The Future of Learning

Learning Footprint Calculator

Ben Betts, of HT2 wrote to tell me about the free Learning Footprint Calculator they offer to the E-Learning community to calculate the possible environmental savings that could be made by switching from face-to-face training to e-learning. 

The calculator has been around for a couple of years, but it's now back in a new version.  This latest edition allows users to generate a PDF of their report so they can share findings with colleagues and help put the "Learning Footprint" into the business case for E-Learning.

Learning Footprint Calculator

Ript

Leia Fee, a work based learning tutor and NVQ assessor, working for Swansea ITeC in South Wales, has just shared her Top 10 Tools for Learning, one of which is Ript.  What is Ript?  This is how it is described:

Part scrapbook, part “to-do” list (or to-buy list), Ript mimics the actions of ripping, piling and arranging scraps of information. If you can see it on your computer, you can “rip” it. Simply drag and drop images and text from the internet or your computer and arrange them however you please — making it easy to compile, print and share your handiwork.

Ript

My Language Notebook

Jim Morrison emailed to tell me about My Language Notebook:

"It is FREE program for making your notes (with audio) when you are learning any language.
You can then embedyour notes/lessons in any webpage like I do here in my blog: mlnlanguages.blogspot.com/ Just double-click on a sentence to hear it.

My Language Notebook

Translated.by

It's called collaborative translation. To make it simple, people help each other translate interesting foreign language texts into their native language. It's mostly blog posts, magazine articles, short stories and another materials licensed for free redistribution.

Translations can be public or private. Private translations will be visible only to you and some folks you allow to—your translation team.

Translated.by

Social Media in Learning: Handbook, Toolkit, Workshop, Community & Blog

I've been presenting to a lot of groups recently where many of those in the audience were not social media tools users.  Having talked about the importance of social media tools for learning and that, in my opinion, all learning professionals needed to be social-media-savvy in order to advise on their use within learning and performance support, I have been constantly asked by participants where they could go for a quick, easy-to-use and structured introduction to social media and its use in learning. I have therefore decided to revive my old Guide to Social Learning, which I had disaggregated around my website, and re-launch it in a new format: Social Media in Learning: Handbook and Toolkit to provide the kind of introductory resource that social media beginners were asking for.

I continue to run my Social Media in Learning Workshops, of which the 6 week Social Learning in Your Organisation online workshop is proving to be quite popular.  I have also renamed my community/social networking platform c4lpt.net as Social Media in Learning: Community to bring it inline with all these other resources

I have also set up a new blog, called, funnily enough, Social Media In Learning, where I am now posting about social media tools, social learning and building a social media strategy. This will probably be of more interest to more social media savvy people who want to build on their knowledge.  The blog's feed is sent to my Twitter feed @c4lpt, so if you are following me there, you can always keep up with new postings.  Here are some recent postings, in case you missed them:

ClickClass

Lynn emailed to tell me about ClickClass.  ClickClass is a hosted e-learning system designed to enable people to rapidly author, deliver and manage their own modular online learning content.  It's based on a web 2.0 collaborative approach and is designed to help HR & Training Departments, training companies and consultancies who wish to rapidly author, deliver and manage their own modular online learning content.

ClickClass licence plans include online learning portal, e-learning authoring system, hosting and 10 MB of space per user.

ClickClass

[95 Course authoring tools appear in the Learning Tools Directory]

QuickLessons

A couple of Latin American contributors to the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009 project have included QuickLessons in their personal top 10 lists. 

Quick Lessons, described as "the rapid elearning platform for creating online courses fast and easy", is an online authoring and Content Management solution for creating and managing Flash-based, interactive e-learning content. It allows anyone to create courses and evaluations without the need for programming or graphic designing skills.

They provide a wide range of license options from single user to multiple users (corporate or campus agreements) and start at $99 per month, although a free trial is available.

QuickLessons

[Over 90 Course authoring tools appear in the Learning Tools Directory]

Ministry of ID: Rapid eLearning Development course

Formed in 2002 in the wake of the dotcom crash, the Ministry of Instructional Design (MID) was created to pick up the pieces and find out what went wrong. Their continuing mission is threefold:

1. To find ‘that which was lost’
2. To attract fresh talent to the elearning industry
3. To fill the skills and knowledge vacuum left as the baby boomer generation retires

Now, in response to the ongoing global economic downturn, they are opening their doors for the first time to bring you the Rapid eLearning Development (ReD) course.

"Part 3D computer game, part social network, part collaborative learning, the ReD course will teach you how to build effective elearning and informal media using leading elearning author tools. Designed by Rob Hubbard of LearningAge Solutions with input from some of the smartest people in the elearning industry including Clive Shepherd, Jane Hart and Patrick Dunn, this is a course unlike any other, designed to show how great elearning can be and built using tools that you too can master."

The Ministry of ID is looking for 20 ‘trailblazers’ to be the first through the course. If you are selected you will get free access to the ReD course and work on it in the same way as a paying student.

• Free admission (£750 saving)
• Start date 7 September 2009
• 40 hours effort over four weeks

To apply to be a trailblazer complete this form. For more information on the ReD course visit the ReD page.

authorSTREAM Desktop

authorSTREAM Desktop is a PowerPoint 2007 plug-in ...

• It lets you search for images (from Bing) and videos (from YouTube) and then insert those in PowerPoint slides.
• You can also use a URL of an Image or YouTube video and insert them directly in your slide.
• You can upload your presentation directly to authorSTREAM without having to visit the website and share it with the world!

Here's a video of authorSTREAM Desktop at work:

authorSTREAM Desktop

[Over 130 presentation tools are listed in the Learning Tools Directory: Presentation tools and Presentation hosting and sharing tools ]

AllPlayWeb

LearningWare recently launched AllPlay Web to make webinars more interactive, engaging and measurable.  This software allows facilitators to insert quiz and survey questions--in either a game show or poll format--into their webinars.

This turns webinars into a interactive experience for participants,  Instead of simply viewing a presentation, attendees engage in a game experience around Webinar content using browser-based keypads.

AllPlayWeb