders. The Army calls it intent ¡V strategic intent. The strategic intent was clear. This particular colonel was a very highly decorated combat soldier ¡V he had never done this in his life. He had never actually commanded any type of civilian-related activity. He¡¦d always been right on the front lines in hot action. It turns out as part of the executive education in the army he had been exposed to the ¡¥Centre for Army Lessons Learned¡¦ as part of their executive education process. So he got on his laptop computer he dialled into Army net, hooked into the Centre of Army Lessons Learned¡¦ and asked the following question ¡V ¡¥what does the Army know about hurricane cleanup?¡¦ Within four hours he had: A profile of the deployment of troops in the last three hurricanes that occurred in North America that the army was sent to provide support and clean-up including types of staff, skills, numbers of skills. A pro-forma budget ¡V both what budget was required and what the actual budget was and where the cost overruns were. The ten questions that you will be asked by CNN in the first 30 minutes on your arrival. A list of every state agency and federal agency that had to be contacted and coordinated with and the name of the contact person that he had to contact, and the army liaison person who was currently working with that group some place in North America. Established a Lotus Notes advisory team of three commanders, who agreed to be his advisory group in the command structure. Now, if we were to design an e-learning episode, or a knowledge asset as BP calls it, on hurricane clean-ups, how would we design it? Would we design based on tasks or information? Would we begin with a list of bullet-objectives? Here¡¦s where I differentiate between designing an e-learning course and designing a rich e-learning experience, with all its real-life ambiguities. This is where the prospect of using e-learning as a narrative technique rocks. I'd love to hear your comments. E-mail me at maish-at-elearningpost.com. [elearningpost] 3:16:04 PM

Mindawn offers DRM-free music downloads. Mindawn is a new online music download service that differs from Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes Music Store and other services in a few ways: It's not only compatible with Macs and PCs but with Linux computers too, its music is available in a lossless format, and there are no Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions. Mindawn launched in September and is picking up steam, according to its founder. [MacCentral News] 10:33:03 AM

Ubicomp. Ubicomp, or ubiquitous computing, is the inevitable result the convergence I described yesterday in "The Business Singularity." Inevitable? Consider: ...the new schema for Internet Protocol addressing, IPv6, which, with its 128-bit address space, provides some 6.5 x 10A2A3 addresses for every square meter on the surface of our planet, and therefore quite abundantly enough for every pen and stamp and book and door in the world to talk to each other. And of course it is a future economically latent in the need of manufacturers and marketers for continuous growth, and the identification of vast new markets beyond the desktop, laptop, personal audio player and mobile phone. All watched over by machines of loving grace: Some ethical guidelines for user experience in ubiquitous-computing settingsby Adam Greenfield in the current Boxes and Arrows makes the case for ethical guidelines in user-interface design in the ubicomp, always-on environment. The theme will be familiar if you heard me speak at TechLearn this year: like atomic energy, the new computing environment has the potential for wonderful rewards or utter catastrophe. Says Greenfield, With all due respect, we have seen that products designed by engineers, or whose design is permitted to default to the tastes, preferences and predilections of engineers, almost always fail end users (unless those end users are themselves engineers). This is not an indictment of engineers.* They are given a narrow technical brief, and within the envelope available to them they return solutions. It is not in their mandate to consider the social and environmental impact of their work. What could happen? Greenfield envisions this: Imagine the feeling of being stuck in voice-mail limbo, or fighting unwanted auto-formatting in a word processing program, or trying to quickly silence an unexpectedly ringing phone by touch, amid the hissing of fellow moviegoers - except all the time, and everywhere, and in the most intimate circumstances of our lives. Levels of discomfort we accept as routine (even, despite everything we know, inevitable!) in the reasonably delimited scenarios presented by our other artifacts will have redoubled impact in a ubicomp world. I am more fearful of how Dilbert's pointy-haired boss and his HR Director Catbert will use continuous surveillance to ruin people's lives. And don't get me going on the TSA that frisks me at airports or its parent, the Department of Homeland Security. Greenfield proposes a starter set of principles for user-experience professionals. Default to harmlessness. Ubiquitous systems must default to a mode that ensures their usersa£á? (physical, psychic and financial) safety. Be self-disclosing. Ubiquitous systems must contain provisions for immediate and transparent querying of their ownership, use, capabilities, etc., such that human beings encountering them are empowered to make informed decisions regarding exposure to same. Be conservative of face. Ubiquitous systems are always already social systems, and must contain provisions such that wherever possible they not unnecessarily embarrass, humiliate, or shame their users. Be conservative of time. Ubiquitous systems must not introduce undue complications into ordinary operations. Be deniable. Ubiquitous systems must offer users the ability to opt out, always and at any point. These guidelines are a step in the right direction, but implementing them takes a commitment to humanism that's hardly a defining characteristic of engineers and geeks. Instructional designers and developers, courses are dying; please get involved in user interface design, where you're badly needed. *Especially not you, Philip. [Internet Time Blog] 9:46:39 AM

Official Nintendo Game Boy MPEG4 Player Flash memory Game Boy cartridges are always welcome around here, so seeing this MPEG4/MP3 player with a built-in SD slot was notable enough¡Xthen I realized it was from Nintendo themselves, which is even more surprising. Obviously, it's not designed to play games, but the unit can play back movies for up to 4 hours at the Game Boy Advance SP's native resolution (352 by 288 pixels) as well as play back MP3s with the screen off for up to 15 hours on a charge. I have no idea if Nintendo plans to bring the unit out to the United States, but since it should work with the DS just fine, there's no reason they couldn't (like taking away from the DS's momentum, I'm saying). For gamers I still think flash linkers that let you copy ROMs over are a lot more convenient (and you can get ones that use SD and MMC cards, I know), but since Nintendo has quietly been selling a ton of video content on GBA carts, I wonder if they're thinking about moving over to an SD-based content distribution system. Nintendo Co., the MPEG-4/MP3 corresponding SD card player for GBA SP (Japanese) [ImpressWatch] Product Page (Japanese) [NintendoJP] - lev (joeljohnson@gmail.com) [Gizmodo] 9:38:09 AM

Flexible Plastic Book Scanner Tokyo University researchers have developed a scanner embedded in a flexible sheet of plastic that will allow archivers to get into the cracks of old and fragile books without cutting apart the spine. Plus the scanner uses a set of organic diodes to register the image using reflected light, meaning just a good, bright fluorescent should get the job done. Tokyo University's wraparound scanner [Dottocomu] - lev (joeljohnson@gmail.com) [Gizmodo] 9:37:19 AM