3 tweets   tweet   Gamification is steadily winning more and more popularity. But you are a serious person and you don’t have time for games. Maybe it’s time to revise your opinion? Playing games is cool! (PacMan, Angry Birds - does it sound familiar? You must’ve liked it!) If you haven’t, take a look at top HR-experts who already use game elements in employees training. And you can’t ignore millions of people who prefer Xbox or PlayStation to boring textbooks. If games seem so attractive to so many people why not to implement game-like mechanics in your e-Learning course? "What’s in it for me?" First of all you’ll become an insider by replacing "Learn by doing" with "Learn by playing". Secondly your learners will be really interested in what you hit over the fence. But there’s something more to come. 1. Engagement With the gamification approach you can really boost your learners’ engagement. It’s always funny to compete, even with oneself. Gambling together with competitiveness is a strong and effective combination to make students interested in the topic. A wish to show off and to beat everyone makes even a small darts competition a matter of life and death. Imagine what it can make to your e-course! 2. Endorphin The best way to make people remember something is to connect their experience with positive emotions. When learning turns into a game-like competition endorphin’s assured! To raise motivation even more fill your course with follow-ups to encourage your learners no matter if they win or lose. But think outside the box: "Good for you" and "Shame on you" won’t work out! 3. Results Here are some bare facts: recent studies found that people trained on video games learned more facts, attained a higher skill level and retained information longer than those who learned in less interactive way. Thus gamification is not just entertaining but also very effective. If you want to kill two birds with one stone gamification is the option: gamified courses result both in engagement and high knowledge. In other words, the engagement in the game leads to learning. So if you look for a new way of improvement pay attention to gamification. Your learners will definitely love it! And you’ll probably love the process of gamified courses creation. Just imagine: some people can only dream about playing games at work, and you are welcome to do it! Enjoy! We are looking forward to hearing from you!

3 tweets   tweet   Just imagine! Only in Q4 2013 Apple sold over 14 million iPads! Of course no one doubts success and popularity of this device, but is it actually useful? Like everything else, iPads have both pros and cons. But most of bloggers and e-Learning experts are rather optimistic in relation to iPads. Just take a look at this list of advantages: Loyalty. Everybody loves iPads. They have already become a lifestyle for the whole generation. Paperless technology. Today’s students don’t have to carry anything but iPads with them to keep in touch and to have access to their e-lectures. And have you heard? Now iPads are considered to be eco-friendly as they "save tons of trees". Interest. It allows teachers to give lectures in a cutting edge way thus keeping learners engaged. Portability. Well, that’s obvious: iPad is portable. And mobility matters a deal in the modern world - you snooze, you lose. Ease of distribution. Apple has sold 170 million iPads since it launched in April 2010. So a number of people you theoretically can share your courses with are enormous. And the only thing you need for this is the Internet. Another valuable option pointed out by Ashley Wainwright is care for people: "There are many apps for students with cognitive disabilities. It is really useful for students who have problems with communication skills". It’s simply impossible to argue with all this: care for people, care for ecology… Sounds really cool! But iPads appeared to have detractors. Well, nothing’s perfect, right? So what’s wrong with iPads? Lack of multitasking. Multiple tasks can’t be opened side by side. However, not everybody thinks it’s bad: "It may be good for keeping your students focused on the one thing they are supposed to be doing" - says Ashley Wainwright. No USB or SD card slot. Without access to the Internet data transfer is becoming a challenge for a proud owner of iPad. Inconvenient keyboard. They say it’s not a pleasant experience to use iPad touch-screen keyboard when you are going to do a lot of typing. No Flash support. By far it’s the most controversial missing feature of an iPad. According to Alan Samuel, here we face with "Flash vs. HTML5" opposition. But there is a solution for this problem. Did you know that there are 475 000 iPad apps? It is nearly a half of the 1 million total apps available in the App Store! Impressive? One of them is iSpring Mobile Player that allows viewing presentations and e-courses on iPads even offline. Thus, despite all the cons iPads are already here. And crossover interest for iPads is constantly growing. Education is also actively adopting iPads - watch this video and you’ll see that soon we probably won’t be able to dispense with these devices. Andy Daub is sure that the iPad has already left its mark on the computing industry and it is undeniably here to stay. "The pros of owning a device definitely outweigh the cons, but only as a supplemental tool". So perhaps it’s beyond iPad’s power to replace PCs but maybe it’s just not supposed to. However, iPads have already brought under our minds! Bottom line? You decide! All depends on whom you want to reach and what result you are aiming at.

1 tweets   tweet   We are glad to congratulate you on Thanksgiving and to wish you happy holidays! Hopefully you enjoy your day and a turkey, of course! And we also hope that this year you’ve got many things to be thankful for! As for us, we, at iSpring, are thankful for customers like you. Thank you for being by our side! Saying "thank you" we officially promise to do our best to meet your expectations and to make our products even better! Happy Thanksgiving! We wish the next year to be even more plentiful for you! And don’t forget to thank your loved ones! 

2 tweets   tweet   Fortunately, holidays last not for one day. Once the turkey is eaten, there are still a lot of pleasant purchases and not very pleasant lines on Black Friday ahead. You didn’t manage to buy something you dreamed of on Black Friday? Well, maybe it’s for the better. You didn’t have to stay in line for hours. And… Cyber Monday is coming. So, cool discounts are still here. Plus: It’s easier and faster to shop online. If you were busy with family and missed the in-store sales, Cyber Monday gives you one more opportunity to take advantage of discounts. You can easily compare prices on different websites. You can shop in your pajamas, from work, or while waiting for the plumber. You don’t need a babysitter. Moreover, temptations are not in sight, and it’s hard to overspend as you are not being infected by twinkle-eyed crowd. What else? Read here. We, at iSpring, also want your holidays to last longer. That’s why our Black Friday Special is not the last this holiday season. Cyber Monday special is at hand!

4 tweets   tweet   To be, or not to be, that is the question. The question for those who considering adopting e-Learning instead of traditional learning process. And, as it usually finds out, there is nothing in between. Learning experts are clearly divided into two camps. To shock e-Learning fans let’s start with those who is not very excited about this kind of education. "How come?" - you ask. E-Learning is fun, cool and engaging! Well, let’s see what negative can be dug out about it. For example, experienced learning consultant Clive Shepherd thinks that e-Learning is just a delivery channel for traditional learning content. "However, e-Learning is a medium which opens up possibilities that would be impossible to deliver using traditional means" - he says, giving e-Learning at least a small chance for existence. Meanwhile Set Hughes, a young lecturer and blogger (who’s probably supposed to like new technologies), doesn’t see any perspectives for e-Learning. He is convinced that there are some things that need to remain the same. And education is one of them. Now it’s time to concentrate on a positive side of the matter. Dr. David Guralnick, President of the International e-Learning Association (IELA), votes for e-Learning because it: enables people to practice tasks in realistic situations, is more engaging and more effective, enables students to extend their reach "far beyond the classroom", allowing them to talk to people from all over the world, expanding their perspectives and networks. No matter how different experts’ opinions are, the science agrees with Dr. Guralnick and speaks in favor of e-Learning. Study conducted by Petra University found that students who took their class online performed better than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction. Of course e-Learning, just like everything else, has both pros and cons. But to make the most out of it, concentrate on your content quality. To build high-rated presentations use professional e-Learning authoring tools. One of them is iSpring Presenter. It allows enriching courses with various multimedia and quizzes - that is really helpful for students to better memorize the content and be quick to grasp. E-Learning is already acknowledged by the world’s leading companies and learning experts. If it’s not on your list yet, remember that it’s always better to keep up with the latest trends as you work with the most forward-minded audience that will definitely love any technical innovations.

7 tweets   tweet   Are you still looking for a powerful e-Learning authoring tool? Or you have already found a perfect one? Search of excellence didn’t last long for Richard Foster, as he discovered exciting possibilities of iSpring Presenter 7. Being a dental lecturer, he finds this compelling program just perfect to create media-rich video tutorials for his learners. He also has his personal website, The Toothful Exchange, created as a way of providing his dental assisting and dental hygiene students with the access to some of the instructional media that he has created over the years. Here is Richard Foster’s story of using iSpring tools: "I started using iSpring Pro a couple of months ago and incorporated the use of iSpring Presenter 7 upon its recent release. I use the iSpring products to provide presentation of all course material in an online orofacial anatomy course at a local community college. I find that the iSpring products are easy to use and allow me to incorporate existing PowerPoint files into material that can be presented in the same manner as I would present within a face-to-face class. Some of the aspects that I like about using iSpring: the ability to record the audio on a given slide the use of PowerPoint animations, such as hidden text or images to enter the presentation where wanted; the animations are well synced with audio created in iSpring if you don’t  know how to develop Flash presentations, iSpring allows easy creation of a complete Flash file it allows users to have control over the presentation it gives the ability to add questions after material is covered and the results can be sent to my email users can view notes if desired when the development of the presentation is completed, the packaging of the presentation for web accessibility is easily performed by iSpring Overall the use of iSpring Presenter 7 allows me to check user knowledge through the creation of quizzes. Results are emailed to me so that no additional logging into a learning management system like BlackBoard or Moodle is needed." Richard Foster Dental Director at Guilford Technical Community College in North Carolina. www.the-toothful-exchange.com Did you have a chance to use iSpring Presenter? Test-drive iSpring Presenter 7 for free and share your thoughts with us! We are looking forward to hearing from you.

9 tweets   tweet   Content compatibility with different LMS’s is an ever-present question for those who works in e-Learning. Which LMS is better? Will it support all SCORM reporting options? We have already found answers to all these questions for you: Informetica LMS and iSpring is a perfect combination. iSpring-generated packages in SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 are perfectly supported by Informetica. Informetica is a powerful LMS that provides everything you need to create an effective training experience for your entire learner population from a single web-based system. With multiple levels of flexibility, the Informetica LMS ensures a smooth transition to the online learning experience, enabling all users to train wherever they are - in the office, at home, or on the road - at a pace that suits them best. Informetica will manage your learner registrations, training events and completion, as well as store supporting records for your users who must meet compliancy training with the least amount of effort. Course creation, delivery and tracking just got easier with the proven compatibility of iSpring Authoring Tools and the Informetica Learning Management System. You won’t waste time establishing integration between content and an LMS due to this perfect combo. Instead you can spend your time polishing up your presentation. We, at iSpring, are constantly performing tests on the most popular learning systems’ compatibility. Be sure that iSpring-generated content is perfectly integrated with all SCORM and AICC compatible LMS’s. If your LMS doesn’t work with iSpring courses, please contact us and we will check it.

7 tweets   tweet   Determined to create a superb presentation? Then you’re probably looking for inspiration. We’ve got everything you need: powerful authoring tools and eye-catching demos to be inspired by. Take advantage of the both. Plus now we’ve got even more captivating demo presentations. You’re welcome to take a look at the newest ones. They were created by A.D.A.M., a business unit of Ebix, Inc., a leading international supplier of on-demand software for medical education. Being true professionals in the sphere, A.D.A.M. developers have generated media-rich e-Learning courses that represent all authoring options provided by iSpring: check out all the multimedia, voice overs, transitions and built-in interactive quizzes. "I’m one of the iSpring developers for A.D.A.M. Been using it since version 7 has been in beta and I LOVE IT! Hope to see new features and wish you guys success! It’s an awesome tool." - Mike Cerantola, Production Manager - Flash/HTML5 e-Learning, A.D.A.M., a business unit of Ebix We’re sure that this demo, designed by medical professionals, will not only impress you with its look, but will also awake a keen interest in Anatomy! Enjoy! Liked it? View all iSpring Presenter demos -> We’re looking forward to hearing from you about YOUR awesome presentations!

6 tweets   tweet   On the threshold of Christmas and New Year we usually sum up what we have achieved, analyze and promise ourselves that the next year we will definitely bring all our wildest dreams to life! Of course you will! Just relax with it for a moment, let it go, get yourself a cup of cocoa and make a short journey into the year 2013 according to iSpring. So, let’s see what we’ve got… 1. How about a release of a new iSpring 7.0 product line? That was definitely a great event for both us and our customers. We did our best to meet your expectations. Now creation of media-rich e-Learning courses, online presentations, quizzes and surveys has become as easy as that. To test it out download iSpring newest tool FREE Trial. 2. PowerPoint went mobile due to the brand new PPT to HTML5 technology featured in iSpring 7 for the first time. Let your learners take presentations wherever they go with iSpring Mobile Player. Even poor Internet connection is not a problem anymore - view a course on an iPad even offline! How’s that? 3. Plus now we’ve got even better environment to create even better products for you! That’s all thanks to our recent move to a new office, where we all have already settled down. 4. Last but not least, we are glad to introduce you Clay Moore, our new Director of Sales for the US and Canada, a seasoned sales leader in the areas of e-Learning, Training, Technology, Business and Education. Of course there are many good people in the world but we want best of the best to work at iSpring! So we are continuing working on that. That is how we spent 2013. Enjoy the upcoming Holidays and iSpring greetings!=) The Holidays are coming! Of course we’re all excited! Whatever you’re aspiring Undoubtedly you’ll find it! This time is simply magical No one could even argue You all are so exceptional! iSpring is here to serve you! Have an amazing Holiday season and stay with iSpring! Happy holidays!

3 tweets   tweet   We are proud to share the amazing news: iSpring Presenter earned one more Brandon Hall Gold Award for Best Advance in Content Authoring Technology. iSpring software has been loved by our users since the very 2007. In 2010 iSpring Presenter won Brandon Hall Gold Award for the first time. And now, 2013 Gold Award joins its "counterpart". Our customers can be sure that their e-Learning content is created in one of a kind e-Learning authoring tool! We’ll continue perfecting our products and keeping up with the latest trends in technology and e-Learning to meet all your expectations: the sky is the only limit! Hopefully two Gold Awards for iSpring Presenter is just the beginning. Thank you Brandon Hall! We highly appreciate to be acknowledged by the leading industry experts and we are thankful to all our clients from all over the world. Thank you for being with us! Here is the official press-release: iSpring Earns Gold in 2013 Brandon Hall Group Excellence in Technology Awards.