The Next Generation of e-Learning Software

I recently read this white paper from Educause about the current status of e-learning systems and what the next generation systems should be and it is very thought provoking. You can find it at http://www.educause.edu/er/erm06/erm0643.asp

I was very impressed about how the model of the next generation system, described at the end, reflected the concept of a personal learning network that centres on the learner. This is a concept that I have been reading about for a few years and I feel that I personally have constructed my own personal learning network to meet my professional development needs. So, here is a model of how this could be extended to our students, as life long learners. And I had a chat with one of the authors of this paper, Ali Jafari, and he is building the system and offering it to us. It is call epsilen and you can look at it at http://www.epsilen.com/

It is worth the read. After reading it, consider how we can start to change our thinking about our e-learning systems to meet the needs of 21st century students. And if we don't will the students be attracted to the institutions that do? I wonder if this is just like 10 years ago when we were considering getting on the e-learning bandwagon or being left behind. I suspect it is.

I am putting a group of people together who would like to collaborate on discussing these issues and helping to move us ahead. Email me if you would like to join us at RodCorbett@gmail.com

Please place comments here.

Portable Computer Apps

Do you work on a computer where you can't install and run the computer programs that they want to run? Check out this site PortableApps.com From this site you can install your favorite free computer programs on your USB Memory Drive and carry them with you in your pocket and run them on any Windows computer no matter how locked down it is.

Some of portable apps include:

• Open Office - the free alternative to MS Office and some would argue is better.
  
• GIMP - a full featured photo and image editing program.
  
• Audacity - record, edit and create MP3 audio files
• Mozilla Firefox - the for browsing the web
• Mozilla Thunderbird - for working with your email
• Mozilla Sunbird - calendar and task organizer
  
• Nvu - for developing websites.
• Miranda - for instant messaging with AOL, MSN and Yahoo users

What is even cooler is that if you need accessibility features then check out these three:

• Firefox Accessibility Extension - Make Firefox more accessible
• On-Screen Keyboard Portable - Easily access an on-screen keyboard
• Virtual Magnifying Glass Portable - A full-featured screen magnifier

So for a $10 USB Memory drive you can practically carry your computer programs and data files in your pocket. Oh and by the way, if you buy a USB Memory Drive with the U3 software on it, you might as well delete that as it appears to be useless to me.

Rod Corbett

Too FAST: Student Assessment Tool

Bruce Ravelli and Zvjezdan Patz, who brought us FAST, has now release the second generation of their tool, Too FAST. This is the a great web-based tool for surveying your students. It is easy to use, free and designed for instructors to use with their students. This new version was built in PHP and has many improvements over the older FAST:

• You can have more than 20 items in your survey.
  
• There is more flexibility if the item formats
• And there are standard items available to use.
  

This is a great tool for surveying your students that takes very little time to setup and administer.

Go to http://toofast.ca/ to sign up for an account.

eLearning XHTML editor (eXe)

I have finally taken some time to explore eXe, which is a tool that has been on my list of tools to explore for a while now. So, I am sold on this. This is a free tool that has the following features:

• It is free.
  
• It is available for Linux, Mac, Windows and even has a Ready-to-Run version for Windows so you can run it on a computer without installing it. You can even run it off a USB stick.
  
• It is easy to use
• It creates some great looking multi-page learning objects that your learners just need a current web browser to access.
  
• It exports the objects in HTML, Zipped packages, and SCORM and IMS packages so you can put them on a CD-ROM, website or into Blackboard of similar LMSes.

I really like how it is designed for teachers to use to author learning modules that are well designed using ID principles. You have a choices of several Instructional Devices like interactive quiz questions and feedback objects. There is a image gallery and image magnifier that is very cool.

We are exploring how students could use this to create their e-portfolios as well as other electronic presentations.

There are many examples you can check out at http://exelearning.org/Examples

I suppose what I really like about eXe is that it allows us to be platform independent when we develop our online course content, quizzes and guides. This is really important if you are considering moving from one platform to another, like from Blackboard to Moodle. Or it is even more important if you want to share your modules with others.

Check it out at http://exelearning.org/

Rod Corbett

Educational Technology and Related Educational Conferences

Clayton R. Wright has compiled and distributed his excellent list of conferences about Educational Technologies and related topics. This list covers the dates from November 2007 to June 2008.

I have posted the document to Google Docs so you can access it from the follow link:
http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dd78qwxf_455djr835

I would like to contact Clayton directly to give him feedback or to add events to the list his email address is crwr77@gmail.com