Another use for RSS?

Sorry to digress again but I got an email from a marketing guy I had spoken to on a forum weeks ago about RSS. He sent me a report that detailed how RSS worked (which I now didn't really need, but I thought I'd give it a read in case there was some aspect that I hadn't grasped.) There was one aspect which I hadn't considered as I was concentrating on using RSS from an elearning point of view, but you could actually use it in terms of e-marketing. As a project, we produce newsletters on a monthly or bi-monthly basis, we save up stories news and events to send out one newsletter which may or may not be fully read. If we get our end readers to subscribe to our RSS feed, we can update them daily on the latest project developments, whether that be news, podcasts, videos, product reviews etc. Worth thinking about more strategically perhaps. Click here to download the document(you need to give your name and email then a link to the document is sent to you - if you don't want to do this let me know and I'll get a copy to you)

Delivery hardware - the handheld Sony reader

When I first looked at this I have to say that I wasn't convinced. People like books, why would they want to carry around yet another mobile device? But then my boss pointed out that it could be a really useful device for field engineers to carry service manuals or perhaps to download training documents to be read later. So I thought I would investigate as this sounded like a really good application of this emerging technology.

I visited the Sony site to see if I could get a handle on the features. The main thing I noticed was there was nothing on there that really told you how you would get training material onto the reader. This would need to be straightforward for people to adopt it for use in their businesses. It seems that you can download books, but you have to do it through the sony connect store using some software that is provided with the reader. (sounds a bit like the ipod and iTunes...just try getting anything that isn't bought from the apple iTunes store onto your iPod and you will have to trawl various forums to find out how to do it because Apple don't make it easy for you.) Also, although it does say that the reader stores pdf's blog entries etc...These need to be converted into the correct format by the accompanying software. Without buying one and trying it out, its going to be hard to assess how much of a faff this is going to be. I'll see if I can do that...and report back.

Another use for RSS?

Sorry to digress again but I got an email from a marketing guy I had spoken to on a forum weeks ago about RSS. He sent me a report that detailed how RSS worked (which I now didn't really need, but I thought I'd give it a read in case there was some aspect that I hadn't grasped.) There was one aspect which I hadn't considered as I was concentrating on using RSS from an elearning point of view, but you could actually use it in terms of e-marketing. As a project, we produce newsletters on a monthly or bi-monthly basis, we save up stories news and events to send out one newsletter which may or may not be fully read. If we get our end readers to subscribe to our RSS feed, we can update them daily on the latest project developments, whether that be news, podcasts, videos, product reviews etc. Worth thinking about more strategically perhaps. Click here to download the document(you need to give your name and email then a link to the document is sent to you - if you don't want to do this let me know and I'll get a copy to you)

Delivery hardware - the handheld Sony reader

When I first looked at this I have to say that I wasn't convinced. People like books, why would they want to carry around yet another mobile device? But then my boss pointed out that it could be a really useful device for field engineers to carry service manuals or perhaps to download training documents to be read later. So I thought I would investigate as this sounded like a really good application of this emerging technology.

I visited the Sony site to see if I could get a handle on the features. The main thing I noticed was there was nothing on there that really told you how you would get training material onto the reader. This would need to be straightforward for people to adopt it for use in their businesses. It seems that you can download books, but you have to do it through the sony connect store using some software that is provided with the reader. (sounds a bit like the ipod and iTunes...just try getting anything that isn't bought from the apple iTunes store onto your iPod and you will have to trawl various forums to find out how to do it because Apple don't make it easy for you.) Also, although it does say that the reader stores pdf's blog entries etc...These need to be converted into the correct format by the accompanying software. Without buying one and trying it out, its going to be hard to assess how much of a faff this is going to be. I'll see if I can do that...and report back.
update: Decided that I wouldn't pursue this at this stage. However, if there are any small businesses in the Yorkshire and Humberside area that could find a use for this, contact us and we will see if we can use your business as a pilot case.

iPod and beyond

Sorry there was no posting yesterday, I got bogged down with putting all the abstract stuff that I've come across into some sort of formal format. I tried to develop some sort of descision tree format as there is so much that you can do around elearning and an ipod. I must confess that this morning I did get sidetracked. My boss asked me to investigate how ipod can be used with projectors. I did find that you can connect an ipod to most projectors with an A/V cable, and to a telly....but I also found this after entering the bowels of geekdom: the early days of the ipod mini projector Of course its not n the market yet, but computer nerds all over the world are finding lots of wierd and wonderful ways to use the iPod...is this the sign of things to come?

iPod and beyond

Sorry there was no posting yesterday, I got bogged down with putting all the abstract stuff that I've come across into some sort of formal format. I tried to develop some sort of descision tree format as there is so much that you can do around elearning and an ipod. I must confess that this morning I did get sidetracked. My boss asked me to investigate how ipod can be used with projectors. I did find that you can connect an ipod to most projectors with an A/V cable, and to a telly....but I also found this after entering the bowels of geekdom: the early days of the ipod mini projector Of course its not n the market yet, but computer nerds all over the world are finding lots of wierd and wonderful ways to use the iPod...is this the sign of things to come?

ipod continued

After investigating the possibility of getting Flash elearning modules onto ipod, I discovered that it really isnt that simple - not impossible - but a bit fiddly. This is Bomski's (our boy wonder) explanation: "most of the conversion tools that turn flash into video.... need a linear timeline (no stopframes)most of our content is held in a containing movieclip in a single frame" I asked him for a simple explanation and it seems that Flash is like a videotape and the animations are made up of single frames; if our content was spread over many different frames, we could export it to video easily, as it stands, all our animations are held in one frame, so we would have to hack it and spread it across many frames, in order to get it into an acceptable state for conversion.

Maybe this idea should be shelved for a later date, as the beauty of our modules is that they are very interactive and this feature would be lost even if I did manage to convert them to mp4 format. Perhaps we could offer the same courses, but done in a different format using perhaps some of the animations from the flash modules but embedding them into powerpoint before converting to video. The possibility is there for later if anyone wants to trial it anyway.
update:click here to see how I overcame this

ipod continued

After investigating the possibility of getting Flash elearning modules onto ipod, I discovered that it really isnt that simple - not impossible - but a bit fiddly. This is Bomski's (our boy wonder) explanation: "most of the conversion tools that turn flash into video.... need a linear timeline (no stopframes)most of our content is held in a containing movieclip in a single frame" I asked him for a simple explanation and it seems that Flash is like a videotape and the animations are made up of single frames; if our content was spread over many different frames, we could export it to video easily, as it stands, all our animations are held in one frame, so we would have to hack it and spread it across many frames, in order to get it into an acceptable state for conversion.

Maybe this idea should be shelved for a later date, as the beauty of our modules is that they are very interactive and this feature would be lost even if I did manage to convert them to mp4 format. Perhaps we could offer the same courses, but done in a different format using perhaps some of the animations from the flash modules but embedding them into powerpoint before converting to video. The possibility is there for later if anyone wants to trial it anyway.

from powerpoint to ipod

Managed to get a powerpoint presentation into video format and onto an ipod, the quality is fantastic and I think that this could prove to be a really useful tool for training. Now I'm going to create a vodcast which will involve me setting up an RSS feed so that itunes can access it. This will mean that any employees who have an ipod (or even when they dont they can still download itunes and view on their PC) can subscribe to a series of video casts whether they be powerpoint or instructional videos. I am also going to look at converting Flash in the same way too as many of our modules are in this format.

Oh i also tried out youTube for uploading a video version of a powerpoint presentation:

from powerpoint to ipod

Managed to get a powerpoint presentation into video format and onto an ipod, the quality is fantastic and I think that this could prove to be a really useful tool for training. Now I'm going to create a vodcast which will involve me setting up an RSS feed so that itunes can access it. This will mean that any employees who have an ipod (or even when they dont they can still download itunes and view on their PC) can subscribe to a series of video casts whether they be powerpoint or instructional videos. I am also going to look at converting Flash in the same way too as many of our modules are in this format.

Oh i also tried out youTube for uploading a video version of a powerpoint presentation:

Camtasia

Today I am going to download a trial version of Camtasia. This software allows you to capture screen movements and so is excellent for creating tutorials. You can even add video and audio to give it that complete learning experience. Once I've done this, I'm going to load the finished product onto a video ipod to see if it would be a feasible tool for the small business to use for training. I'm also going to use some free software to turn an ordinary powerPoint presentations into a video format and in turn make that available to download onto mobile devices such as a video ipod.

OK step one: I used a trial version of this really great software Presentation_to_Video_Converter to turn a powerpoint presentation into a video format. It really was very simple to do. You simply open up your presentation in this software set up how you want it to play and when you are ready, press start. As it was capturing the presentation it makes a transition through the screens and you can record a voice over or add sounds. Once finished, you can upload it to the web via google's new video upload program. This is a beta version and you can use others such as uTube. I'm not sure as yet whether the whole world can see it if they wish, I shall have to have a look into that. Here is the finished product: I think it shows how you could easily put together a presentation and post it to the web for people to watch wherever and whenever they needed. Great for the small business on a budget!


OK, so its not the best quality, but I didnt really tweak the settings, in fact I'm not sure I even selected the right format in the software. You can improve the quality by taking note of google's quality parameters

Camtasia

Today I am going to download a trial version of Camtasia. This software allows you to capture screen movements and so is excellent for creating tutorials. You can even add video and audio to give it that complete learning experience. Once I've done this, I'm going to load the finished product onto a video ipod to see if it would be a feasible tool for the small business to use for training. I'm also going to use some free software to turn an ordinary powerPoint presentations into a video format and in turn make that available to download onto mobile devices such as a video ipod.

OK step one: I used a trial version of this really great software Presentation_to_Video_Converter to turn a powerpoint presentation into a video format. It really was very simple to do. You simply open up your presentation in this software set up how you want it to play and when you are ready, press start. As it was capturing the presentation it makes a transition through the screens and you can record a voice over or add sounds. Once finished, you can upload it to the web via google's new video upload program. This is a beta version and you can use others such as uTube. I'm not sure as yet whether the whole world can see it if they wish, I shall have to have a look into that. Here is the finished product: I think it shows how you could easily put together a presentation and post it to the web for people to watch wherever and whenever they needed. Great for the small business on a budget!

OK, so its not the best quality, but I didnt really tweak the settings, in fact I'm not sure I even selected the right format in the software. You can improve the quality by taking note of google's quality parameters

Pod Training

You've heard me mention Vodcasting earlier; that is, creating a video podcast to be downloaded and watched later from any device that can run it, namely ipods or some mobile computers and phones. This is not just a thing of the future and we should perhaps be thinking in terms of the demographics of our workforce and the fact that many of the younger employees are already fully au fait with this technology. Pod training could be the next big thing; it has many possibilities and advantages. See this page for more insight

There are now a number of technologies available as free downloads that convert your powerpoint presentations, flash content and other elearning formats into movie files. From this you can then convert them to MP4 format to run on video ipods. your users can subscribe via the itunes software that can be downloaded from Apple and they can download your vodcasts straight to their ipod video. Alternatively, users can download the video format direct from your server to their pcs or wap capable mobiles.Ineed to look into this a lot deeper, I would like to set one up and try it on a video ipod.

Pod Training

You've heard me mention Vodcasting earlier; that is, creating a video podcast to be downloaded and watched later from any device that can run it, namely ipods or some mobile computers and phones. This is not just a thing of the future and we should perhaps be thinking in terms of the demographics of our workforce and the fact that many of the younger employees are already fully au fait with this technology. Pod training could be the next big thing; it has many possibilities and advantages. See this page for more insight

There are now a number of technologies available as free downloads that convert your powerpoint presentations, flash content and other elearning formats into movie files. From this you can then convert them to MP4 format to run on video ipods. your users can subscribe via the itunes software that can be downloaded from Apple and they can download your vodcasts straight to their ipod video. Alternatively, users can download the video format direct from your server to their pcs or wap capable mobiles.Ineed to look into this a lot deeper, I would like to set one up and try it on a video ipod.

Storyboard software

Meeting this morning and all the inevitable catch-ups after meant that didn't get started until around 1.30 today...then got bogged down with trying to hunt down some news stories for the portal. Never mind, I did get some time to look at some story board software.

I'm not entirely certain whether anyone creating elearning content would ever want or need to go to the expense of using storyboarding software, but if you can stretch to around £150.00, it really does bring your ideas to life. You can create scenes and scenarios, customise characters and basically do a mock-up of how you want the module to play out. It would possibly be more useful to someone planning some roleplay scenarios, but I could see a use for it in content creation. There's something about holding a pencil in your hand though, that gets the imagination flowing...perhaps I'm getting old. I'll post the links to the software once i have a few to compare...watch this space

Avatars

Today I'm going to look at avatars. An avatar is basically a graphical representation of a user (usually) and is meant to make the computer environment a more friendly place. Software such as Site Pal can be used to customise a virtual person that sits on your site or program and basically says what you want it to. It can be used to guide, greet and generally help a user along. Simon in our office has already customised a trial version of a virtual "Abby" which even has my voice on it...spooky, but I think you'll agree that it could be quite an effective support tool. Plus if the user does have to call in for help, they will have a voice that they recognise on the end of the phone. I'll put the link on here later today so that you can have a look at it.

You can even use an avatar to provide support via a mobile device; have a look at this demo of codebaby: www.codebaby.com You can also view a macromedia breeze presentation of a case study of a company called Fountain Tire who used avatars in their elearning; click here to access the case study This presentation is really interesting as it also talks about the strategy of setting up elearning content, an LMS and talks about operational issues that the company faced. Check out one of the courses they created:fountain tire elearning demo using avatars from codebaby

Storyboard software

Meeting this morning and all the inevitable catch-ups after meant that didn't get started until around 1.30 today...then got bogged down with trying to hunt down some news stories for the portal. Never mind, I did get some time to look at some story board software.

I'm not entirely certain whether anyone creating elearning content would ever want or need to go to the expense of using storyboarding software, but if you can stretch to around £150.00, it really does bring your ideas to life. You can create scenes and scenarios, customise characters and basically do a mock-up of how you want the module to play out. It would possibly be more useful to someone planning some roleplay scenarios, but I could see a use for it in content creation. There's something about holding a pencil in your hand though, that gets the imagination flowing...perhaps I'm getting old. I'll post the links to the software once i have a few to compare...watch this space

Avatars

Today I'm going to look at avatars. An avatar is basically a graphical representation of a user (usually) and is meant to make the computer environment a more friendly place. Software such as Site Pal can be used to customise a virtual person that sits on your site or program and basically says what you want it to. It can be used to guide, greet and generally help a user along. Simon in our office has already customised a trial version of a virtual "Abby" which even has my voice on it...spooky, but I think you'll agree that it could be quite an effective support tool. Plus if the user does have to call in for help, they will have a voice that they recognise on the end of the phone. I'll put the link on here later today so that you can have a look at it.

You can even use an avatar to provide support via a mobile device; have a look at this demo of codebaby: www.codebaby.com You can also view a macromedia breeze presentation of a case study of a company called Fountain Tire who used avatars in their elearning; click here to access the case study This presentation is really interesting as it also talks about the strategy of setting up elearning content, an LMS and talks about operational issues that the company faced. Check out one of the courses they created:fountain tire elearning demo using avatars from codebaby

SWICKIs

Well I'd heard of WIKIs BLIKIs TWIKIs but now SWICKI. I've been looking at this free tool this afternoon and it seems pretty good...it is in Beta stage so there may be a few issues still need ironing out, one of them being making it idiot proof for people like me!! I set one up, embedded it on the left sidebar as you can see, but it wasnt returning any results...I had only told it to search for images it seems, when I went back to alter it, it refused to let me...so a support alert has been sent to the kind people at Eurekstar to see if they can surmise what went wrong. I don't think it was anything I did. Update: they did fix the problem, but for some reason the formatting is now doing strange things, so I have removed it until I can get it sorted...shouldn't take too long.

Anyways, this is how they are supposed to work. You create a kind of search facility that "learns" from your users and builds up a kind of "buzz cloud" as they call it of ideas and search themes. So not only can you perform more focussed searches, but you can find out what everyone else in your "community (area of interest)" is searching for or interested in. Once it gets going it provides you with top ten search lists and the like. I would imagine that it does rely on being heavily used for it to be most effective. But how cool would it be as a tool on your intranet site, set up to do focussed searches for any stuff relating to your area of business..a really effective way at keeping staff informed...You can even set up tag lines that will appear as search criteria which you could direct to your products and services and news stories....

As with most things that I have researched, really getting to grips with them does take time, and I shall no doubt have to return to this at some time. For the moment, my mission is to find out what is out there...

Nuvvo LMS

Logged on an tested this free LMS. Very simple to register. They provide a number of free courses which is a good way of getting you to try it out and use it and also shows you what you can do with the system. Once I received the email with my password I was able to log in and try out my training. There are some very good features such as a blog and calendar, also one really good feature is under your list of courses that you are assigned to, is a list of further courses that you may be interested in or could enroll on together with details such as cost etc....perhaps these are some features we could look at incorporating on ours too. I found another blog posting from a well respected learning professional whose blog I sometimes read; Clive Shepherd's blog entry re: Nuvvo

Speaking of picking up ideas and tips for features, perhaps we should be wary of infringement of copyright laws. Apparently Blackboard have claimed a very broad range of features as their own and original ideas and as such, anyone using said features could be sued for infringement...click here to see what they are claiming See also the news story on bbc.co.uk

SWICKIs

Well I'd heard of WIKIs BLIKIs TWIKIs but now SWICKI. I've been looking at this free tool this afternoon and it seems pretty good...it is in Beta stage so there may be a few issues still need ironing out, one of them being making it idiot proof for people like me!! I set one up, embedded it on the right as you can see, but it wasnt returning any results...I had only told it to search for images it seems, when I went back to alter it, it refused to let me...so a support alert has been sent to the kind people at Eurekstar to see if they can surmise what went wrong. I don't think it was anything I did.

Anyways, this is how they are supposed to work. You create a kind of search facility that "learns" from your users and builds up a kind of "buzz cloud" as they call it of ideas and search themes. So not only can you perform more focussed searches, but you can find out what everyone else in your "community (area of interest)" is searching for or interested in. Once it gets going it provides you with top ten search lists and the like. I would imagine that it does rely on being heavily used for it to be most effective. But how cool would it be as a tool on your intranet site, set up to do focussed searches for any stuff relating to your area of business..a really effective way at keeping staff informed...You can even set up tag lines that will appear as search criteria which you could direct to your products and services and news stories....

As with most things that I have researched, really getting to grips with them does take time, and I shall no doubt have to return to this at some time. For the moment, my mission is to find out what is out there...

Nuvvo LMS

Logged on an tested this free LMS. Very simple to register. They provide a number of free courses which is a good way of getting you to try it out and use it and also shows you what you can do with the system. Once I received the email with my password I was able to log in and try out my training. There are some very good features such as a blog and calendar, also one really good feature is under your list of courses that you are assigned to, is a list of further courses that you may be interested in or could enroll on together with details such as cost etc....perhaps these are some features we could look at incorporating on ours too.

Speaking of picking up ideas and tips for features, perhaps we should be wary of infringement of copyright laws. Apparently Blackboard have claimed a very broad range of features as their own and original ideas and as such, anyone using said features could be sued for infringement...click here to see what they are claiming See also the news story on bbc.co.uk

Toolbook - authoring software

Well Rod, my boss, gave me a list of tools to have a look at...usually I try them out by creating a tutorial, but having downloaded this software and tried a few tutorials, it bore a very strong resemblance to the Lectora tool I tested last week; So to save time and effort, I shan't bother to spend time creating a tutorial. Instead have a look at a sample of what you can achieve with this software by clicking here

It is also important to note that Toolbook can also be launched and progress tracked by slotting it into TotalLMS the Learning Management System also from SumTotal.

Forio Broadcast simulation software

Had a look this morning at some business simulation software that you can broadcast over the web. All good stuff but not really appropriate for this project since it is typically geared toward medium- and long-term strategic and operational issues facing large organizations. Basically you create a model by putting data and equations relating to your scenario, into excel and other areas of the software. Once this is done, this builds the various scenarios and outcomes of different business decisions. You then build a web interface or front end that presents your users with the training module. The idea is that they will be taken through a simulation with a series of problems and decisions which they have to negotiate their way through...as they do so graphs change and they can see the result of their actions. Very impressive if you have to go through say major change management and want to train your managers to steer their staff painlessly through it. Not really for the small business. Have a look here though at a standard simulation: http://www.forio.com

Toolbook - authoring software

Well Rod, my boss, gave me a list of tools to have a look at...usually I try them out by creating a tutorial, but having downloaded this software and tried a few tutorials, it bore a very strong resemblance to the Lectora tool I tested last week; So to save time and effort, I shan't bother to spend time creating a tutorial. Instead have a look at a sample of what you can achieve with this software by clicking here

It is also important to note that Toolbook can also be launched and progress tracked by slotting it into TotalLMS the Learning Management System also from SumTotal.

Forio Broadcast simulation software

Had a look this morning at some business simulation software that you can broadcast over the web. All good stuff but not really appropriate for this project since it is typically geared toward medium- and long-term strategic and operational issues facing large organizations. Basically you create a model by putting data and equations relating to your scenario, into excel and other areas of the software. Once this is done, this builds the various scenarios and outcomes of different business decisions. You then build a web interface or front end that presents your users with the training module. The idea is that they will be taken through a simulation with a series of problems and decisions which they have to negotiate their way through...as they do so graphs change and they can see the result of their actions. Very impressive if you have to go through say major change management and want to train your managers to steer their staff painlessly through it. Not really for the small business. Have a look here though at a standard simulation: http://www.forio.com

Web Casting and conferencing

Macromedia Breeze...how exciting! I have had the pleasure of attending an online seminar on accessibility, using Macromedia Breeze and I have to say it blew me away.
There I was sat in a virtual classroom with my fellow students; some in Japan, Australia, USA, one guy was even accessing from a laptop on a beach in Fiji..how cool is that? I was even able to pass notes back and forth to my fellow students, talk to the teacher, ask him questions even whilst he continued to speak (he has an assistant who fields questions) The teacher was able to operate a screen show, draw on the board to illustrate points and even take files from the students to show what they had done...WOW! imagine the uses, the only downside is the price...getting one out of Macromedia was like pulling teeth at the time as it was a fairly new product. I'm off to see what I can get out of them now, a year down the line....

Web Casting and conferencing

Macromedia Breeze...how exciting! I have had the pleasure of attending an online seminar on accessibility, using Macromedia Breeze and I have to say it blew me away.
There I was sat in a virtual classroom with my fellow students; some in Japan, Australia, USA, one guy was even accessing from a laptop on a beach in Fiji..how cool is that? I was even able to pass notes back and forth to my fellow students, talk to the teacher, ask him questions even whilst he continued to speak (he has an assistant who fields questions) The teacher was able to operate a screen show, draw on the board to illustrate points and even take files from the students to show what they had done...WOW! imagine the uses, the only downside is the price...getting one out of Macromedia was like pulling teeth at the time as it was a fairly new product. I'm off to see what I can get out of them now, a year down the line....

Done it again!

In my usual inimitable style I have got sidetracked once again! Well not really, it is kind of associated with podcasting in that you post an audio file for anyone who subscribes to listen to. OK business uses: The manager is at a conference and wants to report his initial thoughts to his blog...he may not have time to get to a computer before his next seminar. He can simply call a number (he will have already set up his audio blog - very easy setup btw) and record his thoughts. It will immediately appear as a play icon like the one I made earlier below:

The call is free if you are in the states but outside a long distance charge applies. I have written to blogger to see if this service can be done locally in the UK...watch this space...right back to pod web and broadcasting...again!

Podcast at last

Here's my first attempt at creating a podcast:

powered by ODEO
If you want to see further episodes of this podcast, go to odeo.com If you want to subscribe to this or any other podcast (and there are millions)just sign up for an account. You can then click on browse at the menu list at the top, then at the right hand side there is a box called browse podcasts, either click on your interest area or click on more tags if you want to search for something more specific such as my podcast; then in bottom right hand corner is a search box where you search for something more specific, type in abby's first podcast for example and you wil be presented with the podcast and a pink button that says "subscribe" just click there and you will be notified every time a new podcast is created in that series; via your "audio inbox" which you access when you log in to odeo.com. This is great for use in training. Imagine having a training course and a link a podcast of your tutor's voice giving you some reassuring tips and guidelines.

Podcast at last

Here's my first attempt at creating a podcast:

powered by ODEO
If you want to see further episodes of this podcast, go to odeo.com If you want to subscribe to this or any other podcast (and there are millions)just sign up for an account. You can then click on browse at the menu list at the top, then at the right hand side there is a box called browse podcasts, either click on your interest area or click on more tags if you want to search for something more specific such as my podcast; then in bottom right hand corner is a search box where you search for something more specific, type in abby's first podcast for example and you wil be presented with the podcast and a pink button that says "subscribe" just click there and you will be notified every time a new podcast is created in that series; via your "audio inbox" which you access when you log in to odeo.com. This is great for use in training. Imagine having a training course and a link a podcast of your tutor's voice giving you some reassuring tips and guidelines.

Done it again!

In my usual inimitable style I have got sidetracked once again! Well not really, it is kind of associated with podcasting in that you post an audio file for anyone who subscribes to listen to. OK business uses: The manager is at a conference and wants to report his initial thoughts to his blog...he may not have time to get to a computer before his next seminar. He can simply call a number (he will have already set up his audio blog - very easy setup btw) and record his thoughts. It will immediately appear as a play icon like the one I made earlier below:

The call is free if you are in the states but outside a long distance charge applies. I have written to blogger to see if this service can be done locally in the UK...watch this space...right back to pod web and broadcasting...again!

Mobile Blogging interrupts play

Just helping out a colleague this afternoon and I got to thinking about mobile blogging. She wanted to develop a team blog as a customer first initiative, where any member of staff could post good news stories from our customers. Problem is a lot of our staff who could get some good stuff together actually work off site...so mobile blogging...they can send photos and text straight through to the blog in the same way that site bound staff are doing.

Then I got to thinking, what a great way of collecting evidence for NVQs and online portfolios...this needs delving into as I would imagine there are many possibilities for use in virtual college that we haven't yet explored.

Only trouble is I need to focus on one topic area, in my excitement I am flitting from one idea to another...as the ideas spark off new ideas I'm getting easily distracted and could end up with not much to show for my efforts other than a load of abstract ideas...Note to self: write ideas down and get back to job in hand...so podcasts - where were we?

RSS comes before pod

So suppose you are a university lecturer and you decide that you are going to record all your lectures by video or audio. You may then post your podcasts on your site. How are you going to get your podcasts to everyone who needs to hear or see them? Well, you need an RSS feed.(as mentioned yesterday some code in a file that describes the content of your website so that people out there can "subscribe" or register an interest in it.)

Using a free desktop or web based aggregator(software for registering your interest and subscribing to a list of feeds in your interest area)Your students will subscribe to your RSS feed. They will then be notified everytime you upload something to your site and will be able to download the latest lectures to their computers.

RSS can have lots of uses from pulling in traffic to your site, to sending automated newsletters. This is a whole topic in itself which I will cover in detail in layman's terms and post back here later - for now I need to dip into pod, web and broadcasting.

Mobile Blogging interrupts play

Just helping out a colleague this afternoon and I got to thinking about mobile blogging. She wanted to develop a team blog as a customer first initiative, where any member of staff could post good news stories from our customers. Problem is a lot of our staff who could get some good stuff together actually work off site...so mobile blogging...they can send photos and text straight through to the blog in the same way that site bound staff are doing.

Then I got to thinking, what a great way of collecting evidence for NVQs and online portfolios...this needs delving into as I would imagine there are many possibilities for use in virtual college that we haven't yet explored.

Only trouble is I need to focus on one topic area, in my excitement I am flitting from one idea to another...as the ideas spark off new ideas I'm getting easily distracted and could end up with not much to show for my efforts other than a load of abstract ideas...Note to self: write ideas down and get back to job in hand...so podcasts - where were we?

RSS comes before pod

So suppose you are a university lecturer and you decide that you are going to record all your lectures by video or audio. You may then post your podcasts on your site. How are you going to get your podcasts to everyone who needs to hear or see them? Well, you need an RSS feed.(as mentioned yesterday some code in a file that describes the content of your website so that people out there can "subscribe" or register an interest in it.)

Using a free desktop or web based aggregator(software for registering your interest and subscribing to a list of feeds in your interest area)Your students will subscribe to your RSS feed. They will then be notified everytime you upload something to your site and will be able to download the latest lectures to their computers.

RSS can have lots of uses from pulling in traffic to your site, to sending automated newsletters. This is a whole topic in itself which I will cover in detail in layman's terms and post back here later - for now I need to dip into pod, web and broadcasting.

Podcasts Broadcasts Webcasts

Well Friday went badly, spent the morning researching e-portfolios for the capturing informal learning thing. Then my lap top bust...turns out it was just the cable, but much time wasted trying to get it fixed. So a short hours day and no update to Friday's blog!

Never mind, today started better. I have spent most of the morning testing some programs that need uploading - yawn! but someone's gotta do it and I'm too much of a control freak to let anyone else do it :-).

Right back to the real job in hand...just about to start looking at how casting whether it be web pod or broad (hmm perhaps there's more ways of casting out there too...)can work for e-learning. Let you know more later.

Found out that before you understand podcasting etc, you need to understand RSS (really simple syndication - or rich site summary whichever you prefer) Basically it is a distributable "What's new" for your site. You really need one if you are going to be podcasting or blogging and want your audience to be notified any time you add something to your site. See tomorrow's entry for more detail...

Podcasts Broadcasts Webcasts

Well Friday went badly, spent the morning researching e-portfolios for the capturing informal learning thing. Then my lap top bust...turns out it was just the cable, but much time wasted trying to get it fixed. So a short hours day and no update to Friday's blog!

Never mind, today started better. I have spent most of the morning testing some programs that need uploading - yawn! but someone's gotta do it and I'm too much of a control freak to let anyone else do it :-).

Right back to the real job in hand...just about to start looking at how casting whether it be web pod or broad (hmm perhaps there's more ways of casting out there too...)can work for e-learning. Let you know more later.

Found out that before you understand podcasting etc, you need to understand RSS (really simple syndication - or rich site summary whichever you prefer) Basically it is a distributable "What's new" for your site. You really need one if you are going to be podcasting or blogging and want your audience to be notified any time you add something to your site. See tomorrow's entry for more detail...

Looking at tools for capturing informal learning

Much of what we learn is informal, both at home in our private lives and on the job. I went to a very good lecture by Donald Clark about this subject, really hoping to find some ways of capturing this type of learning and recording it so that the learner could get some recognition for it. It was obvious after Donald's talk, it hit me...of course! you can't formalise informal learning, it loses its value if you do. However, we all live in the real world and this is an area that companies are all looking to get into...you see it every day e-portfolios, blogs etc. I have to agree with my boss, perhaps the theorists are missing a big piece of the puzzle; and, if we can find that piece maybe we will be able to offer something that is useful for both managers and employees alike without formalising the process too much. My boss has some pretty good ideas as to how this could work...it is my task of the day to hunt down some tool that could help us achieve this. Who knows perhaps the answer is right under our nose!

Looking at tools for capturing informal learning

Much of what we learn is informal, both at home in our private lives and on the job. I went to a very good lecture by Donald Clark about this subject, really hoping to find some ways of capturing this type of learning and recording it so that the learner could get some recognition for it. It was obvious after Donald's talk, it hit me...of course! you can't formalise informal learning, it loses its value if you do. However, we all live in the real world and this is an area that companies are all looking to get into...you see it every day e-portfolios, blogs etc. I have to agree with my boss, perhaps the theorists are missing a big piece of the puzzle; and, if we can find that piece maybe we will be able to offer something that is useful for both managers and employees alike without formalising the process too much. My boss has some pretty good ideas as to how this could work...it is my task of the day to hunt down some tool that could help us achieve this. Who knows perhaps the answer is right under our nose!

Using Lectora continued

I think last night's post was a bit optomistic...I did plan to return to the computer and continue creating the Lectora module that I had started, but events conspired against me together with this morning being taken up with various admin tasks. However, on checking my emails, I found that the kind man at Trivantis (makers of Lectora) had sent me a quickstart document grrr could have done with this yesterday. So if this quickstart guide is any good, my progress this afternoon should be swifter.

Update: Here it is - I didn't do anything too fancy..it took me too long to just do this basic package...I will endeavour to add another advanced module if I have time later: Click here to view a basic guide to Lectora Publisher

Using Lectora continued

I think last night's post was a bit optomistic...I did plan to return to the computer and continue creating the Lectora module that I had started, but events conspired against me together with this morning being taken up with various admin tasks. However, on checking my emails, I found that the kind man at Trivantis (makers of Lectora) had sent me a quickstart document grrr could have done with this yesterday. So if this quickstart guide is any good, my progress this afternoon should be swifter.

Update: Here it is - I didn't do anything too fancy..it took me too long to just do this basic package...I will endeavour to add another advanced module if I have time later: Click here to view a basic guide to Lectora Publisher

Using Lectora Publishing Tool

Fired by the relative ease it took to set up a PowerPoint Producer e-learning module, I decided to do a similar thing for learning how to use Lectora. I have to say that it has not been as easy to use as I first thought. Perhaps, like anything in life, the more features it has, the more wading through the manual you have to do. I'm sure that it will seem easier once I have got to the other side. For the sake of my sanity and the time constraints that this research is offering me, I am going to put together a very simple package using Lectora and maybe return at a later date, once we have a candidate for a case study that we can trial it on. The products of my efforts will be posted here later this evening.

Using Lectora Publishing Tool

Fired by the relative ease it took to set up a PowerPoint Producer e-learning module, I decided to do a similar thing for learning how to use Lectora. I have to say that it has not been as easy to use as I first thought. Perhaps, like anything in life, the more features it has, the more wading through the manual you have to do. I'm sure that it will seem easier once I have got to the other side. For the sake of my sanity and the time constraints that this research is offering me, I am going to put together a very simple package using Lectora and maybe return at a later date, once we have a candidate for a case study that we can trial it on. The products of my efforts will be posted here later this evening.