You may recall back then I wrote:

I have been an Apple iPhone 3G owner and user since the model was released here in Ireland in mid-2008. Since I acquired the device, I’ve come to rely on it to manage my e-mail accounts, utilize my time, play music, video, take notes (text and audio), and generally be more productive. I’ve Twittered, Quittered, Facebooked, YouTubed and blogged.

Five months later, I have added e-learning course management, and even Skyping to my ever-growing range of iPhone-compatible activities. It seems I’m not alone in my view that iPhone is more than just another device.

According to Forrester analyst Ted Schadler, the iPhone

drives business culture change; it gives employees freedom to choose their own tools; and it changes the support model to self-service. But the real payoff of iPhone and similar mobile Internet devices is that it is a new platform for delivering content and collaboration applications to an increasingly mobile workforce.

(2009 p.1)

This assertion is remarkably positive, doubly so considering the source of the comment: Forrester, in common with the ‘other’ major industry analyst organization Gartner, are notable for their disdain of Apple products. In December 2007, Forrester’s Benjamin Gray et al published The iPhone Is Not Meant for Enterprises, a six-page report more commonly known by its subtitle The Top 10 Reasons Why We Recommend That IT Not Support It. In this document, Gray and his team leveled a number of criticisms at the device. Among them:

1. Doesn’t natively support push business email or over-the-air calendar sync.
2. Doesn’t accommodate third-party applications, including those internally developed.
3. Doesn’t support securing data on the device through encryption.
4. Can’t be remotely locked or wiped in the event of a lost or stolen device.
5. Lacks a hard keypad that provides feedback, which isn’t ideal for rapid and accurate input.
6. Has limited service provider support and its carrier lock-in inhibits flexibility.
7. Comes with a premium price tag.
8. Is only the first generation of the device.
9. Lacks a removable battery, so when the battery dies, so does the unit.
10. Lacks case studies of firms that have deployed it enterprise-wide.

Since 2007, Apple has worked assiduously to counter most of the deficiencies of the iPhone. A number of business-focused enhancements were integrated in the release of iPhone OS 3.0 on June 17, including:

• Added on-demand to require VPN login where needed.
• ActiveSync calendar synchronization issues fixed, and added CalDAV support.
• Encrypted device configuration profiles that are prevented from being deleted.
• New policy capabilities, including disabled cameras.
• Encrypted backup to the desktop through iTunes on PCs and Macs.
• New device functionality, including cut-and-paste, device search, and click-to-call.
• A thousand new developer APIs enabling developers more ways to build custom applications.

According to Forrester:

The iPhone’s intuitive interface, superior browsing experience, and rapidly evolving developer tool kit make content-centric applications far more appealing on an iPhone than on a BlackBerry or Windows Mobile device. While BlackBerry is still the email and calendaring winner, iPhone devotees do make the shift to typing on glass.1 It’s also important that Apple isn’t linking its mobile future solely to mobile providers. The iPod Touch delivers most of what enterprises need over 802.11, lacking only GPS and 3G network access.

For enterprises, this makes an iPod Touch a viable addition to a BlackBerry or Windows Mobilecentric strategy. …Should you consider supporting iPhone? At least three companies say yes.

(2009, p.1)

In Oracle (one of the organizations Forrester spoke to) employee demand drove the company to adopt the iPhone. In Kraft Foods, the device has becomes a totem to demonstrate that their IT division is serious about supporting culture change. By January 2009, almost half of Kraft Foods’ mobile users have iPhones, with about 400 new iPhones ordered each month.

In Amylin Pharmaceuticals, the "passion" (p.3) and sponsorship of a C-level exec who has long advocated offering more user choice for mobile devices and open platforms for computing saw the iPhone as an opportunity to give employees the mobile capabilities they were asking for. The iPhone has become the company’s “enterprise netbook,” with support for the campus-wide wireless network. They have also found the iPhone “easier to support than other mobile platforms.”

Based on the evidence supplied by these an other organizations, the iPhone offers genuine workplace benefits including "self-service, empowered employees, and mobile collaboration" (p.4). Notably, employees were willing to "vote for freedom" by buying their own iPhone rather than take a company-supplied PDA. Ted Schadler states that if an iPhone makes an employee happy – and more productive, then supporting it delivers collateral benefits of a more content workforce, and a new line of communication between IT and employees. 

With the continuing growth in business- and productivity-centered iPhone apps, mobile collaboration opportunities are greater for the iPhone than for pretty much every other PDA. What begins as a better user experience is consolidated by an enhanced developer tool kit in OS 3.0 and the continuing maturation of the iPhone ecosystem.

Forrester say that anyone who has used both iPhones and BlackBerry will confirm that "the internet feels natural on an iPhone and a like chore on a BlackBerry" (p.8). Document viewing, WebEx presentations, and Internet access are better on the iPhone.

As developers build new applications for SharePoint access, data analysis, multiway conferencing, and training, the workforce can leave their laptops at work."

(p.8)

In the workplace context, communities of practice for the iPhone can lower support costs. All three firms discussed here have iPhone wikis so that employees can support each other. This "community-led support model" (p.8) may be new for many organizations, but it’s effective where the iPhone is concerned.

In Kraft Foods, their early adopters provide better support than their IT team can. As a bonus, Kraft Foods sees a growing desire for self-service that is driving a workforce culture change. It expects to see similar changes in other areas in the future. Even from a financial perspective, data plans for other mobile devices are more expensive than the consumer plans (US telecom provider) AT&T is offering for iPhones. This company was able to reset its baseline plan pricing 30% lower for all phones because it supported iPhone.

As with the emergence of non-formal and informal learning in organizations, and the growing pervasiveness of social media tools for collaboration in enterprises, it seems that the demand for, and growing acceptance of the iPhone as an enterprise-level communication, collaboration, and learning platform is due to people power. Despite the declamations and derogatory noises of industry analysts it seems that, like all politics being local, all communication is ultimately personal.

A phenomenon of the popular adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in society-at-large seems to be a concomitant shift in the culture. Beginning in 2008 and gathering momentum ever since, we have noted again and again that people are less willing to accept what they are told, and are making choices based upon their own experience, judgment, and from information more likely supplied by peers than from opinions delivered from “upon high.” So it has gone for traditional media channels. So will it go for enterprise communication?

You decide.

___________

References:

Gray, B., Whiteley, R., Silva, C., & Dines, R.A. (2007). The iPhone Is Not Meant For Enterprises: The Top 10 Reasons Why We Recommend That IT Not Support It. Internet: Available from http://www.forrester.com [Accessed 16 April 20 2009] Subscription or Purchase Required.

Schadler, T., Brown, M., Gray, B., & Burnes, S. (2009). Making iPhone Work In The Enterprise: Early Lessons Learned. Internet: Available from http://www.forrester.com [Accessed 16 April 20 2009] Subscription or Purchase Required.

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After one particularly "cultural" weekend, my friends and I found ourselves in Centraal Station waiting for our train back to Eindhoven, and across the platform I saw an odd thing: a group of skiers! My initial thought was that I had hit the culture a little too hard, what would skiers be doing in the Low Countries (which after all, is famed for its plains, lack of topographical relief, and general flatness), and in the Summer, no less?

Holland: notably bereft of the conditions for skiing

Eventually the answer seeped into my culture-addled brain: of course! They were going to the Alps! As a young lad from a small island nation on the western margin of Europe (the island without the Eurotunnel) it had simply never occurred to me that you could hop on a train in one country, and a few hours later be on the piste in Switzerland, Austria or Italy.

Living in Ireland, the only way I can travel off the island is by sea and by air. As a result of this situation, most Irish people have quite the soft spot for Aer Lingus, the Irish national airline. Until the emergence of Ryanair and other low-cost carriers, flying Aer Lingus was the only way to travel to foreign lands quickly and comfortably: it’s how I travelled to go on the piste (as it were) in Holland after all.

So I’m pleased to see that Aer Lingus have decided to use Moodle (another organization I have a much admiration for) for their Online Pilot Training courses. The aviation industry has been involved with e-learning for over twenty years – indeed, the first generally-used e-learning specification AICC was an aviation industry initiative, developing guidelines for the development, delivery, and evaluation of computer-based, and Web-based Training (and related training technologies).

AICC specifications are usually designed to be general purpose (and not necessarily aviation specific) so that learning technology vendors can spread their costs across multiple markets and thus provide products at a lower cost. This strategy has resulted in AICC specifications having broad acceptance and relevance to non-aviation and aviation users alike. Even today, AICC PENS (Package Exchange Notification Services) is a broadly-used standard implemented in many e-learning authoring packages, such as Adobe Captivate.

Aer Ling chose Enovation, an Irish Moodle Partner, to undertake on the consultancy in the project. Using Moodle, Enovation provided the following services in line with Aer Lingus’s technical requirements:

• Hosting – Provided secure solution hosting for Aer Lingus courseware.
• Training – Provided hands-on training to all administration staff at Aer Lingus.
• Reporting – To comply with industry regulations, Aer Lingus has to produce a report to show that users view and complete all tasks within Moodle. As part of this, Enovation integrated the third-party reporting solution, Jaspersoft, with Moodle to allow administrators to report on user activity.
• Branding – Enovation customized Moodle to match the Aer Lingus branding.
• Support – Enovation implemented a Web-based issue reporting and tracking system for Aer Lingus.
• Courseware – Enovation worked with Aer Lingus to transform their original course content into the Moodle environment.

According to Conor Rock, Training Captain at Aer Lingus,

Moodle has been universally well received by the pilots and we have reduced our training costs, what can I say – the project has been a huge success.

Captain Rock continued that Moodle could be used in other domains within Aer Lingus:

Moodle has obvious potential in other areas. I see Aer Lingus expanding Moodle to the wider employee base for cabin crew and technical training.

Next time: back to ISD

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This session will cover:

• Why use audio in e-learning?
• Using non-linear editing tools
• How to record audio
• How to produce audio
• How to integrate audio into commonly-used rapid e-learning applications

 

Here’s the agenda for the full two days of the Lights, Camera, Action: Using Media to Engage the Learner event.

Opening General Session
Thursday, June 4 — 8:30a to 9:45a

•     Selecting Media for Learning: Thinking Inside and Outside the Box
  • Patti Shank, Learning Peaks LLC

Concurrent Session Block 2
Thursday, June 4 — 10:15a to 11:30a

• 201 | Integrating Audio into E-Learning Courseware
  • Michael Hanley, Cúram Software, Ltd.
• 202 | Rich Media on a Poor Budget
  • Jeff Tillett, T-Mobile

Concurrent Session Block 3
Thursday, June 4 — 12:00n to 1:15p

• 301 | Finding, Hiring, and Directing e-Learning Voices
  • Harlan Hogan, E-learningvoices.com
• 302 | Rapid Video and User Generated Video
  • Mark Chrisman, T-Mobile

Concurrent Session Block 4
Friday, June 5 — 8:30a to 9:45a

401 | Creating Interactive Learning Experiences With Video in Flash

John Crider, Intuit, Inc

402 | Storytorials: An Instructional Strategy for e-Learning

Kevin Cassel, James Kinnamon & Pete Safran, SAI Global

Concurrent Session Block 5
Friday, June 5 — 10:15a to 11:30a

• 501 | Sometimes a Video Isn’t Just a Video
  • Stephen Haskin, S  Media
• 502 | Immersive Simulations that use Voice Technologies
  • Paul Howe, Allen Interactions

Closing General Session
Friday, June 5 — 12:00n to 1:15p

• Cool Tools: Spice Up Your Training with Web 2.0 – Legally
  • Michelle Lentz, Write Technology

If you’re participating, I hope to see you there (metaphorically speaking), and best of luck to all presenters as well as the backroom team of organizers and moderators who have worked so hard to make this event happen.

–

We now live in a multiplex world of many voices and ideas, mediated by the internet. At the forefront in using digital technology is the e-learning industry.

I’d forgotten about that.

That is to say, I’d forgotten that I had written those sentences until my quarterly copy of T&D Magazine came through the mail the other day. Included in the magazine was a short article  I’d contributed to the publication on workplace training, e-learning, and one of the challenges organizations are about to encounter.

Recession notwithstanding, the PlayStation Generation (Digital Natives, Millennials, Generation Z: pay your money and take your choice) is beginning to enter the workforce, and the trickle of people will grow to a flood over the next decade. These workers will test the skills and expertise of training professionals in ways never encountered in the past, and quite unlike the demands the current economic unpleasantness is making on L&D people. 

Like other generations, the PlayStation Generation is "shaped by the events …and trends of its time" (McCrindle, M., 2008). In particular, the  emergence of internet-based technologies and synchronous communication systems including e-mail, txtng, and IM, as well as new media used through websites like YouTube, and the (ever-growing) range of social networking sites and influence of the Read/Write Web seem to be a characteristic of this generation’s reputation for intense peer orientation and their desire for instant gratification.

In their 2008 text, Connecting to the Net.Generation: What Higher Education Professionals Need to Know About Today’s Students, Reynol Junco and Jeanna Mastrodicasa found that in a survey of 7,705 college students in the US:

• 97% own a computer
• 97% have downloaded music and other media using peer-to-peer file sharing
• 94% own a cell phone
• 76% use instant messaging and social networking sites
• 75% of college students have a Facebook account[18]
• 60% own some type of portable music and/or video device such as an iPod
• 49% regularly download music and other media using peer-to-peer file sharing
• 34% use websites as their primary source of news
• 28% author a blog and 44% read blogs
• 15% of IM users are logged on 24 hours a day/7 days a week

(I think it’s time to use the quote from my article – don’t you?)

It’s clear that we now live in a multiplex world of many voices and ideas, mediated by the internet. At the forefront in using these digital technology is the e-learning industry.

To meet the challenge of workplace generational diversity, L&D professionals must embrace the knowledge that change is coming, look to the training tools and technologies that already exist, and be prepared to embrace innovation in organizational learning. Understanding the demographics of the 21st Century workforce should influence future training techniques; if you’re smart, you’ll be developing training strategies and approaches already. 

Some approaches to consider:

• Understand the importance of the peer group
• Incorporate viral marketing or word-of mouth/ referral strategies into learning.
• Use an anecdotal style / storytelling to engage learners
• Use scenarios, risks, and consequences to develop skills build cognitive awareness, and likely outcomes to events. Dealing in theory, raw data, or pure statistics will not motivate this group of workers to learn.  

As the 2008 US presidential election demonstrated, everyone from GenX onwards is technologically savvy (if not quite literate) and think nothing of accessing trends and movements online. They are not inclined to hang around for traditional, authoritarian leaders (or trainers) and the government (or company) to tell them what to do; they have decided to "get on with it."

I predict that one of the consequences of the current economic crisis is that many older employees will choose to leave or be forced out of the workforce. Here in Ireland we’ve already seen unskilled and semi-skilled people losing their jobs by the tens of thousands, as both they and the firms they work for have problems adapting to the new economic reality.

This story is unfolding all around the Western Hemisphere.

The chances are that the industries that supported these people will go to low cost base economies and will never return. The older, Baby Boomer generation-aged manpower than supplied these businesses will be hard-pressed to find full-time work in the same economic sector again.

If, as an L&D professional, you fail to adapt your training strategies to the needs of the new, diverse workforce, start planning a career change, because you might find your skills as relevant as those of other obsolete professions, such as chimney sweeps, match girls, gurl hurriers, and stagecoach tilters: the workplace of the future won’t hang around for if you can’t adapt to its requirements.
________

References:

McCrindle, M. (2008) The ABC of XYZ: Generational Diversity at Work. McCrindle Research. [Internet] Available from: http://www.quayappointments.com.au/email/040213/images/generational_diversity_at_work.pdf  Accessed 10 May 2009.

Junco, R., & Mastrodicasa, J. (2007) Connecting to the Net.Generation: What Higher Education Professionals Need to Know About Today’s Students. NASPA.

–

In the meantime, the eLearning Guild have just published an informative primer called Making a  Demonstration Video for E-Learning Use.

The article in  Learning Solutions e-Magazine discusses a favorite of mine: straight-forward ‘How-to’ video demonstrations.   The authors, Steve Haskin and Tim Martin describe this learning modality:

“How-to” instruction is an important training modality; in fact, “learning how to do things” is the cornerstone of being human. Our lives are spent learning how to do things, and this doesn’t stop simply because we “learn” in the workplace or even when we slip the “e-” in front of learning.

(p.2)

In this context then, tasks and activities can be elucidated using a number of video based approaches including:

• Sequenced still images
• Video
• 3-D animation

Video photography is basically light captured on a medium like film, video tape, or DVD. However, lighting a subject properly is something of a black art and if done poorly will undermine the learners’ ability to interact with the subject matter. The article’s authors discuss the basics of lighting in reasonably good detail, including key-, fill-, and back lighting, as well as color temperature, and new lighting technologies like fluorescent and LED light types.

They go on to describe the importance of a good tripod, and what you should look for in a video camera. I would agree with their assertion that HD cameras “are complete overkill” (p.7) and in fact that good old reliable MiniDV digital tape is still the best video media choice for e-learning practitioners – your content is captured as uncompressed DV-AVI video (so it can be edited and rendered in either NTSC or PAL as well as in various compressed formats), and MiniDV is a great archive format. 

The authors conclude by discussing the pros and cons of various video codecs, their benefits and disadvantages.

Video can seem technical, overly-involved, and even intimidating to the novice videographer: I suggest that you have a look at the article if you want a good introduction to video for e-learning and if you want to know your blondes from your redheads. (They’re types of light: I wasn’t being rude!) 

______________

References:

Haskin, S., Martin, T. (2009) Making a Demonstration Video for E-Learning Use. Learning Solutions e-Magazine [Internet] Available from: http://www.elearningguild.com/articles/abstracts/index.cfm?id=302&action=viewonly Accessed 30 March 2009

–

Clearly we have reached an inflection point. Where “e-learning” was the big craze in corporate training in the early 2000’s, and “blended learning” was the craze in 2003 and 2004, today, thanks to the slowing economy and the widespread availability of social networking and online wikis and portals, “informal learning” is the next big thing.

He continues:

And best of all, an informal learning strategy saves money. By empowering people to publish their expertise and learn from each other, you can cut spending on content development, external content, and formal training – focusing your energies on the “upper right” training programs in your organization. [his italics]

I’ve nothing against crazes.

Take The Watchmen. I’ve been a Watchmen fan since it was first published as a serialized graphic novel back in the mid-Eighties. I think it’s fantastic that the recent movie has brought Alan Moore’s magnum opus to a whole new audience.

I’m sure I’ll be equally pleased when the movie version of The Ballad of Halo Jones and D.R. & Quinch are released, and there’s even more appreciation of the quality of Mr. Moore’s work. Oh… you haven’t heard of those then?

Here’s first the thing about crazes – the objects at their center have usually been around for a very long time before they enter the public consciousness. The Watchmen was first published in 1986. It is a troublesome work in many ways – it inverts the role of mythic archetypes (superheroes with all-to-human flaws), and it espouses a certain non-conformist approach that until recently had a value perceived to be inferior to traditional literary approaches – a “comics for kids.”

Yet I would assert that it’s very awkwardness has led to its longevity (if not it’s appreciation in the mainstream culture). When it was published, it was pretty much ignored – and it would probably still be regarded as a piece of interesting cult fiction if Alan Moore hadn’t gone on to write Batman: The Killing Joke, the inspiration for last year’s award-winning film.

Had The Watchmen less intrinsic value before it became a revenue-generating stream for a conglomeration of media production and distribution outlets like 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros.?

No.

Here’s the second thing about crazes: they usually occur in ambiguous socio-cultural situations when people are unable to determine the appropriate mode of behavior. Making the assumption that surrounding people possess more knowledge about the situation, it can be said that individuals will deem the behavior of others as better informed. Crazes can lead to conformity of large groups of individuals in either correct or mistaken choices, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as herd behavior. Although informational social influence at least in part reflects a rational motive to take into account the information of others, analysis shows that it can cause people to converge too quickly upon a single choice, so that decisions of even large groups of individuals may reflect very little knowledge.

Here are some stats based on data from research taken from 800+ HR and L&D managers surveyed in 2008 by Bersin & Associates:

• 78% of corporate managers believe that “rapid rate of information change” is one of their top learning challenges.
• 80% of all corporate learning takes place through on-the-job interactions with peers, experts, and managers (estimated data collected from over 1,100 L&D managers late in 2008).
• Over 30% of all corporate training programs (ie. classroom or other formal programs) are not delivering any measurable value (data provided through the same survey).
• Nearly all Millenial employees (under the age of 25) expect to find an on-demand learning portal (similar to Google and YouTube) within their employer’s environment.

Now lets look at some learning strategies and outcomes closely associated with very specific on-the-job learning and professional development needs of employees and line managers in a bank.

• The sharing and exchange of knowledge, experiences, and good practices leading sometimes to the development of refined knowledge and approaches
• Analyzing and developing solutions or major modifications to ideas and practices to increase value for the Bank and for clients
• Integrating efforts across disciplines and developing joint ideas and products
• Evaluating and reflecting on acquired knowledge, developing alternatives to existing knowledge, and generating new knowledge
• Developing common frameworks, language or knowledge sets for mutual trust and joint efforts in development
• Fulfilling a social need to be generative or for self-actualization
• Increasing commitment, passion and honesty in participating in world development

These outcomes in the latter set of bullets align pretty well with the requirements of the former set, don’t you agree?

I think that they do.

Would you be surprised to know that the second set of points come from a paper called An Evaluation of Non-Formal Learning in Professional Technical Networks, 2000-2001 by Sukai Prom-Jackson et al, published seven years ago in 2002?

Here’s the last thing about crazes. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Now, informal learning seems to have emerged as the shiny new toy. It fits so well with social networking, Web 2.0, and asynchronous media delivery platforms. It’s primary value seems to be as a “money-saving strategy” (i.e. cheap), rather than for its effectiveness as a learning modality – and undertaken correctly it is a very effective approach to workplace learning.

But it’s is not this year’s novelty. Just like The Watchmen, it has been around for much longer than you may suspect. But you would not know it’s there if you googled Informal Learning; the domain characterized as “informal learning” by Bersin & Associates (and other organizations) is more correctly called Non-Formal Learning. What’s more, there is a solid body of research on the topic going back over forty years. In this context, reviewing the current crop of articles on informal learning is akin to watching people actually trying to reinvent the wheel.

Informal – non-formal – learning is a troublesome concept in many ways: it inverts the role of mythic archetypes (learners transferring knowledge and expertise outside of the context of a formal environment and without instructors), and it espouses a certain non-conformist approach that until recently had a valueperceived to be inferior to traditional types of training.

Yet I would assert that it’s very awkwardness has contributed to its longevity (if not it’s appreciation in the mainstream training and development culture).

More…

______________________

References:

Bersin, J. (2009) Informal Learning becomes Formal. [Internet] Available from: http://joshbersin.com/2009/01/21/informal-learning-becomes-formal/ Accessed 15 March 2009

Pope, A. (1709) An Essay on Criticism.

Prom-Jackson, S., Bina Palmisano, M., Kategile Jackson, W., Novojilov, R., & Tena, M. (2002) An Evaluation of Non-Formal Learning in Professional Technical Networks, 2000-2001. WBI Evaluation Studies No. EG03-61, The World Bank Institute, Washington, DC.

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So without further ado, here is my Second Annual Top 10 E-Learning Tools, in alphabetical order (‘cos every one of them is a winner!):

Adobe Acrobat Connect Enterprise – I could have picked any from the range of Adobe Flash-based content development tools, but I chose this application because of its multi-functionality, and because it manifests what Flash, Presenter, Dreamweaver etc can do. Enables collaboration, content storage, management, distribution, and (a certain degree of) tracking. A powerful content delivery platform to enable learning professionals and organizations distribute informational and training content effectively.

Audacity – I recommend this open source tool to Subject Matter  Experts (SMEs) who wish to create podcasts and/or software demos when using a Rapid E-Learning approach. It’s an easy-to-use non-destructive audio recording and editing tool, comes with a range of impressive plug-ins including Normalize and Noise Reduction (NR), as well as pretty good graphical equalizer (EQ). Audacity enables SMEs and training professionals create high quality audio quickly and efficiently.

Techsmith Camtasia- A SERIOUS rapid e-learning authoring tool for demonstrations, simulations, evaluation, and scenario-based learning. Would be Number 1 Tool on this list if I went for a merit-based rather than alphabetical format.

Blogs – The platform doesn’t matter – I use both the Blogger and WordPress platforms – but the concept of providing a means to create, share, and deliver content is the basis for a new way of learning. My e-learning blog, the E-Learning Curve Blog (unashamed plug) provides commentary and news on the domain of professional learning and development, as well as a handy personal knowledgebase.

Del.icio.us – Personal bookmarking at its best. If, like me you work on a number of machines in a number of locations, it is useful to access stored links and documents from a browser regardless of where you happen to be, once you have an internet connection.

MindJet Mind Manager Pro – Mind-mapping – using diagrams used to represent words, ideas, tasks, and concepts linked to and arranged around a central topic (and used to generate, visualize, structure ideas), is central to the way I work, research, organize, solve problems, and make decisions. I built the framework for my MSc. in Education thesis in Mind Manager. It is powerful intermediary in developing ideas, concepts, and course design.

Moodle – An institution in institutions! Martin Dougiamas’ erstwhile thesis project continues to meet the learning management requirements of any number and type of organization. Social Constructivist? Virtual Learning Environment? Easy-to-use? Great Platform.

Sony Vegas Video – Easier to use than Premiere, more powerful than MovieMaker; Vegas is my post-production "weapon of choice" for 90% of the video elements that appears in courseware developed in my organization. Whether you’re just "topping and tailing" a piece of video or creating the elements for a sophisticated soft skills course, Vegas is a must.

StatCounter – every learning professional knows that “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” This mantra has an extra resonance in the online learning world. StatCounter is a Web and blog analysis tool that enables me to understand the requirements of learners who use my courseware, as well as how visitors interact with my blog.

TextPad – I would have chosen pen and paper, but decided to keep this list digital; TextPad is an advanced text editor that enables users to create and edit text documents, XML, JavaScript and other interpreted content without the extraneous "bloat" of word-processing applications. I find it useful to develop content in this stripped-down environment before transferring to Word, PowerPoint, Blogger or some other application for final enhancement and publishing (this list was created in TextPad, for example).

What are your Top 10 E-Learning Tools?

–

Finally, Adobe have recognized that like graphics, DTP, and digital / video media production, e-learning is a significant market vertical for their applications, and have released the Adobe eLearning Suite (eLS). According to their website, eLearning Suite

…software integrates best-of-breed tools for rapid eLearning, courseware authoring, simulations, and media editing. Create rich, interactive learning experiences that engage audiences with video, audio, and powerful visuals. Work productively with rapid authoring tools that deliver smart collaboration features as well as tight integration with asset-creation tools. And deliver content to the web, the desktop, mobile devices, and Learning Management Systems.

The suite consists of the following apps:

	Tool	Adobe’s Description
	Adobe Captivate® 4	Create and deliver rich interactive content
	Adobe Dreamweaver® CS4 with CourseBuilder Extension	Design, develop, and maintain standards-based websites and applications
	Adobe Flash® CS4 Professional with Learning Interactions	Create and deliver rich interactive content
	Adobe Photoshop® CS4 Extended	Discover new dimensions in digital imaging
	Adobe Presenter 7	Rapidly create high-impact Adobe Flash presentations and eLearning courses from PowerPoint
	Adobe Soundbooth® CS4	Create and edit audio with ease
	Adobe Acrobat® 9 Pro	Protect documents and accelerate information exchange with PDF

Quite impressive – if I was starting work today and I was handed this set of applications as my content development toolkit, I would be very happy indeed. Similarly, as you can see from Figure 1 (below) the Suite’s workflow plays to the strengths of the individual applications. I would assert that this workflow is industry-standard practice, as already implemented by most e-learning developers worth their fee, so no surprises there.

Figure 1. eLS workflow

However, where I think Adobe missed a trick is that they should have released this (or a similar) package at least five years ago. While we can say that in the early 2000’s , the e-learning industry wasn’t as large a market segment as it is today, it was substantial enough. Certainly enough of a market segment to be a valuable revenue-generating stream for the company. Unlike DTP, graphical design, and video post-production (which were digitized evolutions of existing industries) e-learning was a whole new industry, a real-life child of the World Wide Web.

Think of the opportunity they had to build a loyal and growing customer- and user base if they had released this suite in 2002, and you’ll realize what they let slip through their corporate fingers. As it stands, learning professionals in the past had to build their own toolkits: at this stage I’m not going to change from SoundForge to Soundbooth, for example, or from DocBookXML and XXE to Acrobat Pro – but I will of course keep using Captivate, Flash and Dreamweaver.

So I’ll give with one hand and take away with the other: well done Adobe, great to see you’ve finally committed to e-learning; equally, an e-learning suite of tools is such an obvious addition to your product range that you should have done this years ago.

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Finally, Adobe have recognized that like graphics, DTP, and digital / video media production, e-learning is a significant market vertical for their applications, and have released the Adobe eLearning Suite (eLS). According to their website, eLearning Suite

…software integrates best-of-breed tools for rapid eLearning, courseware authoring, simulations, and media editing. Create rich, interactive learning experiences that engage audiences with video,  audio, and powerful visuals. Work productively with rapid authoring tools that deliver smart collaboration features as well as tight integration with asset-creation tools. And deliver content to the web, the desktop, mobile devices, and Learning Management Systems.

The suite consists of the following apps:

	Tool	Adobe’s Description
	Adobe Captivate® 4	Create and deliver rich interactive content
	Adobe Dreamweaver® CS4 with CourseBuilder Extension	Design, develop, and maintain standards-based websites and applications
	Adobe Flash® CS4 Professional with Learning Interactions	Create and deliver rich interactive content
	Adobe Photoshop® CS4 Extended	Discover new dimensions in digital imaging
	Adobe Presenter 7	Rapidly create high-impact Adobe Flash presentations and eLearning courses from PowerPoint
	Adobe Soundbooth® CS4	Create and edit audio with ease
	Adobe Acrobat® 9 Pro	Protect documents and accelerate information exchange with PDF

Quite impressive – if I was starting work today and I was handed this set of applications as my content development toolkit, I would be very happy indeed. Similarly, as you can see from Figure 1 (below) the Suite’s workflow plays to the strengths of the individual applications. I would assert that this workflow is industry-standard practice, as already implemented by most e-learning developers worth their fee, so no surprises there.  

Figure 1. eLS workflow

However, where I think Adobe missed a trick is that they should have released this (or a similar) package at least five years ago. While we can say that in the early 2000’s , the e-learning industry wasn’t as large a market segment as it is today, it was substantial enough. Certainly enough of a market segment to be a valuable revenue generating stream for the company. Unlike DTP, graphical design, and video post-production (which were digitized evolutions of existing industries) e-learning was a whole new industry, a real-life child of the World Wide Web. 

Think of the opportunity they had to build a loyal and growing customer- and user base if they had released this suite in 2002, and you’ll realize what they let slip through their corporate fingers. As stands, learning professionals in the past had to build their own toolkits: at this stage I’m not going to change from SoundForge  to Soundbooth, for example, or from DocBookXML and XXE to Acrobat Pro – but I will of course keep using Captivate, Flash and Dreamweaver.

So I’ll give with one hand and take away with the other: well done Adobe, great to see you’ve finally committed to e-learning; equally, an e-learning suite of tools is such an obvious addition to your product range that you should have done this years ago.

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Intrigued? Now read on…

Back in February this year, I wrote the first of my occasional series on Recession and the challenge to e-learning; in that first piece, I concluded by suggesting that

in the era of $100 a barrel oil and the value of virtual classrooms; the ROI of e-learning as opposed to traditional methods; even the impact of traditional ways of teaching on the environment (”e-learning” becomes “eco-learning” anyone?).

Based on an announcement made last Thursday 10th September 2008, I can now assert that we are beginning to see that there is validity in this conclusion. Based on the level of investment one e-learning enterprise has committed to developing the industry in the medium- to long term, the market in now in a place to support the proposition that the ROI on e-learning makes sense, and generates profit.

E-learning giant Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) – formerly known as Riverdeep – is to create 450 jobs at a new R&D headquarters in Dublin. Riverdeep had its origins in Dublin in 1995 and under the leadership of Barry O’Callaghan became a global name in the e-learning K-12 market space. As an educational publisher, HMH has over 100,000 customers, generating approximately US$2.5bn in annual revenues, profits in the region of US$1bn, and 50 per cent market share of the US K-12 market, the world’s largest education market.

HMH is to establish its global e-learning R&D centre in the greater Dublin area, creating 450 “high-value” jobs over the next five years.

Fiona O’Carroll, senior vice-president, Digital Products R&D at HMH confirmed the Irish Government’s vision to create a knowledge economy by investing in people, research and innovation was a key factor in the company’s decision.

The new R&D centre will be a focal point for e-learning and educational innovation. Employees, partner companies and collaborating universities will be attracted by the quality of research, people, innovation and commercialisation activity in the centre.

The Centre will involve establishing a globally networked team in Ireland with team members and innovation partners based in the US and around the globe. The company said these jobs should be very attractive to seasoned technology professionals, engineering and technology graduates, highly creative thinkers and innovators in the e-learning space.

As I’ve said in the past, Ireland has a vibrant technology and knowledge-based industrial economy, and one of the domains we excel in, is in e-learning – I guess most people in the industry have heard of SmartForce and Electric Paper, for example. These large companies notwithstanding, there are over fifty ‘other’ e-learning development houses in the country. Not bad for a country with a population of under 5 million people.

In my view, this investment will prove to be a game-changer. As it is, you could say that HMH are the only game in (e-learning) town – if they manage the innovations and outputs afforded by this R&D centre correctly, HMH will grow to become the Google of e-learning. Indeed, the Google approach (especially the famed “20 per cent time”) is a perfect model for any knowledge-based organization that wants to stimulate growth through innovative new products invented and developed by their own subject matter experts. Similarly, this R&D centre will provide the organization with the potential benefits of having an audience for life: if HMH products have the skill and facility to instil the joy of learning in the kids that they currently provide e-learning solutions for, they will have an audience for life, given that these Digital Natives (click on the link for Marc Prensky’s seminal article) will grow up associating the brand with discovering knowledge and the fun of learning. In essence, we can say that the company has the potential to mould a whole generation of learners, which is an extraordinary business opportunity, but also a huge responsibility.

Do I now hear the distant trumpet of an approaching elephant?

I do…

Just an observation really. Rumours of this investment have on the jungle telegraph here in Ireland for some time now, and I was originally going to post on this topic last Thursday (the day of the announcement).

An African elephant (sans room)

I held back, because I wanted to see what reaction would come for the Irish L&D and e-learning blogosphere. I’m disappointed to say that no-one has posted a reaction to the largest investment in their industry, ever.

I’m sure people are still formulating their thoughts – I for one want to read how others in the e-learning industry here in Ireland are responding to this investment.

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References:

HMH to Create 450 Jobs and Base Global R&D Headquarters in Dublin. Enterprise Ireland Press Release. [Internet] Available from: http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/eicms/interiorpage.aspx?NRMODE=Published&NRORIGINALURL=%2FNews%2FPress%2BReleases%2F2008%2FPressSep102008.htm&NRNODEGUID={077DB63F-4925-4D96-BEB3-364BF11C8EB1}&NRCACHEHINT=Guest

[Accessed 10th September 2008]

Ireland wins €350m HMH deal after tough worldwide battle. Irish Independent. [Internet] Available from: http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/ireland-wins-8364350m-hmh-deal–after-tough-worldwide-battle-1473370.html

[Accessed 10th September 2008]

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