Google Wave - 5 Cool Benefits

1. Its all under one umbrella – one username and password to a powerful integrated platform. 2. It combines a variety of technologies into one dynamic communications platform: IM, email, document management and multimedia. 3. Its very much live. You see people type before even receiving the full message. 4. Its all fully online as a hosted web service. and finally, 5. Waves have a life of their own and can be embedded into social networks, websites, searched anytime and live on.

Webinar or Webcast?

So many internet terms - so little time. We all know what its like trying to figure out the ever growing terminology associated with the World Wild Web. Here's two that I feel could add spice to your portfolio of learning tools: webinars and webcasts. So whats the difference? Well thnk of webinars as more like web conferencing. That is sharing a live presentation like a powerpoint over the web using platforms such as Centra, Webex, Genesys, etc. You also can add audio using a phone conference or use Voice Over IP (VOIP). With these platforms you are broadcasting a low bandwidth presentation to a wide geographically spread audience and gathering live feedback through chat, polls, surveys - all the fairly standard features of web conferencing technology nowadays. Webinars are at the lower end of the scale in terms of price and static media distribution. Now to webcasting. As you can guess this moves up the scale a few notches with price and much more interactive content. Wikipedia describe a webcast as a media file distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand. Essentially, webcasting is “broadcasting” over the Internet. The most common form of webcasting is TV and Radio broadcasting, although more and more businesses are using webcasting for internal and external presentations. Annual General Meetings are sometimes broadcast in this way.

The use for Training seems fairly obvious. What a terrific way to maintain contact with course partipants after an event. Offer monthly live webinars or live webcasts. It allows you to update and supplement content with fresh case studies and guest speakers. In addition, you can ensure training is not a once-off event but a continuous learning process - as it should be.

Social Media and Learning

Over the past year, a lot has been written about the growth of social media and why you just can’t ignore it when planning your communications and marketing strategies. But what about social media and learning? How does it fit into the plans for the training department? What impact will it have on your training program? Which web 2.0 tools are relevant for your target audience? At its most basic level, social media is a change in how people discover, read, learn, and share news, information and content. It's a mix of sociology and technology, tranforming how we communicate: from one to many into many to many. So how can you as a trainer tap into the power of social media to successfully support and drive your training programs?

Social media has the ability to extend learning beyond the classroom or standalone e-learning module. Using tools like blogs, wikis, and social bookmarking to name but a few, employees can start to connect and collaborate with each other in a wider circle.

So how do you begin? Forrester Research have come up with a simple methodology to get your creative juices flowing as you try and figure out how social media fits into your business plans. Its called POST. People, Objectives, Strategy and Technology.

The CLO website has done a great job of aligning POST to the world of training.

P is People. Don't start a social strategy until you know the capabilities of your audience. Are they mostly spectators or active creators of content? What are the demographics of your employee population, and what are the demographics of your new hires? Many companies have older demographics for current employees, but almost 100 percent of new hires are in the Net Generation, meaning they are in their early 20s and have been active users of social networking during their college years.

O is objectives. Think about your business objectives in wanting to use social media for learning. Do you want to use these tools to attract new hires? Are you interested in using social media tools to keep Net Gens engaged on the job? Are you experiencing higher turnover among Net Gens?

S is Strategy. Strategy here means figuring out what will be different after you have achieved your business objective. In other words, do you want to increase the percentage of Net Gens who are interested in your organization? Do you want to lower turnover among Net Gens or do you want to build a robust online community of your best associates? Imagine the endpoint, and that will help you with how to begin on your journey.

T is Technology: Are you interested in creating an online community, a wiki, a blog or several hundred blogs held together by a common theme? How does this match up with your organization’s policy guidelines for using these tools? Has any group within your organization had success using any of these tools? If the answer to the last question is yes, reach out to this group and use them to build your business case for using social media for learning.

Virtual Collaboration

Virtual Collaboration should be on every trainers list of must-have learning technologies. The advantages of running an online classroom/virtual meeting are many and include:

· Connect with colleagues in seconds—making it easy to meet with anyone, anywhere, at any time.
· Run easy, reliable online meetings using only a browser and a phone (or using voice over IP).
· Reach and train staff across geographical boundaries
· No travel means no travel costs.
· 24/7, 365 Days a year open
· Save time
· Low setup and operational costs
· Increase productivity - more time in the field (in the office)

Moving training to a virtual online platform is not always painfree and requires skilled facilitators and an open-minded audience to actively participate and share ideas across cyberspace. But once up and running and incorporated as a standard learning platform, the benefits and savings become very much apparent.

Mobile Learning (or Knowledge in Your Pocket)

Mobile learning should be firmly on the agenda within any training department. The reasons for doing it seem fairly obvious, however few training departments it seems have actually invested in mobile projects. Why explore mobile as a platform for learning? Here are just some reasons to help you make your mind up:

1. (Almost) everyone has a mobile device, usually a phone

2. A mobile device means learning anytime, anywhere finally becomes a reality

3. Employees (depending on role) usually receive a company mobile device so no additional investment required here - just add content

4. Devices are becoming faster (broadband, 3G), more user-friendly and functionality-rich,

5. Internet-ready phones are becoming the norm (e.g. Blackberry) which open up access to a wealth of online knowledge

6. With the arrival of the touch-screen iPhone - phones and PDAs are becoming a cool must-have accessory for the business executive

7. The massive growth in Mobile applications (iPhones, Palm Pre, Google Android, etc.) mean there is no shortage of existing content or companies that develop content for mobile devices

8. New devices have bigger and better screens

9. Battery life has vastly improved so realizing truely cable-less learning is no longer an obstacle

These reasons alone should inspire and motivate any trainer to re-consider the power and access that a mobile device brings to their training programs.

Interactive Learning Devices (or Bye Bye Mouse)

Back in 2008, Bill Gates highlighted what he called the "power of the natural user interface" at the annual International Consumer Electronics Show. "The first digital decade was largely driven by the keyboard and the mouse. Just in the last two years, we've started to see the emergence of other modes of interaction," he said. "Touch on the Windows PC, touch on the iPhone, the Surface device that we're talking about. We started to see speech the Tellme capability built into the phone, the Ford Sync, where you get to talk and interact with your media or your phone capabilities." A Gartner analyst predicts the demise of the computer mouse in the next three to five years. Taking over will be so called gestural computer mechanisms like touch screens and facial recognition devices. Touch and speech technology are not the only ideas that could replace the standard desktop mouse. For example, Microsoft's Natal offers "touchless" technology where you motion to the screen to control the interface, skipping a touch display and speech input altogether. What has this got to do with learning. Well everything in fact. We need to be considering how users can benefit and learn from these new interfaces. How should we build content for these new devices? Instead of developing e-learning that is driven from a keyboard or mouse, should we explore developing gesture-driven wii-type games? Or thinking about virtual classrooms where the learner can step into a 3D environment with his/her own gesture-driven avatar which seems to be the direction Microsoft are taking with Project Natal. What about building games and e-learning for touchscreens - how should the content be structured and what will this mean for our usability guidelines? This all seems a bit futuristic and maybe not all that relevant for today. However, as more and more audiences begin to explore consumer games and edutainment options outside a company environment, we must think about how to harness this interest and technology for more company-driven training and create a buzz inhouse.