learning Archive

The TED of all Learning Conferences #LWF12

January 29, 2012higher education k-12 k-16 learning learning without frontiers2 Comments

On the dates of 25 January through 26 January, 2012, I had the opportunity to participate for the first time in the Learning Without Frontiers “Future of Learning Conference and Festival” held at Olympia in London, England. As the title of this post suggests, I believe it truly is the TED of all Learning Conferences. And since 1990, I’ve attended roughly 100 different conferences of all shapes, forms and sizes so my sample size is relatively good. Over the duration of the two days, there were several keynote addresses sprinkled from a rich ocean of speakers. To complement the main event, several indoor igloos (termed ‘experience domes’ at the conference) housed vendors and sidebar discussions from other speakers and organizations. Why am I so smitten

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My Thoughts: iBooks 2, iTunes U App & iBooks Author

By Dan Pontefract

January 19, 2012education higher education iBook iTunesU k-12 k-16 learning tablet7 Comments

According to Philip Schiller, Apple’s Senior Vice-President of Worldwide Marketing and Eddy Cue, Apple’s Senior Vice-President of Internet Software and Services, there are: over 1.5 million iPads in use in education institutions over 1,000 one-to-one iPad deployments in K-12 schools over 700 million downloads at iTunes U over 500,000 audio or video offerings available on iTunes U over 1,000 universities and colleges around the world using iTunes U over 20,000 ‘education and learning’ applications available for iPad Today’s announcement by Apple launching iBooks 2, iBooks Author and an iTunes U App had me thinking all along … we’ve come full circle. If you think back to the late 80’s, through the 90’s and arguably at the onset of the new millennium, Apple was primarily an

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The Tuition Value of Mistakes

By Dan Pontefract

December 12, 2011collaboration communication leadership learning managing mistales organization teams3 Comments

What is a mistake? Is it a blunder? Misinterpretation? Oversight? A momentary lapse in judgement? It’s perhaps all of those; but one avenue often overlooked is that a mistake has value. A mistake, however you define it, has tuition value. And to be blunt, organizations that sweep mistakes under the proverbial rug, without using them as an opportunity for learning, undermine in entirety their tuition value. However a mistake occurs, whomever is to blame and whatever negative consequence it resulted in is immaterial. What is key for any organization is what we learned from the mistake such that the individual, the team and the organization benefit thereafter. One doesn’t (necessarily) teach mistakes but once they occur, the tuition value can kick in if steps are

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Introducing the Digital Learning Quadrants

By Dan Pontefract

October 20, 2011connected learning education learning9 Comments

This is the follow-up post and answer to “The Fallacy of Digital Natives“. Let us agree, therefore, that regardless of age or situation, the learning process is one in which any learner can utilize formal, informal and social means to actually learn. It has nothing to do with generational divides. If we were to re-categorize the foolish Prensky and Tapscott terms of Net Generation, Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants into a classification that encompasses all ages and takes into account the realities of access and participation levels, we might use the following: The definitions presuppose we have consensus that learning can (and perhaps does) occur with the aid of technology mediums but regardless of age. Those that are Millennial have equal the opportunity to learn

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