Free e-Learning Additions

It has been a while since I have added anything to the Free e-Learning page. With a little extra time this weekend, I have added a history section, which includes the courses below.

History

An Overview of American History (video) - Digital History

Ancient History - BBC

British History - BBC

Native Words, Native Warriors (Codetalkers) - NMAI

The First Thanksgiving - Plimoth.org

The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization - PBS

The Roman Empire in the First Century - PBS

U.S. History Timeline - Digital History

If you have any free e-learning that you would recommend, please leave a comment or shoot me an e-mail.

Need a Storyboard? Here's a Place to Get Them

The eLearning Coach now has the "Storyboard Depot," where you can download free storyboard templates. If you have a storyboard template of your own that you would like to share on the depot, you can do that too.

The eLearning Coach is also full of other great resources. Take a look around at http://theelearningcoach.com.

Video on SixthSense Technology

Here is a great video about the potential of sixth sense technology. It will be very exciting to see this technology take hold and certainly exciting to think about all the potential it will have in e-learning.



This was presented at TEDtalks, which after seeing this, I will be watching more often.

On The Cloud

On occasion, I have written about the "Cloud" and have expected to use cloud computing more and more. So, it is time to reflect on how much cloud computing I do. Here are the tools that I use while on the Cloud, in no particular order:

WordPress - my blog

Delicious - bookmarking and sharing my bookmarks

Twitter - sharing my incoherent thoughts on e-learning

LinkedIn - professional networking, participating in e-learning/ISD groups and keeping an updated professional profile

Google Docs - occasionally creating docs and spreadsheets

Gmail - easy, simple e-mail

Picasa Web Albums - store, view and share my photos

YouTube - everyone knows what this is for... my videos

Screenr - creating quick, easy screencasts that I can Tweet and/or embed in my blog

ChartGo - this one is new for me, but I like how easy it is to make charts that I can keep on the cloud or save on my hard drive (yes, I have a hard drive too)

I think I have established a bit of a residence on the Cloud. Are there cloud apps that you would recommend? I would love to here about them.

Google Chrome OS Announced

Google has announced they will release the Chrome Operating System in 2010. This OS is for netbooks and takes full advantage of the cloud. Thus, less of a need for a hard drive and a much quicker machine. In fact, they are currently boasting of a 7 second boot-up time. The success of a Chrome OS can mean a huge leap in cloud computing and hopefully more e-learning tools and apps on the cloud too.

Here is a video preview of Chrome OS.



Not sure what cloud computing is?

• Cloud Computing in Plain English (explanation from CommonCraft)


• Cloud Service and Deployment (Brandon Hall)

LearnTrends 2009 Archive Videos Now Available

If you were not able to attend this past week's LearnTrends Conference, they have recorded the sessions and made them available at the link below.

http://learntrends.ning.com/page/learntrends-2009-november

The sessions were wonderful. Thank you to everyone who put it together. I learned quite a bit during these 3 days and plan to visit the recordings of the few sessions I was unable to attend.

Free and Easy Chart Creation Tool

Here is a free, practical tool for creating charts.

ChartGo.com provides an incredibly easy to use web-based tool for creating charts, including bar, pie, line and area charts. You can quickly create a chart, save it, and add it to a course, website or blog. They also provide numerous avenues of sharing your chart (URL, e-mail link to chart, social bookmarking, Twitter, etc.).

If you want something more sophisticated, stick with Excel. If you want something you can create in a matter of minutes, this is the tool for you. Here is an example of a chart I made.

Here are some more examples of the types of charts you can make.