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nge de Waard links to this collection of xAPI case studies - these are "short (average 15 min) videos covering xAPI in a variety of settings.... real stories on how people in EdTech are using Experience API in their context. The videos were taped during the Orlando happening, and they include wonderful experts." See also the Connections Forum.

Icon I have talked in the past about how we as a society are developing a new multimedia language (and in the process, reshaping what 'language of thought' theories could possibly mean). We are seeing more and more evidence of this, beginning with this lead story. It's a great set of thought-experiments on how authors could respond to specific audience needs with more useful and informative multimedia responses. Do they work? Yes - as Poynter points out, the most popular features on the New York Times web site were interactives and multimedia, not stories. And the upstart (and excellent) news site Quartz has just launched Atlas, a site for charts and graphics. We won't recognize that we think of as 'learning content' in just a few years, as we move beyond texts and courses and toward engaging and interactive multimedia.

wo Things to do in Learning nick shackleton-jones, aconventional, 2015/06/25 Icon This is an interesting way to view two separate approaches to learning. The first begins with "responding to challenges" that would be faced by a student or learner; the other is to "present challenges". In the first, the provider furnishes resources, services and other "useful stuff", while in the second it creates experiences and "impactful challenges". "This is," says nick shackleton-jones, "really a simplified version of the diagram set out in 'The Tragedy of L&D'. It is presented here as two options because this is how it often comes up in conversation." Interestingly, neither aligns with the concept of 'courses' as we currently define them. "'Courses' - in the sense of 'content-dumping' (either online or as part of an event) do not feature in either activity... At the very foundation lies the false assumption is that learning professionals are tasked with stuffing information into people's heads. And that is not how learning works."

This is a terrific article on NASA's use of virtual reality to train astronauts. A lot of the focus of VR is on skills training, but the article makes it clear that one of it's key roles is to give the astronauts a feeling of familiarity with the environment and to help them develop the right intuitions for working in a weightless environment. "There's a great advantage in just feeling as though the environment isn't entirely new. 'It means everything. It's not hard to realize that just beyond that thin little visor is instantaneous death. It's oblivion,' Wheelock said." E-learning (including VR) can prepare us far better than traditional instruction for such situations (indeed, the idea of teaching it in a classroom is laughable). So - to answer the traditional objection to e-learning - I wouldn't want to employ an astronaut (or a pilot, or a brain surgeon) who didn't use e-learning.--oldaily

So look at this photo of a dress and answer one simple question: what colour is it? If you are like me, you will say that the dress is blue (with black trim). But if you are like Andrea and the other half of the internet, you will say the dress is white, with gold trim. Why is this significant? Typically we think we mean the same thing with simple words like 'blue' and 'white'. But in fact, our prior experiences shape the meaning of every word, to the point where we literally see different things when we see the same image. This is why no single model can define a theory of education. Each of us sees the world differently, which means each of us needs unique educational support. More on the blue dress: Daily Beast, Wired, CBS News, Washington Post, National Post, Independent.

7 minutes of the Condor