Today the Lectora user Conference began in the US, and it brings with it a couple of firsts.

For a start, the event (or at least parts of it) are being streamed live online. This is a trend we’re witnessing with many organisations and events, and it’s something we hope to see more of. Why limit exposure to your product to just those who can make it to the event, when you can share it live, globally? They’re also encouraging the back channel conversations on Twitter.

Of the announcements made by CEO and Chairman Charles Beech, the one that really grabbed my attention was the launch of Snap! by Lectora. This is a PowerPoint plugin that they are positioning as a competitor to Adobe’s Presenter and Articulate’s Studio as the entry point for anyone wanting to get started in elearning development.

Without a doubt, it’s most interesting feature is it’s price, just $99 compared to the $500-$999 you’d pay for it’s targeted competitors.

Will it really prove to be a competitor? That remains to be seen, but we’ll be doing a review just as soon as we get the demo installed.

^{Image by yoppy}

Since 2007, Jane Hart has been inviting learning professionals around the world to contribute to her crowdsourced list of the top 100 tools for learning.

This is my contribution for 2010 (in no particular order).

• Twitter has become my favourite way to connect with people online, and one of the first places I go to when searching for information. The unexpected and serendipitous connections you make can be at least as useful as the deliberate ones.
• Skype has little competition when it comes to voip for consumers and small businesses. It’s the tool I’m most likely to use for voice communication, and for the last two years I’ve done away with a business landline and replaced it with a Skype number.
• WordPress is the open source software that this blog runs on, as does my personal blog. Anyone that knows me will know I’m a big fan of Drupal (and nothing can beat it for complex projects) but with version 3.0 WordPress has became the ideal tool for simpler projects.
• Evernote is my ‘external brain’, the place that I use to record anything I may want to refer to in future. It’s brilliant because it’s accessible on all of my devices. It’s largely replaced delicious for me as I had too many instances of saving bookmarks to sites that later disappeared.
• Instapaper is a fabulous service that allows you to save content for later reading, and presents it in a consistent and wonderfully readable format. I save content from wherever I’m browsing, but will usually read it using the Instapaper iPad app.
• Google Reader/Reeder is still the best feed reader I’ve found. The only thing that’s made it better for me in the past year is using Reeder on the iPhone and iPad to access my account. I can’t imagine reading the quantity of content that I do in any other way.
• Google Chrome has pretty much become my browser of choice. I gave up on Firefox a long time tme ago (too slow and buggy) and although it’s improved a lot recently Safari hasn’t quite kept up with Chrome in terms of speed and stability.
• Dropbox is one of those services that you just can’t believe anyone wouldn’t be using. It’s simply the best way to keep my Macs in sync and make all of my content available on my phone, iPad and from any browser. Just brilliant!
• The iPad has already been mentioned in this list in terms of some of the apps I use, but it deserves its own place in the list. I think we’ve only just scratched the surface of what this kind of device will enable.
• Webex Meet is a service that is in beta and currently free for meetings of up to 4 people. If I need something more complex than Skype, such as document sharing, this is my tool of choice. Whether they are able to maintain it as a free service remains to be seen.

You can add your contribution here.

This is a question we are often asked. Personally I’m still very attracted to Elluminate and using it regularly. In fact I have set myself a personal mission to test it to capitulation. Now I’m just about to go on holiday and don’t have time for a complete and detailed appraisal here and now, but I’ll “cast some bread upon the waters” and see what floats back.

In Elluminate I can create a syndicate exercise in which groups retire to break-out rooms. Once there they work in a whiteboard collaboratively to decorate a template for a blank carton. Some of you may have seen me use this attention-grabber in live classrooms.

I’d regard it as quite a good test of a virtual classroom; I suspect not all of them can make it work, but I’m prepared to be proven wrong!

The instructions to each of the groups is the same – “Suppose blended learning came in a box; how might you decorate it?” The theme is that packaging carries messages, and those messages may have to speak to the client (“Use me”) or to the Customer (“Buy me and implement me”). Through words and images the groups have to convey something of the ingredients, the process and the advantages of blended learning!

The process in a real classroom is to work in groups with fibre tip pens and glue to design and then assemble these boxes from the templates. Then they return for a plenary session and the individual efforts are consolidated into a composite version that contains the best ideas from each.

How can you replicate that in a virtual classroom?

Well in Elluminate users can copy and paste images and text from their own desktop into the whiteboard. Then they have the added advantage that they can reposition or remove them if they so desire. If you can visualise a group of 4 participants working together, discussing their design principles through voice and/or text, creating and installing their media assets and systematically completing the task, then you have a good picture of the first stage in the process. The next stage is to assemble the boxes (this is optional). Each participant may print the finished template with all of its embellishments and, sitting at their own desks, may assemble the cube. Finally comes the reporting back and the construction of a composite of all the best ideas. Where bandwidth is sound and reIiable, a spokesperson for each group may use video to show the end result while another talks about its features and the decisions and compromises they had to make. Where the signal strength is weak it is enough to bring back the flat templates from each breakout room and present them as slides with a narrative. I handle the consolidation by opening a blank PowerPoint slide on my own (Moderator’s) desktop. As we discuss each design I selectively harvest words and images from the individual whiteboards and transfer them (copy and paste) to a fresh blank template of the cube on my PowerPoint file. Finally my assistant and long-suffering wife prints out the finished product, assembles it and I show it the group through my own webcam.

ANALYSIS, SYNTHESIS, EVALUATION – aren’t these Bloom’s higher order cognitive skills?

VISUAL, AUDITORY, KINAESTHETIC – in a virtual classroom? What’s going on here?

Now I’ve used Saba Centra, Cisco Webex, Adobe Connect, Dim Dim as well as Elluminate with reasonable regularity. My challenge to anyone who cares to rise to it is this: can you describe to me how all of the above might be done in each of these systems?

Before I depart, if you have read this far you must have some interest in it and thank you. Perhaps you’ll go to our 2 minute survey of webinar skills at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=FyVHIxpXy_2bsUtEiSEHSsEg_3d_3d