December Hodgepodge

My bloglines account is getting absolutely clogged with wonderful stuff this week, and I can't seem to get it together...so this is one of those bookmarking posts that I hope I can return to and expand:

• George Siemens was on tour in the last while, eloquently summarizing the e-portfolio realm and supporting his fascinating theory of learning, which he's calling connectivism.
  
• Karina exposes some key issues with selling people on e-portfolios, asking great questions about why there are so few examples of excellent portfolio usage. My old concern goes a step beyond that -- I think educators who see excellent portfolios assume that they can force the experience on everyone with similar good results. She also linked to another e-portfolio project/resource with an interesting team.
  
• James asks another great question about the LMS I cannot like, wondering aloud why anyone should be forced to learn how to "compile" in WebCT (to read the discussion board). I asked the same question in a software evaluation course (taught through WebCT) that started a session of students wondering how the course site could have such a terrible interface.
  
• Apparently, I'm a plagiarist of sorts, along with a few million other bloggers who quote other people (with attribution) in their writing.
  
• 43things deserves its own in-depth post. Many smart steps beyond Twinkler, their new site helps organize people around the things they want to do in life, connecting people who have already done them with those who want to try. The potential for informal learning is unbelievable, and they've done some very smart things with tagging and clean interface ideas. I think it's still invite-only, but I'll invite any interested folks who promise to play nice. The Robot Co-Op is doing some fantastic work here that takes a very cool approach to some of my less-exciting ideas about getting people engaged in their futures.
  
• The Experience Designer takes on e-learning with a pick axe.
  
• Only Connect had two short posts about using stories in learning and the role of narrative in games...and I don't want to lose them.