I highly recommend you take a moment to watch this great presentation from Cathy Moore.

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For many of us, it is no longer something that we “turn on” when we are looking for a specific answer or experience . . . but rather something that is “always on”.

Our ideas, assets and creations are stored in various place on the web, most of our communication and information is web-based, so why aren’t we using a presentation medium that is tightly integrated with the web?

I mean . . . have you ever tried to link to a web page from a PowerPoint presentation and back again without it disrupting the presentation!?!?

Then I discovered how easy it is to create a media RSS feed that can be displayed as a Cooliris Wall!

If you haven’t come across it before; Cooliris is a browser plugin that will “transforms your browser into a lightning fast, cinematic way to enjoy photos and videos from the Web or your desktop.”

This is an ideal alternative to more ‘traditional’ presentations, as you can simply export your PowerPoint or Keynote slides as images and display these on a Cooliris wall, interspersed with other images and movie files.

Now enough theory . . . if you are interested click on the image below to go to the launch page for this demonstration / tutorial.

Is this something that you would use?

Would love to hear your thoughts. Click here to go to the comments.

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After years of requests from passionate Mac & Captivate users, Adobe have made it known that they are working on Captivate for Mac!

I noticed this tweet from RJ Jacquez who is the Senior Product Evangelist at Adobe yesterday and it looks like the Mac version of Captivate will enter beta testing in a few months time.

This is a great step for Adobe, however it looks like TechSmith may win a few hearts before then with their release of Camtasia for Mac (they are beta testing as we speak.)

I use Captivate CS4 on my Macbook through Fusion, however the problem with this approach is that I can only record what is happening in the Windows session.  For recording Mac applications I have been using ScreenFlow which is a very impressive program however it not really comparable to Captivate or Camtasia.

My hope . . . that Captivate for Mac .cp files will be 100% compatible with the Windows version of Captivate CS4.

What features do you hope Captivate for Mac includes?

What do you think the work flow will be like?

Thanks for listening Adobe.

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Enter Xtranormal, the “If you can type you can make movies” people.

xtranormal is different. They are easy to use.

Seriously, check it out.

A demonstration of how to create movies in xtranormal:

The finished product:

As far as customer service goes, xtranormal rock.  Not only does @xtranormal provide real time updates on any site developments or hiccups, they are also fantastic to deal with via their contact form.

So, xtranormal is a great tool to have in the toolkit. It is part of the puzzle for the branching scenario idea discussed at the beginning of this post . . . next time I have a spare hour or two  </laugh> I will show how to bring it all together in Adobe Captivate CS4 (yes, on a Mac!).

If you have any suggestions on the topic or storyline for this presentation then leave a note in the comments.

Then go and see the guru of branching scenarios, Tom @ The Rapid E-Learning Blog.

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Michael Hanley recently wrote on The E-Learning Curve Blog about Macintosh Rapid E-Learning Authoring Software.  In his post Michael shares his thoughts on running Captivate on a Mac using a Virtual Windows installation:

There are a number of choices. First, you could run the programs you’re evaluating (TechSmith Camtasia or Adobe Captivate) on a Mac with Windows / Boot Camp, but my view would be given the processing resources needed to generate content in a native Windows environment, running them via a virtual machine would be to enter a world of pain I’m not prepared to contemplate: there are too many links in the chain; it’s too risky. Murphy’s Law says that on a death march project with a deadline looming, the the authoring environment would not be up to the task, regardless of how well it behaved prior to to that.

I played around with a couple of native Mac options for screencasting (ScreenFlow & Jing, which are both reviewed in Michael’s article) however I quickly decided that while both applications were good, and each had strong points (e.g. ScreenFlow’s effects or Jing’s integrations with ScreenCast.com) – at the end of the day I can’t live without Captivate.

I had the foresight to order a copy of VMware Fusion when I bought my Macbook, so on day three of my Mac ownership I installed a trial of Windows Vista through Fusion and tried to use that virtual machine to run Captivate.  It failed miserably.  I was really dissapointed at how slowly programs loaded, files were saved and previews generated.  It also caused issues with the performance of OSX, especially when using Spaces.  My suspicion was that these performance issues were related to how much memory Vista uses, and the fact that I was only allowing Vista to access 1GB of RAM.

I quickly uninstalled the Vista installation, the whole experiment taking me just over an hour.

I then installed XP SP2.  One of the great features of Fusion is that it installs all of the necessary drivers so when Windows is up and running you don’t need to spend hours getting the internet working, the sound card configured etc.  You can also decided at the press of a button which devices Windows has access too, blocking or allowing access to all inbuilt and peripheral devices (bluetooth, external hard drive etc.)

XP ran like a dream, like I expected it should given the technology in this laptop.  I installed Adobe Captivate CS4 and started on a major recording project for work.

I ran Captivate alongside native Mac applications for four days while I recorded demonstrations on how to use a web application.  I found that while there where benefits for using Fusions Unity view (such as copy and paste between operating systems) that XP ran a little smoother when it was working in full screen.

One of the downsides of Captivate is that it only records within the Windows environment.  To give you an idea of how quickly Captivate CS4 works in a Virtual Windows environment, I have recorded the following movie using ScreenFlow:

One thing that I tried to demonstrate in that video is how easy it is to share files between the operating systems.  Simply drag them into a shared folder and they can be opened and edited in either XP or OSX.

The other feature that I find reassuring is the ability to take ‘Snapshots’ of your virtual operating system at any time (it takes about 30 seconds).  This means that if you ever have a deadline looming and your virtual environment crashes (or gets a virus) then you can rollback to a known good version and continue working.  This ‘rollback’ takes a couple of minutes, all of your original files will be intact (because they are stored outside of the virtual machine), it is certainly pain-free when compared to restoring a windows PC from scratch.

While using Captivate in a virtual environment is workable, it would obviously be preferable to have a native Mac version to use.  Please let Adobe know how important it is to you that they develop Captivate for Mac.

Do you develop eLearning on a Mac?

What software do you use?

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David discusses a range of browser options and share with us:

My primary reason for sticking with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer all these years was simply that I could depend on it to render web pages correctly. Each time I flirted with alternatives, I’d run home to IE as soon as I noticed missing objects and mangled layouts.

I did the same a year or so again – closed down firefox and went back to Internet Explorer for all of those webpages that were ‘IE only’.

Then a friend told me about the a firefox add-on called “IE tab” that allows you to open a virtual IE tab within firefox.  It works so simply . . .

Once installed a little firefox symbol will be shown at the bottom of your firefox window: .  This allows you to change what engine you are using to render a webpage, click on it and the page will reload in Internet Explorer .  You can also teach IE tab which pages are best displayed in Internet Explorer so whenever you visit those websites they will automatically be opened in a IE tab.

I then got thinking about some of the other wonderful firefox add-ons that improve my browsing experience and productivity and wanted to share these with you.

ColorZilla:  ‘Advanced Eyedropper, ColorPicker, Page Zoomer and other colorful goodies’ – wonderful  to quickly grab the colors from client logos/materials and use the same color scheme in development.

Delicious Bookmarks:  ‘The official Firefox add-on for Delicious, the world’s leading social bookmarking service’.  The best delicious add-on I have tried!  You can open all of your delicious bookmarks in a sidebar at the press of a button (or keyboard combination).

Download Statusbar: ‘View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar – without the download window getting in the way of your web browsing. ‘

Faviconize Tab: This tool really frees up your browsing by allow you to reduce the size of tabs that you use often (e.g. gmail, twitter, delicious, facebook etc.) to just the ‘favicon’.

Google Gears: Google Gears ‘enables more powerful web applications’, it allows supported web based applications to run offline and heaps of other geeky things that you can read about here.

Google Reader Watcher: Integrates Google Reader into firefox by adding a little notification at the bottom of your browser showing how many new items you have .

NetTabURL: Gives you the ability to specify what page to open when you open a new tab.  I have this set as my delicious bookmarks.

Open Image in New Tab:  ‘Adds right-click context menu item for opening images in new tabs.’

PageStyle2Tab: Helps you quickly identify a tab as it sets the ‘current page style to the tab’.

Save Session:  This great add-on means that you can press the save session and exit button when closing firefox.  The next time you open firefox all of your tabs will be restored.

Undo Closed Tabs Button:  Allows you to reopen any closed tabs.  This has saved me a million times!

I have also tried lots of other add-ons . . .

When installing a new add-on the focus needs to be on answering the question “how will this improve my browsing experience?”.

Because if it doesn’t . . . uninstall it!

What are your favorite add-ons?

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TwitDir (a twitter directory) shows more than three million people are communicating in this way.

The exchange is different to normal conversation, it results in sharing of resources, help with fleshing out ideas, stories are told, people are inspired, problems are solved, feedback is gained and collaboration occurs.

The trick is to know who to follow and how to manage the flood of information; as well as being prepared for the fact that you may get more insight into the person that you are following than you have had previously.

I originally started using twitter a few months ago but was rather disappointed about the whole experiment because I didn’t know anyone else who used it.

This changed when I came across Jane Hart’s Directory of Learning Professionals on Twitter.  Suddenly I realized that I would get the most out of this tool by connecting with others who worked in same field as me.  There are over 400 entries on this list so I just went through and picked out professionals whose work I already followed and others whose descriptions inspired me.

Not long after I started using twitter a new site was launched which has directories for tweeters in all sorts of industries.  JustTweetIt’s Education directory has links for over a hundred people that you could follow and you can easily add yourself to this directory so others can follow your updates.

Now I have a stream of people who I follow.

This means that whenever I choose to tune in to twitter I have the chance to talk about eLearning, communication, design and web 2.0+.  To share articles, pictures, videos and blog posts.  To collaborate, promote, assist and inspire – it is the perfect tool to connect with others who have similar interests.

The 140 character limit really encourages you to be precise about what you are saying, something I really benefit from as I tend to be a bit wordy.

Being able to quickly and easily provide an update on what you are doing and to get feedback from others results in a better work flow and reduces the amount of time it takes to share an idea.

Just now I have twittered the following:

Within 5 minutes I have a number of responses suggesting that what is most important in a new model of communication is the “ability to convey what you want people to know” (@mayhemstudios) and “the message itself, by far” (@alexhosterman).

By considering the way that we communicate and share our lives with others, we have an opportunity to change the way that we work together in the future.

For those of you who are new to the world of Twitter, I suggest you check out Twitter in Plain English Video by CommonCraft below:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o&hl=en&fs=1]

I am considering how twitter could be used in business to improve communication and how it could be integrated into the eLearning experience.

I will post more on these topics another day, but for now I leave you with this question . . .

How do you see us communicating in the future?

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Forms allow you to obtain and organize relevant data easily.

They can improve productivity and data integrity as well as providing a great way of getting feedback from trainees and students.

Setting up a form is easy and I suggest that you create one while reading this post (all the links will open in new tabs/windows in your browser).

• Go to the Google Docs site and login/register
• Then create a new form as shown below

• You can then enter the title of the form and any instructions you wish

• Then start on your first question

• You will notice that a ‘Name’ field is added by default
• Add your question title and choose the question type
• For this example I will use a Scale question (think Likert)
• Then fill in the fields and your first question is done!

• There is big Add Question button at the top of the page that you can use to add more questions
• If you want to change the order of the questions simply drag and drop!
• You can preview, edit or delete individual questions
• Once you have finished writing the questions, hit the link to the spreadsheet at the bottom of the page

• This is the link to your form, you can also email the form or embed it in your own webpage

• I strongly suggest editing the confirmation message (i.e. the page that appears after a form has been submitted) to personalize the appearance of your form
• Once a form is complete all the responses are added into a Google Spreadsheet, which can then be exported to a variety of formats (.csv, .xls, .pdf etc)

A couple of other things to note:

• People completing the form do not need to have a Google account or to register for one to complete the form that you create
• Make sure that you understand the level of security of these forms before using them to collect confidential information

These forms can be used to:

• Get feedback from trainees, students etc.
• As a way of brainstorming ideas (especially before a meeting as it gets everyone thinking about what will be discussed)
• To collect information, track expenses, get course feedback etc

Please leave a comment letting others know how you are going to use this knowledge. In what ways can you use forms to improve you productivity?

Oh yeah, the form that was created while this post was being prepared is located here and if you would like to save a copy of these steps please download this PDF file.

Finally, thanks @beckcollect for letting me know this functionality existed

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It feels good to have made this decision.

It feels right.

Liz Strauss:
I took my brave and my vulnerable out of their separate jars.
They’re not broken anymore. In that way, neither am I

For a long time I deliberately didn’t have an online presence.  This decision, to be an online ’spectator’ was mainly because I felt vulnerable exposing myself to the online community.

I have been able to ‘take my vulnerable’ out of its separate jar thanks to the encouragement that I have received from friends and colleagues in continuing with my blog.  It is funny, while I have been working in training & eLearning as well as studying related areas for many years – it wasn’t until I started using Twitter that I developed a true understanding of what it meant to be part of an online community.

If you are interested in finding like minded professionals in twitter make sure you check out the Directory of Learning Professionals and Just Tweet It’s Education Directory.

One of the hardest decisions to make at this point is answering the question:

“What will you actually be doing on your website?”

This question has many answers, yet none of them capture the essence of what my new website www.matthewbibby.com will be about.

Some of the possible responses include:

• Showcasing eLearning development skills & resources
• Providing technological advice on the use of web 2.0 applications in business
• Discussing the use of new technology in eLearning development
• Developing eLearning material showcasing how to use web 2.0 applications to increase productivity
• Gathering material for use in online course creation
• A platform from which to offer informational products and my freelance services

I don’t know where this project will take us . . . so as an early visitor to my blog I would like to give you the opportunity to play a part in shaping the future of this website.  All you need to do is complete a 30 second, anonymous survey.

Don’t worry, no registration is required, just click here and the survey will open in a new window.

There will be many exciting developments on this site over the next few months so make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed so you don’t miss anything!

Thanks!

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