Have you checked out the latest eFrontPro 4.2.0 update? If you haven’t, you should. It might sound like "just a point release" but, as usual with eFrontPro updates, it packs a mighty punch, with new features such as revamped ILT support, one-click upgrades, new question types, improved security and more. In this post, though, we’ll focus in one of the most eagerly awaited new features, integration with OpenSesame, a leading SCORM compatible eLearning content provider, which enables you to search for and purchase ready-made content to add to your courses right from within eFrontPro’s administration panel. OpenSesame’s content is great value for enterprises and organizations, as it can help you save time and effort, reduce costs, and expand the breadth of your courses. And even if you’re decidedly in favor of custom content, a ready-made lesson can help you complete a course’s curriculum with supplementary material or insights on a topic you’re not familiar with. Here’s how you can leverage OpenSesame’s huge content library from eFrontPro in four easy steps: 1. Accessing OpenSesame content from eFrontPro Configuring your eFrontPro installation to use OpenSesame is quite easy, as you just have to visit the Integrations page and enter your OpenSesame API and Secret keys. These will be provided to you after you open an OpenSesame account on their service. With OpenSesame enabled, a new "Add from marketplace" option is added to the Courses page. Clicking on it takes you to the OpenSesame marketplace, from where you can browse and buy from the available courses. 2. Buying OpenSesame content OpenSesame courses are displayed as lesson "bundles". Clicking on a bundle allows you to see its contents, and enables an "add to eFront" button associated with the bundle. As expected, clicking the "add to eFront" button downloads the bundle content and makes it available to eFrontPro. Depending on the size of the course, this may take a while ― a great opportunity to visit the espresso machine or the office’s water cooler. OpenSesame provides several payment options and pricing items that cater to all user cases, from "OpenSesame Plus" that gives you unlimited access to its content, to "Pay-Per-Use" membership options, as well as Standard and Site (domain based) licenses. Have a look at the available tiers in OpenSesame’s website to pick up what’s best for your business. 3. Integrating OpenSesame content in your courses Bundles downloaded from OpenSesame contain a number of SCORM units which eFrontPro automagically converts to individual regular lessons. You can treat OpenSesame originated content as you would any regular lesson module, adding to it as many courses as you like, etc. 4. We lied. There is no step four. We made sure OpenSesame integration is so intuitive, that you can go from configuring eFrontPro to being able to use your purchased content in no time. eLearning, in the end, is all about content. And with 3,500 professional quality OpenSesame Plus courses, and a total catalog of over 25,000 courses at your disposal, you’ll find that there’s something to cover most of your content needs, from basic MS Office use to specialized courses for the Healthcare and Gas industry, and everything in between. The post OpenSesame integration in eFrontPro 4.2.0 appeared first on eFront Blog.

It’s summer time (at least in this hemisphere), and hundreds of millions of people are already planning their vacations. Except travel industry people, who aren’t going anywhere, as they have to help all those millions plan, book and enjoy their holidays. It’s a competitive industry, travel, and one where employees have to juggle tons of facts in order to help their clients - being able to help them find picturesque villas in South France, exciting off-road routes in the Australian Outback and cheap rooms to let in Santorini. They also have to be proficient with several kinds of booking systems, international visa requirements, necessary vaccinations, and several other things besides. Even the ticket agent has to master an arcane set of rules and procedures for booking tickets. This is where eLearning comes in, and in today’s post, we’ll take a look at how travel agencies can leverage an LMS platform like eFrontPro to boost their productivity and efficiency. While certain details change, most of the use cases for eLearning in the travel industry are not that different from any other business. Let’s go through them: Employee orientation Employee orientation is the task of introducing new hires to your working environment and giving them the basic information they need to start being productive, including your company’s operating procedures and policies, restrictions and guidelines. If your travel agency hires new people frequently, automating employee orientation is one of the best investments, and eLearning software, such as the eFrontPro learning management system (LMS), is your best option for this. With eFrontPro you can organize your orientation material in accessible units, incorporate video, audio, images, PDFs, PowerPoint presentations etc., and integrate material from third parties (YouTube, Wikipedia, RSS, etc). And for helping you access your new hire’s progress and understanding of the material, it also includes tests, quizzes and auto-grading. It also tracks orientation course attendance, something that can serve as proof that your company has informed your employees about company policy, sexual harassment laws, etc., in case of a legal dispute (of course, as law differs around the world, consult your legal team before relying on this). Training Travel industry trends change frequently, employees are often re-assigned to handle different accounts, departments or destinations, and there are always new hires. All those things make training necessary. eLearning makes it easy and cost effective, enabling you to train your employees at their own pace, without business disruptions and with total clarity into their progress. With regards to the last item, eFrontPro provides a comprehensive reporting system that gives you quantifiable information and statistics for your employees’ attendance, progress and understanding of the material. And if your training material changes frequently (new destinations, new travel bundles to sell, new booking methods, catering to a new market in another language, etc.) an eLearning based solution will help there too. You can update all your courses without wasting paper and dead trees, re-use and expand content as you see fit, and share courses between different departments or branches. And with eFrontPro’s integration with content markets such as OpenSesame, you can even buy ready-made professional grade courses in thousands of topics. Knowledge retention In every business there are a few employees whose experience is crucial for its day to day operations, or for handling some special crisis scenarios that occur once in a while. An eLearning solution can help you store this valuable information in a formalized and easily accessible way that is safe from changes in your personnel and can be studied and taught to new hires. Of course you could just put all that into a document management system. Putting it in an LMS though, ensures that it’s not just some documents sitting on a server, but that you can also use use it as training courses for your employees, leveraging all of your LMS’ eLearning features. Conclusion If you work in the travel industry you probably know Greece as a popular tourist destination, with great beaches, nice museums, and friendly people. But it’s also the place where eFrontPro, the industry leading LMS platform, is developed, which, like Greece, is a very good fit for the travel industry. eFrontPro has thousands of satisfied customers, including several multinational companies. It frequently trumps the competition in industry reviews, and is renowned for its ease of use. Take it for a test drive today and see for yourself how a modern LMS can help you take your travel related business to the next level. The post eLearning for the travel industry with eFrontPro appeared first on eFront Blog.

You’ve enjoyed the platform, you’ve dug the features, you’ve appreciated the support and you loved the end product. It’s time to meet the people behind it all. Continuing our series of behind-the-scenes posts that we kickstarted with an interview of our support guru, Eleftheria, meant to introduce the team that created eFrontPro, manages your private Clouds and keeps churning all these nice updates. Today we’re talking with Periklis Venakis, eFrontPro’s software architect and all around nice guy. Please introduce yourself to our readers. What’s your name, background and position inside Epignosis? My name is Periklis Venakis and I hold a degree in Software Engineering from the University of Patras. I joined Epignosis back in 2003, as a part-time developer, but one thing led to another, things got complicated, and Ι ended up engaged in a full-time relationship with the company as a senior engineer and software architect. I am responsible for the code (doing quite a lot of the coding myself), and for sneering at coworkers’ programming habits (a.k.a. "mentoring"). Other than that, I pretend to be an all around nice guy. You said you’re some kind of "architect"? Have you made the architectural plans for the offices (the famed Epignosis HQ)? If only they had let me do the office plans too! Then we wouldn’t be forced to work in such lousy conditions (no internal heated pool? I mean come on!). Unfortunately for them, my "architect" role is restricted to code-related matters: deciding what and how is going to be implemented, choosing the right tools and technologies, transforming requirements to actual features and solving any challenging technical issues that come our way. eFront, and now eFrontPro, have come a long way since the early days. Do you have a concrete roadmap of where you want the platform to be in 2 or even 5 years? I personally dislike concrete, it is a rigid substance with practically no way of adapting to changes. If I were to use a metaphor for our roadmap, that would probably be orange juice: Delicious, adapts to any container and it’s good for your health — but it has to be consumed fresh. Joking aside, 5 years is a long time to make plans for, on any level, let aside software. That said, we do have a quite specific task list for the next couple of years, including (spoiler alert) xAPI support, moar (sic) gamification, full duplex offline communication and a, err, hit-load of other fascinating stuff. How much does customer input (feature requests, complaints, suggestions) affect eFrontPro’s design? eFront has been customer-driven from the very beginning. We take user feedback very seriously and it’s not uncommon for a feature request to be incorporated in the very next release cycle, if we deem that it’ll benefit other customers too. That said, we do receive a huge amount of feature requests, so the tricky part is to weed out the ones that add unnecessary complexity from those that provide actual value. Is there anything regarding designing and building eLearning platforms that you find particularly challenging or interesting, compared to other kinds of software? Yes! LMS design has a set of very intriguing properties: the target group is extremely diverse, encompassing children, educated adults, re-educated adults, enterprise employees, elderly individuals etc., all the way to people with special needs. Simplicity is the key, but at the same time, organisational needs are very complex: it’s a constant tug-of-war between ease of use and completeness. Plus, to accommodate both content design and content delivery, you need to support a multitude of tools, implementing a variety of protocols, that all have to work together even though their philosophy can be totally different. Do you study the competition? What you think are other companies’ shortcomings when it comes to how they design and build their LMS platforms, and how does eFrontPro differ? I keep an eye on the competition, but I don’t really study it. I’m all about innovation; I believe that each LMS has something unique to offer, pertaining to its own philosophy and it’s pointless to try and copy things other people have done. Speaking of eFrontPro, what’s special about it is that it’s easy to use yet complete at the same time, doing a great job at hiding complexity for the novice user and gradually revealing it as use cases get more complex. Oh, and it also uses the latest and greatest technologies, so it always looks fresh and neat. How do you like working for Epignosis? How does it compare to the average Greek company, based on your prior experience, or with what your friends in other IT companies tell you? Working for Epignosis is a delight but not because we have great offices (we don’t, I wasn’t allowed to build them, remember?) or because we have a gym (we don’t), a playground (we don’t) or a nice view (we do). It’s because of the team: we are gentle people, with deep respect for one another’s work, willing to assist each other and contribute to everyone’s success. We also share the same vision, which is for Epignosis to thrive (which is a little self-serving, since Epignosis is, after all, its people). What do you think has changed, if anything, since the early days, regarding your job function, the team, and the product? Everything has changed but at the same time everything has stayed the same. There’s mostly more of everything now: colleagues, clients, partners, codebase, products, servers, furniture. It now takes some extra effort to not bump onto one another (metaphorically speaking, of course). However, when I recall the early days, I don’t find that many differences: a handful of people working really hard to deliver a piece of software that satisfies our customers - and having fun while doing it. Do you have a general philosophy when it comes to software? Any abstract rules that you feel are important to software architects? Not in the sense of unbreakable laws or rituals. My general philosophy is "get the job done". This practically means that one should focus on the problem and try to solve it in a way that makes sense, even if this means that they get out of their designated role, or even their comfort zone. It might require talking to the customer directly, occasionally working late hours, or even waking up at 06:00 AM to speak with an Australian customer. It also involves making decisions on the spot and assuming responsibility, even if the fault is not yours. Conversely, do you have some practical, pragmatic observations when it comes to building software? "Less is More", "Keep it Simple, Stupid" (a.k.a., the KISS principle), "Learn to say No", "Whatever you do, you will not meet the deadline". How do you feel about the stack used to create eFrontPro, both the PHP backend part, and the HTML5/CSS/JS front-end? PHP has always been the language that programmers love to hate. Me, I just love it. It has a short learning curve, making it great for junior programmers to start with; a vast and excellent community; it’s mature enough to build complex, enterprise-grade software; and it’s easy to setup and deploy your product on. Regarding the front-end, starting with eFrontPro we decided to drop support for older browsers and rely on users’s browsers being HTML5 enabled. This gives us access to all the modern web magic; the sky is the limit now. Where do you see eFrontPro in 5 years time? And where do you see yourself? Reflecting upon where eFront was 5 years ago, I can, with great confidence, assume that in 5 years eFrontPro will be 10 times better, 10 times bigger (in terms of installed user base) and 10 times more expensive (I’m joking, people). As for me, I suppose I’ll be considerably more experienced, since I’ll have accumulated 5 years’ worth of mistakes (a.k.a. experience). I think I’ll also have more or less the same responsibilities: overseeing the development process and giving technical advise to those in need. Anything else you’d like to add? Buy eFrontPro? Does that count? The post Meet the team #2: Periklis Venakis the Software Architect appeared first on eFront Blog.

The most common question I hear as an eLearning Coordinator is this: "Can we have this via eLearning?" It’s my moment. I take my time, pretending I’m thinking it through, and after shaking my head, I reply: "Yes, just tell me how much time and how many resources we have". I can’t think of anything that cannot be developed into some form of eLearning. As long as you have an authoring tool and an SME (Subject Matter Expert) to provide the content of the courseware, you can create your own eLearning course. It’s as simple as that and this is how it goes: Course Design The SME’s task is very, VERY, important. The material they will provide, the text, the photos, the videos, the questions for the assessment are all essential components of the learning process; hence they need to be up to date and, of course, fully copyrighted. The Instructional Designer will receive the content from the SME and will go through it in detail. Their first task is to identify the best strategy to present it. Their second task is to produce a sequence which ensures the engagement of the learner in a fun and carefree way. This sequence will need to take a visual form and be recreated into a storyboard, a rough guide of how the course will look like upon its completion. Course Development Very often, especially in small enterprises, the eLearning Project Manager, the Instructional Designer and the eLearning Developer may as well be the same person. If not, the latter will step in the project at this stage and start working on the storyboard. Alpha stage The alpha version is the first model of the course the client will get to see and it will include all the material the SME handed in, placed in the order the Instructional Designer suggested. It is highly recommended that all multimedia resources and any interactivity are inserted in the design at this stage. In other words, make it as complete as possible. The alpha version will then be reviewed by the client, who will provide their feedback. Beta stage It is very important that the customer’s feedback is fully comprehended. Beta stage is nothing else other than the implementation of the amendments and changes they requested. This could mean anything, from a few minor adjustments to bringing back the Instructional Designer to review their strategy. Whichever the case and no matter what it takes, the beta version needs to be of much higher quality. It is the last model the client will see before the sign off. Any changes and amendments they may propose have to be as minor as possible. This is something that has to be very clear to all parties. Gold stage/Sign off stage This is the final stage. The eLearning Developer acts on the feedback from the last review and tests the course on an LMS. As soon as the course is fully functional, it is ready to be signed off. Conclusion There is not only one roadmap to eLearning content development. The size of the team, the size of the project, the nature of the courseware and the particular demands of the client are deciding factors that can affect the modus operandi in significant ways. The final word lies always with the eLearning Project Manager. It is them who liaises with the clients about everything, makes sure that all the resources needed are available and decides on the deadlines, based on the project’s budget. eLearning content development necessitates a combination of creativity, technical skills, team work and good time management; regardless of how stressful it can be at times, it is always a fun process and most definitely rewarding. The post The stages of eLearning content development appeared first on eFront Blog.

5 Learning Principles L&D Professionals Need To Know Infographic Learning and development professionals should ensure that everyone within their organisation knows and understands the information they require to function effectively and are able to apply it. With so much content available, they can easily get buried under a mountain of it before they even find what we are looking for. The 5 Learning Principles L&D Professionals Need To Know Infographic presents a list of five simple learning principles that show how great learning content should be created. 1. Boredom kills All info coming into the brain is filtered through the amygdala. When a learner becomes bored, the amygdale becomes hyperactive and it sends all of the information it receives to the lower 80 per cent of the brain. This is the "animal brain, the reactive, involuntary brain". Boredom means that important learning content isn’t remembered. 2. Repetition Rocks Most people will have experienced the sore hand and bad hand-writing that accompanies the first day back to school after a long summer break. Just like the muscles in our hands, neural pathways are weakened overtime. This means that if learners are not using knowledge or skills gained through training, they will begin to forget it. 3. Too much information Educational psychologist john sweller first coined the term "cognitive overload" in 1998. We all have a finite amount of working memory at our disposal to process and understand information. When a learner is presented with info, it is important that it is delivered in bite-sized chunks which he or she can reasonably process. 4. We all need a reason If a learner can’t make the connection between learning content and application in their everyday life, they won’t have a reason and therefore the motivation to understand the topic presented to them. As the person guiding learning and development, it is your role to communicate expectations and the motive behind learning a particular piece of knowledge or skill. 5. If at first you don’t succeed The first time learners receive teaching, it creates a strong impression upon them. It‘s important to present information in a logical and clear manner at the start of any training module. The foundation of learning that you set in place becomes the map students use to navigate all further information. Via: blog.aurionlearning.comThe post 5 Learning Principles L&D Professionals Need To Know Infographic appeared first on e-Learning Infographics.

Microsoft in Education Infographic When it comes to unlocking potential, there are many keys. At Microsoft, they understand that the real value of technology lies in the skills it builds, the opportunities it creates, and the horizons it broadens. That’s why they are empowering the education community with a wide range of products, services, and programmes that help transform learning and make it more accessible. At Microsoft they believe that: Technology can accelerate insight and impact Immersive learning experiences deliver improved outcomes Communities of committed participants, collaborating effectively, are essential to advancing education The Microsoft in Education Infographic highlights some of the areas within education where there are Microsoft products, services or resources that can be utilised by teachers and students alike, in order to enhance and add value to experiences both inside and outside of the classroom. Professional development for educators Take advantage of a rich set of professional development resources from Microsoft. You’ll be better prepared to equip learners with the skills they need for a career and life in the 21st century. Microsoft Educator Network Join the Microsoft Educator Network to access free tools, tutorials, and learning activities for the classroom. Become part of the global Microsoft community as a: Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) Expert Microsoft Showcase School Microsoft Teacher Trainer Learn more at www.pil-network.com. Transform the classroom Discover exciting new ways to teach, accelerate learning, and deliver better pupil outcomes with an innovative, technology-based classroom. Devices From playing videos to typing up notes in OneNote, Windows 8 is packed with the functionality pupils need. Available from a range of manufacturers at a range of price points, pupils can choose the Microsoft device that’s right for them. Find out more at www.eduempowered.com Educational apps See the Windows Store for a growing range of apps for education, and give pupils tools to learn. Apps include: MediaCore NearPod CreateBook Novamind Mind Maps Explain Everything OneNote Get the apps at aka.ms/Apps4Edu Skype in the Classroom Welcome to the world’s biggest classroom. Skype in the Classroom connects educators and experts to l earners everywhere. Sign up today at https://education.skype.com DreamSpark DreamSpark offers pro-level developer and designer tools. Educators can also access top-notch resources to ensure their classrooms always have the latest technologies to challenge, motivate, and keep learners engaged in new ways. Get started at www.dreamspark.com Power BI Power BI for Office 365 is a collection of features and services to create compelling content, share your discoveries, and collaborate with colleagues, teams, and study groups i nnovatively. It works seamlessly with Microsoft Excel. Get started at www.microsoft.com/en-gb/powerbi/default.aspx Office Mix Office Mix mixes web videos, animations, and more so educators can create rich, interactive lessons. Record lectures, draw on slides, and add audio-visual content. Share lessons with students and colleagues, who can watch them online on nearly any device. Learn more at https://mix.office.com Sway Sway is the app for expressing ideas in bold new ways across multiple devices. The interactive creations have no borders, edges or page breaks slides so it’s an ideal canvas for educators and pupils looking to set their minds free. Learn more at www.sway.com Empower pupils Learning and discovery shouldn’t stop at the school gates. Inspire pupils with the technology that gives them the freedom to collaborate, connect, and be more productive both in the classroom and in their own time. Office 365 Education Office 365 creates experiences that help students easily connect with each other, staff and experts. It’s packed with features, including free email, the latest Word, Excel and PowerPoint, OneNote, 1TB of OneDrive Storage, Instant Messaging, and more. Microsoft IT Academy (ITA) With Microsoft ITA, academic institutions-as well as their students and staff-get a digital curriculum and certifications for completing fundamental technology skills. Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) Our mission is to help students learn about the latest technology, build their skills, and advance their careers. The MVA is free of charge and the entire service is hosted on Windows Azure. Complimentary copy of Microsoft Office for Students! Academic institutions that license Office can now provide access to Office 365 ProPlus (full Office on up to five devices) for students at no additional cost. Office 365 ProPlus benefit available for faculty and staff starting December 1, 2014. Find out more by speaking with your IT department at school. Business of schools Microsoft’s partner community offers education-specific solutions to help transform teaching and learning with technology. See www.eduempowered.com eLearning eLearning solutions include authoring, storage, consumption, and analytics tools. Pupils learn on their terms-anytime and on any device. Teachers track progress and provide guidance. Big Data and Analytics Use Big Data and Analytics solutions to mine data volumes and derive the insight schools need to make the right strategic decisions. Help teachers provide personalised learning. Cloud IT and Productivity Cloud IT and Productivity solutions are cloud-based services that help CIOs and IT staff securely manage school infrastructures and improve service efficiency. Learning Mobility Learning Mobility solutions offer innovative digital approaches to traditional learning and teaching, ensuring that pupils have the skills they need to thrive everywhere. Via: blogs.msdn.comThe post Microsoft in Education Infographic appeared first on e-Learning Infographics.

5 Things To Look Out For Choosing A Learning Management System Customizable and intuitive interface A good LMS is easily customizable. Customizability gives you that extra flexibility to add, delete or change whatever features you want. It should have a search feature- simple, yet extremely useful. Plus, if the interface is intuitive, for example if it can list suggestions based on learners’ searching and browsing, great! Web Hosting If you have a dedicated IT department that can work to provide tireless 24/7 support and backup, self-hosting is for you. If not, ask your vendor to provide cloud based support on their servers. Integration Whichever hosting method you choose, your LMS must be easy to integrate with third party applications. Be it in-house ERP systems or external applications from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, if your LMS does not merge its functionalities with the applications your employees use most commonly, it will not be able to deliver the full utility that it must. Compliance standards Make sure your LMS is SCORM compliant to the latest version which allows for Tin Can API support. AICC (Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee) is another standard and it allows content to exist on a separate server and supports secure information transfers with HTTPS. Ultimately, it depends on your priorities. If secure data transfer is more of a concern for you, AICC is the right choice otherwise common rapid eLearning development tools work well with both SCORM and AICC. Social features A good LMS should be able to provide real-time chat, video-conferencing, online discussions, etc. to facilitate onboarding. At the same time, administrators must have the power to monitor discussion content ad intervene if necessary. Via: blog.originlearning.comThe post 5 Things To Look Out For Choosing A Learning Management System Infographic appeared first on e-Learning Infographics.

Personalizing Learning Infographic Personalized learning is the tailoring of pedagogy, curriculum and learning environments by learners or for learners in order to meet their different learning needs and aspirations.The Personalizing Learning Infographic explores how curriculum design can address personalized learning.   What is Personalized Learning?   1. How? - Learn How You Want to Learn Read Watch Listen Do 2. What? - Learn What You Want to Learn Profound In-depth Sinppet Enough 3. When? - Learn When You Want to Learn Alone With others Multitasking Bored 4. Where? - Learn Where You Want to Learn Anywhere Class Life Work 5. Why? - Learn Why You Want to Learn To advance To learn To play Just because   How to Personalize Learning   1. How? - Multiple Options Create curriculum with lots of ways to learn the same content. 2. What? - Multiple Content Density Levels Create curriculum with lots of levels to allow learners to go deeper at their own pace. 3. When? - Multiple Time Constraint Options Create curriculum that can be consumed at anytime. 4. Where? - Multiple Location Options Create curriculum that can be consumed anywhere. 5. Why? - Multiple Perspectives Create curriculum with lots of perspectives to address needs of different learners.   Examples of Personalized Learning   1. How? - Delivery Dynamic Video Scholarly Articles Breaking News Authentic Projects 2. What? - Levels Random Newbie Advanced Expert 3. When? - Constraints Little time needed Others needed Lots of time needed Alone time needed 4. Where? - Location Anywhere Local Abroad Favorite place 5. Why? - Needs For the professional For the just because For a child like mind For my future Via: anethicalisland.wordpress.comThe post Personalizing Learning Infographic appeared first on e-Learning Infographics.

The Rise of Podcasts as Business Education Infographic Smartphones have the power to make us smarter with a little help from podcasts. From cooking to political science, marketing to sports, podcasts are a new form of "continuing education" making it possible to "audit a class" in any subject just by listening on the go. The Rise of Podcasts as Business Education Infographic shows why podcasts are on the rise. History of Portable Business Education Newspapers Radio Books Cassettes CDs iPod Blue Tooth Smartphone Tablets These modes of learning posed various challenges: You can’t read while you’re doing other things such as exercising, cleaning or driving. Radio isn’t on demand, so options are limited to whatever is being broadcasted/discussed when you tune it. 3 Benefits of Podcasts You can listen on demand 24-7. You can customize content by selecting shows, episodes and topics relevant to your interests. They’re portable and free. Podcasts Then and Now Podcasts began as an outgrowth of the Apple iPod, as a tool to bring original programming to the once hugely popular MP3 device. But it was cumbersome to get the shows. Most were housed at the iTunes Music Store and you had to download the show to your computer, plug in your iPod, then transfer it. Technologies that have improved the podcast experience Tuneln Radio, SoundCloud, Stitcher and iHeartRadio gave podcasts an entirely new audience. Bluetooth connections now coming standard in many cars make it possible to play audio from a smartphone directly through car speakers without having to plug in. Wifi/broadband Apple podcast app in 2012 Tools for broadcasting Most popular categories for podcasts are news, politics and sports. Technology that improves how we find podcasts MarketingPodcasts.com is a new discovery engine for marketing podcasts, with more than 400 shows ranked and rated and reviewed. Technology that improves how we create podcasts Would you like to produce a podcast for free? At the list of Free Podcast tools you will find 15 free tools that you will make your life easier. Via: marketingpodcasts.comThe post The Rise of Podcasts as Business Education Infographic appeared first on e-Learning Infographics.

Advantages of Early Childhood Education Infographic Early childhood education has been proven to benefit children’s academic success and overall well being as an adult. Children who attend preschool do significantly better in high school than children who do not. Those who attend preschool also benefit once they enter adulthood. The Advantages of Early Childhood Education Infographic explores the state of early education and its effects on children in the U.S. View also: Why Childhood Education Is Important Infographic Early Childhood Education Infographic Breaking Down the Benefits of Early Childhood Education Infographic Why Early Education Is Vital Infographic   Via: www.rasmussen.eduThe post Advantages of Early Childhood Education Infographic appeared first on e-Learning Infographics.