CivieBlog

I was talking with a startup that has an existing audience and now want to provide a monthly subscription for access to training to this audience. They will only convert a portion of the audience to the new service. The learners will get access to webinars, recorded webinars, videos, and other online content that they will author separately.

They don't really have a tech team, so going with a hosted solution that would live at a subdomain would be best, i.e., subscribers would go to: learn.company.com in order to sign up, pay, and get access to webinars, content, etc.

They are early stage, so low-cost would be good. And it would be nice if it was a Rapid LMS.

I'm a little concerned how well LMS solutions will handle the webinar integration and the subscriptions.

What would you recommend they research as possible options?

Here are some resources that I found that may help:

• LMS eCommerce Solution
• Product Review: Litmos LMS
• LMS For SMBs And Training Companies – A Year On, Is It Still The Same?
• A Defense of the LMS (and a case for the future of Social Learning)
• LMS Spotlight: Litmos
• Wait. What? I can buy an LMS with a credit card?
• Why Do We Have an LMS?
• Why are So Many LMS Buyers Dissatisfied?
• What’s hurting the LMS market
• 2010 LMS Products of the Year
• LMS Satisfaction Features and Barriers
• Low Cost LMS - Help Needed
• Why it’s hard to find an LMS
• LMS Spotlight: Topyx
• LMS vendors: R u hearing us?
• Training Companies and LMS
• More LMS Options for Associations on a Budget

And some of the resulting choices based on these resources:

• Coggno
• LearnHub
• Litmos
• Odijoo
• Learn.com Personal Edition
• Articulate Online
• CourseMill
• CourseMax
• Xerceo TrainingAtom
• Geo On-Demand
• Upside Learning Upside LMS
• Ultralearn
• TOPYX
• Sclipo
• CoursePark
• JoomlaLMS
• Intellum
• Ziiva
• Training Partner
• Syberworks
• Enlightus
• Rainmaker
• SimplyDigi
• Classrunner
• Hosted Moodle
• Totara
• LM LESS
• Feathercap LMS
• Cornerstone OnDemand
• SimplyDigi
• EDU 2.0
  

More:

• Absorb LMS (Blatant Media e-Learning)
• Acadia HCS (Acadia HCS)
• Allen Communication Learning Portal
• Avilar WebMentor
• Course-Source (Course-Source Limited)
• CourseMill LMS (Trivantis)
• DOTS (WebRaven)
• ED Training Platform (Strategia)
• Generation 21 Enterprise
• InforSource (InfoSource)
• Inquisiq EX (ICS Learning Group Inc.)
• IntraLearn XE (IntraLearn Software)
• Isoph Blue (Learn Something)
• Kallidus LMS (e2train)
• LearnerWeb (MaxIT)
• LearningServer IntraLearn
• LearnShare LMS (Learnshare)
• LMS Live (Wizdom Systems)
• MindFlash E-Learning System
• NetDimensions EKP Bronze
• OnPoint Learning & Performance Suite
• On-Tracker LMS (Interactive Solutions)
• OutStart Evolution LMS (OutStart)
• SSElearn Portal (SSE)
• Syntrio Enterprise (Syntrio)
• TeraLearn LMS (Teralearn.com)
• The Learning Manager (Worldwide Interactive)
• Tracker.Net (Platte Canyon)
• TrainingPartner (Geometrix)
• TrainingMine (Frontline Data Solutions)
• Upside LMS (Upside Learning Solutions)
• Virtual Training Assistant (RISC)

And if you want a MUCH longer list, go download the 475+ LMS names from here: LMS and Learning Platforms

Over on eLearning Learning, we've just launched a new version with some great new features.

In case you don't know about eLearning Learning, it brings together content from leading experts and companies like the Adobe Captivate Blog, Clark Quinn, Clive Shepherd, Jay Cross, Karl Kapp, and really too many to list. You can find a long list of the Featured sources on the right side. There is a lot more content that comes in as well beyond the Featured sources.

The home page itself will show you the latest and best content at any time. For example as I'm writing this, I see a couple of great posts right up top:

• PowerPoint 2010: Animating a Venn Diagram
• 4Cs: Communication, Collaboration, Critical thinking and Creativity
• Five days to better e-learning

Best is decided by the system based on social signals - that's clicks, views, twitter, delicious, and other kinds of inputs that tell us what people are doing with the content. And we try really hard to make sure that great content from lesser known sources still makes it to the top.

Each day, week, month and year, the site generates a "Best Of" Edition. You can change the Edition at any time. That allows you to see some really great stuff looking a little more broadly than what you typically see on the home page. For example, if I look at July's Top eLearning Posts, I find (among others):

• eLearning and Fun: Two Words Not Normally Seen Together
• 6 Alternatives To Bullet Lists
• Flash in eLearning - Seven Traps to Avoid
• Evaluating Social Learning

The site is categorized in various topics such as concepts like Instructional Design, Mobile, Social Learning; tools like Twitter, LMS, Flash, PowerPoint, Captivate; Companies like Rapid Intake, Saba; types like Examples and many more. For instance you could click on Mobile Samples and find a great post Mobile Learning Samples for mLearning Developers; or via Instructional Design for Rapid eLearning you can find Instructional Designer Competencies, Top 25 Rapid eLearning Blog Posts, Over 75 Free Rapid E-Learning Resources and many other great resources.

The intent of eLearning Learning is to bring together and make it easy to find great content. You will only see a snippet of each piece. When you click the link, you will be directed back to the source. In other words, we bring the content together, but we don't own the content. We want you still to comment and interact with the content back on the original site.

Visiting the site is probably one of the better ways to get to the content, but you can also subscribe to it by entering your email address and then choosing whether you want a Daily Edition or Weekly/Monthly/Annual Edition to be sent to you. If you've not already subscribed, then go over and do it now. It's worth the 30 seconds it takes.

There are some pretty interesting new features coming soon for eLearning Learning. We look forward to continuing to improve the site. If you have thoughts, or comments, please feel free to contact me: Tony Karrer via email at: akarrer@techempower.com.

Last, but certainly not least, this site is generously sponsored and made possible by Rapid Intake. Without them, we could not afford to keep the lights on. Please support them so we can continue to make this site better and better.

Over the last few weeks I have been playing with a very simple brainstorming and voting website called tricider. The great thing about tricider is that it is incredibly quick and simple to use, and yet it enables users to collect information and opinions from all over the web in a very easily digestible and powerful way.

It's very easy to create a tricider topic or question and you don't even need to register, just type your topic or question into the field.


You can also add a bit more detail and instructions to guide your students.

After you have saved the description, you or your students can start adding solutions.

Once there are some solutions added it's easy to either vote for them or add arguments for or against, using the + or - symbols.


Once you have set up your page you can add your email so that you get notifications when ever anyone adds something new or votes. You can also get a URL to edit the page (in case anyone adds something offensive) and a separate URL to either share with your students or post to Twtter or Facebook.

Here are some examples that I have set up to crowdsource in formation from my PLN.

• What digital skills do students need for the 21st century?
• How do we encourage pedagogically sound exploitation of technology in language learning?
• What do you want from a digital coursebook for EFL / ESL?

• Set up some controversial statements and get students to vote for the ones they agree / disagree with and leave pro and con comments. You could assign groups of students to all think of pros and another group to think of cons and see which can come up with the most convincing arguments. Example: Controversial Issues
  
• Your statements could be about a particular book your students are studying and they could add arguments for or against. Example: Goldilocks and the 3 Bears
  
• Get students to brainstorm word or phrases based around a theme. Example: Computer Phrases
  
• Get students to vote on a list of topics they want to study. Example: Topics
  
• Put up a list of favourite films or books or bands and get students to vote and debate which is best. Example: Favourite films
  
• Get students to brainstorm, debate and share knowledge about any particular topic or even language point. Example: Present Continuous
  
• Set up true false questions to check comprehension of a text.
• Create action research questionnaires to get feedback on the things you do in class. Example: Things we do in Class
  
• Create needs analysis questionnaires for your students or other colleagues. Example: Needs Analysis
  
• Get students create their own questionnaires and circulate them online (through Twitter or Facebook) to collect opinions. You could also get the students to use this information as part of a written assignment.

• It's free and really quick and easy to use.
• It's allows people to interact and share opinions.
• It doesn't require any registration.
• It's very simple for students to add their arguments or just vote.
• It updates very quickly so you could use it live in class and just click refresh as students add opinions or vote.
• It's versatile.
• It can help students pull in opinions from outside their classroom and also share opinions beyond their school.
• It creates easily digestible information.

• Well there's not much wrong, but a couple of nice extra features would be:
• An embed code to allow me to embed the page into a blog or wiki.
• An archive button to enable me to close some of the debates so they don't go on forever.
• The ability to export the results to pdf or csv.

• Create a Video Q&A Booth
• So Ask Me a Question
• Create Video Questionnaires
• Creating Social Polls and Questionnaires Using Urtak
• Pros and Cons as Web Based Research Tasks

I had an interesting conversation with Patrick Randolph from TalkWheel about different kinds of asynchronous conversation models that are emerging and how they might fit into broader eLearning Initiatives.  Particularly we focused on the implications of TalkWheel, Quora and Namesake.  Below I've captured aspects of our conversation (interestingly enough done via email - how old school).  This post represents thinking from both of us that I've edited heavily to make it more easily consumed here in the blog. 

There's obvious value in bringing the classroom collaboration dynamic to online learning.  We see some of this dynamic when we run webinars and have chat.  We also see it in twitter (see  Twitter for Learning).  The main issue with these is that the primary value is in the real-time nature.  While Twitter is asynchronous, it's not easily used as other kinds of tools for discussion.

The standard model for asynchronous conversations is discussion forum software like vBulletin.  I've talked before about the significant value that can be obtained as part of Discussion Forums for Knowledge Sharing at Capital City Bank and how that translates in a Success Formula for Discussion Forums in Financial Services.  I also looked at Making Intranet Discussion Groups Effective.

However, I've struggled with the problem of destinations vs. social networks and the spread of conversation (see Forums vs. Social Networks).  Because of that I've been watching closely what's happening with various tools that have different ways of supporting asynchronous conversation models.  There are some new tools emerging that have a different take.

Talkwheel  is made to handle real-time group conversations and asynchronous ones.  It can act as an instant messaging service a bit like Yammer, HipChat for companies and other groups, but the layout is designed to make these discussions easier to see, archive, and work asynchronously.  Because of the ability to attach documents, it can act like a collaboration platform.  Each comment made within a thread appears as a tiny circle next to the name of the person who made the comment, and is linked by arrow to the person to whom the comment was made. The comments are also stacked and color-coded on the right side of the screen for reference.  This organization makes the conversation seem more like a roundtable discussion. 

Patrick tells us:

Talkwheel’s design makes class conversations easier to follow, more interactive, and more effectively organized. It eliminates the problem of navigating multithreaded conversations, enables real-time group conversation, and makes referencing asynchronous conversations much easier. Talkwheel’s dashboard organization allows teachers to organize all their classes and projects in one centralized location, while Talkwheel's analytics helps teachers and administrators quantitatively monitor their students’ progress throughout the year. Talkwheel’s collaboration platform is a new way of bringing students together in a way that is conducive to the group needs of online learning. In addition to e-learning, Talkwheel helps enterprises improve productivity and communication both internally and externally and allows users to organize their social and professional networks in an effective manner. It can be tried for free at Talkwheel.com.

Quora is a Q&A site nicely integrated with Facebook that has done a good job providing a means to ask questions and get answers.   Each Quora answer is rated by users until the most popular answer is found.  You can see a question below that had 16 answers provided by some pretty good folks and the top answer had 586 votes.

The answers are then used to provide valuable information to Quora users and the rest of the web. Quora has been able to form quite an elite network of VCs, entrepreneurs, and other experts to answer questions.  They've also created topic pages such as: Learning Management System.  It collects questions answer answers on that particular topic - you'll notice that there's not much expertise flowing around eLearning topics.

Finally, Namesake, is a tool for real-time and asynchronous conversations.  It's a bit like Quora but more focused on conversation as compared to Q&A and it allows real-time conversation a bit like twitter.  You can see an example of a conversation around phones below.

Like Quora, the goal is to build a network of user selected experts to provide valuable information to users. Within Namesake, any user can create topics of conversation for real-time chat and can follow conversations. Unlike Quora, Namesake is designed for real-time chats very similarly to the AIM Chat Rooms of old. New comments are stacked on top of the most recent one, updates are done in real-time, and chats are organized by high-level subject.

TalkWheel has taken a very different approach to its conversation model and is definitely aimed at smaller groups.  I think that each conversation model has it's place and TalkWheel is more competitive with forum software but a much different visual model.  Quora and Namesake are more trying to address the conversation from social networks issue.

All of these point to new types of conversation models that are emerging in tools.

This month's #LCBQ is: How do you address the "I want it now!" demand from stakeholders? There are some great responses that can be found by visiting the link above.

Corny 1986 line. :)

Content Needs

This is a very crude self-assessment, but I believe it makes an important point.

If you are reading this, you are a knowledge worker. Consider the content (knowledge, information, learning) you personally need to get your job done. Draw a circle in each quadrant based on the amount (percentage) of the content that you need that's:

• Slow changing vs. fast changing. Will the content remain roughly the same for two years? Or will it really be out of date in two years?
• Large audience vs. small audience. Is the content I need applicable to a relatively large audience or do I have fairly particular needs?

I did a crude version of this for myself and came up with the following:

Definitely the vast majority of the time, I'm needing information that is relatively fast moving and is specific to the particular situations I face. In fact, often the information does really exist. Actually most of us that are Concept Workers will find that we play in that upper right quadrant most of the time.

That said, there are some exceptions that I could think of. For example, I consume a fair bit of content that's around technology. There's a fair amount of it that has a pretty large applicable audience. Of course, most of it is pretty old news in two years time. There is some information around core technologies that will last longer. I also should point out that the information is more specialized all the time, meaning ever smaller audiences. So, that kind of information makes for Fast but Larger audiences.

And when you consider the trends for most concept workers (knowledge workers), we clearly are heading towards faster moving content aimed at smaller audiences.

Workplace Learning's Challenge

Now let's put on the hat of someone in workplace learning. What's our ideal kind of content?

Workplace Learning's ideal content: Slow changing and large audience

How big is that circle? How is that circle doing for most knowledge workers?

This isn't something new, it's just becoming more and more clear. I've discussed it in Disruptive Changes in Learning, Innovators' Dilemma in Learning/eLearning, Business of Learning, and Learning Performance Business Talent Focus.

The reality is that we need to find ways to insert ourselves into the faster moving content and be able to change the dynamics to reach smaller audiences. These relate to speed. One of the nice things about the responses to this month's LCBQ is that they relate directly to speed even though they were not necessarily aimed at the bigger picture above.

Responding to the Need for Speed

I like where Glenn Hansen started his answer:

1. Don’t assume that training is the answer.
2. Even if some kind of training is reasonable, don’t assume the stakeholder in question has identified the right solution.

And liked Glenn's point about what's required:

Work up your material to the point where it conveys the skills and knowledge needed and where it is professionally presented and fit for purpose. Don’t chase perfection, because it’s more likely your information will be out of date by the time you have it ready.

This is echoed quite a bit by the collection of Agile eLearning - 27 Great Articles that I pulled together previously.

In terms of specific suggestions there are some real nuggets in several of the responses.

Clive has some very good suggestions on speeding things up in The Big Question: How do you respond to the ‘I want it now’ demand?.

Open Sesame's response similarly has some good ideas for rapid solutions.

Jeff Goldman also has several suggestions for speeding the process or approach in his post: A Priest, A Rabbi and an Instructional Designer Are in a Bar and Identify a Training Need: A response to the #LCBQ." However, his punch-line struck me as defending slower processes:

Oh, the priest, rabbi and instructional designer identified a training need, collaborated on designing an effective learning program which was not implemented until it was damn well ready to be implemented.

It's fairly contrary to the rest of his more reasoned approach. And if the stakeholder hears slow moving training solutions as the response that won't be ready until it's "damn well ready." Well ... good luck with that.

I also feel a bit the same way about Tom Gram's response that included:

The best strategy is a preventative one.

He's correctly arguing that you should try to cut off some of the problem at the pass, but the reality is that you should get yourself ready to be fast, agile or however, you want to describe it.

So let me ask you ... do you feel the need? The need for speed?

Intervue.me is a new website I have been using recently. It's another website that is based around the use of webcams. The site enables users to create questionnaires and then get the recipients of the questionnaire to leave video recorded answers. The site is very easy to use.

Register the go to 'My Dashboard' and click on 'Create New' to start your first questionnaire.


First you decide on the levels of privacy you want for the questionnaire and whether you want people to be able to leave anonymous answers or add comments to the answers.


Next you click on 'Start adding questions'.
You can type in your question and give more explanation below the question if you think that makes it clearer. You can add as many questions as you want. You'll also need to click on 'Edit title' so that you can give your questionnaire a name.


Once you have added all your questions you can just click on 'Share' or 'Invite' to either get a URL for your questionnaire or to email it to specific people.

Then once people receive the questionnaire they just click on the questions and record their answers using the webcam in their laptop.

To see all the videos you can just go to 'My Dashboard' and click on the 'Videos' tab.

Here are some example questionnaires I have created. Feel free to leave an answer to any of the questions.

• Blended learning
• How digital is your classroom?
• Mobile devices in the classroom

• Create comprehension check questions to go with reading homework so that students also do some speaking for homework.
• Create opinion polls for students to answer.
• Make action research questionnaires
• Play the alibi game and get students to explain where they were and what they were doing at particular points in time.
• Ask students about childhood memories.

• It's very quick and easy to create questionnaires
• It's a great way to provide speaking practice for students.
  
• You can add more detail and explanation to the questions.
• Students get to practice their digital communication skills.
• Students will be able to watch and listen to their replies and rerecord them so this will focus them on accuracy.
• It can be more communicative and engaging than writing down answers as students can also see the other answers that have been recorded.
• You can create long questionnaires or very simple single question ones.

• It could take time to get students feeling comfortable in front of the camera, so you might need to help them a little and get them to think about lighting and getting the correct distance from the camera.
• Be careful about enabling anonymous replies or comments as this could be abused.
• Students need a laptop with a reasonable quality microphone.

• Create a Video Q&A Booth
• So Ask Me a Question
• Create a Video Dictation Activity
• 20 WebCam Activities for EFL ESL Students
• Teach Yourself to Teach with Tech
• Get your Students Listening and Interacting with Native Speakers