I received an interesting and probably fairly important question. I believe this person represents a fair number of individuals who work in the world of workplace training / learning. I am a Senior Organizational Development and Training Specialist based in San Diego, CA. I came across your blog today searching for certification programs in the area of eLearning and/or Web Based Training Design. I have about 6 years of experience of classroom training but my company has been reluctant to give us any kind of exposure to web based training or make any real changes to this effective training medium. I know that to secure my future in this field, I must gain some more knowledge in this area on my own. So I'm wondering if you have any suggestions on some credible, relatively affordable programs that provide certification in eLearning or Web Based Training Design. Any information you might have would be greatly appreciated. Kudos to this person for not allowing the limitations of their organization limit what they are going to learn. That said, those limits will certainly make it more challenging to find a good choice around eLearning Certifications. Let’s try to help them out. When I asked about this last time in eLearning Certification, some of the responses: OU (Open University in the UK) does - you can take a full course, or simply individual modules. I think one of my colleagues is doing one. It's worth a look: http://www.open.ac.uk/. Any of their courses be offered as distance and/or online learning, so the location shouldn't be an issue. We have an online eLearning Certificate that may be of interest. The program uses synchronous technology with a real instructor at the other end so there are time commitments but--and I am only slightly bias in this case :)--it is a really good program. Check it out at Bloomsburg University's Instructional Technology page. The University of Southern Queensland offer a Postgrad Certificate in a variety of options: - educational technology - online learning www.usq.edu.au Friesen, Kay & Associates - http://www.fka.com/index.asp The Allen Academy - (need new link - help?) http://www.allenacademy.com/students/certification.htm ASTD eLearning Certification - http://www.astd.org/content/education/certificatePrograms/ELearning Clark Training - http://www.clarktraining.com/certification.php Professional eLearning Designers' Association - www.peldaglobal.com University of Illinois Global Campus, they have a certificate program. http://global.uillinois.edu/search?keyword=&subject=all&degree_type=all&campus=Global+Campus Fairmont State University offers a graduate certificate in Online Learning. Information can be found online at: http://www.fairmontstate.edu/graduatestudies/grad_programs.aspUniversity of Texas at Brownsville http://www.utb.edu/vpaa/de/Pages/E-LearningCertificate.aspx as part of an online graduate degree in Instructional Technology. The four courses required for the e-learning certificate are Instructional Design, Educational Telecommunications, Multimedia/Hypermedia, and a capstone project course. University of MD, Baltimore County (UMBC) - ISD graduate program. This program also offers certifications in Instructional Technology and Distance Ed, if you are not ready for the time involved in getting the MA. http://www.umbc.edu/isd/San Diego State University - http://edtec.sdsu.edu/ Full Masters and certificates, online and on campus, for decades. You can't be engaged in elearning or workplace learning and performance that leverages technology without bumping into many SDSU EDTEC grads. Also, check out Certification Magazine for many options. http://www.certmag.com I’m sure there are a lot more programs out there at this point. And a myriad of online degree programs. I also think it would make a lot of sense to look at some of the recent discussions about certifications and degrees in instructional design. Here are some quick findings via eLearning Learning - particularly I looked at best of pages around: instructional design, eLearning Certification and did queries around degrees, etc. Some really good reading… Instructional Design Certificate or Masters Degree When Accidental Instructional Designers Become Intentional Accidental Instructional Designers 10 Qualities of the Ideal Instructional Designer We Need a Degree in Instructional Design Online Programs that Offer Training in eLearning? Still early days for instructional design Getting Started with Instructional Design The future of certification New courses: Certificate in Emerging Technologies for Learning The Various Roles of Instructional Design (work in progress) Interviews on Instructional Design Instructional Design: What's in a name? Instructional Designers with ID Degrees? Survey Results... Why an Instructional Design Degree from Bloomsburg University ROCKS! The science of learning Instructional Design - If - When - How Much Do Instructional Design Degrees Get "Wasted"? Instructional Designers with Degrees: Survey Update Help, I have an Instructional Design Master's Degree and I Can't Create E-Learning My Response to "...Instructional Design is Dead" - by many people IDs - It's time for some seriously tough love E-Learning for Newbies List of e-Learning Job Descriptions eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

Attention teachers who make math cool: here’s a bundle sure to engage even the most number-phobic of students. These 4 Versal gadgets enable you to create interactive math problem sets that demonstrate core concepts and draw out the young Sir Albert Newton in any student. First, the new Generic Embed gadget supports incredible GeoGbra math animations. Show your students how math concepts from multiplication to calculus work with visual, interactive simulations that run right in your course. The Desmos gadget offers a fully interactive graphing calculator at your fingertips. Add interactive graphs to a lesson or let your students graph equations themselves.   The Expression gadget solves the frustrating experience of formatting mathematical notation with typical text editors. No more wonky workarounds with screenshots and subscripts. The Expression gadget uses ASCII Math syntax which is both easy to input and read.   Finally, the Whiteboard gadget enables you to draw anything, including graphs, equations and shapes right within your course. Though drawings may look a bit squiggly, the Whiteboard gadget is quick on the draw and what teachers don’t appreciate saving time? You can also upload an image to draw over and record your drawing for students to playback anytime.   Looking for a math gadget you don’t see above? Let us know, we’d love to help create one!

Before I start with any of my actual predictions, let me throw in an overall prediction that the year is going to start off slow for most people, but by the end of the year, we will all be thinking: "Wow, 2010 was a crazy year!" When I say that, keep in mind that 90% of what workplace learning is all about will be basically unchanged this year. It’s mostly going to be the same - as it always is. But when I do these predictions, I focus on the stuff that’s part of the bigger trends and the potential that these trends have for impacting workplace learning professionals especially around the impact that technology will have. Also, before you read these, you might want to go back and look at predictions in the past and how well I did on those predictions: Ten Predictions for eLearning 2008, 12 eLearning Predictions for 2009. Some of my predictions are home runs and, well, sometimes I get things wrong. I even have been known to contradict myself from year to year. So, viewer discretion is advised. If you are interested in this, I will be doing a Virtual Presentation - Ten eLearning Predictions for 2010 that will be closely aligned with this post. Also - I’m asking for a bit of help at the bottom to identify Prediction #10. So, I’ll likely be updating this post based on both the presentation and the help I get. And probably will get some more ideas from the Big Question - Predictions and Plans for 2010. Prediction #1 => Hacking Work At this time last year, I did my series Tool Set 2009. It puts forward lots of suggestions for how knowledge workers can leverage technology to make themselves more effective. It somewhat codifies what I discuss around Work Literacy - although there’s much more to it. I actually think this is some of the most valuable stuff on my blog, and I believe that most knowledge workers are not really taking advantage of this at the level they should. One of the common reasons I hear from knowledge workers inside large organizations for not following the suggestions I provide is that the organization itself puts up barriers to working this way. I somewhat wonder how much of that is true barriers as opposed to perceived barriers, and a recent HBR item talked about Hacking Work: When a 12-year-old can gather information faster, process it more efficiently, reference more diverse professionals, and get volunteer guidance from better sources than you can at work, how can you pretend to be competitive? When the personal tools in your mobile phone are more empowering than what your company provides or approves for your projects, how can you be saved from devastating market forces? You can’t. The tools we use in life have leapfrogged over the ones we use at work. Business’s lingering love of bureaucracy, process, and legacy technology has fallen completely out of sync with what people need to do their best. So what can you do? Hack work, and embrace the others in your midst who care enough to do so. The example they cite sounds like actually hacking - but I believe that we are going to see more and more employees taking initiative to end run the barriers in order to leverage networks, communities, and tools that extend beyond the boundaries of the organization. Lots of managers will choose to look the other way.Update - Saw a great post about Using Twitter at Work:If you are working for a company that falls in the first category (no social media please), its better that you install a Twitter mobile app on your cell phone and not use the office computer at all for tweeting. After all, your boss will get a web usage report at the month-end and he will easily figure out which sites have you been visiting secretly during office hours.Hacking work! Predictions #2 => Convergence Ramps Up Big Time The recent Morgan Stanley Mobile Internet Report that I discussed in Mobile Internet Apple Facebook is really labeled wrong. What it’s really talking about is convergence. They say its about: 5 Trends Converging (3G + Social Networking + Video + VoIP + Impressive Mobile Devices) The growth of mobile devices has been amazing. Consider just the iPhone + iTouch: But convergence is about mobile computing devices - Smartphone, Kindle, Tablet, MP3, Cell Phone, PDA, Car Electronics and other kinds of computing devices like home entertainment, home appliances. I recently bought a new wireless router and realized that I had a lot of devices in my home (PS3, Wii, Laptops, iPhones) all needing to be given access. Add to this VOIP/Skype, 3G and what’s happening with video on demand. If you have a DVR, it’s fascinating to see what’s going on with movies on demand and video on demand. Add to this the fact that everyone is online and connected all the time. They have more capture devices running around. And capture is moving towards video and audio. It’s really big and moving really fast. During 2010, this will actually have much more impact outside of learning solutions and particularly workplace learning solutions. Yet, there will be lots of eLearning solutions aiming at these alternative platforms. For most workplace eLearning the implication of this is that we are going to be getting asked a lot more about whether content will be accessible and work on other devices, e.g., mobile web access, home access, etc. However, for people who are in the business of learning solutions, there are going to be growing opportunities to differentiate with content and solutions accessible from more devices. Now, for the pessimists out there - Do you remember back to the really early days of the web? It was the time when we delivered multimedia training on CD-ROMs (sometimes called CBTs)? Do you remember the horrific feeling when you learned what it was going to take to author something to run over the web? That you couldn’t really do audio or video or much of anything else over the web? And the first experiences as you tried to move your Authorware, IconAuthor or Toolbook course to run using their new web delivery solution? It was terrible! It was a major step back. Welcome to the mobile internet / convergence. It’s going to get a lot of attention this year, but it’s going to feel like a burden to most workplace learning professionals. Prediction #3 => More, Lower Cost Learning Solutions One safe prediction every year (see Trends in Learning) and in 2010 is that the following will increase: Pace of change in your business Complexity of jobs, roles, information And in 2010, the following will decrease: Your budget to create learning solutions Time you have to create learning solutions Time people have to participate in your learning solutions Number of people that need any one specific learning solutions. I know this doesn’t make sense. People need to learn more, learn faster - yet the C-Level (including your CLO) seem to be making moves that are counter to that. To back this up, a recent CLO Magazine Look at the Industry in 2010 gave us: More than two-thirds of CLOs expect their organizations to do more training in 2010 74% report that the quality of their training offerings will improve in the next year Less than 35% expect budget increases Keep in mind that this is what your boss then is promising to the rest of the organization. Essentially telling the CEO - we’ll produce more and better quality - but it’s not going to cost any more. And as the saying goes - "it flows downhill from there." How will organizations actually execute on this? For a lot of training offerings they will look to keep costs very low - build it fast and inexpensively. Better may be defined as faster in this case. So in 2010, you are going to be asked to produce faster, lower cost learning solutions. The good news is that the tools and software become easier to use all the time. You can use Flip Video cameras to do quick capture. You capture the expert and play it back. It can be pretty fast to do that and really doesn’t cost much. You will produce a lot more as web/wiki pages instead of course pages. And when you produce courses, in a lot of cases you’ll stick with what the authoring tools give you out of the box. The nice thing is that the tools from Articulate and Adobe have really matured to the point where you can do a lot quickly and without too many problems. The other part of this is that your total output is going to be expected to increase. Organizations will need you to shift a it towards Corporate Learning Long Tail and Attention Crisis and Long Tail Learning - Size and Shape. One possibly good side product will be that total learner hours shouldn’t be a primary metric. If you want to optimize total learner hours, then you make long courses aimed at lots of employees. That’s contrary to what the organization really needs. Time to performance and other metrics will be far more important as a result. But the most immediate impact is that you will be constantly seeking faster, lower cost, good enough learning solutions. Prediction #4 => Social Learning Grows But Becomes More Specific In 2009, we talked a lot about social learning. 2010 is going to be a year that we will see social learning grow, but likely not called social learning as much as referring to it by a whole lot of other terms. When I suggested that everyone should "be a Jack" (see Selling Learning Communities - Not Everyone Will or Wants a Group), the reason was that when Jack talks about social learning and communities, he doesn’t talk about it using any of those terms. Instead, he would ask - "If I could bring together experts and expertise and facilitate a conversation on X and then help capture that - is that something you’d want." Of course, I do. Similarly, when HP provided a social learning solution aimed at helping marketing professionals across the organization better understand what Web 2.0 means to the organization, they created a solution that was as much a research project as it was a learning solution. They really became a partner with marketing. A lot like Jack. They didn’t really use the language of social learning. They talked about the specific solution. I do think the language of communities and networks and community manager are going to get a lot of attention and grow in importance as a knowledge sharing and learning solution. For example, Harold Jarche tells us 2010: Year of the CM. One of the kind of specific social learning solutions that is going to grow in importance are virtual meetings, virtual conferences and related online discussions. Given the ability to rally expertise from across the globe, it really makes a lot of sense to address challenging work problems by forming quick, virtual discussions that draw on that expertise. How can I address X? Reach out to form an online discussion around the topic. In Jack’s case, he mostly does this inside the organization, but we’ll see even more of it that crosses organizational boundaries. See Learning Community, Peers and Outside Experts for a very interesting model around this. As learning professionals, I believe we have a special, specific responsibility around social learning. As such, we really need to grow skills in this area: Participating in lots of social learning opportunities to better understand them and to grow our social learning skills Identifying opportunities for and designing social learning solutions Learning to be a Jack (sell social learning based on specifics and specific business value) One of the things that really sticks with me from 2009 was how Becky Barch’s Discussion Forums for Knowledge Sharing at Capital City Bank really came out of her social learning experiences at FSU. She learned how to be an effective participant and this helped propel her to become a designer. We need to find lots of opportunities for ourselves and then we need to look at how to move those skills into our organizations. Prediction #5 => Lots of SharePoint This prediction is somewhat simple to make: Many organizations have SharePoint installed and IT will install more of it. SharePoint 2010 looks to be a much better product (think Windows 3.1 - third major version by Microsoft) Social learning (or specific implementations) are going to grow in importance Seems to make it pretty clear to me. We can either continue to have SharePoint Fear and Loathing by Learning Professionals or we can spend time to understand Using SharePoint. While I’m discussing SharePoint, I believe that SharePoint LMS solutions and integration of SharePoint social solutions with LMS products will gain attention this year. Prediction #6 => More Examples of Mashups and Add-ons to Extend Simple Self-Paced eLearning Prediction #5 is a slam dunk. This one is a bit more of stretch. In December, I mentioned an interesting example of Twitter Captivate Integration. It basically adds a social element to a Captivate movie. For years, we’ve used a simple question solution into self-paced eLearning offerings in order to take advantage of social learning. These were commonly answered during scheduled office hours associated with the course. This is a kind of mashup as well. There have been a couple of products in the market that provide this kind of add-on for self-paced eLearning. Prediction #7 => Major Merger LMS + Talent Management Vendors Back in 2008, I talked about The Rise and Fall of the LMS as larger LMS vendors moved away from learning management towards talent management and human capital management. As the job market starts to come back and as the C-suite takes more notice of human capital, talent management and performance management, the broader suite approach will become desirable. Thus, the large vendors coming out of the talent management side (recruiting, performance reviews) will naturally look to combine with large traditional learning management vendors. I expect to see some major mergers this year. A few other LMS predictions - The bottom end of the market will continue to be eaten away by open source solutions and hosted open source solutions. SaaS will dominate SharePoint integration with Learning Management will be a big topic. Prediction #8 => Turmoil in Learning Organizations What happens as the divide increases between the digitally literate workplace learning professional and the traditionalist workplace learning professional? I’m seeing this divide all the time, but it’s far more complex that two camps. The range of learning solutions that we consider are becoming broader and more complex. Look back at eLearning Strategy and the myriad of solutions that we need to Be Ready to Take Advantage of Opportunities. Yet most large organizations find themselves with widely varying knowledge and skills among workplace learning professionals. Most of this is grown through ad hoc learning (just like I’m suggesting in my earlier prediction on Social Learning). So any group of workplace learning professionals will naturally have differences in what they should offer, how they should prepare, what makes sense for them as an organization. I actually think this turmoil will be good. In 2010, CLOs should foster a growth of skills in a wide spectrum of different kinds of learning solutions even though that will create inevitable turmoil. Everyone can’t be good at everything. Productive debate is going to be good. As long as there’s a spirit of openness to alternative solutions then we can collectively help the organization move forward. Embrace having your workplace learning professionals go look at: Hacking Work and Work Literacy Social Learning Communities and Networks Community Management Add Ons and Mashups SharePoint not to mention all of he other elements talked about in eLearning Strategy. Prediction #9 => Open Content I’m not sure why this already hasn’t had a bigger impact, but workplace learning is going to start to catch up on the value of OCW and OER. Just visit the OER Commons and Open Courseware Consortium. Do a search on something like "instructional design". Drill down a bit and there are some incredible resources. Prediction #10 => Help Needed I’ve really not decided what I’m going to make my 10th prediction for the year. Here are some of the things I’ve considered: Content Management, but not Learning Content Management As we move towards having more of our content outside of traditional courseware and as we take advantage of content that we are not producing ourselves, we are going to find that there are lots of problems keeping that content in good shape. What happens when a link is broken? How do we know what and where the content is? Alternate User Interfaces I believe voice, touch and motion are going to be big topics this year. As is the fact that we need to design for the User Interface Beyond the Web Site. Cloud Computing / SaaS We are slowly moving towards computing as a service (cloud computing), platform as a service and software as a service. Alternate Reality The innovations with simple alternate reality interfaces are quite remarkable and the potential for learning solutions, especially with things like retail are great. Virtual Worlds I still think this is a bit premature, but is going to be really big, especially as part of social learning. But it has to become simpler for mainstream usage. Information Overload This is probably the biggest and most interesting topic out there. In a world of full connectivity to all information and all people, how do you handle filtering. I actually think that things like social signals and information filtering is going to be one of the most active topics this year. Semantic Web There are some really interesting things happening around adding semantic metadata to web pages and elements on web pages. Further, there are lots of interesting things going on that allow us to better access and understand what the web is telling us. It allows things like social filtering. Again, something that I believe is fundamentally huge and important. Freemium and Hybrid Business Models Last year, I spent a fair bit of time looking at the business of learning. It’s a bit scary for people who are primarily content vendors. They need to swim upstream to differentiate. However, I believe this also means that there will be all sorts of new business models that we will get glimpses of in 2010. Help Me => None of these seem to really rise to the level of the other 9. So what would you suggest I make my prediction #10? Did I miss something? eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

A year ago when we launched Versal, we set out to work with a diverse group of people interested in sharing knowledge in a new and interactive way. Today, we have a unique mix of university professors, school teachers, e-learning specialists and instructional designers using Versal as part of their online course creation efforts.  Along the way, we’ve spoken with many of you and the feedback has been incredibly helpful. One group of people has been especially enthusiastic about the potential of Versal: school teachers. As a result, today we’re releasing our first upgrade designed specifically for use in the classroom: Versal Pro. With Versal Pro’s new learner progress tracking, private courses and invitation features, teachers may now easily integrate Versal into their daily lessons. Versal Pro is $5/month or $50/year, and includes up to 200 tracked learners. (Read the full press release.) If you haven’t tried Versal yet and just want to give it a test drive, sign up for a free account here. Our basic plan includes the core interactive course creation platform, 30+ customizable drag-and-drop learning gadgets, collaborative authoring, basic publishing, blog embedding, and more. A few ways to use Versal Pro in the classroom: Blended learning: Empower students to learn at home at their own pace by offering your classroom lecture via an online course. This frees up class time for rich discussions and hands on projects. Create lessons in advance and gate future lessons through quizzes, allowing advanced students to work ahead. Student-led projects (one of our favorite use cases): Create in-class projects by outlining a course in Versal, asking students to join as course contributors by visiting the course overview page, and assigning specific lessons to small teams. Students can research topics and create their project directly in the course creator, and once everyone is done, the entire class can take the course. Even post it to a class website for parents to enjoy. Smart homework: Offer students the opportunity to create interactive homework assignments in a Versal course, and continue to add new sections based on new assignments. It’s an easy way for your students to keep track of all submitted homework, and a new way for teachers to retroactively review all of the work done to date. Curriculum development: Plan and structure a semester’s worth of activity and lessons right within Versal. Collaborate with other teachers or department leads. There are many ways to use Versal Pro on a daily basis. How do you use educational technologies in your classroom? We’d love to know, so post ideas in the comments and inspire other teachers. Have any feature requests? Email us at help@versal.com.

Related to my recent post about eLearning Certifications, someone went back through some of my older related posts such as eLearning Certification, Online Degrees Get No Respect and particularly: Lower Value of Online Degree Programs and asked:   I am curious, now that things have changed over the last three years, where do you stand with online degrees, specifically, WSAC (regionally) accredited online PhD degrees? Don't you think that a person with an accredited PhD and has real world experience should be a top candidate versus a PhD who has been going to school for the last 10 years? It’s great to have someone willing to call you out.  They are likely referencing my statement back in 2006: I personally hire mostly folks with undergraduate degrees and mostly they are technical. I look at the individual first and foremost - but that said - I definitely am looking for an undergraduate degree from an in-person program first and foremost. For graduate programs, I probably have less of a bias and I would value an online graduate degree from a bigger name higher than an in-person from a local, lesser name program. That said, I still would value the in-person higher than the online for the same university. Given my passion around distance learning, it's a bit weird to admit this bias. But, I wonder if this isn't shared and that people should be aware of it? My thinking has definitely changed over the past few years, but if I’m being honest, I still value an in-person degree a little bit higher.  But look closely.  If going for an online degree allows you to attend a better program, then that ranks higher than a lower quality but local degree.  Also the person asking the question also asked about "real world experience" combined with a degree, e.g., a PhD.  Of course, that’s going to come in above someone who has no real world experience.   And since a lot of people who are doing online degrees are also working, there’s a lot to be said for finding a quality program online and attending while you are working. In our field, that may have even higher value as the experience of having attended a quality online program likely will give you a leg up.  As an example take a look at: Discussion Forums for Knowledge Sharing at Capital City Bank.  Becky really learned how to have effective online discussions by going through a great experience herself. All that said - my guess is that there’s still bias - even three years later. What do you think? eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

Versal CEO Gregor Freund demos a gadget at the Code for Education hack night. A big thank you to everyone who came out to the Code for Education hack night last week! It was a very fun and inspiring evening, and we sincerely enjoyed meeting so many developers and teachers enthusiastic about radically improving online learning. Special thanks to Pete Hunt of Instagram for sharing his expertise on Immediate-Mode UIs with React. We’d also like to thank Adriana O’Brien from Wolfram Research for updating the audience on Wolfram’s efforts to create powerful experiences for teachers and students. For those of you who didn’t attend, the event was a sneak preview of our open gadget developer platform (launched officially in beta this morning), co-hosted with the SF JavaScript Meetup Group. The goal was to give developers a chance to build prototype learning gadgets and connect with teachers. What we learned? When you pair developers and teachers together, the ideas are not only inspiring but achievable. At the end of the hack night we had a great round of presentations. Final gadget prototypes were due by 5 p.m. the next day, after which a team of our engineers and product specialists evaluated all submissions before determining the winner. We evaluated gadgets based on the following criteria: Is the gadget easy enough for use for teachers to quickly build informative/interactive content? Is it interactive for the student? Choosing the winning gadget was a difficult decision….so difficult that we ended up with a tie for first place! First place (tie): Bustin’ Bash and Categories Bustin’ Bash by Arik Dov Dadye and Puru Dahal (prize: Acer Chromebooks) Bustin’ Bash is an interactive tool to teach Bash Scripting. The teacher sets a desired output and it is up to the learner to interact with a terminal UI to achieve it Categories by Max Volz (prize: Acer Chromebook) Categories is a gadget that presents a learner with a list of words that they are then challenged to assign to a category. A great way to reinforce the learner’s understanding at the end of a lesson! Second place: Exploring Google Earth Exploring Google Earth, by Bryan Hughes  (prize: a family membership to the California Academy of Sciences) Exploring Google Earth is a geography gadget that challenges students to search for a place anywhere in the world, as defined by an instructor. Third place: Audio Recorder Audio Recorder, by Taha Kazi and Robby Nevels (prize: a $100 Amazon gift certificates)  Audio Recorder is a Soundcloud-based gadget that helps teachers record audio lectures to share in the course with the learners. Many thanks to everyone who built and submitted a gadget. We’re looking forward to seeing how your gadgets evolve and what you think of next! All of the above prize winners were also offered a $2,500 contract to continue working on  their gadgets and, upon Versal’s approval, have them added to Versal’s gadget tray and made available to teachers worldwide. In addition, the finished gadgets will be showcased at the TechCrunch Disrupt hackathon on September 6-7 in San Francisco. If you’re attending, please stop by our table and meet our team. Thanks again to everyone who came - it was an honor and a privilege to meet you. We’re looking forward to seeing your ideas. If you need help or have any questions, please say hi at community.versal.com. Interested in participating in an early adopter feedback program? Learn more here. More developer and teacher meetups coming soon…sign up here for alerts.

One of my Top 10 eLearning Predictions for 2010 was "Lots of SharePoint".  I received the following inquiry in between the time I finished writing my predictions and when it went live: I found your post, SharePoint Examples, regarding finding others using SP in training organizations.  I have recently been charged to lead a team to assist with the design, look, feel and governance of our existing SP deployment.  I work at a University and one of our first task’s is to work on a template that might meet 80% of an Academic Departments needs.  Things like a policy and procedures, meeting agenda, budget, etc. I’m wondering in your search if you’ve come across others who  may have created a more customized template that better suits the needs of a department vs the out of the box templates that you might be able to share. This is an example of a kind of request that is going to happen quite a bit.  I actually don’t know where to find templates that might go behind the kinds of use cases that I discuss in Using SharePoint or that is described above.  In fact, I don’t believe these are even called templates, so … What would you call what this person is looking for? How would this person find SharePoint templates that they could use / modify for their purposes? Please help. eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

Versal courses are about to become more interactive than ever. Today, we’re excited to announce the beta launch of our new gadget developer platform! It’s a new way for JavaScript developers to build really cool interactive gadgets - and help banish the boredom out of online learning. (read the press release) Deeper Diagram is an interactive way to share concepts with students. Gadgets, like smartphone apps, are the power behind everything teachers do on Versal. From blended learning courses to homework assignments to corporate training, teachers create online learning experiences by drag-and-dropping customizable gadgets onto a Versal canvas. Beyond text, video and images, gadgets let authors add and customize interactive diagrams, timelines, flashcards, simulations and more, plus import existing materials via Google Docs etc. Videos and slide decks are useful tools, and yes there’s "a gadget for that." But it’s time to move beyond passive learning and take advantage of the power of computers. From the beginning, when we’ve talked about the Versal course creation platform, we’ve repeated one mantra: "no coding required." That’s because, until now, teachers had to know how to code, or have the resources to hire a programmer, to create an interactive online learning experience. Now we’re opening up the Versal platform to all developers interested in transforming online education for teachers and students around the world. The first APIs are focused on event processing, asset management, and basic learner assessment. Start building gadgets now here, or read on for more details. If you’re interested in joining the beta and want to learn more or connect with other like-minded developers and teachers, check out our community portal. With the Web-based IDE (built with our partners at Codio) and pre-configured templates, start building gadgets immediately, right in your browser. To make it exceptionally easy to get started, we teamed up with London-based Codio to offer a Web-based IDE. Build gadgets right in your browser. Codio is really amazing. With the Versal Web IDE, you don’t need to download, install, or configure anything locally. Plus we have several templates already built so you don’t have to start from scratch. If you have a preferred developer environment, you may also download an SDK. Want to see what other developers are building? We hosted a special sneak preview hack night with the San Francisco JavaScript Meetup Group last week to get early feedback. Such an amazing night. Learn more about the award-winning gadgets here. By the way…are you headed to the TechCrunch Disrupt hackathon this weekend? We’ll have a table set up, offering demos and helping developers get started at a table. We’re even holding a second contest. Build a gadget and win a Chromebook. In addition to the open beta, Versal is looking for a handful of ongoing testers who will participate in more in-depth feedback sessions. Any JavaScript developers interested in participating in this formal early adopter program should visit the Gadget Factory. Today is a big day for us. We’re a team of engineers and education enthusiasts, and we’ve spent the past two years building out a platform to bring online learning to life through interactivity. We hope all of the developers out there - especially people who feel as passionately as we do about opening up education to the world - will join us. (Also…many thanks to Wei Hsu, Dan Raftery, Afshin Mokhtari and all of the developers who participated in the private beta building gadgets and shaping the initial release of our APIs and SDK. Your support and friendship have been amazing.)

I recently posted my Top 10 eLearning Predictions for 2010 and did a presentation on the topic.  You can access a WebEx recording of the presentation here: https://nethope.webex.com/nethope/ldr.php?AT=pb&SP=MC&rID=58772167&rKey=9ac6286700094e6f Thought I’d do a quick post with some random follow-up thoughts: Skim Long Posts I asked at the start of the online session how many people had read my post that basically was very similar content.  There were only a few people who answered that they had.  And several who said they skimmed it.  My guess is that most everyone who saw it prior to the session had taken my advice from long ago Stop Reading - Skim Dive Skim and really just skimmed it. Social Learning Communities It was interesting that ASTD DC / Todd Slater has created a Ning community.  My belief is that we are going to see lots of virtual communities created as it makes sense to aggregate outside of a local geography for common interests.  That certainly goes along with what we’ve done with LearnTrends and what’s going on with social learning. Is Mobile Learning Real This Time? A question was asked: There was a big interest in mobile years back and then it seemed to disappear, we will be seeing this come back? Mobile learning a couple years ago was an attempt to put courses on mobile devices.  There are a few people out there who are claiming success doing this.  However, I think the amount of content that people will consume on mobile devices is limited.  Instead, tools, quick reference guides, quick hit videos, etc. will be the real win. What’s the real change though is that we are becoming used to getting content both via our computer and on our mobile device.  Thus the questions will be a bit different this time around. We’ve come through the trough and are starting to see smart, slow growth. Home vs. Work I asked the audience if it was easier to get information at home or at work or about the same.  Generally people felt they had easier access at home.  This goes along with the prediction that employees will increasingly hack work so that they can get access to information and people they need to reach.  Some comments: home is better -- @ work there are blocks on our network as to what we can and can't access Firewalls an issue at work Work has faster connections not supposed to access internet at work less network security at most homes, or firewall issues Firewalls at work prevent connections Certainly the issues with access certain sites, e.g., our LearnTrends site that’s hosted by Ning, is an issue.  People end up staying home to be able to attend virtual events.  That should be a bit of a "wow". I ran into a post about Using Twitter at Work.  I expected it to be about how to use twitter as a knowledge worker.  Instead it was about hacking work. If you are working for a company that falls in the first category (no social media please), its better that you install a Twitter mobile app on your cell phone and not use the office computer at all for tweeting. After all, your boss will get a web usage report at the month-end and he will easily figure out which sites have you been visiting secretly during office hours. Fast and Okay Rather Than Slow and Good One of the predictions I made was that we would be creating more, lower cost learning solutions.  There were a couple of great questions/comments around this: Learners are trying to absorb the most amount of info in the shortest possible time Fast & OK rather than Slow and Good Well said.  There was concern around skills that take time to develop.  There will still be that kind of thing.  But the pain point for companies and for CLOs is responding to the pace and living up to the commitment that they are going to do more with less. SharePoint We had some very interesting exchange around SharePoint.  But I had to share the comment: When I train on SharePoint, the biggest issues is that people don't understand what's possible.  They don't know how it will make their lives better.  Once they have the vision in mind, it's not too hard to use. I really think that’s a big source of SharePoint Fear and Loathing by Learning Professionals. I just read a great post by Dan Pontefract - SharePoint 2010: The New Employee Gateway? that explain a lot of what’s going on around SharePoint and learning organizations. Google Wave as a Mashup? When I was discussing Mashups and pointed to the Twitter Captivate Integration and my example of taking notes/asking questions widget, someone suggested: Google Wave looks like it has a lot of potential for that Great point!  I must look into Google Wave as the basis for social interaction that goes along with a course.  It’s instant threaded discussion.  Can I easily mash it with a course?  Maybe not yet, but soon. Squirrel You had to be there - was very glad there were a couple of people who understood me. :) Open Courseware Turns out that a lot of folks are not familiar with what’s going on around this. Virtual Worlds Great comment: Your number #1 point was how busy everyone is, who has time for virtual worlds??? I agree that access of virtual worlds needs to be as simple as getting into a WebEx session.  The barrier is a bit too high right now for mainstream.  But it’s amazing that WebEx doesn’t have avatars for participants or any sense of space.  I’ve given up on my predictions of a 2.5D virtual world, WebEx type product.  But it will happen at some point.  It won’t take any more time than what we currently have.  And it will make you feel much more part of the event. eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

Specifically designed for teachers and students. Courses are displayed within the Versal Chrome App, and are easily accessible by your students. Learn more at Versal.com/chrome. Chromebooks are increasingly popular in the classroom, and Chrome Apps are a powerful and convenient way for teachers to integrate a variety of educational exercises and content. We recently launched a pilot project to test a new Versal Chrome App. It’s the perfect companion to the Versal course creation experience - everything you create on Versal will be instantly available to enrolled learners via the Chrome App. Students don’t even need a Versal account to start learning, just a Chromebook or Google’s Chrome browser. Enroll and remove your students at versal.com/chromeapp. We’ve had an enthusiastic response, and wanted to share with you some of the experiences from participating teachers. See below for case studies and learn how you and your students can use the Versal Chrome App in your daily activities. "The room was relatively quiet. They were paying attention to what was on the screen and they were all very involved." - Ms. Gest, Geology teacher at Maine South High School (Park Ridge, Illinois) Read the case study "Once I got the hang of what all of the gadgets do, it was really easy to set up lessons. Versal was an excellent way to set up a class." - Jason Larson, Chemistry teacher at Abraham Lincoln High School (Council Bluffs, Iowa) Read the case study "When they’re interacting with the information online they’re paying a lot more attention than when I’m just talking at them." - Barb Mader, Family and Consumer Science teacher at Waterville Elysian Morristown High School (Waterville, Minnesota) Read the case study "Once I got the hang of using the various gadgets, course creation went pretty smoothly. And once the kids got going in class, I didn’t even have to be there!" - Diane Storey, Integrated Math teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School (Council Bluffs, Iowa) Read the case study "I wasn’t sure at first because I was nervous about not knowing the platform. But really it was a piece of cake." - Jeniah Jones, Professor of Mathematics at Florida State College at Jacksonville (Florida) Read the case study "It was easy to set up, and I loved doing the build on this course. In fact, I’d love to do it for the whole semester." - Lori McMillan, Professor of Taxation and Business Law at Washburn University (Topeka, Kansas) Read the case study Interested in using the Versal Chrome App in your classroom? Visit versal.com/chrome to learn more, or to start enrolling students in your existing courses, visit versal.com/chromeapp. Students may install the app here.  

One of the interesting things that was not included in the announcement of the iPad yesterday was support for Flash.  It’s a nice big device, perfect for browsing the web and remote learners.  But it doesn’t have Flash support.  Apple has said in the past that they plan to support Flash at some point, but I’m beginning to wonder. In the meantime, it seems like HTML 5 is picking up steam. Any guesses on Flash support on Apple mobile devices going forward? And if it’s not going to be supported, does this mean we’ll be looking at other delivery technologies going forward? eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

I had a great conversation last week that sparked an early stage idea for what I think would be a wonderful way for learning and development organizations to leverage SharePoint better.  HP Web 2.0 for Marketing - Social Learning Experience The concept is probably easiest to understand by considering what HP did around their course on Web 2.0 for Marketing.  You can find more on this by going to the LearnTrends - SharePoint in Corporate Learning Recordings. The basic concept was that HP’s learning organization wanted to help their marketing professionals get up to speed on the implications of Web 2.0 for HP’s marketing efforts.  Of course, that’s an interesting learning problem in that the answer around "implications" is not defined.  The L&D organization created a social learning experience that brought together 60 marketing professionals from across the organization.  They established a goal of having the group produce a summary of what they found and what Web 2.0 could mean for the organization.  In many ways, this was a facilitated work task more than a learning experience.  The L&D organization provided some instruction on the basics for how the sessions would operate and some information around Web 2.0, but a lot of the effort was discovery by the marketing professionals themselves. In the picture below, you can see some of the mechanisms they used: Social Bookmarks to share resources they found Discussion Boards to ask questions and have discussions. A blog that helped spark conversations around key topics. A wiki that served as a repository for the resources they collected. Virtual class sessions to share what they were finding Learners were encouraged to do quick screen capture movies to explain their thoughts around particular uses of Web 2.0 technologies and share with the group. The results were pretty incredible for HP.  And it’s exactly this kind of facilitated social learning experience where the result is somewhat a work objective that makes a lot of sense. SharePoint Social Learning Experience Based on the above description, I’m sure you can see where I’m going with what I think would be a fantastic learning opportunity for L&D organizations who want to understand what it means to Use SharePoint in their organization as both a system for facilitating the work of L&D and as a tool to be used as part of learning solutions. The idea would be to: Set a goal to produce a presentation and set of recommendations to be presented to senior L&D management Get a cross section of L&D professionals and possibly others within the business Setup an environment that will be used both as a sandbox and as a support for the learning experience Introduce SharePoint (and/or other technologies) to participants Facilitate activities and discussions that ultimately lead towards the presentation and recommendations Of course, there’s nothing preventing variants of this being done across multiple smaller organizations.  And certainly there are lots of external professionals that likely would make sense to either help make this happen or include as third party experts as part of the learning experience.  See Learning Community, Peers and Outside Experts for more description of possible design elements. I also think this is a great way to help build understanding of social learning within an organization. I’m hoping to get feedback on this?  Does it make sense as a model?  Are organizations already beyond this or should it actually be a facilitated discussion around learning technologies period, not just SharePoint?  Will it make the most sense as SharePoint 2010 begins to roll out into organizations? eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

Of all the interactive learning gadgets that Versal offers, teachers consistently tell us that Deeper Diagram is one of their favorites. Deeper Diagram lets you upload any image and add labels and descriptions to various parts of the image. Teachers often use Deeper Diagram to encourage visual learning and memory. It’s a versatile gadget that we’ve seen do especially well in science and technology courses. You can also use Deeper Diagram with two different quiz modes. In the first, students must identify the correct part of an image when given a label. In the alternative quiz mode, students must match a given description to one of the labels. Check out this video to learn how to use Deeper Diagram in your next Versal course.   And remember that you can always find How To video tutorials for setting up gadgets and more at our Support Center. Have an idea for a gadget? We’d love to hear it! Email us at support@versal.com.

Great post by Tim Kastelle - Filtering, Crowdsourcing and Innovation.  He’s talking primarily about Innovation pipelines based on crowdsourcing.  His diagram:   Show a fairly common model for how things can be filtered.  This is similar to the model that we used on Project Greenlight - the scriptwriting and director contest by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.  Anyone (hopefully everyone) could submit their script / movie.  From there, we had smaller and smaller batches of people reviewing until it got down to the core team looking at the top few submissions.  This caught my eye because it’s a bit different than the model we are using on Browse My Stuff that powers sites like eLearning Learning.  In Curator Editor Research Opportunities on eLearning Learning, I described the flow that it uses: In this case, the input is curated content although it can come from virtually anywhere.  It then relies on social signals from everyone to filter it down. I’m not claiming that one is preferred.  And I think that you can argue that Digg uses a slightly different model. The other part of this thought process is that the feedback on my Top 10 eLearning Predictions for 2010 was that I should have Information Overload and Information Filtering as my user chosen prediction number 10.  I tend to agree with that.  But there’s a challenge to it.  And that challenge is somewhat hinted at in this month’s big question: Instruction in a Information Snacking Culture? Are the training solutions being produced part of the problem of information overload? How do we shift to a position where we are helping to filter information and reduce overload rather than possibly contribute? Certainly, I’m paying attention to this and I’m going to go through Tim’s post - Personal Aggregate, Filter and Connect Strategies to see how it might impact my Tool Set 2009 tools and methods, especially Information Radar, Networks and Learning Communities). Good stuff Tim! eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

The 2014-15 SAT testing season is in full swing, with the next exam less than a week away. We understand that getting ready for it can be tough, even overwhelming at times. Versal is here to help. We are offering a full and interactive SAT prep course, absolutely free! Expert tutors with years of experience will help take the guess work out of getting ready for the big day with insider tips, tricks, and strategies. Sneak a peek inside an Essay Writing course The Versal SAT courses cover the Math, Writing, and Critical reading sections to sharpen your skills in each area. Practice using the short amount of allowed time to write a stellar essay or brush up on your grammar and paragraph structure with the Writing courses. Take advantage of the tutorials and sample problems the Math course comes complete with to learn about common questions and equations. The Versal SAT test prep course series includes 35 hours of lecture videos, sample quizzes for each section, and full length practice exams. Authored by San Francisco SAT teachers on Versal’s interactive platform, the lessons are self paced so it’s easier to fit in practice time with your busy schedule. Study when it works best for you. And there is always the option to go back to an earlier lesson and review it again. To find the Versal SAT courses and start practicing now, visit https://versal.com/learn. You need a Versal account to enroll. Don’t have one yet? Not to worry, registering takes only a minute and is free, visit https://versal.com/register Best of luck on your exam!

I was just reading a post - Top 5 tips to gain buy in for learning with social media.  The tips were many of the usual suspects (click on the link for details): Build a solid measurable plan Do your research and put it to the test Choose your words carefully Blitz the stigma Educate the decision makers This is good stuff, but it also got me to thinking that this might be way more complicated than it really needs to be.  Instead, one of the things that I Learned about Learning in 2009 and was an important eLearning Predictions for 2010 was to "Be a Jack".  What does this mean? I detailed it in Selling Learning Communities - Not Everyone Will or Wants a Group Hug.  Go listen to Jack and how he describes what he does.  And the key in selling social learning / learning communities was the simple explanation of what they are in a value proposition.  Here’s what Be a Jack sounds like: If I can bring together outside experts and/or people from across the organization with expertise and facilitate a conversation on the critical business issues you are facing and help you capture that so that it can get distributed in the organization - is that something you would want? Absolutely!  In fact, we all want that all the time!  As an example, the way that I should have described a SharePoint Social Learning Experience if my audience was a CLO or VP Learning would be: If I can bring together people from across your learning organization in a facilitated discussion possibly with outside peers or experts so that they can explore the implications of social learning, informal learning and Using SharePoint in the organization as both a system for facilitating the work of L&D and as a tool to be used as part of learning solutions - is that something you would want? Or the HP example out of that same post: Help marketing professionals understand the implications of Web 2.0 for HP’s marketing efforts. Am I wrong, or doesn’t it make a lot of sense to simply Be a Jack? eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

I received an interesting question from someone who is working on providing content to a remote sales force of about 40 people on topics such as selling process, products and selling skills.  They currently provide some podcasts and video casts, but would like to track the new content that is being developed now.  It seems like this should be an obvious question.  You can put the audio or video inside a SCORM course and load it into an LMS.  Given the small audience and limited scope, likely a Rapid Learning Management System would make a lot of sense if that was the direction.  I’d have to think a bit more to have a specific suggestion on the course authoring tool for this, but should be easy enough to do this. However, in this case the sales force is used to accessing this as MP3 and MP4 files available for download into their iPods, iPhones, etc.  They are not used to connecting via an LMS.  Likely the sales force is not going to be happy about: The extra clicks and complexity to access - Does a Learner WANT an LMS? Not playing it back on their disconnected mobile device. This is a fairly common use case.  Certainly, I’m missing something.  So, asked my various networks about this and got back few responses.  Peter Casebow via twitter: @tonykarrer got to ask how does it help org to count or know who's had access unless for compliance reasons. What will you do with data? They do want to track this for helping to make sure that the sales force gets through the content.  I.e., follow-up notifications.  However, they might be able to get away with putting the core content out the same way they do today and only put the assessments into the LMS.  The tracking would only be that they did a portion.  This is a change to  What Goes in the LMS? Of course, that assumes that they don’t need to track going through the content and that there are assessments.  I’m pretty sure that neither is true. Is there a better way to do this? eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

In a Github post by Andrey Mereskin, a Versal front end Web developer, we take a behind-the-scenes peek at the capabilities of the HTML5 drag-and-drop API, an API used within Versal to add gadgets to a course. Andrey provides an engineering perspective and outlines the issues one may run into when implementing the API in different browsers. Read on at http://mereskin.github.io/dnd/ Are you a senior engineer or interaction designer interested in #EdTech? If so, we’re hiring! Check out our latest openings on AngelList.

I’ll have more coming on this topic, but today someone asked me how to approach is going through an LMS selection because the general feeling was that the existing LMS was too hard for users to use.  In this case, it’s customer training around products that the company sells.  They are doing a combination of virtual classroom training (via WebEx) and self-paced eLearning.  They currently use Moodle as an LMS with some customizations.  However, the resource who did the customizations is no longer with the company.  And the person who asked the question tells me: My managers have asked me to find alternatives to Moodle that are more user friendly and that are easier to update and manage. I’ve discussed many times about dissatisfaction with LMS: LMS Satisfaction Features and Barriers  LMS Dissatisfaction on the Rise and even a bit about the disconnect between an LMS and what things most users want / need: Do You WANT an LMS? Does a Learner WANT an LMS? When I look at how I define the process for selecting an LMS, a lot of it comes down to the ability to support differentiating use cases.  That doesn’t necessarily help when it comes to selecting an LMS that will be easy for the user.  So, I’m left wondering: What are examples of specific requirements that can be used during LMS selection to ensure that the result is easy to use? Have you found that any LMS is particularly easier to use and been able to make a selection based on that? What advice would you have for helping this individual find alternatives to Moodle? eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

The 2014-15 SAT testing season is in full swing, with the next exam less than a week away. We understand that getting ready for it can be tough, even overwhelming at times. Versal is here to help. We are offering a full and interactive SAT prep course, absolutely free! Expert tutors with years of experience will help take the guess work out of getting ready for the big day with insider tips, tricks, and strategies. The Versal SAT courses cover the Math, Writing, and Critical reading sections to sharpen your skills in each area. Practice using the short amount of allowed time to write a stellar essay or brush up on your grammar and paragraph structure with the Writing courses. Take advantage of the tutorials and sample problems the Math course comes complete with to learn about common questions and equations. Sneak a peek inside an Essay Writing course The Versal SAT test prep course series includes 35 hours of lecture videos, sample quizzes for each section, and full length practice exams. Authored by San Francisco SAT teachers on Versal’s interactive platform, the lessons are self paced so it’s easier to fit in practice time with your busy schedule. Study when it works best for you. And there is always the option to go back to an earlier lesson and review it again. To find the Versal SAT courses and start practicing now, visit https://versal.com/learn. You need a Versal account to enroll. Don’t have one yet? Not to worry, registering takes only a minute and is free, visit https://versal.com/register Best of luck on your exam!

There has been fantastic comments around Learning Management System Easy of Use.  This post was based on an inquiry that I received from someone who manages their current LMS implementation that is based on Moodle with some customization.  They do customer training around products that the company sells.  They are doing a combination of virtual classroom training (via WebEx) and self-paced eLearning.  And the person who asked the question tells me: My managers have asked me to find alternatives to Moodle that are more user friendly and that are easier to update and manage. Well two days later I’m told: You will get a kick out of this though.  My supervisors told me to research LMS possibilities and narrow it down it down to about 3-5 and report back in a week and present the pros and cons of the top ones I found.  And it’s not like I have all day each day to work this either, I have little pockets of time between now and then as normally I am on the phone all day training customers.  Sure, 15 hours of Internet research will be enough for me to narrow down all the many possibilities to 3-5 (sarcasm). Now, I hate to say that this is all too common a situation.  Of course, this strikes me as completely unreasonable, especially given the complexity of what’s involve in LMS Selection.  Research that I cited in LMS Selection Time suggested that the time for the steps on average was: Gather and Specify Requirements - 5 months Research Vendors Requirements - 4 months Meet with Vendors - 2 months With several people involved.  Of course, these were enterprise implementations with many different business units and training organizations involved.  But I still believe that trying to do an LMS selection in a week (actually in 15 hours) is bound to run you into some of the Learning Management Systems (LMS) Gotchas that I’ve talked about before. The real question here is probably more about how you work with your management to get them to understand the challenge, how you might approach it, the risks of not doing a more thorough evaluation. Still are there good ways that you can short-circuit the LMS Selection Process to reduce the length of time?   Also, obviously, you can’t come back and say 11 months, when they were thinking 1 week.  And I’m not suggesting it’s actually 11 months, but it’s still more than one week.  So, how do you effectively negotiate to a level of depth that will make sense in this kind of situation? eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

Ken Williams has been teaching the Vedic system of math for more than thirty years. What is Vedic mathematics? It’s a unified approach to solving math equations that is more creative and flexible than traditional methods, which have a tendency to scare off students. In Ken’s experience, once people learn to recognize Vedic patterns, anybody can enjoy math. Though Vedic mathematics is an ancient discipline, dating from 1200 BCE in India, Ken’s approach to teaching is decidedly modern. To create his Vedic Mathematics course on Versal, Ken simply imported his existing instructional videos, organized them into lessons, and added quizzes to help students achieve mastery. Over 2,000 students have taken Ken’s Vedic Math course on Versal. "Nothing else out there quite like what you’ve done," he says. More recently, Ken recommended Versal to several colleagues. Ken also created a follow-on course on polynomial equations on Versal.     Want to multiply large numbers in your head without breaking a sweat? Check out Ken Williams’ Vedic Mathematics course in the Versal’s catalog. You can also learn more about Vedic math by visiting Ken’s website, vedicmaths.org. And look out for more courses by Ken in the new year!

Most of my experience has been in adult learning and performance.  Recently I’ve been working with a startup that provides content and tools to teens and is sold through high schools.  The first course is fairly well defined and is based on a couple of books/workbooks that have been used offline. What’s been interesting to me is that it’s been hard to find just the right person to help them with designing interactive exercises and writing content in order to bring this to life online.  Actually, the first interesting question is: What do you call this role? When we’ve called it either an instructional designer or writer we often find ourselves talking to people who have a hard time envisioning the online interactions.  I’m currently calling it an interactive writer, but I’m sure there’s a common term for this in the industry. The second challenge has been that we want to find someone who can write for today’s teen audience.  The style and voice of the course needs to balance being fresh and hip but not losing sight of the importance of the topic.  We’ve talked with writers who have incredible experience in publishing for teens (magazines, books) but they don’t get the instructional and interaction aspects. So the second question is: How do you find a really good instructional designer / interactive writer who has experience with teen audiences? In the past, I’ve always been successful finding good interactive writers because I can use techniques as described in LinkedIn for Finding Expertise and the rest of my LinkedIn Guide for Knowledge Workers.  In most of those cases, I can search for instructional design + eLearning + <terms> where the terms are something about the specifics of the audience, industry, topic, etc.  It doesn’t always work, but generally is pretty good. In this case, that has not been effective.  I’m sure it’s partly an issue of not knowing the right terms to use in a search. Of course, all of this is made harder in that it’s a startup with a limited budget, so they are generally looking for people who can work efficiently (read inexpensively).  And then there’s the whole availability issue.  Still this is a common question, so I’m sure I can learn a lot about how to do this better. I’m hoping you can help me on several fronts: What are the right terms to describe the role and would work for search? Where should I be searching? How would you attack this problem? If you know someone, certainly please connect me. eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

Attention teachers who make math cool: here’s a bundle sure to engage even the most number-phobic of students. These 4 Versal gadgets enable you to create interactive math problem sets that demonstrate core concepts and draw out the young Sir Albert Newton in any student. First, the new Generic embed gadget supports incredible GeoGebra math animations. Show your students how math concepts from multiplication to calculus work with visual, interactive simulations that run right in your course. The Desmos gadget offers a fully interactive graphing calculator at your fingertips. Add interactive graphs to a lesson or let your students graph equations themselves.   The Expression gadget solves the frustrating experience of formatting mathematical notation with typical text editors. No more wonky workarounds with screenshots and subscripts. The Expression gadget uses ASCII Math syntax which is both easy to input and read.   Finally, the Whiteboard gadget enables you to draw anything, including graphs, equations and shapes right within your course. Though drawings may look a bit squiggly, the Whiteboard gadget is quick on the draw and what teachers don’t appreciate saving time? You can also upload an image to draw over and record your drawing for students to playback anytime.   Looking for a math gadget you don’t see above? Let us know, we’d love to help create one!