Our first conference at Holborn Bars in the City of London, Building Learning Communities, was organised and facilitated by Claire Line and supported by an impressive list of presenters from Royal Caribbean Cruises, the CIPD, the NCSL, London Gifted and Talented and B&Q.

This report, jointly produced by JISCinfonet, ALT and the Higher Education Academy, summarises a 2007 review of elearning practice in higher education, and contains examples of where and how technology-enhanced learning is benefiting learners, teachers and institutions. A 2-page briefing summarising the report is available in PDF format (222K).

This article by Guy Sutton in this week's People Management magazine provides unusally clear and matter-of-fact answers to a great many everyday questions about the brain and how it affects our behaviour, including learning. Worth a look, but be quick, because only CIPD members can view online copies of articles more than one month after publication.

The Annual Survey Report for 2008 on Learning and Development from the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD) presents a confusing picture on the status of e-learning in the UK. The CIPD sent surveys to 5000 of their members with roles and l&d managers and received 729 responses. Of these, half were private sector and half public/voluntary. 55% worked for organisations with less than 1000 employees, while only 20% represented organisations with more than 5000 employees.

In another useful posting to the Rapid E-Learning Blog, Tom Kuhlmann explains how you can edit Microsoft clipart to create custom characters for use in elearning scenarios.

I know you'd prefer not to use clip art if you can avoid it, but now at least you don't have to put up with pictures that don't quite fit the purpose.