If you use open source tools to deliver education or training to your learners, Opened Practices is a great resource and community of practice for you to tap in to.
A free and brandable e-learning module explaining the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
It's easy to understand, takes very little time to go through, and engaging visually.
"Blackboard's patent on learning management system technologies has been overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit."
Interesting news. Keep your eyes open for further development since Bb is planning to continue litigation against D2L.
"This broad reaching collection of essays on e learning examines accomplishments, new directions, and challenges from many perspectives."
The free PDF is large at 5.72 MB; hardbound copy available through Amazon for $26.95.
"...the importance of Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and countless other social networking sites to mainstream culture and communication has businesses (or at least their PR and marketing departments) and journalistic organizations alike driving demand for social media instruction in the college curriculum."
If you're faced with an expert saying, "They need to know this," ask a simple question: "Armed with this new knowledge, what can learners do differently than before?" Get your SMEs thinking in terms of new skills, not new knowledge.
I find this is even true within the Master's courses I develop. Even though our students need the knowledge, they also need to be able to apply it in practical ways. SMEs lose track of that easily because they cannot see the trees for the forest.
Our job as instructional designers is to ask the right questions and focus our SMEs so that we can design courses that include both the knowledge and skills that students need.
But valuable mistakes only happen when we maintain an appropriate level of challenge.
We learn from our mistakes and it should be no different in e-learning. While designing a course, we should be aware that learners will foul up and take advantage of those teachable moments. The course/game/learning experience should be designed so that it is safe to make a mistake and learn from it rather than be punished for it.
"...a distillation of cognitive research on learning intended to make your e-learning more effective, and to create a better experience for the learner. These seven principles integrate cognitive and emotional components of learning, and the more that happens, the greater the outcomes."