A picture I took on my way to work this morning.

Another I took at the end of the day.

And one my mate Damian took in between.

Today I posted a picture I took last month on the way home to Calgary from Utah.

It shows the beginnings of the snow cap for the year. After several years of drought there is very little in the way of snow. The little you see is what have arrived in the first weeks of October, 2002.

The search for the SMART Education Object continues. I hope to use task analysis to define which objects need to be considered and how. The trick will be to encapsulate sub-tasks or objects so that each learner will be able to use them according to individual learning and performance improvement needs.

Subject, Media, Application, Review, Test, Evaluation and Outcome -- present my concept of the model. In the beginning I imagined the SMART part of the model to be specific to the learner and EO part of the administrative domain.

The key to all of this is that a "critical mass" of learners collaborating with one another in an online setting ("online self-organizing social system" Wiley, 2001) is required to make the model work.

Analyzing tasks may help to define the questions that need to be asked of learners. Once the task or performance standard has been defined learners might be presented with the "frequently asked questions" (FAQ). At school or at work, there are individual tasks that are performed. This is especially true in an online environment. Once standards have been set, tasks have been defined, learners can be prompted with questions:

• What do you need to get done?
  Get connected to the local area network at work
  
  
• What will you use?
  Hardware and software
  
  
• Do you know how to accomplish the sub-tasks required to get the job done?
  Make connection, access domain, input username and password
  
  
• Is there anything you don't understand about how to accomplish the task(s) at hand?
  What's my password? How do I get a wireless card for my laptop?
  
  
• Were you successful?
  I've accessed the network
  

The ultimate goal is to a CANCORE-based repository of objects learners will access as needed.

Rubrics, scenarios, ("story-centered curriculum" Schanks) and ascending levels of support will be provided. Ideally learners themselves will begin to refine and tweak objects to better meet individual and group needs.

Today I visited Calgary Technologies Inc. to deliver a SMART Master's On-site session for the SMART Board (TM) interactive whiteboard.

Once again, I got a lot out of the time spent with this group of learners.

Dialoging with technologically adept learners is exhilarating -- especially when they start asking the hard questions ;-)

Today I spent some time working on my model for the SMART Education Object (SMARTEO). Specifically, I used SMART Ideas^R software to begin mapping my model to the CANCORE specification.

I'm fortunate to be able to use SMART Roomware(TM); in this instance -- the SMART Board(TM) interactive whiteboard and SMART Ideas -- to make a graphical representation of this model.

I am a kinetic and visual learner and the ability to draw and see a model developing makes the development process easier.