A book review by Dave Whittington

Marc Rosenberg has been writing eloquently about e-learning for many years and has established a well-earned reputation in the fields of organizational learning and performance support. He’s a regular contributor to the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) publications and is a past president of the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI). The bottom line ... Rosenberg is hugely influential. That’s why I’m so excited about his latest book. It was published in November 2005, so it really is hot off the press.

Beyond E-Learning develops a coherent framework that integrates e-learning, knowledge management and performance support. This highly strategic approach, ensuring that learning investment is linked to business goals, has been Calliope Learning’s focus since Tammy and I relocated to Victoria in 2004.

Rosenberg makes great use of up-to-date case studies and a wide range of current thinking to develop his Smart Enterprise Framework, a vision of how organizational learning needs to managed in the future.

If you’re at all interested in the management of organizational learning, whether that’s e-learning, coaching and mentoring, performance support systems, communities of practice, face-to-face training and/or knowledge repositories ... then this is a book you must read.

At the end of last year, Calliope Learning facilitated a 1/2 credit elective for the University of Victoria's Certificate in Adult and Continuing Education Program. This course was open to the public and organized through UVic, but we can also provide this workshop to your organization or team, tailored to your specific needs. For UVic, the workshop was fully online and lasted six weeks.

We received great feedback from the students and Diane Anderson the Senior Program Coordinator said "'Excellent' was the rating regarding the overall course". Praise was given specifically for the readings, the activities and the facilitation.

We'll be delivering the workshop in a two day face-to-face format at the University of Calgary on February 28th and March 1st. The workshop is offered by Continuing Education and is open to the public. There's still space available and you can get more information and register by following the link below.

We have also facilitated the same material in a face-to-face one day workshop. Whatever your needs around virtual team skills, please get in touch.

Moodle continues to be adopted by organizations around the world. Of particular interest is its adoption in the UK by the Open University. The UK's OU is one of the biggest Higher Education institutions in the world with a commitment to open and flexible delivery of learning. Closer to home, Royal Roads University has also adopted Moodle and will be rolling it out during 2006.

Unfortunately the first Canadian Moodle Moot that we mentioned in our last newsletter has had to be cancelled. The conference organizers are still enthusiastic and given the increasing interest in Moodle I'm sure there'll be a conference in Canada soon.

In case you missed our last Muse ... Moodle is an open source (free) Learning Content Management System (similar in many ways to WebCT and Blackboard). Calliope Learning uses Moodle to deliver its own online courses and would be interested in hearing from other small businesses who have adopted Moodle or are considering Moodle as a platform to support online learning.

We've set our dates for LearningEdge certification workshops for Spring 2006.

We've scheduled two face to face workshops ... In Victoria, February 20-22 and in Vancouver, May 17-19.

We can also set up face to face and online workshops as and when required and are currently finalizing dates for a workshop in Calgary.

Please get in touch if you're interested in using LearningEdge in your consulting practice or in your organization.