When Apple launched the iPhone 4S, one of the key differentiators to previous models was the inclusion of Siri. For those who haven’t been bombarded yet by the marketing campaigns, Siri is an intelligent software assistant and a knowledge navigator that essentially functions like a digital personal assistant. You can find out more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siri_(software).

Perhaps it’s a bit late; but you should check out this great Prezi presentation put together by Amy Burvall; Technotroubadours and Teacherpreneurs .

This time around we focus on the basics – learning and its right mix. We talk about the changes in the key drivers for blended learning, some fundamental characteristics of training to be followed, and the pros and cons of eLearning. And while we are on this, how can social learning and game-based learning be left behind? Read an exciting case study in social learning and learn about some games and game-related projects that are already making a difference.

It’s been a trying time of the year; erratic schedules, vacations and finding time to introspect has meant I’ve not blogged over the last month or so. As I get back on track, it’s time to start blogging in earnest again. We’ve gone from attending eLearning conferences to mLearning conferences; it’s just around the corner from mLearnCon 2011. As mobile computing becomes mainstream, it is worth thinking about the nature of learning in the future. As technology permeates our daily lives and goes on to become an essential part of it, the impact promises to be far-reaching.

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.

I found this talk by Jason Fried  about how we work in an office quite interesting.

“The real problems in the office are the M&Ms” – managers and meetings make employees unproductive.

All the more reason for eLearning, anytime, anywhere; let people decide what’s appropriate to learn and when to learn it. You can’t do that with scheduled training.

As a learning organization, we understand the importance of keeping our ears and minds open to new knowledge and ideas. And with our blog, this had been more possible than ever.

Over the period of 21 months, since the inception of our blog, we have not just shared our knowledge, but have gained much more in return. Through your comments, your suggestions, your answers – we have experienced ‘learning’ and beyond!

TED has released this video of Dr. Sugata Mitra in which he talks about his experiments with education for children. He talks about some of the issues with education in developing countries. There are some interesting insights, check it out.

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” – William Arthur Ward.

1. Alternatives to Second Life
Karl Kapp puts some alternatives to Second Life on his blog. Interesting products, although some will cease to exist starting next year.

2. Windows Mobile for Gaming
Microsoft to make Windows Mobile a gaming platform. While other mobile OS developers are jockeying for position to become the game platform of choice for mobile devices, Windows mobile lagged behind.

1. Meaning Tool: Training Semantic Search With Feeds
Meaning Tool is a semantic engine that offers users a chance to extract concepts from text using specific semantic trees. You define your categories of interest by creating search parameters and training them with related websites or RSS feeds. A great tool to see how semantic trees can help search.

1. Device tag support in HTML 5
   Yesterday World Wide Web Consortium has reported that HTML 5 will support external devices, directly from your browser. Now your browser will access your webcam, microphone and other USB devices directly, no other software/plug-ins required.