This blog is about innovation, design, development, and trends in the Learning Solutions domain.

1. Games Change Brains – There have been many important findings on the benefits of video games in the last few months. This was a great post that put those in perspective.

• Video gaming improves visual perception, processing and attention.
• Internet use engages more neural circuitry than book reading in the digital generation.
• Sizes of three structures in the brain can predict a video gamer’s success.
• Learning environments of video games can educate children effectively.
• Building computer games promotes critical thinking and creative thinking skills.

Some months back I had posted (based on a research report by ValueNotes) about eLearning outsourcing to India doing well and looking to grow handsomely in next 3-4 years. With over 100 clients in 12 countries, Upside Learning has been offering offshore based eLearning outsourcing development services and solutions for 6 years. Last year we were recognized as an emerging leader in training outsourcing. There are many benefits that eLearning outsourcing offers and we feel in this business environment it is important that your firm considers outsourcing as an option – especially if it has never done so. In this and next few posts I intend to cover why to outsource; how to find a vendor; some best practices etc.

Learning Technologies 2010 was a great learning experience. Listening to some good speakers and sharing thoughts & ideas with some equally brilliant attendees was delightful. Earlier I posted my recap of the event (day 1, day 2) mentioning the strong and definite trend towards social, informal, and collaborative learning. While the event is over, the discussions and learning continues in the blogosphere.

With our focus on mobile learning, we’re constantly attempting to address the multifarious platforms in the mobile technology space.
These days, phones are sophisticated, and some come with operating systems that allow for installation and removal of applications on the device. While this is a common and accepted paradigm on computers, its still relatively novel for mobile devices. Mobile devices in the past came with fixed features that couldn’t be altered, and a user had to make do with the functionality that shipped with the device.

Recently we’ve made the UpsideLMS compatible to mobile devices and also launched a new version – UpsideLMS Version 4.0. While ensuring compliance, we encountered some interesting issues in the implementation of SCORM and found very little help online about implementing SCORM for mobile devices. So we thought sharing that experience might help.

Mobile devices have limitations:

- Screen size
- Availability of required technology/software like J2ME, a compatible browser
- Availability of consistent internet connection

1. Do Serious Games Work? Results from Three Studies
Some studies help answer some of the questions now surrounding serious games-or games whose primary purpose is something other than entertainment, such as military training, education, physical therapy-and determine the relationship between the use of video games and learning as measured on standardized tests. More research is needed, but these findings provide some answers to both skeptics and supporters.

A Google search on ‘Apple iPad’ throws up an excess of 30 million results!
Clearly the Apple iPad has drawn much applause and an equal amount of criticism in the last few weeks. At Upside Learning we’ve been thinking about ways the Apple iPad can be useful for eLearning – especially in the workplace. You can’t disagree that the iPad looks very cool.  Some people (as their tweets suggested in last few weeks) would buy it just to have one in spite of not needing one. However there are quite a few things about the iPad that suck (here are 8 that gizmodo listed).

I think the iPad in its current form – sans Flash, multitasking, & camera – has very limited uses in workplace learning.

On Feb 15, 2010, at Mobile World Congress 2010, Adobe announced Adobe AIR for mobile devices, a consistent runtime for standalone applications which is an outcome of Adobe initiated Open-Screen project. As quoted by Adobe, the Open-Screen project has grown to around 70 ecosystem partners world-wide, which means many devices would be made capable of supporting the outcomes of this Adobe initiative. To begin with it will be available on Android in 2010. Adobe also unveiled Flash player 10.1 beta to developers and content providers at the same event.

In the past I have written a few posts mainly focused on making the process of selecting the right LMS for your business need – be it internal training management or selling training as a business. We looked at a series of things focusing on the right way to go about open source LMS, in case you are switching to a new LMS system, the critical consideration on how to decide between hosted and behind-the-firewall option, and even a few tips on what not to do while selecting an LMS.

1. CopperLicht – fast WebGL JavaScript 3D Engine
CopperLicht is a JavaScript 3D engine for creating games and 3d applications in the webbrowser. It uses the WebGL canvas supported by modern browsers and is able to render hardware accelerated 3d graphics without any plugins.

2. Google Buzz
Google has announced Buzz a new social media service that would be integrated within Gmail. Using Buzz you can connect to the other social media services like Twitter, Picasa, Flickr and Google reader. More information on how we might use it in elearning can be found in this post on our blog.