Over the last couple of months there has been a course in Connectivism at the University of Manitoba Extended Education and Learning Technologies Centre (http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/connectivism/) and a course in Work Literacy (http://workliteracy.ning.com/). I signed up for both and following them has been an abysmal failure. I tend to take a buffet approach in my personal learning environment and there has been too many choices and time conflicts to thoroughly enjoy the banquet. Hopefully the resources will continue to be available after the course has formally completed. A free online event "Corporate Learning Trends and Innovations" begins 11/17/2008 at http://www.learntrends.com/. I hope to be able to look in from time to time and I believe there will be online archives. The list of presentation speakers and topics looks fantastic.
Last month my facility conducted an excellent 1 day program on Evidence Based Practice which was attended by well over 100 nurses. Over the past couple of weeks I've taught a couple of "guerilla informatics" classes on using PowerPoint and Excel. For both of the topics I tried to key in on simple and hopefully useful techniques that were also practical. I'd like to plan a joint class with our medical librarian on using RSS to keep up with the healthcare literature That session could be followed by one on using either Netvibes (http://www.netvibes.com) or PageFlakes (http://www.pageflakes.com) as a tool to collect resources in a single area as an approach to creating a personal learning environment.
A potentially useful and fun site called Popfly (http://www.popfly.com) can produce mashups, games and web pages. It's a Microsoft application and it requires the user to install the free Microsoft Silverlight browser plugin (http://Microsoft.com/silverlight). According to the Microsoft website "Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. By using Silverlight's support for .NET, High Definition video, cost-effective advanced streaming, and unparalleled high-resolution interactivity with Deep Zoom technology, businesses can reach out to new markets across the Web, desktop, and devices."
Lots of opportunities to learn, explore and share!
