What if a virtual classroom is not accessible and you are left to your own devices to record a session?

Last week I wanted to use a virtual classroom to record an eLearning showcase we were having at ITM (were I work). Unfortunately the hotspot was not stable enough at that time and so I had to improvise to be able to redistribute what was happening in the room on a later date...

So yes, there are different virtual classrooms (dimdim, eluminate, wiziq...) and they have advantages (they save editing time, allow people to join synchronously and add questions), but there are days you simply have to take initiative and come up with workable solutions yourself if the connections fail you. To be honest, those are the type of challenges I like above all. So after two days of intense cutting and pasting, I did realize the time consuming part of it again.

But on the other side, cutting and pasting does have an advantage, you can just add anything you like. In this small - how should I call it? - let's say: asynchronous-presentation-non-socialmedia-mash-up I have pasted real life movies into the powerpoint's that were shown, edited video and audio, got some extra's in (links to some showcases). So overall, I can integrate whatever in my own asynchronous virtual classroom, because I can mash-up anything I like. That is something pleasing.

Of course this does lack interactivity and I could have opened some social media apps, but I do have some solutions for that in mind. Actually, I think I am going to plan a mash-up virtual classroom in which different apps are located in a central portal, but enabling different social media to interact with what is going on... I will get my mind working on that. Because although virtual classrooms are nice, I miss social media of choice interaction in them... and movies...

So for those interested, I linked life recordings, with mp3, with additional movies (original formats ranging from wmv, avi, flv to quicktime) and put it all in a website to give a structured and browsable overview.
(I do apologize for the quality of the movies, I did not focus on the speakers with my camera settings... but next time I will be ready!).

Hardware used: logitech pro 9000 HD webcam, portégé Toshiba R600.
Software used: camtasia 6, eXelearning 1.4, AVS converter, FLV player.

Our eLearning team only had 45 minutes to show a small selection of our latest developments to a general audience. So do not expect a lot of technical specifics, but the eSCART and mobile part might be of interest to you. The eSCART features some different solutions we have used in a fully online course and the mobile part focuses on mobile data research software.

The link: http://tinyurl.com/eLearningITM

If you know a virtual classroom that enables you to upload movies and integrated social media of choice, let me know, I would love to check it out.

Respond to the call for eLearning demonstrations from the CLTI community

A couple of eLearning guru's have started the CLTI community, or Corporate Learning Trends and Innovation community on Ning. In April they organized a wonderful Learntrends activity that gave the floor to eLearning professionals all around the world for 24 hours. I could not attend at that time, but I am certainly looking forward to attend any future Learntrends event.

The next event at CLTI is a showcase of eLearning in a broad sense. So anyone who whishes to propose, explain, unravel their eLearning case (mobile, social media, self-pased...) is invited to send their proposal.

From the writings of Tony Karrer: "One of the hardest things to find are real-life examples of different kinds of eLearning solutions. On May 21, Learn Trends will be hosting a free online event where the people who have developed interesting eLearning solutions will demonstrate and briefly discuss what they've done.

This is an online call for people who can "demonstrate" their system. Even if you can't participate - please help me get the word out on this.

Because of my concerns about bandwidth - demonstrations will really be screen shot slides. Sorry. This makes it a bit harder to demonstrate 3D worlds, video based training, etc. But it can still be done - just screen shot it and plan to explain it.

Generally we are looking for examples of a variety of different kinds of solutions. We hope they will vary from practical solutions to common problems to leading edge solutions. Some example areas and this is by no means inclusive:

* Self-Paced Courses
* Performance Support Tools
* Mobile Learning
* Collaborative Learning
* Social / Network Learning
* 3D Learning
* Games
* Toolkits
* Interesting Tools

We especially would like participants who are developing solutions inside of organizations to participate. These are most often the hardest examples to see.

To participate, you must be available May 21 (Thursday) from 9AM to Noon Pacific Time - PDT (for all you on Central European Summer Time: 6 PM - 9 PM (18.00 - 21.00) or for those in other parts of the world, look at the world clock converter).

If you are interested, please send me an email (akarrer@techempower.com) with:
* A brief description
* A couple of example screen shots

We expect to have more examples than we can show and discuss in the 3 hours, so we will likely only be able to choose some of what is sent in. We will try to choose a variety of different examples that represent effective patterns.

We are also trying to come up with ways to effectively share examples that are not shown real-time during the session.

Two last things:
1. Please help me spread the word about this.
2. If you know of places that examples already are captured, please point me to those. Another aspect of this is beginning to capture examples that will be available online."

Go on and join!

eLearning mash-up follow-up: Articulate presenter and Flash 10 compatibility

Just a quick note: a useful fix for those working with Articulate presenter and are upgrading to the Flash 10 player.
A couple of months ago I wrote a post about a combination of Articulate presenter, Captivate, Camtasia, social media incorporation and a high definition webcam. It was a quick mash-up, but it resulted in a useful combination of tools that simply look cool.

But when the Flash 10 player came along, that presentation no longer loaded in my browser. This was due to a swf file that was not correctly decodable by any of the browsers that used the new Flash 10. Luckily Articulate came up with a solution, the Flash updater for Articulate.
For all of you that are experiencing the same problem (articulate presenter not loading in browser after upgrading to Flash10) a detailed problem solving page was written.
After installing the updater for Flash, I scanned my swf-files build by articulate. This resulted in Internet Explorer 7 working again. After this I only had to erase the cache in Firefox 3 and Opera 9.64 and Safari 4.

Mobile content community: great news Judy Brown has launched a mobile content community

Judy Brown is a pioneer in mobile learning. She has worked on a variety of mobile projects both in the North and in the South. If you ever have the possibility of meeting her in person and see her present her work, take that chance immediately. You will notice that she is not only a very knowledgeable person, but that she is great human being as well. I had the pleasure of meeting her in 2008 about which I wrote a video filled blogpost (yes, I was overdoing the video part, just trying out a new camera at that point).

Together with Tony Karrer, Judy has started to bring together many people who are into mLearning and they have created a Content Community mLearnopedia that gathers all the mobile learning content people are writing about. It is a really great resource to peruse through, so take some time and see for yourself. Her own current interests can be followed on the mLearnopedia blog.

Judy has graciously allowed me to become a participant in the mLearnopedia content community, for which I am very grateful.

Join the free CIDER session on Wednesday 6 May, entitled: Re-Thinking E-Learning Research

All of us eLearning researchers and teachers are invited to the next presentation of free CIDER sessions. The next session features a presentation and discussion with Dr. Norm Friesen, Canada Research Chair in E-Learning Practices at Thompson Rivers University.

Title: Re-Thinking E-Learning Research

In education, novel practices, applications, and forms - from bulletin boards to Webcasts, and from online educational games to open educational resources - have been proliferating rapidly. However, research of these changing forms and practices has gravitated towards the methods and philosophical frameworks used to investigate and design earlier instructional technologies and practices: Technical progress is seen as single-handedly "impacting" education, human action is understood as fundamentally rational and rule-bound, and phenomena like education and communication are understood according to strictly functional models.

In this talk, Dr. Friesen will describe how these understandings have been contradicted by unpredictable developments in technology and practice, and by changes in the theory underpinning research itself. Referring to his 2009 book, "Re-Thinking E-Learning Research: Foundations, Methods and Practices", he will outline ways in which research in distance education and e-learning can be re-thought, to catch up to new theoretical, technical and empirical developments.

When: Wednesday, May 6, 2009, 11am-12pm MDT (Edmonton)
to get your local time, look at the worldclock time converter here.

Where: Online via Elluminate at:
https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?password=M.8B71B60F2931D029AC3837DC06B70D

Pre-Configuration:
Please make sure your Mac or PC is equipped with a microphone and speakers, so that we can use the Voice over IP functionality built into the web conferencing software. Please note that it is extremely important that you get your system set up prior to the start of the event. Information on installing the necessary software and configuring your PC is available at http://www.elluminate.com/support/ in the "First Time Users" section.

Throw away your powerponits, simply use Prezi

Prezi is rapidly becoming one of the new buzz words on the internet. Prezi enables anyone to quickly build a multimedia rich presentation/visual/mindmap... that offers all the flash dynamics you can wish for. This is not a software for the meek and weary, it is for those of us who like to jump, run, dive and stand out in a crowd.

For me this will be my presentation software of choice for the next couple of months. I have only been trying it out, so I still have to come to terms with the great detail it offers, but it already has blown my mind because it is so easy and looks so sleek, just look at the showcases. Just try it out, you will immediately feel the possibilities it offers. One minor remark: if you type in a link, it takes a bit of time for it to become active.

For eLearning purposes it offers the unique feature of enabling any learner to set out there own learning path. For those who rather put in a learning path, you can easily add it to the Prezi presentation as well. You can really draw the learner in, use different types of media, group the content if it is relevant or leave it to the learner's choice.

Prezi offers quick online tutorials to get started. There are different options, you can either go pro (119 €), go private (39 €) or use the free version (free).

This application was also one of the finalists in the Next Web Rising Sun Startup competition and although it did not win, it certainly got the jury raving. The Next Web conference took place 15, 16, 17 April 2009 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. So it is crispy new.

It's groovy, it's now, it's blitzy... yes, it is Prezi (mmm, I suddenly remember why I did not go into copywriting for commercial companies).

This is what I could make in less than an hour.
It works mighty swiftly, this was my first try out: http://prezi.com/38600/

Book: Mobile Communication Studies, edited by James E. Katz

Before jumping into the Easter holidays: another informative book. If you are into communication, culture and mobiles, this book will be a good buy.

The Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies was released by MIT Press in 2008, it covers 485 pages and the book is edited by James E. Katz. ISBN: 9780262113120. The variety of researchers and topics make this into a worthwhile book if you are looking to get a deeper understanding of what mobile roads are being explored right now and all over the world.

Taken from the introduction: "My choice of topics has been guided by the overarching idea that mobile communication has become mainstream even while it remains a subject of fascination in usage configurations and social consequences. As such, the handbook aims at examining the way mobile communication is fitting into and altering social processes in many places around the globe and at many levels within society. In essence, then, it presents a series of analyses of how the reality of being mobile and in communication with distant information and personal resources affects daily life. Of course, with more than a third of all humans in the world operating under such conditions, it is hard to make precise claims that are at once manifestly universal and useful. Yet, as the chapters in this volume demonstrate, there are some remarkably consistent changes in personal routines and social organization as a result of literally putting mobile communication resources into the hands of people.

The contributors show how mobile communication profoundly affects the tempo, structure, and process of daily life. Topics discussed include

• who is integrated into mobile communication networks and why.

• how social networks are created and sustained by mobile communication.

• how mobile communication fits into an array of communication strategies including the Internet and face-to-face.

• the way traditional forms of social organization are circumvented or reinvented to suit the needs of the increasingly mobile user.

• how quickly miraculous technologies become ordinary and even necessary.

• how ordinary technology becomes mysterious, extraordinary, and even miraculous.

• the symbolic uses of mobile communication beyond mere content.

• the uses of mobile communication in political organizing and social protest, and in marshaling resources.

The chapters in this volume cut across vast social issues and geographic domains. They highlight both elite and mass users, utilitarian and expressive uses, and political and operational consequences. The chapters also have foci that range from individual to collective issues, and from industrialized to rapidly (or slowly) developing societies. The themes also cut across psychological, sociological, and cultural levels of analysis. At their heart, though, is an enduring theme of how mobile communication has affected the quality of life in both exotic and ordinary settings. Mobile communication is now a mainstream activity in all human activities, and is increasingly sharing if not (yet) predominating life's center stage in both intrusive and subtle ways.

The volume has four main themes, with chapters drawing out each of them. These themes are digital divides and social mobility, sociality and co-presence, politics and social change, and culture and imagination. The book concludes with a few comments by the editor and an afterword by Manuel Castells."

Yes, I am off for a couple of low-connectivity days. Happy Easter to the people that celebrate this possible holiday!

free eBook on mobile learning just got published by Athabasca University, Canada

Jeroen Van Eeghem from Ghent's eLearning company U&I learning, twittered me this newly published eBook on mobile learning. The eBook is published by the Athabasca University library (2009).

The renowned Mohamed Ally is the editor and the authors that dedicated their knowledge and thoughts are amazing people. I had the pleasure of meeting: Agnes Kukulska Hulme, John Traxler and Marguerite Koole in the past and I can assure you if you have the possibility of talking to them, their knowledge will no-doubt add to yours (really great and knowledgeable people). The other authors are equally impressive (Tom Boyle, Gill Clough, Merryl Ford, Teemu Leinonen, ...) and even when you just roam the eBook chapters, you want to start reading the articles right away.

The book addresses: informal mobile learning (great stuff on which I have a project running with colleagues from Peru, started blogging on that project here), mobile teacher training, advances in mobile learning and different cases ...

Writing an article on how mobile learning devices can bridge DE challenges in developing countries, and this book certainly added to the background of the article.

Solar power for your small and big mobile devices!

While trying out different types of solar panels, I began to like the set of solar panels mentioned below. Just imagine having to go abroad and no longer having to worry about electricity... ah, what bliss!

With solar powered technology you will get all the workspace and electrical independence you need, even in your back garden. This sounds a bit like a sale pitch, so I have to warn you in advance, there are a lot of other solar panels for different equipments out there. I just like the ones below because it caters to a variety of models, is delivered with a wide variety of connectors and it is rather robust, that is all.

SolarGorilla and PowerGorilla
In this day and age the laptop is at the center of your workspace. With the SolarGorilla (137£) you can charge a wide variety of laptops and mobile devices straight from the USB-port. Techies: capacity: 500mAh @ 20V or 5V.
If you want to work all through the night (ahum), you might want to purchase the PowerGorilla (147£) as well, which is a perfect addition to the SolarGorilla. The PowerGorilla is a universal back-up battery that can fuel your laptop when you lack electricity. The PowerGorilla only works with laptops of 16V, 19V or 24V, so check before you buy! Techies: output capacity: 21000 mAh in 5V; 5500 mAh in 19V; 4200 mAh in 24V.

PowerMonkey eXplorer
If the above package is too much and you only need to charge your mobile devices, it suffices to use the PowerMonkey eXplorer (64£). Techies: output current: 700mAh max.

Both solar power packages can also charge your PSP, iPod, Nintendo DS, mp3-players or any USB chargeable device as the packages include different connectors. Power sockets for up to 150 different countries are also included.

How quickly does it charge?
There is no clear answer to that question. The charging time depends on the type of battery of your equipment, the type of sunlight (depending on your local coordinates and the height of the sun), whether you use a lot of Wifi or Bluetooth (this drains any battery) and how you aim your solar panel (depending on the coordinates of the sun, your panel is ideally tilted to maximize the sun’s intensity).

Can you use it less sunny regions, for instance Belgium? Yes, but as mentioned depending on the intensity of the light your charger will work slower or quicker.

Anyway, from now on you can work from your garden, hammock style.Green power rules!

My top ten tips for getting started with eLearning:

The eLearning Guild is putting together a list with top tips for starting with eLearning. Anyone who wants to contribute can send their tips to the eZine, maybe our tips will get quoted and published.

It ain’t always easy to dive into eLearning. It always looks much easier than it ease. Although everyone learns most from their mistakes, it does save a lot of money if you keep some tips in the back of your mind.

If you are indeed considering to start with an eLearning project, you might want to demystify some eLearning myths... just read this short list of eLearning myths to get your mind focused before leaping into any project.

Here is my top ten list of things you need to consider when you start with an eLearning project.

1. Try it for yourself and learn: if you have never developed an eLearning course: follow at least one full online course and if possible with a renowned institution or company. There is no substitute for real life experience if it comes to eLearning. While following an online course, keep track of your thoughts, ideas and learning processes. You can start your Personal Learning Environment if you feel up to it. Keeping track of your knowledge at all times will facilitate retrieving your knowledge later on. This will come in handy once you start developing your own courses.

2. Clearly indicate your learning objectives: learning objectives are at the core of the activities of your eLearning course. Any content can be stripped down to its learning objectives. Analyzing your learning objectives will also increase your understanding of what it is you want your learners to achieve. This in its turn will allow you to decide which type of eLearning activity should be developed (educational games for simulations, quizzes to check information assimilation, discussion forums for looking at in-depth understanding or group work…)

3. Develop your own content: try to limit the amount of content that is outsourced. Most of the time content needs to be updated regularly; you will pay too much if you need to ask outsiders to update it for you. If you develop your own course, you will be able to keep it updated. If you do outsource it, ask the outside developers to make the course generic so you can adjust it to your need and possibly reuse it in other courses.

4. Interactivity is crucial: do not limit your project to (multiple choice) quizzes, but see if you can fit in interactions between peers and peer-to-tutor: discussion forums, letting the learner build part of a course, providing knowledge not only information.

5. Use social media: use social media as a means to increase the peer-to-peer and peer-to-tutor interactivity. In this day and age you should implement social media in your new eLearning projects. If you are not accustomed with social media (or web2.0) enroll in a couple of social media applications (Flickr, Friendfeed, blog, twitter…) to feel what it can add to a course. Social media will allow your learners to learn in an informal way, thus adding to there lifelong learning skills as well.

6. Address different learner skills: use text, pictures, video, and audio in your provided eLearning content. By diversifying the content you address different learner types which will increase your learner’s satisfaction.

7. Bite size content for easy updating: in this rapidly evolving era, it is essential that you can keep your content easily updated at all times. Especially if your content is specialized or provides just-in-time learning. Use software that makes it possible to quickly put in new information.

8. Bite size content to keep your learners focused: try to limit scrolling down webpages or multimedia courses that extend 20 minutes in total. Keep your content bits small, this will keep the learner motivated to go on and give them a sense of speed. It is much better to have ten chapters that each take up to 15 minutes to learn than to serve your learners one lengthy 150 minutes piece of content. You want to keep your learners focused, so give them time to breath.

9. Take low resource learners into account: not all learners have access to high speed broadband connectivity. If the technical reality of your learners is very diverse, it is good practice to provide your learners with a CDRom containing the eLearning content and basic plug-in’s needed to open your eLearning content.

10. Test everything in a pilot course: first you test your course on a small group of people you know, than you gather a pilot group of learners that are part of your learner target group. This pilot group of learners will allow you to learn, see if your learning objectives are indeed reached, adjust your material were needed, see whether the student investment time you had in the back of your mind is indeed realistic and … start the real course with the knowledge that it will be a rock solid eLearning course.

Yes, eLearning thrives on creativity and organizational capacities. Looking forward to reading your tips!

(image from http://lals.la.psu.edu/ling001/myths/intro/index.php)