Michael Hanley :: Blog

http://elearningcurve.blogspot.com/2009/09/im-irish-web-awards-2009-finali

I am delighted to announce that I have been shortlisted as a finalist for two categories in the 2009 Irish Web Awards sponsored by Realex Payments.

I’ve been nominated for the following categories:

Best Education and Third Level Website

• The E-Learning Curve Blog (you’re reading it now)

Best Podcaster

• E-Learning Curve’s Other Podcasts

The awards ceremony takes place in the Radisson SAS Royal Hotel in Dublin on just under two weeks from now on Friday October 10th 2009.

Good luck to all the finalists in all the categories, and wish me luck…

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http://elearningcurve.blogspot.com/2009/09/homework.html

If it’s true that doctors make the worst patients, then we can take it as axiomatic that learning professionals are the most critical learners.

I’m taking an instructor-led, classroom-based course today.

On cultural awareness.

It’s a mandatory EU thing.

Apparently having a degree in Anthropology doesn’t render me immune to such requirements, so here is what I will do:

• I will keep an open mind.
• I will not analyze the instructors andragogy or methodology.
• I will take notes.
• I will contribute.
• Then I will complete a happy sheet.

I hope I know more at the end of the day than I do now.

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On a happier note, as it’s my wedding anniversary later this week, I shall be whisking Mrs E-Learning Curve off to Connemara in the west of Ireland for a wonderful four-day break in the second-most beautiful part of the country.

Of course this means, I’ve got to leave you with something to do. For your home assignment, I’d like to you to try some experiential learning.

If you’ve been following my weblog series on Podcasting for E-Learning, it’s time to put all of the knowledge to use; if you haven’t been following the articles – where have you been? Click here to begin learning about podcasting now.

And your homework:

Create a podcast.

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http://elearningcurve.blogspot.com/2009/09/podcasting-for-e-learning-setti

As this is the penultimate post in this series about Podcasting for E-Learning, I’ve linked to two learning organizations with a well-deserved reputation for producing quality podcasts at the end of this post, but before you rush to find out more about SyberWorks’ and Xyleme’s podcasts, read on…

If you’re serious about podcasting, consider investing in a mini-studio. A well-equipped mini-studio can be a valuable asset to any learning organization. For a relatively small investment, you can provide employees with a comfortable environment to create high-quality audio and video content for their multimedia presentations.

There are a variety of environments that you can use to capture podcast audio and video. These range from using a simple desktop microphone and a webcam, to using a dedicated studio. Which environment you choose depends on your target audience and your budget. Presentations directed at customers or a similar public audience usually benefit from a higher-quality environment. For less formal presentations intended for a smaller or an internal audience, a webcam with built-in condenser microphone may be adequate.

A mini-studio.
Click on the image to view a QuickTime VR of the studio in a new window

A level of quality somewhere between these extremes is usually required for internal communications intended for distribution across a large organization, such as an executive presentation for the entire company or a training course viewed on-demand by a large number of employees.

At its heart, a mini-studio is a room that is modified to serve as a dedicated space for recording multimedia. Ideally, the mini-studio should be a permanent installation; it is a place to record and produce content in an appropriate environment. It should contain equipment that is easy to use, in good working order, and that is configured to enable users to do their work without being distracted by technical details.

• The room you choose might be a former office, conference room, or storeroom. You should choose a room that you can use exclusively for the mini-studio. The room will require some modifications, so don’t expect the space to serve other functions. Pick a room that is large enough to accommodate the equipment and one or two people. You should expect to use a room that is at least 10 x 10 feet.
• The mini-studio should be located in a quiet area of the building. Any background noise will become part of the recorded content and may be distracting to viewers and presenters. Try to select a windowless room that is located away from the following:
• Traffic noise—from cars, trucks, trains, and airplanes—makes a poor background for narration.
• Server rooms, demo rooms, training rooms, or similar spaces contain large numbers of computers that create noise and require ventilation equipment, which also creates additional noise.
• Lift shafts. Even if the lift is rarely used, or not used at all, ambient noise from roof-mounted equipment such as air conditioning and refrigeration systems may create additional noise.
  Meeting rooms, conference rooms, training rooms, and exhibition spaces—especially rooms that use public address (PA) systems.
• The main ventilation system. Some buildings have ventilation fans placed along a central shaft with smaller ducts connected that move air to various parts of the building. Rooms near this central shaft tend to be noisier than rooms farther away from it.
• Be sure to provide a comfortable chair with an adjustable seat height for each narrator. Also, you will need to provide a table, podium or a desk for the speaker’s notes or laptop computer.

And that’s it for podcasting - for the moment. Check out these two organizations if you want to hear some interesting e-learning related podcasts.

SyberWorks, Inc. is an e-Learning solutions provider based in Massachusetts. Their staff have create a collection of original articles with the intent of making unique and insightful contributions to the e-Learning community. Their podcasts and related educational resources including blogs and PDF-based articles are located in their Syberworks Online Media Center.

Xyleme, Inc produce the XylemeVoices learning industry experts podcast library. The Voices podcasting is a series of 10-15 minute conversations with learning industry experts on hot button topics from their area of expertise. The series’ participants to date include Allison Rossett, Ruth Clark, Janet Clarey, Conrad Gottfredson, Bryan Chapman and Clive Shepherd. These podcasts are educational in nature (not corporate sales pitches), and are promoted through online ads, social media, and press releases.

Oh yes, and here are the links to my E-Learning Curve Podcast, and my E-Learning Curve’s Other Podcast.

Tomorrow: One last podcast thing…

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http://elearningcurve.blogspot.com/2009/09/distributing-your-podcast-for-e

I've just about completed all the topics I want to cover regarding Podcasting for E-Learning (for the moment). It's time to move on to other learning and development-related subjects. So, over the next couple of days, I want to tie up some podcasting 'loose ends.'

Now read on…

Today, publishing your podcast. As Jack Herrington (2005) so memorably wrote, podcasting is "blogging out loud." If you've created and posted a blog, you've already used pretty much all the technology required to distribute a podcast. In essence, a podcast is just a media file (usually MP3 audio, but you may also use m4a, .mov, .mp4, .m4v, and .pdf file types), and the RSS 2.0 web feed format which is used to publish frequently updated works like podcasts and blogs.

An RSS document (usually called a "feed") includes full or summarized text and metadata such as publishing dates. Web feeds enable publishers syndicate content automatically, and they allow subscribers access updates from individual websites or aggregated from many sites. The standardized XML file format allows the feed information to be published once and viewed by many different applications.

There are many ways to create a podcast RSS feed, but I recommend the free-to-use PodcastBlaster service (see Figure 1) if you're new to podcasting and don't feel up to hand-crafting the code.

Figure 1. PodcastBlaster RSS Feed Generator
[Click to Enlarge]

The most common way to distribute a podcast is via a blogging service, or by using specialized software provided by your ISP. Refer to your hosting provider for specifics on the system they - and by extension you – should use.

New Podcast Episode: Django Reinhardt and the Sound of Swing

The great jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt was born in France in 1910.

The son of Gypsy parents, he grew up in a Manouche camp on the outskirts of Paris during the Great War. Django grew up in the world of the bohemian and the vagabond on the doorstep of a great city and it was here that he first learned to play the guitar.

This 15-minute podcast documentary follows the career of one of the great innovators in the guitar, through the 'Roaring Twenties,' the accident that nearly ruined his careers, his discovery of Jazz, and the emergence of the Swing style, epitomized in his work with the Stephane Grapelli and The Quintet of the Hot Club of France.

Click here to listen to the podcast (MP3, 13.5MB).

Click here to view the transcript (PDF, 81k).

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References:

Herrington, J. D. (2005). Podcasting hacks: tips & tools for blogging out loud. O’Reilly Media, Inc.

PodcastBlaster Internet: Available from: http://www.podcastblaster.com Accessed 20 September 2009 (Registration Required)

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http://elearningcurve.blogspot.com/2009/09/multitrack-audio-and-creating-m

Today's post about Podcasting for E-Learning covers editing and rendering multitrack audio using the open-source audio editor Audacity.

Click on the play button on the YouTube video to view the demo at 240x320 size (which will give you an overview of the editing techniques I'm using), or click here to view the demo (1024x768, broadband connection recommended) to see the editing techniques in detail. The demo is about seven minutes in duration, and requires Flash Player version 7 or better.

Typically, a podcast has a number of discrete audio tracks:

• Musical signature tune track
• Narration voice-over (v/o)
• Incidental music and / or wildtrack (ambient sounds such as keyboard taps, phones ringing etc)

To create, edit and render a multitrack audio file (called a 'package'):

1. Open and save a new Audacity project
2. Name it something like 'My_Podcast_Final'
3. Using the File menu, open the first track to be played in the sequence (usually the sig tune)
4. Using the Project >> Import Audio menu add the rest of your clips. Each clip will open on a new track in the Audacity UI
5. Using the Timeline Shift Tool to move the new tracks to their approximate location on the timeline; you'll refine their location later
6. Use the Envelope Tool to set the volume at appropriate levels for cross-fades, fade-ins, fade-outs, and for setting music as a soundbed under the voice-over narrative
7. When you have all the elements of the package aligned to more-or-less where you want them, use the Timeline Shift Tool to refine the timing of the various elements - try to make the clips as "tight" as possible: omit any long silences or caesurae unless they're for dramatic effect.
   If your audience hear a long silence they may well think that they have reached the end of the package and turn off.
8. Once your package is edited satisfactorily, save it.
9. Next go to File >> Export as MP3
10. Enter appropriate metadata in the dialog box and click on Save.
11. An MP3-formatted version of your project file is rendered according to the settings entered in the Preferences tab.
12. You're done!
13. Make a cup of your favorite hot beverage
14. Open the audio package in your software media player. Sit back and listen to your completed magnum opus.
15. Start thinking about a topic for your next podcast, which will be even better than this one!

More...
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http://elearningcurve.blogspot.com/2009/10/e-learning-curve-blog-is-leavin

The E-Learning Curve Blog will no longer be updated here on Blogger/Blogspot.

I have been using Blogger to host my blog for about two years, but I have outgrown this particular space, so I have moved the E-Learning Curve Blog to my own domain michaelhanley.ie. From Wednesday 14th October 2009, links to this site will be redirected to the E-Learning Curve Blog’s new home.

If you want to continue following my adventures in e-learning, I strongly recommend that that you subscribe to my blog by clicking here (site) or here (via RSS feed).

As you can see from the screenshot, the E-Learning Curve Blog’s new home has a much better template and look-and-feel, there’s no advertisements (or other distractors), as well as a bunch of extra widgets and links for you to explore.

For the time being, I will leave the E-Learning Curve Blog content that’s already here available on this domain. But not for long.

So come and join me at the E-Learning Curve Blog’s new home
…there’s still a lot to learn, discover, and understand about Technology in Education!

Michael Hanley, author of the E-Learning Curve Blog

13th October 2009

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http://elearningcurve.blogspot.com/2009/10/open-source-e-learning-4-kompoz

E-learning is intimately bound to IT networks and to the World Wide Web. At their heart, many e-learning courses are just specialized websites, and most are created with some input from a website authoring tool. Website authoring tools are applications to build and link individual web pages to create a website.

Website authoring tools are not stand-alone applications; their purpose is to create design content to be distributed to learners via web servers. Website authoring tools are also reliant on media editors for the graphics, animations, audio, video and other media integrated into courseware.

Today's open source e-learning toolkit component is a website authoring tool called KompoZer.

KompoZer is a complete web authoring system that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing capabilities found in Microsoft FrontPage, Adobe DreamWeaver and other high end programs. The application is designed to be extremely easy to use, making it ideal for non-specialist users who just want to create an attractive professional-looking website without needing to know HTML or web coding (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. KompoZer User Interface
[Click to Enlarge]

According to KompoZer's developers, the application supports:

• WYSIWYG editing of pages, making web creation as easy as typing a letter with your word processor.
• Integrated file management via FTP. Simply login to your website and navigate through your files, editing web pages on the fly, directly from your site.
• Reliable HTML code creation that will work with all of today's most popular browsers.
• Navigate between WYSIWYG Editing Mode and HTML using tabs.
• Tabbed editing to make working on multiple pages a snap.
• Powerful support for forms, tables, and templates.
• An easy-to-use, web authoring system for Linux, Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh.

Click here to download KompoZer.

More…

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http://elearningcurve.blogspot.com/2009/10/open-source-e-learning-developm

Having discussed two key components of this Open Environment for E-learning; an XML-based authoring and content-generation tool, and an image-manipulation application, today I will discuss an XML-based productivity suite - a word processor, spreadsheet application, and presentation tool called OpenOffice.org.

In my view, tools like DocBook XML and XMLmind XML Editor are excellent primary content creation and generation applications; they provide courseware developers with a familiar UI in which to create their content, while retaining the flexibility and interoperability of an XML-based structure.

One of the main benefits of using XML-based tools (as we will see in a future post) is that it facilitates a "create once, reuse many times" approach to content objects. By creating one appropriately-tagged XML-based master document, content can be refactored as a printable manual, an HTML-based guide, a PowerPoint-type presentation, and integrated into an e-learning content delivery platform, all based on one set of source XML-based information.

Now read on...

It is a truism that instructional designers, courseware developers and learning professionals (particularly in organizations) will source knowledge and learning materials from subject matter experts (SMEs) if possible. This research can be undertaken by using a range of strategies, including searching corporate knowledge-bases, interviewing SMEs, task-based collaboration, and so on.

While SMEs have the tacit and explicit knowledge, skills and domain expertise to inform your instructional design and content requirements, typically they have neither the time nor the inclination to learn a quite complex application like DocBook XML or XXE. However, we can say that the substantial majority of knowledge workers are competent in office productivity programs including word processors, spreadsheet, and presentation applications, such as those included in the Microsoft Office suite.

Sun’s OpenOffice.org is a collection of applications that provide the features expected from a modern office suite. These components are designed to reflect the functionality available in Microsoft Office.

According to their mission statement, the OpenOffice.org project aims

…to create, as a community, the leading international office suite that will run on all major platforms and provide access to all functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an XML-based file format.

Figure 1. PPT format presentation authored in OpenOffice.org

The primary benefit of OpenOffice.org for this open environment is the ability to author XML-based content to develop presentations that may be used in instructor-led classroom environments, as well as provide media developers with a PowerPoint-formatted file to facilitate insertion into the media authoring tool Microsoft Producer 2.

In my view, the real power of OpenOffice.org is that it enables courseware developers to take (for example) PowerPoint presentations developed by SMEs, modify this content, and output it in an XML-based format, allowing integration with the other tools we are discussing in this series.

In a sense, it is a "bridge": despite the much-vaunted interoperability of Microsoft XML Core Services (MSXML) in Office 2007, I would assert that there are still many issues associated with integrating MS Office-produced content into an open environment, and by extension problems using this suite if you need to integrate your content into another environment or platform.

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References:

OpenOffice.org version 3.x. [Internet] Available from: http://www.openoffice.org [Accessed 24 August 2009]

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http://elearningcurve.blogspot.com/2009/10/open-source-e-learning-developm

First today, a preamble, in which I shall use the word “beauty.”

I’ve had some queries about my forthcoming article, wherein I will revisit themes I addressed in my 2008 post Recession and the challenge to e-learning. I’m still researching this topic: there are many sources to reference and data to be interpreted – and of course, the socio-economic landscape is still changing apace.

I am also re-reading Joseph Conrad’s Typhoon, a short story about the travails of Captain McWhirr and the steamer Nan-Shan, as I attempt to find a suitable context for the piece. You don’t know Conrad’s work, you say? of course you do; Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam epic Apocalypse Now was based on Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness.

I’m not going to discuss this further here, except to express how extraordinary I think it is that a Polish man who did not speak English fluently until he was in his twenties became one of the 20th Century’s master prose stylists and novelist in English - which was essentially his second language - while most of us native speakers incompetently attempt to turn words into something meaningful, with utility, if not beauty.

Now read on…

The second open environment authoring tool highlighted in this series is an image editing application.

The GNU Image Manipulation Program, or GIMP, is an open source graphics editor that is available for Linux, Windows, and OS X. It is a freely-distributed raster graphics editor used to process digital graphics and photographs. GIMP is primarily used for photo manipulation, including sizing, editing, and cropping images, combining multiple images, and converting between different image formats. GIMP can also be used to create basic animated GIFs.

According to GIMP.org,

[GIMP] has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.

GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

Typical uses include:

• creating graphics and logos
• resizing and cropping photos
• color management
• combining multiple images
• removing unwanted image features
• converting between different image formats

GIMP can also be used to create simple animated GIF images. It is often used as a “software replacement” (Paul, 2008) for Adobe Photoshop.

The application has read/write support for popular image formats such as BMP, JPEG, PNG, GIF and TIFF, as well as the proprietary file formats of several other applications such as Autodesk *.flic animations, Paintshop Pro images and Adobe Photoshop Documents. Other formats with read/write support include PostScript documents. GIMP can also read and write path information from SVG files. GIMP can also read/write ICO Windows icon files. Its native format is XCF.

Figure 1. A screenshot of the GIMP UI

GIMP can also import Adobe PDF documents and the raw image formats used by many digital cameras. However, it can’t save to these formats; rather files must be exported to one of the image file types it does support.

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References:

GNU Image Manipulation Program Home Page: http://www.gimp.org/

Paul, R. (2008). GIMP 2.6 released, one step closer to taking on Photoshop. Ars Technica. [Internet] Available from: http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2008/10/gimp-2-6-released-one-step-closer-to-taking-on-photoshop.ars. Accessed 2nd July 2009.

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http://elearningcurve.blogspot.com/2009/10/open-environment-e-learning-doc

I received an unexpected but nonetheless very welcome comment on yesterday's blog post from Brent Schlenker. In his remarks, Brent reinforced my own view about the viability of open source-based e-learning development; he said that

I truly do believe that there are enough OpenSource tools out there that we can be creating completely opensource learning solutions/environments. Once people get past their initial fears and the stigma, the Open Source learning development community will grow exponentially.

...thanks for keeping the Open Source movement alive in eLearning.

Thanks Brent!

Now, on with the show.

As discussed in a previous post, we can say that there are certain unresolved philosophical matters surrounding the notion of open environments; I will return to these presently. However, the gratis/libre debate should not preclude you from taking advantage of the range of 'open' and 'free' tools to develop an effective e-learning solution.

As a reminder, here are the categories of tools I recommend to implement this open development environment:

• Content Creation Tools
• Media Creation and Integration: OSS Tools
• Media Creation and Integration: Proprietary Tools
• Content Delivery Platform
• Optional Proprietary Tools

Click here for a full list of the applications and utilities.

While the tools themselves are a disparate group, their common characteristic is that they are XML-based. This, in theory at least, means that either the applications or their outputs are interoperable, and this creates the foundation for the "openness" that we seek.

Now read on...

Over the next few days, I will describe in detail the 'toolkit' used in this e-learning content development environment, before discussing pedagogical approaches and implementation processes. As the focus here is on developing e-learning in a specific environment, I am making the assumption that the learning content has already been developed, as learning content development and instructional design per se is not the topic being investigated. Click here to find out more about instructional design for e-learning.

The Powerhouse: DocBook and XXE

DocBook is a semantic markup language for technical documentation. While it was originally created for the purpose of writing technical documents for computer hardware and software, its inherent flexibility led to it being used authoring a broad range of documentation, including e-learning. Unlike proprietary word processors, DocBook documents do not describe what their contents "look like," but rather the meaning of those contents. For example, rather than explaining how an e-learning lesson page might be visually formatted, DocBook simply says that it is a page. An external processing tool or application is required to determine where the lesson page should go, and what it should look like – and to decide whether or not it should be included in the final output at all.

Because DocBook is XML-based, content can be authored and edited with any text editor.

XMLmind XML Editor (XXE) allows content creators to edit large, complex, modular, XML documents. In one sense, it is the friendly face of my open authoring environment. XXE is a ‘nearly’ WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor that uses CSS to control the layout and style of DocBook XML (or XHTML) content. It successfully hides the complexities of XML markup from the author, so that the focus can be on the words, rather than the code.

In XXE, the document author does not see the DocBook XML tags; rather, XXE interprets the tags, and the application UI displays the content in the familiar look, feel, and style of a word processor interface (see Figure 1).

Figure 1 Screenshot of XMLmind XML Editor

Using XXE, the content author creates and edits content in the structured XML document by adding elements, setting attributes, selecting, cutting, pasting, and so on, and the editor automatically applies the appropriate styles.

The style is an interpretation of the DocBook DTD to simplify identification of the formatting elements without the need to understand all the XML tags.

Note, however that these styles are not linked to how the content is rendered. The final look and feel of the document is controlled by CSS style sheets.

XXE supports the following features:

• Converts to XSLT-FO format then to PDF format
• Converts to HTML format
• Produces metadata files to support SCORM
• Checks spelling
• Checks that a document conforms to the DTD
• Checks that a document conforms to relevant documentation conventions
• Documents can be rendered as a number of separate files
• Controls document look and feel

Transformations (outputting content to a commonly-used delivery format) are applied to the XXE-authored XML using Formatting Objects Processor. Formatting Objects Processor (FOP) is driven by XSL Formatting Objects (XSL-FO). A Java application reads a formatting object (FO) tree and renders the resulting pages to a specified output.

Currently supported output formats include:

• Portable Document Format (PDF)
• Printer Command Language (PCL)
• PostScript (PS)
• Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)
• eXtensible Markup Language XML (area tree representation)
• Print
• Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT)
• MapInfo Interchange Format (MIF)
• Text File (TXT)

The primary output target is PDF (see Figure 2).

Figure 2 Screenshot of PDF file generated from XXE via XSL-FO

Other outputs include HTML pages (see Figure 3) and help files.

Figure 3 Screenshot of HTML file generated from XXE via XSL-FO

These two outputs were generated from a command-line FO, because I’m a bit of a purist about this stuff, though I’m not a coder, so it must be straight-forward and usable!

Depending upon the level of expertise in your organization, you may decide to use a GUI shell to enable content authors to generate their outputs.

Figure 4 Screenshot of XSL-FO command line interface in Windows

More…

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Resources:

DocBook.org: http://www.docbook.org/

XMLMind XML Editor: http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/

HyperWrite Ltd. (2006) Review of XMLmind XML Editor v3.0. [Internet] Available from: http://www.hyperwrite.com/Articles/showarticle.aspx?id=63 Retrieved 24th September 2009

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