Free tool to create learning in Microsoft-style: LCDS

Microsoft develops a lot of e-learning on its own products, and you can find samples on the Microsoft E-learning site. They all follow the same template and style, and are in my humble opinions excellent pieces of learning content for the intended type of subject and audience.

And now for the good part: the internal tool they use to develop these courses is now freely available on the Microsoft site. It is called the Learning Content Development System or LCDS, installs easily and has a simple form-based editor. It shows the course structure, a list of templates you can use, and the properties like text, animations and images that go on that template screen. There is a preview button, and the output is SCORM content. Voila. What do you want more?

There is an online help, but not much more documentation or tutorials then that. So I would recommend you first go to the Microsoft E-learning site. There are always one or two courses available for free that should give you a good feel of what the type of screens is you can make with this tool. (All the animation comes from flash you need to develop outside of the tool.)

I played around with the tool and I'm impressed with its ease. Here are my observations and tips:

- The tool is very strict in what it allows: it comes with its list of templates, and the resulting course will have the Microsoft defined look and navigation in it. If you don't like that, search for another tool that gives you other templates or full flexibility. If you are fine with the approach, you'll love the tool.

- Tip for Vista users: by default the tool installs in the c:\Program Files\Microsoft\Learning folder. It also stores all courses here (and you cannot configure that). As that part of the hard disk is not writeable for non-administrators on Vista, it will cause a lot of problems and security popups. My suggestion: after you install LCDS, move or copy the folder somewhere under 'My Documents', and start up the author.exe file from there.

- Tip for media: the images, animations, video you want to include all need to be in the media folder underneath the course folder. The form will only let you pick media that you have manually copied there first. So open up the media folder with the button on the toolbar, and drag/drop all media in there first, before using them in the course pages. This is a little something that could have been solved more nicely, but once you know it works out just fine.

Open source evaluation software: exams

There is an open source exam or evaluation software available, called EXAMS. It is made by the university of Liege if I'm not mistaken (in Belgium that is), and has the necessary components for test takers, makers and administrators.

http://www.exams.be

It is a php application that runs on an MySQL database, and the online demo looked very nice. It didn't open in Internet Explorer (kept saying something irrelevant about cookies), but worked fine in Firefox.

A list of serious games

There is a lot of talk about games that do not just intend to entertain, but also serve one or more learning objectives. There is an excellent site that lists those type of games:

http://www.socialimpactgames.com/

As with all kind of experience-based learning, it takes some time to cover one learning objective, but I do think this (at this point more expensive) kind of learning will pass the hype and remain in the ever enlarging blend of learning formats. And hey, you can't get further away from ye old pageturner learning than this :-)

George Siemens interview

Good interview with George Siemens on the link below.
http://www.elearning-africa.com/newsportal/english/news139.php

I clipped this:

1- A conceptual shift in how we view learning. Learning is increasingly seen as comprising social, contextual and situated perspectives. The social dimension of learning is certainly not new, as it has been advocated by Vygotsky, Bandura and others for almost a century. Within education today, however, these concepts are not merely receiving theoretical acknowledgement, but are now actively implemented at classroom and system-wide levels.
2- A technological shift in how we interact with information and each other. The development of technology has reduced access barriers, enabling individuals from around the world to access information and each other with far greater ease than possible even five or ten years ago.

Sample course on Udutu.com

In this post, I would like to mention a third party example of 'amazing e-learning.' Point your browser to 'Udutu.com', and on the home page, click on the 'How to build effective online courses' organge box. This will open a small sample course on how to create a course. The first page is a bit of advertising.

What makes this course special?
- I find the course look and feel and interaction just average, so that is not what makes it special. This is your typical pageturner+ kind of course.

- But I like the content: it has some nice sections on instructional design such as the often used Bloom taxonomy and definitions for constructivism and behaviorism and other popular instructional design theories. It also has a nice video based example of scenario based learning. I think everyone in the e-learning production chain benefits from a high level understanding of these principles. (Take the test: aks an instructional designer what social constructivism is, if they can't answer you can have their job :-) ).

- And above all, this is a sample course created on a new kind of platform: a completely online authoring tool with templates for the most common types of screens, customisable layout, SCORM export, etc. It is called Udubu.com and they have an interesting business model. The use of the authoring environment is free. They just charge 1$ per screen per month if you want to host the course with them. If you export if for your own LMS, it doesn't cost a thing. Obviously, this tool does not have all features that something as rich and complex as IBM Content Producer or Lectora have. But mark my words: these tools will become the 'powerpoint' of e-learning, taking down the barrier to create simple pageturner courses that enlightened SMEs can use for themselves.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating...
So I took the test myself and gave me one hour to make a little course with the udutu.com tool. I will let you judge for yourself, but here is a preview link to the course 'Hello E-learning World':

http://publish.myudutu.com/published/launcheval/4795/Course7598/Launch.html

Actually, it took me more like 1h30 hours because on two occastions, the tool frooze and I had to log in again (but without loosing any work). So in 1h30 I made 17 screens with some audio/pics etc. And no, this is not 'amazing e-learning' :-) It is just an example of what can be done by simple, dumb, thirteen in a dozen SMEs in a very near (or now?) future...

YouTube for teachers? Sure: TeacherTube

You know it exists, you just don't know where it is on het internet: a youtube-like site for educational material. I'm sure it's not the only one, but I stumbled upon teachertube.com.


One example is a funny video on how not to use powerpoint. (seen it before, probably on big brother youtube)

Top 100 learning tools

From the website : 'Between January and March 2008 155 learning professionals shared their Top 10 favourite tools for learning (either for their own personal learning or for creating learning for others). We used these lists to compile the Top 100 Tools for Learning Spring 2008. '

The list actually has only a few tools or links to sites that are education-specific. Most are your typical links like Google Docs, del.icio.us, Wink, NVU, etc. Does this mean the area of specialized learning tools is over and we just pick whatever we need from the mainstream toolset?

The link to the free PDF: http://c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/pdf.html

Learning is like water

I just read a piece of the latest newsletter of Elliott Masie:

"Covert/Secondary Learning Systems? We have been tracking an interesting trend, as some organizations are adding a second or even "covert" Learning Management System to stretch their functionality beyond the capabilities of the enterprise system already in place. Some of these "added" LMS installs have been in business units that want to rapidly expand functionality for targeted learning undertakings. For example, one Fortune 20's Sales Training group wanted a more collaborative approach to their on-boarding, so they leased an instance of a hosted system -- but called it an Onboarding System, rather than a LMS. They transfer the data in batches back to the corporate LMS. We are seeing secondary LMS systems implemented by other divisions or regions of the world, with unique needs that can't be rapdily met by the current LMS. "

It's not just that, there are 'hidden' LMS systems everywhere. It explains why Moodle has such a market share also in the corporate world: as seconcary LMS systems, for pilots, targeted departmental learning etc.

It strengthens me in my believe that learning is like water. It will find a way.

Let me explain: when there is a need for learning, it will happen. If the easiest is to do it via the learning function or the corporate learning systems, that is how it will go. If that is too troublesome process-wise, takes to long or makes no sense at that level, the learning will be disguised as meetings, workshops, LMS systems that are called differently or managed by another group, undercover as unmanaged and unbudgeted 'informal learning' etc. But it will happen. You can quote me on it: learning is like water, it will find a way. So there is a message for all the guardians of the learning function: if you make your service easy to access and use, the learning will go your way. Or else it goes any way the water flows...

Once upon a time there was a story

I firmly believe in storytelling as a way of learning we should use more often. Hey, it's how cavemen learned around the fire, and it still works.

Ralph gave me a link to a free software to help you write the scripts for the stories. (or where learning meets Hollywood). Haven't tried it out myself, but looks good.

http://www.celtx.com/

Google Code University

For teachers of programming languages, Ajax and web security, it might be worthwhile to check out the Google Code University. They offer free and creative common licensed materials. The site has samples, tutorial pages (text+image), video's of speakers on the topics and some contributed content. I guess this is Google's take on e-learning.

The urban legends of learning

You probably heard or used it as well:

We remember…
10% of what we read
20% of what we hear
30% of what we see
50% of what we see and hear
70% of what we say
90% of what we say and do

Turns out this is one of the myths or urban legends of learning, and is NOT based on research. A free and new research paper of Cisco on multimodal learning reveals the origins of this widely held misconception, and tries to find an answer.
Learning is a bit more complex than 'doing is better than seeing', and the above doesn't necessarily hold. It depends on context, learner style and what have you.
So, back to square one on this common believe. Next thing they will be saying that Kirkpatrick isn't based on anything either. (Actually, it isn't.)

keybr.com trains your typing skills

Keybr.com is a nice little site to test your typing skills. Just type in the nonsense sentences as fast and flawless as you can. After a few screens, I stopped at a speed of 50 and 5 errors.

Generations and learning

I'm more and more fascinated by this cross-generational learning thing, and how the learning function should play its vital part when in western society tons of people will retire and leave the workforce and need to be replaced by a new generation. It is a historical opportunity for the learning profession to claim its value!

I know, it is a generalization to talk about characteristics of entire generations. But let's do it anyway. The table has characteristics of 4 generations (in western society), as defined by Lancaster, L.C. and Stillman, D. When Generations Collide: Who They Are. Why They Clash. How to Solve the Generational <Puzzle at Work.Wheaton, IL. Harper Business, 2003. Click on it to enlarge.

Do the checking: ask people about their preferred way of communication for example. These generations also have different perspectives on what good learning is and how they prefer to learn. The babyboomers for example are used to more formal classrooms and prefer coaching by an expert to set them on the way. Generation Y likes experience-based learning and games, and connects with all and everyone to find what is needed. The funny thing is that the 3 right generations in the table will be involved in the learning and have quite different approaches and likes and dislikes about it. Organizations need to ensure that learning in the form of a knowledge transfer happens between the leaving babyboom generation and the entering Gen Y workforce, but the learning will be made by the Gen Y people that staff the learning function. That should be fascinating!

To end this article, I leave you with yet another YouTube video trying to tell you what students today are all about. (And education folks, I'm not fingerpointing at you to once again change the whole education system. I'm rather fingerpointing at the enterprise world for largely ignoring what is coming to them in the next few years.)

Average cost for LMS per user (Brandon Hall)

A new 2008 Brandon-Hall report lists average costs for a Learning Management System. Hosted is more expensive than your own implementation.

INSTALLED IMPLEMENTATIONS
500 users $55,622
10,000 users $266,404
25,000 users $483,167
100,000 users $1,304,830
HOSTED IMPLEMENTATIONS
500 users $72,370
10,000 users $339,414
25,000 users $601,358
100,000 users $1,529,718

CLO Magazine : some quotes

You can get a free digital subscription to Chief Learning Officer magazine at www.clomedia.com. This month's issue is on the changing role of the CLO. Here are some quotes on the feature articles. I've also put them on the 6C Quotes site.

- It's better to convince than persuade. (Mary Parker Follett)
- As a chief learning officer, how do you help manage all this change within your organization? You don't. You lead it - by honest conviction, convincing leadership and example. (Editor's letter)
- Workers want to get a 360-degree mixture of authored and third-party content, as well as YouContent. (Elliott Masie)
- Buying a hammer doesn't make you a carpenter any more than building a Community of Practise guarantees powerful learning results. (Bob Mosher)
- If you build it, they will probably come. It's keeping them there that's difficult. (...) Commitment comes from seeing value. (Bob Mosher)

Starbucks in North America closes 3 hours for learning

Starbucks in the United States took a rather drastic move: they closed ALL of their coffee houses for 3 hours to educate all staff on how to make a great coffee.

Elliott Masie has a 8 minute video on the Starbucks experience:
http://www.masieweb.com/starbucks

Can the folks at Starbucks maybe share the business case they used to convince top management of investing 3 hours and actually pausing business for that? I'd love to be able to come up with the right justification for that.

Virtual Launch Experience

Most learning comes in events: classroom events, conferences, competitions etc. Microsoft is about to launch new products (Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008) around the world. That is nothing new. But check out the 'virtual launch experience' they have been setting up for it.

http://www.microsoft.com/heroeshappenhere/events/default.mspx
You will need a free Microsoft Live ID (like hotmail accounts) to get in, but I'm impressed by the innovative approach to a global virtual information and learning experience here. They have taken the traditional mass launches and opened them up via technology to anyone else that could not attend one. I also love the way they combine video, like in the picture above. The lady presents the various navigation elements on the screen by pointing to them and explaining. Now, would that not be a great way to have our e-learning courses introduced?

Good old classroom

This week I got to spend 3 very intense days on a good old fashion 27 hour classroom experience. And I must admit, it has been one of the best classes I've taken in my company. The class was about consulting skills, had 24 students from Belgium and The Netherlands, 4 tutors from Dubai, UK, Spain and Germany and took place offsite in the Holiday Inn Amsterdam Schiphol hotel. The advantage of that brand new modern hotel is it lays about in the middle of nowhere, so there is nothing to do but concentrate on your course :-).

The course had it all: engaging activities, team forming per table with a competition between tables, a course dinner, theoretical backgrounds and above all one integrated case study to allow all groups to carry out the consulting engagement step by step from interviews to the presentation of the findings. At that time the 4 tutors swapped personalities and became one of the 4 characters of the case study. For me, they are all Oscar-winning actors, it was great.

I spend most of my time making e-learning happen. But of course these kind of classes can never be replaced by e-learning although they require substantial investment. The case study is actually based on a real one back in 1973! However, I do think we can blend just a little technology into these kind of courses to make them more productive. Let me explain myself: this was not my first course based on a case study. My whole MBA experience was largely based on individual preparation of a (Harvard) case study document of x pages with some preparation questions. And that is the part that can be improved with technology: why not set up a website prior to the course with all the (also downloadable) parts of the case study presented in a more engaging and structured way, with multimedia support such as video's etc. The answers to the preparation questions can then also be entered on-line, and actually seen by others and commented on or refined before the class starts. For the control freaks among teachers it even helps to track time spend on preparation and the efforts made. Has anyone come across such a solution yet?

E-learning for multiple generations

Very nice article on creating online learning for different generations. I know that this divide in typical generations is a generalisation, but it does provide interesting insights.

http://www.managesmarter.com/msg/content_display/training/e3ifd9d309a05210550829851b903c9b630

What's with this Common Cartridge standard?

I must admit, I'm a bit lost. In a newsletter I was intrigued by announcements of something called a Common Cartridge standard package specification, backed by an alliance of big LMS vendors such as Blackboard, and publishers such as McGraw-Hill. You can read the brochure on the IMS site, for it is another IMS project. (IMS is the organization that gave us e-learning standards such as SCORM - that I can't find back on their site now - and QTI).

As far as I understand, this project started in 2006 and its goal was to come to one format for learning that would work everywhere, in all systems. Publishers find they need to make separate packages for a lot of different systems, so standardization is a good idea. But wait a minute... didn't we have SCORM for that? In fact, the Common Cartridge specification includes SCORM and other popular standards such as the learning metadata description, QTI for assessments, etc. It is like a wrapper around all of them. Is this admitting that SCORM failed to realize its promises because it was open to too much interpretation?
You will be able to play the packages without an LMS too, and it is widening the scope to all kinds of learning. Or so I understand. I didn't find a lot of clear stuff on CC, maybe because it is still in development. Here are some of the best sources I found:

Presentation: conference.merlot.org/2007/Wednesday/CommonCartridge.ppt
Video of Alt-I-Lab 2006 : http://www.sakaiproject.org/media2/2006/altidemo06/altidemo06.htm
Icodeon website gives a brief and to the point definition : Common Cartridge is IMS GLC's new standard for packaging blended content to support courses facilitated by instructors, including a variety of digital formats, assessments, discussion forums, and web applications.
And at always the best information in a blog: Sheila's work blog.

I must say I'm very skeptical, specifically since this project started in 2006 and now in 2008 a simple Google search does not reveal any packaging tools, specifications, sample packages, etc. What is it with learning and standards? It is indeed true that the promise of shareable and reusable content is only partly materialized. A SCORM package does not necessarily work on all LMS systems. Some systems even only implement SCORM partially. The latest version of SCORM is 2004, but everyone is still using the older and much simpler SCORM 1.2. QTI is at version 2.1 in draft, but everyone - if they use it at all - is using version 1.2. Does the IMS and the industry keep making elearning formats that don't really work out on the floor or are not needed, or overly complex? Or do we as an industry have trouble getting our act together around one working standard?

Common Cartridge might be a next well intended try. It might be the thing that works. I'll see it when it comes along.