So what is on the near, mid and far-term horizon?

One thing is for sure I need to get rid of my old cell phone/mobile and help myself to a smartphone and a tablet would be great as well, because

• mobile apps
• tablet computing

are on the near-term horizon, that is within the next twelve month.

• Game-based learning
• learning analystics

are place on the mid-term horizon. Interstingly game-based learning was also placed on the second adoption horizon, two to three years out, in the 2011 Horizon Report and it was not mentioned in 2010 report.

Far-term horizon (four to five years)

• gesture-based computing
• Internet of things

Gesture-based computing was also mentioned in the 2010 report, but now two years later it is still placed on the far-term horizon. I think the comparison with previous reports is what makes this Horizon report really  interesting. To see whether the NMCs predictions became true, if they remained static or if they are not longer from interest.

The Top 100 Tools for Learning 2011 compiled by Jane Hart might shed some light into my problem. Similar interesting is Jane’s Top 20 Tools 2007-2011 which reveals a slightly different picture.

Well, I learned several things viewing the slide share presentation.

1. Too much choice is not always helpful
2. That WordPress is in fifth place
3. and Moodle in eight place, which at least confirms my decision to use Moodle as Learning Management System
4. Camstasia which I want to use to design screencast is on place 28, followed by Audacity an open source sound editor and recorder which I already used and which I can recommend.
5. Course authoring tools like Xerte and/or eXe which I wanted to use are not on the top 100 list

So what does that tell me? To change my design?  That is not really possible as I have to adhere to a given framework, which dictate some certain terms, e.g. that participants have to work  individually and take a test at the end of a training unit to achieve a certificate for successful participation. Pretty traditional one would say , but Cathy Moore has some good ideas how to improve traditional learning scenarios into engaging learning units.

Kathy’s blog post ‘Why you want to use scenarios in your elearning‘ launched a change, because although I know that elearning should apply a different pedagogy as a classroom I found it nevertheless difficult to realize that. Watching Kathy’s presentation provided me with some good ideas how to improve my work safety course. Although, interesting is her post ‘How to create a memorable mini-scenario‘. These two posts together with her advice not to treat learners as idiots (Are learners idiots?) and ‘help people to solve problems in the real world’ and to design an experience not information were more than helpful to improve my learning design for the course.

Yet, though I created a lot of mini-scenarios so far, I am still undecided which authoring tool I plan to apply for the implementation, because all of them have their downsides. Downsides in terms of that they require some expertise to design elearning activities, that I not yet acquired and/or that they do not fully support the ideas that I want to realise.

It is indeed not easy to be an elearning professional, but I should see it as challenge

“The third, annual, top ten e-learning movers and shakers”

I came around top list for (free) tools or technology that was or will be relevant for the year 2012, like the Horizon Report from the New Media Consortium (NMC), which I am looking forward to find out what they placed on the near or far horizon. However, a list with the  “Top Ten” most influential people in the corporate eLearning sector, in the world, Europe, and the UK,  compiled on the basis of a person’s perceived current influence on the eLearning industry – as a practitioner, commentator, facilitator, and/or thought leader, is new to me.

Jay Cross is second on the list as a new entry 2012. I came to know Jay during my H800 course when we discussed informal learning. Jay offers the following definition:

Formal learning is like riding a bus: the driver decides where the bus is going; the passengers are along for the ride. Informal learning is like riding a bike: the rider chooses the destination, the speed, and the route. The rider can take a detour at a moment’s notice to admire the scenery or go to the bathroom. Learning is adaptation. Taking advantage of the double meaning of the word network, to learn is to optimize the quality of one’s networks.

I found his bus and bike metaphor vivid and like to used it quite often in my assessments or when I want to explain the difference to other people.

Except for the Theo Payome (third on the Europe list) the editor of the Germany-based CheckPoint eLearning ezine where I found that article, all the other persons where strange to me.

Going through the list I was attracted by Cathy Moore’s blog. She is fourth on the world list and already the title of her blog

Let’s save the world from boring elearning

sounded more than inviting to continue reading and I quickly subscribed to her blog to profit and participate from her expert knowledge. Right now where I try to design an elearning activity, I found her blog post “Design experience, not information” a valuable inspiration for my design. I learned during my study not to apply traditional pedagogy to elearning, but you get easily drawn into doing exactly this. In her SlideShare presentation “How to save the world with elearning”, she convincingly explains how you can overhaul an information-heavy course from a competitor with a new design that is problem-based but not information based. Have a look, I found it very convincing and not only because the test run shows how much more participants actually learned from that design and how greatly the injury numbers decreased.

Thus, Cathy Moore is my discovery for 2012.

Having finished my Master degree last summer I was a little bit lost what to write about, if not about study issues. But, thanks to my small part-time job as technical research assistant at my local university I have now more to report

However, I not only received a lot positive comments, but also an offer from Digeus software. They asked me to promote their Screen Capture Software SnapIt and receive a full copy of the software.

Well, this is new to me and I have to admit I am a little bit torn between if I should accept the offer or deny it?

On the other side I reported about my experience with Camtasia Studio 7 as well, named it, provided a link to the website even without being offered a free software sample. Although that would have been great considering that it cost almost 300 € respectively $299 Thus, is there a difference writing in exchange for something or promoting it on my own accord, because I want to share my experience with others?

Do I search for excuses to receive a free copy? Well, the price $17.99 is absolutely affordable, thus the incentive is not so big and writing about this software does not mean that it will be necessarily a positive report if I am not convinced. However, the mail definitely raised my interest to find out what this tool offers contrary to the Snipping tool, a Windows 7 feature. My first question/thought was why should I pay for a tool that comes for free?  Yet, I guess there must be more features, otherwise why would companies like Digeus (SnapIt) or TechSmith (Snapit) – don’t confuse them – offer them for sale?

SnapIt Screen Capture   

Here some previous information from their website.

Digeus advertise with the slogan: Capture anything you see on your PC screen!

Features:

• Supports hotkeys, auto-saving, clipboard
• Automatically copies screenshots to the clipboard
• Tracks capture history, auto-saves captured images
• Saves files in BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG and TIFF formats
• Auto-names captured images
• Crops out sections of vector graphic files such as Fireworks, Adobe Illustrator or Corel without having to flatten the files or open in a new editor
• Irreplaceable tool for Designers, Office Workers, Business People, Analysts and more
• Perfect for Technical Writers who have to describe interfaces, menus, buttons, etc.

I was also told that it is a very convenient tool for bloggers, because it takes a “snapshot” of anything exactly what I need, with just a click.

So let’s find out how true this promise is.

It is not for nothing that you say:

“A picture is worth a thousands words – and a screen video even more”

Especially when it comes to learn a new tool, like Camtasia Studio 7. I have to admit I was a little bit nervous when I was told to become acquainted with Camtasia Studio, a tool from TechSmith as well as Lecturnity, also a tool for screen recording. Well, the promise from TechnSmith that ‘Camtasia has the right tools for creating professional screen videos… without formal training’, did not really convince me, going through the manual, which is more than 200 pages and even the short ‘First walk through guide’ was not really helpful for me. However, the Getting Started video tutorials, where helpful and walked me through the process of creating an own video, better than any written documentation.

It took about three hours starting from the recording, over editing including editing the dimensions, applying smart focus to zoom and pan, cutting unwanted video and audio on the timeline and adding title clips and transitions, as well as callouts, until I finished my first video

Let me tell you, if I managed, you can manage as well, even without formal training . I just had to overcome my first reluctance to get started with such a feature-rich screen recording software.

However, it is one thing to manage the technical part, but another to make a contentual good video. I experienced a couple of issues that I need to improve next time.

1. I was carried away once I started and the movie became a lot longer as planned
2. What I also recognized, that I sometimes moved the mouse to erratically. I guess I acquired that habit when showing my students something via the computer projector  . They always ask where, where so I circle my mouse around the spot I want to show. Not advisable within a screen cast, viewers might get seasick
3. best use a headset (which I planned to do, but somehow the computer did not recognize it), because otherwise you will have an annoying background sound. Try also to avoid to clear your throat or make any sniffing sounds, everything will be recorded, and I even sometimes catched myself falling back into speaking dialect.
4. But it is not only important how you speak, but even more important what you say. It is essential to have a script, otherwise you get lost or you start babbling, what ist not really professional. Thus have a script, stick with it – it’s like a PowerPoint presentation, nice effects and animations don’t make a good presentation if you do not have a concept, no structure and the content is bad.
5. One last comment regarding all the effects you can add – titles, callouts, transitions, and more -  don’t exaggerate it.

To sum up I can say that Camtasia is worth it’s money. I worked with  Wink, an Open Source product, which is not bad and it is cost-free, but Camtasia offers more features.

Microblogging is hot. An increasing number of users and vendors are using it. Twitter blog (March 2011) posted that   The average number of Tweets people sent per day, in the last month – 140 million. Well, I guess with my 101 tweets so far I am not even the drop in the bucket , but I am working on it.

Opening an account on Twitter was on task during my MAODE (Master of Online and Distance Education) study and I still recall the advise from one of my fellow students that you should create lists and make sure that you avoid using  Twitter for chit-chat, but to exchange information. And I have to admit that this was a good advice and then Twitter becomes really valuable to receive the hottest up-to-date news.

However, after finishing my MA I run out of news and information, seen also in my blog here, but if you don’t keep informed in this fast changing elearning subject, then you are quickly sidelined. Thus, I invest more time now to look up what interesting tweets others post.

I was amazed how much followers a Marie, a friend of mine, also a further MAODE student, had and she told me you have to tweet more. So does the rule of the thumb really applies?

As more you tweet as more followers you get?

Sure if you just tweet once a month, then your number of followers might be not really huge, except you post an innovative winner. However I believe, quantity does not necessarily succeed over quality. If your tweets don’t have any substance, then you don’t really attract followers.

I think that is another golden rule when it comes to microblogging. You have to follow others as well, because that does not only helps you to receive new and interesting information, but it makes you in turn more attractive to potential followers. Therefore, you should apply the following rule

Follow me – I follow you

And let me tell you it works somehow, because 5 new followers are following my Twitter account (@sylvia_i) now. I guess I must have made something right

Sylvia’s 2011 in blogging

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 8,400 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

‘Mobile Year in Review‘

It is amazing how much communication increased with mobiles, the numbers are tremendous. And imagine what that means or could mean for learning, considering that mobile phones are still forbidden in many German schools. We should really take more advantage of the potential that mobile devices can offer.

Although I am not a great fan of facebook, I still  the YouTube ‘A Social Network Christmas‘ video I received from some friends.

Some of you might also recall last years ‘Christmas 2.0‘ video, which is quite similar. Great movies, reminds me on the movies from Michael Wesch, e.g. ‘The machine is us(ing) us‘ or ‘A vision of students today‘.