Sample: Get Calendar Data Using Exchange Web Services (C#)

Posted by admin | Asp.Net | Sunday 6 December 2009 11:23 am

When someone asked my former manager David Treadwell what he did on a daily basis his answer was “Go to meetings and delete email”.  Unfortunately that often describes my life as well.  It is always challenging to manage your time.  I want to ensure I’m spending enough on technology, people, customers, etc.  To make this easier, I’m using the Categories feature of Exchange to code each meeting I have (these are my custom categories):


image


At a glance I can then tell what kind of meeting I’m headed to next.  But I still need a way to understand how I’m spending my time every month.  What would be great is to collect all the category data from all my meetings and then get the ratios.  This blog covers a sample that does that.


There are several ways you can get your calendar data.  In this case the task is very simple:  collect all calendar items in a given month including the category setting.  The easiest way to do this is to use Exchange Web Services support to ask the server for the data directly.  The sample has a library which can be used to connect to EWS and collect all the calendar items and a console application which provides an easy way to drive the program logic.  The following shows the overall structure of the sample code (click for larger image):


image


The diagram was generated using new Generate Dependency Graph feature of Visual Studio Ultimate.  The graph is created by shredding the binaries themselves so we find everything.


There are a few key areas to look through for EWS code.  The first is the GetExchangeProxy helper which sets up the connection to Exchange using ExchangeServiceBinding.  In this case we are using integrated Windows security so that a userid/password is not required (you could supply them as an alternative):


image


The next interesting helper method is BuildQueryFilter which is responsible for creating a FindItemType filter class.  This class allows you to construct a query for the server to find the data we care about.  The code builds up a series of arguments to scope calendar items between the start and end dates.  For example, this snippet of code sets a criteria of all dates greater than or equal to the start date:


image


A similar block of code sets the filter for less than or equal to the end date.  Finally these two conditions are combined with an And clause to essentially mean “>= start AND <= end”:


image


Once the filter is set, we can retrieve all of the calendar items we asked for.  In this case I’m returning the array in our own CalendarItemList which will allow us to enumerate the data from the client code.  The GetNextItem method will then strip the full Exchange calendar item (with over 100 fields) down to just a handful we care about and return the data in a CalendarItemData instance.  There are a huge number of fields available for return.  You can use the DebugTraceCalItem helper method to dump the entire type if you are interested in pulling back more data.


The console application then becomes pretty easy:  parse and validate all the arguments, connect to the exchange server, then write each calendar item out in a comma separated view (CSV) format.  The output can either be written directly to a file or to the console for redirection to other locations.  At that point it is very easy to simply open the file directly in Excel where you can edit it, create charts, analyze it, etc. 


I’ve included a sequence diagram in the project which demonstrates the core logic of the Run method (click for larger image):


image


(Note that generating a sequence diagram with VS Ultimate is very easy: just place your cursor in the method and right click to run “Generate Sequence Diagram”)


image


Running the application is now very simple:


timespent /start:9/1/2009 /end:9/30/2009 /out:c:\temp\sept09.csv /mailpath:https://mydomain/ews/exchange.asmx


“mydomain” in this case is the domain address for your Exchange server.  You can get this from your exchange administrator (it will likely match the path you are using on your phone to sync your mail over the air). 


You can download the Exchange SDK from MSDN here.  You can download a full copy of the source code here.


Enjoy!

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Learning Community, Peers and Outside Experts

Posted by admin | New Techs | Sunday 6 December 2009 10:33 am

While strife with technical challenges, Nancy White and John Smith’s presentation at LearnTrends 2009 (LearnTrends 2009 Recordings) provided some really interesting food for thought. In some ways this relates closely to the post on Selling Learning Communities.

By way of background, Nancy White and John Smith are gurus around all things Communities and Networks. I’ve worked with Nancy to create the Communities and Networks Connection which helps me continuously learn. And I keep a copy of their book Digital Habitats; Stewarding Technology for Communities next to my computer.

The central idea of the presentation was something that Nancy called triangulation. Now, I’m not 100% certain what Nancy meant by this, but I interpret the idea to organize learning community events where you bring together three groups:

  • People inside the host / sponsoring organization who have a particular need
  • Outside experts
  • Outside peers

You (or an outside facilitator) facilitates a conversation around a particular need.

Let’s say the need is – Where and how should we apply social learning in our organization?

The facilitator would get the people inside the company to define the problem. Then would facilitate sharing with peers and with experts around the issue.

I’ve seen similar kinds of peer sharing at roundtable events. And it’s really powerful. Adding in the experts would make it even more powerful.

I could imagine where this could be an ongoing sharing dialog that would cross several organizations. For example, you could pull together L&D staff from 10 companies together into a community and then have people like myself and George Siemens who could help facilitate critical issues and conversations and draw in additional outside expertise as needed.

To me, that sounds like a really powerful model.

Great stuff Nancy and John.


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2009 Top Posts and Topics

Posted by admin | New Techs | Sunday 6 December 2009 10:33 am

It’s interesting at the end of the year to go back through blog posts to see what my Best of 2009 is.  I’ll also do a post similar to my post last year 2008 2009 that will look at my 12 eLearning Predictions for 2009.  But for now, let me just focus on my Best of 2009.

To create this list, I’m using eLearning Learning as described in Using Special Parameters to Create Year End Post for details on how I’ve come up with this list.  I’m including posts from December 2008.

Top 20 eLearning Technology Posts for 2009

  1. 12 eLearning Predictions for 2009
  2. Top 100 eLearning Items
  3. LinkedIn Guide for Knowledge Workers
  4. Collaboration Tools
  5. Twitter as Personal Learning and Work Tool
  6. Top 99 Workplace eLearning Blogs
  7. Twitter Conference Ideas
  8. Using SharePoint
  9. How to Download YouTube Videos
  10. eLearning Conferences 2010
  11. Tool Set 2009
  12. LMS and Social Learning
  13. Business of Learning
  14. Web Conferencing Services
  15. eLearning Costs
  16. Twitter and Webinars
  17. Remote Collaboration
  18. Share Best Practices – Patterns
  19. 100 Conversation Topics
  20. Better Memory

Other Notable Posts

  1. Rapid Learning Management Systems
  2. eLearning Strategy
  3. How long does it take to select an LMS?
  4. Discussion Forums for Knowledge Sharing at Capital City Bank
  5. eLearning Portal Integration
  6. Data Driven

Notable Topics for 2009

Work Skills and Knowledge Work

SharePoint

Long Tail

Side Note – Read Counts

I also looked at the top posts according to read counts.  What I found is that read counts are actually dominated by mostly older posts.  Here are the top 25 according to read counts:

  1. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2006/02/what-is-elearning-20.html
  2. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2006/09/rapid-elearning-tools.html
  3. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2008/12/how-to-download-youtube-videos.html
  4. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2007/11/flash-quiz-tools.html
  5. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2007/09/lms-satisfaction-features-and-barriers.html
  6. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2007/04/elearning-software.html
  7. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2006/03/software-simulation-elearning-w-links.html
  8. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2007/03/elearning-trends.html
  9. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2008/12/sharepoint-examples.html
  10. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2007/02/course-authoring-and-rapid-elearning.html
  11. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2007/10/video-format-comparison-flash-wmv.html
  12. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2009/01/12-elearning-predictions-for-2009.html
  13. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2008/04/100-elearning-articles-and-white-papers.html
  14. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2009/01/elearning-conferences.html
  15. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2009/09/learntrends-2009-free-online-conference.html
  16. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2008/12/using-sharepoint.html
  17. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2008/01/test-scorm-courses-with-lms.html
  18. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2008/09/training-method-trends.html
  19. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2008/12/collaboration-tools.html
  20. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2007/10/roi-and-metrics-in-elearning.html
  21. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2008/01/request-for-proposal-rfp-samples.html
  22. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2008/06/free-flash-quiz-tools.html
  23. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2009/04/top-100-elearning-items.html
  24. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2006/08/first-time-visitor-guide.html
  25. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2007/04/authoring-tools.html

The ones from the time frame shown above are already listed in the top list.

  1. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2008/12/how-to-download-youtube-videos.html
  2. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2008/12/sharepoint-examples.html
  3. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2009/01/12-elearning-predictions-for-2009.html
  4. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2009/01/elearning-conferences.html
  5. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2009/09/learntrends-2009-free-online-conference.html
  6. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2008/12/using-sharepoint.html
  7. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2008/12/collaboration-tools.html
  8. http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2009/04/top-100-elearning-items.html

For some reason, December last year was a really good month for posts and page views.


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Selling Learning Communities – Not Everyone Will or Wants a Group Hug

Posted by admin | New Techs | Sunday 6 December 2009 10:33 am

Compressed Picture of Jack M for email Jack Merklein from Xerox Global Services did a really great presentation at LearnTrends 2009 entitled - Common tools for Diverse Communities at Xerox Global Services.  You can find the LearnTrends 2009 Recording including Jack’s presentation.  A few follow-up thoughts.

Jack is responsible for the development, care and tools for learning communities and knowledge sharing initiatives.  In practice this means a lot of different things and across many different learning communities.  A few of the different communities he discussed:

  • New Hire
  • Sustainability
  • CxO

While the title centered on tools for communities and knowledge sharing and he provided a list of tools …

Existing Tools:

  • Outlook email distribution lists
  • Live Meeting with Brain Shark
  • DocuShare
  • Calendars
  • Wiki
  • Instant messaging
  • Links to training catalog

Emerging Tools:

  • Podcasts
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn (Intra-community)
  • Training videos on YouTube
  • A Second Life Island available

Most of the discussion didn’t focus on tools.  Instead, it focused on Jack’s no nonsense ability to make communities an effect part of learning.  And particularly, I got to spend time with Jack on how he sells learning communities in the organization.

Jack does an amazing job of finding out what people in the community really care about and need.  For one community, they meet every two weeks and a lot of times the topic comes a week before and he pulls in subject matter experts to present.  He ensures that the facilitation then focuses on the key issue that the people in the room cares about.  I’ve seen exactly this kind of thing work really well before.  But I’ve not seen it done as systematically as how Jack has designed it.

Jack was a quote machine during the session, here are some of the phrases he used:

  • "Publication warden"
  • "Billable always wins"
  • “CoP Warden”
  • “not everyone will or wants a group hug”
  • "young and stupid"
  • “Training is a resignation”
  • "Capture it damn it - put on community site" (responsibility of all members of a community to make knowledge explicit)
  • “Amenable to bribing everyone”

Part of the beauty of Jack and his style is that the language he uses is plain, business oriented.  Everything sounds obvious when he says it.  In a way, he didn’t feel like he was ever “selling learning communities”.  That was my language.  Instead, he asked people if they wanted help with a particular problem.  If he could bring together experts and expertise and facilitate a conversation on X and then help capture that – is that something you’d want.  Absolutely!  In fact, we all want that all the time! 

In a later session, we discussed the fact that one of the big barriers in many organizations is that they don’t “have a Jack.”  Selling learning communities or social learning or anything other than formal learning / training is hard because we find ourselves using the language of learning or learning community. 

As an example of needing a Jack, the question - How do you avoid the issue … “I’m too busy” … Jack’s answer is basically, if the value is high enough, you are focused on problems they are faced with right now, they will come.  His example is a community that meets on Friday afternoons.  Yikes.  I’d never plan something then.  But he gets amazing participation because the topics focus on hard hitting topics where people need help right now.  Senior leaders participate because they see the value.  And participation is rewarded through recognition … and sometimes bribed.

Now let’s all be a Jack!


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Learning from Others in the Room

Posted by admin | New Techs | Sunday 6 December 2009 10:33 am

After LearnTrends 2009, I received a note from a person I know and highly respect that said, “I dropped in on several sessions over the last three days and wanted to thank you for your good facilitation skills …”

It’s great to get that positive feedback, but this was actually a bit of a surprise.  I often felt during the conference that I was not doing a good job of taking advantage of the expertise that was often in the room.

This was amplified when George Siemens did a highly participatory session where he had the audience list out design considerations for several things like formal vs. informal, etc.  Some tweets during the session:

  • “opens the whiteboard up to let participants create the agenda…whoa! crazy fun! ” @chambo_online
  • “Very intrigued to have 130 people writing on a whiteboard all at once at #learntrends … and amazingly, it didn’t suck” @cynan_sez
  • “130+ people writing on same Elluminate whiteboard and GWave also being completed. Online learning has arrived” @GillianP

That session flew by and was a great use of the power in the room.  A masterful job by George.  Great stuff.  And something that I believe he and I will be doing together in the future in some way.

Other than George’s session, most of the rest of the conference had active chat, but it was limited in many ways.  The time we had for open discussion didn’t seem to achieve that much discussion.  It rambled. 

My gut tells me that if I had designed things in a particular way, we could have had some truly amazing sessions.

So, please help me so that in a month when I’m designing future online sessions, I can come back here and design something great.

What are some ways that I can facilitate meaningful learning from others in the room during online sessions?

Have you seen examples of something that was powerful?

What conversation would you have wanted to have or see?

Please comment or post with ideas.  And if you don’t have an ideas, please just retweet to ask someone else for ideas?  And maybe come back in a day and see if some of the ideas help spark other ideas for you.


eLearning Technology

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eLearning Conferences 2010

Posted by admin | New Techs | Sunday 6 December 2009 10:33 am

Clayton R Wright just sent me his incredible annual list of eLearning Conferences. Clayton publishes this as a Word document but does not publish it as a web page and so we’ve somewhat established a pattern of published in here. You can contact him at: crwr77@gmail.com.

image

December 2009

January 2010

February 2010

March 2010

Information for the 2010 versions of the two conferences listed below was not available.

April 2010

Information for the 2010 versions of the two conferences listed below was not available.

May 2010

Information for the 2010 versions of the seven conferences listed below was not available.

June 2010

Information for the 2010 versions of the ten conferences listed below was not available.

  • June 1-3 2009 Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference: Designing New Learning Contexts for a Globalising World, 3rd, National Institute of Education, Singapore http://conference.nie.edu.sg/2009/index.php
  • June 3-5, 2009 International Conference on Interactive Design and Children, 8th, Milano, Como, Italy. http://www.idc09.polimi.it/
  • June 5-7, 2009 Japan Association for Language Teaching Computer Assisted Language Learning (JALTCALL 2009): Expanding Learner Potential – It’s Your Call!, Hongo Campus, Toyo Gakuen University, Japan. http://jaltcall.org/news/
  • June 8-10, 2009 Communicating Change: Weaving the Web into the Future, 7th annual, Arts and Humanities Graduate School, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, the United Kingdom. http://www.gla.ac.uk/faculties/arts/graduateschool/graduateschoolconference2009
  • June 10-12, 2009 International Problem-based Learning Symposium: What Are We Learning about Learning?, 2nd, Republic Polytechnic, Singapore http://www.rp.sg/symposium/2009/
  • June 13-19, 2009 InfoComm09: Information Communications Marketplace, Orlando, Florida, USA. www.infocomm.org
  • June 16-17, 2009 Innovations in e-Information: the UKeIG 2009 State of the Art Conference, Manchester Conference Centre, Manchester, United Kingdom. http://www.ukeig.org.uk/conf2009/index.html
  • June 17-19, 2009 Sloan-C International Symposium on Emerging Technology Applications for Online Learning and Moodle Moot 2009, Hyatt Regency San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA. http://www.emergingonlinelearningtechnology.org/
  • June 23-25, 2009 m-Libraries Conference, 2nd, hosted by the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. May be held again in 2010 or 2011. www.library.open.ac.uk/mLibraries/
  • June 28-July 3, 2009 IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo, Cancun Mexico. http://www.icme09.org/

July 2010

August 2010

September 2010

October 2010

November 2010

December 2010

January 2011

  • January 4-7, 2011 Presidents Institute, sponsored by the Council of Independent Colleges, Palm Springs, California, USA. http://www.cic.edu/conferences_events/index.asp
  • January 7-12, 2011 American Library Association Midwinter Meeting, San Diego, California, USA. http://www.ala.org/
  • January 9-12, 2011 Association for Information Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education (ACUTA) Winter Seminar, Pointe Hilton Resort at Tapatio Cliffs, Phoenix, Arizona, USA. http://www.acuta.org/home.cfm
  • January 30-February 1, 2011 American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) Transfer Conference, annual, New Orleans Marriott at the Convention Center, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. http://www.aacrao.org/
  • January 30-February 2, 2011 National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU) Annual Conference, Washington, D.C., USA. http://www.naicu.edu/events/

February 2011

March 2011

April 2011

  • April 2-6, 2011 National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST), Caribe Royal, Orlando, Florida, USA. http://www.narst.org/
  • April 3-6, 2011 Association for Information Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education (ACUTA) Annual Conference and Exhibition, 40th, Hilton Bonnet Creek Resort, Orlando, Florida, USA.

May 2011

June 2011

July 2011

August 2011

  • August 8-12, 2011 Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, SIGGRAPH 2011: International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, 38th, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. http://www.siggraph.org/s2011
  • August ?, 2011 National Association for Media Literacy Education, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. http://www.namle.net/

September 2011

  • September 6-9, 2011 British Educational Research Association Conference, Institute of Education, London, United Kingdom. http://www.bera.ac.uk/
  • September 13-15, 2011 International Conference on Education and Development, 11th, sponsored by British Department of International Development, Cambridge International, Aga Kahn Foundation, and Jeremy Greenland Bursary Trust, Oxford, the United Kingdom, http://www.cfbt.com/UKFIET/

October 2011

  • October 2-5, 2011 International Council for Distance Education (ICDE) World Conference, 24th, hosted by Universitas Terbuka, Bali, Indonesia. http://icde.org/
  • October 30-November 2, 2011 American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers Conference, 21st annual, Sheraton San Diego Hotel, San Diego, California, USA. http://www.aacrao.org/

November 2011


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SharePoint Fear and Loathing by Learning Professionals

Posted by admin | New Techs | Sunday 6 December 2009 10:33 am

I was surprised by the fear and loathing expressed around SharePoint yesterday at LearnTrends 2009.  I don’t think it’s the best tool out there, but it likely is the best tool being adopted by your IT department and is part of the Enterprise 2.0 plan in your organization.  My belief is that it’s going to be a big part of eLearning 2.0 for many workplace learning professionals.  SharePoint 2010 looks to be a much better product.

As such, I’m always looking for people who want to discuss how they are using it.  Certainly we’ll be doing more sessions like SharePoint in Corporate Learning - Free Micro Virtual Conference (see SharePoint Session Descriptions).  And I’ll continue to collect examples of how organizations are Using SharePoint.

In fact, towards that end, I would appreciate you connecting with me (email, LinkedIn) if:

  • You work in an organization that is using SharePoint and might be interested in sharing how you are using it.
  • You are a consultant who works on SharePoint workplace learning implementations.
  • You are interested in how SharePoint can better be used in your organization.

Look forward to connecting with you.


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LearnTrends Innovation Award Winners 2009

Posted by admin | New Techs | Sunday 6 December 2009 10:33 am

We’ve just announced the innovation awards associated with LearnTrends 2009. The session was fraught with technical difficulties, so I thought it would be worth capturing a bit about each of the four award winners here.

CUDA Business Brain

CUDA technologies is a small software firm within the Hi Performance Learning and IQ Business Group in South Africa, the United Stated and Australia.

In 2007, they launched the CUDA Business Brain as an integrated Workplace Performance Support Solution. It provides a blend of learning management and performance support. Because they operate in bandwidth constrained locations, they have implemented an extremely light web interface. They provide automated content distribution capability. A unique a Visio enabled process publishing tool that ‘walks’ users through performance support when they need it. This combination, backed by flexible expert location, rating and ranking mechanisms, makes our offering stand apart in providing cutting edge performance support and learning management to large audiences.

Learnosity

Learnosity provide a set of tools to help in the assessment, teaching and learning of spoken language skills. The Learnosity system is designed for speaking, listening and learning via a mobile phone.

The use of the mobile phone allows students practice their spoken skills in and outside of the classroom, facilitating student-led learning. The use of such simple technology eliminates any required technical support in the classroom, and make the system extremely easy to use for both teachers and students. Voice-chat and text-chat facilitate structured, moderated and anonymous peer-to-peer learning.

Thinking Worlds

Thinking Worlds is a new kind of 3D “Serious Games” simulation engine and authoring tool. It provides an authoring interface that fuses a visual story boarding system with easy to follow templates, both of which require no programming skill at all. It makes it possible to develop rich simulations in a fast and cost-effective way. It publishes simulations that are both LMS and SCORM compliant. Playback is through standard technologies allowing easier distribution.

CLT Plug and Learn

CLT Plug&Learn is an interesting blended language learning course combining learning software with extensive online tutoring and regular (virtual) classroom training, framed by a placement test, a Kick-Off meeting and a final test. Based on the results of the placement test, students are offered a language course designed to meet their goals. During the self-study phase, they practice their written, reading, listening, comprehension and pronunciation skills with the language software. A tutoring team assists students via e-mail. They receive a weekly e-mail with their assignment, additional written production exercises, motivational and technical tips as well as personalized feedback based on the self-study results as recorded in the LMS.

Congratulations to the winners.


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Be Ready to Take Advantage of Opportunities

Posted by admin | New Techs | Sunday 6 December 2009 10:33 am

I participated in a session at DevLearn that I mentioned last week in my posts Missed Opportunities and Enough Tools for Now. The session was conducted where we broken into discussion groups around different topics each their own facilitator.

My group discussed that as learning professionals we need to put ourselves in position to be able to serve learners and internal/external clients through the best possible solution we can design and create given the constraints that exist. This might mean improving our capabilities around existing offerings. It also means getting ready to offer new kinds of solutions that are outside of what we currently deliver.

The challenge in this is:

  • There’s a very wide range of possible issues that we can be presented. It’s often hard to know ahead of time what your next request will be.
  • If we haven’t spent time and effort to be ready to offer a particular kind of solution, it’s harder to sell, harder to estimate, and has greater risk.
  • We have limited time and resources to spend trying new things out and putting ourselves in position to deliver them when needed.

Some of the specific suggestions that were made by the group:

  • Build strong internal networks and relationships in order to develop predictability and agility for the learning organization
  • Have discussions with lots of different parts of the organization in order to have a better sense of what’s coming in the future
  • Figure out what this means in terms of business / learner needs, likely requirements, and constraints
  • Get the key people in the room to brainstorm potential offerings
  • Build prototypes to learn and later be able to sell
  • Start real small on a project with no major impact
  • Learn to be a Translator – often the barrier is different language being used by different parts of the organization.
  • “Sneak it in”
  • Share among distributed learning organizations
  • Form a framework of offerings

The nice thing about this list is that it follows a process that I recommend around defining an eLearning Strategy.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this group or helped me last week via this blog to get prepared.


eLearning Technology

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Dilbert Warns Me About Work Literacy

Posted by admin | New Techs | Sunday 6 December 2009 10:33 am

Should the following Dilbert worry me about Work Literacy?

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Much of the idea of Work Literacy is to help people who need to keep up with how technology impacts knowledge work.

Maybe reading blog posts about the topic is okay :)


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