How and why teachers should start blogging

By Amy Dominello on August 1, 2011 

Blogging can be a tricky minefield for teachers to navigate.

However, it’s also an outlet for teachers to build awareness about issues, share information and best practices with one another and bring about systemic change in education, panelists said during a session at theNational Board for Professional Teaching Standards Conference.

Top 10 Providers Of Free Online Training

From e-Learning

1. How to Create a Cartoon in After Effects: Excellent  and detailed tutorial showing how you can create funny and semi-complex cartoons using Adobe After Effects.
2. CBTcafe.com: Some great free training demonstrations. They also resell inexpensive e-Learning tutorials.
3. GCF Learn Free Organization: GCFLearnFree.org® is supported by the Goodwill Community Foundation, Inc.
4. Free Microsoft Office  Online Training Courses (by Microsoft): Courses developed and offered by Microsoft.
5. Small Business Association (government): SBA is dedicated to helping you and your small business succeed. There are a variety of online trainings which cover many business topics for you to learn.
6. Free Online Conversvation Training: Learn more about this facinating subject. This conservation training is an online course system focused on conservation-based training, created and maintained by the Nature Conservancy in partnership with other conservation organizations.
7. Lynda: A popular provider of e-Learning covering a wide range of areas
8. Free OSHA Training: OSHAcademy online safety and health training is endorsed by theNational Safety Management Society and approved for the accredited Associate Safety Health Manager (ASHM) certification through the Institute for Safety and Health Management. We provide free online safety courses and low cost certificate programs. We also conduct training throughout the world by independent Authorized Trainers.
9. Free Training Power: TrainingPower is committed to connecting individuals and companies to valuable free resources, getting them started with long-term training initiatives. TrainingPower has added valuable usability and effectiveness functions to free government-published content and is offering a selection of free courses to workers, trainers and employers on its FreeTrainingPower.com web site.
10. Online First-Aid Training: Everyone who loves someone should know first-aid. Do you and your fellow employees need or want first-aid training? Try this great free resource.
11. Free Online Safety Training: Offering a wide range of free and fee-based online Safety courses.
12. eLearning Center

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Why People Hate Training

Why People Hate Training By Denise D. Ryan

Commentary: Well, do people really hate training? I don't know. I suspect the author is tilting at straw men to mix metaphors, but, this article contains some useful hints about how to get better results from seminars.
Most employees view training as medicine or worse, as punishment. As an outside trainer, I work with hundreds of groups in a wide variety of industries and most people enter the training room as if they are going to the gas chamber. They might not expect death, but clearly some horrible form of torture. There are exceptions to this rule, but they are few and far between. Why is this and what can we do about it?




It starts at the top. Too many times managers blow off the session because they don't need it (of course). This sends a strong message to all their followers: this training is not worth my time. If leaders haven't attended the training themselves, how can they reinforce the message? I see this in medical environments all the time - the nursing staff has to attend customer service training, not the doctors - they are way too important. Guess who treats both the nurses and the patients poorly? The doctors. What kind of message does this send to the nurses? No wonder they don't want to go to training.
Make it better: If you are going to have training for your people, you should go through it yourself. When you are there, support the trainer and your learners.
Exception: The only time you may want to consider not attending is if you want your people to interact freely with the trainer without your possibly intimidating presence. This is a very valid reason for not being there. If that's the case - tell your people. Tell them you think the training is important and why you are not going.
No one likes boring training. Make sure the training is good and has value for the attendees. I know this seems obvious, but something horrible has happened to people. They have had to sit through boring sessions and they hate it. There are enough good presenters out there that you can find someone with high energy, humor and great information. Take the time to check out your trainers. If you are using internal trainers, make sure they don't get burned out and bored with their own material. Take good care of them-they have a big impact on your employees.
Make it better: If you people are laughing, they are not in pain. Good training can help with morale and retention. Don't settle for boring.
They don't want to be embarrassed. Make it fun, but don't make attendees feel stupid or uncomfortable. I do a lot of customer service training. Very few attendees are excited about coming. Leadership is seldom there and it's often held after hours. People think they are somehow being punished for not doing their jobs. It's a tough crowd and I know I have to win them over and get them to drop their defenses fast. That's why I have my Elvis theme. Right away they know this isn't going to be like any customer service training they've had before. And before they know it, they're laughing. I do not make them do any Elvis impersonations; they are never embarrassed or made to do anything that would make them uncomfortable. It's interactive without putting anyone on the spot. If anybody acts silly, it's me.
Make it better: Most adults are terrified of looking like idiots. Training should be fun and safe or your people will dread it.
Attendees-you are not off the hook! You should come with an open mind. Hey, if you have to be there, you might as well have fun! Most of us have never been to a class where we learned nothing. In this life, you're either growing or you're dying. Take the chance to grow and learn. It's the best way to improve.
Denise Ryan, MBA, is a Certified Speaking Professional, a designation of excellence held by less than 10% of all professional speakers. She is a blogger http://motivationbychocolate.blogspot.com Her website is http://www.firestarspeaking.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Denise_D._Ryan
http://EzineArticles.com/?Why-People-Hate-Training&id=1694740

Cognitive Science & Learning

By na - Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence, embracing philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology. 


Its intellectual origins are in the mid-1950s when researchers in several fields began to develop theories of mind based on complex representations and computationalprocedures. 


Its organizational origins are in the mid-1970s when the Cognitive Science Society was formed and the journal Cognitive Science began. 
Since then, more than seventy universities in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia have established cognitive science programs, and many others have instituted courses in cognitive science


http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cognitive-science/

top 10 learning tools

t’s time to update my top 10 learning tools and techniques list. This time I’ll try to focus more on tools and services. You can view my previous lists of Aug 08 and Jan 08.

Top 10 learning tools 

Top CEO Blogs

1. Bill Marriott, Chairman & CEO of Marriott International – well written and connects with customers and employees. I quite like this one.
2. Tom Glocer, CEO of Thomson Reuters – As per Tom, in his blog he is going to “write about what interests me, which is often my work at Thomson Reuters, as well as wider issues like technology and media - two areas that I am fascinated by.” Seems like a genuine attempt to connect with employees and make the leader in Tom more human.
3. Scott Ragsdale, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, naseba – Very un-CEO type blog, written from the heart, couldn’t care less about what people might think. As per Scott, “the main purpose of this blog is to communicate with my 300+ employees, my future employees and leaders of naseba, my clients, future clients, and investors – at the same time helping me stay focused on my climb — to build naseba into a multi-hundred million euro company.”
4. Jonathan Schwartz, CEO Sun Microsystems Inc. – writes mostly with customers as intended audience. Seems more like the Sun website and less like a blog.
5. Kevin Lynch, Chief Technology Officer, Adobe – software development is Kevin’s passion that has led to great products from him and his team.
6. John Dragoon, Chief Marketing Office for Novell – a nice mix of company specific and generic content. Has good content for marketing folks.
7. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, CEO, Naukri.com – a personal blog, unfortunately not updated frequently
8. David Neeleman, Founder and Chairman of JetBlue Airways – “Each week I fly on JetBlue flights and talk to customers so I can find out how we can improve our airline. This is my flight log”, one post a month, however unfortunately last updated in Oct 2007.

Changing Education Paradigms

This animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA's Benjamin Franklin award.

For more information on Sir Ken's work visit: http://www.sirkenrobinson.com

Mobile Learning Trends and Predictions From Tim Ferguson

Mobile Learning Trends and Predictions from Tim Ferguson 

“Learn Anywhere, Anytime, Anyway”
“The Future Comes Alive” theme of the 2011 Lectora User Conference sets the tone for Tim Ferguson’s presentation on Mobile Learning - as he puts it, “The Mobile Future Comes Alive.” Ferguson discusses how to reach our “Digital Native” students with new expectations and new technologies that contine to impact our society, business and education.

Will’s Learning Landscape Model

Posted on January 3rd, 2011 by Harold Jarche

Will Thalheimer has developed the Learning Landscape Model and created this 13 minute video to explain it.

Overall I find the model useful, though I would replace “Learning” (at 2:15) with “Instruction”, because that’s really what training departments provide in order to promote on-job-performance.

It is also good to see on-job-learning as part of the model. The various measurement points, beyond Kirkpatrick’s four levels of evaluation, (at 9:50) are really worth noting. There are over a dozen measurements noted that are often ignored in organizations.

LMS is no longer the centre of the universe

LMS is no longer the centre of the universe

Posted on May 4th, 2010 by Harold Jarche

OK, so here’s the deal – if learning is work and work is learning, why is organizational learning controlled by a learning management systems (LMS) that isn’t connected to the work being done in the enterprise? Learning is no longer what you do before you go to work, never having to learn anything else in order to do your job. In the 21st century networked economy, learning and working are becoming one.

Free and Open Source Web Conferencing (Online Meetings, Webinars) Tools for e-Learning

The following list contains free and open source Web Conferencing tools and are not in any particular order.

BigBluebutton* is built for Higher Education. It enables universities and colleges to deliver a high-quality learning experience to remote students. BigBlueButton is an active open source project that focuses on usability, modularity, and clean design -- both for the user and the developer. The project is hosted at Google Code. BigBlueButton is built by combining over fourteen open source components. 

*note: Epignosis has created a module that provides integration of BigBlueButton conferencing in eFront Open Source Learning Management System. BigBlueButton is a free web-conferencing tool with text chat, audio and video capabilites, a virtual whiteboard and many more presentation and conferencing features.

OpenMeetings is a free browser-based software that allows you to set up instantly a conference in the Web. You can use your microphone or webcam, share documents on a white board, share your screen or record meetings. It is available as hosted service or you download and install a package on your server with no limitations in usage or users.

OpenMeetings Key Features Mini Demo

Mikogo is a free desktop sharing tool full of features to assist you in conducting the perfect online meeting or web conference. Take advantage of the opportunity to share any screen content or application over the Internet in true color quality with up to 10 participants simultaneously, while still sitting at your desk.

Yugma free web conferencing allows anyone, anywhere to instantly share their desktop and ideas online with others. To start hosting your own meetings you have to sign up for FREE. Your Yugma Free web conferencing account allows you to invite up to 20 attendees 

Using WebHuddle, you have options and flexibility. Meetings can be conducted either in conjunction with an enterprise’s existing teleconferencing service, or utilizing WebHuddle’s optional voice over IP. WebHuddle also offers recording capabilities -- presentations can easily be recorded for playback over any web browser for those who missed the live meeting. 

With Vyew you can give a presentation to a hundred people online or post a document you've been working on for review by your colleagues at the convenience. Vyew is extremely flexible alloying you to bring online collaboration and conferencing into your workflow on your terms.

Dimdim delivers synchronized live presentations, whiteboards and web pages while sharing your voice and video over the Internet - with no download. With the Free edition you can get 10 person meetings, 1 way video, standard support, Dimdim branded rooms, and public meetings.

*note: Epignosis has created a module that provides integration of Dimdim conferencing in eFront  Open Source Learning Management System.

Adobe® ConnectNow is a great way to share ideas, discuss details, and complete work with others all online. Reduce travel costs, save time, and increase productivity with a web conferencing solution that's easy to access and simple to use. ConnectNow operates inside a web browser. There's no installation required, so getting started is easy and Free

Free Stock Photos Sites for e-Learning

Free Stock Photos 
(Update 12/24/2010: suggested by Citizen)
FreePixels offers free high resolution stock photos for use in both personal and commercial design projects.

Free Stock Photos 
(Update 10/28/2010: suggested by Queralt Suñé)
Nearly 100% of their Royalty Free photos are Free Download. Every image is absolutely free, with some more options to buy individual higher resolutions. They can be used either for private or commercial purposes. In exchange, we only ask you to use the images according to our Licensing.

SXC (stock.xhng) 
The SXC is a website providing free-to use stock photography and illustrations. The stock.xhng operates as a hybrid of a picture library site and a social networking site; registered users may set up a personal profile, upload their photographic works to share with other users, write a blog and participate in online forums to discuss and critique each others' work.

4 Free Photos 
The website is an online community of photographers who enjoy taking pictures and decided to share them with the public to use them for free in their private or commercial projects. They  hope you will find the collection of free and public domain images useful.

Morgue File 
An easy to use free photo site. Free images for your inspiration, reference and use in your creative work, be it commercial or not!

Free Digital Photos 
Download royalty free photos and illustrations for websites, newspapers, magazines, video and TV productions, iPhone applications, PowerPoint presentations, forums, blogs and school work.

Turbo Photo
Free stock images from 10 categories (3.4 GB). Stock images are in the public domain.

Dreams Time 
If you are a designer you can download high resolution RF stock images for free. If you are a photographer you have the opportunity to achieve a great portfolio exposure by offering free images.

Image * After 
Image*After is a large online free photo collection. You can download and use any image or texture from our site and use it in your own work, either personal or commercial.

Public Domain Photos 
5,000 free photos, 8,000 free cliparts. All photos on this web site are public domain. You may use these images for any purpose, including commercial.

Flickr Free Use Photos Group
The photos in this group are available for use by anyone. There is no need to give credit or to fear rights infringement. These images are posted by their creators. By posting to this group, you're allowing freedom of use.

Free Images 
Not just another clipart graphic site. Collection now contains more than 5000 ORIGINAL stock photos in 76 Galleries all for FREE!

Public Domain Image 
Public domain images, royalty free stock photos, copyright friendly free images. Not copyrighted, no rights reserved. All pictures on this site are explicitly placed in the public domain, free for any personal or commercial use.

PhotoXpress
In this website you can get 10 free images per day by signing up.