I was at a client meeting the other day where the topic of discussion was “multi-channel delivery of learning content”. The client has a legacy collection of audio and video learning objects that it wants to make available to employees on an on-demand basis. I suggested that the client could group the learning objects into a series of topic areas based on job performance competencies. Employees could then select which topic areas they were interested in and have a tailored selection of content delivered to them via a personalized RSS feed.

I noticed some eyes start to glaze over at this point as we continued to discuss how we could set up an RSS feed to deliver learning content. The room seemed to be divided into 2 camps. Those that knew what an RSS feed was (me and one other guy). And everyone else in the room.

I should have shown everyone this clear and simple explanation of RSS brought to you by the good people at Commoncraft. Here is “RSS in Plain English”

After watching this video you will know all about RSS. Now let’s start getting that learning content out there!

Comments(1)

With the announcement of Open Social, being spearheaded by Google, there is a lot of interest and questions about what is Open Social and what it means to Business. I know this is a Learning blog, but in the interest of learning and sharing, I wrote about it on the Matrix Meridian corporate site, but I’m sharing it here as well as a lot applies also to the future of online learning technologies.

Follow the link to take a look.

Comments(0)

After a brief hiatus, I’m back to address some some questions that we’ve been getting from our client and friends alike. With the arrival of the likes of MySpace and Facebook into the public mainstream consciousness, we are often asked about Social Media.

‘Social Computing is not a fad. Nor is
it something that will pass you or
your company by. Gradually, Social
Computing will impact almost every
role, at every kind of company, in all
parts of the world.’
– Forrester Research, Social Computing - How Networks
Erode Institutional Power, And What to Do About It

Is it a big deal? In a single word…YES!

As tracked by Technorati, a specialist site that follows blogs, there are currently just short of about 100 MILLION blogs and this number is currently doubling every 6 months. There are about 100 million videos being watch on YouTube.com every day…and this number exceed the total number of Google searchs performed in the same period!

So, what IS Social Media? Well, there are a lot of definitions, but they all involve online media and applications that have these features in common:

Participation - encourage contribution and feedback,
blurs lines between content creator and user

Openness - open to feedback and participation, lack
of barriers to access and use of content

Conversation - conventional media is about
broadcast, social media is two-way

Community - allows communities to form quickly and
communicate effectively around common interests

Connectedness - online links and combining different
kinds of media in one place (mashup)

Next time, we’re going to talk a bit about each of the following common types of Social Media:

Blogs

Wikis

Podcasts

Forums

Social Networks

Content Communities

Until next time…keep learning!

Comments(0)

It seems like I am not the only one learning Mandarin this year! And I am not the only one to have discovered ChinesePod.

Check out this “learning Chinese” segment that aired as part of the recent “China Rising” series on NBC Nightly News:

Comments(0)