Creating Webinars Using Open Source Software

Do you want to hold a webinar, but want to save money by doing it on your own? An updated list of sources can be found here. As speed and bandwidth restrictions continue to be reduced, and travel costs and time away from the office continue to be problematic, webinars are being incorporated into education, professional development, training, and team-building.

Don't Miss the Updated List of Open-Source Webinar Software and Platforms!

http://elearnqueen.blogspot.com/2011/05/opensource-webinar-software-updated.html

Open Source software can be a great solution when there is sufficient programming and network support expertise to be able to deal with some of the challenges of beta-level (or even alpha) software. However, the rewards of open source can be significant for those wishing to maintain control, develop a brand image, reduce monthly operating costs, and to even offer hosting / repackaged solutions for a specialized niche market.

For colleges and universities, the webinar format can be a wonderful way to present guest lecturers, and to discuss research design, particularly for sociology, psychology, and earth sciences. For corporations and professional associations, the webinar format can be effective. It is important, however, to plan well and to avoid common pitfalls.

Assemble your own "rough and ready" webinar?
It could be possible to simply broadcast a live event using ustream (http://www.ustream.tv/) while simultaneously using MSN or AIM for chat and discussion capabilities. This could result in a haphazard event, with archives of the chat avaialable in a different place than the archived video. However, it's a "rough and ready" way to do a webinar if you want to stay free, and not have to progress to a for-pay version of gotomeeting, skype, webex, omnovia, elluminate, and other providers of web conferencing and synchronous web training.

OpenSource Webinar Software
(please note that these products have been reviewed, but not installed and tested by e-learning queen).

vmukti
http://www.vmukti.com/
VMukti is an open-source, cloud-based high definition video conferencing communication suite, which has three main features:
Live Video Streaming and broadcasting
Web Conferencing and Collaboration
Video Voip Telephony
In theory, VMukti offers live video streaming in an affordable, effective manner. Total video product on cost, Quality and Scalability. Server less, Client Less, Low cost, High Definition, Scalable, Failover.

Webhuddle
http://www.webhuddle.com/
-Small footprint
-Easy to use: client runs in web browser (no installation)
-Thin Client
-Secure
-Offers hosting services

OpenMeetings
OpenSource
http://code.google.com/p/openmeetings/
OpenMeetings is a free browser-based software that allows you to set up instantly a conference in the Web. You can use your microphone or webcam, share documents on a white board, share your screen or record meetings. It is available as hosted service or you download and install a package on your server with no limitations in usage or users.

BigBlueButton
BigBlueButton is an open source web conferencing system for distance education. It provides real-time desktop sharing, presentation, VoIP, webcam and chat.

WebConference Plugin for Moodle
Plug in WebConference Internet conferencing into your Moodle Learning Management System. This mod for Moodle 1.9.7+ will enable your moodle installation to add WebConference Activities to courses. Adjust seats, and schedule conference events.

The Ehizo Project --- Communication Suite
data & video-conferencing, one shared whiteboard, send text messages (IM), transfer files(FTP),collaborate in real time,email capablities,Plays and stores dvd,cd and Mp3. Web-based Internet directory,Remote Desktop Share,File sharing program & browser

1videoConference
http://1videoconference.com/
(modified from website) An Open Source web conferencing company, 1VideoConference is allows its Web, Audio/ Video phone, Skype, Msn and Yahoo users to instantly participate in live web conferences without the need for lengthy downloads or complicated installations. At any time, our host customers can simply drop a small piece of code onto their websites and create an online video conference room.

The beta version of 1videoConference is available at sourceforge.net for download and installation on one's own server. This is an opensource alpha version with known bugs and little aesthetic design.

*****
From the archives of fringejournal.com: "Feed the Bears Anyway"

Interview with John Bittleston: Wiglington and Wenks

Welcome to an interview with John Bittleston, originator of the Wiglington and Wenks series of e-learning simulations, games, and interactive media for young learners. He has helped establish virtual mentoring programs for young learners as well.

1. What is your name and your affiliation?
John Bittleston (Lord Bittleston of Newnham - a very old British Manorial title).
A British Citizen, half American, living in Singapore. I am also Chairman of the Board of Wiglington and Wenks Worldwide Pte Ltd, children’s entertainment and learning project. http://www.wiglingtonandwenks.com/ Founder Mentor of Terrific Mentors Pte Ltd, an online and face-to-face personal and corporate mentoring business. http://www.terrificmentors.com/

I am a business man of seventy-seven who spent sixteen years in advertising and nearly twenty-five years in the food industry, part of it building a food and herbal remedies business based in Singapore but with operations in eighteen locations around the Pacific. When I sold this business, almost twenty years ago, I wrote four children’s books The Travels of Wiglington and Wenks. These were turned into a play, an exhibition, a schools program on creativity, a board game, an early computer game and a five minute animated video shown at Cannes MIPCOM.

2. What is your connection to e-learning?
My children’s project has been a mixture of entertainment and education. The books were conceived at a time when geography was being removed from the syllabus of most schools but children were travelling more than ever. They often could not identify on a world map the places they had come from or gone to. It worried me that even some of the young in the American half of my family in Minnesota could not point to Singapore - even though I was living here.

As Napoleon said ‘Geography reflects History’. I decided to make geography and cross-cultural understanding the basis of the children’s books. As the internet has developed over the last twenty years the opportunities for making education entertaining have expanded beyond anything we could have hoped for, hence the Carto’s Maps online hidden object games and The Travels of Wiglington and Wenks Virtual World.

As a consequence of my books I was asked by the Singapore Government to get involved in developing the Gifted Education Programme, part of Singapore’s Creative Arts Programme. In particular I was asked to become a Mentor to young writers who were showing promise. Children everywhere are creative but in the past sometimes the demands of knowledge as proof of their education have outweighed the value attributed to creative output. The consequence of this is top level discipline at the expense of inventiveness and creativity.

For its survival Singapore - and the whole world - now needs high level thought and ingenuity if the human species is to survive in anything like its present form. From my mentoring young writers I became interested in mentoring older people and started Terrific Mentors, an online and face to face mentoring business with programmes covering career, personal, business and social problems. This became very popular and the people involved came from all over the world, a significant number from the United States. With over 4,000 personal Mentees, aged six to ninety-two, and many company Mentees the business has grown and is growing fast.

3. What s your philosophy of learning through virtual worlds and / or simulation?
All learning should be fun. We do best in life what we enjoy doing. There is certain basic information we need to be given in childhood, some standards that we need explaining to us so that we understand the community’s advantage of our abiding by them. But information is now readily available and we can see the standards of others on the internet.

What the young are not learning, and what previous generations have failed to learn, is the wisdom to use the information and technology we now have and will shortly have on a vastly greater scale. The evidence for this is all around us. In the 21st Century we are still fighting wars. The gap between the rich and the poor has doubled in my lifetime, a period when democracy has been widely accepted and practiced as the fairest of the available political systems. We have turned sex into a heinous crime while allowing truth to be routinely ignored, indeed even discouraged. Business, especially in the financial area, is more corrupt than ever.

Mankind is a mixture of good and bad. Proselytizing good has not had a record of unqualified success because it has involved telling people what to do. Mankind only does what is right when men and women have worked out for themselves what is right and concluded that following the path of right is sensible.

4. How do you see gaming / simulation / virtual worlds working with mobile learning?
We all grew up believing that, apart from life itself, choice was our greatest gift. We could choose right from wrong. Countless millions have struggled to follow their consciences while a relatively small number have been allowed to take advantage of them for personal material, social and political gain. This is not a Socialist view, it is a sound social view.

The fastest way to improve choice for those for whom it is still too limited is for them to know each other, to talk to each other, to learn about each other’s cultures, to enjoy each others’ company. Every time I see a children’s party on The Travels of Wiglington and Wenks Virtual World I rejoice at the mixture of cultures, at the visible exchanges of childish but profound wisdom, at the making of the real global village we all live in.

5. How can virtual worlds help develop viable learning communities?
Virtual worlds are nothing new. All religions from the dawn of time have relied on a concept of virtual world, without the benefit of the internet, to promote their beliefs, confident that doing so will improve the world and the behaviour of the people in it. As I have already said the lessons mankind has to learn are lessons of wisdom.

Who has this wisdom?
Happily, each of us has some wisdom regardless of our intellect and despite our level of education. Some of the wisest people I have known have been peasants or people in jobs that lacked the influence of the celebrated and the politically or commercially dominant. The internet is a chance to root out the dangerous businesses and the personality destroying greed and learn about a more balanced lifestyle.

We talk about it enough. Let’s start to walk the talk.
John Bittleston

Interview with Sharon Brothers, aQuire Training Solutions: Interview with E-Learning Innovators Series

Health care for the elderly is of deep concern to millions of families, as populations age, and younger generations are pulled in many directions, or "sandwiched." Finding competent and compassionate care for elderly family members can be a very difficult challenge. Knowing that the professionals who work in an assisted living facility are well-trained is important. Home health care professionals who would like to specialize in health care for the elderly, or who need to update their skills can now get training online, thanks to aQuire Training Solutions. Welcome to an interview with Sharon Brothers, President and CEO.

1. What is your name and your affiliation?
My name is Sharon Brothers and I’m the President and CEO of aQuire Training Solutions.

2. What is your relation to e-learning?
Our company is an e-learning company dedicated to supporting and training individuals who care for the elderly. I certainly didn’t start out in e-learning, however. For over 20 years I owned, operated and consulted for senior living communities: retirement centers, assisted living and nursing facilities.

Although I’ve always been passionate about education, I only began to focus on e-learning when we began to look for ways to train caregivers all over the U.S. (and the world) without having to be constantly on the road. Even then, we could only train small groups at a time. To achieve universal access to the best possible caregiver training, we began to realize, meant learning everything we could learn about e-learning, and launching this new company, aQuire Training Solutions.

3. What kinds of e-learning are you involved with now?
Since we first began offering a few e-learning courses in 2003, we’ve grown a lot. We now offer a variety of training programs online, ranging from courses for staff working in assisted living and home care companies, to pre-employment training for individuals who wish to become caregivers to a loved one, or as a profession. We now consider ourselves among the small group of e-learning experts in the field of online training for caregiving professionals.

Our newest business division is a licensed career school, the Institute for Professional Care Education (http://www.ipced.com/). Through this school we offer a Personal Care Aide Certification which we believe will set the standard for new caregiver training in this country. We’re working with long term care insurance companies (who will typically reimburse for this training) and a number of other programs to make this training widely available to people who provide care to an elder.



One very interesting tidbit of information is that training, especially for family caregivers, has been demonstrated to measurably reduce caregiver depression and stress, and allow the family to continue to provide care for up to 2 years longer than they could have without the training.

4. How can e-learning train individuals who have to engage in hands-on caregiving?
We’re strong believers in blended learning – in gaining knowledge and values through comprehensive e-learning courses, and blending that with classroom based practice for the hands’ on skills training.

Currently, we offer the only approved online Certified Nursing Assistant course in the state of Oregon - but we only offer the classroom equivalent. We partner with other training providers who provide the lab practice and the clinical work experience components, for a highly successful training program. Our training partners include hospitals, community colleges, nursing homes and career schools throughout the state. This program is helping many, many individuals take the first step into careers in nursing or health care who would otherwise not be able to access the training, mostly due to time constraints for classroom based programs.

We’re somewhat mirroring this program for the new Personal Care Aide Certification course, too. After a person completes the comprehensive 40 hour online course, he or she can optionally add an 8 hour skills training component to practice the hands’ on skills needed for caregiving. This added component can really help build confidence, not to mention solid skills, for people new to caregiving. We’re piloting this program currently in Oregon, California and Arizona, and plan to launch it nationwide in the coming months.

5. What is your philosophy of learning?　
I’d a real believer in adult learning principles. Learning must not only be interesting and engaging, but it must also be grounded to life experience or real world practice. Our own in-house principles, too, are important: the work caregivers do is hard, often thankless work. Learning shouldn’t be another hard task – it should be fun, lively and engaging.


It should have lots of stories (because we love stories) and it should make the caregiver want to learn more – and help her easily see how to apply what she’s learned in real life.

6. Do you see potential for your training to be done via mobile learning?
It sure seems like mobile learning is the next frontier in e-learning – although it will probably be even more focused and targeted than current courses. We’re looking for ways to begin to transition some of the basic concepts we teach online to a mobile learning approach, and will no doubt be offering at least some of our training in this way in the year to come.



7. Please list three books you've found inspiring.
I love to read – anything from a great detective story (I love the Steig Larsson series, "The Girls with the Dragon Tattoo" and "The Girl Who Played with Fire "), to books like "Blink" (Malcolm Gladwell) and "They’re YOUR parents, too: How siblings can survive their parents’ aging without driving each other crazy" by Francine Russo, a wonderful woman I’ve recently gotten to know.

Of course,
"Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia" is a favorite of mine, but for those of a more mature age, not wanting quite so much relationship drama, another book I’d highly recommend along the same vein is Alice Steinbach’s "Without Reservations." Inspiring and wonderful.

Developing a Professional Digital Competency Portfolio: Market Yourself, Your Skills & Vision

A portfolio can be one of the most useful tools you can use to showcase your abilities for potential employers, or simply to keep up to date with useful web applications. You can use the "digital competency portfolio" for course projects and capstones. The personal portfolio is a great way to show your creativity as well as your skill, and to guide people to an understanding of who you are. As you build your portfolio, you can use open source portfolio software such as Mahara (http://www.mahara.org). If you want your e-portfolio to have maximum exposure, you can use social networking solutions. Facebook is perhaps the most ubiquitous, but you can also use Ning, Orkut, Bebo, and others.

Checklist of items to include:

**Website with personal mission statement, your vision, work experience, insights, important links.
There are a number of places that offer easy-to-use free webhosting, with templates. Many colleges and universities provide you with free webspace. Others may require you to develop a website as a part of a master’s or Ph.D. program. If you use your university’s free student web space, be sure to create a mirror site and upload to server space / web hosting that will not go away when you graduate.

Once you have webhosting server space on something like siteground (http://www.siteground.com), you will need a web editing program. One of the most convenient ones around is the Sea Monkey Project (originally Netscape Composer). Then, you'll need an ftp program, such as FileZilla.

**Audio mp3 (optimized) using Garageband, Audacity, etc.
Creating audio content is not as nerve-wracking as you might suppose. It’s mainly a matter of deciding what your content will be, and then making an audio recording. You can use open source programs such as Audacity (be sure to download the lame.dll driver to help you convert to mp3 files). Then, simply upload to webspace that you may have, thanks to hosting packages with yahoo, siteground, lycos, or others. Alternatively, you may wish to use a podcasting service that has a built-in recorder and a built-in flash audio player. In any case, to impress, be sure to do the following

--make sure your recording is clear
--if you read your script, make sure to let it flow
--don’t be afraid to interject personal asides and to make your script engaging and conversational
--provide links to affiliated text(s) or websites that complement the content

**Video (Youtube / ustream)
Being able to demonstrate your ability to capture spontaneous, field-based experiences and then to share them with others is critical in our knowledge economy. Whether you capture video using your smartphone or handheld device, or if you invest in a video camera, the point is the same. Your original videos can be designed for archived viewing (Youtube.com), or to be “live” as a synchronous feed, which you later archive (http://www.ustream.com)

Make sure your content is

--engaging and interesting to your audience
--relevant to your overall message or goals
--thought-provoking
--humanizing – gives your audience a sense of the people and the community behind the names and the links

**Images (professional focus) -- Flickr, Photobucket (http://photobucket.com/)
It’s fun to share family vacations, graduations, and goofy pet antics on video and still photos. These are great to have. It is also good to have images and videos that resonate with your professional interests. These images are a wonderful element within your e-portfolio and can make a compelling case that you are pro-active about what you care about. Taking photos and posting them helps get the message across that you are active. Your images and videos show that you’re willing to put out the effort to create a reality around your interests and goals. Here are images to include:

--conferences / professional development events
--imaginative images that illustrate your dreams
--projects you may have created (robots, buildings, scale models, drawings)
--images that convey your core mission and vision

**LinkedIn
There are pro’s and con’s with any professional networking site, and LinkedIn is no exception. It’s not easy to show who you are in their rather rigid templates. But, thankfully, that’s not all LinkedIn is about. It provides a way for people to find and contact you, and you can give and receive recommendations. Beware, though. Like all social networking sites, LinkedIn can become an obsession. Remember the goal is to achieve your career objectives. It’s not about how many people you can “friend.”

**Archive of white papers (link pdfs)
One of the most impressive things you can do if you’re building a personal e-portfolio is to create a digital repository of some of your research, which could include web searches, annotated bibliographies, research papers, and white papers. Don’t forget to include metatags, and to put key words after your title and author block. They will help you get picked up by search engines. Also, be sure to be consistent with the appropriate style - probably MLA or APA. Also, be sure to put your name prominently on the website, and the date written. You may be surprised how many places will start linking to your white papers. You may even find yourself picked up by Google Scholar!

**PowerPoint (as pdf)
It is a good idea to include presentations in your e-portfolio that showcases your digital competencies. If you want to collaborate, you may wish to take advantage of open source presentation software, such as Zoho Show. Here are a few things to remember:

--convert your presentation to pdf (to make it more difficult for people to use your work without attribution)
--use a pdf converter program such as Adobe Professional, or a free pdf-maker such as Primo
--include metatags as you create a description
--don’t forget your name and date created
--write a synopsis
--include notes for each of the slides

You may be surprised how quickly your presentations will be picked up, especially in image searches.

**Twitter
Granted, Twitter is evolving, and we don’t know where it will take us, or if tweeting is a digital competency, per se. Nevertheless, it’s not a bad idea to include your twitter account, and to make sure to describe your interests so that they align with your professional interests

**Widgets, Scripts, Apps, Mashups
If you like to create applications, or to create widgets, scripts, or other integrated applications and mashups, the e-portfolio is a great place to let people know. If you're using Bebo as your social networking platform, keep in mind that Bebo has a good library of integrated apps / mashups. They also make it easy to create your own.

Putting It All Together
As you start to bring everything together, you may wonder if Facebook is really the right place to showcase your skills. The answer is a bit ambiguous. If you have a personal Facebook account for friends, family, and communication in general, you will definitely need to keep that one intact. Keep your wall open, and let people post.

However, for your professional e-portfolio that demonstrates digital competencies, use Facebook in a very constrained manner. Don’t allow people to post on your wall. Keep the content totally professional. Incorporate the items listed above, and embed html when possible. You may need to prominently display your website, and mirror all your links there, just in case people get a bit lost in your Facebook e-portfolio.

As a final note, be sure to share the digital competencies e-portfolio idea with your friends, and to exchange design, content, application, and “cool stuff” findings. Make it easy to get in touch with you – and clearly post what you’d like to get involved in, and the kinds of jobs, internships, volunteer activities, etc. that motivate you.

The e-portfolio is powerful, and your ability to demonstrate your digital competencies will give you a boost in the knowledge economy.

Interview with Frederic Aknin, Sparkeo: Innovators in E-Learning Series

Welcome to an interview with Frederic Aknin, CEO of Sparkeo, a new video platform designed to enable more flexible uses of video with e-learning.

1. What is your name, your affiliation, and your history with e-learning?

My name is Frederic Aknin, I am an internet addict and a passionate continuous learner. I believe in the power of the Internet to broadcast knowledge, fertilize ideas, and bring the means to people to excel and make the most of themselves.



I know the basics in elearning. I am a user of YouTube which I used to discover extremely good content and a total TED freak.

I believe online learning is at its dawn and that it should expand. I see several very important trends:

· The need for simple video monetization to enable people to sell their premium knowledge on the Web and to enable users with a way to find the knowledge that they seek online. Currently, the highest quality end content is not online since the experts have no motivation to give it away.

· The C2C market: The world is changing so fast that the universities cannot keep up. It is already known that what students learn in college will become irrelevant when they graduate, while new platforms appear on a daily basis. The top 10 most in demand jobs today did not exist ten years ago.

There is no formal education that teaches you how to be a social media director or community manager. I believe that a great part of learning will focus less on the universities and more and more online. A college education is fundamental in building the foundation for your future, but people must know that a formal education is no longer enough: They must continue to evolve with technology or they will be left behind, and this is where Sparkeo steps in.


· Need of simplicity: This is a result of the former element. Because people are learning more and more once they are out of college through YouTube, podcasts, and online tutorials, they need elearning applications that match their current use of the Web. LMS, CMS or complex elearning infrastructures are not addressing those needs.

· Interactivity: I believe that users are craving for interactivity.

2. What are your core beliefs about visual learning?

I believe in the essence of visual learning. As being more visual myself, I have difficulties in making the most of audio podcasts and such.

The visual contact with the educator and learning material makes it easier to remember and to reproduce our natural learning path. Moreover, graphs, charts and images create clarity and emotions that ease the learning process. If this is true for visual learners, I believe it is also true for all learners since we all learning though our three senses.



I believe that all tools developed by elearning can actually enhance the learning experience, but they should respect the visual nature of the learning process.

The iPad, the Google Tablets and all the new digital slates deliver new means to extend visual learning and make it mobile. It is a new frontier and a fascinating one.

3. What are some of the problems with using video as an elearning element?


There are many hardships:

· Video is an art: Educational content might not need the highest end means in terms of recording, but it does need to be nicely edited. A small number of the people that have knowledge really know how to film themselves. Therefore, the result is mediocre videos that are difficult to watch.


· It is difficult to watch a video on a computer for more than 15 minutes. People lose their concentration and have short attention spans because the videos can be uncomfortable to view, and the Internet is a huge distraction with social networks and online games. On the other end we have the cellular phone. Although it is becoming increasingly more connected, it has a small screen that makes it difficult to watch video in the long run. But there are solutions: TV set top boxes and smart TVs that enable viewers to watch web videos and content on their computers directly on regular TV screens or the tablets that create a new space on which they can watch some content.


· Passivity: A video is a passive experience while the Internet is an interactive one. This is another reason why people connected to the web have little patience for video. How can we transform it into a more interactive one? We need to create a link with the content provider and make the whole video experience more social.


· Navigation: It is crucial that an educational video be easy to navigate. Where am I within the video? What chapter? What is he talking about? How do I bookmark the parts I really liked for later? It is all the more decisive, as an educational video is meant to be watched a few times. By definition, learning is a requirement. Therefore, navigation is key!


· Customization: Any tool that will help me appropriate the content in some means will bring high added value.

4. What is your favorite way to use video in an online course?
Screencasting can be efficient, especially in demoing a product. I like using webcams to connect with the audience, but think that an educational video, especially one that delves deep into its particular subject, needs to be taped at a good quality, not a webcam. Using webcams or unstable photography inhibits the user’s ability to learn because their focus is on the moving background. Taping a quality video will help eliminate the distraction problem I spoke of earlier.

5. What is your favorite way to use video in mobile learning?
I like Qik and online streaming video applications. I do watch the occasional educational video on my mobile phone, however only short video snacks. If it is something that would require a video that is longer than a few minutes long, I would much rather view it on a larger screen.

6. What is Sparkeo?
Sparkeo is a flexible video platform that enables experts, consultants, teachers, and passionate entrepreneurs to promote and sell their expertise through the creation of video courses all over the Web.


It specifically meets the needs of the experts by bringing two decisive innovations: A portable payment solution for the online sales of videos and an enhanced learning experience.


Through Sparkeo, users can create paid courses, free courses and soon invitation-only courses.
Sparkeo addresses a new phenomenon: The massive emergence of knowledge entrepreneurs.



There are all kinds of experts, educators, consultants, or simply knowledgeable amateurs who are Web savvy and have the entrepreneurial drive to make money teaching what they know and love over the Web. But they all had one problem: They did not have the right tools to do it.

7. What are the reasons for developing Sparkeo?
We want to empower the expert to maximize his or her online potential.

We want to give the expert an intuitive tool that is as simple as YouTube, but that has been specifically designed to meet his needs: Building a business out of his knowledge.

We cannot expect to see the best content on the Web if we do not provide the expert the means to make money of his knowledge. How can we expect the experts and educators to give their best insights when the revenue is so low, that they are better off using offline monetization opportunities through seminars, consulting, and such? That’s what we had in mind in creating Sparkeo, one simple goal: To bring a simple solution to a real problem: The lack of real financial incentives for experts.

Our product addresses both the most famous experts who are puzzled about the way they can bring their expertise on the Web in a way that makes sense financially, and the potential amateurs who have unique knowledge, but do not know from where to start. Our solution is free and works on a revenue sharing base. There is no need to invest in building a website or developing an application. It is totally embeddable all over the Web and can be embedded on your blog, website, and social networks.

8. How does Sparkeo make the learning process more effective?
There are three components that make the learning process more effective:

Interactivity
A key strategy is transforming the video from passive content to a bridge between the expert and his users.

Users can ask the experts a question directly through the video. This question is made public and everybody will be able to see it on Sparkeo.com. The answer to the question will also be emailed directly to the user.

The idea is to create a means of communication and interactivity within the player. For the user, it is a dream to communicate with the expert directly. For the expert, interactivity is a decisive selling point. He does not just sell a video, but an interactive learning experience in which he can address his customers’ needs. This tool is also a very powerful way for the expert to push the engagement of his customers to new extents and enrich his course with qualified Q&A.

For our corporate clients, it opens new frontiers in terms of customer relations and internal learning.

Enhanced Navigation
The other part of the experience that we deliver, aside from interaction, is enhanced navigation: Educational content is longer the typical 3 minute video found on most video sites, and it is designed to be learned. Most educational videos on Sparkeo are between 20 minutes to 1 hour long.

Sparkeo emphasizes the need of navigation by the introduction of chapters. Like in a DVD or book, the user can skip from one chapter to another with ease. The correct organization of the information provided ensures a better understanding of the content taught.


We also created an index which makes it even simpler to go to the relevant chapter. From the side of the expert, the creation of chapters is intuitive.

Video Personalization
As in a regular lesson, article or book, the user is given the possibility to highlight the best parts of the video and annotate them. The video becomes personalized. The user can go back to a video he already viewed and see in a glance the parts of it that were most important to him and he can view his annotations.

Wifi in ElderCare: A Must for Assisted Living / Nursing Homes / Senior Centers

With improved bandwidth and availability of high-speed wifi, advances in assistive technology, lower-cost hardware (laptops, handheld devices, touch-screen monitors, etc.) and new, easy-to-use web applications, the elderly have more access to a wide array of information and services, from email to lifelong learning.

There is no reason keep the elderly isolated and out of touch from their families, no matter how far away they might be. The initial investment can be quite modest, especially if a nursing home or assisted living center takes an approach similar to ones taken by hotel business centers. They have two or three workstations, each of which is equipped for their clientele's needs, which would include the right kind of software and hardware (detailed below).

Support staff could be available during certain times of the day. There would be a time limit for work on the workstations (20 minutes, perhaps). Although many of the elderly users would have their own computers, having a small computer center would help keep everything running smoothly, and would help with individuals with vision, hearing, or mobility issues. Having a support team would also be very helpful for those residents with cognitive challenges.

Benefits
*Connection to family
Everyone needs a support group, and, it goes without saying that people need people. However, the quality of the connection is often compromised in a nursing home or in assisted living where the connections between individuals are of necessity, or of commerce. Having a vital, daily connection to one's family can provide an emotional anchor for individuals who are going through a phase of life where they feel lonely, fragile, and cut off from caring alliances. Advancing into old age can be a frightening experience, and the elderly often feel the sting of prejudice and patronizing attitudes. They often appear to go into a downhill slide immediately after moving to assisted living. Is the slide real or not? Many times, what looks like a cognitive decline is, in reality, shame and fear.

*Cognitive stimulation
Not only do videos, audio, and images provide stimulation, the interaction brings another level of engagement. The major difference between retrieving information with a computer and watching it on television is the fact that computers are interactive. Numerous learning styles and strategies are accommodated through an array of computers, web applications, and information sources. Cognitive stimulation exercise for the elderly can yield very positive results.

*Connection to prior knowledge
The elderly are immensely valuable to our society, not only because of their knowledge, experience, and wisdom, but also because they show us our humanity. We have points of contact -- and often those points are through shared experiences, and also through prior knowledge. Having access to wifi and a solid computer with good web applications and reliable repositories of information can keep that prior knowledge alive through web searches, readings, and connections with friends and family. Individuals can connect prior knowledge to new experience and feel they are continuing to evolve and to grow.

*Connection to outside world
It's worth repeating. Perhaps the most immediately jolting experience for the individual who enters assisted living is the loss of a connection to the outside world. Television and radio are not true connections. If anything, television and radio reinforce the sense that the elderly individual has been marooned on a faraway planet that no one wants to visit, although people from the outside world are comfortable with transmitting sound or images to the faraway planet (!) Since radio and television do not offer the opportunity to communicate back to the source, it does not take long for the elderly residents in an assisted living center to wonder if they have become pariahs -- simply by virtue of age and diminishing physical abilities. Having an interactive connection is extremely valuable.

*Lifelong Learning / Continuing Education
Some of the most motivated learners are those who are living in assisted living or eldercare facilities. Taking courses provides connections to lived experience and prior knowledge, and stimulating the neural pathways helps individuals make connections, develop new problem-solving techniques, and to feel self-confidence. Sharing work with others, or continuing investigations into one's interests -- often memoirs, literature, history, comparative religion, science, or medicine -- develops self-esteem and a renewed sense of self-respect. Creative writing courses, and those dealing with stories (community, family, personal) are quite popular. It is also often a goal to complete a degree -- often a master's degree. At any rate, since the 1990s, the concept of "elderlearn" has been vital on college campuses. It's time to move it inside the walls of assisted living.

Essential Applications
*e-mail
*Facebook
*Flickr
*YouTube
*News feeds
*Search (google / bing / yahoo) on key words
*Online libraries / repositories of pertinent information

Essential Hardware
*Large monitor
*Touch-screen monitor
*Memory sufficient for graphics / video (RAM)
*High-capacity video card
*Desktop (rather than laptop)
*Microphone
*External speakers
*Webcam
*DVD player / recorder
*Touchscreen option
*Camera (detachable) for images / video
*Kindle reader (scalable text)
*iPad reader (scalable text)

Workstations for Visually / Hearing / Cognitively Impaired
*Hearing Impaired
Close-captioning
High-volume, high-quality speakers
Headphones

*Visually Impaired
Large print / scalable images
JAWS assistive technology (audio)
screen-readers (news / e-mail, etc.)

*Cognitively Impaired
Easy to navigate menus
Simple text, large text
Two or three dedicated applications, very easy to use

New Master's Degrees Change as the World Changes

A recent set of articles in New York Times Sunday edition (Jan 3, 2010) highlighted how master's degrees are bellwethers of new directions. Because master's degrees generally do not require a large number of hours, many colleges and universities have used the flexibility of interdisciplinary master's degrees to tailor student studies to individual goals, interests, and career opportunities. The obvious critique is such degrees can be trendy, and perhaps, arguably rather useless if there are massive paradigm shifts. But, the same can be said for traditional master's degrees. One can safely say that the bloom is off the rose of the stolid, traditional MBA, and to be at all competitive one must be sure to enter an MBA program that at least has a modicum of "sustainability studies" emphasis.

The article provided food for thought, and prompted a contemplation of some of the emerging trends and degrees. In doing so, one can gain an appreciation of the skills that are valued, and emerging industries that will potentially hire "niche" workers.

Homeland Security: After 9/11, many colleges and universities scrambled to assemble master's degree programs in Homeland Security as a continuation of Criminal Justice programs. Frankly, it appeared that there might be an oversupply just a year or so ago, as Iraq changed direction and budget issues resulted in layoffs at police departments, government agencies, and private security providers. Now, thanks to publicized security concerns, there is a renewed interest in the programs. There are a few new twists: language studies, cross-cultural studies, and emergency management have been added into most curricula.

CyberSecurity: This is a very specialized field that requires individuals to evaluate and remedy vulnerabilities within systems. Students become operational in computer networks, programming, and systems. This is an important program, but one can't help but suspect that some programs could be overly general, and deal with issues on a systems level, and never provide the hard-core math, computer science, and skills-training to make the graduate truly valuable. The extreme value to a company, the government, or military is the individual's ability to do things "hands-on" as well as to understand certain things about human behavior, marketing developments, and social networking in order to respond to emerging technologies.

Educational Leadership: This has been an extremely popular program for teachers who must have master's degrees for permanent certification, or who wish to move forward in their careers and become administrators of private schools, charter schools, or even community college programs. The best programs emphasize organizational development, and require students to have a project-based approach where they develop plans for schools or educational institutions. It's also important to include public policy training, educational technology for transformation, curriculum development, and teacher training programs. Informational technology may also be a focal point. Avoid programs that do not incorporate case studies and which do not require students to build a plan to rebuild a school.

Individualized MBAs: The MBA that can be somewhat customized to the individual's interests and goals is more important than ever. For example, an MBA program may allow an individual to focus on health care administration and to even take courses in specific areas, such as urgent care entrepreneurship. It can also be more theoretical in nature, and look at the interplay of sustainability and public policy as they relate to enterprises.

Sustainable Communities: There are any number of variations on the sustainability theme, all of which hold enormous promise in a world that must look at sustainability as a reality in a world that sees itself as increasingly interconnected, and where energy and environmental concerns are squarely at the center. An international scope is often a key characteristic. A good program will go to lengths to let the students develop a deep understanding of the concept of sustainability, and will provide significant grounding in "green" practices in various industries, including construction, transportation, healthcare, and manufacturing. In addition, programs look at individuals, communities, and the world -- each from a different set of criteria that discuss how to develop an enterprise, a community, and a household with an eye to long-term viability. Avoiding boom-bust mindsets is a part of the emphasis. Encouraging creativity and new solutions is equally important.

New Directions and a New Decade for E-Learning: 12 Predictions

The new decade will be a time of great change in e-learning, and we're already getting a glimpse of it. Many of the changes are driven by new technologies, but even more are emerging in the aftermath of economic crisis, and the changes in the way people work, interact, and obtain information.

E-learning will be affected in many areas,

1. Continuing growth in online courses.
Colleges and universities will continue to expand offerings of online courses. This may surprise some, but a study by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities-Sloan National Commission on Online Learning reports that more than one-third of public university faculty have taught an online course. The full report is available at http://www.sloan-c.org/APLU_Reports.

2. Focus on cross-disciplinary programs.
Programs that span disciplines to go into new high-growth areas such as primary-care health care, home health care, sustainable business, green technology, green building, and "smart" energy technology will continue to attract students.

3. Career-related courses will grow.
Career colleges that offer "green" trades, health care certificates and degrees, and training in emerging technologies and sustainable business will boom, particularly if they incorporate an apprenticeship or internship that leads to employment.

4. Budget challenges mean trimming add-ons in online courses.
Despite the growth in online courses and course offerings, there has been a decline in overall university budgets. Cost-cutting means furloughs for staff and administration, and trimming overhead costs. Many of the applications and "add-ons" that colleges used to purchase will be replaced by opensource solutions, integrated Web 2.0 applications, and simple (yet effective) substitutes.

5. Stimulus spending in technology impact to be felt.
The move to expand access to high-speed Internet and to improve information / energy infrastructure is already resulting in an uptick in usage of higher technology solutions. The "trickle-down" of smartboards and wireless connections will result in a higher percentage of web-enhanced courses as well as a conversion to digital resources, libraries, and learning object repositories.

6. More use of opensource software such as Moodle (http://www.moodle.orgg), DotNetNuke (http://www.dotnetnuke.com/), and Joomla (http://www.joomla.org/)
Moodle is already proving itself to be a hardy, flexible survivor in the LMS wars. DotNetNuke is an excellent social networking solution for organizations that can't afford the randomness of relying on LinkedIn or Facebook, but are not up to the high cost of Sharepoint. Joomla's content management flexibility allows people to wean themselves slowly from legacy systems, and to avoid high-cost custom solutions (Oracle, etc.). What's nice about Joomla is that it can power portals and websites as well. Python (http://python.org/) will continue to be a useful programming language for integrative solutions.

7. Mobile learning integrated into online courses for anytime, any place data access
Ubiquitous learning is gaining speed as the watchword of the new decade. Any place, any time, and -- this is most important -- any device -- will be key. Obtain information, interact, and share from multiple sources of information. Increased access is a given. What is less certain is how open the information will be.

8. Social networking starts to be used in e-learning to focus and filter information.
Controlled social networking that can be accessed via mobile device will continue to be very useful in the quest for ubiquitous learning solutions.

9. Twitter: enhanced student support in online courses and programs.
Finding how to harness Twitter to help develop learning communities is one of the most exciting challenges of the upcoming year.

10. High growth elearning programs in high-growth careers.
Health: Home health care, health care reform, primary care expansion, structural changes in medical care delivery and coverage
Business: Sustainable business, "green" business, new finance and private equity changes
Technology: "smart" technology that assists in the quest for energy efficiency, automation, robotics, control / monitoring
Energy/SmartGrid: control and monitor energy generation, use, distribution, infrastructure maintenance,

11. Expansion of online Advanced Placement (AP) programs, seamless integration of high school and college.

12. Webinar restructurings: Rise in synchronous (which are archived and available as asynchronous) modules used for training and in online courses.

Interview with Dara Feldman, The Heart of Education: E-Learning Innovators Series

Many people think of iPhone applications and elearning as something they can do to learn a language or listen to lectures. However, there are other possible avenues, which include areas of ethics, and developing a positive self-concept and self-efficacy. One example is the organization, The Heart of Education, which has helped develop a set of cards for use on the iPhone. They focus on student empowerment, and helping students gain self-confidence.

Welcome to an interview with Dara Feldman, Heart of Education. In addition to her work with The Heart of Education and The Virtues Project, she is an instructional coach for DC Public Schools. Feldman worked in Montgomery County Public Schools, in Maryland, for over 20 years and has taken on this new challenge with the trust that The Virtues Project will help transform DCPS.

1. What is your name, affiliation, and connection to e-learning?

The name of our organization is The Heart of Education. Our connection to e-learning is that we have a free online 30 minute introduction via the National Education Association’s (NEA) Online Academy. http://neaacademyondemand.framewelder.com/presentations/Virtues%20Project.html



We have also created iPhone applications of the virtues cards so that they can be accessible anytime, anywhere. In addition, we have are leveraging the power of Web 2.0 to connect people of like minds and hearts via Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and to share the 5 Strategies of The Virtues Project to empower individuals to be the best they can be.



2. What is The Heart of Education? What is your philosophy of e-learning -- how do you see communities and e-learning relating to each other?

The Heart of Education is part of the global grassroots Virtues Project which INSPIRES INDIVIDUALS to live more authentic, joyful lives, FAMILIES to raise children of compassion and integrity, EDUCATORS to create safe, caring and high performing learning communities & LEADERS to inspire excellence and ethics in the workplace.

This award-winning program was honored by The United Nations as a model global program for all cultures and is being used to transform individuals, families, schools, businesses, organizations and communities in over 90 countries.



As Thomas Friedman wrote, “The World is Flat”. Technology has helped to shrink the world and give us access to people, places and ideas with the click of a button. With the use of Web 2.0 tools, including social networking sites and tools such as Skype, the world is our community. The Virtues Project gives us 5 Strategies for unifying global citizens.

3. How do you create conditions for learning in The Heart of Education?

The Heart of Education is about making meaningful connections. Focusing on creating caring relationships is the foundation that fosters prime conditions for learning and that is what The Virtues Project is all about. My thesis, The Power of Virtues Language to Inspire Learning, can be downloaded from the NEA site.

4. What do you hope to accomplish with The Heart of Education?

Our hope is that The Virtues Project will spread to all schools across the US by 2012 to transform education by bringing more joy, meaning and purpose back into teaching and learning.



5. Have you had any unique experiences as you've unfolded your plan? Please share two or three brief stories.

The journey of The Heart of Education has had many exciting surprises. It all started when I was honored as Disney's 2005 Outstanding Elementary Teacher of the Year and found out about The Virtues Project. Then having The Virtues Project Founders ask me to be their Director of Education was an honor. The fact that the NEA came to us to develop an online course was amazing.


6. What are your plans for the future?

We will continue to offer personal, professional and organizational development to people all over the world. In addition, we are planning to create a highly interactive online course around The Virtues Project. We are going to revamp our websites. Finally, we will launch our PositiveNews4U site where we will Twit positive news that people share with us from all over the world.

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Revisiting Moodle

It is often difficult for learning management systems to keep up with social networking and collaborative technologies. Their architectures are a bit clunky, and even when they allow embedded html to link into social networking, it's often difficult to incorporate them in an outcomes-based way. Further, they are not dynamic and it is difficult to integrate mobile activities and devices.

In these cases, Moodle, as an open-source solution, is often overlooked. The basic structure and philosophy of Moodle are simple: object-oriented, with a focus on reusability of components, and a very transparent structure that rests on a foundation of forums, which makes it very friendly to interaction and collaboration. Further, the flexibility of Moodle makes it ideal for programs ranging from certificate programs to graduate programs such as an online MBA program.

Ideal for Small and Evolving Programs
Moodle is instantly appealing to fledgling programs. After all, the price is right. It's free. Granted, nothing is really free, and the trade-off with opensource is the fact that it's necessary to do the IT work oneself. There are hosting solutions such as MoodleRooms, which are affordable for the individual instructor or small institution.

Moodle does not look much like other learning management solutions such as Blackboard, Desire2Learn, Angel, or the old WebCT. If anything, it reminds one of an expanded discussion board, with customizable add-ons. Student information systems can integrate fairly easily, which makes a "soft launch" or pilot program a viable option. This kind of approach is effective for graduate programs, professional programs, as well as independent study and professional development. One is limited only by the limits of one's imagination.

Moodle's emphasis on reusable content objects makes it fairly easy to make changes to individual courses and to an entire curriculum. It's also fairly easy to save objects in repositories that can be shared by other instructors and the instructional design / technology support. Moodle lends itself to convenient, enterprise-wide content management.

The fact that Moodle allows faculty and the institution to be responsive to evolving student and organizational needs, and educational objectives is a core benefit. For example, if the school wants to be able to tweet students in the event of an emergency, Moodle is much more effective than using email to do so. One can embed applications and integrate them in order to enhance functionality.

Emphasis on Interactivity
With the forum structure as its foundation, Moodle's core architecture rests on interactivity. However, Moodle's capability extends much further than simple posting to a discussion board. Students and instructors can post photos, videos, audio. In addition, they can embed an integrated application which allows content sharing as well as collaboration.

The fact that the forum is so interactive is engaging. Students like to see if their posts have provoked a response. They also like to comment on each other's posts, and to respond in kind. Relevant, engaged interaction is motivating, and one can guide the interaction toward achieving outcomes.

Collaborative learning activities (Wikis, Glossaries) in Moodle replicate the kinds of activities that students do in their everyday computing lives. Most students are comfortable with wikipedia, so to be able to contribute to their own wiki encourages a belief in one's capabilities and an "I can do it" attitude. Contributing to a collective body of work lets people learn by observing others performing a task. Further, Moodle makes it easy to ask and to answer questions.

Student presentations can take many forms, including portfolios and galleries. This makes it easy for the student to assemble a portfolio or to make a presentation. Presentations can be synchronous (taking advantage of chat and embedded whiteboards), and asynchronous (archived powerpoints, etc.).

Interacting with mobile devices, including smartphones, is easily done in Moodle as well. For example, students can post to Flickr or to Facebook, which can be embedded within the course shell. Posting remotely, and building on existing resources is important. At the same time, it's important to include a cautionary note when incorporating social networking because it can take one away from one's primary learning objectives, if one is not careful. Further, extraneous, non-course-related materials may slip in, which could prove distracting, even embarrassing.

Future of Moodle
Moodle will continue to evolve to meed needs of users. As an open-source program, development of updates has not always proceeded as smoothly as hoped, and times of economic crisis tend to be particularly challenging. On the one hand, the fact that opensource is free increases the demand. On the other hand, increased adoption by schools, and the development of mobile and other applications, puts pressure on Moodle to bring out new editions and to enhance capabilities.