Announcements and marketing talk
I've already written briefly on the announcements they made, here a bit more:
- Trivantis (the maker of Lectora) buys Flypaper, a product to easily create flash interactions and communication signage. That product was already part of their Lectora Inspira bundle, so now it is part of the company. Personally I've never used Flypaper, and I'm not sure if I'm going to any time soon. In our business, there is increasing need for accessibility, and Flash just won't cut that.
- They have launced a new product that I did not understand fully yesterday. It is called 'Snap by Lectora' and as I get now, it is a direct competitor to Articulate and Adobe as it is a PowerPoint plugin to upgrade presentations to single file flash based courses complete with embedded websites, video, animation, quiz, etc. At a 99$ equivalent for what the above products also do at much higher price points, this could heavily disturb the 'powerpoint-2-elearning' conversion business and become interesting for people without large budgets (like in education). It could also empower 'the rest of us', by which I mean NOT the blessed training folks in charge of creating learning but just anyone with a story to tell. To be fair, there are low price products in this segmet as well that Trivantis is not mentioning in their brochure, for example ispring, but still not as cheap as this new one and not backed up by one of the leading players in elearning authoring systems. There is a 30 day free hosting that comes with the product if you want to publish them out.
- And they will have a light version of their LMS out next year. I've had my say on LMS systems before, you can read it here. Overcrowded market in search of a future.
- WeLearn : a revamp of the Lectora Lounge, evolving into a community and marketplace for templates, elearning courses, etc
Masie's keynote
The opening keynote was delivered by Elliott Masie, inspiring as always. Apart from the personality show and stories on his coffee machine, the talk went over the topics he had also given out on the free videos on his conference and his free newsletter. It is about the changes coming to learning and how learning folks play their role, about the 'second screen' phenomenon, the 'good enough' video, the many 'rituals' in learning, etc. You can find all of that in the free stuff he sends out and on the Trivantis blog. I'm a sucker for good quotes, so here are a few things I noted during his talk:
- We outsourced our memory to our smartphone.
- Flip happens
- Suggestion to rename 'performance support' a GPS as the term 'performance support' makes people feel like they are in special ed class...
- Bank of stories
- Suggestion to not talk of 'social learning', but 'learning socially'.
- Stock tip : Elliott predicts Adobe will get bought in the next year(s) for its Flash and Adobe Connect products, and mainly because it is too influential to be ignored and not big enough on its own.
General time-wasting statements
I'll be short on the morning keynote of the second day. I don't remember who gave it, but I can only imagine people not connected with what is happening in the world to have gotten anything out of this session. In short: there are mobile phones and young people - that is so great - as a highpoint let us watch a movie with a piano concerto sountrack about an old ladie using an iPad. Enough said.
Accessibility
Another nice session on accessibility and 508 compliance with very practical tips. There are those items that a little of attention and awareness on accessiblity make an e-learning title go a long way, but to go for full compliance... lots of extra work that essentially don't do the learning itself any good. I'm still fundamentally opposed to the 'let us make one version that fits everyone'. That is the answer of the accountant, not of the learning professional. There is just stuff you are not allowed to do in name of accessibility compliance and most of that stuff is what makes courses actually engaging and in the end effective. Standardizing on the lowest common capability will NOT give enough people an effective learning experience. Just like you don't have to give every student the exact same set of questions on an exam, you don't have to give everyone exactly the same content to reach the same learning objectives. There, I said it.
Analytics during instead of after
I have attended a session by a company called Quizzicle on a new product they will be launching around July. The title of the session was 'evaluating the user experience', and the goal is to measure and evaluate and provide suggestions or actions DURING an e-learning event, rather than doing evaluation after the course (like with a post test). Quote: for most companies, success is the LMS checkmark. The presenter Peter Soresen was very clear in pointing out that this solution provides clues and indicators about a learner's behavior, but not conclusions. He compares it with classroom training where the teacher does notice what course participants are doing, if they are paying attention, if they are particularly interested in a topic, etc and where the teacher immediatly acts upon this information. In e-learning titles, that doesn't really happen as there is noone observing what you are doing and how engaged you are.
They way they do it is by including a one line HTML script in each course page that activates a tracker storing your course experience traces in a separate database. It scans all elements of the page and the script watches what you do, where you click and even how your mouse goes over the screen, how much time you spend, your reading speed (optimal reading speed turns out to be 5,5 words per second), the things you skip or revisit, the input you type in, etc. The idea is to give the learner full control on what and how to navigate the course, but keep traces that generate indicators that can then be linked back for immediate feedback ('we advise you to go slower here, as this is important') or to take into account when improving the course.
The tool allows for detailed tracking that can be used for example in running user pilots of new courseware, it can be used to create profiles, to evaluate the learning experience and potential outcome (it's clues that need to be carefully verified, but valid clues nontheless), etc.
For me, I'd love to have this technology to make the learning experience better for the learner and in complete control of the learner. At the other hand I think this technology as such should be rightfully outlawed in most European countries because of privacy legislation if that data is used without approval or awareness of the learner, or stored beyond the training experience's duration. To come back to the classroom analogy: after the course is done, the teacher forgets what you did and won't remember for the rest of eternity you did not pay attention on a given minute.
In conclusion I find this technology interesting as this uses analytics during the learning experience instead of after, I find it promising when used within the full user control and to the benefit of the learner, and I find it ethically and legally wrong when used for other reasons.
Social marketing
The closing session was Ted Rubin reading his talk on 'return on relationship'. He's a chief marketing officer, and his message is that you can't measure the value of relationships as you measure anything else. Some quotes:
I have attended a session by a company called Quizzicle on a new product they will be launching around July. The title of the session was 'evaluating the user experience', and the goal is to measure and evaluate and provide suggestions or actions DURING an e-learning event, rather than doing evaluation after the course (like with a post test). Quote: for most companies, success is the LMS checkmark. The presenter Peter Soresen was very clear in pointing out that this solution provides clues and indicators about a learner's behavior, but not conclusions. He compares it with classroom training where the teacher does notice what course participants are doing, if they are paying attention, if they are particularly interested in a topic, etc and where the teacher immediatly acts upon this information. In e-learning titles, that doesn't really happen as there is noone observing what you are doing and how engaged you are.
They way they do it is by including a one line HTML script in each course page that activates a tracker storing your course experience traces in a separate database. It scans all elements of the page and the script watches what you do, where you click and even how your mouse goes over the screen, how much time you spend, your reading speed (optimal reading speed turns out to be 5,5 words per second), the things you skip or revisit, the input you type in, etc. The idea is to give the learner full control on what and how to navigate the course, but keep traces that generate indicators that can then be linked back for immediate feedback ('we advise you to go slower here, as this is important') or to take into account when improving the course.
The tool allows for detailed tracking that can be used for example in running user pilots of new courseware, it can be used to create profiles, to evaluate the learning experience and potential outcome (it's clues that need to be carefully verified, but valid clues nontheless), etc.
For me, I'd love to have this technology to make the learning experience better for the learner and in complete control of the learner. At the other hand I think this technology as such should be rightfully outlawed in most European countries because of privacy legislation if that data is used without approval or awareness of the learner, or stored beyond the training experience's duration. To come back to the classroom analogy: after the course is done, the teacher forgets what you did and won't remember for the rest of eternity you did not pay attention on a given minute.
In conclusion I find this technology interesting as this uses analytics during the learning experience instead of after, I find it promising when used within the full user control and to the benefit of the learner, and I find it ethically and legally wrong when used for other reasons.
Social marketing
The closing session was Ted Rubin reading his talk on 'return on relationship'. He's a chief marketing officer, and his message is that you can't measure the value of relationships as you measure anything else. Some quotes:
- conditions of satisfaction (instead of expectations)
- Don't make the mistake of viewing your fans, friends, followers as an audience instead of an asset
- Activating your audience is not enough, you need to keep the link alive and relevant. Brand loyalty declines due to lack of relevance.
- It's not about broadcasting, it is about relationships.
- Interlinked, social media should not be another silo in the organisation
- Twitter is a river that continuously flows.
- You know what doesn't work for getting social? Not being social.
- Relationships are the new currency.
Voila, conference is over. I think I'll have a steak dinner tonight.
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