Could it be?  Close enough even?  When you think about the ingredients needed to make a Learning Management System, which essentially is an online defined space for teaching and learning.  Facebook on many levels is starting to look like a legitimate LMS and there is already a hive of learning happening in the Facespace.

As described in (Ellis 2009) a robust LMS should be able to do the following:

• centralize and automate administration
• use self-service and self-guided services
• assemble and deliver learning content rapidly
• consolidate training initiatives on a scalable web-based platform
• support portability and standards (facebook might just be the most portable platform)
• personalize content and enable knowledge reuse.

Pages as 'Courses'
Groups as 'Cohorts'
Embedding Audio, Video and Links in status updates
Polls and Discussion Tabs in Pages
Facebook LiveStream

I'll be using Prezi for my Moodle Moot presentation on Embedding New Media, this July in Melbourne. I love how new presentation tools, such as SlideShare, Screenr and Prezi, work both offline and online, giving way to flexible delivery. Prezi is yet to add audio, so the trick for the full blown presentation experience is to combine Prezi with Screenr and simply record audio over your Prezi and then republish as a Screenr object.

Below is my prezi, or here is the full Audion Version of my presentation, part 1 and 2.

Here are some of the highlights from Moodle Moot Melbourne regarding the new Moodle 2.0 as demonstrated today by Martin the Moodle man.

• 20 new themes that look and feel like a whole new moodle
  
  
• Blocks can be "Docked" as a drop down menu on the left hand side of the page creating far more space and efficiency on the page.
  
  
• Blocks can be customized to appear on every page, or on selected page views.
  
  
• Private Files block, allows users to upload private files to a repository, and intergrate with external repositories such as Google Docs, Flickr and so on.
  
  
• User Blogs can be integrated with Twitter through RSS feeds, or any Blog, the cool thing, you can Filter the Feed by Filter Tags.
  
  
• There is a Comment Block, allowing for user comments to be left on every page in moodle.
• The Workshop Module has been made more user friendly.
  
  
• All Activities and Resources and be 'Checked' off with a tick box when viewed/completed.
  
  
• Community Hubs, are a place where Moodle Creators can share courses or sites centered around common learning areas. A Hub could also be created for use just inside an organisation.
  
  
• More about Moodle 2.0 to come...

How does an online trainer differ from a face to face one? Sorry I don't have a punch line to that one (yet), but An examination of the role of the e-tutor by Annegret Goold, Jo Coldwell and Annemieke Craig from Australasian Journal of Educational Technology Vol 26, No. 5, 2010 outlines some of the key areas we can at least see emerging in this new kind of teaching role.

What's interesting is see how much time is spent by online trainers in each of the roles outlined in the diagram above. A good exercise would be

to see what roles are the most critical for learning and to find weaknesses in a team or individual that can be improved on. Although I agree that online trainers need to have skills in all these roles, in most cases the roles are shared across a team.

Read the full article here