Better late than never as I have just joined this group. ReadSpeaker provides text to speech (TTS) engines for websites and iOS and Android apps which combine text reading with word by word text highlighting on any end user hardware.
The service has a growing range of early Australian adopters including Centrelink, Comcare, Dept of Health and Ageing, Dept of Human Services, FAHCSIA, and the Australian Paralympic Committee. In elearning, adopters include Gale and Cengage.
I would be happy to provide information to interested elearning professionals and I can be reached on richard.ings@readspeaker.com.
As part of the expansion of the Institute of Natural Excellence across the globe, Second Nature UK are holding their first Natural Excellence course in the UK at the Stratford Manor Hotel on the 25th November 2009. During this one day program, Natural Excellence™ Project Management will be introduced, which is the world's leading integrated project management methodology. It incorporates the full range of best practices to realize the comprehensive and successful execution of projects of any size. It places people and business centrally and has six modules that include People Management, Quality Management, Process Management, Content Management, Change Management, Control Management. The course will also cover the new Natural Excellence management theories that help people of all walks of life achieve their maximum potential - the natural way. These revolutionary theories and methods have been incorporated into the i-NE founders very own taxonomy of excellence, (Van Geijn Taxonomy of Natural Excellence) which has been used by many, many people around world. The adoption of Natural Excellence has had a life changing effect on both students and with companies or government organisations who have incorporated them into their management approach. This is the first of many courses that will be delivered by Second Nature Excellence. Others will cover basic, professional and advanced sales; buying new IT systems; achieving ISO accreditation and further project management courses.
Our goal might be to support Deep versus Surface Learning, but what does this mean in practical terms. What are the beliefs and dispositions which support teaching for deep learning, and what are the implications of this in terms of the pedagogy we adopt?
To ensure reflective practice is more than an activity added to our schedule, we need to take a reflective stance.
Too often, reflection becomes the thing we do at the end of a task or the end of the day. We look back and contemplate what was, and with that in mind, we look forward to what we might do differently next time. It is in this way a very reactionary process. By all means, this form of reflection has its place, and it can be a powerful strategy to deploy as we seek to learn from experience. If we value reflective practice, we will be sure to set aside time for this form of reflection on a routine basis. By engaging in reflection habitually, we ensure that it is a routine part of our day.
But adopting a reflective stance can make this more powerful.
When we adopt an inquiry stance towards learning, we start to see things differently. Taking an inquiry stance towards learning involves a shift in mindset and practice for both student and teacher. It allows us to move beyond doing inquiry towards being inquisitive.
In terms of what guild members saw as the engines of adoption, 52% felt that their own personal use of tools was the most important factor, with only a third claiming that Learners or staff are requesting it, and just 25% that it was management driven.