News Clips

Today a shoe dropped in the Learning Management Systems Market:  Taleo announced plans to acquire Learn.com.

Let me discuss this announcement from three perspectives: first, the impact on the market; second, the impact on Taleo and Learn.com customers; and third, the impact on you as a prospective LMS buyer.... Read more»

What makes bad elearning? part 1
TrainingZone.co.uk
Robin Hoyle, head of learning at Infinity Learning, tells us that separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to elearning might be harder than you ...

and more »

Vaco Raleigh Named Top Technical Staffing Company
PRLog.Org (press release)
Vaco specializes in contract, special project and direct hire services in the fields of accounting and finance, information technology, eLearning and design ...

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Let our people KNOW
SYS-CON Media (press release) (blog)
Yakov, managing partner of eLearnIT LLC (www.elearnitonline.com), authors and delivers workshops and web based eLearning tutorials to guide professional ...

I’ve recently been working with Sameer Bhatia the CEO of ProProfs as I was going through an evaluation of various online tools that support easy, fast, low-cost testing and quiz tools. He helped me pull together the following evaluation of a few different solutions:

• ClassMarker
• Quia
• ProProfs
• Google Docs Forms Creator, and
• Quibblo.

Evaluation Criteria

For the specific need I was looking at, I was looking for the following out of a solution:

• Cost: Is the tool free or very-low cost to use? Trial periods wouldn’t count.
• Question Types/Methods: Does the tool offer the ability to create a rich testing experience by offering various question types?
• Multimedia: Does the tool offer the ability to include audio and/or visuals for questions?
• Data Collection: Does the tool provide detailed statistics on individual and/or group performance?
• Grading: Does the tool allow for several methods of grading responses? (i.e. immediate feedback, final results with or without which questions were missed, etc.)
• Download Test Results? : Can the test data be retrieved for analysis or backup?
• Layout/Accessibility: Can the layout of the quiz output be changed and does it handle accessibility issues?
• Security: Are there security methods in place to catch/prevent cheating, hacking, or other similar problems?
• Ease of Use: Is the tool well supported and easy to learn?

ProProfs

ProProfs Quiz Maker is an easy to use quiz program with a good variety of question types and options. It’s pretty amazing that it has 1 million users, over 100,000 quizzes in its public library, and over a million quiz takers. A nice feature is the end of quiz certificates for completed quizzes that can be customized. Also, test results can be downloaded in several formats. It is good at supporting accessibility with its one question per page to make the use of a screen reader more effective. It has a free and a low-cost version. To access unlimited grade reports, a paid subscription is required.

Best Features

• Very easy to use – I created a quiz in minutes.
• Good variety of question types.
• Good option for users with accessibility issues.
• Customizable quiz completion certificates.
• Relatively new to corporate quizzes and tests, but has some nice features for this kind of need.

Weaknesses

• Free version comes with Ten free grading reports - paid versions can have unlimited reports.

To see a side-by-side comparison, please see the table below.

ClassMarker

ClassMarker allows you to create simple tests/quizzes for free and seems well suited to classroom use. Instructors are able to modify score reports to provide feedback. For some of the more useful features, such as viewing score reports, an active paid account is required.

Best Features

• The program allows users to set up a ‘class’ so there is a unique login and password to track users.
• Final score reports can be modified to be shown as the instructor wishes.
• Tests can be paused, saved, and continued at the learner’s convenience.
• Variety of question types can make for a dynamic quiz.

Weaknesses

• All of the more useful features require a paid account, and even score reports cannot be viewed without one.
• No image/video support for questions.
• Not as easy to use as ProProfs.

To see a side-by-side comparison, please see the table below.

Quia

Quia allows all users to create many types of quizzes with a large variety of question types that can also include audio and video features. The instructor can set up various security settings for each class to provide more secure grading and decrease the risk of cheating. However, I found it a bit harder to use that the other tools.

Best Features

• Large variety of question types available.
• All quiz results are available in the free version.
• Security features designed to prevent cheating.

Weaknesses

• If students are not registered for a ‘class’, then the instructor cannot view the data from the quizzes.
• There is no way to choose how score reports are shown to students.
• Not as easy to use as some of the other tools.

To see a side-by-side comparison, please see the table below.

Google Docs Forms

Google Docs has a built-in Form document type that allows the creation of a set of questions. This can be an interesting quiz / test tool especially if you already use Google docs. There are a fair number of question types available and it’s very easy to use. However, users are anonymous while they are taking the test/quiz and thus need to self-report who they are (through a form field). This means that cheating would be quite easy. The reality is that this is more for creating surveys than creating quizzes and tests, but definitely worth considering in some situations.

Best Features

• Free and easy to use
• Data can be sent right to a Google docs spreadsheet or basic summary page
• Good variety of question types

Weaknesses

• No ‘grading’ can be done on quizzes
• No cheating deterrents
• Not designed for quizzes

Google docs is not included in table below since it is not designed for quizzes

Quibblo

Quibblo is a quiz and survey system that is a bit limited in terms of question types which makes it a bit harder to create a typical quiz or test. Instead users can create the type of question they require by manipulating the instructions and fields within Quibblo.

Best Features

• Free quiz designer

Weaknesses

• Site geared more for social settings than academic or corporate
• Lots of advertisements along the sides of quizzes- distracting

Quibblo is not included in comparison table as its not an academic or corporate quiz site.

Classmarker

Quia

ProProfs

Cost

Free (some features require purchase) $24.95 - $49.95 per year

Basic is Free. $49 per year for Educators, $199 per year for Corporations

Personal use version is free. Educator version is $2.97 per month, Business version is $16.67 per month

Question Types/Methods

Multiple choice
Punctuation
Essay
Multiple response
True/ False
Free text

Multiple choice
True/False
Pop-up
Multiple correct
Fill-in
Initial answer
Short answer
Essay
Matching
Ordering

Multiple Choice
Multiple response
True/False
Fill-in
Essay
Short answer

Multimedia

No image/video support for questions. Does allow for specialized characters.

Yes. Can add an image or audio URL to a question.

Yes. Supports image/video for questions.

Data Collection

Can only see score results with a paid account.

You can see the results of students in your class.

10 free reports are displayed. Premium version comes with unlimited reports.

Grading

Yes. Final score reports can be modified to be shown as the instructor wishes. Students can also save and finish the test later.

No, students will know their scores at the end of the quiz, but the instructor cannot choose how the reports are shown to students.

Yes. Several scoring options exist along with end of quiz certificate customization.

Download Test Results?

No, however, everything is backed up on the server. It cannot be downloaded.

Yes. If students are registered to the ‘class’, then the instructor can view the grades. If there is not a ‘class’ created, then there is no way to retrieve the data.

Yes, data is downloadable in several formats.

Layout

Accessibility

This cannot be changed. Overall the layout can get a little hard to follow and can take some time to get used to.

This cannot be changed. The layout is easy to understand, and someone with visual difficulties should not have problems.

This cannot be changed (though it supports one question per page or all on one page option). Someone with visual difficulties should not have problems.

Security

Each user has a unique login and password, so the information is kept secure.

Access can be restricted to the ‘class’ only, and reduces the risk of cheating.

Users all receive a unique login and password to ensure security. Quizzes can also be protected by common password.

Ease of Use

Not as easy to use as some programs.

Not as easy to use as some programs. More time was spent viewing the tutorials than creating a quiz, and even then it was still somewhat confusing.

Very easy to use. Clear and concise instructions.

Overall

Lack of reporting in the free version is not great, but it’s low-cost for the version with score reports.

The variety of questions is great, as is the ability to add multimedia to a question. However, the ‘create a class’ function is potentially daunting, and it is not as easy to use as a whole as some programs.

Nice program with good features, and very easy to use. Low cost.

eLearning Technology
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Bermuda Scientific Announces New Release 3.0 for Coral Presenter & Coral Educate
Newswire Today (press release)
Bermuda Scientific, a joint venture between NetDimensions and Azeus with expertise in delivering rapid eLearning tools, today announced the immediate ...

I need your help. I’m working on a book about architecture, but not in the conventional sense. I’m looking at learning architects, those who design environments for learning in the workplace. I want to interview a cross-section of pioneering learning architects from across the world to try and ascertain their vision for learning and development at work and how successful they have been in implementing this within their organisations. In particular I’m interested in those who understand the importance of different forms of learning (experiential, on demand, non-formal, formal) and have been able to integrate these as a coherent and well-balanced strategy.

Who do you know who is doing (or has done) a great job of heading up an l&d team and who would not mind sharing a little of their success? I’d love to know.

In the meantime, here’s a little more explanation of what I mean by a learning architect:

Meet the learning architect

A learning architect designs environments for learning. Like the architect who designs buildings, the learning architect will be responding to a specific brief:

• What is the nature of the learning requirement? What knowledge, skills and attitudes is the employer (the client) wishing to engender in the employees working within the business, division or department in question? How will this learning contribute to effective performance?
• What jobs are carried out in the target area? How many people are doing these jobs? What are these people like in terms of their demographics, prior learning, ability to learn independently, their motivation and preferences?
• Under what constraints must this learning take place? How geographically dispersed is the population? How much time and money is available? What equipment and facilities can be deployed to support the learning?

The learning architect also has a professional responsibility to their client. This requires them to be fully conversant with current thinking in terms of learning methods, acquainted with the latest learning media and up-to-date with developments in the science of learning. As none of these is intuitive and obvious, the client cannot be expected to have this expertise. And for this reason, it is neither sufficient nor excusable for the learning architect to act as order taker.

The responsibility of the learning architect is to their client. As with the architect of buildings, other motives can come into play – the desire to experiment and innovate, loyalty to the latest fads and fashions, the glamour and glitz of the awards ceremonies – but should they be tempted, they risk failing to meet the requirement within the given constraints.

'Architect' might sound like a grand title for someone other than a head of learning and development or what the Americans like to call a Chief Learning Officer, but remember that architects of buildings tackle small jobs like extensions as well as office blocks and whole housing estates. They start off working with other architects and they gain experience over time.

You don’t become a learning architect by calling yourself one; you also have to behave like one. An architect of buildings does not carry the bricks or paint the walls, although they do keep a watchful eye on these activities in case their plans need to be revised or updated. They don’t have to supervise every activity, but they do need to watch the numbers, so they can react if budgets and timeframes are being exceeded.

The learning architect does not need to directly facilitate learning or be present in all those situations in which learning might be taking place. However, they must know whether or not the learning that is occurring is in line with their plans and their client’s requirements, and that all this is happening at an acceptable speed and cost. And because the only constant in the modern workplace is change, they must be agile enough to respond to shifting requirements, new pressures and emerging opportunities.

Pennsylvania Retail Bank Selects Two Years of Comprehensive Bank Training from ...
The Open Press (press release)
These programs may be deployed as eLearning, as classroom training or as a blended program. Each program includes a searchable library for reference and ...
Edcomm Banker's Academy Updates Credit Union Information Security Training ...The Open Press (press release)

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ADG|Creative Continues to Bound Ahead in a Sluggish Economy
PR Newswire (press release)
ADG focuses on strategic planning, marketing, advertising, interactive media production, web design and development, eLearning products, publication and ...

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I totally borrowed this from TechCrunch!  But I just couldn't title it any better than they did.  I hear about social media burn-out a lot and I just don't understand it...personally.  Read the Techcrunch post here.  

I am still continually amazed that I can have a thought, and using a device that fits in my pocket, capture that thought, or real life experience, in text, photos, videos, or even just audio and automatically upload that content to a magical space that allows others AROUND THE WORLD to see, or share my experience, in near real time.  Not only that, but anyone can CHOOSE to engage with me and my thought or experience.  This is the most amazing thing EVER!  And I actually feel quite sad for anyone that does not experience the same pure joy that I feel every time something magical happens because of this cycle of learning.
Social media is simply becoming part of life.  It would be really easy for me to say something like, "ya never hear people saying I've got face-to-face socializing burnout".  The reason why that isn't even an argument is that people actually DO burn out on friends, family, co-workers, etc...even before social media came along.  This should not surprise anyone.
The reality is that you engage, and you disengage, and then you do it again, and again, and again.  Each person's need to engage is different from everyone else.  This is critical to understand when you are implementing social learning within your organization.  Please save yourself the misery of failure and DO NOT hyper formalize HOW people engage with whatever system you choose to implement.  And DO NOT make participation mandatory or connected to pay or anything like that.  Social anything needs to be authentic, period.

Learn more about everything SOCIAL with Mark Oehlert (@moehlert), host of the Social Learning Camp at DevLearn 2010.  Mark has some amazing content planned and rumor has it there might be some exciting news and attendees available at the camp this year.  Good times!
DevLearn 2010 Conference and Expo - November - San Francisco, CA

eLearning at the library
Longford Leader
... in partnership with FAS, has announced the continuation of the popular eLearning course at libraries throughout the county this autumn. ...

e-Learning for Kids Announces 4 New Microsoft Office Courses
PR Web (press release)
Our 400+ person e-Learning team is proud to assist in developing useful skills for a future global workforce, said Dev Ganesan, President and CEO of Aptara. ...

As August draws to an end - and summer is nearly over - here is a roundup of what's been happening at the main Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies (C4LPT) site this month.

2010 Reading List

I added over 30 articles and resources to my 2010 Reading list in August.  One of the themes of the month has been highlighting the value of public social media tools like Facebook and Twitter for the workplace (both for working and learning), and actively encouraging their use rather than banning them, e.g.

• 5 social networking tools for enterprise collaboration, 24World, 26 August 2010
• 3 ways CEOs can connect with employees, Ragan, 19 August 2010
• Why more of your employees should be on Twitter, Search Engine Journal. 17 August 2010
  
• What Twitter has done for me, Jamie Forrest, 7 August 2010

I've written a posting about this topic myself, Encouraging the use of public social media - as well as a couple of articles for elearning Age magazine and for TrainingZone's Social Learning Month in September.  As I write in my elearning Age article:

"As more and more organisations recognise the value of the use of public social media sites for their business - and not just for marketing but for working and learning too - and actively encourage their people to use them, there will be a new role for Learning & Development departments to help individuals and teams, who are unfamiliar with social media, understand how to use these new tools effectively and responsibly ... Social media is not something you just read about, but something you do."

This is one of the reasons why I have been promoting my How to use Social Media in Your Job 30-day online programme, which starts tomorrow and already has over 100 people signed up for it.  At the end of September I'll report on how it went.

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2010

At the time of writing, there have been 391 contributors to the Top 100 Tools for Learning list.  As I'd really like to reach 500 contributions by the time I close the list in the middle of October, please do share your Top 10 list if you haven't already done so.

I was on the phone with someone who had problems with her elearning course.  It seemed that nothing was working right.  As I dug a little deeper, it turned out that she was deleting some of her files.  She told me she did so to keep her files organized.  Apparently the folders were looking a bit messy.  What she didn’t realize was that all of those files she was moving and deleting actually broke her course.

My advice to her was to leave the published folders alone.  In addition, we had a great conversation about file management in general.  And I shared with her a few ideas so that she didn’t feel like her folders were disorganized.

Part of what I shared was that there are many ways to organize your folders and manage the elearning content.  It all depends on your personal work preference, what you need to do with the files, and if you share your work with others. 

Create Separate Master Folders

I like to start with a project folder that has all of my notes, resources, and production files.  For example, the folder includes all PowerPoint, Quizmaker, and Engage files.  I also include all of the original material from my subject matter experts.

However, I like to keep the assets (like videos and images) in separate master folders.  The master folders hold all of the assets regardless of the projects they belong to.  I do the same for my published courses.  I like to have all of my assets and published courses in master folders so it’s easy for me to find them.

I do this because I do a lot of product and course demos.  I need quick access to course assets and the published output.  I don’t work with my production folders as frequently.  I also don’t share my files much, so this workflow works fine for me.

But what works for me, probably doesn’t work for most people.  So here’s another idea.

Keep All of the Files Together

This next approach is one that probably works best for most people.  Create a single folder for each project.  And inside that folder, place all of the files needed for your course.  This includes your assets and published output.

With this approach, everything’s in one place, making it easy to manage and share files.  In addition, products like Picasa and Windows Live Gallery allow you to tag and search for the media assets on your computer.  You can also tag files in Windows Explorer.  So my goal of keeping similar assets in a master folder is no longer relevant.  I can just tag the assets and do a search of the tags.

Create a Generic Folder Structure

Regardless of the approach you use, it’s important to be consistent.  This is especially true if you share your files with others.  In fact, in a recent team meeting with the Articulate community team, we had a conversation about how we want to manage our production folders going forward since we share our files.

We opted for the all-in-one option above because it’s easier to manage and share files.  We also decided on using a generic folder structure like the image above.  We start with a pre-built folder structure that includes all of the key folders.  When we start a project, we copy the generic folder structure, rename it, and then add our project files. 

Using a consistent process means that as we collaborate and share files, we’ll always know where things are.  Below is a quick tutorial that walks through the basic process we’ll be using.

Click here to view the elearning demo.

If you want additional ideas, check out Kevin Thorn’s post where he shares six tips for managing elearning courses.  He covers how he manages his elearning courses and includes a quick tutorial.

Keep in mind that there’s not a right or wrong way to manage your course files.  So you have the freedom to do what’s best for you.  However, there are things you want to consider. 

The main thing is who else gets to see and work with your files?  If it’s just you, then whatever works for you is probably fine.  But if you make the files available to others, then you need to consider a workflow that has more universal appeal.  Not everyone can bear with our idiosyncrasies.  Personally, I like a simple structure that’s not so rigid that I spend more time managing workflow than building courses. 

How do you structure your folders and files?  Do you have a generic folder structure to start?  Share your thoughts and any tips by clicking on the comments link.

Tidbits:

• Just a final reminder, the special discount code made available to the blog readers for the Baton Rouge session expires September 3rd.  If you plan on going, now’s the time to sign up.  Discount code RAPIDBLOG.
• My son’s Lego supplies hinge on Articulate’s success.  If you’re a fan, please let others know.

Download your free 46-page ebook: The Insider's Guide to Becoming a Rapid E-Learning Pro

I’ve been tweeting a daily idea to spark your instructional design creativity. To get your daily ID idea, follow me on Twitter. (I don’t say much!)

Some recent tweets in the series:

• Ask your SME, “What are the 3 most common mistakes people make?” Turn them into branching scenarios.
• Using a story? What challenge is your character facing? Make them suffer!
• Are you solving a performance problem, or are you just turning information into a course?
• What are you creating to support your course? Job aids? Guidance for managers? Follow-up discussion? Additional tips in emails?
• Teaching a complex procedure? Course: How to use the job aids. Job aids: Everything else.
• What compelling scenario can you use to start your course? P.S. “A new employee is wondering…” isn’t compelling.
• Have your learners finish an almost-completed problem, then take away support in stages until they’re flying solo.
• What do you really want? “Describe the Heimlich maneuver” or “Save lives?” Don’t stop at declarative knowledge.
• How can you turn a dos/don’ts list into something more memorable? Try short scenarios that show the results; have learners draw the conclusion.

I use the #IDideas hashtag, and other people sometimes chime in with their own ideas. You can see past ideas here.

Image © iStockPhoto: mattjeacock

Yesterday, my father-in-law died in intensive care in Antrim Hospital, in Northern Ireland, due to  complications following surgery a few weeks earlier; he had just celebrated his 83rd birthday. John was a lovely man, and I just wanted to pay my very small tribute to him here.  The photo above was taken at the time of my wedding to Philip in November 2005, and this is how I want to remember him - happy and in good health.

A couple of months ago I advised people to Be careful with non-ascii characters in URLs. We’ve been discussing that at work lately, more specifically whether characters like ":" and "/" are allowed unencoded in query strings or not.

I may well have made mistakes trying to understand the specification, so any help clarifying any errors in the following would be appreciated.

The summary of my previous post is this:

In essence this means that the only characters you can reliably use for the actual name parts of a URL are a-z, A-Z, 0-9, -, ., _, and ~. Any other characters need to be Percent encoded.

But what about those query strings? After studying RFC 3986 - Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax I’ve come to the following conclusions.

Read full post

Posted in Web Standards.

Complinet Publishes Elearning Compliance Training Article Authored By Edcomm ...
PR-USA.net (press release)
Complinet has recently published an eLearning Compliance Training article by Edcomm Banker's Academy's CEO and Co-founder. New York, NY, August 30, ...
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CADLearning AutoCAD Map 3D 2011 Tutorials Published
PR Web (press release)
4D Technologies, an Autodesk Authorized Publisher specializing in self-paced eLearning for CAD and BIM software, announced today that it has published its ...

Edvance360 Unveils BrowserLock™
PR Web (press release)
Edvance360, LLC, formerly Scholar360, a leading provider of eLearning services and software, has announced the unveiling of Edvance360 BrowserLock™, ...