How did I learn about the Tin Can API

• I trawled through multiple blogs
• I participated in discussion forums on Linkedin
• I viewed quite a few You Tube videos
• I viewed presentations on Slideshare
• I had numerous one-on-one conversations with my colleagues as well as peers in other organizations
• I used my mobile phone to chat with my boss about this

Not one of these various forums/media of learning can be tracked by an LMS, yet it can’t be denied that these are effective learning methods. Learning happens everywhere!

The advent of informal and social learning, along with a renewed focus on ‘Mentors’ at the workplace has ensured that the workforce of today is learning in more ways than ever before. Moreover, since these activities are outside the traditional elearning environment, L&D professionals are unable to record these learning activities and measure their impact on performance.

What is the Tin Can API?

The Tin Can API is an e-learning software specification that allows learning content and learning systems to speak to each other in a manner that records and tracks all types of learning experiences. As we all know, learning can occur in different forms and can happen anywhere (not necessarily through courses hosted on an LMS). Tin Can enables L&D professionals the ability to easily track, quantify and share data gathered from various learning experiences. It’s great for tracking:

• Mobile Learning
• Serious Games
• Simulations
• Informal Learning
• Real World Performance

How does it work?

When an activity needs to be recorded, the application sends secure statements in the form of “Noun, verb, object” or “I did this” to a Learning Record Store (LRS.) An LRS is a data store that serves as a repository for learning records necessary for using the Tin Can API. It records all of the statements made and can share these statements with other LRSs. An LRS can exist on its own, or inside an LMS.

What makes it superior to SCORM?

SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) has been the de facto e-learning standard for packaging e-learning content to be delivered to LMSs. However, there are several drawbacks to SCORM. The Tin Can API allows for several new capabilities that SCORM didn’t, such as:

• Taking e-learning outside of the web browser
• E-learning in native mobile applications
• More control over learning content
• Solid security using Oauth
• Platform transition (start e-learning on a mobile device, finish it on a computer)
• The ability to track games and simulations
• The ability to track real-world performance
• Team-based e-learning
• Tracking learning plans and goals

As of now, the Tin Can API is still evolving and many of us in the elearning community are still trying to grasp what new avenues the Tin Can API can open up. I personally am interested in knowing how organizations can record offline learning activities such as one-on-one discussions and classroom training, or real world performance in an LRS.

I would love to know your thoughts on the Tin Can API, especially what use-case scenarios are possible.

References:

• http://www.adlnet.org/

The post What L&D Professionals Should Know About Tin Can API first appeared on The Upside Learning Blog.

In my previous job with a life insurance company, I noticed that most sales professionals actually dislike training. In most cases they used to attend classroom training sessions only because it was a mandate passed down by senior managers.

Why do sales professionals dislike classroom training?

As the age-old adage goes “Time is Money”, most sales professionals see little value in taking out time to attend a classroom training session. With hectic schedules and tough deadlines to achieve targets, who has the time to attend training anyway? Sales professionals across various industries are almost inevitably on the move. With all the time spent on commuting and preparing for the next meeting with a prospective client, making time to attend a training session simply isn’t a priority.

Many sales professionals have been through some very boring classroom training, sitting through long sessions and being subjected to a lot of information being dumped on PowerPoint slides. No wonder they eventually start hating it.

How can mobile learning be used to train sales professionals?

Mobile learning is best used as a part of a blended learning solution and is suitable for:

• Activating knowledge before a classroom (or virtual classroom or even an eLearning session);
• Summarizing (after one of those sessions – delivered soon after the session);
• Recall (or reactivating knowledge – probably a week or two after the session. This ensures key concepts are revisited sometime after the learning event – also known as spacing – and helps in transferring the new knowledge to long term memory – especially for learners who may not get a chance to apply new knowledge immediately after the sessions);
• Providing application opportunities (through pop quizzes or real life scenarios or learning games on mobile);
• Just-in-time search support by letting employees search in company’s knowledge databases (wikis, blogs, forums) using their mobiles.
• Connect with an expert or share your views which allows for ‘reflection’ – often the way sales people learn best with.

Leveraging Mobile Learning Platforms

A good mobile learning platform provides users with a mobile enabled environment where they can access the training activities in the form of videos, podcasts, eLearning courses, quizzes and evaluation surveys and also enables them to use their mobile device to share knowledge with others (within or outside their team) in real-time.

Our mobile learning solution – Upside2Go – is equipped with a comprehensive set of features that make the management of learning for your mobile workforce easy and effective. Its right mix of traditional and innovative features work towards giving you an experience that truly surpasses place and time boundaries.

What makes Upside2Go a good Performance Support System?

• Advice – Upside2Go can be used to deploy job-aids of an advisory nature. The learners can use the advice without having a deep understanding of the task. If they need to understand something in greater detail, the learners can access the other components of the system. The advisory component is meant to provide help wherever and whenever the user requires it.
• Information – Upside2Go can be used to deploy tools that the learners can use to access information in the form of product brochures, technical specifications, price sheets, images, graphics, videos, client case studies. The information component is meant to provide all the information the users require to do their job.
• Training – The training component of Upside2Go helps the user access training material on demand.
• User Interface – The user interface is the most important aspect of Upside2Go. It seamlessly integrates all the components of the performance support system. The user interface enables the learner to navigate from component to component within Upside2Go. Its interface is user-centric and presents a consistent look and feel for all the components.

Upside2Go

• Puts training and performance support where the actual work takes place (Learning on the go)
• Allows new skills or knowledge to be immediately applied
• Enables training when it is needed

The post Leveraging Mobile Learning For Sales Training first appeared on The Upside Learning Blog.

While the demand for HTML5 courses is yet to catch up, the demand is growing stronger nevertheless. This hardly comes as a surprise given that the iPad dominates the worldwide tablet market. As per data published by Good Technology in their Good Technology Device Activations Report | Q1 2012, the iPad 2 averaged 17.7 percent of their enterprise activations in the first quarter of 2012 in the US. In just a month since its release, the iPad 3 snagged 4.3 percent of Good Technology’s enterprise activations.

The only two devices to do better than the iPads were the iPhone 4s and the iPhone4.

Worldwide, Samsung probably sells more smartphones than anyone else, Looking into the future – this article predicts that iPads will retain more than 50% of the installed base of all tablets in 2016, but Android and Windows Metro will be the other two dominant platforms. We believe at this stage it is the iPad driving eLearning to HTML5.

Given this trend, it is but obvious that the demand for rapid authoring tools which can publish content in HTML5 will also increase. In this post, we examine 5 rapid authoring tools which show tremendous promise.

1) Adobe Captivate 5.5 with HTML5 Converter

The HTML5 Converter for Adobe Captivate 5.5 is an experimental technology that converts SWFs generated by Adobe Captivate 5.5 into HTML5 format. Once these files are converted to HTML5, you can edit them with an HTML editing tool, such as Adobe Dreamweaver. You can view the output in any browser that displays HTML5 content, including iOS (iPhone and iPad) devices.
Please note that not all Adobe Captivate features are supported in the HTML5 format. For more details, please refer to the Release Notes of the HTML5 Convertor, which describe supported features, known issues and the roadmap for upcoming features.

2) Lectora Inspire

Lectora Inspire can help you to quickly create dynamic video and Flash content as well as transform your e-Learning to HTML5 for mobile delivery. It enables you to automatically push your e-Learning to HTML5 and other publishing options.

3) Claro from dominKnow

Claro outputs HTML5-based content, so all of its authoring features can be used to create engaging and interactive content for delivery on smart phones or tablet devices. Claro comes complete with layout themes to get you started quickly, and a robust set of in-tool authoring features to help you create mobile learning courses.

4) mLearning Studio from Rapid Intake

Rapid Intake’s mLearning Studio is a cloud-based solution that can help you build mobile learning in a matter of minutes. It provides you with the option to publish to both HTML5 for mobile browsers and Flash for desktop browsers at the same time.

5) Sencha Animator

Sencha Animator is a desktop app to create CSS3 animations for WebKit browsers and touchscreen mobile devices. Since CSS3 consistently works across iOS, Android and BlackBerry OS6, this gives Animator projects a big step-up for use on mobile platforms.

Upcoming Tools

Two other tools to watch out for are Adobe Edge and Magetta.

1. Adobe Edge is a new web motion and interaction design tool that allows designers to bring animated content to websites, using web standards like HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3.
2. Maqetta is an open source project that provides WYSIWYG visual authoring of HTML5 user interfaces. The Maqetta application itself is authored in HTML, and therefore runs in the browser without requiring additional plugins or downloads.

Another rapid authoring tool that the entire industry is waiting for eagerly is Articulate Storyline. Storyline is a standalone desktop authoring tool that will be able to publish iOS-compatible output via HTML5.

A Word of Caution!

Judy Unrein makes a very valid point in her blog post Publishes to HTML5? Buyer, Beware. To quote Judy: Any authoring tool and any output is only good if it serves your design, which serves the learning/business need. Flawless publishing to HTML5 doesn’t do you any good if the tool isn’t capable of creating – and publishing – the interactivity you’ve designed.

If you know of any other rapid authoring tools that output HTML5 content, leave a comment. We’d really like to know more about them. Thanks!

The post 5 Rapid Authoring Tools To Publish Courses For Your iPads first appeared on The Upside Learning Blog.

What makes BYOD popular?In its Technology, Media & Telecommunications Predictions 2012, Deloitte predicts that by the end of the year 2012, 500 million smartphones with a retail price of $100 or less will likely be in use worldwide. With the almost insatiable need for information and communication increasing across the global workforce, most of them are turning to mobile devices.

As these employees use more advanced devices and business apps to catapult their productivity, their impatience with technology at their workplace is also understandably increasing. They have understood the usefulness and the power of the devices that they use, and want to leverage them at the workplace as well. Mid and senior level executives the world over want their organizations IT departments to allow them to access company resources through their personal devices.

As per a survey conducted by Good Technology in October 2011, 72 percent of its customers were already formally supporting BYOD programs. Another 19 percent of the respondents indicated that they were either planning to support BYOD within the next 6-12 months or were considering, but did not have a specific timeframe for support. You can read more about the survey findings here.

Why are organizations apprehensive?While the BYOD trend may save organizations a substantial amount of money, what they are really concerned about is data security. BYOD could be the IT department’s worst nightmare.

Their concerns are quite understandable given the problem of enforcing security and compliance at such a large scale. However, by using Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Mobile Application Management (MAM) platforms, organizations may be able to manage the security risks posed by BYOD.

What does this mean for mlearning?Security concerns notwithstanding, it is undeniable that organizations will eventually have to buckle under the pressure and open their doors to the BYOD movement. They simply cannot afford to ignore the demands of an increasing mobile workforce, and will have to get a new security strategy in place.

As BYOD gains momentum, we’d probably see a positive effect on mobile learning adoption. Mobile learning will help organizations to leverage the BYOD trend to distribute ‘just-in-time’ training snippets that are both targeted and tracked. I certainly believe that the BYOD movement is a step in the right direction and will also speed up mlearning adoption tremendously. I’d love to know your views on this. Feel free to comment.

The post Mobile Learning And The BYOD Movement first appeared on The Upside Learning Blog.

I soon realized that I had only discovered the tip of the iceberg, and that there is a lot of thought that needs to go into designing an interactive timeline.

This blog-post is an attempt to put together what I learnt about the design of timelines.

What is a Timeline?

A timeline is an actual picture of events that happened in history. Timelines can be linear or comparative.

A linear timeline shows a picture of events as they occurred in a certain period of time. Use a linear timeline for one subject and time frame.  A linear timeline can be written horizontally or vertically.

A comparative timeline shows two or more subject areas which occurred at the same time; it shows readers the “big picture.” A comparative timeline might compare historical events in two or more countries or compare two or more subjects like Music and Science.

Why Use Timelines In eLearning?

You can use timelines in your elearning courses in order to provide a framework within which content can be presented. Timelines ensure that your content is chunked and make your courses interactive. Chunking delays mental fatigue and increases comprehension.

The Trap: Chronology Or Timeline?

Sometimes, what you think is a timeline, may not actually be a timeline. Often, what passes for a timeline is actually a chronology. A timeline shows actual spans of time, with proportional measurements for days, months, years, decades or centuries, depending on quantum of time involved. On the other hand, a chronology shows the momentum of a series of events. It may make more sense to present the information as a list, or as a series of images with associated text labels.

Essential Design Questions To Ask

Here’s a small list of essential questions that we should ask ourselves when designing our timelines.

• Is this timeline about events that unfolded over hours, days, months, years, decades or centuries?
• Should equal periods of time be represented by equal space on the timeline?
• Does it make sense to combine the timeline with other visuals such as maps, graphs or pictures?
• How much text do you need to make the timeline understandable?
• Is the timeline helpful and easy to understand?
• Do the visuals add any value? Are they conveying something that text alone cannot convey?
• Does it really need to be a timeline, or would a series of images with text labels be equally effective?

Designing an effective timeline is much tougher than it seems. Don’t just try to use a timeline because it looks cool, instead make it meaningful and interactive so that the information that you present is crisp and crystal clear.

I’d love to hear about your experiences with designing timelines. Feel free to drop me a line.

The post Instructional Design Basics: Designing A Timeline first appeared on The Upside Learning Blog.

Trends Currently Affecting Teaching, Learning, and Creative Inquiry in Higher Education:

1. People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want to.
2. The technologies we use are increasingly cloud-based, and our notions of IT support are decentralized.
3. The world of work is increasingly collaborative, driving changes in the way student projects are structured.
4. The abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible via the Internet is increasingly challenging us to revisit our roles as educators.
5. Education paradigms are shifting to include online learning, hybrid learning and collaborative models.
6. There is a new emphasis in the classroom on more challenge-based and active learning.

Important Constraints and Challenges:

1. Economic pressures and new models of education are bringing unprecedented competition to the traditional models of higher education.
2. Appropriate metrics of evaluation lag the emergence of new scholarly forms of authoring, publishing, and researching.
3. Digital media literacy continues its rise in importance as a key skill in every discipline and profession.
4. Institutional barriers present formidable challenges to moving forward in a constructive way with emerging technologies.
5. New modes of scholarship are presenting significant challenges for libraries and university collections, how scholarship is documented, and the business models to support these activities.

Technologies to Watch:

1. Near-term Horizon (Within the next 12 months)
   • Mobile Apps
   • Tablet Computing
2. Mid-term Horizon (Within the next 3 years)
   • Game-Based Learning
   • Learning Analytics
3. Far-term Horizon (Within the next 5 years)
   • Gesture-Based Computing
   • The Internet of Things

How do these developments affect the elearning industry?

There’s no doubt about the fact that the realm of higher education worldwide is going to undergo a vast transformation. With newer and better technology becoming increasingly affordable, classrooms the world over are evolving. What we need to keep in mind is this – These teens are going to be a part of the global workforce in another 4-5 years. They will enter the workplace expecting newer and better methods of training. The question is – Are organizations and elearning developers preparing to handle the coming shift in learning technologies, or will we be caught napping?

The post The Future Of Higher Ed And Its Impact On Elearning first appeared on The Upside Learning Blog.

As gamification gradually finds its way into the realm of education, more and more educators are voicing their criticism or admiration for it. Despite the criticism, the gamification of education is here to stay.

This week, we take a closer look at ‘Gamification’ and what various L&D professionals think about it. Below are our top 5 GBL links from this week. Read them, share them or bookmark them.

1. Gamification in Education: Epic Win, or Epic Fail?
A trend referred to as “gamification” has swept industries as diverse as marketing, travel, and even education. While turning everything into a game sure seems like fun, it’s not as easy as it sounds. This article from Digital Pedagog explores the trend towards gamification, as well as some of its criticism.

2. The GameiT Handbook
The GAMEiT project is targeted at teachers, trainers, and multipliers and will empower them to design learning environments and teaching methods which are more creative, innovative and motivating by including game based learning elements and engaging the learner. The GameiT Handbook illustrates how games or elements of games can be included in educational practice, and to what end.

3. Why Game Designers Are Better Motivators Than Your Boss
This article from You Tern examines the power of games to motivate people, and how gamification can be applied at the workplace.

4. Three Reasons NOT to Gamify Education
This article from the Learnboost blog examines some potentially negative ramifications of applying game psychology to education.

5. The Fun And Games Of The FBI
This article from Kotaku takes a look at how the FBI is developing and using video games to train its agents.

Hope you like these links. If you come across anything interesting please feel free to share the link with us.

The post 5 Top Game Based Learning Links: GBL Digest 2 first appeared on The Upside Learning Blog.

Hence, to ensure that you do not miss out on all the great links we share and also with a view to building a knowledge repository, every week, we shall be publishing a quick summary post of our best shared material from the week before.

Read it, share it or bookmark it.

Below are our top 3 links from this week:

1. The Power of Play in Learning Play is a powerful vehicle for learning which amplifies our capacity to innovate and to adapt to changing circumstances. Adults who are deprived of play are often rigid, inflexible and closed to trying out new options. Play is an active process that reshapes our rigid views of the world. This article from the MindShift Blog underscores the importance of play in learning.
2. Teaching Science Through Video Game Design A well designed game is akin to a good teacher. It provides the player/student with a reasonable challenge and helps the player learn through scaffolding and instructions. Kevin Hodgson, a Sixth grade teacher from Massachusetts, USA encourages his students to learn Science by designing and creating their own video games.
3. Games-Based Learning Experiences: Testing the principles with teachers and students This paper published by Futurelab outlines the findings from three workshops with teachers and students in which they: • give feedback on the relative importance of key learning elements identified in digital games • explore how these elements could be used to support the creation of games-based learning experiences in formal education settings

Hope you like these and if you come across anything interesting do share with us.

The post 3 Top Game Based Learning Links: Weekly GBL Digest – 1 first appeared on The Upside Learning Blog.

This is a move in the right direction by Google, especially since many Smartphone users perceive Android apps to be inferior to Apple’s iOS. This initiative targeted at developers will help to raise the quality of Android apps developed in the public realm. Android Training will be led by the Android Developer Relations team. As of now the program has 11 basic classes.

1. Designing for multiple screens
2. Improving layout performance
3. Managing audio playback
4. Optimizing battery life
5. Remembering users
6. Sharing content
7. Capturing photos
8. Maintaining multiple APKs
9. Developing for enterprise
10. Monetizing your app
11. Designing effective navigation

These classes are designed to demonstrate best practices for solving common Android development problems. Each class explains the steps required to solve a problem, or implement a feature, with plenty of code snippets and sample code for developers to use within their own apps.

Note: Android Training does not start from scratch and there are some prerequisites for this program. You should know the basics of writing code and how to develop an Android user interface. Android Training is designed for developers looking to refine their apps.

What we see now is just the beginning. Google plans to add many more classes, expand and refine existing classes, and build Training Courses that help developers enhance your apps using objective-oriented collections of classes.

Given the nascent stage of mLearning development, the learning value that mLearning developers can derive from this training program is tremendous. Eventually that will result in us being able to design more compelling and engaging mLearning experiences.

You can access the Android Training home page here. https://developer.android.com/training/index.html

The post Google’s Android Training Initiative – Will it boost mLearning? first appeared on The Upside Learning Blog.

1. Block Removal
2. Construction
3. Demolition
4. Platform
5. Projectile
6. Stacking
7. Other

Though these games aren’t complex science games, they still require a basic knowledge of concepts such as gravity and force. Each of these games is free and can be easily (and legally) embedded into any blog or website.

Why I Like This Site

The games on www.physicsgames.net can be used to teach the fundamental concepts of Physics in a fun and engaging way. It is also a wonderful resource for problem solving activities to be used in training sessions. Another very important factor is that these games do not require ‘Knowledge’ of the laws of physics. The games are well designed and most games make use of the ‘scaffolding’ technique. The skills required to play the games are built steadily from one level to the next, leading to a gradual progression of problem solving skills being required.

Games To Check Out

My personal favorite is a game called Cargo Bridge, where you are required to design a bridge that will allow you to safely move your cargo from one side to the other. You have a limited amount of money to build each bridge.

Go ahead; check out the games on this website. They may seem childish but have tremendous potential in terms of ideas for some mind-blowing simulation projects.

The post Game Based Learning Showcase: Physicsgames.net first appeared on The Upside Learning Blog.