Atlantic link rapid eLearning now outputs to PSP and DS Lite

Rapid eLearning software by Atlantic Link now offers an option to
output a format for the DS lite and Sony PSP.

This is worth exploring as we seek more creative ways to get our
learning objectives across to our busy and more game friendly
employees.

Let's think about a suitable course and try this out on a sample
group. I'd be happy to test drive the new software.

Sent from my iPhone

Mobile learning gets a boost

The new iPhone competitor running Google Android may give a much needed boost to mobile learning.

Google apps live on the web. Try iGoogle- terrific for highly accessible documents available anywhere anytime. So with Android - video, audio, images, etc do not need the power of a PC or mobile operating system to run them. You simply login to the application over the web.

Think of the beauty of creating content without the hassle of worrying about application standards that need an operating system to pair with them. Sounds to good to be true. Let's see what company is first to capture this highly attractive market.

Sent from my iPhone

More about Saba Learning Version 6.0 - First Look

Continuing from the last exciting blog entry, some more details about the forthcoming 2009 release of Saba Learning 6.0.

(The photo has nothing to do with the new release but I thought I'd throw it in anyway: Learning Technology Team members. Liam Foley, Chris Fioretti and John Talanca as the Global saba Conference 2008)

In the next version of Saba, all sections will have an RSS button and so jumping on the trend to stream out alerts to an RSS reader in another application. Great idea. The downside. Can you bring in feeds? You can stream out...but not in. Can the LMS be an RSS reader No. Saba did not consider this. Sad but true. But they realize the mistake. Saba only thought about notifications in this regard. But no-ones perfect, right? Other changes. All pages are based on plain old HTML and so easy to modify – great news which means our wonderful look and feel will be real easy to implement. How did they do this? The presentation layer is separate from the application layer.

They (not us just yet) have made the Centra experience more seamless. You can launch, edit or join directly from My Events. Search has also been revamped and improved (they promise). You can browse by location, by language, competencies, shows also most frequently used, see whats coming up in next 3 mths, etc. (not sure all this is really new but the search engine has been fully serviced they say). So lots of changes based on a sound usability study. Thats good news. One note about about the Admin interface. This won't be re-surfaced just yet. You see the tab for Admin but it leads to the old interface. It will be redone but later. They focused more on the user experience as a first shot.

The tabs contain Portlets within Portlets...that can be made available easily in SharePoint or other Portals sharing the same protocols for portlet mobility.

There is an edit page layout button and admins can anchor portlets like Search so users know where it always is.

Other improvements worth a mention: elimination of annoying pop-ups, add multiple keywords function, improved enrollments - with a facelift, support for back button on browser, pop up dialogue boxes with mouse over (nice), profiles now have photos and you can do drag and drop portlet re-ordering. We will consider putting this tasty upgrade the Roadmap next year and at least get a demo version installed internally so we can play around in it. I can't wait.

Saba Learning 6.0 - First Look

We got a sneak preview of the new Saba 6.0 interface set for release mid-2009 (which translates as September). Is there a big difference. Yes. Is it better. Yes. I liked it especially as it definitely improves the usability and makes it how can I say more "user centric". Sorry for the poor quality of the photo. My phone won't win any prizes for its built in digital camera. But remember this is a a sneak preview as no official images are available. Saba worked with a company called HFI Human Factors International who are experts in usability for over one year to get their new User Centered Design. And they came up with a long list of things to do better. I really liked the fact they showed a slide of all items they needed to change. Also, even engaging a usability company is a major step and I admire a company that recognizes the value in taking usability seriously. The biggest change is that the old naming conventions like transcripts and my learning have disappeared. The left hand navigation vanishes. What we are left with are tabs. Very simply 3 tabs if you are just a basic user (admins and managers obviously have more tabs). If you have not bought Saba Social the My Knowledge Network is also not showing up. So what are you left with in general: My Alerts, My Events, and My Activities.

My Alerts: shows stuff to complete: such as project management course still open, etc. These Alerts can also be setup as Email Notifications.

With the My Events tab you can sort by dated events, or sort by upcoming, etc. If it is a centra event you could even join from there. You can filter what is shown by e-Meeting, Virtual Class, Face to Face Training, etc - just tick a box.

Finally, My Activities: (which Ben Willis from Saba says is the coolest feature) is being sold as the next generation of My Success Plan. They have added a coloured stop light graphic bar to each item that visually shows acquired, expired, not required, recertify, etc. Also shows percentage certified within the graphic. You can also drill down into an item and get more information e.g. language, assigned, version, duration, and view a profile of the instructor and on it goes etc.

In the next blog entry I will have some details about the new version of Saba Learning.

Biggest Buzz...Social Networking

At the Saba Global Conference the biggest buzz is around social media and how it can be seamlessly integrated into the LMS. We saw a working version and heard the launch is set for mid-2009 so no panic to rush to the shops just yet. So why now? This stems from the growing online trend for user generated content (thank you YouTube, and 100 million Blogs, etc.) and tapping into the power of the community. So how does this relate to learning? Or Learning 2.0? Saba believe the opportunity lies with supporting users to collaborate more - realizing that learning is now becoming more user driven (peer to peer recommendations, sharing links, ideas and knowledge) and less steered by the organization. So Saba is setting up a richly featured social network space within the LMS.

They phrase this new solution: Saba Social - Connecting People to Expertise.

Saba Social is linked to the LMS and all its functionality...it is embeded into the application and shows up in a new Tab which brings you to the Knowledge Network (saba social). Writing about this is not easy as you should test drive it to understand how it works. The version I saw existed in PowerPoint so I am itching to get my hands on it. Basically it looks like it has all the bells and whistles of a standard social network wiki, forum, blog, profiles, search, etc. all tied up in the brand new Saba look and feel which is attractive and user friendly.

Talking to their Product Manager - RSS is still not available and may not surface even when they launch this next year. This is something I find weird as how can you set up feeds to existing Global Portals - it makes it a very isoloated solution. Okay you can pull in the Portlets to a Portal - but do you always want to go to so much hassle? Some good news about our current version of Communities on our system. After SP3 if you post to the 5.4 forum you will get an email notification. But RSS will not be available. Sad. But true.

So what else does Saba Social have that could make your day.

They have a Your Interest Feeds – perhaps a replacement for Email?...interesting these come in automatically in a feed by either you directly requesting or subscribing to some information or based on what you previously searched or even learning you took part in. It knows where you have been and what you have been up to. This is "learning by accident" just as you would hear some nugget of news at the coffee machine or water cooler. Other interesting features: ratings by users so you pick only what your peers have recommended. Reputation: you get associated with what you contribute to the crowd - if they also rate it highly, well done, promotion is not far away. Its all visible to everyone in your community. So it pays to collaborate.

Thats it. Saba Social in a nutshell. Now for some breakfast and collaborating in real-life...

Centra Upgrade 7.6 SP1- The Highlights

Just came out of a session on upgrading to Centra 7.6 SP1. Lets see if its worth the effort and time and money. Here are the main take aways just with the core 7.6: UI Refresh, Recording Studio Enhancements, Virtual Labs and Integration with MS Office and Outlook.
Now with the SP1 what goodies does it offer? Here is a short summary, feel free to print out and stick to your office wall: Batch user management (enroll groups and designate presenters, recognize duplicate events, add users to one or more groups). Audible Alerts - just add a .wav file (why not mp3?) and mix. Add mark-up to PowerPoint animated slides and changes stay intact despite moving graphics.
This is one I liked most - setup events or recordings as RSS feeds ;-) RSS is a simple way to syndicate content quickly and automatically. If you like it you subscribe. Other highlights...publish to Saba Knowledge Base - great if you have connnected Centra with Saba (easy when you know how). I just bumped into someone from Deloitte who is about to do the mission impossible project. She was happy for some tips and advice. Anyway back to the summary...Evaluation Enhancements (do we ever use Evaluations in Centra?) - you can now add scoring, pass marks, adjust fonts and even do an AICC launch so the results get ported to the Saba LMS (needless to say both systems should be on speaking terms). Finally, Centra has more Report Options for Evaluations. Thats it. In a nutshell a few kind of interesting (but maybe not thrilling) reasons to think about upgrading. No doubt we will be hearing from you.

Listening to a lucky company that successfully completed centra saba integration

This is one happy customer we know and love called Sprint. They have now recorded over 32 million minutes of centra virtual sessions just this year. They train internal and external users. All centra 7.5 version classes are done via Saba 5.3. (guess what their Saba LMS is called iLearn, very unique, eh) Saba creates the user account. Users enroll via saba and final recordings become saba offerings. They also integrate centa with Outlook. Users: saba 80k user licenses, and centra has 52k internal from saba and 38k externals users. Oh just learned both saba and centra systems are behind their company firewall hosted by them. Anyway...we will continue to explore this especially knowing it works so well for others.

Saba Global Conference 2008

This is a live blog from the conference rooms of the 2008 Saba Global conference. Hopefully over the next 3 days I can report on the new innovative stuff coming from our West coast learning technology partner. So far the most interesting bit of news, and its early yet on a sunny Monday morning, has been Saba Social. My eyesight is failing me from the backseat with John (so I wont go into the slide detail) but they have a cool new solution that meets many of our social media needs. Nice new interface offers advanced capability to search for expertise, not just training but also people with "knowledge". I love the fact the results which come back from a search are rated by fellow users. You then select the best returns based on popular appeal. Nice. More about Saba Social later and other exciting news from the conference. (Picture shows John T. in deep conversation with with Pedagogue consultants)

RSS - Get Your News and Blogs Faster and All In One Location

You may have noticed there is a lot (slight understatement) of information available online. Sometimes this can, lets be honest, be a little overwhelming. If informal learning accounts for over 70% of our time then anytime you are on the web is obviously a rich learning environment - especially if we hang out there for a good part of our day.

So is this really productive time? Lets have a show of hands. You could spend a whole day just sifting through article after article and still not get your knowledge fix. Its hard to know what to look at - particularly when you hit a company portal.

So... how can you filter this information so you can manage your day? The answer has been around for a few years already but has only now become popular because of powerhouses like our favourite Google and Yahoo. They thrive on news and information so thats where RSS comes in.

For a quick and simple explanation about how your life can be made easy visit this short video. RSS in Plain English

RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a method for providing regularly changing web content in an easy to grap feed.

By subscribing to RSS feeds you can easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in - saving you time by not needing to visit each site individually. So what do you need to get on the bandwagon?

A Feed Reader or News Aggregator software can grab RSS feeds from sites and output them in a format that is easy to read.

So there you have it. RSS can save you time and effort and make your day more productive. I have been using RSS feeds for a while now externally. Internally, we need to do a bit more work to make this process streamlined but I believe we are getting there. I'd like to visit this popular topic again when I get successful at consolidating some internal feeds. Stay tuned.

Touch Sensitive Screens - Imagine for Learning

Catch Jeff Han, formally of NYU on the net near you for a good update on where the world is today with advanced touch-sensitive screens. I know this is a carry on from the last blog but this stuff is so cool. Some links worth visiting to blow your mind: Jeff Han presentation on video. He has an amazing company called Perceptive Pixel, great name and just immerse yourself in his opening video - pure magic. Time also like this guy. CNN use his screen for their famous election night Magic Wall. I wonder what the technology costs...but imagine the impact on your audience. Wow.

Coffee and Learning On A Table?- The Next Wave of e-Learning?

I am still trying to figure how we can apply the cool new interactive displays being launched by Microsoft and other companies to the learning area. The interactive touch-screen table by Microsoft is true innovation at its best and allows you to manipulate objects on the display by simply moving them with your fingers. It also recognizes objects like a mobile phone, cameras or digital music players and provides additional information about what is put on the table. The touch-sensitive screen is built into a coffee table. Currently, Microsoft are selling these exclusively to the entertainment and leisure industry like Starwoods and big casinos but...standby as the price drops and they get more and more consumer demand, you may soon be inviting the neighbours around for more than a coffee.
So how do we apply these ideas to the world of learning? Gaming springs to mind immediately, as potentially all board games could find themselves virtualized. Imagine installing one next to the water cooler - e-learning could then take place in a comfortable and relaxing setting and not behind the closed doors of an office. The size of the screen also allows you to interact with the Internet so opens up loads of opportunities to include Google Maps, YouTube, Blogs, Wikis, and other collaboration platforms into a rich learning environment. Now I know what I want for Christmas.

When a picture is worth a thousand words

Hot off the press comes new research from Tim Brady that shows our capacity for remembering images in our longterm memory is huge. This is not just limited to basic visuals but also lots of details as well. Worth noting when you are developing that next online training.

eLeadership Success

just back from the eLeadership conf. great turnout of comms, IT, and mktg folk. hot topic...social media. no surprise. big demand for a network of experts and to share learnings. I am blogging via my phone so when I get into the office will try and report in more detail. in summary...eMarketing is alive and kicking.