George Siemans has written an insightful paper entitled "Learning and Knowing in Networks: Changing roles for Educators and Designers". Definitely worth a read!

The University of Adelaide has a situational project underway. So what exactly is situational learning? I’ve not heard the term before! It seems to encompass all things Learning Designer cool - simulations, case studies, scenario based learning and online role plays.

The situational learning site has examples. The Mekong eSim  seems to be implemented entirely in Blackboard — at least thats what I can tell from the screen grabs.

You may also find Project EnRoLE of interest. EnRoLE as in Encouraging Roleplay based Learning Environments.

Stumbled across some refreshing and amazingly creative edu apps created by Futurelab. They seem to have pulled of creating applications that take advantage of mobile devices, games based learning and inquiry based learning theories.

• Create-A-Scape
  Create a Mediascape - “location-based experiences, games and tours on a handheld device”. Take a map, define regions (eg landmarks), add multimedia related content to your regions and then export to a mobile device format. If the mobile device has GPS, the multimedia will be automatically triggered. The mscape site allows mediascapes to be shared.
• Exploratree
  A tool to create thinking guides - brainstorming/problem solving templates. There are many templates to download.
• Moovl
  Moovl is a simulation tool that allows kids (primary school) to draw and animate objects with physical properties.
• Newtoon
  Build and share games based on Newtonian physics on mobile devices. Well thats what the description says - I could not give this one a try as it is not yet released.

Futurelab looks like a great place to work!

Just one little picture, but Tim Sodhi’s new drag and drop Learning design tool looks so promising - intuitive, simple and most importantly expressive.  The theoretical basis for the tool comes from the “The 8 Learning Events Model and its principles“. Wonder where I can find more info about the tool????

Tools to assist with Learning Design:

• Compendium
  OU mind-mapping tool
• LessonMapper
  Visual graph driven lesson planner