Getting entangled in the spider's web

Post number two, and it's time to get down to the real business of discussing learning design and e-learning in general. But where to start? There's such a mass of information out there, and such a spider's web of interconnections between them, that getting my head around it all makes my head go like one of those Curly Wurly bars (pictured below in its packaging, so you can't really see the actual curly-wurliness per se. But you get what I'm talking about.)

A Curly Wurly bar, yesterday.

Lucky for me that nobody reads this blog yet, eh? I have yet to weave my own thoughts into the aforementioned spider's web and mix it around with the best of them. So to get myself started, I'm simply going to discuss the various blogs I like that specifically relate to learning design.

I like Tony Karrer's eLearning Technology blog. He's an e-learning specialist based in California and also contributes to the ATSD's Learning Circuits Blog. eLearning Technology is all about modern trends in, well, e-learning technologies, but the focus balances between the "learning" part and the "e" part, which I like. He updates it daily and it's usually quite entertaining and--crucially--seems to have its finger on the pulse. In fact, it was the post "Blogging - I'm Pushing Harder Now" in which he says

"... I believe the evidence is mounting that it's an incredible personal learning practice"

that got me thinking about blogging myself, and the post "Top Ten Reasons To Blog and Top Ten Not to Blog" that sealed the deal. (You may perhaps note that these posts were from 2007 and 2006 respectively. Why, you may chirp, did I take so long to get started? Why indeed.)

Then there's Corporate eLearning Strategies and Development, by a guy called Brent Shlenker in Arizona. He has some good stuff and I liked his recent post There is no Brain2.0...so why Learning2.0?

I also like the insights on the blog (No Longer) Alone in a Library. Just today I found out about personal learning networks, or PLNs, as they're called (more spiderwebs to curly-wurlify the brain). Clark Quinn's Learnlets is also a good read and, just to keep things fair and not all Americo-centric, Clive on Learning is an informative, UK-based blog.

But really, these are just the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg. Even a cursory skim through the blogosphere reveals that there's a gazillion e-learning bloggers joining the throng out there every day, getting their publishing fix and exponentially increasing the size and entanglement of this aready-tangled web.

But you know what would be nice? Another Irish blog on learning design--anyone out there?