Posts

Seven Things I Learned This Year

Over the past few years, I spend part of December going back through my blog to recap a bit of what some of the key things I’ve learned over the course of the year.  I’ve been doing this the past few years, for example: Learned about Learning in 2009 .  And every year I use this as a Big Question – see: Learning 2010 .  A lot of it is thinking through where my thinking has changed over the course of the year.  So here are a few of the things that are a bit different for me. 1. Twitter is Much Better than I Thought for Learning I used to say during presentations that I wasn’t quite sure about twitter as a learning tool.  During 2010, I’ve been ramping up my use of twitter as a learning tool.  I’ve had to find ways to filter the flow and figure out when/how to reach out.  It was definitely helpful to spend time going through Twitter for Learning – 55 Great Articles . 2. Learning Coach Model Very Powerful In 2010, I had a great experience where Dr...

Best Lecture

I just read George Siemens post Will online lectures destroy universities?   He makes the point that despite articles like Why free online lectures will destroy universities – unless they get their act together fast : Statements like “universities are obsolete” or “universities are dying” are comical. And untrue. Universities are continuing to grow in enrolment and general influence in society. Calling universities obsolete while we are early on in the so-called knowledge economy is like declaring factories obsolete in the 18th century just as the industrial revolution was taking hold. Utter nonsense. While George does talk about challenges in education, I think he misses part of the point of the article.  And this is something that I’ve been thinking (and writing – see Physics Lectures ) about for a long time.  Here’s the point: It’s incredibly easy to capture and distribute lectures. Rather than getting a lecture from whoever is teaching your course loc...

Text-to-Speech Costs – Licensing and Pricing

This post is part of the series on Text-to-Speech (TTS) for eLearning written by Dr. Joel Harband and edited by me. The other posts are: Text-to-Speech Overview and NLP Quality , Digital Signal Processor and Text-to-Speech , Using Text-to-Speech in an eLearning Course , Text-to-Speech eLearning Tools - Integrated Products , Text-to-Speech vs Human Narration for eLearning , and Using Punctuation and Mark-Up Language to Increase Text-to-Speech Quality. Text-to-Speech Examples In this post, we will look more closely at costs of Text-to-Speech and issues around TTS Voice Licensing and Pricing.  The subject of TTS voice licensing and pricing is important because it helps e-learning practitioners understand which TTS tools they are legally allowed to use for their specific applications as well as letting them estimate the costs and pricing models of using these TTS tools. Voice Talent Rates and Implications on TTS Licensing and Pricing When the TTS...

eLearning Conferences 2011 Updated

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May 18 2011 - Updated conferences with new list for June - December 2011 (and beyond). Clayton R. Wright has done his amazing list of conferences again this year and has asked me to post again. Past years eLearning Conferences 2010 , eLearning Conferences 2009. You can contact him at: crwr77@gmail.com . This list is focused mostly on the first half of the year: January to June 2011. And it covers a broad range of types of topics. Please note that events, dates, titles, and locations may change; thus, CHECK the specific conference website . Note also that some events will be cancelled at a later date. All Internet addresses were verified at the time of publication. No liability is assumed for any errors that may have been introduced inadvertently during the assembly of this conference list. If possible, please do not remove the contact information when you re-distribute the list as that is how I receive updates and corrections. If you publish the list on the web, please note its ...