Off Grid/On Grid: ARKit’s Guide to Sustainable Living

While briefly scanning my twitter feed I noticed a Tweet by Kate Kendal, who is a fairly great player in the Social media Scene in Melbourne. She advised me of a free event that ArkKit are having as part of the State of Design Festival at ACCA Forecourt.

ArkKit constructs a fullscale prefabricated house – the EcoStudio. The house will be approximately 50m2 and will have a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living space and an adaptable services hub dependant on its ultimate location. Throughout the Festival period the EcoStudio will host a number of events, installations and activities. Launching the program is the habitation phase where two people will live and work from the EcoStudio. Visit the occupants at the Studio or follow the blog to keep learn about their experience living on site. Other events are to include a house party, book launch, professional work shops, public seminars and artist workshops.

Come and check it out.

More details @ State of Design

HTML5 And Flash: Why It’s Not A War, And Why Flash Won’t Die

Some time ago Tim Legge ran out of his office and threw the opportunity out there for people to give their two cents on the HTML5 and Flash sissy fight disagreement.

There were some great conversations around the topic. Essentially we came to the opinion that flash wont die. It may die in web, but flash’s capabilities in multimedia and learning solutions for the corporate space is very much alive and thriving.

To support the discussions we had Ben Webber today pointed my (and others) attention to an article, Luke Reimer a contributor on Smashing Magazine wrote, that is very much a run down on the topic. Essentially he points out that our opinion was quite inline with what his is.

If you are interested in the detail he gives to support this, please check out the post.

HTML5 And Flash: Why It’s Not A War, And Why Flash Won’t Die

Six emerging technology trends in Australia

One of the guys from Nielsen was at the Web 3.0 conference and presented six emerging technology trends based on the results in their “Australian and Internet Technology Report 2010″. For a summary of what he had to say check out the full post.

The web is becoming inherently social

I had the pleasure of hearing Nick Love speak at the Web3.0 & the Future of Social Media last week at the Sheraton in Sydney. He was discussing the trend that more and more sites are providing a social experience.

If you’re interested, check out the full post.

What makes people do what they do?

Hi everyone,

I came across this piece on the weekend.  I think both the presentation and content are compelling.  Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.

http://linuxologist.com/1-general/why-open-source-makes-sense-scientifically-proven/?awesm=fbshare.me_ANIqb

Cheers, Tim

iPad Usability Gets Thumbs Down From Expert

Original Article from Lifehaker.

By Angus Kidman on May 11, 2010 at 3:00 PM

We now know how much an iPad will cost in Australia and what data plans will be available from Optus and Telstra, but a common question remains: do I really need one? If you’re after a good applications experience, usability research suggests the iPad may not be the best choice.

Picture by mikebaird

Adobe Launches Creative Suite 5

Adobe Launches the latest version of it’s creative suite, which includes products such as Flash and PhotoShop. There a number of amazing new features, including iPhone App creation in Flash, and 3D content and photo manipulation tools in PhotoShop. Check out these videos for a taste!

Adobe Flash platform experience (Flash Player 10.1)

Proactive vs Reactive: A new level of maturity for compliance and regulatory training

Bryan Chapman is passionate about innovative learning and has benchmarked learning practices at some of the best organisations in the world. His discussion around compliance training centered on the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and examples of ‘reactive’ processes (just ticking the box) as opposed to ‘proactive’ processes (training is ‘experienced’).  The CFR actually favours electronic vs paper-based delivery in the US.

The Future of the LMS: A Software Lifecycle Perspective

This report, prepared by Sage Road Solutions for the E-Learning Guild, describes the current status and future direction of Learning Management System (LMS) use in e-Learning.

The product lifecycle diagram shown suggests that LMSs, as we have known them until today, will likely start to fade from the learning ecosystem scene by 2012. Evidence suggests that over the next five years LMSs will look more like portals and less like platforms. They will feature Web 2.0 collaborative tools, including connected modular functionality, which organisations will select as being most rele­vant for the management needs of the learning organisation doing the purchasing.

How to Successfully Incorporate Avatars into E-Learning

An Avatar serves as an alter ego, usually representing the presenter, and is generally in the form of a 3D model. This character is able to mimic human characteristics, including voice, gesture, and body movement. They help introduce an element of humanity and can be used to guide a learner through a learning module and create an emotional connection with the learning, know as the persona effect.  There is a growing body of research to support the use of avatars in on line learning.