Lifelong learning - themes from 1000 articles summarised

The article discussed in this blog is via Jane Hart's blog consolidating her 'picks of the year'.

The article, presents the authors' learning through the trawling through 1000 articles on continuous learning. Ten themes are presented.

Of interest is that young people are particularly interested in continuous learning opportunities. This bodes well for the future but is also a telling indicator of the increased precarity in the workplace. There is no longer a guarantee of ‘jobs for life’ and people need to continually keep up with the play to keep themselves current and marketable. Who pays for this continual learning is not detailed. As it is, in the current neo-liberalist environment, individuals tend to pay for their post compusory school, pre-work learning. This is followed by professional development or on the job training as provided by some employers. Individuals seeking to shift their skill sets often then pay for their 'extra' learning themselves via MOOCs or other sources of learning. Organisations are pragmatic and will only fund training they deem relevant to their requirements. Individuals, to keep up with the play, therefore need to continually upskill, either formally or informally and company or self-sponsored. 

The authors also connect the above to the need for people to be continually learning as being driven by the knowledge economy and constant change. Change also involves not just learning the same old thing again, but requires unlearning and relearning.

Three themes revolve around the role of organisations to support life long learners and the need for learners to take responsibility for their own learning. Continuous learning is seem to be essential to career success and job security is predicated on being keeping up the skills etc. to remain employable.

There is promotion of the concept of ‘continuous learning platforms’ which are predicted to disrupt current learning approaches. This is to meet the future which is defined by the authors as being open, continuous and embedded. See Digital McKinsey Practice for greater detail.

10 trends for digital learning

Jane Hart's list of top 100 tools is now out. This year, the list is has columns for personal and professional learning (PPL); workplace learning (WPL) and education (EDU). Not only the top 100 but the top 200 tools are listed, along with links to each tool.

Most of the perennial favourites are still going strong. There is an increase in project planning tools, no doubt caused by the rise of "agile' project management.

Additionally, the top 10 trends for digital learning in 2018 were summarised.

They are:

• Web resources still dominate
• Social networks, some increased, others down
• Web courses are increasing in popularity
• There is a subtle shift from course to content development
• Learning at work is becoming personal and continuous
• Team collaboration tools support the real social learning at work
• Microsoft ecosystem still strong
• OneNote is preferred digital notebook
• Video conferencing is in
• Audience engagement become popular

No surprises across the list or with the trends. Cloud based tools along with microsoft office type applications are now the norm. The use of and access to curated resources (e.g. Tedtalks videos) and platforms for personal learning (e.g. MOOC type sites like Udemy, Coursera, Lynda.com etc.) and personal curation (e.g. Anders Pink; degreed) do indicate the rise of personalised learning environments which are individually bespoked to meet organisational and individuals' learning needs.

Modern professional learners’ toolkit

Jane Hart's 'Modern Professional Learners' Toolkit, is worth a look. The list is distilled from her yearly list of top 100 tools and provides a good resource for all learners to check through.

Tools include web browsers, web resources, news and curation tools, web courses, social networking tools, blogging, productivity tools and apps and communication and collaboration tools.

Personal information system include evernote, onenote and pebblepad. So will need to check out pebblepad capabilities for this options.

As always, it pays to review the tools one uses, to see if there are other more effective / efficient ones to shift across to.

My list includes:
Browser - Chrome - as gmail account follows one from device to device.
web sources - Google Scholar - not mentioned but my go to page to begin a search for any papers relevant to my research
news and curation - Feedly and google alerts - will need to check out Nuzzel and Pocket.
webcourse platform - Ara as access to Lynda.com, but I also use Cousera
social networks - the usual, linkedin for professional use, facebook for personal / family, Researchgate for researchers
Personal information system - I actually use this blog
Productivity tools - google docs
Office suite - microsoft
communication and collaboration - onedrive for work, gmail for personal, Zoom for work, Skype for personal
Devices - work - Surface 3 tablet and Nokia Windows phone, home - Ipad mini.

Main thing is to find a tool that fits into what you need to do for work / personal, but also evaluate as technology progresses to keep up with the play. Tools and apps are now so much more intuitive to use but many people do not use all the tool/apps capabilities as few will read the instructions. Something I need to improve on as well.

Top 200 tools for learning - Jane Hart's collation for 2017

The annual top 200 tools for learning now available. As usual, a good resource for educators of the types of digital tools available to assist with learning. There is a brief analysis  with details of the participants who provided the data and this year's shifts.

On my part, I use this yearly post to update myself on the various tools available. Especially to check out the ones I have not encountered and to evaluate them for relevance to the learning needs of the various programmes at Ara.

Familiar and 'tried and true' tools make up the first 50 on the list. The first 'new' entry arrives at 55 with Typeform, a forms and survey tool. I will try this out the next time I need to do a short survey and compare it to my usual go to survey tool - Survey Monkey.

Most of the new entries appear after 100. The ones I will check out are Wisemapping for mindmapping, tableau for interactive data visualisation (free trial but payment beyond),  Quizizz a free quizz generator, smartup for microlearning and ENTiTi (paid app) for generating AR and VR content.

Some familiar names have now come up into the rankings - including Pebblepad for eportfolios, office lens and google keep.

Future of Jobs and Jobs training - Pew report, OxfordMartin report,McKinsey report, bbc article

A collection of reports etc. read over the last few weeks on the future of work, education and impact on jobs.

First up, via Jane Hart's Modern Learning in the Workplace newletter, the Pew report on the future of jobs and jobs training.
The report is a longish read covering a range of concepts across 8 webpages. The overview on page one, introduces the challenges and discusses implications. The FIVE main themes are introduced and following pages expand on each. The themes are:
- Training ecosystems will evolve, with a mix of innovation in all education formats.
- Learners must cultivate 21st century skills, capabilities and attributes.
- New credentialing systems will arise as self-directed learning expands.
- Training and learning systems will NOT meet 21st century needs by 2026.
- Job? what jobs? Technological forces will fundamentally change work and the economic landscape.

Second, a report from the oxfordmartin group, on the future of employment, which is the source of the much quoted statistic on number of jobs that will be replaced by technology. The report tries to identify which jobs may be at risk. There is a  a good overview of how far computing has come and the progress made towards computerising non-routine cognitive tasks. The study identifies social intelligence, creativity and perception / manipulation as classes of algorithms able to replace humans in roles.

""The model predicts that most workers in transportation and logistics occupations, together with the bulk of office and administrative support workers, and labour in production occupations, are at risk.

a substantial share of employment in service occupations, where most US job growth has occurred over the past decades (Autor and Dorn, 44 2013), are highly susceptible to computerisation.

Therefore, for workers to win the race, however, they will have to acquire creative and social skills.""

The third report is from McKinsey on technology jobs and the future of work. 60% of jobs will have 30% of activities that can be technically automatable. Highly skilled workers working with technology will benefit. Low skilled workers working with technology may experience wage pressure as there will be less demand for these occupations.

Lastly, a good overview via the BBC on how automation will affect you, summarising opinions from a range of experts on the topic. As always, the solution is education.  In the near future, people will have to put in 60% of their time working and  40% of time in learning. Fewer than 5% of jobs can be automated with existing technology but 60% of occupations could see up to 30% of tasks being done by machines. Robots should complement, not replace you. We need to learn how to work alongside robots. There will be an accompanying increase in demand for creative, social, interpersonal skills. 

All studies point to the importance of educational systems in preparing and re-training / re-skilling people.

Modern Professional Learners' Toolkit

I have followed Jane Hart's blog for many years. Her Top 100 Tools has been my go to and recommend to others site for a comprehensive list of elearning tools.

Of late, Jane's focus has been on 'learning in the modern workplace' with the book - ' learning in the modern workplace 2017' summarising much of her frameworks and approaches.

This year, a series of articles on the modern workplace learning magazine provide for contributions from other consultants in the field.

So far, articles include:

4 articles by Jane with relevance for me in these two - 'why organisations need to empower employee-led learning'; and 'the modern professional learners' toolkit'.

The former has a good diagram on how individual workplace learner's personal learning space may be constructed.

Two other articles of relevance are by Clark Quinn on experimentation and reflection and by Harold Jarche on mastery takes time and effort.

So, a site with worthwhile resources to follow into the future.

Jane Hart's top ten tools

Doing a catch up on elearning and Jane Hart's Top 10 tools for 2015 always a good place to start. The annual guidebook provides a summary of each tool.

Tools are now categorised into Instructional tools, content tools, social tools and personal tools. As always, some overlaps but the categorisation does assist with selection when we (as ed. developers) recommend tools to teaching staff.

Instructional tools include MOOC platforms - which includes Khan Academy, course management tools, course authoring tools  and quizzing, survey and data collection tools.

Content tools include ones to sue to develop presentations, animations, edit videos, screen cast, screen capture, graphics and infographics, photo/imaging tools, audio tools, documentation and spreadsheetis.

Social tools include webinar, live event interaction, team collaboration, file sharing, blogging and website tools, public social networks and enterprise social platforms.

Personal tools include search / research, email clinet,s messaging tools, social bookmarking, notetaking, web browsers, personal readers, other personal productivity tools and devises and apps.

I think the categorisation is comprehensive enough to sort the range of tools now available on what used to be known as Web 2.0.  Many tools have survived over the last 1/2 a decade and even Microsoft has got on board with the launch of Office mix and Sway into their suite of 'tools'. Also of interest, the rise of alternatives to Moodle, including Canvas and Edmodo.

Interactive ebooks with Inanimate alice and istories

An great example of the future of ebooks via Evan McIntoch’s edublog. Inanimatealice has been released since 2006 and currently has 4 out of 10 episodes available for download and viewing/reading. The book details how a young girl grows up to become a game digital designer. Each chapter seems to improve in sophistication as the techniques possible through interactive ebooks are explored and modelled. Also, each chapter increases in length, fro 5 minutes to 30 minutes, with greater use of interactive sections. There is some work still to be done on navigation, for instance if you are part way through an interactive section and are interrupted, when you click on the icon to go back to the relevant bit, you need to repeat the entire interaction. So a criteria I would like to see for interactive ebooks is to be able to dip in and out where ever you want to, like in a real book. 


There is a discussion on the impact of interactive ebooks on publishingperspectives. Interative ebooks will have many possible applications in education. It is also possible to purchase the platform on which inanimatealice has been developed. Istories is promoted as a straightforward way to construct digital stories which include pictures, text, videos, interactive sections and sound/music. Does cost a bit though.

I have been reflecting on the different literacies our staff bring with them and how to better introduce staff unfamiliar with academic tasks like reading education journal articles. The end objective is to encourage a deeper engagement with the scholarship of teaching and learning. Will think through a possible project to develop an example of an interactive ebook that can be useful to introduce some of the concepts or theories of adult education. Staff can then build their own versions to share with other staff and this can then be a shared resource we can use for future courses. This ebook could be consolidated using powerpoint or better still using something like voicethread or perhaps even live binders. Live binders featured on Jane Hart’s tools this week and seems to be imminently suited to eportfolios with a show and tell type structure. So there are possibilities to explore for interactive ebook authoring and application.

Update on mlearning resources

Doing a catch up on mlearning resources this morning. A copy of paper presented at efest / teaching and learning conference at Ucol in October last year now archived along with several others via Ako Aoteoroa. Ones pertinent to mobile learning include Kathryn McCallum’s paper on ‘student characteristics & variables which determine mobile learning adoption’ and Thom Cochrane’s & Roger Bateman on their mLearning journey.

In addition, Thom has provided an overview of the Unitec mlearning projects in developing eportfolios using social networking sites using mobile phones as one of the many interesting projects to enhance student learning in the Ako Aoteoroa ' good' practice ebook.

Always good to check up on web based educational resources on Jane Hart's site.  There is a compendium of mobile learning tools which provides a good list for use with iphones/ipod touches, blackberrys and windows mobile phones.

A more theorectical aspect on mobile learning, which I have recommended our library purchases is a book on mobile learning:structures, agency & practice edited by Norbert Pachler, Ben Bachmair and John Cook. There is a preview of this book on Google books.

Mobile learning is no longer seen as being something which is still emergent.  There is now greater recognition of the advantages in investigating the use of mobile technology in enhancing learning opportunities for students. Part of this is the greater access everyone seems to now have to mobile phones. Using increasingly sophisticated mobile phones does assist educators in becoming more familiar with the use of this form of technology and awakens awareness of it's possibilities for learning.

Tools for analysing qualitative research data

Jane Hart is compiling a list of most useful / most used tools for research. Many of the ones listed are unfamiliar to me!! Most of these are search engines, although there are also bibliographical archiving tools. I have been trawling the databases the last couple of weeks. Basically doing the ground work for my Ako Aoteoroa funded ‘teaching craftsmanship’ research project. So it was a good opportunity to try out a few of these tools. I find Google Scholar to be a good way to source ‘key words’ & starting material which I can then use in the standard academic search database to find references pertinent to the topic I am researching. Due to the nature of the topic ‘new trades tutors & their perceptions of teaching’ I have to rely on journal articles. A few books are available on Google books but only as previews so I have had to request interloans via our helpful CPIT library.

I have also started data anaylsis, learning my way through nVivo. I need to use NVivo so that I am familiar with the software in order to be able to support other staff in using this research analysis tool. Will provide more feedback later in the year on how I feel about using nVivo to replace my usual mixture of iterative data analysis using ‘copy & paste’ & find features on Word, along with summarising, collating and reorganising themes / threads into tables. My first impressions are that nVivo imposes a way of doing (& thinking) which is slightly out of synch with how I usually approach my data. I need to have a handle on the ‘big picture’ & how other themes relate to the overall scheme of things. An article by Elaine Welsh (2002) presents both the advantages & disadvantages of using nVivo for qualitative analysis.

Helen Colley & Kim Diment’s article on ‘holistic research for holistic practice: making sense of qualitative research data’ is part of the UK’s teaching & learning research programme ‘ building research capacity’ site. Their interpretation and recommendations on qualitative data analysis does resonate with my approach to undertaking research. I am often after the ‘whole picture’ of why things happen & am constantly trying to work out how the various themes that immerge from the data ‘fits into the whole’. It is also important to view the data as a holistic ‘narrative’ rather than just focus on its atomistic parts. Telling the story which research participants try to impart via their involvement in interviews etc. is an important role of the research process. I need to distil rather than filter & at the moment, I feel a software tool like nVivo is causing me to filter & sieve rather than to distil, refine and sharpen themes. It could be because I am working solely with digital sources instead of a mixture of digital & hard copy. Will persevere for the moment with nVivo & evaluate what eventuates in a couple of months. I can always do a manual collation as well after the nVivo process to see if anything different comes through.

The TLRP site is one I constantly dip into for interesting, informative and mostly practical / applicable suggestions on doing research. The Teaching & Learning Programme itself has been a source of many articles and research reports of relevance to the work I am doing towards by PhD thesis. In particular the projects completed under the ‘further & post 16 education’, higher education, workplace learning, professional learning, lifelong learning and technology enhanced learning sections.

Mindmapping tools #2 & timeline tool

These came via Jane Hart’s great blog.

First up, personal brain. This provides for the construction of a traditional mindmap. It is very user friendly and intuitive to use. It has comprehensive features which allow you to link to your files, webpages etc. so that it becomes an extension of your usual filing / folder system on your desktop. A guide to ways to use personal brain is a good summary of the uses for mindmaps.

The other was dropmind which is available as a web version or desktop version. This is a more visually exciting platform & the web version allows multiple users to edit and share a mindmap. Presentations can also be generated. The user guide is a pdf file (compared to personal brains series of videos) but the interface is intuitive and user friendly and should not be difficult for students engage with after a short introduction.

Another interesting concept is xtimeline. This nifty site has a collection of timelines ranging from the history of tea to economics to notables like Steve Jobs and Beethoven. There is also a history of the internet which is open for public editing. You are able to make use of the timelines posted by other users as a resource or built ones yourself. Each node in the timeline is a link to more information including pictures and videos. Individuals or groups can work on each timeline so this resource is ideal for use in education.

All not suitable for mobile use as yet but xtimeline has potential due to it's ability to organise a lot of information into a small start up page & then provide the links greater information depth via each node.

Six ways to make web 2.0 work

Via Jane Hart comes a timely article from the Mckinsey Quarterly on six ways to make web 2.0 work.

Last week I participated in a planning meeting for staff developers & an Education strategy group meeting on ‘Working on the Teaching and Learning Plan - Priorities, Realities and the way forward’ at. The Ed Strag group at CPIT is made up of senior management & is a think tank / talk fest / networking group which discusses various organisational strategies so that implementation of said strategy is democratised.

I have always seen the opportunities that Web 2.0 provided as a good way to assist with knowledge sharing, networking & knowledge creation within CPIT & the ITPNZ sector. I blogged previously on the power of wikis & especially about the books by Tapscott on wikinomics & Wikipatterns by Mader. Recently I had a brief read of Enterprise 2.0 implementation by Aaron Newman & Jeremy Thomas via Google books.

Small changes have taken place over the last two years at CPIT to improve organisational communications. Our CEO forums are all archived & there are opportunities for staff to join discussion forums on CPIT wide issues. However, getting people to engage with web 2.0 type tools in the workplace has been an up hill struggle. So the six recommendations come at the correct time to trigger some thinking about how CPIT could leverage web 2.0 to assist in promoting ongoing learning within the organisation. The recommendations are along with present context are:-

1) The transformation to a bottom-up culture needs help from the top:- We seem to have buy-in from the top but I don’t think the bottom knows about it.

2) The best uses come from users—but they require help to scale:- This is where staff development & IT need to assist. Staff development with providing pertinent training where required & IT with more user friendly ‘help’ facilities.

3) What’s in the workflow is what gets used:- Attempts have been made to include timetabling, planning and work plans into one area but at this time not all the elements are ready & so there is an interruption in workflow to do any planning or communication as our main groupwise calendars do not talk to our main timetable management system or to the organisational wide strategic planning database.

4) Appeal to the participants’ egos and needs—not just their wallets:- We showcase people who have good ideas but perhaps we are not using the correct forums, methods or not promoting these occasions well.

5) The right solution comes from the right participants:- Identifying the right participants is a key & then supporting, nurturing and promoting them. This is something we can still improve on.

6) Balance the top-down and self-management of risk:- We need to study this one more and adjust to our current context.

Web 2.0 is a tool that can be used to improve the flow of knowledge & innovation within our institute. This is especially so when faculties, schools and divisions are still working within vertical silos. There is still a need to harness the wisdom that is all over the institute by providing the right tools, building awareness of these tools & providing the right support at the right time so that the use of these tools can be maximised.

Mobile tools becoming more mainstream

Latest blog from Jane Hart’s top ten tools reveals that there is a change in the top ten tools for learning including the entry into the list of mobile tools & services (like find.mobi, fring, Qik and Utterz), mobile versions of key tools (like flickr, YouTube, Google Maps) and the mobile browser Opera Mini.

Twitter is in the 15th position, ahead of tools like youtube, igoogle & slideshare! I have not really been taken by twitter but twitter has a mass audience. One of the latest techcrunch blogs is on why twitter has not failed the power of audience. Will have another go at trying twitter out to see if it works for me :)

More info. on the mobile tools mentioned above:-

• Find.mobi is a mobile based search tool. Relatively easy to use and focused on mobile sites for ease of upload & display on mobile devices.
• fring allows use to use Skype, MSN messenger, Google talk etc. on you mobile phone. My Treo 700Wx is on the list, as is New Zealand (yeh). So will give this a go over the next couple of days to see how it works.
• Qik allows streaming live video to you phone. Will be expensive on our NZ telecom plans but will give this a try to find out how it works.
• utterz provides the tool to start a discussion from your computer or your phone. Utterz lets you create and follow discussions with friends or people with similar interests. Utterz can be audio, video, pictures and text. You can create or join a discussion from any mobile phone or computer. Friends can reply by voice, TXT message or on the mobile site at m.utterz.com. New Zealand is on the list, so another one to try out.

Good to be able to try out new mobile tools and by the look of things, mobile tools are an increasingly important adjunct when any social networking site launches.

Wisdomap as an eportfolio tool?

Had a look at Wisdomap which came up via Jane Hart’s pick of the day elearning tool. I tend to use mindmaps in some of the sessions I teach. I use it especially when I have content that requires students to also have to put a structure to the content for their own learning. Therefore, the concept used my Wisdomap that allows each node to be extended by text, pictures, videos or websites will be really useful not only for students but also for teachers to organise their lesson resources into one easily accessible place.

I can also see the possibilities for using wisdomap as an ePortfolio tool. Each node in the mindmap could be one area or sub-area of the portfolios. This node can then be expanded with links to text, files that can be text, powerpoint, excel files etc., along with links to photos or videos or to social networking websites. It will be a quick & effective way of putting an ePortfolio together.

Wisdomap offers 3 mindmaps for free, after which there is a payment of £1 per month! Small biccys for unlimited number of mindmaps. The interfaces is user-friendly and it took be less than an hour to put in a ‘adult education summary’ mindmap for a class I am teaching this week. I build up the mind map with various nodes along with text inclusions. Plus also put in relevant websites and a powerpoint summary.

As more of the social networking sites become mainstream, tools like Wisdomap which allow users to link to their existing files and information found on the web will no doubt become the norm. Next item on my wish list is mobile phone compatibility.

iPhone coming to NZ in July

Exciting news for m-learning enthusiasts in the local paper on the arrival of the 3G iPhone to NZ. Vodaphone will be offering these for sale on July the 11th – only about 30 sleeps away. There is no indication of the price yet but most people who are keen to get their hands on one will be hopeful that the prices will be similar to the ones in the US of A.

Thom Cochrane has been off the mark quickly with his evaluation of the iPhone. On my part, I have had a look at several ‘unofficial’ iPhones plus an iTouch and have to say that the touch screen interface is intuitive and an improvement on the one on my Treo 700wx. Roll on July when I will get my hands my own and I can try out the touch screen applications on Jane Hart’s site.

Top 100 elearning tools

Jane Hart’s collation of top elearning tools from over 150 contributors is now available as a pdf file via this site. The analysis makes for some interesting reading, in particular, that educators are using Web 2.0 tools more widely than their corporate counterparts. Also , that most of the contributors used most of the tools for their own productivity rather than for ‘teaching’. Jane Hart’s list has been useful to us here at CPIT as it provides a one stop shop for tutors just starting on using ICT in a more creative way in their teaching. Descriptions of the sites are succinct and provide enough information to allow for future exploration to see if the tools will fit well into the learning context for each tutor’s content area and student profiles.

A trawl through the list reveal a couple that I have not come across. Of interest to check out were Voicethread and Jing. Voicethread allows photos / text files to be uploaded and then commented upon via audio. Photos from flickr, powerpoint slides and word / excel and pdf files can all be uploaded. Audio files can be posted via mobile phones or through the use of text or webcam. All of the media can then be shared and comments can be left by viewers. I registered and had a quick look around. The interface is very user friendly. I would assume that displaying on a mobile phone would be difficult and at present, only phones in the USA are able to contribute voice files. However, the whole concept is very useful for digital story telling, moving it forward from just a collection of photos to providing the opportunity to bring in personalised stories with audio & video feedback and commenting.

Jing is a screen capture tool. It allows the user to take snapshots of their desktop and make a video of what they have done. This is then sharable with other users. Being in beta, it is free for the time being & requires the download of the jing software tool on to your computer. It’s a useful tool to help record procedures for using other pieces of software plus perhaps to also record presentations as well.