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About Digital Learning Now! (Jeb Bush's thing) Digital Learning Now! is a national campaign to advance policies that will create a high quality digital learning environment to better prepare students with the knowledge and skills to succeed in college and careers. Digital Learning Now! is building support for the 10 Elements of High Quality Digital Learning, which provides a roadmap for reform for lawmakers and policymakers to integrate digital learning into education. Establishing the Roadmap for Reform The Digital Learning Council was convened in 2010 to define the policies that will integrate current and future technological innovations into public education. The Digital Learning Council united a diverse group of more than 100 leaders from education, government, philanthropy, business, technology, and think tanks to develop the roadmap of reform for local, state and federal lawmakers and policymakers. Jeb Bush, former Governor of Florida 1999 - 2007, and Bob Wise, former Governor of West Virginia 2001 - 2005, serve as co-chairmen. The Digital Learning Council covered a wide range of topics, including: student eligibility for digital learning, access to high quality digital content and instruction, customization and personalization of education such as blended learning, funding models, assessments and accountability. The 10 Elements of High Quality Digital Learning was released at the 2010 Excellence in Action National Summit on Education Reform in Washington, D.C.

John Seely Brown: "Even when children are high achievers and facile with new technology, many seem gradually to lose their sense of wonder and curiosity, notes John Seely Brown. Traditional educational methods may be smothering their innate drive to explore the world. Brown and like-minded colleagues are developing the underpinnings for a new 21st century pedagogy that broadens rather than narrows horizons. John Seely Brown, former chief scientist at Xerox, has morphed in recent years into the "Chief of Confusion," seeking "the right questions" in a range of fields, including education. He finds unusual sources for his questions: basketball and opera coaches, surfing and video game champions. He's gathered insights from unorthodox venues, and from more traditional classrooms, to paint quite a different picture of what learning might look like. The typical college lecture class frequently gathers many students together in a large room to be 'fed' knowledge, believes Brown. But studies show that "learning itself is socially constructed," and is most effective when students interact with and teach each other in manageable groups. Brown wants to open up "niche learning experiences" that draw on classic course material, but deepen it to be maximally enriching. In basketball and opera master classes, and in architecture labs, he has seen how individuals become acculturated in a "community of practice," learning to "be" rather than simply to "do." Whether performing, creating, or experimenting, students are critiqued, respond, offer their own criticism, and glean rich wisdom from a cyclical group experience. Brown says something "mysterious" may be taking place: "In deeply collective engagement in processes...you start to marinate in a problem space." Through communities of practice, students' minds "begin to gel up," even in the face of abstraction and unfamiliarity, and "all of a sudden, (the subject) starts to make se

The International Journal of Virtual and Personal Learning Environments (IJVPLE) provides readers with comprehensive coverage of developments in learning technologies for an international readership of educators, technologists and trainers. The journal is a primary source for academics, professionals, corporate trainers and policy makers in information and communication technologies. The journal publishes high quality contributions (papers, book reviews) on a range of fields associated with Course Management Systems (CMS), Learning Management Systems (LMS), Virtual Learning Environments (VLE), Social Networking Sites (SNS), Personalized Learning Environments (PLE), and 3D virtual worlds, including for example Second Life (SL). Articles published in the journal cover education and training, concentrating on the theory, application, and development of learning technologies. There is a particular interest in the application of new and emerging information and communication technologies in education and training.

We know students love learning on our platform. Students love going to a Class and learn the basics of a new skill. We wanted to take that even further. We created Courses to allow teachers to create more in-depth, organized, and well thought-out learning experiences. We think that Courses will allow you learn even more about the skills that you are passionate and curious about.

Introducing the Earworms Musical Brain Trainer Learn a new Language in Second Life, your Ipod, your iPhone or PC for the new year! 200+ essential words and phrases anchored into your long-term memory with great music. The 70 minute Earworms SLCD's will play the tracks inworld - can be downloaded as mp3 files to your desktop, Ipod or Iphone and comes with full documentation on PDF files for you to print and read at your leisure. Come and sample Earworms for yourself inworld - visit us at and TP up to The Earworms Loft Earworms mbt puts the words and phrases you need not just on the tip of your tongue, but also transports them deep into your long-term memory. Simply by listening to these specially composed melodies with their rhythmic repetitions a few times, the sound patterns are indelibly burned into your auditory cortex. You will have successfully learned the phrase and have the correct accent ringing in your ears. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing: While jogging, in the car, in the bath, doing the ironing…you can be learning a new language at the same time! earworms mbt© Rapid Languages is the first language course to get your toe tapping. You know the phenomena of those catchy tunes or earworms that you just can't get out of your head? Voulezvous coucher avec moi, ce soir? Well, earworms mbt© has put this phenomena to positive use. Gone are the days of learning pressure and frustration at not being able to remember, the experience of many on conventional language courses. In combination with music, the phrases you need are automatically anchored deep into your memory, ready for instant recall.

Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies top 100 tools for learning 2009

Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies top 100 tools for learning 2009

Emerging Technologies for Online Learning Symposium, a joint Symposium of Sloan Consortium and MERLOT with MoodleMoot, is designed to bring together individuals interested in the technological aspects of online learning. The symposium, focusing on the technologies that drive online learning effectiveness, will continue to highlight research, applications, and best practices of important emerging technological tools. Experts, intermediate users and novices are welcome to participate in Symposium activities that will include face-to-face and virtual components. Symposium tracks highlight and demonstrate research, application and best practices of important emerging technological tools related to social networking, assessment, open educational resources, new media and support services. The Symposium is brought to you by the partnership of the Sloan Consortium, MERLOT, and MoodleMoot.

Immersion is the subjective impression that one is participating in a comprehensive, realistic experience. Interactive media now enable various degrees of digital immersion. The more a virtual immersive experience is based on design strategies that combine actional, symbolic, and sensory factors, the greater the participant's suspension of disbelief that she or he is "inside" a digitally enhanced setting. Studies have shown that immersion in a digital environment can enhance education in at least three ways: by allowing multiple perspectives, situated learning, and transfer. Further studies are needed on the capabilities of immersive media for learning, on the instructional designs best suited to each type of immersive medium, and on the learning strengths and preferences these media develop in users.

mobile / augmented reality learning: ARIS research at UWisconsin in Games, Learning, & Society

mobile / augmented reality learning: ARIS research at UWisconsin in Games, Learning, & Society

Research shows that students have difficulty achieving deep understanding of many fundamental science concepts, for instance, the nature of matter, pressure, density, and electrical circuits to name but a few. After students have presumably learned the scientific explanations, they often revert back to their initial explanations. The Understandings of Consequence Project has demonstrated that part of the problem arises from differences in how students and scientists think about cause and effect. Scientific explanations often require students to structure knowledge in ways that contradict their expectations about the nature of how causes and effects behave. Such explanations can involve: causal mechanisms that are inferred or abstract; causal patterns that extend beyond linear and unidirectional to cyclic, reciprocal, and non-sequential; correspondences between causes and effects that are in various respects probabilistic; and causal agents that are decentralized and involve aspects of emergence. These are ways of thinking that students typically are not familiar with. Thus students attempt to assimilate information about complex concepts into simplistic causal structures which ultimately distort the information. In order to achieve deep understanding of scientific explanations, students need to learn the levels of these dimensions that fit the level of explanation needed. We have developed a taxonomy of causal models to guide these teaching and learning efforts. We have also developed a taxonomy of epistemological "moves", such as comparing more than one model and being alert to possible gaps in one's explanation, that serve scientific inquiry and lead to more complex conceptions.

"understanding how to leverage tech in your teaching and learning situation is critical to developing PLNs. While in the past, we were limited by the occasions that served as "learning experiences," in the 21st century, learning isn't restricted to a special event bound by time and place"

Powerful Learning Practice: educators using the web to transform learning

Online learning development: tips, tricks, and techniques for rapid e-learning development

"ShowMe is an open learning community where you can learn or teach any subject. Watch great lessons for free, or create your own."

Advanced Distributed Learning: The Power of Global Collaboration... funded by the Department of Defense to research and develop better ways for training and teaching armed forces all over the world at anytime. Developers of SCORM standards for learning objects (accessible, reusable, durable)

online learning: the OnlineEduBlog has information about online degrees, courses, colleges and universities - analysis of the Online Edu Industry with news and reviews

ONLINE LEARNING DEPT: degrees, courses, colleges and universities - analysis of the Online Edu Industry with news and reviews

assessment: evaluating learner experiences of e-learning

assessment: evaluating learner experiences of e-learning

The Future of Education: a ning network "charting the course of teaching and learning in a networked world" - schedules of discussions by many of top leaders in digital learning: David Thornburg, Sir Ken Robinson, Dan Pink, Larry Johnson, James Paul Gee, Dave Edyburn, etc.

David Kolb maintains this site on Experiential Learning