Mark Dowds

Collaborative Intelligence

Bob Carlton put me on to a great post by Ian Forrester from the UK. If you go to his site and click through the slideshare presentation, Slide 27 shows the movement from collective to collaborative intelligence with high engagement. I found these quite helpful in the context of setting goals for application adoption. Helping to move people from reading to leading is a good way of expressing situated learning theory. I am working away on a new learning platform that will be launched sometime in 2008 which mashes situated learning theory with knowledge management in a social framework. It is a wild ride to say the least...more to be announced soon

Learning Unmanagement Systems

I met Harold Jarche this past week in California at the Innovations In Learning Conference. It was great to meet another change agent and instigator in the learning space. I have been reading his blog since returning home and am very impressed by his candour and style as well as intelligent reviews. He is a man worth tracking with...not to mention Canadian.

Another person I got to meet at the conference this week was Stephen Downes. We sat together on a bus to Santa Cruz at the end of the conference to get to the seaside and experiment with wine tasting...yes sounds like an oxymoron. I have been tracking with Stephen's blog for a long time so it was a pleasure to meet the man behind the curtain. He really is an ubergeek with a worldview that will keep learning in the hands of the people. I found him very decent and humble. When I asked "how did you end up as a professional researcher" his response was classic: "Pure luck, I think..."

Moral of the story is...if you want to meet some very intelligent and Canadians who are disturbing the peace make sure you sign up to a conference in California sometime.

Innovations In Learning

I am currently hanging out pretending to go to seminars and workshops at the Innovations In Learning Conference in Santa Clara California. I came here to discover who is doing what and to find some compatriots in this space who can be helpful through this new season of life.

I have met so many Canadian's here which is very encouraging. So far the greatest innovations I have seen so far (although I tend to skip sessions) are coming from the great white north. It has been a helpful few days that has given me more confidence for what we are doing with Community Learning. I have been passionately submitted to the vision for over a year now and this has helped put more fuel on the fire.

You can see more about the conference on HitchHikr which is a very clever and useful conference application and on Janet Clarey's blog.

It is a hard life in the California sunshine

Change is in the air...

Yes...I am doing something new.