E-Learning Extravaganza

Here are various e-learning tidbits I've collected this week.

● What to look for in live e-learning. Are you looking to license a virtual classroom or Web-conferencing solution? Brandon-hall.com conducted an online survey asking people what they thought were the most important features in a live e-learning solution. The top five answers were:
* ease of use
* application sharing
* interactivity (polling, hand raising)
* good speed in low bandwidth
* VoIP

● Guide to Distributed Learning Environments. This Web reference from the University of Alberta is chock-full of information. The guide looks at instructional design, project management, and evaluation. Specific topics include analysis and design, development, production, implementation, and more. There's a lot of text to read, so you might want to print it out rather than straining your eyes to read it all on-screen.

● Update on MIT's OpenCourseWare program. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology launched its groundbreaking OpenCourseWare project four years ago, letting people around the world access course materials online for free. Since 2001, MIT has received more than 20,000 emails thanking the school for promoting the free spread of knowledge. And the project has become a model for other institutions interested in doing the same thing.

● Bad news about bogus degrees. In March, I wrote about online diploma mills that churn out fake degrees for money and how to tell whether an institution wasn't up on the up-and-up (click on the March archive on the sidebar and go to March 24th). Well, according to Federal Computer Week, hundreds of U.S. federal employees have received degrees from diploma mills, and have used government money to do so. Yikes! I don't want those people running my government!