Lectora Online

It has taken a few months since the announcement in March that Lectora Online would be available, until it’s delivery last month, but finally online authoring from Trivantis is a reality. There are two hosted locations where it can be viewed and used, and these are; www.lectoraonline.trivantis.com and www.eu.lectoraonline.com. Both sites have all the necessary info posted to allow newcomers to see what can be done with this great new product. You can also try out the software and buy your subscription. At $1,290 per user per annum it is very affordable for trainers and authors of elearning content. Annual Support by email and telephone (US East Coast hours) is included.

Lectora Online is essentially the Lectora Publisher Edition moved to the internet with the addition of workflow, a collaborative working environment and a shared media library. The translation tool is also included so if you have a need to export your text for translation on your courses, this is an invaluable aid. Lectora Online is fully compatible with Lectora 2008 and forwards, and works with Lectora Integrator for Powerpoint, if you need to get your powerpoint presentations into Lectora to work on them.

This is going to be a fabulous tool for agencies who would like to bring their clients into the creative process; and vice versa, as it’s ability to interconnect teams of people working on the same course is a huge positive. Furthermore, if you just want a client or colleague to review your work online and give you feedback, you can do this through the Reviewer role at no cost at all. They don’t need to buy a licence to do this.

Once you check it out why not come back and post your comments here on the site? I’d love to read what you think of the product.

Virtual Workshop: Designing Mobile Learning: Principles and Practices

Brandon Hall are running a virtual workshop next week (Wednesday 30th September) on the exciting subject of eLearning on your mobile. There are a couple of things that I like about this particular event; 1) It’s a practical session that teaches you how to actually do mobile eLearning, with hints and tips etc and 2) As part of the registration fee you get the latest report from BHR on Mobile Learning, which has a $295 value.

For more information on the event, how to register and so on go to http://www.brandon-hall.com/webinars/mobileworkshop.shtml

Don’t forget, if you attend the event, come back to this site and tell us what you thought of it. Thanks!

eLearning Africa 2009 from Dakar, Senegal

What a great trip once again. This year’s elearning show from Africa was action-packed with thousands of visitors from all over the world. The welcoming speech was delivered by President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal. He talked about initiatives in his country and other African nations to develop education and learning using technology. His overall message was that it is recognised as extremely important that Senegal embraces elearning and moves forward to implement the necessary infrastructure to allow this to happen.

President Abdoulaye Wade Opens the Show

Over the next two days we heard from speakers about all aspects of eLearning and the resources available for support in Africa. Unfortunately, too many speakers sessions were thinly-disguised sales pitches for products and technology, and it would be nice to see this better policed going forward.  The programme is also heavily weighted towards presentations from Universities and other educational establishments, and it would be valuable to see more companies relating the benefits of using elearning in the corporate workplace.

In general, the programme reflected the state of the progress of elearning in Africa I thought. Much is still made of the lack of resources and infrastructure, evoking the conclusion that even though many understand the potential of eLearning for African nations, without financing, much of the good work done so far will go no further. That is why it is encouraging to see the involvement of the President of the host country supporting the event. However, someone close to the organsiation of this year’s event also remarked to me, that without the participation at the highest level of the host country, the event would have almost no impact.

Premier Minister, Senegal visits the Whiteboard Stand

Of the people that came by the Trivantis stand a general assessment would be that there was plenty of interest and enthusiasm, but very few serious buyers with funded projects looking for tools to develop and manage elearning. Still, there was definitely a silver-lining for us; if money is short in Africa to develop elearning, it favours those organisations that are prepared to enter into their own authoring programmes to develop content. In fact, if established properly, there is every opportunity for an organisation to create a decent revenue stream from it’s elearning programme. Those that manage to do this will develop self-funded, engaging and rich content-full programmes.

Trivantis Stand Early Day One

Next year the show is going to be hosted by Zambia. I sincerely hope we’ll be there with a stand and participating in the show itself. Every year we go we learn about the progress of elearning and I am convinced that in the next few years, there will be quite an explosion of elearning in Africa. If you make it out there be sure to drop by the Trivantis stand and say hello!

Lectora Help Agents Now Available on iTunes

Lectora Help Agents on iTunes

Lectora Help Agent videos are now available on iTunes as video podcasts! In addition to viewing the Lectora Help Agents within Lectora, you now have the option to download and view them on your iPod, iPhone or computer to learn about the main features within Lectora.

To view the Help Agents on iTunes, simply go to the iTunes store, type “Lectora” into the ’search iTunes’ field and under ‘Podcasts’ you will see “Lectora eLearning Help Agents.” Then, click on subscribe and you’ll be able to view them as video podcasts. After viewing them, we encourage you to also rate the podcasts on iTunes.

eLearning Passion

This is a short post just to say that I have finally launched a social networking site for everyone interested in elearning. I hope it will develop into a useful resource for people and a ready meeting place online. Check it out and give me your feedback please:http://elearningpassion.ning.com/

Delivering eLearning Authoring as a Service

‘The least of learning is done in the classrooms’

Thomas Merton (1915 – 1968)

Most of us by now are familiar with using software via our browser. This software is hosted for us, which means that it doesn’t run locally on our PC. It runs on a server somewhere else in the world and only provides us with the data we need through our internet browser. Delivering software this way brings certain benefits such as fast access, anywhere we can get to a PC, at a lower cost than if we managed it ourselves. Good examples of commonly used, hosted software are email and other applications from Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo. An example of a business application is Salesforce.com.

Although this method of delivering software has been used since the 1990’s it is still only emerging as an acceptable way to use and buy software. There are several reasons for this, amongst them; 1) issues with security of the data, 2) suitable infrastructure to ensure stable and fast access to make it attractive, 3) costs of entry have not been low enough to make the consideration a ‘no brainer’. Whilst these issues still remain nearly twenty years later, delivery of software via a hosted model is a widely accepted alternative to installing and running everything in-house. And so it is becoming with eLearning apps.

As we adopt eLearning as a way to teach and train our students and staff, we naturally accept the hosted model of delivery of our courseware and applications. Almost more than any other business application, eLearning is perfectly suited to hosting. In fact, for many countries delivery of courseware through the browser is the best route to go. Hosted content permits access via a range of devices; PCs, Mobile Phones, TV and so on. Delivery channels can be almost as varied because we can access the content on a server over many ways; a phone link, IP (internet/ intranet), satellite and mobile phone networks being the most commonly used.

But, there have been challenges in getting decent tools to the market on a hosted model where we use them as a service. As we buy electricity and telephone, paying monthly, should we not also expect to buy our eLearning tools and content? Well, recently we have been able to do that. Trivantis is busy launching Lectora Online, it’s authoring tool for producing professional eLearning content, that finally allows users of Lectora to collaborate on the same content, and to work in groups on the same projects. This innovation is not simply additional functionality for the Lectora product, but is rather more like a fully functioning authoring tool and LCMS. However, it is also fully integrated with all Lectora versions from and including the 2008 release, so that content can be moved backwards and forwards between the two products. ‘Lectora Online’, as Jon Blackmon (it’s creator and Chief Architect at Trivantis for Lectora), is fond of saying, ‘is Lectora Online‘. And so, the central repository is there, all the functionality of Lectora is there, all the publishing options are there, but in addition there is workflow, shared access to content, check in and check out to the object level, and lots more. So what does this really mean to the trainer, or developer, you know, the people that actually use Lectora?

The answer is that finally you and I can use Lectora as a service. That means we pay for it like electricity and the telephone; except with LO we pay annually, not monthly. That is going to be a great help for developers who work on a project basis, and who want to develop in Lectora for a client for a certain contract, but aferwards may not need to, until the next time. Or, if a trainer or training team wants to develop in Lectora for a number of modules to get acceptance of the use of eLearning in their company, but isn’t sure that wider adoption will follow. And as there is a ‘Reviewer’ role which means I can allow people to review my content without changing it, but they can make comments on it, I can get approval from my clients more quickly whilst involving them in the process online. Great.

The feedback from content developers and trainers who have seen and used Lectora Online already supports everything that Trivantis originally suspected going into the development of the product. Putting Lectora Online is going to change the game. eLearning authoring from now on is even easier and more accessible to do. But, more than that, it removes the argument for developing your own content versus buying content from an agency. Now agencies and clients can work together on the same projects online as a community, bringing greater flexibility and creativity to bear. Who wouldn’t want to move to that?

If you want to learn more about Lectora Online go to www.lectoraonline.com, and check out www.coursemill.com for a perfectly complimentary LMS also offered in a hosted version as a service.

First Post

Education is the best provision for the journey to old age…Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC)

 

This is my personal blog where I discuss all things eLearning. For those who do not know, eLearning is simply learning that you and I do from a distance, often on a computer, often over the internet, though not always. eLearning is used for lots of situations; teaching students that are spread over distance and can not always get into school or the office, teaching staff that are on the go (sometimes called mobile learning), and training people that we can’t bring together easily into a classroom, or where the costs are too high. The last point is particularly relevant today. eLearning allows training programmes to flourish even when travel budgets are tight. You don’t need to travel far to get to your computer, and if the training is online or on a CD, you can still learn.

Another benefit of eLearning is that it is reusable; you can take the training as many times as you need to. Unlike traditional classroom-based learning you don’t need the teacher and the students to be present, and you don’t need to hire or book a room. The training course is normally delivered as a multimedia module which you play on your computer. It is normally interactive and often includes some level of testing at the end or during the course, just to check that you learnt as you were supposed to. eLearning is an efficient and engaging way to learn, and nowadays it is common to see elements of gaming and a level of sophistication in the production of the training course, so that it is fun as well.

In this blog I will be talking about the various ways to use eLearning, how to produce eLearning and manage an eLearning programme, and all in all providing a resource and forum for eLearners whether you are new or experienced. Join me by posting your comments and contributing to the discussions. All points of view are welcome. I ask only that everyone is respectful and behaves politely towards each other.