Over the Christmas break thousands of people will have been opening Christmas presents and seeing a computer or laptop or a mobile phone. Amongst all of those people how many of them will know how to use them?

I helped buy a laptop for a family member this year. As a computer user since I can remember I didn’t really think of the fact that it came with no instructions. Nothing. Just a laptop and a power cable. Once I completed the windows setup I then had to update the computer with 44 updates. Yes - 44 updates. Sold as new and then I needed to spend an hour updating it. I can’t imagine many other shops getting away with that.

Another family member had a mobile phone, a fantastic piece of technology with a 5mp camera. Not set up to receive or send images. On the supplier website the phone was no longer listed so it was a trawl across the web to update the settings.

I read that apple have sold 50 iphone since 2007. Walk into the local apple store and see the number of people who are taking classes (old and young). Here is all our equipment - try it, don’t worry if it breaks and if you want we have training sessions.

I bought a new digital camera from canon - amazing value, but I needed to get on the website to download the manual to actually how to take pictures. You might think that I could use the manual settings but sometimes you just need to know the most basic features.

We sometimes wonder why we can’t get people interested in using computing, the internet or technology but after this Christmas I think we need to make it a little easy for people who are coming along to the technology party for the first time.

Flash – not the comic hero but the software, take some time to browse software and technical forums it generates huge comment. From those who want the iPhone to support Flash to others who will do anything that they can to avoid using Flash. Move sideways and you’ll see another discussion playing out about browsers, a few months ago you could easily find tech magazines and forums about Internet Explorer 6. .net magazine has ran a campaign called bring down ie6

This is nothing knew. In the early 90’s when I started working the designers and the programmers would discuss the merits of the PC v Mac. The PC users didn’t like the one button mouse, the mac users didn’t like the PC interface.

I read the current technical discussions with interest and sometimes they help to get things moving forward. The open source community is a great example of discussion, working together, testing and developing to refine the software.

For developers of e-learning this technical challenge is part of the job. It’s not just simple to say to your client that they need to update to the latest browser or move everyone up to the latest version of flash to get your solution working. Having worked in IT strategy supporting over 8000 users the update to the latest version of a piece of software looks quite straightforward but sometimes isn’t. As a result you might find that you are working with versions of software much lower than you are used to.

As developers we have more software available at our disposal then every before and so much of it is free. When working on a new project one of my first questions is ‘what is the PC/Mac specification’ many companies will have a specification document that you can follow. You may be disappointed if you get the answer that it’s IE6, early version of flash and no sound cards but this is when you need to get creative. My approach is to create ideas first and then apply it to the software. If you have a good idea and a narrative it will work across a range of platforms and you can deploy the version that meets you technical specification. I sometimes that think that it is easy to forget what we have, my first PC had 256mb hard drive and today I’m working around with a 16gig iPhone that can post me a GPS location, play music and I can get my email. This is where I start:

1.    Establish the computer specification
2.    Ask if you can complete a site test before the project hits start up to identify any technical issues early
3.    Focus on creative ideas – you can map good ideas to any platform – recent ports to the iPhone and iPad show this
4.    Manage expectations – if you know what the limitations are then communicate this to the project team
5.    Set up a clone machine in your office – you need to be testing in your target machine

It can be tricky to set up point 5 so you might think about asking the client if you can borrow one of them machines! It can be done I once managed to get a dual boot on Windows 95 using English and Japanese versions.

Keep the technical requirements in mind but don’t be constricted by it. If you start feel like that picking up an old course and see what you did all those years ago. I’d bet that it is still excellent work!

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!

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!

we are currently waiting for our developer status for the iPhone to be approved. Whilst we are waiting we’ve been trying a few things out. Here’s a sneak preview.

Real Projects Mobile Site

It is always good to come across a new magazine or book that you really enjoy and know that a lot of your friends will also like. I recently came across a magazine called Make while I was in the USA. It is published quarterly and costs near $15 but it is well worth it. The magazine features loads of really cool inventions and projects that you can carry out at home. Some of them are US specific and do require a certain level of skill (that I don’t have ) but they are still really interesting to read. The current issue involves making soap from bacon fat, building a bike stand, making a forge to create nails, building a LD brick light and tweeting your electric usage.

If you like the Jonny Lee wii video then you’ll like the Make website, it has loads of really great articles and videos. One example is making a 24 hour time lapse video.

Enjoy

I’d noticed that there had not been much blogging activity in the past few weeks. This is due to a combination of holiday, working on projects and getting our games based learning event arranged. I’ve been using Twitter to post updates as I’ve got twitterfone on my phone which has proved to be really useful. I’ve seen extended uses for twitter especially when used on a mobile device. I think it would be great to use when travelling so that you can keep people up to date with where are you and what you are up to. It has come quite a way since I used a fax machine to send back monthly updates. I’ve experimented using Twitter feeds with a client on a couple of occasions and it was useful when we were both out of office.

At the next e-learning forum event I want to try a twitter feed to see how whether it will be used.

Over the past month I’ve seen some really interesting stuff from the new UK edition of wired magazine to finally getting the time to read a TLRP paper on Education 2.0?

Reading other people’s blog’s is always interesting and I read about a great presentation device on Clive Shepherd’s Blog - http://prezi.com/ - take a look at this clever presentation device.

http://www.readthewords.com/ is another fave site at the moment that we’ve come across. It is well worth a look.

…also we are planning to be at http://conference.e2bn.org/ so feel free to come and say hi.

We have been looking at the PSP for a few weeks and today we’ve had some success! Sam, Ed and Jonny have managed to get a number of our own games and activities working, albeit with a few tweaks here and there. It was great to see the content and designs working on a new device and our next step is to move some existing content over to the PSP and to see how that looks.

It’s clear that we are going to have to look at how content is developed for the PSP and we’ve already talked about the need for a set of PSP e-learning guidelines. From our research it only supports Flash 6 but that still allows us to do lots of pretty cool stuff.

we’ll keep you updated on how things work out with the PSP.

Norfolk e-learning forum

The next forum event is on the 18th March in Norwich. If you are reading this and want to come along send us an email at info@realprojects.co.uk to book. It is a free event and if you are interested in e-learning and learning technology you are going to meet other like minded people! The event is interactive and you’ll get the chance to interact using the AlphaSmart Neo 2.

If you are still not sure about whether to attend give the office a call on 01603 762772 to find out more.

we’ve just started to update our twitter account….again. We opened the account last year but didn’t really do much with it. We are going to integrate it into the site as an addition to our news and blog just so that any of us can post to it with news of what we are up to.

I’ve not been able to update via SMS yet but I’m hopeful that we’ll get that working at some point. IT would be excellent to be able to update via SMS and provide more remote updates on what is happening at RP.

At this moment in time we are taking some time to look at the practical uses of it….its quite fun and we are being followed by a few people at the moment. You can follow us at www.twitter.com/realprojects