Just recently I bought the book Informal Learning by Jay Cross. He has interesting views on this specific kind of learning that represents about 80% of all learning. He has published movies on Informal Learning on YouTube. They are worth having a look at.

Ambient Intelligence is the vision of a world in which technology, in the form of small but powerful silicon chips, will be integrated into almost everything around us, from where it will create an environment that is sensitive to the presence of people and responsive to their needs. an ambient intelligence environment will be capable of greeting us when we get home, of judging our mood and adjusting our environment to reflect it or soothe it. such an environment is still a vision, but it is one that has already struck a chord in the minds of researchers around the world and become the subject of several major industry initiatives. one such initiative that has already paid valuable dividends is Philips’ homelab – a test bed for ambient intelligence that is more like a real home than a laboratory. Additional information on this subject is available from the Philips website. It interests me what the applications of Ambient Intelligence for learning could be in different Industries. Please share your ideas via the comments!

At the recent conferences I attended the impact of Web 2.0 on Learning was one of the key topics. The video ”Web 2.0 … The machine is Us/ing Us” by Michael Wesch (Kansas State University) available on YouTube explains the shift from Web 1.0 to 2.0 in a brilliant way. It in itself also is an example of what impact Web 2.0 can have on Learning. The fact that I have a link to this video on my blog is probably one example of the machine using us, but it facilitates learning while doing so!

If you combine Curriculum and Wiki you get Curriki. And, Curriki is the name of a new Global Education & Learning Community that aims at delivering open source, user-created curricula for free.  A nice initiative with a mission to spread knowledge and learning to every child in the world. One of the partners of the initiative is Sun’s Scott McNealy.

Curriki is an interesting name if you ask me, since it combines the old fashioned concept of a “Curriculum” with the Web 2.0 concept of “Wiki”.  What is the idea behind combining these? Well when you take a closer look at the concept, it is not really about Curricula. It is about sharing educational resources or content. And although the site claims to have 10,000 people contribution the quality of the content I viewed was rather poor. Let’s hope it will pick-up since the idea of a learning content sharing community is great.

Today I visited the 8th Dutch E-Learning Conference in Nieuwegein. During this event chaired by Harm Weistra the fields of education and training merge to discuss learning innovations. It was good to see that interest in the field of e-learning is growing again with a doubling of the audience compared to the previous year.

The event started with a brief introduction by Harm Weistra. He stated that e-learning is still developing rapidly and that ‘technology-hopping’ is an inherent risk to the field. New technologies are embraced, whilst the older aren’t utilized up to their potential yet. He also addressed the fact that besides the formal learning technologies new unofficial technologies are used by learners (e.g. MSN).  Professor Robert-Jan Simons continued with a presentation on the new roles for teachers. He stated that despite the burst of the Internet bubble in 2002, the revolution continued. ICT has changed the ways students communicate with peers and teachers (at least the technology savvy ones). New technologies have also resulted in new models for learning like the Virtual Action Learning concept by Baeten.

After this view from the educational side, Stefaan van Hooijdonk (Head of Agfa Academy with a history at Nokia) presented a corporate case in e-learning. Agfa has been through a phased process of implementing e-learning: #1 e-administration (LMS), #2 e-content (WBT), #3 e-collaboration. Interesting is the fact that the Academy is part of the marketing department and is driving business. This is why there is enough funding to develop e-learning. Stefaan stated that at Nokia the dealers on average looked at e-content for 3 minutes. At Agfa they produced 8-12 minute clips as e-knowledge.

Professor Wim Veen showed us his Homo Zappiens in his dynamic presentation. For the Homo Zappiens virtual is real and the Net is like Oxygen. They learn via online games, LAN parties, Second Life’s and they respond quickly to visual responses. Self-steering is key for them in contract with the educational world of dictating curricula and teachers. They want to aggregate their knowledge themselves via online resources and their social networks.

Good fun in the afternoon was the session by trendwatcher Bakas focusing on trends like tribalisation, learning for a new era, new coalitions, seniors economy and the new labour market. Entertaining, but not too strong in his learning story. Do we need trendwachers anyway in an Era where all trends are instantly spread via the web?

Just like the Learning Technologies 2007 enough interest in podcasting, web 2.0, social networking et cetera. Some more mature cases and more in depth discussion would have been interesting. What also surprises me in the e-learning events is the fact that all of them fail to practice what they preach (we are still sitting down to listen).