TLC Announces Three New Clients

The Learning Collective announces three new clients.   We are acting as the “in-house” online educational experts for Ketchum and their account with a leading provider of online classes to middle and high school students.  We’re advising UCLA on the potential development of an online emergency preparedness tool for developmentally disabled adults.  And we’re overseeing Mojo Markeing & Media’s Jamaican charitable programs, and related digital promotions, stemming from The Mojo 6 LPGA/CBS golf tournament.  Learn more about what we do.

Why Mobile? Rick Rasansky and Roy Rosin

Chariot Solutions sat down with Rick Rasansky CEO of Yorn, and Roy Rosin VP at Intuit in their offices to discuss why it is important for web developers to be paying attention to mobile development (in the video below). E-learning developers should take heed as well because mobile technology offers the ability to deliver untethered content that your target audience can use where ever they choose to use it when ever the time is convenient. Offering a user the ability to learn when and where he/she is most comfortable is highly effective.

The limitations of this technology lie in the fact that there is no single platform that is universal. In the smartphone marketplace Blackberry is dominant with business oriented users, but the iPhone is gaining users rapidly, while Windows 7 Mobile, the newly open source Symbian OS, and the revitalized Palm OS are also attempting to gain a piece of the marketplace. Yet the most dominant  demographic is the host of individuals still using text only mobile devices. In developing countries text only mobile technology is sometimes be the primary access users have to the web, so understanding mobile delivery is paramount to companies seeking to deliver content outside of the US. Creating the use cases and understanding the platforms of your user group is vital to develop an effective mobile learning application.  Here are two key players in the mobile industry take a look at the video below to get their perspectives on why you should be considering mobile delivery for your e-learning content.

Related articles

• Symbian lays out mobile OS road map (infoworld.com)
• Symbian Foundation Teases with Symbian^3 (phonereport.info)
• Shaping the Future of Mobile (eon.businesswire.com)
• Intel and Nokia merge platforms (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Why the Next BlackBerry Browser Won’t Be So Terrible [BlackBerry] (gizmodo.com)
• MeeGo: A New Linux OS to Fight iPhone, iPad and More (readwriteweb.com)

Harvard Professor: Learn 3 Minutes a Day

Some educators are turning to short online learning activities as a preferred approach to engage students.

Take SpacedEd.  It offers students the chance to “learn most anything in 3 minutes a day.”  Originally developed by Dr B. Price Kerfoot, a Harvard Medical School professor, for medical school students, the method has been proven through 10 rigorous studies to increase knowledge by up to 50% and strengthen retention of concepts up to two years.

SpacedEd feeds short bits of info to users in small spurts of questions and answers.  Learners browse a directory of courses ranging from medical subjects to bartending, music theory and fantasy football.  “Courses consist entirely of questions and answers.  They are sent to you in small amounts (typically 1 or 2 a day) on a regular schedule via email, the Web or RSS … Questions repeat based on answers … Get a question wrong and it repeats sooner.  Get it right one or more times in a row and it is retired from the course.  Retire all questions to complete the course.”

This method is based on two psychological findings: the spacing effect and testing effect.  The “spacing effect” refers to the finding that “information which is presented and repeated over spaced intervals is learned and retained more effectively, in comparison to traditional ‘binge-and-purge’ methods of education.”  In other words, learning over extended time periods works better than cramming.  The “testing effect” refers to the finding that “the long-term retention of information is significantly improved by testing learners on this information.  Testing is not merely a means to measure a learner’s level of knowledge, but rather causes knowledge to be stored more effectively in long-term memory.”

Instructional Design Principals That Work

Over time we’ve found that e-learning initiatives are most effective when based on research proven instructional design principles.  Rooted in psychology, instructional design refers to the practice of maximizing the appeal of instruction by focusing on the needs of the learner and on the end objective.

Why Use e-Learning?

Collectively we’ve spent many years testing and improving e-learning ventures.  By “e-learning” we mean any training or learning that happens on desktops and mobile devices thru a variety of mediums including social networks, distance learning courses and learning games.