Replacing you LMS w/ SharePoint

We teach a lot of live on-line classes for trainers on how to use various rapid e-learning tools, mobile learning etc. Late last year we began to add a class on how to use SharePoint. We noticed a lot of our clients using this as a way to manage scripts, and content reviews but also they began to use folders and libraries to manage training content too.

If you think about it, for the basic functions that an LMS provides, managing user's access to content, scheduling classes, posting discussion boards, SharePoint can do all of this and it allows for a more collaborative exchange in an a platform that most users are comfortable with.

So we thought-- hmmm I wonder if you could configure a plug in of some sort to piggy-back into SharePoint to create a more robust LMS application. Well guess what somebody already has. We found two providers that have this type of product.

One is from eLearning Force and another is from Xerceo

I have not tested either of these but a lot of folks in our class state that they don't have an LMS so why not investigate if this will support the functionality that you need.

If you're interested in our live virtual classes go to this link.

Using Improv Artists to Demo Mobi-RolePlay

We had a blast, we did a live demonstration of our Mobi-RolePlay tool (you can demo this on this link) on Tuesday March 1st. We used professional improv actors to demonstrate poor examples of situations in which using a role-playing tool to practice with would have avoided some bad customer situations.

Then in true improv form, we asked the audience to provide us with input to build a role-play on the fly. The improvisors were given 15 minutes to come up w/ 1/2 of the role-play -- record it--- and upload into our IVR studio. Then a volunteer from the audience would call the role-play simulator when they were done.

This worked great! and the audience had a lot of fun. I think we've created a new art form.

Here are two samples from what was created.

Selling the London Bridge to Donald Trump

Selling babies to Dingos

Needless to say we had a lot of fun but what we were there to demonstrate was getting people involved in a more "human" connection and getting the audience involved at an emotional level was key. How often do we strip out emotions or human interactions with training? Probably a lot these days.

Apps, WAP and All That

There seems to be an “app” for everything these days.  Among some of them you can find are apps for shopping, games and musical instruments.  And although these are fun for the user, the developer community is a different story.  The average e-Learning developer or instructional designer will stop dead in their tracks when asked to develop and app for their organization.  Unlike some of the rapid tool design tools for online training, apps are not easy to build and require a SDK (software developer kit) for each type of mobile device.  On top of this the development costs can range from $25-40,000. 

The alternative has been to develop mobile web content or WAP hosted content.  This is a great alternative but does pose some inconveniences in speed of content moving from one page to the next or downloading times. 

For the last 4 years we have been using the Hot Lava content creation tool LMA (learning mobile author) and a hosted WAP server.  The great thing about this tool is that it allowed us to create content and publish for any mobile device as well a JAVA application.  What this means is, we could create content that devices like Blackberrys could download and install like an app.  We’re not uber-programmers and would go running from anything that was too complicated.  So this has worked out very well.  The only real downside to this was that if you want to create a series of courses or special JAVA applications it required you to install multiple files on your hand-held device which sometimes causes anxiety attacks with IT departments.

But do not fear!  There is a new and improved way to deploy mobile content that really does combine the best of both worlds.  OutStart has just released a Blackberry viewer that installs directly onto the mobile device.  It allows you to create content in PowerPoint (easy) and then publish to a hosted server that will push the content directly to the Blackberry player on your mobile device.  It becomes and app w/ WAP hosted modules that are managed by the user.  All user activity and data collection is managed remotely but the content displays quickly and easily (see video below)  and it a great way to push content to your users that they may need access to on the fly regardless if they are connected to a mobile tower or not.  They will be releasing and iPhone and Android player as well so all of us that are somewhat programming challenged can brag about our abilities to create Apps, from WAP and all that!

Whatever happened to Shorthand

I was chatting with one of my sons over the holidays and was telling him about how one of my sisters (older sister) went to a "finishing school" to learn shorthand and secretarial skills.  He had never heard of shorthand and I had to explain to him why anyone would learn this skill. I recently read in a post by Dianne's Medieval Writing she wrote that shorthand was used by Romans known as Tironian script in the 10th century. 

Can you image some future historian coming across some artifact of someone's text message trying to decipher what is was saying R U on Yr Way 2 My house.  But let's also think about what types of technology has come into play from the time of when we used short-hand to current times. 

Short-hand was replaced by the dictaphone, fax machines, then word processors came around --- personal computers, email,  web conferencing etc.  The recent CES was all abuzz about tablets and more gadgets for video and tele-presence. 

I can't wait to see what the next five-ten years will provide us with tech inventions but something tells me it's going to be ever present in all that we do.  Here is an interesting post by a panel that was at the CES show about what's in store for us.  I'm just tickled that I was able to get a new Android tablet over the holidays for $99.00 -- yes that's right I sourced an Android 7" tablet for $99 and it works really well. The brand is MID from China.  I'm still learning all of the features but maybe in a future post I will be able to share with you some cool tips.

Will Facebook Drive Behavior Changes

I was teaching our class on How to Use SharePoint, the other day and several people commented on the fact that they struggle with getting users to stop sending documents via email and learn how to use SharePoint.  So I thought I would do a comparison of Facebook and SharePoint. 

Here is just a quick comparison of the two.  I'd be curious if any of you have any other observations or comparisons.  I'm going to take a guess that as more FaceBook users come into the workforce, it will be more natural for employees to use SharePoint in a similar fashion. 

Facebook	SharePoint
Allows users to control who has access to information	Allows users to control who has access to information
Files can be uploaded and shared with others	Files can be uploaded and shared with others
Rate items that you like	Create Surveys for feedback
Searchable	Searchable
	Usage reports and data on which documents are used and by who
Users can post links to other sites but no way to create RSS tags for content within your page – but it acts somewhat like an RSS feed for people who are subscribed as a friend	Allows users to subscribe to pages or sites for automation of information updates
Not a lot of customization options other than the image you have for profile	Customization of pages and style built into the platform
Can send message privately or to groups	Tied directly into Outlook for sending messages or calendar posts within SharePoint and vs. versa You can also assign users and security levels to your documents, pages and sites
Can add games, surveys and other activities to share with your friends	Not sure if anyone is using it for posting games to share
Adds are placed on your page without control	No forced advertising on pages

SharePoint Features for Training

I mentioned a few weeks ago on our radio show "Training Tech Talk" that the LMS as we know if today won't be around in 5 years --- yes I said it-- and I dare you to prove me wrong.  What do I think may take its place?  I see a trend around tools like Sharepoint, Web 2.0 and Knowledge Management systems are helping organizations gaining access to content in a more efficient manner with a lot of the content being user driven.

There will be a need to have some knowledge experts or more structured knowledge transfer but a lot of what on-the-job learning comes from each other and information that is shared across the organization.  Here is a nice video lesson on how to use Sharepoint 2010 for adding video, audio, and social media features.

We are going to be offering a new class the end of this month "How to use SharePoint for Knowledge Management" so stay tuned for more on this topic.


SharePoint 2010 Top 5 Features from Michael Gannotti on Vimeo.

Celebrating Back to School

Should I feel bad that I' almost giddy about our last child going off to college?  I can't help it after raising 6 kids I deserve a break.  But as I was packing up this last child there was defenitely an interesting change in what he was packing with him.  With Mac Book in hand, and a box full of movie DVD's I was curious as to what technologies college students were using the most these days.  Besides the obvious cell phone, my older son who is a senior this year decided to buy a net-book instead of replacing his lap top which bit the dust a few months ago.  He didn't see the need for spending the extra $200 for a full laptop and with the use of Cloud computing for accessing programs and storage it made sense.  Plus the battery life is so much longer on these net-books I"m tempted to get one for myself with the communting that we do in the city it would be much easier to carry this around vs. my bigger laptop.

The other big difference I noted was that books are now finally getting into the digital game.  I always thought the college book market was way out of hand -- even though I understand there is a defenite cost to putting these wonderful resources together but the truth of the matter is digital books make more sense for college students.
Also the registration and monitoring of your student records, payments etc continues to become more accessible via digital technologies.

Now let's take it one step further and get it into the classroom or outside the classroom.  Here is a video of how Vassar College is using Tablet PC's in the field

Technology in the Field: Vassar College and Tablet PCs from Meg Stewart on Vimeo.

Here is another resource that speaks to the Digital Technology impact on Education from the Univ of IL (home of Netscape, SpyGlass and other cool ground breaking technologies)

http://www2.ed.gov/Technology/Futures/hardin.html