I've come across a contentious little spat in the world of Instructional Design, over which authoring software is best and most helpful. Is the reigning champion Articulate, Lectora, or Captivate? There's even a bit of a David vs Goliath dynamic; a handful of independent software companies have found themselves up against the brawn of Adobe, and it's massive product line and legions of loyal, dependent users (some for over two decades). Well, while this quiet little melee was playing out, in stepped another 300 pound gorilla: Microsoft. PowerPoint is already used extensively by learning developers and teachers, and even the authoring software companies try to make it easy to import PP files and turn them into interactive multimedia learning experiences. Articulate Studio actually operates within PowerPoint, allowing you to add animations, videos, screencasts, and testing features right inside the belly of the beast. This obviously looked like a great idea to the Redmond crew, so they've developed a downloadable plug-in that adds those very features to PowerPoint, right in the toolbar. They call it the Office Mix, and for now, it's not very feature-rich or powerful in the way the big authoring softwares are, but Microsoft is obviously just getting started, and they've effectively already landed a stunning blow: It's free. Now, sure, many digital education tools are free or cheap, but not so for the big toys. All of them are upwards of a grand or more to own outright, and if you already own MS Office for all those other tasks, a free downloadable plug-in is VERY tempting, considering you likely already know how to use the primary interface better than you know how to operate your web browser. Even in it's current infant stage with all it's limitations, I think many educators will give it a whirl, and if it turns out to be good enough for the job, it could start taking chunks of market share away from all the heavyweights who thought the ring was all theirs. If you're ready to get into the Mix, click here: https://mix.office.com/ Yesterday I took a few members of my Instructional Design, E-Learning & Edu-Tech Meetup group to the ginormous Merchandise Mart to ogle some great design and be wowed by technology for the built learning environment, and then we moseyed on down the street to the IBM building to be immersed in the work of two different local companies that develop gamified learning in responsive formats.
http://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Instructional-Design-E-Learning-Edu-Tech-Meetup/events/222965591/ I can't believe I didn't learn about these online freelance matchmaking services years ago!
https://www.odesk.com https://www.elance.com www.freelancer.com I've made accounts for each, and begun filling out the profiles, preparing to begin applying for gigs. SmarterU LMS provides all the features you are looking for in a learning management system -- from a built-in e-learning course creator to SCORM compliance to Executive Dashboards and Reporting.
http://smarteru.com/ So, on Thursday, May 7, I popped into Morgan's on Fulton for a talk on Chicago's up-and-coming educational startups and new technologies disrupting the educational system. Sponsored by Dell and Intel, the panel discussion was about new technologies, such as apps, media platforms, and crowdsourced educational resources, and how they are shaping a new vision for school systems (K-8, high school and secondary learning) and personal education. Dell and Intel staff were there to discuss their support of such initiatives, and to show off their wares, as well.
It was a great event, and I swear they had 70+ people packed in there. The panel was large and impressive: Karen Buckner Partner and Chief Operating Officer, MK Capital David Vinca Founder & CEO of eSpark Learning Jennie Magiera Co-founder of PLAYDATE / Digital Learning Coordinator of Academy for Urban School Leadership Vince Leung Co-Founder & CTO of Mentor Mob Christopher Nyren Founder of Educated Ventures Kailey Raymond Associate Director of Startup Institute Matt Baker Teacher at Dev Bootcamp Shegan Campbell Co-founder & CEO of Kids Science Labs This nifty little tool lets you take a video from places like Youtube, and turn it into a quizzable lesson!
I need to try this soon!!! Upon going down the rabbithole of similar and related apps, I see that Kahoot takes it further, with audience interaction from tablets and phones, and Educanon is much the same. And, OH MY - Voki makes animated human avatars that talk! Good grief, is this little app fun and funny! I just made an avatar of our President dressed up like a child and blathering silliness. Playtime for now, cool tool for the near future ;)
In my ongoing coursework on training and eLearning Development, I've been finding lots of online courses available to learn from, such as offerings from Coursera, Udemy, and other places.
This is a sample of a Lynda.com course I just completed on Needs Analysis. |
Carl BoydMusings from the world of eLearning Development and Training. Archives
October 2020
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