Google Maps for learning!

It was already possible to create your own Google Maps. But some programming skills were needed.

Not anymore. With the new Google Maps it is a piece of cake to create your own map. You can draw lines and shapes, you can add your own text, photo's and video's and you can publish your map to the web and share it with your friends.


Or with your learners?! Kids can bring their own neighbourhoods to life with pics and explanations. Let them give their own view and let them enrich the Google map in their own way. This could be a fascinating learning experience. Geography can be learned from a total different perspective. You can learn about different countries in a truly constructivistic way. And why not a project with kids in different countries? Let's exchange images and ideas.

WOW, wish for a moment that I was an elementary school teacher again!

Please check the English or Dutch website.

Philips 3D display: stunning simulations?

Philips presented a new technology: a 3-dimension display. Of course you all know the 3D experience where you need the special glasses, e.g. with green/red glasses or green/violet. So why is this something new?



Well, you don't need any glasses to see the 3D environment with the 3D display. Without any extra things, you will see the images/video or any other multimedia.



Philips says: "3D is the next big thing since the introduction of color displays. 3D provides a richer, more exciting, more informative, and more entertaining end-user experience in various fields!"

I say: this can have a huge effect within learning situations. Think about easy to view 3D simulations. Content developers will have a powerful tool to enrich the learning experience and to make it more involving and memorable. Content can be created by several tools, one of the ones is 3D Studio Max.

We contacted Philips about this product and I'm very anxious to create some good e-Learning content. Hope to be back with you with some news about the educational possibilities and user experiences (content developers and learners).

New category of learning objectives needed!

The categories of learning objectives are not complete. We (teachers, trainers, educational scientists) often are talking about the acquisition of:

1. knowledge;
2. skills;
3. values/attitudes.

Most of the time you can put all kind of learning objectives in one of the three categories. But for me it is not sufficient anymore.

I started to think about this when I was reading a great Dutch book 'Imagineering' about the leisure industry (see bol.com). It is explaining the shift from a services industry to an industry where memorable experiences are important. A famous example is Starbucks. You are not just buying a coffee, you are buying an experience. Companies like Disney and the Efteling are other strong examples. In the book Nijs & Peters are telling us that the American model has to be changed, it is not just about adding some theatre and a theme but it is about authentic experiences.



Is that not what learning should be: a memorable experience? Let's be honest: how many times are we succeeding as learning designers? Sometimes people forget about the course when they are leaving the classroom or closing the internet browser. We have to be more focussed. Let's create strong experiences, which are hitting people's hearts as well as their minds!!

Let's start with asking ourselves what kind of memorable experiences this course will create. Let's put in another category: experiences. Make it part of your learning objectives. In every course or other learning experience.

Open content!

Open source is hot. You cannot start a conversation about e-Learning without the magic word. But what about Open content? It is definitely not really 'the new kid on the block'. In educational settings Open content could be the thing we are missing the most. There are to many learning environments without good and challenging content. Open content could be the break thru for e-Learning.

When we look for a definition Wikipedia tells us: "Open content, coined by analogy with "open source", describes any kind of creative work (including articles, pictures, audio, and video) or engineering work (i.e. open machine design) that is published in a format that explicitly allows the copying and the modifying of the information by anyone; not exclusively by a closed organization, firm or individual." Most of the time the Creative Commons licenses are used.

Under the Creative Commons license you can chose different options. MIT for example defines that you cannot modify the materials. MIT started the OpenCourseWare initiative in 2001 already. In 2007 MIT will offer all their 1800 courses online. Sometimes it is just a summary of a book or a PowerPoint presentation, sometimes it is multi media material. Another recent initiative is from the Open University in The Netherlands. They are offering extended online courses with some great quality. The number of courses are limited but growing every month. Visit their website and enjoy the courses.


Open content is not the same as free content. Free content can be closed in a way that it is not possible to modify it. But also free content can be interesting. MERLOT is probably the first repository for educational content (at least the one I know). It started in 1997 and contains more then 16,000 materials for higher education. But MERLOT owns the material. You can use it. There is some really good material and because of the peer reviews and ranking it is easy to get your hands on the right stuff.

Also on a national and local level, all kind of initiatives to share free (and sometimes open) content are started. Sometimes from universities, sometimes from branch organisations.

One of the most positive initiatives is the "e-Learning for Kids". This foundation from Nick van Dam wants to offer good quality e-Learning courses for kids, for free. There are various materials, from various developers with various quality.


So if you feel like learning or like creating and sharing; make Open content the best performing and nicest kid of the block! The best friend of learning people.