Examples of Award Winning Entries: Best Innovation in Learning Technology

As Brandon Hall calls for entries for 2009 awards, it lists examples of last year's winners of their site. You can view all examples on their site. In this post I review the best innovation in learning technology.

Best innovation in learning technology

This example presents an interesting authoring tool. I have seen and worked on similar tools, including those in my organizations. What I really liked was the simplicity of the interface of RapidIntake's Unison tool. Some cool features are automatic conversion of media formats into Internet friendly format (mp3, Flash video, jpg etc.), tags for media assets, chat with others who might be working on the same course. They have clever SaaS pricing models too. For example you get source files for your course only if you are a Pro member.

Of course, there is more to building an elearning course, especially if you are a vendor for custom content. The customer will always want something else and there is much work to be done in building assets outside a tool like this one. Notwithstanding this, I really like this product.

Note to self: Thought innovation in learning technology category was about LMS or something like that. Need to volunteer to be a judge in this category too.

Related posts:

Review of Best Custom Content

What's your Web 2.0 Quotient

While Kevin Kelly talks about Internet of things as he predicts the next 5000 days, the question is are we even ready for the present? We are still struggling with Web 2.0 and Learning 2.0, trying to bridge the gap between digital natives and digital immigrants.

So are we really ready for the future? How well do you use the web in the present? Are you familiar with the Web 2.0 mumbo-jumbo? Do you utilize the web to connect, learn and grow? What is your Web 2.0 Quotient? Here’s a simple form I created to check your Web 2.0 Quotient.

Check your Web 2.0 Quotient here.

Simply answer a series of questions and see how you score on the Web 2.0 quotient.

My score: 68. What's your score?

Have I missed anything? I am sure I have missed many things. Do provide your suggestions to improve this.

Disclaimers:

Uses rudimentary MS Excel features and is highly dependent of retaining the format and location of cells. No great programming has been attempted here.

Have you been Chromed yet?

In case you haven't heard yet, Google released its new browser Chrome. Microsoft Internet Explorer has 72% browser market share and I don't believe that Chrome will make a big dent into it. I feel this is because we don't really consider browser a productivity tool and we are too lazy to learn how to better use a browser.

So here are two questions for you about Chrome. You can vote here in this post or in the sidebar. (UPDATE: Poll closed)

Any portal/blog/community worth its salt won't be complete without discussing about Chrome. So we must do our bit. Would love to hear more about your experiences, thoughts about Chrome and its release.

Creating Animations Easily, well almost...

I earlier wrote about using comics in elearning and how easy it can be to create comics. Well, here a new site that allows you to create animations. GoAnimate provides you with tools to create animations easily. I am not sure if we can actually use this tool to create animations that you can embed in your elearning courses, but the idea is fantastic. Like I mentioned the last time, the hardest part is the creativity required in the storyline and script. It is worth trying your hand at both these tools to create comics and animations.

Top Learning Tools and Techniques

In April 2008, I started the eCube Ponder series. Each month, we will ponder over a topic. You can simply respond by leaving your comments on the topic. If you post a response in your blog, leave a link to you blog in the comments. Here’s the August eCube Ponder:

We all learn differently and have our favorite tools and techniques for learning. My top 10 learning methods range from tools like search engines to techniques like in-sighting and de-layering. What are your methods for learning? What are your favorite tools that you use for learning?

Thinking About Thinking II-Six Thinking Hats

Here is a well made presentation on Six Thinking Hats from Slideshare. It is aimed at readers who are not aware of this concept. It shall also provide good recall value for those who had attended the session. The presentation is well packed with information and explanation. It shall work as input for the questions raised on the same topic in my earlier post.

From: nathanr07, 11 months ago

View Upload your own

SlideShare Link

Using Comics in Elearning

I came across the Bitstrips site that makes creating comics a piece of cake, well almost. Check it out by playing around a bit. The hardest part of course is to have your storyline or script.


The site is in Beta. If you figure out how to embed the complete comic strip without this scrolling feature, do post a response.

Google Effectively

Before leaving Delhi, my friend presented me this book called The Google story. The book is about how Google came into existence and the fiery motivation of its consistent performance. Well, this is not the only high point of the book, I rather admired one of the three appendixes of the book that is Appendix I: Google Search Tips. It broadened my knowledge about Google, that Google is not only a search engine but, also has other day to day utility tools. It calculates, it converts – currency, speed, time, temperature, distance…I was amazed with the tools, tips, and tricks available at Google.

Since I was learning the utility of goggle, I googled for Google Search Tips and found Ultimate Google Guide. The blog was posted in Dec 2005; it is still very relevant and useful. I learnt various tips and tricks about googling effectively from this link. The link has list of tips on- Basic Operators, Advanced google operators, SEO-oriented Operators, Calculator Guide, and Conversions -with examples on conversion in degrees / in radians, in hex / in binary / in octal / in decimal, distance conversions, speed, time, temperature, currency etc.

There is more to share about Google. It is an eye opener that Google also provides tremendous help in acquiring and understanding content. Certainly, it is an important area for an Instruction Designer. No matter how good or bad is an SME or a Coursewriter, it is crucial for an ID to understand the content very well. None the less, it is equally crucial to learn and understand the content within the project timelines. Though nothing shall replace serious studying of prescribed text books, yet for a quick help following tips can be used:

· You can browse the world’s bookshelves online. Search for a topic at http://books.google.com/ and you will see information from actual books that Google has scanned and indexed in its database. You can browse or read the entire text of works that are not copy righted; for others you can see snippets and learn where to buy a full copy.

· Use link I’m Feeling lucky. Enter the search term and click this button on the Google homepage to bypass a long list of results. You can reach the top matching Web page for your term.

· You can use Cached version. Google tends to list popular and fresh pages at the top of its results, but dig beyond the first page or two of search results and you will often find older and forgotten pages but these are the ones what you need for your project. While searching for the Cached version of web pages, Google collects as it crawls and downloads the content you are seeking even if the current version of the pages has changed- say, a news site that removed the original story.

· The tip: the Cached version also highlights your search terms in colour wherever they appear on the page, an especially helpful feature when combing through long documents.

· For academic research purposes you may use http://scholar.google.co.in/. Serious searches can tap into thousands of scientific and academic journals with Google Scholars. Enter a query into search box at http://scholar.google.co.in/ to get abstracts and papers from published sources.

· Have more results onto each page: The Preferences link to the right of the search box is your ticket to tweaking various settings for Google searches, including the number of results displayed per page. Increase the number of matches you see per page from the number of matches you see per page from standard set of 10 to 20, 30 or more, to put more answers at your finger tips faster.

· You can translate at a single click. The language tool link, also found to the right of the search box on the homepage, calls up Google’s automated translation service as well as other language options. From this page, you can translate text among numerous languages (English to Spanish, French to German, Chinese to English…) or translate a Web page simply by entering its address.

· For further update, keep peeping inside Google. Click the “more>” link above the search box to find additional Google features and products as well as further tips how to search effectively. Check out the very handy one page Google search guide at http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html·

The tip: see what the future Google innovation holds- including TV search, Personalized search, a real time taxicab locator and more - at Google labs. Just type Google labs into the Google search box.

Happy Goooooooooogling…

Using Grammar Statistics in MS Word

We could use Microsoft Word's Grammar Statistics feature. Below is a demo of how to set up MS Word and start using the grammar statistics.
(click post title to open this post and view the animation below)

Top 50 Web 2.0 Tools

e-Learning Reloaded: Top 50 Web 2.0 Tools for Info Junkies, Researchers & Students | OEDb


Published on sdMonday 18th of February, 2008
By Jessica Hupp