Learning Notes From an E-Learning 2.0 Implementation Workshop

"Students who ask better questions, are independent learners, deep thinkers and ethical leaders of the future"
- NTU's Greatest Achievement

WHY GO?
Alright, the actual title for the 2-day workshop was:

E-Learning Implementation and Web 2.0 Technologies
in the Higher Education Sector

The main objective of this hands-on practical workshop was to develop an understanding of the implementation and application of e-learning technologies within an institution of higher education. Also, it explored several web 2.0 technologies that participants could use to develop a collaborative online learning space.

The hands-on workshop was held at a nice computer lab (24 participants) at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). It was organized by AKEPT, UPM and Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

The first 1/2 day, Assoc. Prof. Daniel Tan (Director, Centre for Educational Development) explored Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) e-learning story from its inception in 1998 (using TopClass!) until today's 'University 2.0' (4.5 MB, .ppt. 2008 version only).

The remaining 1 1/2 days was allocated for Lance Larkin to explore the web 2.0 world for educational purposes.

This workshop was actually more intended for academics new to e-learning, rather than learning freaks like me. However, the reason I decided to attend (free invitation) was mainly to listen and learn from Daniel Tan's decade long experience at NTU, and of course to connect, learn and network with participants attending. Also, I was pretty curious to see how Lance Larkin conducted a web 2.0 hands-on workshop.

To make a web 2.0 point, I actually used Twitter throughout the workshop to share relevant or interesting resources discussed during the learning sessions. Interestingly, during the process I did have a couple of short related Twitter debates with some strangers out there. It is always fun to get some WordPress fanatics going, by slamming it head-on against Blogger!

As I will next reflect more deeply lessons learned during the workshop, I will not post the tweets stream here (if interested, just check the 23-24th November tweets). Let's begin...



NTU'S E-LEARNING WISDOM
Or perhaps more correctly, Daniel Tan's wisdom acquired during his decade long implementation of e-learning at NTU. What I love about this guy (since 2005), is that he so receptive to learn, and has an amazing sense to spot and neutralize any form of inefficiency to the process of doing anything you can imagine.

He is not so IT-Savvy (admits he is a one-finger typing educator), but he is exceptionally learning-savvy and proactive, and his stream of ideas and leadership is to my understanding the secret recipe that has propelled NTU to become the higher education benchmark for e-learning in Singapore and perhaps South-East Asia. When you have an army of around 50 staff, and probably get unlimited funding from the Singapore Government, and then top that with a dynamic, learning-savvy and proactive hands-on leader like Daniel, you are very likely to have some form of success.

Here are some of the useful things I learned from Daniel's 1/2 day talk (Usually, I would be sleeping by 50 minutes, but not this time around):

What NTU Did Not Do:

• Provide incentives and penalties to get academics on board with e-learning. I suppose if you do succeed using such an approach, it is going to be very costly, and if you don't succeed it will be very painful (for you and the educators!), unless you use non-tangible carrots and sticks. Anyway, if academics believe in your e-learning strategy, they see (or envisions) it benefit the students' learning that is a good enough incentive to put in a few extra hours needed to make it work. That is, if you are a passionate educator that really gets satisfaction from facilitating students to get AHA moments.
  
  
• Develop an in-house customized system (NTU uses Blackboard as their airport). Though, they did develop AcuLearn for recording lectures on-the-fly (synchronized with the slides), and a few other tools, including the award winning eUreka that enables you to create collaborative online learning spaces for projects. However, what Daniel actually meant here, is that for the main virtual learning environment (or LMS) they decided to go for a commercial solution instead (and ended up with Blackboard). At that time (2000) Moodle was nowhere to be seen, but I am quite confident they would choose Moodle over Blackboard, if they had to make that decision today. Perhaps, you should read Moodle is an Airport... if you are considering using Moodle, or not.
  
  Anyway, he didn't talk much about how great Blackboard was, but instead talked about other learning tools they were using to facilitate engaging and collaborative learning. Besides AcuLearn and eUreka, he was extremely excited about using LAMS to create sequenced learning activities to facilitate the learning process. Whatever learning tool we plan to use, we should consider using NTU's evaluation criterion for selection, which is:
  
  1. Ease-of-Use
  2. Positive User Feedback
  3. Performance Issues
  4. Integration with Student Information System
  5. Compliance with Standards
  
  In other words, if it is not user-friendly, and you practically need to read a 20-page user guide to learn it, it isn't going to work with most Professors, no matter how many amazing features it has.
  

• Allow the Center for Educational Development (CED) to lead the e-Learning implementations. Instead, they let the academics lead the way, but of course sprinkle ideas, energy, training and support to make sure things move forward.
  
  
• Change the way professors teach. Try that and you are for sure doomed. Instead NTU's CED facilitates e-learning using a step-by-step professor-centric evolutionary process, based on the 20:80 rule (minimal effort, maximum impact). In his own words: multipliers, self-help, useful and user-friendly environment, and extenzifications (record lectures and make them available online 24/7. No additional work for lecturers, besides doing what they usually do).
  

Daniel Tan spent a lot of time sharing with us NTU's UniWood (eLecture) project, which is to record lectures and make them easily available online 24/7. They use AcuLearn (in-house developed tool, but has now evolved into a company) to synchronize the videos with the presentation slides, and then publish the lectures online. In a way, he was also marketing this tool (kind of annoying! But it is NTU's baby, so understandable!), and was perhaps too bias to all its strengths, leaving out some of its weaknesses compared to potential competitors (Articulate, Adobe Connect/Presenter, Tandberg, etc). For example, the AcuLearn presentation interface, file size output (compression), user-flexibility, viewing options, is really a big question mark (compared to others!).

However, we should learn from how they manage the lecture recording process, which is certainly mind-blowing and unique to me (at least!).

Who records these lectures? STUDENTS! Every class must appoint a few students to carry out these activities. If I heard correctly, they don't even get paid (FREE!), but they do get some community services points (or some form of points! Wow!). Anyway, their efforts do benefit many students using these lectures, so I suppose that is an intrinsic incentive, too. To ensure that the post-editing of recorded lectures goes smoothly, each lecture hall has 2 PCs, enabling one group to finalize the editing, while another group can start recording the next lecture.

Most eLectures are available for online viewing within minutes (or done within 24 hours). They also have an amazing server farm and delivery network to make everything run according to plan (supporting 30,000+ students).

To understand the magnitude of this UniWood project, just imagine they have 40 recording locations at a time (40 lectures simultaneously), roughly 8 hours per day (=320 hours). By the time they reach 2 semesters (20,800 hours per semester!), we are talking about 41,600 hours of eLectures. I would love to know, how many hours of eLectures they have archived over the years.

Now, imagine if NTU made all these eLectures available for free to mankind. MIT OpenCourseware would look like a smurf, if we measured in terms of size (But then again, it is really about quality!). Alright, we would also have 10+ updated versions of many lectures!

So, do students watch these eLectures? Many times! The notes provided says rate-of-reuse per lecture is on the average 38.14, he said something like 76 (I assume it is 76 clicks, including slide jumping clicks within a lecture). Whatever it is, NTU students seem to be hungry learners, or totally obsessed mastering 100% of the eLecture to ensure they pass the exam.

Finally, do students now still attend Face-to-Face lectures? Yes, just as much as before (attendance is not compulsory). So, based on these findings, lecturers don't need to worry about empty lecture halls. So, why do students still come? Well, it is a great place to meet up with students and have some fun, while listening to the good old lecture (according to Daniel).

Besides this, Daniel talked about other e-learning tools and implementations (blogs, Online discussions, online assessment, web conferencing, etc.), but not too exciting to babble about it here.

So, what is Daniel Tan thinking of doing next? He and his CED army are working on an experimental concept...

SIGMA MODEL: TEACH LESS, LEARN MORE

Effective learning via integrated 3-in-1 practice module of:

• Live + recorded lecture review for knowledge learning
• Discussion/forum/virtual tutorial for opportunity to formulate and articulate deep questions
• Self eAssessment for multiple timely feedback

As a concept, based on my brief introduction from Daniel, it offers nothing new to effectifizing learning (now that sounds cool!), but I would be more interested to see how it is implemented, and what kind of learning techniques and tools they use to facilitate the students to think deeper and wider. Also, 'Sigma' works well for producing chocolate (done that!), but I doubt whether it is the right term to use in relation to learning and the complexity of the human brain.

Finally, Daniel summed up his presentation by emphasizing that we need to look at education and learning from three (3) quality dimensions, which are:

• Content - Usually not an issue!
  
• Teaching Process - You have taught them, but have they learnt?
  
• Student's (self-directed) Learning Process - They need to master 21st century learning skills and infuse lifelong learning habits to succeed now and in the future.
  

Amen to that!



JOHN LARKIN'S LEARNING WORLD!
What can I say? John Larkin is an extremely nice guy who loves teaching. I suppose we all connected with him in a nice way, and I am pretty sure many of the participants learned quite a lot from his vast experience in e-learning and web 2.0 technologies (Certainly a learning gladiator).

As for me, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed with 1 1/2 day hands-on web 2.0 workshop. But, I suppose that has something to do with that I conduct similar kind of learning activities at my University (and beyond when invited), and by so, have probably much higher expectations than I should.

Having said that, I did have fun at last exploring WordPress (to the bone), which I have kind of ignored since I got hooked on Blogger. Alright, you can create 'Pages' (beside posts) in WordPress, which you cannot in Blogger (please add this, and I will never again consider WordPress). Also, WordPress has many more features to do the 'monkey dance,' but if you introduce Baby Boomers (or older) to blogging, I would recommend Blogger for starters.

Blogger is a much easier tool to learn and teach. WordPress fanatics will probably disagree here, but if so, prove me wrong. However, if lecturers decide to switch (or upgrade) to WordPress, they can always import all their posts from Blogger, so that should not be an issue.

In short, if you are a beginner, start with Blogger. If you want more (novice and expert), migrate to WordPress. However, if you want to use WordPress to create your website (and a beginner), perhaps you should consider using Google Sites instead. Then you can embed, RSS or link your blog to your site.

Beside blogging, Lance Larkin explored Wikis (PBworks), Widgets (Widget box, Google Gadgets, and Spring Widgets), RSS, Google Reader, and Posterous.

I believe he should have chosen another Wiki tool for the hands-on, because PBworks is clumsy and complicated to learn (especially inserting widgets). PBworks has also now become too commercial, and it even makes it difficult to find the free version from the homepage!

I tried to recommend Wikispaces, Wetpaint or Google Sites instead during the workshop, without much success. Interestingly, Lance Larkin realized during the hands-on that PBworks has lost it (for now). What to do?

Overall, I believe both did a good job, and again I am pretty sure they will be conducting more workshops in Malaysia in the near future. Good luck!



AREAS TO IMPROVE
Well, if that is the case, here are some recommendations and tips to ensure that future workshops are even more useful, dynamic and collaborative. I suppose the following reflections are more directed towards me to ensure that I learn and improve my own workshops. If others can benefit, then cool, too!

Here we go:

• Web 2.0 Implementation Workshop
  Such a workshop should at least include blogging, micro-blogging (Twitter), wikis, RSS, social bookmarking, podcasting, social learning/networking (e.g. Ning or Elgg), Image/Video galleries, and Virtual Worlds (e.g. Second Life). Of course during a 2-day workshop we would have no time for hands-on on all, but we should spend some time on each, so that participants are more aware of the possibilities, and how these tools can be used to facilitate teaching and learning.
  
  
• Learning Sharing Session
  During such workshops, there should be a 1-2 hour slot where participants share their e-learning and web 2.0 experiences with the workshop group. As a facilitator or a participant I would love to know what kind of learning tools and approaches that have been adopted by the institutions where other participants work (what, process, findings). Also, I would like to know what kind of learning tools each participants use or have explored, and their experiences using them. For example, everyone could be given a 5-minute slot (or less) to present their e-learning experiences (in an informal way). Some facilitators ask participants to fill-up a form asking similar questions, so that they can gauge the knowledge and skill level of each participants, and by doing so, they can tailor, contextualize and customize their workshop further. Though, forms can get annoying, but giving each participant time to share their experiences could do wonders. Besides it enabling you to tailor your workshop, you can identify possible participants to assist you (if you do not have an assistant) during the workshop.
  
  
• Assessment and Fun
  Although, most of these workshops are 'Certificate of Attendance', which is fine, but a bit of assessment does no harm. For example, one could have 2-4 hours slot (or more), where participants break into groups (3-5) and are required to use different web 2.0 tools (of their own selection) to create an online collaborative learning presence. By the end of the hands-on learning session, each group is required to present their achievements and struggles. By doing so, participants will probably become less sleepy, more active, and learn more (in a competitive and fun way!). Also, the facilitator will be able to see whether participants have really learned anything. Game on!
  

What I have reflected above is nothing new, or rocket science, but I am pretty sure it would improve any hands-on workshop if contextualized appropriately. The best way to learn any tool (or anything) is to mess around with it, learn from best practices and experts, discuss it, reflect it and keep on practicing until you go...I still got a lot to learn :)

Moodle is an Airport, Not a Total Solution!

No, it is not an Airport! It is more like a space station! If you ask a true learning professional, he or she will probably articulate Moodle as a virtual learning environment (VLE), or course management system (CMS), or worst case a learning management system (LMS). Whatever Moodle is, in this post Moodle is an 'Airport' (figurative speech that is!).

However, I am not going to spend the rest of this post proving the 'Airport' theory, but I will share some of my experiences and ideas on how we can get the best from Moodle, and not fall into the pitfalls (that I have faced over the years). As for the 'Airport' visualization, I will leave that to your creative imagination of reading between the lines. Let's begin!


MOODLE IS NOT...

• A total online campus management solution for your University. If you are planning to use Moodle as a total online learning solution covering everything from online course registration, semester results generation, intelligent class scheduling, to alumni management, you are going struggle no matter how many Moodle plug-ins you discover and use. Instead, explore using other online tools out there (or perhaps let your team develop the tools necessary), which can be integrated with Moodle providing all the needs your online campus management system requires.
  
  
• An excellent content development tool. In a nutshell, use it for uploading, managing and tracking your content, but please use other web 2.0 or rapid e-learning development tools to develop engaging and inspiring multimedia learning content. Although, you can create some simple web-pages, a crappy online book, who-ha podcasts, and a few other stuff using 3rd party Moodle plug-ins, many other content development tools out there can do a much better job than Moodle. No question about that! Since Moodle supports ZIP file upload and the SCORM mambo-jumbo, your options are pretty good to use practically any content development tool out there.
  
  
• A concurrent users' king! I have felt it, and I have heard from every corner of the world that Moodle increasingly becomes a pain when the concurrent users size increases (say 60 or more!). I have heard and read that people have solved this problem, but again and again the number one complaint about Moodle is that they struggle to deal with scalability and large concurrent user sessions (e.g. 200 students doing online quiz at the same time). So, what is the problem? Is it the CPU or RAM specs issue, perhaps its' the network, database, or even a combination of things mentioned, or what? Click here for a white paper (PDF) from Moodlerooms to help you deal with it. But, Moodle should really simplify and be creative about informing and guiding Moodle administrators on how to deal with the concurrent users issue. If there was a wizard embedded in Moodle dealing with this issue, I would be really happy. Any other suggestions?
  
  
• A web 2.0 sensation. I suppose Moodle 2.0 will be pretty good, but let's face it, purpose-built web 2.0 alternatives (e.g. Wikispaces) are worth considering before you get lost in Moodle's crappy blogging, wiki, etc. tools. They are usable, but no match for the real deals out there. Click here, to get some saucy tips on whether to use Moodle's embedded Web 2.0 tools, or go for the purpose-built web 2.0 alternatives. Yes, you might want to also check out Jane Hart's amazing list of +3000 potential learning tools to facilitate your learning environment. Finally, ZaidLearn's filtered down learning tools list, might be a good starting point.
  

In short, Moodle is an Airport, not a total solution!



WHY MOODLE ROCKS?
Although, Moodle sounds quite bad until now (in this post), it is certainly better than most other Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) tools that I have tried over the years. If you need a tool to facilitate your online course and learning environment, Blackboard is certainly out, unless they have dramatically improved since the last time I tried it (2008). Anyway, Blackboard is a commercial tool, and you certainly don't want to get into a mess spending tons of money, getting confused with all their product options, and finally ending up buying exactly what you don't need. A-Z, Blackboard is not my cup of VLE.

Sakai with its Java code and messy interface is out (unless I got some Java dudes to mess it up further!), no matter how many features they have. Angel? Looked at it once, and that is it. There are tons of other VLE tools you might want to explore, so perhaps you should use EduTools to assist you to get the right alternative or combination that meets your unique learning requirements and needs. EduTools is a pretty good free course management system comparison and selection tool to use, compared to the commercial alternatives that Brandon Hall and Bersin provide (last resort, if EduTools fails!).

If you are looking for a free hosted VLE (or LMS) alternative, CLICK HERE! If you are conducting your own little programs or courses, then a free hosted VLE might be worthwhile, but I would not recommend Universities or Colleges to adopt such tools on a large scale, because of the what-if scenario (collapses, becomes commercial, system failure, New Pro-version, etc).

Though, no matter how frustrated I have been with Moodle over the years, compared to other VLE tools, Moodle simply rocks (based on my experiences).


So, what is so special about Moodle?

First, the Moodle community is worldwide and nearly as fanatical as the Apple mafia. You will find fanatical Moodle fans and support (including excellent documentation and facilitation tips) wherever you practically go in the world, and that is really a major plus. And often the greatest fans, are actually the educators themselves. Ironically, educators are often the ones that make the most noise when it comes to using other VLE tools (e.g. Blackboard).

I believe the main reason, is that Moodle is easy-to-learn, easy-to-teach, easy-to-build and easy-to-use. Also, its embedded constructivist learning framework, and excellent set of basic learning tools are really powerful reasons for using Moodle.

Personally, I really like Moodle's:

• Quiz Engine
  Developing quiz questions in Notepad and reviewing the results using the 'Item Analysis' tool.
  
  
• Calendar
  All your learning activities and events (if added) is directly visible and automatically linkable from the calendar, making it easier to see how active your upcoming week or month will be.
  
  
• Glossary
  Once I used the Glossary tool to develop a search engine, which enabled users easily to search 100+ Courseware down to the topic level (Now, you might instead want to use Google Custom Search). It also allows people to comment and suggest entries, and even configure your glossary to become FAQs, Encyclopedia, Entry List, etc. Not bad!
  
  
• Tracking
  It generates complete and summarized reports on the students' progress, results, and utilization of Moodle. Although, it is not perfect, it gives you quickly an idea of students usage patterns, and whether they are really trying or not. The same applies to educators, too. Yeah, administrators can easily find out, whether the educators are really trying or not to explore Moodle. I have experienced educators who complain about using Moodle, without ever logging in.
  
  
• Peer-Learning
  It allows you to customize your rubrics (Scales), comments and rating scales features for many of the Moodle tools, including Workshop, Forum and Glossary. To facilitate deep learning you got to include a lot of reflection, peer-learning and (role) modeling, and Moodle has that intuitively embedded in many places (without many really realizing it!).

Besides these five basic giants above, the forum, questionnaire and assignment tools are also really useful and powerful.

Also, it is really easy to customize, design, and restructure courses in Moodle to meet our basic learning needs. Some educators get the thrill out of making their course homepage more attractive with some mind stimulating images.

Moodle courses only show what lecturers are using, so you don't get all those juicy buttons (e.g. quiz) that are totally empty when clicked. You can structure course content and activities according to the course outline, making it super easy for students to zoom in on what they want. Yes, you can edit, delete or move the course resources and activities straight from the course page, without needing to go to another webpage. Just click 'Turn Editing on'.

But I suppose what really makes Moodle super juicy and the defacto VLE, is that it can easily be integrated with so many other types of relevant learning tools, which include web-conferencing tools (e.g. DimDim), learning activity management system (e.g. LAMS), anti-plagiarism software (e.g. TurnItIn), 3D virtual worlds (e.g. Sloodle), and much more. As Moodle is used by millions of people around the world, you will find many really cool web 2.0 learning tools that have developed integration modules for Moodle (which makes totally sense).

However, how you implement Moodle depends a lot on your needs, requirements, available resources, and importantly who will actually be using it. So, tailoring your 'Moodle Airport' requires you to re-examine the learning context and sufficient human/financial/technical resources at your disposal. It is tough, but with Moodle you have many unique and valuable possibilities.

So, are you now realizing why Moodle is really an Airport, and not a total learning solution.

If you ask me, Moodle is a good meeting place (airport or space station), or a starting point where we get together to discuss and share ideas, before taking off using both inbuilt and integrated learning tools to experience engaging and enriching learning adventures beyond any single VLE can provide.

But then Joseph Thibault (in the comments section) crushes my Airport analogy, by saying, "...that "starting point" is probably the best. It's like a hub, where teachers can tie in all their other resources (and track their students use of them). That's the real value."

First, I was crushed by this valuable reflection, but then I was inspired to synthesize this latest reflection of the Airport analogy, into the "Airport-Hub" analogy. Lovely!

Finally, I have come to realize that the more I use Moodle (although increasingly discovering weaknesses and areas to improve), the more I love it, the more I want to use it, and importantly the more I want to promote it to educators and people around the world.

Until a more cost-effective, user-friendly, web 2.o friendly, and feature rich VLE for higher education pops-up, Moodle is probably the best way to go. Yep, if I want to fly, I would certainly prefer flying from a Moodle airport hub. What about Elgg? :)

Drop-By-Learning (DBL)

I hated every minute of training, but I said, "Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion." - Muhammad Ali

PROBLEM
Have you ever...

• Attended a Training/Workshop (T/W) session where you learned everything except what you really came for?
  
• Attended a T/W session where the facilitator spoke/illustrated too fast?
  
• Left during a T/W session, because you had to attend to other urgent matters?
  
• Missed a T/W session, because it was scheduled at an inappropriate time?
• Fallen asleep during a T/W session because it was utterly boring and irrelevant to you?
• Been overloaded with too many new things to remember anything relevant.
  
• Felt that the T/W session was a total waste of time!
• And we could go on, but let's move on to...

ALTERNATIVES

Yes, it is frustrating attending or participating in T/W sessions that are not tailored to exactly what we really want or need to learn, especially if our time is really precious (which is the case for most educators!). On the other hand, it is quite difficult to tailor T/W sessions to meet all the requirements and expectations by all the participants, especially if the group size is substantial (say 25-40 participants), or consist of participants of diverse learning fields and backgrounds.

But, let's face it T/W sessions or large lectures are quite efficient methods in disseminating information and knowledge. But are they really effective in facilitating relevant or authentic learning?

Assume that for example we want to train educators (teachers and lecturers) to use new learning tools, apply instructional design principles, master online facilitation methods, and rapid e-learning skills. What could we do besides the typical scheduled T/W sessions mostly tailored for larger groups (15-40 participants)?

For starters, developing user manuals or content development standards and guidelines would probably be high on the list. Let's create these guidelines, and hope that educators would actually use their precious time to actually read, reflect and practice all the super tricks and tips we share. DREAM ON!

You certainly need to develop (or reuse) manuals and guidelines that includes best practices, tips and tricks (including quick reference guides), but that alone will not transform educators into rapid e-learning pro's. Unless you can make these learning aids really short and super intuitive, many educators would probably never go beyond the attractive front-page cover (alright they will scan through the table of contents!).

Besides manuals and guides, we could develop online FAQs, which are searchable, allows comments, suggestions, ratings and rankings, etc. Now surely that would help, and it probably will. But again, how many educators actually use FAQs to improve their teaching and learning skills?

What about experts systems or know-it-all 3D avatar chat bots? Cool, but unless they are really smart and not insulting to human intelligence, though... If we could simply feed it with content, and it could synthesize and come up with the most appropriate suggestions, now that would be really efficient and useful. Any really good artificial intelligence 3D talking teacher tools to suggest?

Why not screencast or record everything an educator might want to learn? Now that would be really efficient way to disseminate skills training, and perhaps it could turn out to be effective. Record once for everyone at any time (Try Screenr!). Cool! I love learning through screencasting sessions, but unless the tutorial developer is reasonably good at it, it can sometimes get really annoying.

Say I want to learn how to 'bold' some text, but then have to go through a 5-minute step-by-step video tutorial, now that would be really annoying. It is just like calling an automated customer service system, which will take you on a roller-coaster ride for 5 minutes to get you where you want to go. If we could actually talk to a real person instead, it would probably take us 5 seconds! Also, unless the video tutorial has a comment section, or is linked to a Q&A forum, how is it going answer the next question to clarify this and that.

As it might take a life time to screencast everything an educator might want to learn, we should perhaps instead (or in addition) use a web-conferencing tool such as Adobe Connect (educational pricing is reasonable) or DimDim (open source and free) to conduct live online tutorials, whereby we interact and do exactly the things that educators might want to learn. Better yet, we could record and archive these online tutorials as learning content. You want to learn this, watch this recorded learning session. Wow! But then again, some educators will never bother or find the time to gobble through a short or long recorded online tutorial to find what they want to learn.

Besides these alternatives discussed, we could facilitate online forums, join learning communities, immerse our learning into Second Life, use wikis and blogs, reuse/link to free learning tutorials, etc. until we go blue, but some educators still want to learn the art of using technology to facilitate learning through face-to-face learning. So, let's deal with it!

DROP-BY-LEARNING (DBL)

So, in the coming months, we at IMU (or the e-learning department) will be introducing something I refer to as Drop-By-Learning. It is not very different from just-in-time-learning (often used in relation to corporate learning), so I suppose it is not an innovation, except for perhaps the way we will approach it.

Besides the scheduled weekly 1-hour e-learning sessions (exploring new learning methods and tools), major e-learning workshops and our juicy Learning Innovation Lab (interactive online learning resource/discussion space organized according to learning tools and methods), we will select one day a week (rotating the days), whereby our educators can drop-by to learn exactly what they want in small learning nuggets.


Of course, we don't know everything, so we will provide a learning nuggets laundry list of all the things that they can learn from us. In addition, they can always suggest new learning nuggets to include. If we don't know and cannot learn within a reasonable time, we can always link them to a free online tutorial out there (if any).

To avoid us wasting time, and educators dropping by at the same time, we will encourage them to e-mail or call us to book a learning nugget session (5-30 minutes). As our e-learning team is rather small (currently only 4 staff catering to around 200 educators), and have tons of other tasks to deal with besides training, we need to be efficient with our time.

Yes, we also manage the virtual learning environment (Moodle), facilitate content development, do research into new learning tools and approaches (more practical, less paper!), and involved in several e-learning projects blossoming here and there at IMU. We are enjoying the e-learning passion blossoming at IMU, but let's hope we can manage the increasing workload. I am predicting an e-learning exploration tsunami at IMU over the next 12 months (can feel it!). So, we kind of got our hands tied down hard in a stimulating and motivating way.

To make the drop-by-learning sessions really near to my desk, and to avoid all this booking computer labs time-consuming nonsense, it is set up closely, approximately 3.5 meters from my desk. A notebook with a projector and small whiteboard will be ready for action at any moment.

Of course, it would be cool to drop-by the educator's place to facilitate learning nuggets, but at IMU we have adopted an interdisciplinary open learning cluster approach, whereby most educators do not have their own rooms, but sit in open clusters (cubicles) to facilitate open learning and sharing. So, having dudes like me going to educators and making some noise (kind of loud!), might not be appreciated by others, who are not requesting for drop-by-learning.

If a small group wants to come for a learning nugget session, we have 5 learning spots (at the moment only comfortable chairs) ready for action. Also, we provide free candy to stimulate the brain (something like Google in small chunks!), and have set up a dartboard within striking distance, should they be stressed or lack focus.

This is certainly not an efficient approach to facilitate new learning and facilitation skills and methods, but when we soon add drop-by-learning webinars (using Adobe Connect or DimDim), we can slowly facilitate a more effective learning environment, whereby educators at IMU learn..

• Exactly What they Want
• How they Want
• When they Want
• Wherever they Want

Today, educators seem busier than ever juggling teaching, research, and administration, and by providing them a drop-by-learning option, it will hopefully enable and motivate more educators to learn the skills needed to facilitate effective learning in the 21st century. Can drop-by-learning be implemented effectively? ...Until we have tried, we will never really know :)

P.S. This article and approach is still under construction, but nice to share as it learns (from you) and improves. So, please share your valuable thoughts and ideas. Thank you :)

ZaidSwoosh Has Swooshed 30 Stunning Posts Since Launch!

CONGRATULATIONS!

Congratulations Obama! Don't blame it on Obama for getting the award (Though, he could reject it, but why should he?). I have always thought that Norwegians (or their government to be fair!) are peace loving people (I am 50% Norwegian and reasonably peaceful, too!), but very naive in dealing with peace efforts and conflicts around world. And I am still puzzled with the wisdom of Obama getting it so soon. If he lives up to his vision and mission, no doubt he should get the award, but give him some time to earn it the right way.

Also, we must not forget that he is the 'Commander in Chief' of the deadliest army since the 2nd World War, which has blasted several countries back to the Stone Age. Yes, let's not forget he is still at war in two countries, and things might not blossom into peace as soon as we might hope. If you know anything about Afghans (I do!), they will never surrender until the US Army is out of there. Hopefully, they will eventually learn from the mistakes the Soviet Union dudes did last time. But, the way they are going at it, it certainly does not look like it.

Anyway, let's hope that the 'Nobel Peace Prize' selection committee had an inch of wisdom behind the selection, and thought by giving Obama this award, it would remind him throughout his President-hood that peace is the only way forward, and that going to war with such a title is simply not acceptable. Just wondering, once you become a Nobel Peace Prize winner, can you lose it?

Let's forget politics, and return to the learning juice!

ZAIDSWOOSH ROCKS!

If you haven't noticed, I launched another blog a few weeks back (Why?). Except for Stephen Downes (who ironically referred to it as ZaidLearn) and a few others, it has hardly picked up any attention in the Blogosphere. But, that is cool! For those of you who missed out on ZaidSwoosh until now, here are the first 30 stunning posts from it:

1. Welcome & Why!
   
2. 99 Free EduGames to Spice Up Your Course!
3. 99 Awesome Firefox Add-ons for Educators
4. Nobel Prize Winners Video Lecture Search Engine
5. 50 Terrific Twitter Tutorials for Teachers
6. LearnTrends 2009 - Free Online Conference (November 17-19)
7. 2009 ALT conference - 11 Mind Awakening Video Lectures Right Here!
8. Free Internet Libraries
9. The Learning Footprint Calculator
10. Zenhabits Comments Section is Brilliantly Annoying!
11. Wiggio Just a Little Bit!
12. The Google Acquisition & Investment Map
13. Join The eLearning Network (eLN)!
14. Twitter Handbook for Teachers
15. Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning
16. Trendsmap - Your Glocal Twitter Trends Forecast
17. How Web-Savvy Edupunks Are Transforming American Higher Education
18. The E-Learning Debate at The Oxford Union
19. 100 Free Ivy-League Lectures You Shouldn't Miss
20. Change the Way You Think About Everything
21. Seven Skills Students Need for Their Future
22. A Pocket University (or iTunesU at Oxford University)
23. Web 2.0 - Cool Tools for Schools
24. Domo Animate - Create Cartoons About Your Learning!
25. 100 Best Blogs for Tech-Savvy Teachers
26. Why Not? Now, That is a Sizzling Lecture!
27. Did You Know This Did You Know!
28. 3 Free e-Learning Courses Run by Otago Polytechnic (New Zealand)
29. Insidious Pedagogy: How Course Management Systems Affect Teaching
30. Academia 2.0 - Be Relevant-Engaging-Fun!

In short, ZaidSwoosh is dedicated to sharing juicy learning resources and ideas in daily 'swoosh' chunks (1-3 short posts every working day).

I like to keep ZaidLearn for more 'article' like posts (1000 - 5000 words, the boring stuff!), whereby I reflect (80%) and add some spice or fun (20%). However, with ZaidSwoosh, it will be 80% juice and fun, and then 20% reflection. So, those used to ZaidLearn and long juicy boring stuff, will continue to have it that way.

As for those of you who want to experience the juiciest stuff I discover on a daily basis, then ZaidSwoosh is worth subscribing to. How do I find time to 'SWOOSH' blog? I don't smoke, meaning I should be healthier and can use my puff-breaks to swoosh some learning juice instead.

So, what so special about this ZaidSwoosh? Until you have tried, you will never know :)

The Finnish Education System Rocks! Why?

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
- Nelson Mandela

Part 2: Insightful Videos Exploring Why the Finnish Education System Rocks!

FUTURE LEARNING FINLAND

A couple of weeks back (16th September), I attended a Future Learning Finland one-day seminar & networking session. Finpro had invited a few dozen people from Malaysia for this session. Their goal was basically to share and market their world class Finnish education system and related educational products and services, and also gain more insight into the current and future learning trends and needs in Malaysia. Basically, it was an opportunity to learn, network and explore potential educational business/collaboration opportunities with each other.

Though, how come they invited me of all people? I found out during the seminar that one of the Finpro consultants had actually discovered me searching for information about e-learning in Malaysia. I suppose they saw me as a good source to find out more about the current and future e-learning trends in Malaysia. Anyway, whatever reason, I was just happy to be part of it, and make some noise.

READ THIS FIRST!

But before sharing with you some of the things I learned about the world class Finnish education system, I would strongly recommend that you explore Amran Noordin's excellent 6-part series, where he compares Singapore and Finland's schooling models (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6), summed up nicely in his diagram below:

In short, Singapore and Finland have become world renowned for their education systems, but interestingly they have achieved their success using quite different approaches (to say it mildly!). To get the juicy details of both, please read Amran Noordin's 6-part series mentioned above.



MY LEARNING NOTES

During this one day session of sharing, networking and exploring opportunities, I learned a lot (and scribbled a lot of notes, too) about why Finland's education system is so good (well at least according to them and many others around the world).

The first clash of cultures (Finland and Malaysia) started even before the learning session began. The main representative from the Ministry of Higher Education (MOE) came 30 minutes late, and the seminar could not start before he came.

If you don't know, Finnish people in general are very time conscious, and you should have seen how stressed out they were waiting for the main dude from Malaysia. Since we started 45 minutes late, most of the Finnish presenters swooshed through their presentations, and made a point reminding the audience that they will be on time, and not overuse the time been given. In short, even though they were extremely polite, I could see on their faces and body language that they were rather pissed off with the scheduling being put to shambles due to the initial delay.

Though, I found out later that the MOE representative actually had to attend another meeting earlier in the morning, and was delayed because of that. But, keep this in mind, especially with Finnish people (and Germans, British, Americans, Japanese, etc.):

PUNCTUALITY IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!

Yeah, and if you want to present and convince Finnish people, please use research data and findings to back up your ideas and proposals. It was also interesting to compare MOE's presentation about Malaysian education with Dr. Heikki's presentation about the Finnish education system.

While the MOE's presentation talked about vision, mission, and some current student mobility programs (the objective was probably more to market the Malaysian education system, rather than tell the full story), the Finnish counter parts covered basically everything about their education system, including a few centuries, current and future scenarios, and reasons why its education system evolved that way, and the secrets behind its current success. Although, it was comprehensive, it was told in a very constructive and time-efficient manner.

BEING EFFICIENT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!

Based on what I saw, Finnish people strive to be very efficient in whatever they do, and that includes giving presentations. No swimming here and there, just get to the point and solve the problem. We have a lot to learn here, as we often let our emotional feelings and ego take control, and forget about solving the real problem.

If you ask me, I felt most of the presenters lacked a bit in terms of exciting the audience with what they had to offer. In layman terms, they were a bit stiff, monotonous, and perhaps too efficient in delivery (the initial delay is probably one reason). Don't get me wrong, they were very well-rehearsed (like a program), but you need some emotional outbursts and connections to really touch the audience (well, at least me!).

Oops, let's get back on track...



SECRETS TO SUCCESS
What is the secret to Finland's success (5.3+ million citizens only)? NOKIA! Besides that?

Basically, due their tough environment (just look at their neighbors and climate!) and limited natural resources (except for large forest reserves), they have had no choice but to invest in educating their brains (Just like Singapore!).

INVESTING SIGNIFICANTLY IN EDUCATION IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!

Here are five reasons, why Finnish people have been, and are successful:

• Quality education with equal opportunity
• High level of investments in R&D for technology development
• Good regulatory framework and efficient public service
• Open economy: competition has to prevail
• Social model: social market economy, welfare society

As we are talking about education in this post (and blog), I will limit my observations and reflections to that next. If you want rough notes regarding the rest, click here for more details.

Besides free and universal high-level education from comprehensive school to university (6% of GDP directed to public education), Finland stresses also equal opportunity for all, irrespective of domicile, sex, economic situation or mother tongue. Teachers are required to be trained in dealing with low-achieving students, as well as students with disabilities and learning difficulties.

The fact that education is free, including travel expenses, welfare services, accommodation, books and other school material, means that students can focus more of their time on learning, rather than all the other distractions that might come with it.

However, besides all the student rights to this and that, students also have three main duties that they must fulfill, which are to attend classes, obey discipline, and complete their courses and programs. I suppose most education systems will have something like this documented, but in Finland it is strongly emphasized, and it is probably working better there than in most other countries.

They are really proud of their students' PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) achievements, where they are ranked number one in the world in most categories. To be honest, I had never heard of PISA before this event (Except the Italian one!). How ignorantly ignorant can you get! I am still learning!

Interestingly, a teacher must have a master's degree to teach in Finland, and also have a lifelong learning program mapped out for them. They emphasize a lot on lifelong learning, and it is kind of embedded into the their learning culture.

TEACHER EDUCATION IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!

More importantly, the teacher profession is highly valued in Finland, meaning more people with the right attitude, mindset and skills will apply for such jobs, and in the end you will get better qualified and passionate people educating the future people of the country. I suppose that is why the Norwegian education system (where I studied), especially the schooling system is really crap (hopefully better now!). I remember most of my teachers as miserable creatures, who had failed in what they set out to be in life.

For example, my music teacher really wanted to be a singer (But her voice was horrible!), and due to her failure we students had to suffer. She really hated our guts, too! I had a gym teacher that used to throw his huge key chain after us, every time we pissed him off. He even threw a hammer after one student, but luckily he missed. If you wonder why Norway until today cannot create and innovate globally renowned products and services like the Swedes and Finnish dudes can, I suppose their lack of appreciation, dedication and emphasis on education is one reason for that. But then again, Norway is blessed with all sorts of natural resources (especially oil and gas), and therefore is one of the richest countries in the world. I can't imagine what Norway would be today, without their oil and gas. Let's get back to Finnish education...

In contrast to Singapore (please read Amran Noordin's articles. Links above!), Finland don't rank students or schools, and they don't emphasize on standardized nationwide examinations that drive students, teachers and parents nuts. I suppose Singapore's model is good for nurturing a competitive mindset, and encouraging students to work hard (and memorize everything you can think of). However, I believe the side effects are too many, and we need to question whether they are really preparing students for the 20th century, or for the 21st century (now and future)?

I personally believe (based on my shallow understanding) the Finnish education system has managed to infuse discipline, hard work, and competitiveness, but at the same time also infuse the right balance to nurture critical skills required for the 21 century, which include communication, collaboration, creativity (innovativeness), critical thinking, problem solving, digital literacy, flexibility, adaptability, global care/awareness, and emotional intelligence.

In addition, the Finnish education system is rather decentralized and schools are given a degree of freedom (independence) to develop their own curriculum. The problem with having a centralized system and curriculum, is that if you get it wrong, the whole country will suffer. Also, with a top-down model, it is difficult to quickly innovate and spark changes to the curriculum that is needed to deal with the increasingly disruptive learning world that we are experiencing today. However, in a decentralized system, schools can easily change and adapt as they learn, and also they have more freedom to explore and try out new things, without needing to worry about ranking of this and that.

Actually, ranking of schools and students is a disaster (if you ask me), if you really want to encourage universities, colleges, schools, students, and teachers to openly share, learn, discuss, reflect, and collaboratively innovate. It can be done, but it is very difficult because of our internal urge to be the best, or be better than our neighbors. In the world of sports, I can understand it, but for education I believe that might not be the best solution to move forward.

For example, If I want to be higher ranked than you, then probably I would want to keep some of the juicy stuff secret from you. Otherwise, you might overtake me, and if the government is nasty, give me less funds to innovate further. However, if ranking is put aside, we can instead focus on transforming the education system, nurturing dynamic learning clusters, and becoming a learning nation together.

Finally, Finland emphasizes big time on research and development (around 4% of GDP), and have interlinked companies with the Universities to collaborate on new innovations. Whatever they do, their approach is very scientific, which of course includes how they are continuously improving their education systems.

The only thing I felt was really missing from this seminar, was learning more about Finland's e-learning initiatives and success stories, which was not really discussed.



MOVING FORWARD

So, how can we transform our education system right here?

Here are three (3) small suggestions to consider (more will be elaborated in a future post):

• Focus less on exams, and more on learning.
  Exams should resemble and test what we want them to learn (authentic). Not how much they can memorize. They need to be able to understand and apply what they learn, otherwise what is the point? Group/Individual project-based exams, using well constructed assessment rubrics would be a good start (peer-assessment next!). And let them use all the tools they need to complete the project, because in the real world we would use the tools necessary to solve the problems and challenges we face. Why just give them a pencil/pen and paper (oh, I forget the eraser)? Of course, if it is a memory test, it makes sense :)
  
  
• Focus more on teacher education, and less on centralized content/curriculum.
  You can have the best curriculum in the world, but if your teachers stink, I 99% guarantee you that you will fail. However, if you have a crappy curriculum, and great teachers, I can guarantee you that you will 99% succeed. Because, the great teachers will transform the curriculum and inspire the students to learn. In short, invest in teacher education, hire the best people to educate, and let them innovate the curriculum as they facilitate and learn together with the students.
  
  
• Focus less on investing on flowers and big buildings, and more on equipping educators and students with the learning tools needed to transform the way they learn.
  The Internet is the 21st century's oxygen for communicating, collaborating, and learning (without it, you or your institution is going to suffocate into ignorance and irrelevance). If you can afford it, spoil the educators and students rotten with learning devices and great Internet access. Provide training online and face-to-face often, exploring with them how they can utilize all these learning tools to transform the way they learn. If you are looking for world class inspiring free learning content, click here for starters. For free learning tools, click here for starters.
  

Can we do it? Yes, we can! But do we really want to? You decide? If you ask me, my answer would of course be... :)

ZaidSwoosh is Launched!

ZaidSwoosh

READ ALL ABOUT IT!

'Simply Too Juicy and Annoying to Ignore!'

http://zaidswoosh.blogspot.com/

The Best EDU Blogs on the Planet!

TOP BLOGS!

As we move closer towards 2010, you will increasingly see new posts or articles screaming here are the top 8, 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, etc. blogs or sites of this and that. Most of them just vomit out lists, without putting much effort to justify their claims, or at least say why the selected blogs should be on the list. Actually, what I would want to see is simply what so special about the blog selected, and why should I follow it. Is that so hard to ask for?

If you first are going to claim that these are the top blogs at least tell us why they are selected, and what is so special about them. Let's face it; any idiot can create a top list copying a bit from here and there (or from their RSS reader!) within 10-15 minutes. I suppose we will get a lot of hits doing so, but we might also get into trouble...



MY TOP LISTS = TROUBLE?

Trust me, I have been there! Though, my first top list '10 Top ETL Blogs You Simply Don’t Want to Miss!' was a peaceful affair without much trouble. Probably because my blog at that time (2007) was rather unknown. In this list I shared my top 10 favorite ETL (Education + Technology = Learning) blogs. Yes, I did write why they are so special to my learning :)

Then in September (2008) I published another list entitled '25 EduBlogs You Simply Don’t Want to Miss!' on my blog, but this time around it turned into a battle of the sexes. Without me realizing it, or consciously thinking about the gender distribution of my selection, the list was...

Janet Clarey discovered this male dominated distribution, and it happened of course during a women blogging conference, and you can imagine what happened next. Also, I said some silly things in the online discussion that got them even more worked up (at least a few of them!). And then all hell broke loose (discussion here!).

Here, I was just sharing my favorite bloggers with ZaidLearn readers, and suddenly I have become famously infamous women bla, bla, bla. But the beauty of disasters and problems, is that they are actually opportunities to do something good and make a difference. Since I have been in such situations so many times in my life (probably my fault on many occasions!), I kind of dealt with it by going the extreme opposite (ego aside!).

A couple of weeks later, I published 27 Inspiring Women Edubloggers (and Karl Kapp! He was pretty surprised to be included!) on my blog, and within days I had become a hero. Even Stephen Downes and George Siemens noticed my effort to get myself out of trouble (besides learning a few lessons).

"Last month, Zaid compiled a list of top 25 edubloggers. The weighting was male-centric (22-3). He has now corrected the omission with a new list of top 27 female bloggers. Nicely done." - George Siemens

And Michelle Martin went even further, by saying,

"...Instead, he showed the courage of the true learner and used our observations as a springboard to expanding his own thinking--and ours as well. - Hat's off to Zaid on this one!"

The great thing about creating these lists, is that I have learnt a lot through discussions and reflections, and discovered many more interesting learning blogs (especially the female ones!), which I have added to my RSS reader. Click Here to see my updated collection of learning blogs that I really like.

In short, publishing your top something lists (especially involving people) can get you into trouble, or make you into a legend, or both if you are lucky. So, before creating a list, please think wisely :)

Also, besides gender distribution, you need to also consider racial breakdown, age range, religion, nationalities, etc. What was the purpose of the list again? Just be honest about what you like, and if people can't take that, then too bad!

GREAT LISTS

The great thing about discovering new blog lists, is that we might discover new blogs that we can subscribe to via our RSS reader (please use one! I use Google Reader). My advice is to follow a few hundred learning blogs in scanning mode, and 5-15 exceptional ones in reading mode. So, where to find at least a hundred learning blogs to follow?

Here are four (4) blog lists too yummy to ignore (for learning professionals!):

• 100 Featured Learning Professionals (Jane Hart)
  
  Jane Hart's personal selection of 100 learning professionals that will provide you with information, inspiration and/or interaction on a range of educational and workplace learning topics from around the world - via their blog, on Twitter or on other social networks.
  
  
  
• ELearningLearning (Tony Karrer)
  
  It is not really a list, but an amazing aggregator of excellent workplace or corporate learning blogs and posts filtered out by Tony Karrer. Just subscribe to this one, and you are basically subscribing to tons of great corporate or workplace learning blogs. Actually, it is a blog post repository in itself, and you will find the indexing, Monthly top featured posts, best from.., etc. very exciting (Well at least I did!).
  
  
• International Edubloggers Directory (Patricia Donaghy)
  
  Here you can find hundreds of learning bloggers from all over the world. An amazing resource to discover bloggers that might not make all these top of the pops lists.
  
  
• Edublog Awards
  Here you will find some really excellent learning blogs. If you look closer, you will realize that most of the best blogs never won (according to my subjective opinion). But whether winners or not, there are some really excellent blogs to be discovered here.
  

Here are other useful blog lists:

• 100 Most Inspiring and Innovative Blogs for Educators
• 100 Best Blogs for Tech-Savvy Teachers
  
• Blogs by Indian Learning Professionals and Companies (Manish Mohan)
• Top 50 P-12 Edublogs (Dangerously Irrelevant)
• Top 100 Language Blogs 2009
• Top ELearning Blogs
• The Top 20 Venture Capital Bloggers (Erick Schonfeld)
• Top 47 eLearning & Workplace Learning Blogs (Upside Learning Blog)
• 8 Top Elearning Blogs You Don’t Want to Miss (Articulate)

SPECIAL MENTION

Alright, I cannot resist! While we are at lists, here are a few sizzling and exceptional learning bloggers that I have to mention. And if they are not in your RSS reader, and you are in the learning business (sad for you!). Here we go (just numbering, not ranking!):

1. OLDaily (Stephen Downes)
   
   If you are looking for the latest news, trends, reflections, etc. in the (online) learning world, Stephen Downes is the ultimate synthesizer (that I have come across) of what is going on. I love the way he reflects and extracts the essence (or what he finds interesting) of all the articles, sites, tools, resources, etc. he discovers in his daily online newsletter (excluding weekends!). You might also want to also check out his homepage to discover all the other stuff he is doing, including his other excellent reflective blog (Half an Hour) and video recordings of all his presentations.
   
   
   
2. elearnspace (George Siemens)
   
   The mastermind (together with Stephen Downes) behind Connectivism, the only learning theory that makes sense in the online learning world. His reflections and ramblings will keep you updated with e-learning, knowledge management, networks, technology, community development, and corporate learning. Also, check out his Knowing Knowledge book (Free!), which reflects the future of knowledge and learning.
   
   
   
3. Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day (Jane Hart)
   
   If you are looking for the latest e-learning (or 'learning') tools and resources, Jane Hart's blog is simply 'Toolicious'! Also, check out Jane Hart's amazing directory of 3000+ learning tools. In addition, I love the fact that she provides us with a weekly round-up of the new learning tools added to the tools directory. Her blog posts are concise, attractive, and juicy. Besides that you just have to check out her Social Media in Learning guide, which is simply a goldmine for anyone who is clueless, or wants to learn how to implement social learning, or web 2.0 tools in their teaching and learning environments.
   
   
   
4. The Rapid eLearning Blog (Tom Kuhlmann)
   
   When you think about improving your rapid e-Learning, instructional design, PowerPoint or graphic creation skills, Tom Kuhlmann's Rapid eLearning blog provides you with a lot of great advice, tips, examples and short-cuts (One word = Amazing!). Also, don't forget to get his free elearning ebook while you’re there. In short, this blog is my favourite 'Rapid e-Learning' learning blog!
   
   
   
5. Clive on Learning (Clive Shepherd)
   
   If you are looking for reflections from an experienced expert on instructional design and insights on educational trends, I believe Clive Shepherd's excellent blog will nourish you well. He is also the man behind the 30-minute and 60-minute Masters in Instructional Design (or rapid e-learning design). Also, check out Clive's 33 Columns! Although, he does not post as often as some of the other super learning bloggers, his reflections and insights into education, instructional design, online learning, etc. is worth the wait.
   
   
   
6. Online Learning Update (Ray Schroeder)
   Ray Schroeder's Online learning blog is a great learning place to discover research articles related to online learning being published all over the world (Europe, Middle-East, Asia, Australia, US, Canada, Africa, etc.). This amazing dude publishes 3 new posts (linking to articles and papers) every single working day (as if his life depends upon it!), and this has to be a compulsive disorder that we all can live with. Also, check out his Educational Technology blog, too. I love his dedication, consistency and passion to share.
   
   
7. Mission to Learn (Jeff Cobb)
   
   Jeff Cobb is certainly living up to his mission. In addition, to all his great blog posts, you got to subscribe to his Free Learning Monitor Newsletter, which will bombard you with the most amazing free learning resources you can imagine. Besides these two gems, he also does podcasts in which he interviews thinkers and doers in the world of lifelong learning (Subscribe via RSS or with iTunes). Finally, you might just want to follow his continuous Twitter stream of lifelong learning resources and updates. My kind of learning dude!
   
   
8. Using ICT in Further Education (Patricia Donaghy)
   If it wasn't for Patricia's persuasion to join the Twitter world, I suppose I would still only be blogging (Thanks for the push!). I always seem to discover some new learning or graphic tool, or resource every time I visit her blog. Besides her wonderful blog, we just got to take our hats off to her exceptional work developing and nurturing the International Edubloggers Directory and Free Resources for Education blogs. WOW!
   
   
9. Random Stuff that Matters (Stian Haklev)
   
   I have predicted big things for this Norwegian Viking (to him personally a year back). And his contribution to conceptualizing and setting up the Peer 2 Peer University is just the beginning. I love his energy, talent, inter-cultural intelligence and passion to change the learning world for the better (whatever that means!). Stian your the MAN!
   
   
10. Singapore Educational Consultants (Amran Noordin)
    
    If you want to know how crap the Singapore schooling system is (according to him in his own words), then you just have to visit this blog. Besides the bashing, you will also discover a lot of useful ideas on how schools ought to nurture 21 century learning and so on.
    

In addition, I would like to mention and promote Sathish (E-Learning Planet), Ismael Peña-López (ICTlogy), Jamie Littlefield (Self Made Scholar), Dr. Neelesh Bhandari (Digital Medicine), Manish Mohan (Learn and Lead), and Vanessa Ruiz (Street Anatomy), as these excellent learning bloggers have not been mentioned before in my previous lists.

I know the male-female distribution of learning bloggers just mentioned is 12-4 (please don't ask about the racial breakdown!), but these are those blogs that I would like to appreciate with a 'Special Mention' (whatever that means!). If you are looking for other great learning blogs, please check out my previous lists (above), and all the other great lists I have shared in this post. I am pretty sure you will discover a few interesting blogs to add to your RSS reader.

Let's just enjoy blogging brilliance beyond gender, race, age, religion, and whatever. Is that so difficult :)