Fall update on speaking, book project (A Web of Learning), etc.

Hi all or anyone who reads this. Sorry for not posting for a while. Four reasons for this:

#1. I have been doing talks at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and also the University of Houston. Both were university-based regional conferences. I made some great new friends at both places and also saw old friends. A good combination! In St. Louis, I took 3 visiting scholars with me--2 from Korea and 1 from China. It was an immensely fun car ride. I learned a lot about life in China and Korea and life as a visiting scholar in the USA. Both conferences were fun for me to do. Successful I think. Seems many people interested in the same topics such as podcasting, wikis, blogs, tablet computers, faculty training and support, digital storytelling. It was great to hear Dr. David Jonassen talk about mindtools when in St. Louis and to have lunch with David. He is perhaps the leading figure in our field right now. David will be in Singapore when I am in Thailand in 2-3 weeks (see below). In Houston, Dr. Bernard Robin showed his fantastic "Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling" site: http://www.coe.uh.edu/digital-storytelling/. Cool stuff. Check it out. Use it!

Both places made me feel at home. Seeing the Arch in St. Louis was great. In Houston, Dr. Mimi Lee and her 2 sons and also Dr. Grace Lin, showed me the Galleria and also a Buddhist temple among other landmarks. That was fun. We also discussed the expansion of our Wikibook research. I think we are exploring this topic at an opportune moment. We will see.

I can see that these regional conferences are becoming the norm. I have pending invites at Purdue, the University of Missouri at Rolla, Northern Illinois Unversity, and 4-5 places in Canada (mostly in Ontario though one came in from Montreal this morning). I do prefer staying in 1-2 day distance for speaking. This is nice!

#2. I have been writing a book with Dr. Ke Zhang from the Wayne State University. The title is
A Web of Learning (Part I): 100+ Online Learner Activities for Reading, Reflecting, Displaying, and Doing. We sent it to the publisher today--a few hours ago I finished this 122,000 word monster. Yikes! We describe the "Web of Learning" in the book and what it offers to auditory, reflective, visual, and hands-on learners. While we do not believe in learning styles, this book outlines our R2D2 method of online learning preferences to address the diverse learners of this world. R2D2 stands for Read, Reflect, Display, and Do. We outline more than 100 strategies (25 in each quadrant) to make it so. We also cover our newest method in the book we call the MATRIX.

Like R2D2, the new acronym, the “MATRIX” should be familiar for those who frequent science fiction movies. It stands for:

1. Mobile
2. Auditory/verbal,
3. Thought-stimulating,
4. Reflective/Real World,
5. vIsually Interactive
6. eXtremely hands-on
   
   Here are 2 paragraphs from the Preface:
   
   The R2D2 Model
   "This book introduces an easy-to-apply, practical model--the R2D2 (read, reflect, display, and do) Model--that should help online instructors integrate various learning activities with appropriate technologies for effective online learning for their diverse online learners (Bonk & Zhang, 2006). The R2D2 method is a new model for designing and delivering distance education, and, in particular, online learning. Such a model is especially important to address the diverse preferences of online learners of varied generations and Internet familiarity. The first component primarily relates to methods to help learners acquire knowledge through online readings, explorations, and podcasting. As such, it addresses verbal and auditory learners. The second component of the model focuses on reflective activities such as online blogs, reflective writing, and self-check activities and examination. In the third quadrant, visual representations of the content are highlighted with activities such as virtual tours, timelines, animations, and concept maps. Fourth, the model emphasizes what learners can do with the content in hands-on activities including simulations, scenarios, and real-time cases. When thoughtfully designed and effectively delivered, content and activities created from the R2D2 perspective (as well as from other perspectives we will outline; see Chapter Fourteen) are more engaging and enriching for learners.
   The R2D2 model is not the only way to address learners; it is simply one way. We also include extensive information on other methods or perspectives throughout this book. Still, the R2D2 model will provide a starting point for online instructors to understand the diverse nature of online learners and become better able to address their diversity. It will also afford readers a means to apply the widely available and often free technology tools and resources into many types of learning activities that can address learner diversity and needs. While the journals and research literature devoted to online teaching and learning continues to mount, there is a severe lack of practical models like the R2D2 model to help instructors with easy to apply learning activities that result in effective and enjoyable online learning."
   
   The publisher is Jossey Bass. I am not sure when it will come out. This is Part 1. Part 2 will be on online motivation and retention which I plan to write in the spring. Let's see if, when you read the book, you become convinced that we educator should rename "the Web," "the Web of Learning." Also I would love your reactions related to R2D2 and the MATRIX.
   
   #3. I have been organizing my schedule so I can go to Taiwan Dec 6-13 and Thailand Dec 13-20. Back home on the 21st. Will see old friends in both places. My first graduate student, Dr. Kevin Koury, now an endowed professor at the University of Pennsylvania at California, will meet me in Thailand. Kevin is a very fun and frank individual. It will great to see him. Former students in Taiwan who I will see include Feng-Kwei Wang, John Li, Chin-Chi Chao, Mei-Ya Liang, Effie Chen, Ching-Fen Chang, Jalin Huang, Jessie Chen, and Jia-ling Lee. That is a lot of people! It will be great to see them all as well. Some touring planned despite 7-8 talks there. The big talk will be to corporate trainers on blended learning since it is an all day one. Lucifer Chu of OOPS fame, and the person who translated Lord of the Rings to Chinese and became a millionaire for that effort, will show me around as well. OOPS is the OpenSource OpenCourseWare Prototype System which is translating MIT courses to traditional and simplified Chinese.
   
   #4. I have to attend 3 doctoral dissertations in the next 24 hours. Yikes! Some old timers getting done so that is great. Including Guoping Ma who works at Microsoft and showed my son and I around Redmond a year ago when he looked at the University of Washington for college. He did not go there but it was fun to see. You can read my blog from last November for more info on that trip.
   
   All for now. Back with an update after Taiwan and Thailand.

Lots of things shaking at E-Learn in Hawaii (like earthquakes)

Time for some news on E-Learn in Honululu held October 13-17, 2006. This was the fourth straight year that I have attended this conference (Phoenix in 2003; DC in 2004; Vancouver in 2005; and now the Aloha State). It was perhaps the most picturesque place for a conference. What stunning views from the Sheraton Waikiki!!! Most sessions I gave had a window in the back of the room with a view of the Pacific and the hotel swimming pool and bar area as well as Diamond Head mountain to the righthand side.

My colleagues and I gave talks on blended learning in corporate training in Korea as well as Tawain. Other talks were on developing a sense of community online with Dr. Xiaojing Liu which won an outstanding paper award. Hooray for Xiaoing! Also gave talks on podcast, wikis, and blogs; as part of this, one of my graduate students and I gave a paper on Wikibooks. And I gave a talk to the University of Hawaii faculty and staff on my online survey tool, SurveyShare.

I was surpised how many people were interested in blended learning and transfer issues in corporate training settings. I figured that we would get 5-10 people but we got from 30-100 people at the various sessions. Perhaps there were not enough corporate training sessions at the conference or perhaps people are really interested in adult learning or perhaps these papers were just timely. We are actually studying blended learning China, Taiwan, Korea, US, and UK. All 9 talks went well I think. Seems like I was preparing one and then delivering it and then reloading for another talk for like 6 straight days. Happy to share paper with those who request them. Write to cjbonk@indiana.edu. Here are the topics and titles.

1. Son, S., Oh. E. J., Bonk, C. J., & Kim, K. J. (2006, October). The future of blended learning in corporate and other training settings in Korea. Paper presented at the E-Learn Conference 2006—World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education, Honolulu, Hawaii.

2. Teng, Y., Bonk, C. J., & Kim, K. J. (2006, October). The current development of blended learning in workplace learning in Taiwan. Paper presented at the E-Learn Conference 2006—World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education, Honolulu, Hawaii.

3. Zhang, K., & Bonk, C. J. (2006, October). The R2D2 model for effective online teaching and enjoyable online learning. Paper presented at the E-Learn Conference 2006—World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education, Honolulu, Hawaii.

4. Liu, X., Magjuka, R. J., Bonk, C. J., & Lee, S. H. (2006, October). Does sense of community matter? An examination of participants’ perspectives in online courses. Paper presented at the E-Learn Conference 2006—World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education, Honolulu, Hawaii.

5. Lee, J., Bonk, C. J., & Park, A. (2006, October). Design of blended learning environment ensuring transfer of training. Paper presented at the E-Learn Conference 2006—World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education, Honolulu, Hawaii.

6. Sajjapanroj, S., Bonk, C. J., Lee. M., & Lin, G. (2006, October). The challenges and successes of wikibookian experts and want-to-bees. Paper presented at the E-Learn Conference 2006—World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education, Honolulu, Hawaii.

7. Bonk, C. J., Oh, E. J., & Teng, Y. (2006, October). Blended Learning: Situations, Solutions, and Several Surprises. Tutorial presentation at the E-Learn Conference 2006—World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education, Honolulu, Hawaii.

8. Bonk, C. J., Zhang, K., & Barton, S. M. (2006, October). Podcasts and Wikis and Blogs, Oh My!: Online Learning is Not in Kansas Anymore. Tutorial presentation at the E-Learn Conference 2006—World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education, Honolulu, Hawaii.

After the conference, I gave this talk at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii, "Introducing SurveyShare: Surveying the Online World."

The following papers were presented by my research team the same week in Dallas at AECT:

1. Liu, X., Magjuka, R. J., Bonk, C., J., & Lee, S. (2006, October). Participants’ perceptions of building learning communities in online MBA courses. Paper presented at the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) 2006 Annual International Convention, Dallas, TX.

2. Su, B., Bonk, C., J., & Magjuka, R. J., (2006, October). Experiences versus preferences of online interactions. Paper presented at the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) 2006 Annual International Convention, Dallas, TX.

3. Lee, S., Lee, J., Liu, X., Magjuka, R. J., & Bonk, C., J., & (2006, October). Analysis of case-based learning in an online MBA program: The good, the bad, and the ugly. Paper presented at the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) 2006 Annual International Convention, Dallas, TX.

4. Kim, K. J., Bonk, C. J., Teng, Y., Son, S. J., Zeng, T., & Oh, E. J. (2006, October). Future trends of blended learning in workplace learning across different cultures. Paper presented at the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) 2006 Annual International Convention, Dallas, TX.

It was some week!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, the E-Learn conference keynotes covered such areas as digital libraries, learning objects, authentic learning, and online learning in K-12 education (I was a keynote at the conference last year and spoke about how the learning world had become flat--see earlier blog post). Susan Patrick from the North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL) was the first speaker. While she looks young, she has many years of experience in K-12 education. She was highly passionate about the need to address K-12 learning with innovative ideas, risk taking, creativity, competition, and leadership.

Her interesting points included that the Intel science fair attracts 65,000 students from US classrooms and 6,000,000 from Chinese classrooms. Humm..who stands a better chance of winning. While her numbers related to the growth of online learning were a bit dated (2 millions learners in higher education and 500,000 in K-12 online), her points resonated with me. She noted that we are looking at 30 percent growth per year. There is huge potential for new programming if this trend continues. Unfortunately, she also had statistics on high school drop out rates (68-70 percent) as well as disapointing numbers related to reading, math, and science in the US. There are opportunities for greater self-directed learning online and for increasing student synthesis, evaluation, and analysis skills if done right.

Interesting that she noted a Gallup Poll which said that 40 percent of those surveyed think that students should take at least 1 online class prior to high school graduation. She also noted the State of Michigan's new requirement to do just that. And while 96 percent of kids believe that doing well in school is important, most kids say school is boring. Nearly 70 percent are not motivated and they simply lack challenges.

To resolve these issues, we need to modernize our learning environments. We also need to update our high school requirements. Technology can definitely help in that regard. She gave one other TIP--Trust, Integrity, and Passion. Those are the core values underlying leadership.

Jan Herrington from the University of Wollongong in Australia was the third keynote (I missed the 2nd one from Mary Marlino on Digital libraries since we had no power in our hotel and her talk was moved to late in the day--see below for details on why that was). Jan discussed authentic e-learning designs in higher education. Like her colleague Tom Reeves from the University of Georgia and Ron Oliver from Edith Cowan University in Australia have detailed in a book chapter in my Handbook of Blended Learning, there are many principles or factors in the design of authentic environments. Such factors include (1) authentic contexts, (2) authentic task selection, (3) expert performance assessment, (4) multiple perspectives, (5) collaboration, (6) articulation, (7) reflection, (8) scaffolding and coaching, and (9) authentic assessment. She noted that Tom Reeves believes that task selection is the key variable and I think I agree with that. Of course, many of these principles parallel those espoused by Brown, Collins, and Duguid on situated cognition back in 1988-1990.

Jan had many interesting and useful ideas. Some of these included real world scenarios for authentic contexts and planning a trip to Italy for tourism students or a planned Mission to Mars for engineering students for authentic tasks. Also, interviews with design experts and placing podcasts and vodcasts of expert guests on the web for expert performances and assessments. Using digital libraries, searching Google Scholar, and other online resources can help with multiple perspectives. Tools like wikis and blogs can help foster collaboration. And so might having students design an online journal (students write and publish to the online journal; perhaps all students can be board members of that online journal). Reflection activities might be developed through blogging as well as in other types of journaling. Scaffolding and coaching might be accomplished through track changes in Word documents. And finally, authentic assessment might be best displayed in electronic portfolios of student work. In addition, students might design web pages, create movie documentaries, develop products or presentations for stakeholders (as computer science and business students sometimes do for local businesses), and post downloadable reports online. They might write an occupational health and safety evaluation guide.

She also showed a research methods course for Edith Cowan that was a vitual environment wherein students did both quantitative and qualitative research. They used online data files, interviewed experts, etc. Across these tasks, students are doing something instead of simply being taught something. They are exploring, filtering information, performing real world tasks, conducting exciting research, making new connections, and sharing their discoveries. Now this is learning.

I only attended part of the final keynote session from Byan Eldridge on how digital repositories are revolutionizing the learning enterprise. He was attempting to provide a synthesis of instructional design, learning standards, and best practices. I did not stay long since I had to prepare a final presentation on Wikibooks later that morning. It looked interesting though. Some final comments about the presentations at eLearn--it is a highly international conference. Many people from Japan (our hotel must have had 60 percent Japanese) and Korea, Taiwan, Australia, UK, Thailand, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and South Africa. And some from Chile, Outer Mongolia, Germany, and New Zealand.

There were even two high school students presenting at E-Learn. Matthew Richards and Justin Baker presented with their advisor, Dr. David Brown, at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics. They had a roundtable presentation on "Massively Multi-player Online Gaming: Lessons Learned from an MMPG Short Course for High School Students." They also had a presentation on how "High School Student Research Success Lies in Mirroring Graduate Student Paradigms." It is amazing to see high school kids present at an international conference; especially with peer reviews. It is even more amazing when they stayed for a 5th year of high school since they love it so much. Yes, a 5th year! Here they are being treated as human beings instead of being drilled facts--they learn much more through inquiry, self-initiated learning, teacher coaching, synthesis, personal ambition, etc. This was excellent to see.

Not many people from last year at the conference except for Jon Dron from Brighton (he gave a great talk on why any color is ok as long as it is Blackboard). This was a highly entertaining talk. Jon is great!!!

Now in terms of the 2nd keynote which was moved to late in the day. This was due to earthquakes on Sunday the 14th. The conference was not on the big island which had the 2 big 6.8 amd 6.0 quakes next to it but we were still highly affected. As indicated, the conference was in Honolulu at the Sheraton Waikiki. Sunday was really crazy. I was on 19th floor of hotel and the bed I was on and the entire room really swayed back and forth. Many people I later talked to who were in rooms above me were highly scared. The 2nd quake hit a few seconds after the first one and we had no more power and elevators. I had to walk up and down 19 floors to get my props and to change clothes. Ke Zhang and I did our R2D2 presentation without PP slides--using my computer as the screen.

There was no power till 9 or 10 pm. All conference talks that day were done without PowerPoint. Ya!

I have never had a day like that before. Long long lines for food. Our hotel was great though for serving food. We were all lucky to be at the Sheraton Waikiki. Not much damage in Honolulu, but I heard on big Island there is some. Fortunately, the weather was great for the 3 days after the earthquake and 3 days before it. It is the best place for a conference--better than Vancouver even where the conference was the year before.

Good to be home now.

Mahalo!!!!!!!!!!!

Scotland visit and the next generation of learner and learning environment

Hi all. Sorry no post recently. I have been hard at work on a book (not busy--people know I do not use that word. Kindergarten kids are busy not me and hopefully not you either.). The book is called: “A Web of Learning (Part I): 100+ Ideas for Online Learner Reading, Reflecting, Displaying, and Doing.” Part 2 will be related to online motivation and retention and another 100 strategies for 10 aspects of motivation (10 each for feedback, climate, engagement, variety, etc.). The third part, if there is one, will be 100 ideas for blended learning.

I have not been feeling well the past 2 months but finally am ok. Perhaps I got e-coli virus that was in the news. Not sure. But ok now and the energy is back.

Was in Scotland for 11 days in September. Lots of interesting e-learning projects happening there; especially at Napier University in Edinburgh where I spent a few days and gave 3 talks (on wikis, podcasts, and blogs; on blended learning; and on how the learning world has become flat). I also managed to also present at the University of Aberdeen as well as Robert Gordon University when there which are both in Aberdeen (a 2 hour train ride to the north of Edinburgh). Good people. Second time to present at both the Univ of Aberdeen which has a beatiful and very old campus some of dating back like 800 years. It is definitely worth a visit. And then there is Napier University and the Craighouse campus with its simply stunning views. Wish I had been feeling better that week but I was ok.

I got a chance to see some good friends during the during the annual Advanced Learning Technologies (ALT-C) Conference which was in Edinburgh when I was there. People like Diana Oblinger, Tim O'Shea, and Diane Oblinger were the keynotes and famous folks like Terry Anderson and Gilly Salmon chaired the different conference themes or strands. Seems a heavy emphasis on podcasting, the use of wikis, and blogging during this conference. Also, a theme to consider the next generation of learners so there were many presenters on that as well as much attention to personalized learning environments.

One interesting fact was that a workshop on brainstorming what the generation of online learning environments might look like, attracted the president of Desire to Learn (John Baker). John stood in the back of the room next to me; I noticed that no one from Blackboard was in the room--they were likely too busy filing their next lawsuit or looking for technology that they needed to patent which likely existed 20 years before they thought of it. I applaud DesireToLearn for their desire to learn here. John listened intently while adding an idea or 2 to the 30-40 minute conversation that we had. Wow! Did the people in the room realize the power that they all had? All they had to do was turn around and make suggestions to John and let them build some stuff that Blackboard never conceived of patenting. How could they conceive of next generation learning tools when they are so busy patenting stuff developed decades ago? DesireToLearn and those in the room look forward not back. All of us in the room wanted to be using something better--more learner centered or focused. A learning environment inviting people to learn not simply tracking if and when people were in the system.

Anyway, the room was packed with people; as I hinted, it was standing room only. The session chair, in fact, would not let anyone else in the room so I snuck in the back door and listened. After 3-4 short presentations showcasing what is happening and might be coming, they had small groups of 8-10 people discuss what might happen next and list their pts or design their new system. It was fascinating hearing the conversations. And, what was really funny (though quite typical and unfortunate) was to see one person from a particular group next to me go up to present and not say anything that the group said, just the pts he wanted to make. Smile. And this group has some great insights or so I thought.

I also got the Loch Ness when in Scotland but saw no monster. Darn! The bus ride to get there made me nausious. I visited 3 different castles when there--one south of Aberdeen, the Edinburgh Castle, and one at Loch Ness. I hope to put some pics in my Flickr site soon. Scotland is a wonderful place.

Oh, speaking of the next generation of learner, there is a wonderful article today in the USA Today front page of the Life section (see http://www.usatoday.com/life/2006-10-02-gennext-tech_x.htm) on wireless learning on college campuses. It features Ball State as it was claimed to be the most unwired college campus by Intel in a 2005. I think IU had that distinction the prior year with Purdue right behind it (http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/news/news.asp?id=115). What does this say about Indiana colleges and universities? Well, we are highly technology supported. And perhaps our public relations personnel are pretty good. Indiana is a good place to work if you are into technology rich learning environments or do research on it like me. Lots going on here and even more to come.

Back to the USA Today article--it had an interesting story of a student to downloaded his course schedule everyday, added to his electronic portfolio in teacher education (including lesson plans), downloaded music, chatted with friends, checked email, checked out his Facebook site, etc. Technology for this generation is second nature. They live off of Internet access as well as text messaging friends with their cell phones. Is that a problem as some in the article argue. Perhaps. But I think this generation is simply taking advantage of the ways of communicating of this particular age.

They are coping. They are also showing us what works or might work. I recommend you read the article. It is a good one. Here is a quote from it: "'This is so core to their social experience — to their identities — to what it means to be a young person and a student in 2006,' says Richard Katz of the non-profit Educause, which promotes the use of information technology in higher education." This quote reminds me of my blog post a few months about how we gain a sense of identity from our online activities; especially our blogs. All for now.

Bucaneer Bonk and His Belated Blackboard the Pirate Top Ten List

Ahoy Matey! Did ye hear the story about Blackboard the Pirate? Well shiver my timbers, there has certainly been a lot of chatter tis past week about the supposed patents of Blackboard the Pirate and the resultin lawsuit against "XYZ." Tis not somethin for those that are lily-livered that be for sure! Give me some grog! It be time perhaps ter get loaded ter the gunwales. Arrrr!!!! I have heard nothin on tis from my mates here in the US but instead email keeps comin in from the UK on tis topic for some reason. Yo-ho-ho!!! Remember the "THE GAUDET FAMILY PIRATING SONG" (see http://www.talklikeapirate.com/songs2.html Yo-ho-ho mates!!! Please hand over the bottle of rum! Bucaneer Bonk out... Note: The rest of this extremely long blog post has been (at least temporarily) removed. If interested, write to the author for the full version (email: curt at WorldisOpen.com)

A Comment on Bob Mosher's article in CLO Magazine "Moving from One to the Many."

I read through Chief Learning Officer Magazine for July 2006 (see http://www.clomedia.com/content/templates/clo_section.asp?articleid=1448&zoneid=99) yesterday and was impressed with their articles on blended learning (2 articles), simulations, innovative technologies (Brandon Hall), and the democratization of content (Elliott Masie). I was perhaps most moved by the article from Bob Mosher (who has a chapter in my blended learning handbook) entitled: "Moving from One to Many." See page 15 of the July issue or see http://www.clomedia.com/content/templates/clo_article.asp?articleid=1439&zoneid=51

I just zipped off an email to Bob. Here is what I said to him:
"I appreciated your article in CLO this month. There are masses of hypocrites out there who espouse problem-based learning, virtual teaming, collaboration, and online communities of practice, yet the tools for training remain centered at discrete knowledge bits of individuals. My e-learning and blended learning surveys indicate that it is the boring LMSs which have caught everyone’s attention. Why? Well, they can track learners and their learning that way. I am reminded of my accounting exams back in undergraduate days that sacrificed many a student with such tests but those who eked through the slaughter were no more prepared for the real world interactions and collaborations that were needed.

Yes, LMSs place learners in silos as you say, in a time, when learning is viewed best as a social event. We learn from our interactions with others—trainers, supervisors, experts, peers, team members, SMEs, guests, mentors, coaches, semi-intelligent agents, etc. Yet we continue to push learners into these silos and drool over mindless data that an LMS provides—minutes or hours online, tasks completed, time of day online, throughput, etc. As a former accountant, I see this computer log data as nearly meaningless. It took minutes to program into the system. When are vendors going to start to build tools and tasks for human learning and collaboration? Tools for brainstorming with team members, tools for mapping out one’s thoughts and ideas, tools for evaluating thoughts or ideas suggested, tools for comparing or categorizing ideas, tools for teaming, tools for timelining, tools for role play or debate, tools for juxtapositioning of ideas, and tools for mentoring and coaching? What say you?

We are in a learner-centered world using learning “management” systems. It is still the preprescribed behavioral approach that is winning out not an active or constructivist learning one. How come few people see this and raise the red flags as you have done? Why? Well, because they have done the easy part here—they can map out the learning of factual knowledge among individual learners. We must do better.

Nice article Bob. Think that the hypocrites will wake up? Me neither. Keep writing this good stuff!"

E-Learning in the UK

In mid May, I spent a week visiting universities and institutes in the UK. I got the University of Glamorgan in Wales, Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford (30 minutes northeast of London by train), the University of Brighton (40 minutes or south of London by train) which is on the Atlantic, and King's College in London; in that order. I also spent some time in Bath and in London when not presenting somewhere. I was greeted by many great people along the way. I got to stay with my friend Dr. John Stephenson when in Bath and we explored the Roman Baths a bit. There was also an international music festival going on when I was there. I also got to see the Tate Modern Museum, St. Paul Cathedral (all 534 steps with a spectacular view of London), and the Victoria and Albert's Museum (see http://www.vam.ac.uk/).

Norah Jones (the researcher, not the singer) was opening a new Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) which was focusing on blended learning. Their Vice Provost seems very supportive for it. Norah has a staff not only designing interesting and engaging blended learning experiences with simulations, flash animations, and so on, but also has people doing research on it. She has developed a respect from the administators and staff there. The Univ of Glamorgan is near Cardiff which claims to be the fastest growing capital of Europe. Vibrant shopping, lucious eating, and beautiful scenary there. I loved exploring the Cariff Castle and need to post some pics of it at my Flickr site soon. Both of my keynotes went well there--on ATuesday night we opened their CELT with my talk on blended learning being the keynote. I also spoke on blended learning the following morning. I went over both times but Norah was ok with it. The 2nd one was more about the future of blended learning.

It seems that the UK has money for e-learning specialists now. The money for the UK-EU, which no longer exists, was apparently reapportioned to universities throughout the UK for e-learning initiatives. As a result, they have many jobs posted at the Guardian for e-learning managers, specialists, project coordinators, multimedia people, evaluators, and so on. These are exciting times in the UK if you are in the field of e-learning. There are only so many e-learning specialists, so such people seem to be in demand. Perhaps we at Indiana University should design a master's and doctoral degree in e-learning and blended learning. Follow the UK and Canada closely when it comes to e-learning. Those seeking to get citizenship in North America or the UK might think about applying for such jobs.

My talks at Chelmsford (Anglia Riskin University) also went very well thanks to people such as Sharon Waller and Richard Millwood who brought me there. They also have a campus in Cambridge which I hope to visit someday. Anglia Ruskin also has the Ultralab which has sponsored the NonSchool project (see http://www.notschool.net/ns/template.php?id=home). People at each stop seemed interested in plagiarism, copyright, and differences between face-to-face and online teaching--and it was true here as well. My talks here were once again on blended learning but also on multimedia for visually hungry learners.

Brighton was a cool stop along the ocean. They have a CETL as well that is focused on creativity. They shared their proposal with me which seems highly unique and ambitious. Let's see what happens in a year. Will e-learning and creativity be a happy marriage? I think so. But it is difficult to predict where such innovation might go. Will it be in new forms of work collaboration or in teaching? Will we be able to recognize creativity when it occurs online and also be able to duplicate it? Thanks to Jon Dron for bringing me there. I gave a talk on blended learning as well as one called Pocasts and Wikis and Blogs, Oh My: E-learning is not in Kansas anymore. My friend, Donald Clark appropriately pointed out that much of the discussion and examples on blended learning relates to blended instruction and not learning at all. I think he is right. You can read 3 or so blogs he did of my visit at http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/
Donald sold Epic Group which is an e-learning services company. They do much e-learning development and evaluation. I had read many of his blended learning reports in the past. Good stuff! Donald definitely has a pulse on the field. He is one of a select few who has a sense of e-learning needs and experiences in both higher education as well as corporate training.

My final stop was at King's College in London. Anne-Lucie Norton and the folks at the War Studies Department brought me there. What a wonderful view of the London Eye and other featured sites from her office. My 2 talks went pretty well here as well though my computer cables had fried and batteries had died before it so I had to use their machines. Anne-Lucie informed me that their new master's in War Studies is entirely online. Cool! You might write to them. Loads happening at King's College. My blended learning talk ended with 30 minutes of questions and answers. After this talk, Brian Ford (a famous biologist with shows on the BBC), Tingting Zeng (a research assistant of mine from Roehampton University in the London area), and Chris Essex (a student of mine from Indiana just happening to be visiting the UK) met me at Cheers Pub. And some of us saw a show at the Comedy Store after that. I flew home the next morning.

I am sitting at my brother's house in Syracuse, New York writing this. I did talks Thursday for the State of NY instructional technology conference and head to DC next. Yesterday I ran in a short 3 mile (5K) run for cancer victims. My time was a respectable 24 minutes and 35 seconds. I tend to run farther distances. (see this run at http://pbrun.org/).

Hanging Around Western Canada

Been in Saskatoon, Calgary, and Edmonton this trip. Meeting many interesting people who are having me talk about blended learning and e-learning. Been to the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon for 2 talks, Mount Royal College, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) in Calgary; and the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) in Edmonton. Many kind people escorting me from place to place including folks from the University of Regina, the University of Calgary, the University of Alberta, and Grant MacEwan College. Lots of energy and excitement here. And lots of oil monies in this province.

I met many former IU IST students when in Saskatoon. I really enjoyed that and the tour of the city from Barry Brown. Got them all IU tee-shirts.

Today, NAIT ran an institute or workshop for instructors and staff to think about blended learning and the next generation of students. This topic fits into my recent handbook of blended learning as well as my upcoming one on my R2D2 method of learning styles (a book Ke Zhang and I are writing that we are temporarily calling "A Web of Everything" and will be focused on how to address diverse learners and learning preferences or appoaches online.

I fly back from Edmonton tomorrow. Today was a wild one--2 keynotes (one on blended learning and one on Gen X and Y students as a sub for someone who was sick) sent to 700+ people at 30-40 sites in Alberta and around the globe, interviewed by 2 TV stations and will be on 3 TV stations tonight, interviewed live on 1 the well known CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp) radio station, 1 newspaper interview for tomorrow's Edmonton paper, and I sat next to and chatted with the Premier of Alberta (Ralph Kline). He is like the Governor of this province. Pretty cool day. This is after 3 straight days of presenting. So wow!

And after my Sunday night talk in Saskatoon, sometime told me it was one of 2 great talks she had heard in her life and the other was by Bill Clinton. So that was cool. So having a fun trip.

Lots of pictures. I will add them later.

The radio interview was the best part!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!