From my first space themed set at age six, into the Technic range in my teens and twenties, I continue to indulge my fascination for Lego brick sets. I’m what is termed an AFOL – Adult Fan of Lego; I believe it had and continues to have implications for how I structure my thoughts and activities that involve work & play. I’ve written before that play is significant for learning through what seems like an abnormally long human childhood (for an animal our size). Oftentimes, I attribute my few creative skills to extensive play, building with Lego being a substantial part of it.

The Centre for Performance Development has released the results of their Learning & Skills 2011 survey – which was held both at the event and online. Read more about it on the survey page on their website. The survey asked people to put blue or orange m&ms in various jars representing the L&D activities they expected to do more or less in 2011. Blue for more and Orange for less. Scientific isn’t it!

I came across a blog-post by Clark Aldrich titled – Using Serious Games and Simulations: A Quick and Dirty Guide . In this post, Clark talks about:

• What simulations are and aren’t
• Where simulations fit in an organizations’ flow of skills
• Best practices in designing and creating simulations

After reading the post, I browsed the web for examples of simulations that are capable of generating a powerful learning experience. One that really struck a chord was – Inside the Haiti Earthquake.  Inside the Haiti Earthquake is a first-person simulation based on documentary footage from Haiti and real-life decision scenarios.

When you are getting started with mobile learning one of the decision you’ll have to make is which device(s) to target. In a SWOT Analysis of Mobile Learning we posted earlier this week, we listed this as one of the weaknesses of mobile learning as it stands today. Fragmented market and no real common development platform make this a serious hindrance to mobile learning adoption.

Came across this article in the NYT Bits Blog – Multitasking Takes Toll on Memory ; states quite simply that the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has published research which shows that multitasking takes a significant toll on the working memory of older individuals. There has been other research suggesting that this ‘divided attention’ will hurt learning and cognitive performance. Some interesting insights to be found in the article, it’s worth a read.

Last week we had an exhibition stand at CIPD’s HRD 2011 at Olympia London – our very first ‘outing’ in the UK. It turned out to be a great show for us with executives from several blue chip companies visiting our stand to discuss their performance and learning challenges.

I suppose a lot of meetings are to follow in next few weeks. This is a good beginning for our new Europe office which started a few months back.

This week we get serious about serious games. It’s a known fact that the best kind of learning comes as a result of well-designed experiences and as such games, with their high level of engagement and interaction, serve as the right mode for learning.

That iPads and smartphones have made their presence felt inside the classroom is a given now. Know how they will soon replace the classroom computers. Also get a sneak peak into the future of learning.

Read it all here in our Weekly Digest – a collection of our top 8 links from the week gone by, each accompanied by a quick brief.

For over two years now, we have not only just been hearing about mobile learning but also actively understanding and working on it. From trying to explain five myths of mobile learning to assisting customer  new to mobile learning, getting started with mobile learning has been an exciting journey through which we have seen mobile learning seeing increasing adoption. This has been possible due to a variety of factors – better, faster, cheaper smartphones, the advent of tablet computers, and an increasing awareness of the benefits and applicability of mobile learning.

I’ve been working on some learning related material for children. Designing for children is a totally different ballgame from the workplace learning we are typically involved in. To put it mildly, designing for children is tough; to design for today’s children even tougher. The more I look at this demographic they call ‘digital natives’, I find individuals who take the digital world the internet enables for granted. To these individuals, the internet and its data services are just as mundane as electricity and phones were to us in older generations. I wrote about this group of people couple of years back.

“Aneesh, what does a Project Manager do?” asked my friend who was contemplating a career in elearning.  Without a moment’s hesitation, I replied – “They are ruthless slave drivers, that’s what they are.”

To which my friend replied – “Well, now that you’ve told me what you think of Project Managers, why don’t you tell me what they do?”
I then gave my friend an overview of the project lifecycle and the Project Manager’s role at each stage. While I was explaining this to an “outsider”, I realized certain undeniable truths.

I ran into this interesting infographic this morning about Augmented Reality marketing today. While it’s not completely relevant to eLearning or learning in general, it’s interesting to see that AR is making rapid strides in marketing. Also, the figures seem to suggest that while it’s gimmicky, it improves engagement and gets individuals to spend more time on those website that use AR.