Text-to-Video in AI-Enhanced Training and Marketing Modules: Testing Synthesia's Platform

Synthesia https://www.synthesia.io/ is a platform that generates video from text to create product promotion videos, narrated training videos, corporate onboarding and more.  

My first reaction was “wow!” and imagined an AI-powered app that would read a short story or training storyboard and create a full animation based on it.  So, my expectations were really high, and I was envisioning creating videos that could change the world – or at least generate serviceable learning and training videos, and perhaps even creative work. 

Here's a video I made, where I walk through the platform and also play the brief video I made: https://youtu.be/AMJDR67IaXA?si=gx2NXDfmxyATazi1 

I misunderstood the capabilities of the platform, but still, when I experimented with it, I was impressed with what could be done. Basically, Synthesia centers itself around a cast of avatars which are based on real actors, and they can be used to narrate the text in training and promotional videos.  The images and voices are generated from AI.  To deploy the avatars in productive ways, Synthesia has developed templates, which are professionally designed and which have built in some basics of instructional design and marketing.  On the instructional design side of things, they are not as rigorous as they could be, and it’s clear that these templates are points of departure, but not the end product. 

What I liked most about Synthesia:

·      I love the name!  It could be a goddess in ancient Greek mythology, especially if you pronounce it Sin-TAY-zee-a. 

·      Ease of use is a major “plus” – fit for purpose templates reduce the time of content development, and the fact they are modifiable is a huge “plus.”

·      Excellent selection of avatars – they are amazing. The voices are nice, too. That said, the platform allows you to represent yourself or any other person who upload their own videos. 

·      Templates – whether they be for training or product marketing, the templates feature branching scenarios for adaptive learning, corporate training (compliance, etc.), softskill training, product marketing

·      Collaborative capabilities: the platform allows multiple collaborators, and in the case of boo-boos, version history for recovery of work

·      The platform claims to have the ability to translate into 145 languages. It does not say how well, accurately, or idiomatically such a task would be performed.  My personal feeling is, “Don’t hold your breath” and my second thought was “Caution! Never release unchecked and unreviewed from AI into the wild!!!!”

What I liked less about Synthesia:

·      The first thing I noticed when I tried out the program was that Synthesia must review the script and if there is anything that aligns with the program’s “trigger” words, the whole project will be shut down. I experienced that myself.  I thought it would be fun to see how Synthesia tackled the idea of marketing / promoting a novel, Todos Santos, which is both sci-fi and horror, with some zombie elements along with scary technology and a deranged scientist. Welp. Synthesia said “NO” and would not stomach such project. I get it. A rogue scientist creating zombies is not a universally appealing premise. That said, what happens if you are doing medical training or launching a medical product? Will you be censored? 

·      I was really disappointed in the voice-over and the awkward phrasings and pronunciations.  I don’t know how easily one can train the voice, but it’s important. Since the main area of competitive advantage for this product is the idea that you can use an AI avatar instead of voice talent or actors, this is an important point. I guess it depends on what you want your ultimate level of quality to be. 

·      A final little quibble is that the learning templates did not have assessments built in, and I would have hoped for multiple choice quizzes at the very least. 

Final Thoughts

It is fascinating to see how products are being developed that utilize AI in various products.  They test assumptions about how people learn best online, and also encourage engagement.  

As in the case of all AI products, there are ethical issues – for example, in recording and training your own avatar, there could be potential for abuse. Where does the new content reside?  Is your image now in the Synthesia cloud and not actually owned or controlled by you?  Just wondering… 

Teaching Technical Subjects Online? Tap Into the Brain’s Design Creativity Engine

Designing effective online courses—especially for technical disciplines like engineering, data science, and computer programming—requires more than organizing lectures, videos, and assignments. It demands creativity at every level, from course structure to learner engagement. But what kind of creativity are we talking about?

A fascinating 2018 paper by Leslee Lazar, "The Cognitive Neuroscience of Design Creativity," provides a roadmap. According to Lazar, design creativity is distinct from both artistic and scientific creativity. It’s uniquely tied to how humans solve complex, ambiguous, and evolving problems—what the paper calls “ill-structured tasks.” For instructional designers in the digital space, especially those working with technical subjects, this insight is profound. To truly prepare learners for the real world, our courses must engage their "design brains."

Embrace Ill-Structured Problems

In traditional education, especially in technical fields, we often rely on "well-structured" problems—those with clear parameters, predictable outcomes, and established solution paths. Think of solving an algebraic equation or calculating the flow rate through a pipe. While these tasks are useful for teaching fundamentals, they fall short of preparing students for the ambiguity and complexity of real-world challenges.

Lazar emphasizes the power of “ill-structured” problems—open-ended scenarios where both the problem and the solution evolve during the process. These are the kinds of problems that designers and engineers face daily: how to reduce waste in a city, optimize a software interface, or create a sustainable energy model. In online technical education, embracing this approach means offering scenarios that encourage learners to frame the problem themselves. Instead of handing students a tightly defined task, present them with a realistic challenge and ask, “Where would you begin?” This not only cultivates critical thinking but activates deeper brain networks associated with creativity and real-world problem solving.

Foster Divergent Thinking

One of the hallmarks of design creativity is the ability to generate many possible solutions to a problem. This process, known as divergent thinking, involves connecting seemingly unrelated ideas, drawing analogies, and pushing past conventional answers. It’s also associated with right-brain activation—particularly in the prefrontal cortex and medial temporal regions tied to memory and mental imagery.

To foster divergent thinking in an online technical course, instructors can build in brainstorming activities and reflection prompts that go beyond “what’s right?” to ask “what else could work?” For instance, in a course on systems design, pose a challenge like “design a water filtration system for a desert environment,” and invite students to submit five distinct conceptual sketches or approaches. Tools like digital whiteboards, collaboration platforms, and creative forums can provide the space for learners to explore without judgment. Emphasizing breadth before depth in the early stages of learning taps into this essential phase of the creative process and helps learners become flexible, innovative thinkers.

Balance with Convergent Thinking

While divergent thinking opens up possibilities, convergent thinking brings clarity. It is the process of narrowing down options, analyzing trade-offs, and making decisions. According to Lazar, this phase activates more analytical regions of the brain—primarily the executive control networks in the prefrontal cortex. Together, these processes form what researchers now view as a “dual-process model” of creativity: oscillating between the expansive and the focused, the imaginative and the evaluative.

In online learning, this means we shouldn’t stop at brainstorming. Learners also need structured opportunities to analyze and refine their ideas. For example, after generating a set of potential designs for a circuit or a software interface, students can be asked to evaluate each against a rubric that considers feasibility, efficiency, and user experience. Peer reviews, instructor feedback, and self-assessment tools can support this critical convergence stage, helping students internalize the skills needed to assess and refine their own solutions. Building this evaluative loop into course design teaches not only technical accuracy but the judgment needed for innovation.

Integrate Emotion and Intuition

An especially intriguing insight from Lazar’s review is the role of emotion in design decisions. During evaluation and final decision-making, brain areas like the medial prefrontal cortex and default mode network become active. These regions are associated with emotion, intuition, and personal preference—what designers often describe as a “gut feeling.”

This has profound implications for online learning. While we often focus on cognitive load and performance metrics, we shouldn’t overlook the emotional and intuitive dimensions of learning. Giving students space to reflect—through design journals, voice notes, or video reflections—can deepen their engagement. When students articulate why they chose a specific solution or how they felt about their learning process, they begin to integrate their analytical and emotional selves. This not only mirrors how real designers work but helps learners develop self-awareness and intrinsic motivation.

Use the “Design Brain” to Train Technical Brains

The neuroscience evidence is clear: expert designers think differently than novices. Their brains activate differently, especially in regions responsible for hypothesis generation, analogical reasoning, and mental imagery. Importantly, these skills can be taught—but not through lectures alone.

To help online learners move from novice to expert, instructors must model their thinking processes. Use screen recordings, narrated walkthroughs, or “design thinking in action” videos where experts tackle real problems. Make your own reasoning visible: how you define a problem, discard options, draw analogies, and iterate. This transparency helps learners build mental models of expert thought. Scaffold assignments with opportunities for learners to practice these same steps—first with support, then independently. Over time, learners will internalize the cognitive habits of expert designers, which are essential for mastering technical fields in the real world.

Conclusion: Teach Like a Designer

Teaching technical subjects online is a challenge—but also an opportunity. By drawing on insights from neuroscience and design cognition, we can create courses that mirror how real problem-solving happens. Instead of just transmitting content, we can build learning environments that activate the same brain systems used by innovative designers, engineers, and thinkers.

When we do this, our courses don't just inform—they transform. They help students become agile, creative, and confident problem solvers, ready to tackle the complex challenges of tomorrow.

So the next time you open your LMS or course builder, pause and ask: am I laying out a lecture... or designing an experience?

Reference

Lazar, L. (2018). The Cognitive Neuroscience of Design Creativity. Journal of Experimental Neuroscience, 12, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1177/1179069518809664

Moodle 4.0 Is Here! What's new?

Moodle 4.0 is here! I’m trying to determine just what the advantages are and how much of a step change it is from Moodle 3.11.  I don’t think that Moodle can change the basic architecture for a number of reasons. So, the changes have to come in things like user experience and efficiency.  

 If you've worked with Moodle for very long, you know that it can be a place of almost infinite complexity, but also almost Zen-like simplicity. It's also a veritable ant-hill of programming activity, as programmers develop productivity and design apps - some are available for free, others require a download fee.  Moodle and Moodle partners are likewise entrepreneurial, and you can quickly use pre-built templates and hosting and an integrated software-as-a-service solution.

 

Improved User Experience, with modules listed in an easy-to-follow design.

 

MoodleCloud is still in 3.11, so I can’t experiment with it as much as I’d like. However, the “sandbox” is still available, and one can select a role as student, teacher, or manager, to play around with it.  

Here are some of my initial thoughts:

PROS:

1.  Much improved user experience, in terms of navigation, layout, use of new thumbnails, and course construction (with drag and drop). 

2.  The default theme being used in the Sandbox (probably either Clean or Boost) is very attractive and easy to use.  

3.  Fully responsive interface that works well with tablets, laptops, and phones. 

4.  Improved navigation – you can tell where you are, and can go back to a previous screen very easily. There may be some AI-based plug-ins that can help refine "smart navigation."  

5.  One can use the calendar as a dashboard. The "My Courses" screen can display in a number of different options. The “Card” option makes the interface look a lot like the way Canvas displays available courses.

My Courses page

6.  The basic structure of the learning management system is the same, so the same names, arrangement, process and procedure works.

7.  Moodle 4.0 is available for download if you’d like to host courses on your own server. That PRO is also a CON if you’re not ready to be a Moodle Administrator. 

8.  Outside Apps more easily integrate with Moodle 4.0.  Integrating apps has always been fairly easy by means of a link or embedded log-in.  I don’t know to what extent single-sign on is facilitated, and if authentication is otherwise streamlined. 

9.  There is less content on each screen. Not only is it easier to see with your tablet or phone, it’s much easier to stay focused and avoid distractions due to a busy design.

10.  Moodle is open source, which means that there is an entire industry dedicated to building plug-ins and other features that are useful and needed.  I would not be surprised if there will be machine learning-based apps that can detect patterns in student performance and help administrators and even teachers, see student preferences, gaps in knowledge, and collaborative strengths.   

CONS:

1.  If you have not worked with Moodle before, you may feel a bit discouraged. Moodle is not a very intuitive LMS, and one may not know where everything is without going through a pretty thorough training course.

Courses and categories admin screen

2.  It’s not clear how much Universal Design for Learning was used with the new interface, dashboard, icons, etc.  I did not see multiple modes of content delivery on the sample classes in the sandbox site, but that does not mean that they are not available.

3.  Moodle 4.0 is not yet available in MoodleCloud, which is the most popular cloud-based Moodle.

4.  Moodle documentation is still at 3.11. 

An Initial Chat:

Relatecasts' Rick Zanotti and I had an informal conversation about Moodle 4.0, just hours after its release to the web on April 14.  Please click on the link to hear our conversation on E-Learn Chat.  I'm not as clear as I could be as I respond to Rick's questions -- I think my enthusiasm about the  arrival got the best of me :)  Please click and listen, then share your thoughts.

 

E-Learn Chat on the debut of Moodle 4.0 - speaking with Rick Zanotti

 Here's a link to the chat:

https://youtu.be/PqjHqLuWRqg

 Please note that an updated version of Packt Publishing's guide to Moodle course development will be published in July 2022, just in time to get courses and programs up and running. 

****

Susan Smith Nash, Ph.D. 

 

 

Interview with Shaunak Roy, Yellowdig - Innovators in E-Learning Series

People learn from each other and in online courses, the quality of interactions between students in their collaborative activities and with instructors is very important. Welcome to an interview with Shaunak Roy, founder and CEO of Yellowdig, a social learning platform that has been developed with the goal of enhancing the learning experience.

1.     What is your name and your relation to e-learning?
My name is Shaunak Roy, and I am Founder and CEO of Yellowdig, a social learning platform for education. I started Yellowdig with the fundamental believe that there is something magical about peer learning. Casual conversations, exchange of ideas, or occasional debates help form meaningful bonds with other learners, which make learning more fun, and real. As I look back into my own MIT and IIT days, I realize that I have learned as much from my peers as I have from my favorite professors. Some of those bonds have lasted well beyond those formative years and have morphed into lifelong friendships.

Shaunok on the video program, LifeEdge

2.     What is Yellowdig and what does it do? 
Yellowdig is a social learning platform that merges and combines the power of group learning and rapidly expanding real-time content from the internet into a seamless and easy to use learning platform. Yellowdig is Software as a Service (SaaS) that integrates into all Learning Management Systems (LMSs) and Portals to offer 1-click socially intuitive groups for a variety of use inside and outside of courses. For example, Yellowdig can be added in an individual course within minutes to offer a FERPA compliant, private and moderated collaboration forum for your course.

3.     How is it different than other collaboration apps?
The advantages of Yellowdig over other popular collaboration APPs such as Facebook Groups, Slack, and Yammer are the following :

·       1-Click Signup : Learners join the platform by clicking on a “Yellowdig” button in the Learning Management System (LMS), no separate registration required

·       Automatic grading and gradebook sync : Instructors can set up a points system to encourage learner participation, that is fully customizable from course to course.

·       Privacy and moderation : All the content remain private to a course and can be moderated by the Instructors and admins encouraging deeper and authentic participation.

·       Customization : There are many out-of-the-box and  custom configuration options available to support a variety of use cases and learning needs

4.     How are universities using the app? 
Yellowdig is bring used by over 40+ institutions and 140,000 learners across online, blended and residential courses and MOOCs.

5.     Many collaboration applications are not used in courses because they require so much extra time from the instructor.  How does Yellowdig approach that problem? 
We recognize that engaging students through prompt driven discussion and manual grading of discussion posts is a major time sync for instructors. In fact, this type of discussions tend to lower the quality of engagement as it feels less like organic sharing of ideas and more like assignments for the learner. Yellowdig, though peer driven discussion and automatic grading, substantially reduces instructor time commitment while improving both quality and quantity of engagement.

You can refer to our blog for many stories from instructors on how Yellowdig has helped them improve their instruction without increasing workload.

6.  What are your plans for the future?
We plan to continue to build our vision of making learning more engaging and real-world. We plan to add more features and data capabilities to help instructors and students get more from their learning experiences, from anywhere, at anytime and from any device. Our competitive advantage is our focus on working closely with our instructor community to co-curate the future of eLearning.

Check out Shaunak Roy on LifeEdge! https://youtu.be/SI-Y-bsHylg 

Loving Canvas LMS!: New Training Courses - Collaboration & Quick-Start Guide

Many colleges, universities, and training organizations are moving away from the learning management system they have used for years and are adopting Canvas.

Canvas, which is a learning management system, can also be considered a virtual learning environment (VLE) because offers cloud-based hosting and can integrate with a number of cloud applications, such as Google applications (Docs, Drive, Sheets, Slides), Microsoft 365 applications, and media hosting (YouTube, for example). In addition, Canvas encourages webinars (live and archived) by building in Big Blue Button.

Also, Canvas offers free hosting to instructors who can create their own courses (which are, in effect, MOOCs if they catch on) and offer them through Canvas’s portal.

Canvas is not as flexible as Moodle, and it does not have as many built-in templates as Moodle’s Virtual Learning Environment competitor, MoodleCloud, but it does offer remarkable simplicity.

In addition to making collaboration very easy, the SpeedGrader function in Canvas is a huge hit with students and instructors alike.

That said, changing to a new LMS can be daunting, even if you are very familiar with Blackboard, D2L, Moodle, as well as the commercial solutions.

Easing the pain of transition was one of my main goals of putting together training courses.  I also really wanted to help unlock the joy of discovery, unleashed creativity, and productive collaboration which is possible with Canvas.

Rather counter-intuitively, I started with Collaboration with Canvas.  I wanted to help students, instructors, and administrators jump in and explore the many ways in which Canvas facilitates collaboration.

People learn from each other. Moodle has long made a discussion / forum-focused approach the cornerstone of connectivist / connectionist learning theory.  Canvas embraces this approach, as people can easily share and collaborate on documents and presentations in order to create group projects and portfolios.  Also, Canvas makes it possible to use the discussion board as a blog and to subscribe to it via RSS feed.

Canvas for Collaboraiton

 At any rate, I explored these and many other ways to collaborate in Canvas for Collaboration, which is a 6-unit, 30 module course:

https://www.packtpub.com/web-development/canvas-collaboration-video

• How Canvas works for many different applications
• Canvas and collaborative activities for academic applications
• Group editing best practices
• Using Canvas for event planning
• Using Canvas for building a product with distributed team members
• How to collaborate to demonstrate learning goals and compliance
• How to assess the end products of collaborations
• Collaborating using different types of media
• Compliance training

Quick-Start Guide for Canvas

Then, I backed up a bit and created a 6-unit, 30 module course on getting started in Canvas. Entitled Quick Start Guide for Courses in Canvas, https://www.packtpub.com/game-development/quick-start-guide-courses-canvas-video, the objective is to provide all you need to create great courses in Canvas.

This course is a practical guide filled with examples. It covers the basic and advanced concepts of Canvas. Every recipe is as simple as possible without compromising creativity.

In this course, you can

• See the best way to plan and design an online course
• Discover the unique features of Canvas and how to use them
• Get to know the best way to organize content
• Understand how to incorporate multimedia
• Know how to use Canvas’ social media features
• Make sure that students achieve their learning goals and objectives
• See different forms of assessment in Canvas
• Use Canvas’ features to motivate and encourage students

I truly enjoyed creating the courses, and I hope that taking them and participating in them is as enjoyable for the learner.

Interview with Rajeev PS, Blobeo: Innovators in E-Learning Series

Making effective, collaborative expert instruction and mentoring readily available is an ongoing challenge. Welcome to an interview with Rajeev PS of Blobeo, a new entity dedicated to facilitating the process of bringing together industry practitioners and those seeking practical knowledge.

1.    What is your name and your relation to eLearning?

My name is Rajeev PS and the Co-Founder of Blobeo.

https://blobeo.com/
https://www.facebook.com/blobeo
https://twitter.com/blobeor

  

 

I began my career in software and have progressed a lot. During my journey, I attended various trainings to acquire new skills, I learned many skills with help of my mentors and I have been a mentor to various developers as well. Of my entire career, I have noticed that my learning was effective when it was with a mentor than online reading or online videos or attending training. I heard the same thing loud from my mentees as well.  Then I took a step back and analyzed and found that there are two major reasons why this was the only effective way.

a)    One was because the online reading and videos were not interactive and didn’t hold my attention for long
b)    The other key reason is because my mentors were real practitioners where as the trainers in most of the cases were only teachers but not practitioners.

So I realized that my learning would have been quicker and effective if it was from a real practitioner who can offer me an interactive course. I wanted the same thing to happen to billions of people in my situation and up-skill themselves effectively. That idea motivated me to co-found Blobeo.

   Blobeo is built just with the vision to help every one learn a new skill or up-skill themselves effectively.

2.    What are some of the problems that need to be overcome in eLearning right now?

The traditional eLearning gained momentum primarily with its on-demand and self-paced nature, anywhere- anytime flexibility and its very low cost.  However, this poses the key questions:

1.    How many of them who register for eLearning courses really get to complete it – not more than 10%
2.    How effective is the learning experience? – Not really, as it is not interactive and engaging
3.    How much value I am getting? – Very minimal as the courses are more theoretical in nature and more of a canned content which is prepared to fit a variety of learner segments and interests
4.    Is it better to hear some real experiences from an expert/practitioner? - Makes a lot of sense as most of them are looking to apply the learning in their real life situations at work
5.    Is the quality of instructors being considered seriously? – Very limited visibility about instructors and in many cases it is not very significant as there is not any personal interaction

The next wave of online learning is starting with a mission of addressing the above concerns and Blobeo is founded to lead this change.

3.    What is Blobeo? What does it look like? How does it work?

Blobeo is a market place for learners to connect with instructors who offer interactive live online courses. This is a platform to learn from a verified expert who is an industry practitioner in his or her own area of specialization. No matter your age or profession, Blobeo provides a powerful open online eLearning environment for you to learn.

Any individual can design and offer a course on Blobeo, provided their qualification and experience in the subject can be verified. Blobeo's intelligent profile verification uses LinkedIn and other social platforms to validate an instructor.

If you love to share a piece of your wisdom, this open platform enables you to uncover your hidden tutoring talent and make it as a key income source. You will also connect with enthusiasts in your profession and outside, thereby building your personal brand.

Blobeo is more than teaching or learning online, it also establishes a ‘connect’. It is a blob for your future - next dream job, research programs, career guidance, homework support, technology advisory or even start-up mentoring.



4.    What is the ultimate goal?

Blobeo is established with a vision to take the online learning to the next level to make it more engaging, effective, serious and thereby meaningful.  With Blobeo, we will shift the eLearning to outcome-oriented and value-based learning.

5.    What makes Blobeo different?  How can it beat the competition? 

a.    Blobeo will focus on online live interactive courses than the traditional recorded eLearning classes
b.    Unlike the traditional eLearning marketplaces where wisdom is “sold”, Blobeo will help establish a connect between the learner and his instructor where the wisdom is shared and not repeatedly “sold”
c.    Blobeo will bring more discipline to the learning process by combining the benefits of traditional eLearning like flexibility and availability with lively, interactive and engaged learning

6.    Why not just use Skype for personalized tutoring and/or live coaching? Why does one need an LMS?

Skype or a similar tool is only a technology enabler for the learning process while Blobeo will take you through the 360-degree aspects of any individual’s learning process.

Blobeo will also have a robust technology platform for live audio, video, content sharing, collaboration and even recording.

7.    How do you assure quality?  How can you utilize social media?

The key aspect of an eLearning marketplace is the quality of the instructors and the courses they teach. Blobeo’s primary focus is to ensure quality. Blobeo’s intelligent profile verification uses LinkedIn and various other social media platforms to validate an instructor and also his expertise in the area where he or she is offering the course. In addition to this, there will be a 360-degree review and feedback mechanism to consistently monitor and improve the performance of the instructors and quality of the courses.

8.    What are your plans for the future?

Blobeo is built just with the vision to help every one learn a new skill or up-skill themselves effectively. The key aspect of our future plan is to facilitate connecting the desire with knowledge across the boundaries. We realize that each region/country is rich in wisdom and expertise in certain unique areas. There is a great opportunity to facilitate a greater collaboration in the education and up-skilling, which will benefit a larger population, and for better humankind

Interview with Sameer Bhatia, ProProfs.com: Innovators in E-Learning Series

Thanks to improvements in access and bandwidth management, massive open online courses (MOOCs) are rapidly gaining in popularity. Two different types of MOOCs have emerged: the first, the x-MOOC, emphasizes content mastery and incorporates self-grading activities; the second, the c-MOOC, emphasizes learning through collaboration and incorporates connectivist learning theory. The x-MOOCs are making learning and assessment an automated, 24-7 endeavor. The big challenge for organizations that wish to get involved, however is finding a platform that is robust and flexible enough to handle huge volumes and highly variable content. One company that has dedicated itself to overcoming that problem is ProProfs, a popular, easy-to-use provider of tools that allow the easy construction and deployment of quizzes, courses, tests, and surveys, all of which are ideal for creating MOOCs. Welcome to an interview with Sameer Bhatia, visionary and founder of ProProfs.com.

1.  What is your name and your relationship to e-learning?

I am Sameer Bhatia, founder of ProProfs.com, an online learning community which provides comprehensive tools for building, testing and applying knowledge.

Over the years, I have worked with many trainers and educators, which has helped us in developing market leading elearning tools such as our popular quiz software and an all-in-one online learning management system (LMS) that are geared towards solving the core issues that teachers and trainers face while creating online courses and assessments.

I feel the biggest contribution to elearning that ProProfs has made so far is in making online education accessible and affordable to people from all walks of life. We have not only made an enterprise level LMS, which would traditionally cost tens of thousands of dollars, available at a fraction of the price but also taken this a step further with our free offering of public courses. Our products are free when you share content such as courses or quizzes with the world. This has made us one of the largest MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) platforms with hundreds of thousands of free quizzes, tests and courses. I have received many emails from educators and trainers about how the free courses and quizzes have saved them hours of time and effort.

2.  What are some of the future directions and potentials of MOOCs, in your opinion?

Where a university class could only accommodate a maximum of few hundred students, MOOCs can help educators and trainers reach out to millions of learners. The potential of MOOCs as a platform through which education and training can be created and disseminated instantly to a vast population is one worth investing in and exploiting.

In the coming years, we could see more universities using MOOCs as the primary mode of creating and disseminating learning. However, currently there are a limited number of courses on a few topics that MOOC platforms are offering. The potential of MOOCs will be fully realized when open online courses are available on multiple disciplines and topics. I feel the ability of anyone to freely build and share knowledge will be a motivational factor for people to use MOOCs as the primary platform for creating and disseminating learning.

Such a cohesive system would mean the crumbling of economic and geographic barriers, since anybody from any part of the world would be able to freely access education and learning.

3.  Why might an organization want to host a MOOC, and how can they benefit?

Firstly, irrespective of the industry an organization belongs to, MOOCs can help it establish itself as a thought leader in its field. A company can achieve this by creating a knowledge resource consisting of open online courses which answer the questions of their audience. For example, a company manufacturing fire fighting equipments can create open courses on fire safety; an automobile company can create a certification course on driving motor vehicles, so on and so forth. The possibilities are limitless. By providing solutions to the questions of potential customers, a company can establish itself as a brand and thought leader.

Secondly, as it is said that the best way to learn is to teach, organizations can quickly collect aggregate learner statistics from their courses and learn about what exactly are the knowledge gaps. For instance, when you create a course using ProProfs, you get advanced reports and aggregate statistics based on data across all attempts to a particular course. These reports help instructors learn and understand what questions are commonly wrong, difficulty level of each question, what information the course is not addressed well and so on. All of this can be used to make improvements to the course and to identify and bridge knowledge gaps.

4.  What are some of the "must have" elements in a MOOC?  Why are some organizations nervous about offering a MOOC?  What are some of the barriers that must be overcome, and why might it be difficult for an organization to do it on their own? 

Creating an online course is not enough. For MOCCs to be really successful as an alternative learning model there must be comprehensive course statistics such as detailed course and assessment reports as well as learner feedback reports accompanying an online course.

Course and assessment reports are essentials parts of an online course as they help instructors judge whether learners have actually understood the course. For instance, ProProfs test making software, provides users with detailed assessment reports such as the total attempts made on the quiz, the average time taken to complete the quiz, the average percentage score and the difficulty level of each question in the quiz. The statistics are presented in a clear and concise manner, which help instructors understand how each learner performed in a given test as well as identify the areas where knowledge gaps may exist so that they can revise their teaching and training materials to improve learners’ performance.

Likewise, gathering learners’ feedback at the start, middle or end of a course helps in judging the relevance and efficaciousness of a course. Regular learner feedback surveys drive up instructor-learner engagement, which is crucial for the success of online courses.

One of the reasons why business organizations are wary of online courses is regarding cost and infrastructure requirement to support large batches of learners. Expenses related to maintenance, data back-up, software hosting and administration are some of the difficulties that organizations looking to create online courses on their own face. They can avoid these issues and simply put their focus on course creation by adopting SAAS and other third party solutions that effectively solve this problem. We get a lot of questions and concerns about this as well. So we created a Trust page that gives people an insight into our infrastructure that scales to serve million of users each month.

As for educational institutions, the question seems to be whether open online courses can compensate for actual classroom experience. However, there are many tools such as feedback surveys, discussion forums, crowd-sourcing etc which help in bridging the virtual divide and driving up instructor and learner engagement.

5.  What are some of ProProfs products, and how are they used within a MOOC?

One of our popular products is our online training software, which allows users to create a course and deliver it to their learners. It is an all-in-one software, which comes bundles with our other products and provides a complete e-learning solution to companies who want to create online training program or educational institutions looking to create academic coursework.

We also offer a powerful online testing tool called ProProfs Quiz Maker. Our testing tool provides comprehensive features such as the ability to create different types of tests such as matching, checkboxes, true or false, multiple choice and even a timed test - which helps in preventing cheating in online tests. The results of the assessments are fully downloadable and instructors can share them with their learners as well as other stakeholders.

Another import elearning tool would be our learner feedback tool. Our survey software allows users to create course evaluation surveys and learner feedback surveys, making their online courses much more effective in enhancing the learning process.

Besides these online tools, we also offer poll maker and learning aids such as flashcards which make the online courses more engaging and effective.

ProProfs offers hundreds of public online courses. The course categories cover a range of topics such as business, computer science, education and many more. Since our training software is an integrated product, which includes all our other products it is the most ideal for being used within a MOOC. Our Quiz software, is one of the largest online quiz libraries and there are millions of free quizzes on various topics. Another software very popular with learners is our Flashcards Maker, which also consists of millions of flashcards, free and accessible for all. Our Survey Software is a relatively new product but we already have a large bank of surveys which are free for our users to share and reuse.

6.  How is ProProfs helping organizations develop and host MOOCs?

ProProfs Training Software is used by many organizations to create open online courses. One of the primary reasons why organizations prefer using our software is because we allow them to completely focus on course creation, while we handle the course hosting, delivery, data-backup, administration and maintenance. The fact that organizations do not have to download or learn any software coupled with the benefit of not having to hire an IT team to maintain and administer the software, encourages organizations as well as individuals to create and share online courses through our platform.

Since open online courses are taken by thousands of learners at a time, the load spikes are massive and we conduct regular system maintenance so that we maintain a robust system uptime and learners don’t have to face any disruptions. We keep our system maintenance records completely transparent and that is why many organizations believe and trust in us.
 
We are different from other MOOC platforms because we also provide our customers the option to go fully private and even create paid courses - a great revenue model for teachers who wish to create and sell online courses. This makes us the most flexible platform. So you can start off by making an open course, create a private and secure course/training for the company you work at, and another one where you charge users across the web to take the course ....the flexibility is amazing.

Organizations also do not feel locked in, as we give them complete and absolute ownership of the courses they create with us. They can fully brand, customize and embed their courses onto their website or blog as well as integrate the payment gateway with their site and use ProProfs only for the delivery of the courses.

7.  Do you see any new directions arising for MOOCs and their potential to help organizations achieve their missions? 


The current trend is in making the online courses more efficacious by providing accreditation, where learners at the end of an online course get a degree or a completion certificate, which they can use to further their education or career. Once this is fully realized, MOOCs will become all pervasive. In this respect, we have a certification program already set up, where organizations can create custom course completion certificates using their logos, colors and signatures and award it to deserving candidates.

I believe the new directions will be in the adoption of MOOCs by companies and people from different walks of life as opposed to just academic education - wherein universities have so far been the early adopters.

8. Any final thoughts?

We have already witnessed the potential of MOOCs in making quality education accessible to the public. Premier educational institutions such as Harvard, Stanford and many others have effectively used MOOC to reach out to a global learner base.

However, we believe that not just premier institutions but anybody who is willing to share his/her knowledge should be able to have access to the technological resources to do so. The driving force behind ProProfs being free for open courses has been our strong belief that anybody can and should teach. Everyday people from all walks of life create hundreds of courses, on all kinds of subjects, using our learning management system. Our public courses range from simple fire safety courses to complex Java programming language courses. Also, people learn in different ways, not only through courses but tests and quizzes as well. We’ve realised this because we get many emails from our users telling us about how the quizzes in our site helped them do well in their tests.  A case in point are the DMV quizzes, which are taken by thousands of our users everyday and have helped many pass their driving tests with flying colors.

This I feel should be the future of MOOCs where education and learning is not limited to predefined notions of traditional academic courses but is a healthy mix of different types of knowledge resources on a vast array of subjects and interests.

Interview with UWINPro on ProProfs Training Maker: Case Studies in E-Learning

Online training providers are increasingly under pressure to provide quick-to-market, easy-to-implement solutions that avoid cumbersome learning management systems. At the same time, the proliferation of devices and apps has created an environment where solutions have to be simple and elegant enough to work on many devices in situations where bandwidth can be a challenge. This case study examines the experience of UWINPro, who offers training programs in SAP for companies that use SAP for database integration and management. They have been using ProProfs.com and are sharing their experience here.

1) Can you tell us briefly about your company and your relation to e-learning?
We at UWINPro  (www.uwinpro.com) are one of the leading IT Training providers in Canada. We offer Online Training programs to our globally located corporate clients in the fields of SAP, UNIX and ERP courses. We have been focusing on SAP courses like SAP CRM, SAP HANA, SAP BOBJ, SAP ECC, SAP SRM etc.

2) In what ways have you used e-learning while developing your online training programs?
We are using elearning to offering online access to training courses. Currently we are using ProProfs (http://www.ProProfs.com/training) for developing our e-learning courses. To create a comprehensive and an engaging learning experience we use different components inside the courses such as PPTs, Videos, Mind maps, Flash cards, Quizzes and Surveys. These courses can then be accessed by our learners anytime / anywhere at their own convenience.

We use multiple ProProfs products such as Training Maker, Quiz Maker, Survey Maker and Flashcards to create elearning courses.

3) Do you think that online training still has many hurdles to overcome? For instance can online assessments, which are a major part of online training, be trusted? 
Most of the online training software do not work across multiple devices, so a learner using a laptop might be able to access the training program, while someone trying to access the same training program from an iPad might not. A successful online training program must take into account that learners are geographically dispersed and use different devices.

As for online assessments, they are an integral part of online training without which you cannot test the learning of trainees. Again, online assessments need to be device compliant as well and there are a number of ways in which you can make online assessments secure. You can use privacy control features such as password, availability protection &  ID verification. You can also prevent cheating in online assessments through settings available, for example features such as timed assessments, question pooling, randomized question order, answer shuffling and more. With the help of technology, it’s possible to make online assessments completely secure.

4) What is ProProfs Training Maker?
ProProfs Training Maker is an online tool to develop e-training courses by incorporating training materials like PPTs, PDFs, Docs, Pictures, Videos, Quizzes, YouTube videos etc.
Since the Training Maker also includes the Quiz Maker, we have found it easy to create assessments and attach them to our e-courses. Besides this, there are a numbers of key features within Training Maker which you can use to create e-training courses.

5) What are the key features?
Well, our use of the features vary with the requirements of each course but on a broader scale the key features are:

• Reporting & Tracking: We use this to track and capture the information of learners taking our courses. The information can be the name, email, phone as well as the data of individual course takers through which we check compliance issues and defaulters.

• Embedding YouTube Videos & Web links: Since today’s learners want their classes to be more interactive, we import YouTube videos and other web content, through ProProfs platform, to enhance our training course. These training courses can be easily embedded on our website www.uwinpro.com  and added to the existing content in our website

• Use Existing Material:  We like that we are able to create courses using our own existing training materials such as PDFs, PPTs, videos and documents. We also use the existing quizzes in Quiz Maker as it helps in creating assessments quickly.

• Mobile Compliance: With more and more learners using smartphones to access the training programs, all of our course are accessible from any mobile device by leveraging the in built HTML5 conversion in ProProfs.

6) Can you give a few examples of successful implementation?
We have successfully developed few of our SAP training courses and Quizzes, which are also embedded on our website. Visit http://www.uwinpro.com/interactive.html and http://www.uwinpro.com/quiz.html  for more details.

7) What is the future of online training? How do you think it can be improved?
With the upsurge in smartphones and tablets, a geographically dispersed workforce prefers online training rather than the traditional brick-and-mortar classroom. Online training courses are ideal for a geographically-dispersed workforce, as they can take the training from anywhere, anytime and also saves companies the costs on transportation, lodging and trainer fees. Companies have realized this and many are rapidly adopting online training programs to train their employees.

Moreover, online training has become a better, cheaper and faster way of spreading theoretical knowledge and technical know-how for companies as well as educators. So, I think that online training will become the primary channel to teach and share knowledge in the coming years.

The improvement has to be on the interaction side – many learners are still not used to interactive online training and may have some initial learning curve with certain features like online whiteboard. In terms on improvement in Training software, we would like to incorporate advanced security features so that multiple instructors from different parts of the world can securely create courses together and collaboratively.

Content Management Systems and E-Learning: Thoughts, New Dimensions / Directions

As mobile applications begin to be an integral part of elearning solutions, it is increasingly important to have a robust, flexible, and easy to use content management system (CMS). Not only will your CMS support the widest possible range of content types, including documents, audio, video, animation, multimedia, and web pages, it should also integrate well with other servers, databases, and systems, including the learning management system (LMS), the student information system, and the various cloud-based servers from which you'll pull content for online programs and courses, including those for online teaching degrees.

A good CMS is easy to use, and the workflows are intuitive and easy to follow, from file creation (with clear naming protocols and directory structure) to file sharing and automated notification processes.

Because the CMS constitutes the heart of the organization and is essential framework, the content must be accurate, the delivery consistent, and it must be easy to manage updates and changes.

At the bare minimum, a CMS should be able to

            * establish easy-to-follow workflows

            * allow the easy importation of files

            * automate notices of changed content

            * maintain version control

            * enable automatic distribution of new docs to defined users

            * facilitate the integration of databases

Many of the content management systems that are used in higher education are built on a content management framework (CMF) that makes it easier to use reuseable objects. A CMF is often written in one of a half dozen or so popular programming languages / technologies:

• Django-CMS (uses Python, Django or MySQL)
• Plone (uses Python)
• Drupal (uses PHP and MySQL)
• Joomla! (uses PHP and MySQL)
• Microsoft SharePoint Server (works with .NET Framework, works with SQL Server)

For organizations that do not have a small army of developers and programmers, it is often advisable to go with a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution for one's CMS. They are generally cloud-based, so security protocols and requirements must be reviewed. The solutions include software, hosting, and support with a single vendor.  Some of the more popular SaaS solutions include:

Google Apps (not just for business -- some universities are using Google Apps with great success in conjunction with an open-source LMS such as Sakai)

• Agility
• Windows Live (Free)
• Microsoft Office 365
• Amazon application hosting

It’s a bit difficult to see how a SaaS solution could work as a flexible CMS since the existing software would have, by definition, a number of limitations. However, there are definitely a number of advantages with having applications that work fairly seamlessly together. For example, Google docs works as a very useful document-sharing platform, and can integrate with Google sites.  Whether or not one of the Google apps works as a relational database, is not immediately evident. It would be interesting to see a Google solution appear as a templatized relational database that walks the user through a series of frameworks that integrate object repositories with applications. These solutions could be customizable “ready-mades” for schools of all sizes and strips, including home schools and very specialized professional development.

Proprietary Software CMS solutions include the following:

This list is by no means inclusive, but contains a few examples of popular proprietary solutions. It is useful to note that most of the proprietary solutions are Rackspace / Akamai ready, which is to say that they are cheerfully cloud-based. Many of the CMS solutions contain easy-to-use interfaces, even drag-and-drop, to make it easy to get started.  Further, some, such as Centralpoint, have incorporated Single Sign On in order to allow the simultaneous log-in to all the relational databases. At the same time, there is data mining capability in the ability to emulate customer relation management functions and develop adaptive and targeted mailing lists.

• OpenText Web Site Management (Formerly RedDot) - on a Java platform, works with Oracle, SQL Server
• DotNetNuke - on ASP.NET - on SQL Server
• Microsoft SharePoint Server on ASP.NET, with SQL Server or SQL Express
• IBM Enterprise Content Management, with Oracle, SQL, or DB2
• Percussion Software CM1: Java / MySQL / Derby
• Limelight: MySQL

OpenSource

Devotees and apologists for OpenSource are passionate, to say the least. They do have a point. There is something rather romantic about thinking that not only do you have the opportunity to obtain software for free (although labor costs always trump licenses in the overall scheme of things). The real appeal of OpenSource is usually the radical simplicity of it. They are ready to go, and are very basic. Unfortunately, if you have special applications, or need more functionality, you may find yourself paying quite dearly in terms of programming-hours as well as time. However, if you have aspirations of developing your own solution or marketing a custom template, using OpenSource could make sense. If you choose Drupal or Joomla!, you definitely will be joining a global army of people who think you’re right on target by supporting the concept of OpenSource. You’ll also be joining the ranks of people who have learned to be patient and, in some cases, settle for a solution that does not quite do what the commercial competition can do.

PHP

• Joomla! (MySQL)
• Drupal (MySQL, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server)
• Mambo (MySQL)
• SilverStripe (MySQL)
• WordPress (MySQL)

A final thought about Content Management Systems.

A CMS is all about creating a framework that allows the useful and predictable manipulation of schema having to do with digital objects. It’s easy to get lost in the structure and forget that we’re in a time of rapidly evolving delivery systems, and that “going mobile” represents the leading edge of one or more sea changes. So, it’s fairly short-sighted to think of CMS as only relating to content. It has to be delivery-friendly as well, no matter what / how / when the delivery manifests itself.