E P I C T H I N K I N G
Issue 38: January 2005
This month:
1. Round up of 2004: Read Epic Donald Clark's
views of the past year
2. ICCA online: Enjoy the benefits of e-learning...
3. Book review: The use of computer and video
games for learning: A review of the literature
4. Article: The future of e-learning
5a. Show review: Learning Technologies 2005
5b. Show review: E-learning for Financial
Institutions Conference
6. Hall of Fame: First part of a look at
historical figures in the world of learning
7. Jobs: Check out the latest vacancies
ROUND
UP OF 2004
1. A review of the last year
2004 was the year of the monkey and, true
to form, there was a great deal of monkey business going on. For
me it was the year of technology, the joy of the mini-iPOD, which
has changed my music listening habits forever, along with upgrading
to a wireless network at home. My kids have continued to enlighten
me with their ‘webcams with messenger’, online games
(Runescape) and wireless Gameboys. I’ve also enjoyed my wireless
headset – great for the bath or garden listening. My new digital
camera worked a treat and my jumpstart drive has made file transfer
a doddle. This is all starting to come together. The technology
is fun, useful and it all works!
In e-learning, some government stuff started, failed and faltered.
Companies started to stabilise with only a few faltering. Some mergers,
but not many, just the usual consolidation through attrition. The
good news is that, despite the confusion, the e-learning market
appears, from the limited data available, to be growing. This was
confirmed by the ASTD State of the Industry Report, research commissioned
by the UfI and CIPD research.
Read more
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ICCA ONLINE
2. Review by John Harris, Director
of Education, Epic
Ever wondered where to go to get advice on how to embed e-learning
in your organisation? One stop worth considering is the ICCA
Online website. ICCA stands for Increasing Citizens Choice &
Access, a project sponsored by the Department of Education and Skills,
part-funded by the Treasury Invest to Save Unit and developed and
co-funded by a Strategic Partnership led by City & Guilds. ICCA
aims to help organisations realise the benefits of e-learning without
repeating the costly mistakes of others.
Read the rest of the review
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BOOK REVIEW
3. The use of computer and video games
for learning: A review of the literature
Authors: Alice Mitchell and Carol Savill-Smith
Review by John Harris, Director of Education, Epic
Anyone with children who play video games will have been surprised
by the many hours of sustained engagement and enjoyment they get
from playing a single game. If only lessons were as much fun as
games. If only school could harness the power that games hold over
children’s minds. Surely games can be harnessed to serve the
needs of education. This report is a comprehensive review of the
published literature relating to games and learning.
Read
the rest of the review
Read the Epic white papers on Games
and Simulations
ARTICLE
4. A passage from Jay Cross's article on
the Future of e-learning....
Remember the scene in the Woody Allen film where a pompous Columbia
professor is trying to impress his date with his interpretation
of the work of Marshal McLuhan? From behind a poster, Woody pulls
out Marshal McLuhan himself, who tells the professor, "You
know nothing of my work."
Donald Clark of Epic, the largest e-learning firm in the U.K.,
provided just such a moment with his common-sense, crystal-clear
description of the future of learning. If we lived in a world with
no schools, what would we build in their place? Would we rebuild
rural, medieval colleges? Donald showed photographs of his twin
boys learning. These ’digital natives’ are autonomous
learners. They learn from the Internet. With frameworks obtained
from computer games, they ask their father about military strategy.
Imagine, ten-year olds talking strategy. The twins do not have the
patience to abide with the stand-and-talk model of teaching. Lecture
is such an ineffective medium for learning.
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SHOW
REPORT
5a. Learning Technologies
2005
The Learning Technologies exhibition this year took
place on Wednesday the 26th and Thursday 27th January in Kensington
Olympia.
Initial thoughts are that the show was a great success
with a good turn-out of visitors and exhibitors alike. The general
feeling for this exhibition from an e-learning point of view is
that, as the name implies, the show is focused towards those individuals
who have an interest in learning approaches from both an HR and
technical point of view.
Read the rest
of the review
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SHOW
REPORT
5b. E-learning for
Financial Institutions Conference
Amsterdam, 26 - 27th January 2005
Report by Andy Webber, Account Manager,
Epic
This event is intended to provide representatives
from the top financial services organisations in Europe
with a valuable forum at which executives can share best
practices, advice and insight, with the goal of helping
companies advance e-learning in the financial services
industry.
Irit Ashkenazi, Head of e-learning
and Knowledge Management at Bank Leumi
A number of challenges have been identified
within the Bank associated with the distribution of information
and knowledge quickly and efficiently but most important
of all effectively.
In order to meet these challenges the Bank
has developed an approach which combines e-learning with
a knowledge management strategy.
Read
the rest of the review
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HALL OF FAME
6. Could you name ten major figures in educational
theory?
Despite education and training’s central
role in society, its intellectual heroes have little or
no visibility. Few can name more than a handful of candidates
for the Hall of Fame. Unlike science, politics or the
arts, learning practitioners have a sketchy idea of their
contribution and theories.
As professionals in learning we should,
at least, pay some attention to the people who shaped
our system through theory and practice. We can’t
begin to understand what we have until we reflect on how
we got here.
In an effort to expose our predecessors,
warts and all, this series of portraits will take look
at the people who shaped learning and learning theory
over the centuries. We’ll start in the ancient world,
with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. In subsequent newsletters
we’ll look at enlightenment thinkers such as Rousseau
and Locke, the American psychological pragmatists James
and Dewey, behaviourists such as Skinner, constructivists
such as Vygotsky and many more. They have all played a
role in shaping the learning landscape.
We may not know it, but our education has
been shaped by figures that lived over two thousand years
ago. Teachers still talk of the Socratic method, Plato
and Aristotle live on in schools through the classical
ideals originally enshrined in Victorian schools and still
common in modern educational practice.
Socrates (469-399 BC)
Most professionals in learning will have
heard of the ‘Socratic method’. Fewer will
know that he never wrote a single word describing this
method. Fewer still will know that the method is not what
it is commonly represented to be, and even fewer may know
that he was one of the few teachers who actually died
for his craft, executed by the Athenian authorities for
supposedly corrupting the young.
Read more about Socrates
Plato (428-348 BC)
It is through Plato that we know Socrates,
but Plato is no mere mouthpiece. All western philosophy
has been described as ‘footnotes to Plato’.
Like Socrates, he believed in the power of questioning
as a method of teaching. Indeed, his dialogues do not
feature Plato himself. They illustrate by example his
view that the learner must learn to think for themselves
through dialogue.
Read more about Plato
Aristotle (384-322 BC)
Aristotle, is in some ways a more important
educational theorist and philosopher than Socrates. His
work has resonated down the ages and although we have
only fragments from his book On Education, we have enough
secondary evidence to piece together his theories on the
subject.
Read more about
Aristotle
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JOBS!
7. Job vacancies
Epic is currently looking for e-learning designers.
Apply
through our web site
BLENDED LEARNING COURSE
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Learning Programme. This unique course from Epic, centred around
a practical, hands-on workshop, gives a step-by step methodology
for designing effective blended programmes, and tools to help
with the decision-making process.
Click
here for full course content and booking
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