Against all Odds

I am not sure I understand any of the logic but despite claiming the Producer would not be available for PowerPoint 2007 ever, Microsoft have announced a beta for an updated Producer.

Maybe some powerful customer built a fire under them, maybe somebody won an internal battle. Who knows? I suspect many of the Producer users (after enduring more than a year of Microsoft not doing anything visible) have moved to Articulate, Acrobat Breeze or some other similar tool.

The Theory and Practice of Online Learning

From Athabasca University (Alberta University that is a specialist in distance learning) - a comprehensive downloadable ebook "The Theory and Practice of Online Learning".

Social Networks/Social Media

I have been spending a fair amount of time lately using various online Social Network tools (Twitter, Pownce - the top two microblogging sites, Facebook and Flickr - a social oriented photo site) and have been contemplating how they or sites like them could fit into the corporate training scene.

From a personal point of view I like Twitter (and to a lesser extent Pownce -- a nicer implementation of microblogging but with fewer users) much better than Facebook -- whose "application" addons are mostly childish but I can see where something like Facebook (maybe not Facebook itself) would function much easier in the corporate milieu -- it could be a sort of corporate portal site.

In terms of capturing and distributing Vital Knowledge within an organization though I am not sure about any of them. Potential but translating that to reality? They all require enthusiastic users across the board (or at least a seed of enthusiastic users). I am not sure how you would initiate that within an organization. It would require for most organizations a seachange of corporate culture -- and selling that or exciting such a change is akin to "herding cats".

Blackboard vs. Desire2Learn

In the lawsuit going on for a number of years Desire2Learn is ruled to have tread on Blackboard's patent and ordered to pay 3.1 million dollars and recently ordered not to sell their product in the United States.

In a more recent ruling the Patent Office is proposing to invalidate all of Blackboard's patents in this area.

Stay tuned... this is not over yet.

Toolbook 9.5 for the Mac/Iphone

SumTotal Systems has announced that Toolbook 9.5 will produce e-Learning for the Safari browser and the Iphone/Ipod.

I am not totally sure what this means -- will audio/video content be supported? Will AICC, SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 packages be created? The initial information does not make it obvious. I am guessing "no" to the first question, "yes" to the second.

I will certainly be watching the activity.

Wildform Flair

I downloaded the demo version of Wildform Flair to have a look. I like Articulate a lot but am frustrated by its inability (for video) or clumsiness (audio) in handing a prerecorded audio or audio/video track as the time line.

What would be a straightforward production of a prerecorded presentation in Producer becomes a massive job in Articulate.

Toolbook V9.01

The long awaited update to Toolbook V9 is finally released.  It seems to have fixed the problems that were show stoppers for me before (and were in my mind potential lurking disasters) but has uncovered a number of new problems (at least for me). I may be able to work around those though.

Toolbook version history

I have a long history using Toolbook (since V1.53 in the early 90's). Asymetrix, Click2Learn, SumTotal Systems (the various incarnations of corporate custodians) during that time have never subscribed to the "under promise, over deliver" adage when it comes to release dates.

In fact it seems they have another mantra -- "sort of or never promise, under deliver":

• they never commit to delivery dates of anything though broad hints in various forums are made -- but never delivered upon (I am sure at some point in my 15 + year history they did make a date but none within recent memory)
• management seems to have always gone by the slogan -- "we are not going to communicate with you our loyal customers regarding any delivery times -- only when we are ready to deliver will we deign to inform you". This seems to have been a constant throughout various management regimes so it seems not one individual is responsible but the whole corporate DNA

The latest backhanded "promise" - to provide a downloadable update to Toolbook 9 before Christmas. Not delivered upon.

In this age of more corporate transparency, SumTotal has failed miserably.

What I expect them to do:

• make a public commitment on delivery dates
• deliver to that date (or keep customers intimately involved in reasons why the date is not being met)