Each month and week seems to see the launch of a new piece of technology for people to get excited about. Last month I saw that the Bigtrak is making a comeback! Companies are able to have global launch days that captivate their customers with their new product and service. The new Apple iPad launch has been a huge success with huge volume of units being sold in the first days. The e-learning community has rightly been excited by the iPad and the possibilities that it provides for mobile learning.

The kinect launch doesn’t seem to have been met with the same levels of excitement despite the possibilities that it provides for learners and developers. Originally called Project Natal kinect is a movement controller that allows you to control the software with your body movements, you don’t need to hold any type of device. Due to my interest in game based learning I’d be interested in the first promotional video and the opportunities that this could provide for learners and developers. When the Nintendo Wii was launched people were amazed about the new game controller and the way that it would change the way that we play games.

A few months after its launch I was thinking about how we could use the controller within an e-learning resource. After testing, reading, coding, prototyping we realised that we could develop flash games within the Wii browser and develop a series of game based learning resources. The development project was a success but for each user to benefit they would need a Wii device, something that we are unlikely to see within an office or school environment. Jonny Lee through his TED video had showed the possibility of the  controller technology being used on its own and we had high hopes for a working alone device to reaching the market after time.

After E3 2010 the game industry was buzzing with hope that the Kinect technology will make it to the PC. The ability to use this device will open up new possibilities for designers that will allow learner to have an immersive experience. We don’t have any development costs or platform ideas but if we are able to have a device that works on a standard platform and supports PC development it can have a real difference. For example the driver assessment course that alongside actual drive training also has a hazard perception section using the device, a flight simulation or a adventure location based resource where you actually walk within the environment.

Kinect could offer a new device that will provide an interface that could make the same impact that the PC joystick made. The development of game based learning, virtual worlds and simulations appear to be the most platforms that will make the most of these technology. At the moment we don’t know the development platform or how much development costs will be but it looks like a very interesting movement.

40 apps in 40 minutes

For the latest Norfolk e-learning forum I decided that we should run a session on open source and free software tools. There are so many well known open source and free tools in use such as Moodle and WordPress that setting up the session was a challenge.

I settled on 40 applications in 40 minutes. A whirlwind tour of 40 of our favourite free applications that would hopefully offer something for everyone! I had a list of personal favourites that I needed to add to and spent a few afternoons searching the web for some new additions. After only a few hours I was amazed and the sheer number of free apps and also the quality of the apps. One of the first new apps I found was the awesome highlighter, a brilliant website that lets you mark up and highlight a website – allowing you to copy & paste, save the link and share with colleagues. A really simple idea with so many applications, you can use it in the classroom, presentations theatre or during development meetings.

40 in 40 was pretty fast paced and there wasn’t much time to look at anything in detail other than a couple of videos that I created in xtranormal and animoto to show what was possible.

The response to the session has been great with several people adding their own applications to the list and more commenting that they didn’t realise how many of these apps were available on the internet.

During the session I worked on the basis that if you didn’t like an app or wouldn’t find it useful there was another coming in less than a minute! We published the list on the real projects website alongside our other resources.

My top 3 are

• Awesome highlighter
• Xtranormal
• Animoto

There are so many ways in which you can use the applications and it was great to listen in on some of the discussions afterwards. I’ve seen xtranormal used an an online icebreaker, animation software, for product demonstrations, adverts and for teaching! The awesome highlighter can be used by the web designer and client or the teacher in class.

As I come across more I’ll add them to the list!

The BBC website is carrying a feature on PowerPoint. It’s 25 this month if you didn’t realise! The author of the article details some of the problems with presentations and some of the common mistakes that people make.

If you are interested in presentations and improving your slides, regardless of what tool you use then I suggest that you take a look at these 2 websites.

http://www.presentationzen.com/

I first came across the book a few years ago and it changed the way that I thought about presentations. I’ve recommended the book to lots of colleagues and have had to re-order as we keep giving away our office copy to clients and friends. The website is well supported by a range of videos that provide an insight into the presentation zen style. The author is Garr Reynolds, a designer who has worked in the US and Japan and he advocates the use of strong imagery and a single key message. The book shows several iterations of the same slide to show how simple design changes can dramatically alter the power of a slide.

We have used the presentation zen style on a few occasions. It is hard to get right and I don’t think we’ve mastered the art but it certainly improved the quality of our presentations.

http://prezi.com/

Visit the prezi website and view the 1 minute video to find out how it works in detail. The basic idea its like using one big canvas that you can move around all areas of the canvas, linking objects and delving into specific areas.

http://prezi.com/w79q1epfl27s/view/ - is an example using emerging technology.

Is PowerPoint really the problem? Surely the issue is how we decide to use the tool? We should be thinking about how porly constructed PowerPoint files are now being transformed into e-learning content using Rapid Development tools. The tools are not the issue it is the content that is being used to create the courses. Rapid tools have an important place in the e-learning sector for developers and internal teams but we need to make sure that we are getting the learning design right.

we are on twitter (who isn’t?). We had a look at twitter last year, tried a few things out and didn’t really return to it until recently. We’ve been interested in the apps that have been created to support it.

twitterfon for the iphone really extends twitter and has made it a very appealing app when one the move. Tweet feeds and widgets for your own website also have extended the twitter reach.

We’ve been posting all kinds of ‘tweets’ from who’s going the shop to interesting things we’ve found on the web and at exhibitions. We are looking to see how we might be able to use it at the next elearning forum.

You can follow us at www.twitter.com/realprojects

Writing in the Guardian, Julie Ferry has looked at the increasing number of students who are choosing to study and travel at the same time. The article looks at 3 people who have successufully combined their studies and travel. With a number of companies offering paid sabaticals to try to avoid redundancy and an increasing number of training grants on offer could we see more people escaping the british winter to travel and study online overseas?

Liverpool University already offers an online MBA and there are many other online courses on offer. E-learning and learning technologies allow learning and academic institutions to offer online courses and open up their courses to a whole new audience.

Norfolk County Council has already implemented an e-learning programme that lets children who are not able to get to a school to sit their exams at home. The programme allowed nearly 100 children to sit their GCSE’s in 2007.

The technology and programmes have fantastic potential to help a wide range of organisations from hospitals, schools and colleges to businesses.

Working in e-learning I’m often asked by people what the benefits of e-learning are. This can lead to quite a lengthy discussion covering Rapid development, induction modules, animations, instructional design and many other areas of e-learning.

E-learning and learning technology covers so many elements it can be difficult to cover all of the benefits and some of the issues that also arise.

After talking to some of our clients, friends and colleagues we’ve listed some of the benefits that they have come across!

Learning from home
Courses can be deployed over the internet and via a range of devices from Blackberry to a PC allowing the learner to access the content at a time that is suitable for them. Access to online materials also allows part-time, job share and employees who work from home access to training material.

Handheld devices are opening up e-learning to a new user base, check out the blog post on e-learning on a blackberry.

Reduction in travel time
The use of online learning can lead to a reduction in travel time and associated costs, one of our clients reported that they were able to reduce the number of training classes that were held each year. Team members were also pleased that they could reduce their personal travel time.

Deployment across multiple locations
For businesses with multiple locations, e-learning allows for multiple location deployment. It also allows learning to take place in environments where getting trainers and holding training courses may have been difficult. At Real Projects we developed an e-learning course that was used by employees on offshore installations which could only be reached by helicopter and had no internet access. We used a cd-rom to allow learning to take place on the installation.

Learn at your own pace
Many e-learning courses and modules allow learners to work through modules at their own pace. A well constructed module will also take the learner through all of the learning outcomes and ensure that they have covered all of the subject material.

Fast and effective content updates
e-learning content is often stored on a Learning Management System (LMS) that allows learners to access content from a PC, Mac or other device. The content is in an electronic form which means that updates can be performed quickly and effectively with new releases being deployed across an organisation in an instant.

This is not an extensive list, just a few of the benefits that we’ve come across over the past few months when talking to clients.