E-Learning Curve Blog

Top 20 E-Learning Blogs for 2009 + Some Reflections on 2009

Before I complete the last tranche of open source applications for my series on Open Source E-Learning Development Tools, I thought I’d beat the pack and publish my list of the twenty e-learning blogs I found most useful, was inspired by, taught me something, and just plain enjoyed reading in 2009.

Before I reveal the list, I’d like to answer the Learning Circuit Blog Big Question for December 2009, which is “What did you learn about learning in 2009?”

It’s been a quite good year for e-learning-related blogs – not a vintage year in my view, but some interesting new voices emerged in the e-learning ecosystem (and one really irritating one – not included on the list below, I might add). Very few “old-timer” bloggers in this domain seem to have lost the habit, and none of the blogs I like to read succumbed to blogrot, which speaks to the vitality and life in learning and development-related disciplines.

That said, people have only so much time to give and the rise in use of the shiny bauble that is microblogging seems to have taken up time bloggers previously would have dedicated to blogging proper. As a result I’ve had lots of interesting (nearly) real-time conversations and seen lots of links to resources bounce around the twitosphere (if I may coin a word), but in 2009 there is less diversity of opinion, innovation, new ideas, and reflective in-depth commentary on learning-related matters than I encountered in 2008.

Some people would call it a consensus and a natural outcome of a maturing profession. But as I see it, a certain homogeneity in thought seems to have arisen in e-learning in 2009. A dearth of critical analysis in parts of the L&D world has led to a resurgence of support for unsound, invalid approaches to learning.

Take for example, the notion of visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning styles.

Ah, VAK! Just when I thought we had eradicated you like the the smallpox of learning that you are, you scientifically dubious, pedagogically damaging piece of nonsense. You may as well assert that people learn by magic as through ‘approaches’ like learning styles.

It the re-emergence of such suspect pedagogies (and other equally bad ideas) related to microblogging? There’s no evidence to say that there is, but the technology certainly make it easy to promulgate all manner of ideas, no matter how flaky they are. We are all familiar with the power of internet memes, so there may be something in this. One hundred and forty characters does not allow you to explore the ramifications of a topic in the way that a longer-form blog or other type of article does, so in as much as it’s a convenient and effective back channel, microblogging has limitations.

As for cloud computing? Well, get a computer: attach it to a network. Instant cloud.

I’m just glad I haven’t heard “cloud learning” as a buzzword over the last 12 months, a state of affair I hope will pertain in 2010, too.

A newly-emerged technology with much more potential, it seems to me, is Google Wave-type technology. I think that this has the potential to replace current off-the-shelf-type content -serving LMSs with something much more learner-oriented (from a Constructivist perspective) in its capability to facilitate a/synchronous communication and collaboration. Given Google’s promise that they intend to release the platform as open source once it’s completed beta testing and piloting, I can foresee it integrating quite happily with systems like Moodle. It should add an extra layer of sophistication to e-learning environments. Perhaps it will even give microblogging a context for learning, rather than merely enabling information-sharing and social networking. Of course, strategies to manage and control permissions, resource access, learners’ private details, learners’ progress, gradebooks, testing and so on will need to be developed, as well as approaches  to sequencing, storing and tracking sharable learning objects, specific learning resources and, of course, metadata. But these are only challenges to be overcome, and not obstacles to be defeated by.

Anyway, commentary complete: it now gives me much pleasure to recommend the honor roll of the class of 2009 to you.

I encourage you to explore some or all of these useful resources.

…and my top-of-the-class, Number One e-learning blog is…

The E-Learning Curve Blog

…of course!

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December 14 2009 03:11 pm | e-learning

11 Responses to “Top 20 E-Learning Blogs for 2009 + Some Reflections on 2009”

1. virginia Yonkers on 14 Dec 2009 at 8:07 pm #

   Michael, first thanks for the vote of confidence. I feel I had some great posts this year that went somewhat ignored, and others that seemed to strike a nerve that I was surprised about.

   I wonder why some “take” and others don’t.

   I can’t let your comment about learning styles pass by, though. I’m not sure what exactly it is that bothers you about the learning styles except perhaps when people look at learning styles in a literal, limiting, or magic pill way. I look at it the same way as “culturally sensitive”: when used correctly, it can be a very powerful tool, when used incorrectly it can be damaging.

   I look at my own children. They currently are in two very different schools, each one’s approach matching the learning style of my kids. Can my daughter learn in a traditional setting? She has had to learn to (having been schooled the first 10 years–pre-school to grade 8 within Catholic schools). But now that she is in a school that teaches using a different approach, she is excelling.

   My son, on the other hand, does much better in the structured traditional Catholic schools he has attended. He did well in a non-traditional school where he began, but did even better with the structure.

   The key is that training and education should use a variety of tools to augment students’ natural learning styles. But they should not discount other methods for those who have a certain learning style.

   My current work is taking me into the idea of “design”. The more I look at the group writing process, the more I see there is an elemental factor that affects the group knowledge creation process. I am thinking it is the creation process (design) using the schemas we have created (mental constructs, professional understanding, tacit knowledge, and intuitive knowledge). Where we come from in this design process could be labeled our “learning styles”, but it is based on a number of factors.

2. Michael Hanley on 15 Dec 2009 at 10:59 am #

   HI Virginia – thanks as always for your comment. Perusing Connecting 2 the World has been a rewarding and enlightening read in 2009, so I’m happy to feature it in my list. I know exactly what you mean about posts that “take” – or not, as the case may be: I’ve written some articles over the last year that I was sure would garner a reaction, and all I got was the digital equivalent of tumbleweed. Go figure.

   I think that the learning styles issue is a many-faceted and complex one, so if you don’t mind I’ll address it in a blog post proper. I do have my (empirical and evidence-based) reasons for my stance on visual-auditory-kinesthetic approaches to education. However, there are other pedagogies that unfortunately bear the same name but are different in methodology and efficacy. Kolb’s and Honey & Mumford’s models spring to mind, as does Howard Gardiner’s MI theory.
   As you can see, I have updated my post to clarify my intention of exposing the VAK snake oil.
   BTW, if I’m not talking to you again beforehand, Happy Christmas! (or local equivalent).
   Michael
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3. virginia Yonkers on 15 Dec 2009 at 11:44 am #

   I think I should warn you that my teaching training was based on Kolb’s experiential learning theory. But I know what you are referring to (again, the misuse of a theory, taken out of context).

   Merry Christmas to you also.

4. Michael Hanley on 15 Dec 2009 at 11:49 am #

   Great – we’re on the same page! I’m a big fan of ELT, and I regularly use it in my courseware.
   Many thanks for the Christmas Wishes,
   M
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5. Pita Tuisawau on 17 Dec 2009 at 6:42 am #

   Greetings (can I call you Michael and Virginia?)!

   Thank you Michael for a great thought provoking blog and especially for the blog list and other useful links. Virginia thanks for asking the learning styles question for me. I am now looking forward Michael to your posting on this blog.

   I am an Instructional designer at our small law school here at the University of the South Pacific (Vanuatu campus). We had a workshop about two years ago when one of my collegues was presenting on the use of concept maps in our course materials. A law lecturer cut him short saying he saw no need for graphic representations of what is very clear to him in text. He said that he never even looks at concept maps but goes straight to the text. I tried to rescue my colleague and said something like…we are not designing these materials for ourselves but for students who may have different learning styles from us (and also mentioned that I personally do love and get a lot out of looking at (Good) concept maps before reading text). To cut a long story short, this law lecturer not only (albeit reluctantly)included Concept maps in his printed course materials but went on to use them (enthusiastically)in all his powerpoint presentations on Evidence law to his F2F students. His F2F and online students that I spoke to appreciated the concept maps in both his powerpoints and the print materials. In my humble opinion, the theory of learning styles seemed to help in this particular situation.

   Merry Christmas!

6. Michael Hanley on 17 Dec 2009 at 10:36 am #

   Hi Pita,
   Thanks for reading and for taking the time to submit such a detailed comment (and call me Michael).
   This is an interesting case study.
   Without going into too much detail here (as this is a topic that warrants a much deeper investigation) I would suggest that your team have done a great job in introducing the lecturer in question to what Clark and Mayer (2002) call the Multimedia Principle, one of their six “broadly applicable” guidelines to be used when undertaking instruction (whether WBT or ILT/F2F). In a nutshell, the Multimedia Principle states: Use words and graphics rather than words alone. It’s pretty well-established (Better Than Bullet Points: Creating Engaging e-Learning with PowerPoint Do you think this is possible? I’d love to hear your views on this Pita (and Virginia!).
   Best regards,
   Michael
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7. Pita Tuisawau on 18 Dec 2009 at 1:28 am #

   Thank you Michael for the very informative reply!

   You are correct. The way I see it, in talking about our learning preferences (styles) we were inadvertently introducing our Lecturer to Clark and Meyer’s Multimedia Principle. I dont know, are these theories/principles mutually exclusive?

   And yes the “Great Wall of Text” powerpoints were leading to cognitive overload for the students. It is interesting that we did not ask the lecturer to use the concept maps in his powerpoints but that he did it on his own volition because he felt that he was able to teach “Evidence law” better with them. He went from “never bother to look at concept maps” to cannot teach without concept maps.

   I had better stop here. Thank you again for your excellent blog articles and comments.

8. Ken Allan on 22 Dec 2009 at 9:04 pm #

   Kia ora e Michael!

   Thanks for the mention!

   I found that the merits of so-called cloud computing actually brought something useful to me this year, or at least, pointed to its use.

   My PC died in February. We (the family) thought we’d lost all our stuff (despite my ranting about the backups we had but at a time when we didn’t have a computer, we were still able to access all the family albums on Facebook and Flickr, and add to them, using another access point. This allayed the family’s mounting concern while I busied about buying and setting up another PC.

   Compliments of the season to you, Michael.

   Rangim?rie
   Peace in Harmony

9. Michael Hanley on 23 Dec 2009 at 10:32 am #

   Hi Ken,
   My pleasure Ken: our dialogues over the last year have been great fun! I do think that there are genuine applications for cloud computing, but it’s really just another name for internet services that have been in place for quite a while, in my view. For example, I wouldn’t be able to work without XMarks, Delicious, Dropbox,and MobileMe (to name but a few).
   But for me, this time of year is not about technology, it’s about reconnecting in the “real world,” so may I wish you the blessings of the season, and a happy and prosperous New Year, from a very chilly (-6C) Ireland.

   Nollaig shona duit.
   A peaceful Christmas to you and yours.

   Michael
   –

10. Manish Malik on 25 Dec 2009 at 1:51 pm #

    The Cloud gives control to people on their documents/work etc, it makes them publishers/authors/broadcasters etc. A spin of sharing and collaborative working added to the mix and we have what I call as the Cloud Learning environment. Here the control is shared between the learner and the facilitator or the academics .
    This is new, as the old institutional VLE (or virtual learning environments, kept most of the control with the institutions or the academics) and the PLEs (personal learning environments) did not quite provide a cohesive platform to bring different people together form different walks of life uniformly.
    To read more about a CLE, see http://edublend.blogspot.com/2009/12/cloud-learning-environment-what-it-is.html

    An Example of that is my Exam revision site that taps into the students informal learning experience/practice. I blogged about it here
    http://edublend.blogspot.com/2009/12/examopedia-re-birth-on-google-sites.html
    And the resources is an Open access resource that can be accessed here:
    http://sites.google.com/a/port.ac.uk/examopedia/

11. del.icio.us Bookmarks vom 19. Dezember | KOMA medien on 13 Jan 2010 at 9:35 pm #

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