Mobile Learning Made Simple

Great New info on Mobile Learning Examples

As some of you know, we are aggressively heading down the mobile learning path and of course ---- as any good innovative company should -- we continue to research this market and found a great resource from the recent Training 2007 conference. Many key presenters both consultants and practitioners.

http://www.learningwiki.com/733

Also our next webinar "Making Mobile Learning Simple" is scheduled for December 12th at 11:30 Central. This is a Free program

Click here to register
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/944308094

Mobile Conversion Offer

Free Content Conversion Offer! Click on the video button for a quick overview of our mobile learning offer. We will convert one of your existing training program and provide you and 4 other people access to the mini lesson for up to 30-days.

If you wish to take advantage of this offer you can contact us at admin@knowledgeshift.net or 630-221-8759

Or if you are not quite sure you're ready for this, attend our next webinar "Making Mobile Simple" November 15th at 11:30 Central time

Here is the registration link
https://www.gotomeeting.com/register/646234405

Hands-On to Hand-Held Content Conversion

Contact us for more details.

630-221-8759 or admin@knowledgeshift.net

You will have 30 days of free access to your content and up to 5 people can view on any mobile device.

KnowledgeShift wants to help accelerate the adoption of mLearning by offering to convert a mini module for you for Free!



Contact us to talk about the type of content you wish to convert, which mobile device you will be accessing the content from and how will demonstrate the tracking and activity reports that can be captured.

Mobile Learning Demos

We would like to invite all of you to view our mobile learning demo site! We are a licensed reseller for Hot Lava, the premier mobile learning authoring and delivery company. We now have a demo site set up and all of you may login to see what type of content can be built and accessed through a mobile device.

For those of you with a hand-held device, you may access this content through your browser, type this info into the address line

http://hdwap.com/ks2

When you see the login screen, type in demo as the User ID and demo as the Password.

You will then see a list of courses that you can navigate to and view on your device.

If you have questions, please call us at 630-221-8759

The Edison Spirit Lives On

I colleague of mine just launch her first book "Innovate Like Edison", Sarah Miller Caldicott, one of the co-authors - along with Michael Gelb, have created a fantastic book that outlines 12 competencies that Edison possessed. These competencies which are outlined in this book are right on target with how any entrepreneur should run their business operations. One quality that Edison possessed that I think we as Americans are afraid of is failure. Edison felt that if he wasn't failing at something he wasn't trying hard enough.

I know sometimes this requires developing a thick skin but in order to really learn how to progress as a person or organization, as long as you learn from your failures and move on to improvement you will achieve great things.

This blog will continue to be a playground for our latest projects and we hope to continue to progress in our efforts to uncover new and creative ways to develop practical and exciting learning activities to our customers.

Mowing Lawn

This is another example of videopodcast or V-Cast, be sure to use large fonts and less text on screens than you normally would for a presentation.

PodCast weekly Tip

Hello again I wanted to provide you with some insight on how to really use RSS --- for some podcasters, this is still a mystery.

There are really two reasons why someone would convert a standard MP3 file to RSS. RSS = Real Simple Syndication. The original intent was to allow a recorded audio file to be "pushed" to someone who subscribes to the audio feed automatically. If you stumble across a podcast or audio feed, you may see the RSS widget and then be asked is you wish to subscribe to this feed.

What this means is that if you have iTunes or some other PodCatcher, you will receive updated feeds from this broadcast on a regular basis.

The second reason you may want to convert your audio files to RSS is for ease of distribution and search engine optimization. If you create a podcast that will not be a regular show or repeated program, you can still convert and distribute as an RSS file. By converting to RSS, you can post this "feed" on a service like Feedburner or iTunes to host your files for free and then offer you various options as to how someone would be able to download or subscribe to your feed.

KnowledgeShift videopodcast

Overview of Learning Technologies supported by KnowledgeShift

updated epidosed

Good news and bad news, we have been very busy w/ work which also means we are a little behind on getting out our next show. Look for our next episode this weekend.!

Research Study on use of PodCasting

I ran across an interesting white paper based http://connect.educause.edu/files/CMU_Podcasting_Jun07.pdf] upon the use of PodCasting and teaching at the college level. This paper written by Ashley Deal from Carnegie Mellon University, compares the use of three colleges and how they are using PodCasting to enhance the student's learning experience.

My recent experience and research leads me to believe that we will continue to see growth of this media for learning. I do suspect that the increase use of video w/ the audio MP3 format will begin to take place as more playback devices are enabled for video but the whitepaper makes a not that many people listen to podcasts from a computer ---- which is what I point out in our podcasting class. Especially the older population who may not be "hip" to using a portable audio device.

Episode 4 Introduction

T13Shoppe Episode 4 Introduction. Listen as our narrator kicks off our 4th episode of the T13Shoppe Show

T13Shoppe Episode 4

The T13Shoppe Show Episode 4 The Ripple Effect. Listen to our story to learn how what seems as an isolated mistake is now affecting the company in a more significant way. Please post your comments below and provide your contact info to admin@knowlegeshift.net if you wish your name to be entered into our monthly iPod Give-a-Way

T13Shoppe Episode 3 Narrator

Listen as our narrator introduces you to episode three of T13 Shoppe. Our narrator will take you into the next episode ---- listen and play along.

T13Shoppe Episode Three

Continuation of the T13 Shoppe Story "“The Whiners vs the Techy’s”. In this episode, the CEO Peggy, tries to uncover how the new ordering process got so out of hand. You will also begin to see inside the personalities of some of the other staff and how it may begin to create some friction.

We will be selecting the winner of our first iPod drawing this week so be sure to play along. After you post a comment on how you think the story should unfold or how to help this company, please send your contact info to admin@knowlegeshift.net in order to enter your name into the monthly iPod give-a-way.

T13Shoppe Episode 2

The story continues for the T13 Shoppe Our narrator will pick up the story where we left it off last week.

T13 Shoppe Episode 2

Listen as the continued story unfolds for the employees at the T13 Shoppe. In this Episode "Survey Says", you will discover that T13Shoppe has an additional problem that they need to solve. After you listen to this episode, click on the comments link to add your input on how you think the company or employees could solve their problems or how you might handle their challenges. If you wish to enter your name into our drawing for a free iPod to be given away in the next vew weeks, please email your contact info to admin@knowledgeshift.net after you post a comment.

PodCast Tip of the Week

I wanted to share with you some general insights I have learned with microphones lately. Some of you that have been doing this for a while may already be aware of this but here are some helpful tips for those of us that are novices at this.

I just purchase a USB Samson CO1U microphone to record my podcasts with. This is nice mic a step up from the Logitec headset/mic combo I was using( but still very functional --). One thing I wish I would have known after the fact was that this is a single direction mic vs. multi-directional mic. Meaning if I ever wanted to record more than one person in an interview it is not the best tool for the job. The recommend USB mic for this would be the Snowball from Blue (and it's pretty cool looking too).

I believe both of these are featured in the Apple online training tips for podcasting
http://www.apple.com/business/tip/garageband/index.html

I personally do not use a MAC (wishing I had one now) but you can use these tips regardless if you have a MAC or PC

T13Shoppe Episode 1 part 1 -- How to win an iPod

Episode 1 - Introduction

T13 Shoppe is a company that sources a variety of replacement part products to sell online. They currently supply these parts to other businesses but there is talk about offering them directly to consumers as well. The company started out as a mom and pop supplier of re-ordered parts for the heating and cooling industry. Eventually the owners reached an age where they wanted to retire and sold the company to a group of investors.

The new management of the company expanded to supply replacement parts for all types of industries --- automotive, appliances and other mechanical devices. This expansion took the company from 50 employees to over 150. Needless to say a lot of changes took place over the last couple of years during this expansion. Out of the original 50 employees about 25 remain- all of the rest of them are new.

In the following weeks, we will present to you a variety of vignettes of various situations that you will encounter at the T13 Shoppe. Everything from financial set backs, employee morale and some inter-office shenanigans.

Your role will be to make recommendations on how the script should unfold from week to week based upon the current week’s story line. By becoming involved in the story line, we hope that you will see how to handle various situations in a work setting that require some creativity, decision making skills and sometimes a sense of humor.

All of you that contribute ideas will be involved in our monthly give-a-way contest for fun prizes like an iPod!

So click on the link for our first session of T13 Shoppe

T13Shoppe Script 1

Episode One "Fueling Around"
Click on this link to hear the beginning story of the T13Shoppe and listen to see how you might have reacted differently or solved their problem in a unique way. Enter your suggestions into the post. If you wish to be entered into our monthly iPod content please send your contact info to admin@knowledgeshift.net

Employee_Recruitment

Demo of script for recruitment

Elliot and PodCasting

As some of you are aware of in the training industry, Elliot Maise is the man "in the know" for various technologies used for corporate training. I thought I would post a link to a site that lists several resources on PodCasting and learning.

http://www.masieweb.com/podcasts/research-and-surveys/podcasting-for-learning-call.html

PodCast Tip of the Week

When I teach my class "How to PodCast" someone always asks how long should a podcast be. The answer to that is somewhat driven by the content but for the most part you want to keep the entire podcast down to under 10 minutes if you are not producing a "show".

For example, if you listen to recorded radio shows, they are usually broken up by commercials, multiple speakers or various segments. Your podcast can be longer than the 10 minute rule but I would suggest breaking it up into small segments.

You can break it up by either a sound bite or music in between, a mini commercial for some upcoming event or just a fun joke or question to throw out to the listeners. If you ever go to Caribou Coffee, they post a Question of the Day and take .10 of your order if you get it right. You could break up the podcast by just stating a question in between like -- "What the was the name of Tonto's horse from the old Lone Ranger show?"

I'd love to see posts of other examples of how you could break up a longer podcasts from the audience.

PodCast Class Alumni Postings

This section of the Blog will be for the students who attend our "How to PodCast" class. You can share with us samples of your work, or just methods you have tried to use and what tools you used to create them.

We hope that we can use this as a community of practice so that we can learn from each other.

To share a sample, just post a reply to this posting and cut and paste your podcast URL or provide instructions on a site that we may view the sample from.

I want to share with you a great example of combining PodCasts and Blogs. If you go to http://pdtogo.com/smart This is Blog that supports a PodCast series from two teachers who utilize a wonderful technology called the Smart Board. KnowledgeShift is in the process of building content and curricula for corporate training using Smart Boards.

The hosts, Joan Badger and Ben Hazzard, do a great job of pointing you to the tips and best practice of how other teachers use this technology in their classroom and it's a great example of blending two new RSS technologies together.

Keep in mind the children they are teaching today with these tools are going to be the next generation of employees ---- we will have to think about how to engage their learning and knowledge as adults in about 4-5 years.

Employee_Recruitment

Demo of script for recruitment
This is a podcast example of how you can use PodCasting to promote the benefits of your company to prospective employees by capturing real interviews of employees who currently work for you.

Soon to Come Interactive Pod Series

KnowledgeShift provides virtual classes to teach organizations "How to PodCast". We are taking this one step further.

We will be launching a new Pod Series similar to the old radio soap operas based upon a story line that is in a corporate work environment. Think of the show "The Office". We will ask our subscribers to help steer the story line from week to week and provide feedback on suggestions on how you may react or handle the story line as it unfolds.

We know many of you may be faced with similar situations and can provide some interesting and sometimes amusing ways to get out of something that you may have encountered in your work setting.

Live vicariously through us and have some fun!