Pinterest is Popular! Do We Need Learnist?

This will be a short post. If you haven't heard, there is a very cool new website called Pinterest.com that is all the rage with the ladies. The power of Pinterest is in its user interface design and the idea that images are the media content of choice. If you are just now hearing about it I would encourage you to check it out before reading on.

So today, I'm relaxing during my son's basketball practice, and catching up on my stories in my ZITE iPad app. After the first few stories I see this story titled Learnist is like Pinterest for Learning. Seriously?

I don't even need to look at Learnist to make my point and ask you this question. Why can we not use Pinterest as a learning tool? Why do we need to copy what's popular and then spin it as "...for learning"?

This probably wouldn't bother me so much if this was the first time this has happened. Sadly, this is amazingly common in the Internet world. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe what we really need is Loogle? Ya know, it's like google for learning!

SCORM-ify YouTube Videos with ScoTube

SCORM.com issued a press release about ScoTube this week.

Many eLearning professionals are locked into creating SCORM compliant courses for their customers and that has been limiting in regards to new user-generated content on services such as YouTube.  It's nice to see tools addressing these concerns moving the industry forward.

From the press release:

"The first of its kind, ScoTube marries the power of SCORM with the wealth of content available through YouTube. Users select the video they want to share with learners from YouTube and ScoTube creates a SCORM course using that resource. "

 If you are required to create SCORM compliant solutions, you should definitely check this out!

Bloomfire Secures $10 Million in Series A Funding

Bloomfire has certainly taken the eLearning industry by storm.  Or should I say, set it on fire? <rimshot>

Chris Pacitti, from one of the two investing companies, Austin Ventures had this to say... 

“Bloomfire addresses old-school productivity problems with a new-school approach, using social software to create and share valuable information within an enterprise. It essentially allows you to clone your best sales people, reducing costs, improving productivity and accelerating new business opportunities that drive your bottom line.”

I'm so happy for the guys at Bloomfire.  Seriously, these are some of the most creative, hardest working guys I've known.  Every time I see a Bloomfire logo I can't help but remember seeing an naked Nemo wrapped in a Bloomfire banner running through a reception at Learning Solutions.

That was the year I started seeing that the eLearning industry was changing.  The old guard had been asleep at the wheel and frisky new startups were tackling the problems of the corporate training industry.

Of course today there are many new players and old tools have evolved, and embraced social media, collaboration, the cloud, mobile and other new technology shifts.  But I've seen a few startups fail for whatever reason, and it's just really nice to see a startup hitting on all cylinders and catching the eye of venture capitalists.

It's a great time to be in the eLearning game.  Innovative corporate training solutions are needed now, more than ever.  Even if Bloomfire is not the right tool for your current corporate need, you should still take some time and check out what their doing.  Someday it could be exactly what you need.

Check out the latest in mobile learning solutions at mLearnCon in June.

Curatr 2.0 Launches Today

What the heck is Curatr? Isn't a curator someone that works in a museum?

Yes.  Museums and libraries needed the first curators to create an experience for attendees.  Today, the internet gives us limitless access to so much information that we are truly overwhelmed.  The most successful web sites have mostly done a good job of helping us wade through the epic piles of content either by helping us search, or automatically sorting content into categories, or by giving us the ability to ask our friends and others to help us find what we need.

Unlimited access to content is a wonderful thing for learning, and there is a growing need for more, and better, curated or aggregated content by those we trust.

"Curatr encourages designers and developers of eLearning to take a different approach to the normal “click next to continue” world of eLearning. We went back to the drawing board, to imagine eLearning in a world which is already vastly rich in content,” said Ben Betts from Curatr. “This approach means you don’t have to invest huge amounts of time and money in the development of new content; you can re-use content from the Web or from within your organization to create an experience in which the learner becomes the curator of their own knowledge”.

Curatr is a very interesting approach to eLearning development.  I'm excited to see it take hold in an enterprise and watch how learning and training begins to change.

In 2011 a Curatr course won "Best Academic Course" at the DevLearn DemoFest.  It obviously had a strong impact on the eLearning community, and now version 2.0 adds even more functionality.  It's an exciting time to be in the eLearning field.

Kno Knows eTextBooks

I saw the KNO eTextBook solution on TechCrunch TV from CES.
The eTextbook is so much more than just flipping digital pages on an eReader.  The features of the Kno eTextbook solution are incredible.  Check out the full list of features here.

There are several features that caught my attention, but I was very intrigued by the presenter's comment about images:

"...any image with labels is automatically converted into a quiz."

When I went to the web site I was impressed to see a course manager.  The interface is clean and appealing.  It's got a real Mac-feel to it.  I think the syncing will be critical.  Having your textbooks available on both your laptop and your mobile device is the future.

While the textbook industry takes it's time converting to digital, I'm left wondering what publishers are embracing Kno.  Or are the big publishers going to create their own standards, their own apps, their own formats, their own stores, etc.  I hope the content creators can figure out how to create their content and go directly to the new textbook market...in much the same way that iTunes changed the music buying process.  But that remains to be seen.

Flip Boom Doodle - Animation App is FREE for Limited Time

I'm a big fan of animation but have very little patience for the old process of creating animated characters.  So, I've always been excited about new tools that make the animation process easier for beginners and hobbyists.  The team that created Toonboom.com have created an animation app called Doodle that is free for a limited time.  

I spend about 15mins with it and created this little ditty below.  Of course it's lame, but it was SO easy to do.  And it's the ease of use that will bring me back when I want have time to kill.

HOJOKI.com - Aggregating Your Social Stream

Aaron Silvers found this and pointed it out to me.  HOJOKI.COM
It's interesting.  Curating your social stream could be the next big thing...or maybe just the next thing.

Does your elearning go up to 11?

If you don't get the reference in the title then here is a little reminder...

...are you LOL?

Actually, I'm wondering if you are using Director11 or plan on using it for eLearning.
Director is still one of the most powerful multimedia authoring tools available and I'm excited to see what eLearning Developers are going to do with it. Especially the Serious Games developers...oops...I meant to say Immersive Learning Simulation Developers.

Will you be turning your eLearning up to 11? Let me know. Or just let me know if SpinalTap brings back any memories for you ;-)

CoveritLive.com - Live Blogging for your blog

I know it sounds crazy but its true. Now you can have a blog in your blog. Actually its a pretty cool idea. Live Blogging is a pain for many and this might make it fun and collaborative.
Cover It Live

Special thanks to Jane's e-Learning Pick of the Day. Ya know, Jane, I don't know how you do it, but you find the greatest stuff. I'm up all night just trying out the nifty little you point me too.

I'm posting this using the ScribeFire add-on for FireFox. It used to be called Performancing a while back. I loved it then, and had forgotten about it. This totally makes blogging much easier.


Technorati Tags: blogging, coveritlive, tools,

Powered by ScribeFire.

Adobe Tool Selection for eLearning Development

Silke Fleischer blogged about the latest eLearning Guild Handbook of eLearning Strategy


She also adds a WONDERFUL chart for Development Tool Selection. This is going to save me hours of explaining. THANKS Silke!!!
Adobe solutions supporting the eLearning Development Model
Download HERE

DevLearn - The eLearning Development Conference & Expo
Co-located with the Adobe Learning Summit
November 5-9, 2007
San Jose, CA

Facebook for eLearning evaluations - testing

One step closer to the Facebook LMS:



This little Facebook app is TV Trivia Quiz. I was surprised at how many questions I could answer. I was also pretty successful utilizing the theory, "when in doubt, B".
That worked a lot for me. I could also guess many of the questions based on the image and poorly written distractors...but that's beside the point.

Basically what we have is multiple choice testing with feedback. The other cool thing is that the community gets to make up the questions. Now how cool is that? You can also ask a friend...I like that feature. I wonder if we could ask the developers to make it opensource so that any content/topic could be used? Astromony? Geography?

I also wonder if tool makers like Articulate Quizmaker, QuestionMark and other testing creation tools are considering a Facebook app version.

Of course the obvious question would be WHY? And I'm not sure I can answer that specifically. However, there is something very cool happening in the Facebook space and I'm not sure it takes that much programming muscle to make these apps happen. So, my question is WHY NOT?

DevLearn - The eLearning Development Conference & Expo
Co-located with the Adobe Learning Summit
November 5-9, 2007
San Jose, CA

SCORM Compiant WIKI - Xerceo

Xerceo is a new WIKI that just hit my inbox. So, I've had no time to use it and therefore this is NOT a review.
Its the concept that interests me. I've been thinking about this type of editable "course" ever since my first introduction to wikis. However, its been a tough nut to crack. I am happy to see that someone has taken the first shot at a commercial product to do this. But I'm sure this is something we will begin to see in the open source products soon as well. The Learning Object proponents have been trying this for years and I haven't really seen it work effectively. I'm guessing each wiki page is like a learning object that is tagged. If you select a tag then you get all of the content organized around that tag, and then you can export it in a SCORM compliant wrapper to report out to the LMS. ???
I don't know. It smells a lot like trying to put the round peg in the old square hole. Is informal/collaborative learning really going to be formalized in systems in useful way? I don't know.
Like I said, I have seen it and my hope is that I will be pleasantly surprised by their solution. For now I'm keeping my hopes low so that I can get excited about it once I actually use it.
If you are an early adopter then check it out and let me know what you think.

400+ eLearning Developer Tools

I've been told recently that one of the things that people like most about my blog is the cool new tools I find and share with the eLearnDev community.



Well, here's the motherload of all developer tool lists compliments of Mashable.com.

It's going to take me weeks to get through this list, but I'm glad its there when I need to look for this kind of stuff. I've already found some seriously cool nuggets that I'm hoping will be as cool as they look.
Let me know if you find something cool and use it for an elearning project. Enjoy!

Skitch - Web2.0 Tool that ROCKS!!!

So here's a great Web2.0 story...

I'm checking Twitter via my PDA (Treo soon to be iPhone). My friend Josh twits that Tara Hunt of Horsepigcow has invites to Skitch and he provides a tinyurl in his twit. I click the link and Tara has a web page (twitter page actually) asking to email her for an invite. I send an email and ask nicely (borderline begging) for an invite to the skitch beta.
An email arrives from skitch with an invitation from Tara. So psyched! I twitter a thankyou to Tara...not sure if she saw it, but hey Tara and Josh...THANKS! I click the link and I'm taken to the skitch site where I sign up for my account. Easy signups...I love those. I download the app, install, and OMG!!! Very nice. (It could be that I'm still easily enamored with how easy it is to install apps on a Mac but that's another post)

A very cool, short, informative quicktime movie launches with an introduction to the app...I watch it...the whole thing...I'm a guy...I never read/listen to instructions...what's up with that!?

I like tools that enhance the rip/mix/feed experience. So far this little app covers many of the, damn-I-wish-this-was-easier items on my wishlist...and whole ton of items I'm happy to see but didn't know I wanted. Check this out...

Snap: grabs a screen capture. I grab the Skitch logo. So cool and so easy.
Text tool: I write "SO COOL" on the screenshot.

Now the cool part. Hhhmm. What do I do with the photo?
There are many options here but my PDA is sitting right next to me and see Send to Bluetooth...perfect!

Send to BlueTooth: I select this from the File dropdown menu. ding, ding, ding, the Treo connects, the file transfers, and its now ready to go...literally.

But that's not even the half of it...not even close. Go ahead and send the image to myskitch.com as well. Now I have autogenerated URLs
The Embed didn't look so good, so what you are seeing is a screenshot using the Direct URL option. I clicked copy and then pasted it into an img tag.

I don't know when they are coming out of beta and how much all of this is going to cost. But I can say that there is a HUGE market for small imaging apps that connect to the rest of your digital life. Even if you have Photoshop (I do), little apps like Skitch just make life SO much easier and a heck of a lot more fun!
You're going to see a lot more stuff as I run this cool app through its paces on the blog and elsewhere. Oh yea, I forgot to mention that I don't have any invites to send out...but I'm currently begging for some, so hold tight.

Tim Wang's eLearning Blog - Great Open Source eLearning Project Links

I exchanged emails with Tim Wang this week. Tim blogs over at Tim Wang's eLearning Blog.

He provided some outstanding open source projects that he contributes too:

Learning Tools: http://www.learningtools.arts.ubc.ca
Pachyderm: http://www.pachyderm.org
Open Croquet: http://www.opencroquet.org
Ancient Spaces: http://ancient.arts.ubc.ca/
Arts Metaverse: http://artsmetaverse.arts.ubc.ca

I LOVE The learning Tools Tim has authored, and links to, in the first link. Great stuff. I haven't used Pachyderm in a while but I remember being very impressed by it. And, of course, I am a huge fan of Open Croquet. I think we are all just waiting for it too mature a little bit more. Ancient Spaces and Arts Metaverse are awesome and I really want to spend more time digging around there.

Tim, thanks for connecting with me! I'm looking forward to hearing from many more of you in the eLearning blogosphere.

SIDE NOTE: I stopped checking my rankings a long time ago...no value for me. Blogging, for me, is about the people and getting emails from others who read and connect too me is just darn cool. I just heard from a cousin (via my blog) I haven't talked too in probably 10+ years. That's darn cool too.

Socially created Quizzes - XplanaZine

The more and more I get into the OpenSource Learning project with the Masie Consortium, the more I see the incredible possibilities.

XplanaZine has taken the social networking idea in the world of quiz creation. Cool! I hadn't thought of that yet. Multiple people helping to craft the perfect assessments instead of random content experts writing their own and trying to be tricky...or worse funny. I'm sure you all have taken a quiz where the last choice is always something completely off-the-wall, or goofy...Yikes, I've even written a few of those in my past.

"According to educational psychologists, the problem with most quizzes is that they do not encourage active learning. Further, some test-makers focus on trick questions and they fail to cover all the instructional content. Thus, badly constructed quizzes do not really assess the knowledge they claim to be measuring."

This is really good stuff! However, apparently I don't have access to www.xplanaQuiz.com but I'll be it's really cool ;-) (I think its the corporate firewall I'm currently connected too)

Elluminate - FREE Web conferencing

This is AWESOME! Especially for those of us on the outside of corporate funded apps like NetMeeting etc.

While at Intel I became very used to NetMeeting despite its issues. So, I'm very excited to now have my own vRoom that doesn't kill my budget...because its FREE!

I can tell you without hesitation that this is a must have. Go get it! And set up a meeting with me. Seriously, I want to try it out with others...live.

Get your FREE vRoom

(And NO! I don't mind plugging apps on my blog. Especially when its a free app that has value.)

Learning from the Alpha Geeks

I was listening to lullabot podcast episode#33 this morning and found the discussion very interesting. Lullabot is a company that specializes in Drupal (opensource content management system) development/workshops/training. I stopped listening a while ago when I stopped working with Drupal. But now that I'm back into the OpenSource world I put them back into iTunes and the GoogleReader.

Learning, DIY, and DoOcracy:
Alpha geeks are the ones that truly get DIY learning, Communities of Practice, Learning2.0, etc. Its simply amazing, as a learning professional, to listen to them talk about how they create their learning environments utilizing existing technologies to share and learn from each other. Nobody talks about ADDIE models. Nobody talks about pedagogy. They talk about the DoOcracy. I LOVE THAT! It's my new favorite word. To them, learning is about doing, failing, and doing again. So when you get a bunch of people into a virtual space to share the learning experience of DO-Fail-DO, repeat...you have a DO-ocracy. Everyone can participate, at different levels, and anyone can create a lesson. It's all about defining a new goal to create something, bringing people together, and just going for it. Its very much like the idea of UNconferences.

Tips for listening to the podcast as a learning professional:
Fastforward through the first part of the podcast and get to the interview...then ff through the first part of the interview until you hear them talking about the drupaldojo. If you are not a drupal user or a techno-geek, then try to ignore the techno-jargon and just listen to how they talk about the dojo, the phylosophy, the how and why it works, and the passion.

Other opensource learning stuff:
If you are interested then you should also check out DrupalEd.
DrupalEd is an active community of Educators using drupal for educational purposes. They are currently updating the site, but groups.drupal is going strong.

I've also seen some interesting work being done to integrate Drupal and MOODLE and Elgg. And OpenID efforts should help the login process across multiple systems as well.

The learning ecosystems are coming together nicely...stay tuned.

gSyncit - Google Calendar to Outlook - and back

Its about time!!! Finally, I can get my opensource life starting to connect with my corporate life.
Thanks to Lifehacker download of the day.

gSyncit is FREE! I have not tested it yet, so if you already have used please let me know what you think.

Send me your Learning Momments!

Look...over there...on the right side of this blog...go ahead...it won't bite.
Its another cool little blog widget. This one is just too good to pass up.
Basically, ANYONE can send a picture to my cellblock.
[UPDATE: you can also put this cellblock on your own blog by pasting the embed code]
See that email at the top? Pick up your cell phone...snap a shot...and send it to elearndev@cellblock.com and your photo will appear in my block. Pretty cool huh?

Go ahead and send in whatever you want, but I'd like to theme this little cellblock Learning Momments! The next time you find yourself learning something new send a picture of it too elearndev@cellblock.com.

I'm currently learning more about MOODLE, so I took a shot of the moodle screen to get us started. If I had Snagit! I would just use my preprogrammed hotkey that snags a screenshot and automatically sends the email...but alas...the new company laptop is still quite bare (anyone at Techsmith care to send me a complimentary copy...I'll blog about it!).

But the iMac at home will allow me to whip up a screen-grabbin'-email-sendin'-hotkey in no time.

Time to go home!!!!