http://www.kineo.com/resources
Seven Top Authoring Tools by Joe Ganci “You choose the tools you need depending on the instructional design you need to implement, the venues to which you need to deliver, your budget and schedule, and other factors. I hope this table helps you to reach your eLearning goals.” Recently The eLearning Guild published a research report written by yours truly, entitled Rapid eLearning Authoring: Top Tools, in which I analyzed the results of the continuous surveys to which thousands of Guild members respond. Elgg - Open Source Social Networking Platform. Elgg 1.8.19 is the latest and recommended version of Elgg. Elgg is available under a dual license, GPL Version 2 and the MIT license. The plugins are only available in the GPL release and so have been removed from the MIT release. Download: 1.8.19 MIT version Elgg 1.7.22 includes an important security fix.
Selecting a Digital Curation Tool by David Kelly “Most of the digital curation tools available today have robust functionality that is available completely free. There’s no investment (other than time) required to test different tools and find the one that works best for you.” In today’s world of ever-growing digital content there is a seemingly infinite amount of information available. Secure streaming with Wowza Complete URL obfuscation with Wowza server standalone demo The Wowza Media Server supports secure streaming out-of-the-box. It also has the added benefit over HTTP that you cannot see the requested video URL using commonly used browser debuggers such as Firebug. This example uses the Wowza streaming server together with our secure streaming plugin. RTMP Security The streaming media industry recognizes that RTMPS with the proven security of a secure socket layer (SSL) is more secure than RTMPE in securing both live and on-demand video streaming. To meet this demand for more secure streaming Wowza® is offering its free RTMPS StreamLock™ AddOn.
Animations: When to Use Them and When to Lose Them Animations are pretty easy to build on slides or computer screens, and they can look slick. So why not use them? A series of research experiments compared learning of processes such as how brakes work or how toilets flush, from lessons that used either a series of still visuals or animations to illustrate the stages. Although it seems logical to use an animation to illustrate how something works, in fact, the still versions resulted in better learning in two experiments, and equivalent learning in two other experiments. Animations risk imposing too much mental load because 1. they transmit a lot of visual information in a short time frame, and
Toolkit: Ready? Go! The ReadyGo Authoring Tool by Joe Ganci “As you have a wide variety of elements that you can add to a page, you can create truly media-rich and interesting courses with instructionally sound choices you can give learners all along the way.” The ReadyGo authoring tool is one of those that seem to always be just under the radar of most eLearning developers. Let’s end that now. The big picture The ReadyGo Web Course Builder is a rather intuitive tool, simple enough to learn, but with thoughtful instructional design concepts underlying it all. 19 Kick-Butt Tools for ELearning Everyone likes nifty tips, tricks, and tools – so how about 19 of them! Here in the United States, Monday is memorial day, so if you’re celebrating, perhaps right before your afternoon food-coma you can take a look at these incredibly useful tools that you may find of use when you’re working on your next elearning project. Many of them are free! Some of them you may have heard of before, but sometimes a reminder never hurts: 1. GreenShot: a perfect alternative to Snagit.
Futuristic Gaming Suit Adds Real Impact For Gamers Just a decade ago, gaming was all confined to the screen, but that has changed dramatically over the last few years. This is not only because gaming has become a whole lot better when it comes to graphics and control, but also because new and powerful gaming accessories have started to emerge on the market. Innovations like the Oculus Rift and other gadgets have started a new trend. Maybe the futuristic gaming suit from ARAIG can further immerse us into the virtual world. Overview The Tin Can API (sometimes known as the Experience API or xAPI) is a brand new specification for learning technology that makes it possible to collect data about the wide range of experiences a person has (online and offline). This API captures data in a consistent format about a person or group’s activities from many technologies. Very different systems are able to securely communicate by capturing and sharing this stream of activities using Tin Can’s simple vocabulary.
Video Compression Secrets: Smaller Files, Better Quality by Stephen Haskin “The best codec to keep file sizes small is Windows Media (.wmv). Microsoft has done an excellent job of combining small file size and very good temporal quality. The format isn’t necessarily good for iOS devices, but if you can manage to get your projects on YouTube, you will be able to deliver everywhere. And that’s a plus, in my opinion.” Last year, YouTube reported that users were uploading 48 hours of video to the service every minute.
How to Effectively Use Video for Training Delivering courses online affords organizations the ability to deliver their content in a variety of ways, including video. However, just like anything, there is a correct way to deliver online training videos, and then there is the wrong way. Gone are the days when you could just record a live presentation and post the fuzzy tape online for others to view (well, maybe those days aren’t gone… but they should be!) Video isn’t always the best choice for learning, but it does provide some advantages. First, it allows for variation in instructional delivery – which helps with learning retention. Video is also a great way to demonstrate case studies and reinforce information explained in text. Google Course Builder: Initial Review Not too long ago, Google came out with a Course Builder program, designed to allow schools and institutions an easy way to set-up their own MOOC platform. Today, I decided to take a look at the program to get a sense of their offering and what it can do. Naturally, I have some high expectations, I mean, this is Google after all. The first thing that I did was navigate to the Google Course Builder “home”. Quite honestly, I couldn’t help be feel a bit overwhelmed when I came to this site.