I attended another energetic Seattle Lunch 2.0 on February 15th hosted by blist and the hardest working man in the tech business, Josh Maher. Having experimented with the blist beta, I must say they truly are the world’s easiest database.
Their “rich and intuitive UI” certainly makes creating and managing databases a fun, easy and motivational user experience. So having combined the words “database” and “fun” in one sentence, a round of applause to blist’s user experience consultant, who I chatted with, Amir, I believe is his name. I am looking forward to blist’s “aggressive” feature release schedule in the coming months, as well as their tailoring for mobile devices (i.e iPhone). Keep up the good work blist.
What’s in it for me…it would be really cool to see blist take a look at building a learning widgets, as Mark Ohelert and Brent Schlenker call it. As the network of information grows and informal learning content continues to be king, giving learners an easy way to “track…knowledge and content directly related to their job and their performance” seems crucial. So blist if you are reading and need someone to help prototype or test drive, just let me know.
badsquare 
Blist sounds cool. I’ve been getting very excited about BENTO on the Mac. Its Mac-easy and integrates nicely with other Mac apps. Blist will have me, if they can figure out how to do data/mail merges in a simple way. I want to create a form with certain variables populated from the database that looks like a letter and simply click send. Why is that so darn hard for these database apps to put together?
Hey man this post about learning widgets is very interesting. I’d like ideas from all about connecting learning widgets with learner construction (George Siemens). Ok?
In this recent paper, George Siemens defines roles for educators and instructional designers, which is something you and I have been discussing. Before learning more about his very interesting new idea, look at how Siemens describes the pressure on instruction to change through this summary: “While camps often clash over principles of guided instruction versus minimal guidance, or instructivism versus constructivism [JB emphasis], the nuanced and complex nature of learning suggests each approach may have value in different contexts.”
Then Siemens focuses on models of educator and learner roles and interaction in a technologically enabled era, which could expand our discussion about e*learning. Of the several models he presents, this is his definition of instruction as network administration your consideration. His source is Clarence Fisher, blogger and classroom teacher, who suggests a model of teacher as network administrator: “Just as our mind is a continuously evolving set of connections between concepts, so our students and their learning can become placed at the centre of a personal learning network which they construct with our help [JB emphasis] for their maximum benefit. Helping students to gain the skills they require to construct these networks for learning, evaluate their effectiveness, and work within a fluid structure is a massive change in how the business of classrooms is usually structured.”
“In Fisher’s model, a primary task of the educator [JB: e*learning specialist?] is to assist learners in forming connections and creating learning networks. [JB emphasis] These learning networks should assist learners in developing competence to meet the objectives or outcomes of a particular course. As learners encounter new information sources, the educator encourages them to critically evaluate the source’s suitability as part of a holistic and diversified learning network. [JB: widgets for employees? Or, wiki pages and posts?] Gaps in the learning network are addressed by both learner (self‐directed by active participation in the network and through self‐reflection) and educator (through evaluating, with the learner, the nature and quality of the learning network [external] and how key concepts are related and understood [conceptual]).”
For additional information: http://it.coe.uga.edu/itforum/Paper105/Siemens.pdf. In closing, I don’t see a conflict between learning networks and blended learning, informal learning, web-based learning, etc. Right?
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