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Yesterday was a sad day for theatre and movie world as they mourned the death of Natasha Richardson, a renowned stage and screen performer. She is survived by her husband, actor Liam Neeson and sons Micheal, 13, and Daniel Jack, 12. Richardson was injured in a skiing accident in Quebec on Monday. She was taking this private ski lesson at the Mont-Tremblant resort when she fell off the beginner’s slope.

It is sad that she met such a tragic end because according to the people present at the resort at that time, she was in a good condition after the fall. It was only after a few hours that she complained about severe headaches and was moved to a Montreal hospital. She was airlifted to the hospital and reportedly this trip took an hour which lead to even more complications. Doctors said that she had severe brain trauma which caused her death. She had acted in several Hollywood movies and had few Broadway hits associated with her. The Broadway dimmed its lights yesterday as a tribute to the beautiful actress.

A new signboard has come up recently in front of my house. It is an ad of Nokia N Series phones with quotes like “maphotonline” and “Join your favourite places with your photos with your friends”. It is just an example of how the companies are using content as a value addition to their already existing services.

Right now in the telecom industry, almost all companies are frantically looking for tie-ups with content providers to add value to their 3G services. Telcos have covered the markets for 3G phones and have come up with various models with various features. But the crux lies in the fact that 15% of India’s close to 300m users already have 3G enabled phones and if no more value is added, the phone sales will also go down.

The content providers provide services like entertainment, TV schedules, sports, movies, serials, travel, downloads, astrology and cricket amongst others.

I have not been a regular blogger and that is one of the reasons why sometimes feel very guilty to the point that I have even thought of selling it off. But as I had started it long back, and due to some sort of sentimental value attached – of which too I am not sure – till now I have not gathered the courage to sell it. I am sure I might earn cool money from this!!

So, just for the sake of keeping the blog going, I am penning down some thoughts about something which I wanted to share for long.

I remembered that i have a blog which i was ignoring for long now. Lots to post actually but time crunch. I was thinking of developing another site, but suddenly realized that it would also require a lot of attention and time. So, shelved that idea for the time being (the site would be on elearning tools, have initiated the process by registering a domain name). Elearning might not be as creative as advertising or entertainment but it is equally chanllenging. Conceptualizing a one-liner or a tag-line for a product for a television commercial may be as difficult and time consuming as creating a one hour learning material . Lots of blah blah this is actually…just random thoughts though.

For people like me, who are still new in the elearning field, the resources and latest news will help to stay abreast of the latest elearning trends across the world. I have researched and listed down a few of the resources for my reference and for anyone in the same field. Here’s my take for the time being, will add more to the list.

eCornell Research Blog: This blog i came across contains relevant info and latest news on the elearning industry. It also has a list of elearning resources, which are quite comprehensive.

Learning for 2020: Another interesting blog is that of an Australian learning technologist whose views and visions about the future learning and the role of the instructor as a convincing evangelist, guardian angel, to a manipulative devil is worth a read. His views on how the students in 2020 will want to use technology for learning are quite fascinating.