While working on rapid authored courses (courses authored using rapid authoring tools), I often encounter the decision point of whether to use freeform rapid authoring tools or the traditional template-based tools. Both have their own pros and cons. In this post, I attempt to discuss more on these.
Last year, we mentioned that there is a time and place for rapid authoring while opting for it.
eLearning Network today released the below graphic providing some stats about the US eLearning market in 2009.
Last week, while justifying Apple’s refusal to allow Flash player on iPhone/iPad, Steve Jobs wrote– “New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too)”. A few days before the launch of iPad Apple had released a list of ‘iPad ready’ websites having support for HTML5. Clearly Apple is backing HTML 5, CSS 3 and JavaScript for developing future web applications.
Yes, HTML5 is a major revision over its predecessor HTML4. Some pertinent questions need to be asked.
About a year back we realized using AS 3.0 in the custom eLearning development would be essential. A few weeks back I wrote about the reasons for using ActionScript 3.0 [AS 3.0] in Flash based eLearning development. While training our team on AS 3.0 we collated some good tutorials and blogs available freely on the web, and I thought it would be good to share that list. Some of these resources will also help AS 1.0/AS 2.0 developers to quickly migrate to AS 3.0. This list also contains links to tutorials for some popular open source AS 3.0 classes like papervision, box2d and tweener.
I have been involved with Rapid eLearning Projects at Upside and also creation of our own Rapid Authoring Framework that sits in our LMS (UpsideLMS). Naturally I do a lot of sifting around Rapid eLearning. I thought it would be a good idea to share my list of top 25 blog posts on the subject. These posts cover varied topics around rapid eLearning including authoring tools, effective techniques, and decision considerations. Some of the posts are on specific tools (like Articulate) but generally you will find them equally useful for any rapid tool/framework you use.
Last month Amit Gautam questioned if recession was a bad thing for effective eLearning.
As one of the comments there suggested training is seen as a cost-center in most organizations it is only natural to look for something cheapest.
I don’t intend to mean that you can’t find effective eLearning solutions that are cheaper than others, but yes if the focus is to find the cheapest solution, chances are you overlook some other (and I must say) more important parameters.
An eLearning player is a building block for more conventional [one with back and next for navigation buttons] eLearning courses. What’s an eLearning player? It’s a simple wrapper having global level functionalities like -
- Core logic for navigation features like next, back, menu etc.
- Communication logic to talk to the LMS (standards complaint)
- Global level functionalities like Notepad, add favorites, appendix, etc.
Interaction design is almost always a synthesis of traditional methods and approaches from varied established disciplines. When I write about interaction, most people reading it view it in the context of software or some form of digital technology.
“Interaction” isn’t only about technology or software. Industrial designers are taught to design ‘things’ that engage people and facilitate their relationships with those things.
Earlier this month, Tom Kuhlmann talked about 10 things to do before your eLearning course goes live. His post makes great sense but what really caught my attention was the statement he began with.
“It’s amazing how fresh eyes can find things you might have overlooked during production. So, before launching your elearning course, it’s a good idea to have others review it. You want to discover any hidden issues before the big launch.”
Adobe Flash Professional is undoubtedly the most popular tool for custom eLearning development. With the help of its inbuilt programming language ActionScript developers can code interactions, communicate with servers, program animations etc. The latest version of ActionScript- ActionScript 3.0 [AS 3.0] was released in 2006. It has many new APIs and better performance which were not available in the previous versions of ActionScript [AS 1.0 & AS 2.0] and is well backed by a great Flash developer community that has contributed in developing many open source frameworks/classes/APIs.
Ambient Insight has last month released a report on how the global market for self-paced eLearning products and services will grow through till 2014. It estimates the market had reached US $ 27.1 billion in 2009. The demand is growing at a 5 year compound annual growth rate of 12.8% and will take the world market to US $ 49.6 billion by 2014.
