e-Learning at UM

Advanced interfaces, "Smart Ecosystems" and performance support systems in the workplace

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:08:58 -0500

"A civilization without instrumentalities? Incredible." --Forbidden Planet

Although it often seems that computers and communication devices have been growing smaller and smaller with no end in sight, for some purposes, they are still far too intrusive and unintuitive. There are many workplace scenarios where data and communication services would be very beneficial as performance support systems, but the constraints and awkwardness of existing computer interfaces would interfere with the task at hand.

Serious Games: References, Resources and Templates

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:53:30 -0500

This is part of a series of posts on Serious Games. To read the whole series, see the first section: What is a game?

References, Resources, Templates

References

The role of search in corporate learning programs

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:51:20 -0500

Enterprise Search as Learning Technology

With the current training industry interest in elearning trends like informal learning, social and collaborative Web 2.0 learning technologies, it's easy to overlook the importance of the humble search box as a learning tool.

Enable commenting in Adobe Reader, then use a PDF as a whiteboard

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 23:06:28 -0500

Writing notes and sketching on PDF's using a Tablet PC can be an excellent replacement for a blackboard or whiteboard in the classroom, meetings or lectures. Easier than using Powerpoint, especially when you want to improvise, it is particularly useful for annotating complex diagrams, music, mathematical problems, or anything requiring gridlines or graph paper.

On a Lenovo Tablet PC, you can use the clipping function to drop PDF's into the Journal application and type or write on them with the pen. The pen has good enough resolution to write legibly, and draw lines and curves.

The SCORM 2.0 workshop in Pensacola

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:08:34 -0500

The SCORM Workshop held by LETSI (Learning Education Training Systems Interoperability) is over, and some clear direction emerged from the blizzard of whitepapers, informal submissions and comments over the last few months. I was very impressed by how fast they moved things forward in a few days.

The design process will be driven by use cases generated by the people who actually use SCORM applications in their work: Instructional designers, administrators, teachers, and other strategic adopters all over the world. This is significantly different from the way SCORM was originally designed, by a small community of LMS vendors and the U.S. Department of Defense, one of the BIG USERS of training and tracking.

There was a lot of acknowledgement of the fact that we don't just want to track or "interoperate" web-based interactions, but transactions that could occur just about anywhere, including simulations, instructor-led, or instructor-guided, mobile, disconnected, etc. Fuzzy human-requiring (or at least AI-requiring) interactions should not be excluded. A key take-away is that we can't limit functions to what currently exists - learners will be learning in ways we can't even imagine.

Of course backward compatibility is crucial - many of us who want more, more more also have thousands of old-school SCORM courses in our libraries that we do not want to have to revamp to a new standard.

The use of Web Services and a Service Oriented Architecture is likely in the new standard. This will (hopefully) facilitate interoperability, and the ability to modularize applications. There was some question about whether this architectural approach has been a success in other areas, and a lot of discussion about what the business case for this might be, but those questions are in the process of being answered

Also discussed was the fact that people are out there choosing to learn from many sources, social, non-authoritative, non-standard, web-based, informal, random, and there is currently no way to track or analyze data about what they are doing or how they are doing that.

Every aspect of the current SCORM standard was examined closely and will continue to be. A useful refresher on the current basic assumptions of SCORM and a suggestion for a new conceptualization of what SCORM is and should be were given in a whitepaper by Allyn Radford

The "Ilities"

Accessibility: The ability to locate and access instructional components from one remote location and deliver them to many other locations.

Adaptability: The ability to tailor instruction to individual and organizational needs.

Affordability: The ability to increase efficiency and productivity by reducing the time and costs involved in delivering instruction.

Durability: The ability to withstand technology evolution and changes without costly redesign, reconfiguration or recoding.

Interoperability: The ability to take instructional components developed in one location with one set of tools or platform and use them in another location with a different set of tools or platform.

Reusability: The flexibility to incorporate instructional components in multiple applications and contexts.

Regarding SCORM 2.0, Radford suggested an approach where SCORM would support three separate domains which would remain agnostic to each other: Content, Communications, and Learning, Education and Training (LET) Support.

From his white paper:
"SCORM can be conceptualized and described in many ways. After the last few weeks of papers and interaction and seemingly conflicting requirements in some areas I now find it useful to think of SCORM as having the potential to serve diverse community needs through a focus in three separate 'domains' under which most other requirements can be categorized."

"..the design of the infrastructure and applications within it are declared out of scope where SCORM is concerned but the communications between applications/systems for the purposes of meeting LET requirements are in scope. By way of example, SCORM should not be dictating how a repository should store and manage content but it should provide for interaction between a repository and a front-end application. It could be said that cross domain scripting became a problem because content got mixed up with communications..."

During the workshop, the "ility" Reusability was reexamined. What exactly do people mean by it? Do we still want it? At what level should content be resusable? The individual asset? The whole SCO? What constitutes a SCO anyway?

The working group on Sequencing organized the submissions they had received into 3 general conceptual groups:

Sequencing functions should be moved to the content developer's domain, within the SCO or within the manifest.

There is still value to be had with sequencing being handled by the LMS, but the current spec is bad and should be replaced. The goal would be a rules-based sequencing engine controlled by the LMS, which would allow content developers to author sequencing rules using a finite defined set o primitives.

A big change in architecture needs to be made to make sequencing workable. Papers suggested a new, layered approach where the higher levels allow instructional designers to work directly with sequencing, and a set of reusable object oriented components to handle higher order sequencing functions.

The group considered a possible dual solution which extends the current data model to fully accomodate giving control over to the content devloper, but also creating a simple rules-based engine to be used by the LMS for those that prefer that type of workflow. I could see very different types of tools being developed to take advantage of these options.

Moving onward!

How can you take part in shaping the new SCORM?

Participate in the Wiki: submit use cases, white papers, informal submissions. LETSI's online discussions, working groups, and meetings are open to the public. Signing up for the Wiki is free

Join Letsi ($100) to become a voting member

Look for LETSI at:

DECOM Conference, Sestri Levante, Italy, October 23, 2008
Learning 2008 in Orlando, October 26-29
eLearning Guild's DevLearn, San Jose, California, November 11-14

Your input is being requested on use cases, functionality, prioritization, etc.

So, if you use SCORM, or think your organization may use SCORM in the future, stand up and be counted!

Captivate 3 Quizzes marking "failed" when quiz is not completed

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 16:29:31 -0500

We use Captivate 3 quizzes sometimes with our Docent 6.5 LMS. Usually the quizzes have multiple parts or "SCOs" but occasionally we build one that has only one part.

Sometimes people launch a quiz but need to quit before they are done taking it, and in such cases we would prefer it be marked "incomplete" and allow them another chance to take the quiz. Usually we would also prefer any failed quiz to be allowed to be retaken.

Randomizing Captivate Quizzes

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:42:05 -0500

Captivate quizzes are easy to create, but they lack some often-requested features. Even using version 2, it is difficult, if not impossible, to randomize questions within Captivate. The following method will alter the html wrapper generated when you publish a Captivate project so that it chooses from a bank of alternate Captivate SWF files when the page opens.

Download example HTML wrapper file

Speed control widgets for Captivate

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:38:07 -0500

These 2 widgets allow your users to alter the speed (in frames per second) of the Captivate presentation they are viewing. To use them simply "Insert Animation" and set the animation Options:Timing to Display for rest of project, and no transition.

Streaming Flash Video with open-source software

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 16:38:17 -0500

As we use more and more video clips in our learning modules, the advantages of Flash video have become more apparent. The Flash plugin comes pre-installed on most browsers. Flash is truly cross-platform and cross-browser compatible. Flash scripting works on all platforms, so you can control the video and add cuepoints to the video where required to control navigation through the learning module. For this reason I've been looking at using the Flash Media Server.

However, until recently, the cost of licensing the Flash Media Server software has been prohibitive. An article on Forbes.com notes that the cost for streaming Flash video is sometimes more expensive than it is worth. Fortunately, there is now an open source alternative to Flash Media Server: "Red5," which is not only free but does more than Adobe's Flash Media Server Software. In fact it does more than several Adobe server products put together.

Red5 is an open source Flash Server written in Java that supports streaming audio and video, recording client video streams, remote shared objects (a flash feature that allows collaborative multi-user applications), live stream publishing (webcasting) and much more.

A SCORM-compatible learning module template: Part 6 of 6

Sat, 12 May 2007 11:37:18 -0500

Branching behavior

Several branching functions are included in js/branchingToolkit.js and are available to be used in your modules. Note: These haven't been thoroughly tested!

InsertList: This function inserts a new pages into the page list right after the current page To use, you must add a second PageArray to the pageArray.js file, called PageArray2, containing the pages to be inserted.

A SCORM-compatible learning module template: Part 5 of 6

Sat, 12 May 2007 11:35:32 -0500

Part 1: Features, Outline your Module
Part 2: Creating the Navigation
Part 3: Other Configuration Elements
Part 4: Start Building Your Pages
Part 5: Modifying the CSS Styles
Part 6: Branching Behavior

Modifying the CSS styles

The css styles are defined in several sheets. Any of the styles can be overridden by adding a new definition for the selector to /css-local/userStyles.js or to individual pages or even individual elements on a page. YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO change any of the files inside the css/ folder but you can add your own overrides to userStyles.css.

A SCORM-compatible learning module template: Part 4 of 6

Sat, 12 May 2007 11:32:41 -0500

Start building your pages

Now you are ready to start building pages.

Important: You will find that Dreamweaver 8 does a much better job of displaying this module, complete with all the Server Side Includes, than earlier versions. It is possible to use earlier versions, but you will only see the central content area of the page, and not the Header/Footer areas or Navbar area.

A SCORM-compatible learning module template: Part 3 of 6

Sat, 12 May 2007 11:29:02 -0500

Other configuration variables: chapterArray, docTitle and headerTitle

In the same file as the pageArray, you will find several other variables: chapterArray, docTitle, and headerTitle.

The chapterArray can be filled out with chapter titles if desired. This is optional - the chapter and page titles can both be hidden if not needed.

The docTitle and headerTitle are required. The docTitle is the title that shows up at the top of every window -in other words the tag on each page. The headerTitle is the title which shows up in the blue header at the top of each page. </p> <hr> </article> <article> <h1>A SCORM-compatible learning module template: Part 2 of 6</h1> <p>Sat, 12 May 2007 11:27:05 -0500</p> <div style="font:normal 10px Verdana,Arial,Helvetica, sans-serif"> <a href="http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/eLUM/archives/2007/04/a_scorm-compati.html">Part 1: Features, Outline your Module</a><br> <a href="http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/eLUM/archives/2007/05/a_scorm-compati_1.html">Part 2: Creating the Navigation</a><br> <a href="http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/eLUM/archives/2007/05/a_scorm-compati_2.html">Part 3: Other Configuration Elements</a><br> <a href="http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/eLUM/archives/2007/05/a_scorm-compati_3.html">Part 4: Start Building Your Pages</a><br> <a href="http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/eLUM/archives/2007/05/a_scorm-compati_4.html">Part 5: Modifying the CSS Styles</a><br> <a href="http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/eLUM/archives/2007/05/a_scorm-compati_5.html">Part 6: Branching Behavior</a></div> <hr> <h1>Create the Navigation</h1> <h3>The Page Array controls all navigation within the module</h3><br>The engine that drives most of the module is the Page Array. The Page Array, a variable located in <b>js-local/pageArray.js</b>, is simply a list of all the pages in your module. It contains information about each page: the button title, page title, what chapter, and what outline level it is on. The navbar, "Previous" and "Next" buttons are based on the Page Array. </p> <h2>What does all this stuff mean?</h2> <p>Find the file <b> js-local/pageArray.js</b> and duplicate it to make a backup copy. Then open the original file <b> js-local/pageArray.js</b></p> <p><br /> Don't be intimidated by all the code on this page. You will simply be adding titles to the list of pages.</p> <hr> </article> <article> <h1>A SCORM-compatible learning module template: Part 1 of 6</h1> <p>Thu, 26 Apr 2007 21:35:16 -0500</p> <div style="font:normal 10px Verdana,Arial,Helvetica, sans-serif"> <a href="http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/eLUM/archives/2007/04/a_scorm-compati.html">Part 1: Features, Outline your Module</a><br> <a href="http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/eLUM/archives/2007/05/a_scorm-compati_1.html">Part 2: Creating the Navigation</a><br> <a href="http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/eLUM/archives/2007/05/a_scorm-compati_2.html">Part 3: Other Configuration Elements</a><br> <a href="http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/eLUM/archives/2007/05/a_scorm-compati_3.html">Part 4: Start Building Your Pages</a><br> <a href="http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/eLUM/archives/2007/05/a_scorm-compati_4.html">Part 5: Modifying the CSS Styles</a><br> <a href="http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/eLUM/archives/2007/05/a_scorm-compati_5.html">Part 6: Branching Behavior</a></div> <hr> <h1>Features</h1> <p>This HTML template is designed to simplify the creation of SCORM-compatible learning modules. Some of the features include:</p> <ul> <li><b>SCORM compatibility:</b> The required elearning SCORM communication functions are built in so the module can communicate its status to a Learning Management System (LMS).</li> <li><b>Requires no server-side languages</b> or processing other than Server Side Includes (SSI's). Javascript/DHTML-based.</li> <li><b>Bookmarking</b>: last page browsed is automatically stored in the LMS.</li> <li><b>Dynamic navigation:</b> The navigation, page titles, and pages left to view are all automatically generated.</li> <li><b>Built-in styles:</b> The look and feel has been set up so all you need to do is add text and use styles like H1, H2, and a few classes. The styles adapt to different browsers and screen sizes.</li> <li><b>Pretty printing:</b> Navbar disappears when printing, creating a cleaner, more efficient printout.</li> <li><b>Branching capability</b>: <ul> <li> replace entire page list with a single click to create another version of the module. </li> <li>Insert pages with a single click. </li> <li>Add pages to end of current page list.</li> </ul> </li> <li><b>Direct linking to pages when not under scorm control</b>. Although the module is structured as a frameset by necessity, linking directly to specific pages is possible when no LMS is present, so module can be used as reference outside the LMS. (Direct linking would break the SCORM communication link). </li> </ul> <hr /> <table width="50%" border="0" cellspacing="12" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td width="50%" valign="top"> </td> <td valign="top">Example of a finished module based on the template. The look of the template has changed slightly since this article was first written.</td> </tr></table> <table width="737"> <tr> <td width="40%" valign="top"></td> <td width="60%" valign="top">The navigation bar on this module is an example of the current template style. </td> </tr></table> </article> </main></body></html>