Lambda Solutions e-Learning 2.0 Online Training and Moodle Experts

While I'm sure all the instructional designers out there are greatly inspired by Jim's articles, I am also certain a large number of you out there are wondering how all this relates to our everyday lives ? Well, I had an example on Saturday, while I was in my MBA class at SFU, my economics professor Dr. Dan Shapiro was trying to play a flash video file for the rest of the class. Of course it didn't work with Media Player, and as he was trying to get it work, I told him why not load it in Odijoo ? So I used my account to log in, loaded the video, and it was all done in less than 3 minutes, a lot shorter than if we wanted to find a player that works. Now, not only is the video in Odijoo, from now on, all the classes can be done through Odijoo. Since most university professors now deliver their teaching through a blend of power point slides and videos, both of which are readily available on Odijoo. Well, this is my how Odijoo saved the day story...

A little over a month ago a reader of one of the articles we published in the eLearning Guild (A Picture is Worth 1000 Words: Visual Design in e-Learning) had this to say:

“I believe the most difficult obstacle that I face as an Instructional Designer is knowing which tools are robust while still being relatively easy to use. Also, the fact that many organizations faced with tight budgets expect designers to also wear the development hat. I personally do not want to be a Flash Programmer - if I did that is the area I would have pursued. I am a fan of Captivate 3, but I have used it from the RoboDemo days, so I may be biased.


Any insight you can provide would be greatly appreciated.”

Her question peaked my interest in that it is asked by many instructional designers (ID) of themselves: “I enjoy instructional design, do I really need to know any programming or develop my technical skills?” Before we answer this question let us make an assumption which I believe rings true for many eLearning practitioners across the globe: elearning is a subset of LEARNING. As such it is not a branch education/training that is exclusive of all other modes of training and/or learning; it is simply learning enhanced and supported by technology in its many forms.

As an elearning practitioner it is inevitable that an ID understand technologies of the trade as these are the medium of that practice. If we want to explore the possibilities of technology enhanced learning we have to know what it is, what it does, and to some degree how it does it.

Here is what I suggest IDs approach technology in their practice relative to their comfort levels in technology.

At the very least learn “tech-speak”
Let us suppose that you, an ID, have a developer at your disposal who is proficient with the software tools used for creating online courses. Your “tech-speak” literacy level will determine how efficiently and clearly you get your requirements across. Take the time to learn about the products feature list and what they are best used for.

If you must wear many hats, you make sure they all fit!
If you are an ID with some technical skills choose software tools that are template-based. Why reinvent the wheel when you already have many to choose from?! There are many tools out there that are designed to be relatively simple to use and at a modest cost even for the most cost-conscious organization. Take advantage of the trial versions they offer to find out for yourself how friendly the tool really is. Template-based tools are great workaround solutions for the moderately technical who are looking for plugging in variables with minimal to no programming required.

For example Adobe Flash has pre-built learning interactions in its library that can be easily manipulated; for the most part the programming necessary is already pre-built and all you need to do is adjust variables and do some minor tweaking.

There is also Articulate and Raptivity both of which offer a variety of game and presentation shells that can easily be manipulated by the “not so technical” IDs among us. The only word of advice I have regarding these products is that you do your homework. Consider your audience first to determine if the templates you want to use are indeed appropriate for target audience. It’s a tedious process, but somebody’s got to do it.

Moreover, whether we like it or technologies have limitations; they can’t do everything we want them to. This is where you as a skilled ID must start thinking out of the box and find a workaround for the limitations of technology. This is how you make your money and your tools work for you, but this requires that you understand their limits and their strengths.

Not for the faint of heart…where even angels fear to tread
IDs who are also capable programmers (by this I mean individuals capable of a variety of scripting languages used for interactive media such as Actionscript, PHP, etc) are hard to come by. Such individuals have the practical advantage from both technical and instructional design point of view as they have full control over how they want the interaction to work and behave. The only word of caution I have is that tech-savvy IDs never lose sight of the learning that needs to take place and that technology is there to support it and not just an afterthought.

“Without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable.”
William Pollard

On my daily commute to the office the other day I came upon an article in the local freebie newspaper on the impact of "digitalk" and social networking technologies on our social relationships. Digitalk is defined as conversations through electronic media via Facebook, MySpace, e-mail, text messaging, chat, etc; generally any kind of text-based electronic communication. While the article admits that the quantity of our social connections have increased dramatically, the quality has decreased.

It's interesting that the same tools that have improved learner engagement, participation, and the internalization of information into applied knowledge are supposedly contributing to the decline of our interpersonal skills. On the one hand the seeming anonymity social networking tools afford learners who otherwise would not actively participate in a face-to-face discussion become more vocal and engaged. And on the other hand that same comfortable anonymity is the apparent cause why many lose their personal sense of self. Can we truly attribute the latter to social networking technologies, or is it that people who lack interpersonal skills in life are finally empowered to connect, express themselves and speak their minds to others?

Potential clients often ask me what Moodle is, and since it is a large part of what we do, I decided to take this time and explain Moodle a bit. Moodle is an Open Source Learning Management System. To understand Moodle, let's first define Open Source. You know when you have to pay for software when you buy it from a shop, whether it's a game, a utility or accounting software, most likely you've paid for it. What you're actually paying for is the licensing fee of these software; Open Source, on the other hand, are software created by developers who wants to make the world a better place, and offer the fruits of their labour at no cost to the average Joe. Translated, Open Source is free.
Now, let's define Learning Management System, a LMS allows you to create, deliver, and track content on the web. Let's say you're a world renowned expert in the "Star Wars" universe. You decide you're going to create a course to teach people how to speak Wookie (the language Chewbacca speaks), the LMS allows you to decide how you want to deliver your course, manage the delivery mechanism and track to see who your star student is in speaking Wookie.
That is essentially Moodle in a nutshell, an Open Source LMS for people to use. However, it's not as easy as it sounds, and that's where our business steps in, we do Moodle Customization (making it look good and fit with your website), Moodle Integration (making it talk to your existing infrastructures), Moodle Hosting (so you don't have to worry about hardware upgrad and trouble shooting), Moodle Support (so if you are doing your own hosting and things go crazy, we've got your back), and Moodle Training (what good is a LMS if you can't get people to use it properly ?)
So if you are into exploring the possibilities of Moodle and how it can help your organization, talk to us.

Lately I’ve gotten lots of requests in regards to rapid eLearning development specifically in regards to Articulate. Recently a client asked if Articulate was the best tool to use to convert PowerPoint into Flash because we had experienced some image degradation during one of our projects where we converted some PowerPoints with Articulate and then integrated them into Moodle. Well in order to find out I asked one of the smart guys here to do a quick analysis and this is what he found out:

"To answer your question about image degradation in Articulate, this has a lot to do with the compression the software does to make the course WEB ready. This compression can be customized based on how the material is being delivered. We normally compress it for CD quality, as opposed to WEB, to get better picture quality. But in addition to this compression there is also additional compression happening in the background with PowerPoint itself. That is why it is advisable to always ask the clients to provide us with image files (or *png) instead of images/screen shots embedded in WORD or PowerPoint to minimize any uncontrollable compression. Ideally the images used in the courses are of high-resolution (minimum 200 pixels per inch). "

"As for tools, I have assessed the following ppt2flash tools:
Articulate, Adobe Presenter, Wondershare and Ppt to Flash Studio Conversion.
Articulate had all 95% of the features of the other tools with the additional features of:

Of the applications outlined above Articulate offers better value and seems to offer more advanced features. The quizzing features in all the software are comparable….basic."

So there you go.

I've recently joined a group on Ning called Work Literacy, which is talking about the convergence of eLearning and social networks. It is started by Michele Martin, Harold Jarche, and Tony Karrer. An All-Star eLearning team and bloggers, since I joined the group, it really became apparent how technology is rapidly changing the face of learning. In the old days when corporations implement a new system, it had to fly trainers all over the continent to deliver face time training. Not only was this expensive (hotels, plane tickets, meals etc.), the quality of training can also vary depending on a multitude of variables (such as temperature, time zones, how the trainer felt on the day of training...) Fast forward to NOW, the technology is in place for us to deliver consistent, quality content through the web and it is available not on the trainer's schedule, but on a learner's schedule. As modern management has taught us, employees have different learning peak times, some people are more alert at 6AM, some people are great at 9PM, there's no standard, but it does impact how well the learners are able to absorb all the information that's given and it is absolutely the key metrics in measuring your training success.
The beauty of eLearning is it custom suits to every individual learner and trainer. As a trainer, now you can focus on learner feedback, how well they learned the material, how responsive were they to the quizzes, in other words, the trainer can now concentrate in a perfect environment on creating the perfect delivery method for his/her content. As a student, eLearning provides the flexibility for us to learn anytime, anywhere, with whatever device we may have, be it a laptop, a cell phone, whatever device that has an internet connection. The very idea of learning in a physical presence is quickly diminishing, now we are able to learn from not only people we have direct access to, but we are able to learn from the best and brightest the world has to offer.

Everyone needs a break once and a while. I recommend going for coffee in the afternoon to get the daily intake of vitamin F. Making it a group event at Lambda has provide a chance to strengthen team bonds outside of the work environment.

It’s been a long time coming, but the official Lambda Blog is finally here!! As many of you already know, Lambda is the premier choice when it comes to e-Learning. We helped governments, enterprises, and schools create more efficient, user friendly, and easily track able learning contents. If you need to train people quickly and efficiently, we are your one stop shop. We’ll be posting news, Lambda events and cool stuff here, so stay tuned.