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!

You get together practitioners, vendors, suppliers, buyers and users to ask them what they want!

It was at the elearning network event on Friday 25th September that this took place. New Models for Learning Management had a number of interesting speakers with the highlight being an interactive session led by Barry Sampson and Matt Brewer.

Mike and Barry suggested looking at 4 key areas to define what learners and organisations actually want. They were:

• IT
• Learning & Development/HR
• Learners
• Management

After splitting the delegates into 4 groups Barry and Mike assigned each group a role and asked them to define the ideal requirement for their role. The following discussion and specification was excellent with some great ideas coming forward with the key themes being a need to focus on the requirements of the learner.

With each group having defined their ideal requirements there was a group discussion where the outcomes were discussed. With each group coming up with close to 50 requirements the subsequent LMS could well be getting near perfection!

Barry Sampson from the elearning network has taken all of the group outputs and will be creating a specification document/mind map that will be available on the elearning network website.

I was sat with 2 delegates who were looking to procure Learning Management System and this document could save them both a lot of work!

The session proved the clear benefit in getting together all of the stakeholders and user groups before building any session. If I refer back to my IT degree and more recently my PRINCE 2 course getting together all of the stakeholders is seen an integral part of the design of any system.

The size and scale of Learning Management Systems means that a custom approach is out of the reach of some organisations but it was surprising to note that some of the more basic requirements were not being covered by the LMS market. The increasing use of social media, online learning and informal learning will make it harder for Learning Management Systems to provide what learners actually need unless they can adapt.

This was a great session, we may have found the answer to how to specify the perfect Learning Management System but the key message for delegates to take home was whatever you are designing you need to get the views and opinions and everyone who is going to be affected. Always remember who you are designing for!