Desire2Blog

It seems obvious that there is a perceived void in the development of future leaders in the field of e-Learning. At least it certainly appears that way. I come to that conclusion based on the fact that there are three different efforts by reputable organizations to develop leadership academies focused on e-Learning. One by ITC (note: I am a board member), one by WCET (note: I am involved in the event planning and execution), and one by SLOAN-C. From the Instructional Technology Council (ITC) : (copied from website) ITC 2009 Leadership Academy July 26-28, 2009, Costa Mesa, California Application Deadline: May 20, 2009 See Academy Web site The ITC Leadership Academy is designed to develop and enrich the leadership skills of distance learning professionals in higher educational settings. Ideal candidates include distance learning administrators or learning technologies administrators with three or more years of managerial experience in a distance learning...

In the category of chock one up for electronic communications, MikeLeSombre ( his blog ) changed his copyright on the image shown above after getting requests from several people (including me) asking him to reconsider his "All Rights Reserved" copyright and allow sharing through Creative Commons licensing. That's exactly what he did. Now his image is licensed as CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 which means that his image will be used and shared far and wide - legally. Thanks Mike. You have many fans who appreciate your handiwork with this poster. Resistence is futile* (see note above) All your IMS are belong to us.

A few years ago I started a scholarship fund at Lake Superior College for students who are pursuing an online degree program or at least completing most of their courses via online delivery. Back then I was struck by the irony (or maybe sadness?) while attending the student awards banquet that none of the scholarships were going to online students. That just didn't seem right considering that about 15% of our enrollment was for online courses, but none of the financial support was being given to online students. They were clearly a hidden population. Now the online enrollments make up over 25% of our total enrollment, but I am happy to report that for the past several years we have honored online students on scholarship night. (CC photo by stuartpilbrow ) This year there were three online scholarship winners. Today I received thank you cards from each of them. They want to communicate with all the people who made their awards possible, so I will post their words here in an effort t...

I haven't posted anything about the Blackboard purchase of Angel during the first two days of the hub-bub because as my mother once told me, "If you don't have anything snarky and bitchy to say, just don't say anything at all." As I was preparing to write this post (and while mulling over her words of wisdom), I decided that I need to set the record straight regarding this much-maligned purchase. (CC angel photo by adselwood ) What a fabulous move by Blackboard! Once again, the Blackboard suits in the white hats have pulled a marvelous coup in the LMS market. Current Angel clients should embrace the fact that they have now been adopted by the mothership - where there will always be a bird in every pot, a car in every garage, and a lawyer in every chair. I'm totally perplexed by all the negativity being expressed by various members of the education community. I even heard a few people remark that Michael Chasen appears to be a complete slimeball in this video ...