eLearning

    What it is in general

    E-learning includes all forms of electronically supported learning and teaching. So this is pretty vast. In our case we are more specifically interested in adult continuous education as is find in self learning or organization learning.

    Since Kneaver aim to build a network of concepts we are even more specifically concerned by articulated Knowledge transfer. So while other techniques likes workshops are very valuable this is not our focus at this stage.

    Wikipedia link: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-learning for a general definition.

    Why we care

    Transfer: Knowledge accumulated should be ultimately used. Doing, executing is one output but the ability to transfer one??s knowledge is also very important. It could be as a full time dedicated trainer but also for a product manager building the messages about the product with network learning in between.

    Memorizing: Also when we acquire new knowledge from existing knowledge sources we become learners. Even on Knowledge used once we need to maintain our memories on a regular basis or refresh it quickly on the spot.

    Discovery: Finally when encountering new concepts before even learning them we need assistance to measure up to the difficulty of reading it. If there are too many terms outside of our Knowledge Frontier we should find a more introductory level source for this field.

    Although theses 3 occurrences are sorted by obviousness they actually occur in the reverse order in Knowledge Lifecycle Management.

    How we help

    During Knowledge discovery we provide the annotate feature. Annotate a web page or Paste a text. With its NLP capability Kneaver will automatically link to terms already known items and compute a ratio of relevant known, unknown terms pondered by how much you declared know terms are really familiar. A rate below 10% indicate a text which is easy to understand by filing the unknown terms by the context on a quick read. Above 30% you will have to use our auto search function but even then reading will be arduous.

    When reviewing existing items, written by you or others you can evaluate with a simple click how much you memorized the definition, how much you agree with it, how much clear it is, how much you wish to know it.. A feature ok Kneaver allow you to review items you didn??t memorized enough but important. You even take some tests on it with words replaced by blanks on key terms. This can also be used when sharing knowledge with peers. They will like this use Kneaver directly for learning. You can share single items or bulk, creating like this a cursus or teaching on core competencies transferable one by one on selected coworkers.

    When transferring you could also be more formal. With Kneaver you can `group` items as lessons and produce automatically presentations and export them as web pages or powerpoint ?? documents. Since Kneaver is really an integrated solution for Knowledge conservation slides, graphics, glossaries, definitions, aspects will reside in a single place, everything linked at granular level, updated at once.

    In the future we wish to support data transfer directly to specialized e-learning platform, allowing feedback as well. As of today we already support exchange formats like rss and rdfs, a good start.

    Some references and people

    Peter Senge – The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (Senge 1990)