The E-learning Curve at Edublogs

Microsoft Producer for Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003, the current version of this popular add-on for Microsoft PowerPoint, is a freely available application that facilitates the capture, synchronisation, and publishing of audio, video, slides, and images. The primary reasons for choosing this application for content integration were it’s low learning curve for non-media experts, as well [...]

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Designing the structure of a syllabus, curriculum, or course is one of the key activities to be undertaken well to ensure the course meets the learners’ needs. A discussion about approaches to instructional design is beyond the remit of this series of posts on developing learning content in an Open Environment; I recommend Benjamin Bloom’s [...]

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Having discussed two key components of this Open Environment for E-learning; an XML-based authoring and content-generation tool, and an image-manipulation application, today’s post will discuss an XML-based productivity suite - a word processor, spreadsheet application, and presentation tool called OpenOffice.org.
In my view, tools like DocBook XML/XXE are excellent primary content creation / generation applications; [...]

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The second open environment authoring tool highlighted in this series is a flexible image editing application called the GNU Image Manipulation Program.
The GNU Image Manipulation Program, or GIMP, is a freely distributed raster graphics editor used to process digital graphics and photographs. Typical uses include:

creating graphics and logos
resizing and cropping photos
colour management
combining multiple images
removing unwanted [...]

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After the diversions of the last few days, I will now return to my discussion on developing e-learning content using an open environment. As discussed in a previous post, we can say that there are certain unresolved philosophical matters surrounding the notion of open environments; I will return to these presently. However, the gratis / [...]

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Digressing temporarily from philosophy, the gratis / libre debate, and the pros and cons of each approach, this post will focus on the range of tools that you need to develop e-learning content in a (relatively) open environment
The key to developing courseware in an open environment is to use a production model that liberates instructional [...]

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…or Top-down versus Bottom-up approaches to software design.
In his 1997 essay The Cathedral and the Bazaar, open source evangelist Eric S. Raymond suggests
the closed-source world cannot win an evolutionary arms race with open-source communities that can put orders of magnitude more skilled time into a problem.
Raymond considers the development of software by traditional methodologies to [...]

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