My Blog Posts about mLearnCon 2010

On Twitter: @jenisecook

June 14-17, 2010, in gorgeous San Diego, California, The eLearning Guild hosted and facilitated their first annual conference on mobile learning, or mLearnCon. I registered to attend several seminars, plus a full-day workshop on Monday, “Think Different: Getting Your Mind Around mLearning Design”, facilitated by Dr. Clark Quinn, @Quinnovator on Twitter.

The week was filled with exciting seminars. If you attend mLearnCon in 2011, I strongly suggest you go with several colleagues, schedule seminars in advance, and then share notes. I made some hard choices that week on which seminars to attend…there were many good ones available.

Everyone felt that we are at the point of seeing mlearning take off exponentially in the next few months and years, and yet, there are many issues to discuss and resolve…particularly how to track and report mlearning in the various Learning Management Systems (LMSs), and data security issues.

For your enjoyment, here’s a list of my mLearnCon 2010 posts:

1) Bill Brandon’s Recap: First Annual mLearnCon

On Twitter: @billbrandon

http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/07/mlearncon-2010-recap-the-elearning-guild/

2) B.J. Schone: 20 mLearning Tools in 60 Minutes

On Twitter: @bjschone

http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/07/mlearncon-2010-b-j-schone-20-mlearning-tools/

3) Joe Welinske: iPad Panel – iPad App Resources

On Twitter: @jwelinske

http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/07/mlearncon-2010-ipad-joe-welinske-resources/

4) Featured Panel Discussion on the Apple iPad

http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/07/mlearncon-2010-ipad-panel/

5) Patti Shank: Your First mLearning Initiatives

http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/07/mlearncon-2010-patti-shank-mlearning-initiatives/

6) Tomi Ahonen: Keynote – Mobile in Learning

On Twitter: @tomiahonen

http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/07/mlearncon-2010-tomi-ahonen-mobile-in-learning/

7) Qualcomm’s Mobile Learning Journey

http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/07/mlearncon-2010-qualcomm-mlearning-journey/

8] Richard Clark: Surviving without Flash

On Twitter: @rdclark

http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/06/mlearncon-2010-richard-clark-surviving-without-flash/

9) Mimi Ito: Keynote – What the User Wants in mLearning

http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/06/mlearncon-2010-dr-mimi-ito-what-user-wants-mlearning/

On a Personal Note…

On Monday afternoon, while in Dr. Clark Quinn’s workshop, my husband texted me some very sad news. His mom died that day. My mother-in-law Donna had suffered a long, hard battle against lung cancer, won the battle, but had lost to COPD. We knew we’d have her for this year only, but her death came sooner than we expected and it was a shock.

I notified members of The Guild, drove home (we live near San Diego), and was able to return to the conference on Tuesday and forward at my husband’s urging Monday evening. His mom had made advanced preparations and arrangements, so we had no tasks to attend to that week.

The eLearning Guild staff not only host amazing conferences, they also, during very hectic conference days, take time to be human. I cannot express enough thanks to those staff members who reached out to me for a few minutes with their kindness and compassion. I specifically want to call out Brent Schlenker, whose concern and thoughtful words meant more to me than I can ever express.

Thank you, eLearning Guild.

The American Cancer Society helped Donna through some very hard times. If you can, help me pay it forward through donations of either time or finances. Thank you.

The eLearning Guild’s first annual conference on mobile learning, mLearnCon, was a busy event. Sometimes, instead of live blogging, it’s better to post the speaker’s own notes once they’re published on the Web. After the conference, I had some family-life events to deal with, and am publishing this post a bit after the conference. If you’re reading this and you attended the Keynote, please feel free to use the Comments to add or clarify what I wrote below. Thanks!

Mobile in Learning: Lessons from Around the World

Tome T. Ahonen
Author and Consultant
On Twitter: @tomiahonen

Keynote: Tomi Ahonen, 15 June 2010.

Tomi’s mobile credentials from his time at Nokia make him a person you want to watch, read, and listen to if you have any interest at all in mobile devices and how people use them around the world.

Click the link below to view Tomi’s slides from his Keynote presentation.

http://xpub.mobilelearningworld.com/MLC10_Keynote1_TomiAhonen.xpub/OEBPS/

Thank you, Tomi Ahonen, for an amazing Keynote!

The Dells, Prescott, Arizona

Happy New Year! We’re on the road again, heading down another 365 days of adventure. Let’s welcome 2010 with a great list of resources on instructional systems design. Admittedly, this list resides in my Ridge View Media Delicious account, so that raises the subjective question, “How “great” is this “great list” anyway?

The list is “great” and a helpful resource because it bookmarks the amazing research and published works of creative, effective, and wise instructional systems designers… known and perhaps not so well known.

Please surf through these links and let me know, via the Comments section, of other URLs you recommend. You’re a part of my Personal Learning Network (PLN), and I look forward to your suggested links.

Also, I’m open to your suggestions on how to better organize this Delicious list for easy scanning and retrieving of information.

What’s New on My Blog?

On a different note, 2010 ushers in a few needed (and long overdue) upgrades to my blog. I finally added a Subscribe widget and a Follow Me widget on the top right side, plus a Share widget at the bottom of each post. Yea, yea, I know… late to the party. So sorry. I was very focused on client deliverables, so my blog took a back seat regarding upgrades and enhancements.

Thank you in advance for subscribing to my blog!

Image credit: Me, in my car with my cell phone camera, driving through the beautiful Dells in gorgeous Prescott, Arizona. Good thing no one else was on Highway 89 at the time.

June’s “The Big Question” at ASTD’s Learning Circuits blog is posed by Dr. Tony Karrer, from a question asked him by my colleague Robert Kennedy III.

What is your typical day like? How do you do all you do with elearning learning, elearning technology, techempower, work literacy and all the consulting and still remain profitable while having a LIFE? Ok, so that is more than one question, but hopefully you get the drift. What are your thoughts here?

I invite you to click the Learning Circuits blog link above, first, and then read my post. I have heard Dr. Tony Karrer speak in person at my local ASTD chapter. We all sat dumbfounded to hear how much he knows, calculating in our brains how much time he must spend online, on the WWW, each day. He has a family, so we bluntly asked him… “Do you spend time with your family?” He does, but we left the meeting wondering how he balances his work and his life. Robert Kennedy posed the same question on Tony’s blog, and now Tony would like to hear from us. (And, I can’t wait to read Tony’s answers.)

• How much time do you spend and how did you find time for all the relatively newer things like reading blogs, twitter, social networks, etc.?
• What are you doing less of today than you were 3-5 years ago?
• Do you have less of a life with all of these new things?

My Initial Responses and Thoughts

• A guess: Inhouse/corporate practitioners may not have much time at all to devote to new technology. Corporate policies and very strong firewalls keep them from experimenting and demonstrating to their management the learning potentials hidden in Learning 2.0. This may cause feelings of frustration.
• Another guess: Those who own technology and e-learning businesses (like Tony) do have the time to explore. They have time to set up, follow, and contribute to branded social networks, Twitter IDs, LinkedIn, Facebook pages, etc., because it’s a large part of marketing their company to the wider world. They may even have a greater need than most to stay ahead of the curve to keep that competitive edge in a highly competitive world. CEOs may be facing increasing “pressure” to Be The Online Brand of their company as it’s a great way to have direct contact with the people who matter the most to their business: their customers. Zappo CEO Tony is an amazing example on Twitter.
• My reality: Independent consultants/freelancers (like Robert and me) definitely have more freedom than corporate practitioners. We can schedule our time and set our daily priorities. For example, I’m online at 6:00 a.m. for my east coast clients, and I check my messages, the Twitter tweets from my tweeps, update my status on Facebook and LinkedIn, write a new blog post, etc. I love technology, and keep up with what’s new. Why? One day, a client might need me to create a branded wiki or social network for them. So, what I play around with today, can become a client product tomorrow. However, I’m certain that I don’t keep up with it all at the same pace that Tony does. I am a practitioner, and he’s a CEO with staff. He can hire e-learning designers, Flash developers, etc. I wear many of those hats and need to put my cost of business first and foremost. That’s a great transition to my next paragraph.

How Much Time Do I Spend?

I haven’t formally tracked my time, but I’ll guess it’s at least two hours a day. When I am on a client project, the client comes first, so I dedicate my hours to getting the job done. If I have time at the end of the day, I’ll check all of my accounts and contribute if I have something of value to share. And, I’ll click on the bit.ly URLs to discover new things that both amaze and amuse me. If I don’t have time, I don’t do the above. Again, the client’s e-learning course comes first.

What Am I Doing Less of Today?

Sadly, my answer is reading books for fun. However, I’m scheduling book-reading time into my week. My husband is going to the library this afternoon, and I’ve asked him to pick up John Le Carre’s “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” for me. It’s a novel I’ve wanted to read for a very long time, and that’s my plan for June… “git her done!”.

I also place face-to-face (F2F), “people” time as a higher priority than online time. And, I schedule that in, too. Association meetings, networking groups, user SIGs…. Not everything is scheduled. I have a heart and mind open to serendipity and spontaneous events! One thing I won’t do is allow the online, digital/virtual life to take away from my analog, real world life. I’ve noticed something. When I’m inside SL (Second Life), more and more people are mentioning their RL (real lives).

To be authentic in the digital realm,
we must always cultivate our “analog” selves in the real world.

As much as I may love a Twitter colleague, I cannot shake his hand, nor give her a collegial hug, when needed. That may be why I see many Twitter tweeps creating networking groups in the real world. They meet at local restaurants or coffee houses so they can experience the F2F time we need as human beings.

The Real Answer to The Big Question for June

Priorities. That’s the answer to all of the questions, and to the third bullet point. Each one of us will have priorities different from the person we’re tweeting with or IM-ing. Not all of us can or will be like a Tony Karrer. That’s Tony’s amazing role and we all have different roles, gifts, and talents that we’ll share with others in a different way.

That said…I believe all of us in this brave, Learning 2.0 (or 3.0) world need to remind each other of the non-job things that we do. Tony does spend time with his family… he goes to his son’s athletic events, for example (he told us that after we grilled him at our ASTD chapter meeting). I believe we need to share a bit more of this with each other without going into details about our private lives (nor Tweeting every 15 minutes about personal things). For example, on Twitter Saturday morning, I tweeted that I was going out to pick fresh strawberries in my backyard garden. No one responded to that tweet, but for me, it was a subtle reminder to me and everyone that we need to log off, go outside, smell the roses, and savor the taste of a sweet, juicy, red strawberry on the tongue.

I cherish my colleagues and loved ones in both my real world and my virtual world. Together, they all add value to my life and profession. When Tony, Robert, or someone forwards a URL about a new technology, I’ll follow it to the end and try to create a demo to show my clients. If I don’t have the time at the moment, I’ll schedule it for later.

Priorities. Again, it’s about what we value and what’s urgent vs. what’s important in our lives. And, only you can answer that question for you, including how much time you dedicate online to new learning technologies. And, I can only determine for me what I’ll do with Learning 2.0 today and tomorrow.

How’s that for a long answer to The Big Question? Let me know your thoughts.

@jenisecook (on Twitter)

On 22 June 2008, I was born in Second Life. For the newbies out there, “RL” means Real Life and “SL” stands for Second Life. My avatar’s name is JayCee Galicia. JayCee, obviously, for my initials in RL, and Galicia from the list of 20 SL last names made available to me when I registered. Why did I choose Galicia? Well, it’s my favorite province in Spain. And, that’s another story for another post.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you (drum roll….): JayCee Galicia!

The first Group I joined was the ASTD Forum, established by the American Society for Training and Development. Unfortunately, they get together during lunch hour Pacific Time, and I’m at work with no computer access to Second Life. One day, I may bring my laptop and go to Starbucks, or some place where I can WiFi into the ASTD Forum at noon to meet the Forum members.

Here’s JayCee Galicia in SL’s Welcome Island, the first sim a newly born avatar awakes in after registration and login are successful.

The blond avatar to the right mentored me through my first hour. He and his wife have a lovely sim that is now my home base. They are from British Columbia, Canada, and they run a business in Second Life:

Paektu 23, 117, 91 (Mature)
A Stained Glass: Antique Furniture Antiques Clothing

Rick Hudson and Candace Hudson are very warm, welcoming people. They host about 300 avatars total, mostly newbies, and they do not allow role plays. If you teleport to their location, you must be who you are in RL. Below, you see me in front of a blazing fireplace with an inspiring view of the … Canadian Rockies?

Why Am I in Second Life?

Because I want to see what professionals from both the academic and the corporate sides of the learning world are doing in a virtual world. Training (Learning) is going on in Second Life, and I want to experience it. Why? Because I believe that one day, I will be facilitating a learning event inside a virtual world. Others are doing it, and I want to give it a try as well.

Why? Well, as my blog’s tag line says: I’m “Always Learning”, and I want to keep up with the learning world!

(Besides, it’s a ton of fun! I can FLY in Second Life, er, I mean, JayCee Galicia can fly!)

If you are in Second Life, please add me as a Friend.

For the ultra-newbies, to learn more, visit:

www.SecondLife.com; see also www.LindenLabs.com

Update – Later the Next Day….

Karl Kapp, who’s in my Blogroll, keeps his pulse on Second Life, other virtual worlds, and how organizations in both the public and private sector are training their learners successfully “in world”. Please visit his post: Practice Makes Perfect in Virtual World (27 June 2008).

Another SL Resource (7/9/2008)

Through Karl’s kind comment below, I followed the link to SL Trip Tips, a great “in world” resource!

More to come on SL in future posts!