The E-Learner

Issue No. 30

September 2002

Published by

© European Consortium for the Learning Organisation.

All rights reserved.

Welcome to the 30^th edition of The E-Learner, ECLO's electronic newsletter for members.

As always, we welcome contributions from members, as it is impossible to keep on top of the wealth of information on the World Wide Web on topics of interest to you all.

For your ongoing reference The E-Learner will be archived in the members' zone of our web site.

Editor: Brian Taylor

Editorial

For this issue we return to a more simplistic, but what appears to be the most effective way of presenting the E-Learner. Let ‘common-sense’ prevail over technological niceties – surely the bedrock of ECLO philosophy.

It was not my intention to allow ‘technology’ to place a barrier to our learning, within the ECLO Community, so I have resorting to the K.I.S.S. Principle [Keep It Simply Stupid]. In this case, you will be pleased to note, I was that Stupid person – Lesson Learnt !

Below this ‘plain veneer’ you should find the same wealth of ideas, stimuli and lots more practical solutions – all by simply clicking on either, an ‘icon’ or ‘hyper-link’. It’s like "gold" you need to dig for it !

We are returning to our roots in other respects too ! With a section of ‘Tools & Techniques’ to rekindle that inspiration that some ECLO Members may feel is lacking and we welcome back to ECLO Bill Godfey’s new-look, Change Management Monitor (formerly BookWatch). All this and much, much more …………………….in this issue of E-Learner.

Tools & Techniques

Subject Portals
WWW Virtual Library on Knowledge Management
Knowledge Management · Intellectual Capital
Organizational Learning · Learning Organizations · Systems Thinking
Philosophy and Technology · Philosophy of Science ·

Dedicated to the development and use of advanced brainstorming techniques.

Critical Path Analysis is an extremely effective method of analysing

complex projects.

It helps you to calculate the minimum length of time in which the project can

be completed and which activities should be prioritised to complete by that date

A portal that features a collection of software tools, articles, news,

and links for developing creative solutions for businesses.

Michael O. Luke., on the influence of increasing the amount of information;

increasing the effectiveness of information mining tools and ways of organising

information, to aid the cognitive process are briefly discussed on this site.

Change Management Monitor (formerly BookWatch)

The return of an old ECLO friend Bill Godfrey, from his new location

in Tasmania.

Bill is back publishing his regular Newsletter, keeping people informed

of the latest literature (and reviews) on Change Management.

Newsletter.

Here is a view on ROI related to E-Learning investments

Thought for the day

"Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind

than in the one where they sprang up".

I suppose that makes Web Flash (or the E-Learner for that matter !)

a sort of electronic artificial inseminator……. nice...

Knowledge Board (for the European KM Community)

For all the latest upcoming on Knowledge Management Events; with a

strong ‘Academic’ bias. Lots of ‘downloads’ of Academic papers.

Knowledge Exchange

The way forward with learning, is not to look ahead, but to look around.

In looking to share information and knowledge we must not separate it

how they learn; how they use and understand both what they know and

the information they have; how they use the tools they have; how knowledge

moves across regions; and how relationship between people and

organisations work or don't work.

Disregard for the realities of how people interact individually and together with information and knowledge explains why most organisational learning initiatives have fallen flat.

Click on, if you have an Adobe Reader, plus 19.5 MB’s (a lot !) of disk space.

KITS Project (Appeal to ECLO Members to participate in this Venture)

• Many of you will already be aware that ECLO is a partner in KITS a research project funded under the EU fifth framework programme action line Advanced Training Systems.

• The product of this research is an interactive business game for developing Knowledge Management competencies. The final product, expected to be available early in 2003, will be known as "KM Quest".

• Three ECLO members (IHK Munich, Deutsche Telekom and UCE Birmingham) participated in the evaluation of the first prototype. The feedback from this evaluation provided clear, informative and detailed information as to how the product could be improved and a second prototype.

• Incorporating these revisions and a redesigned user interface will be evaluated during October 2002.

• The game itself is played with a team of three persons normally interacting asynchronously who may therefore be located remotely from each other. Teams do not compete against each other.

• The business model, built into the simulation, does show the impact of decisions taken on key indicators so participants are able to see and review the effect of their actions.

• Where all team members are at the same location they may choose to discuss a collective decision in a short meeting; similarly those working remotely could incorporate a synchronous collaboration session at appropriate points if they so wish.

• Many of the members who attended Andrew Haldane's session in Amsterdam were interested in finding out of more about the product and acquiring some "hands on&q on access to the second prototype.

  The finished KM Quest would appear to have significant market potential. The game can be used on a stand-alone basis with peer-to-peer support within teams and should provide a good working knowledge of KM principles and practice. However there also appears to be potential to add value through the provision of an internal or external mentor who can help integration with other provision and help to consolidate the transfer of learning gained in the context of a fictitious company to the participants' own workplace context.

  ECLO's hope is that some members may benefit from our participation in the KITS project either as preferential end-users or as intermediaries within marketing channels.

  For our planning purposes it would be helpful if members could briefly signal an expression of interest to Andrew Haldane

   

  PeopleSoft Human Resource Management – (free downloads)

  

  Human Resources departments are increasingly using technology to

  help them align business aims with their local workforce objectives.

  At the same time, collaborative technologies can give employees fast

  access to the personalised information they need to do their jobs.

  Find out how instant technological solutions can turn your people into

  your competitive advantage, and help them too:

   

  More documents on practical solutions can be accessed here >>>>>>>>>>

   

  Final Thought

   

  The basis of creativity has always been a new connection. To make connections would take hours using words. Your subconscious has to use pictures (William JJ Gordon)

  or

  A Picture is Worth 1,000 words (Brian Taylor – Classic Collection)

   

   

  The E-Learner is published by the

  European Consortium for the Learning Organisation

  Venelle des Lauriers 8, Wavre, B-1300 Belgium

  Tel/Fax: + 32 10 24 1600

  http://www.eclo.org