Flash and the iPad

Many of our clients currently and will continue to rely on Flash, and already have a library of projects developed in Flash. Flash is still one of the top choices for developing more engaging and entertaining user experiences. With mobile devices becoming mainstream, some of the people we work with ask what they can do to continue their educational content on Android and iOS (such as the iPad or iPhone) based devices. With Android supporting Flash fairly well, we will focus this article on the iPad and iPhone.

It is well known that an iPad or iPhone does not support Flash within the web browser and this raises a lot of questions relating to how mobile users can view this content. This is where Adobe AIR comes in. AIR can be used to output Flash content into an app that can be downloaded or purchased through the Apple App store or an Enterprise account. Some conversion may be needed if your course was created using an older version of Flash or if the navigation or interaction points were better suited for a mouse then a user’s touch, but once this is complete, many Flash based projects can be turned into iPad apps. This means that you may be able to take some of your Flash based applications, even those that might need to connect to the internet or database, and convert them into something a learner or sales rep can download to their device, just as they would download any other app. AIR can also output Android apps, although most Flash content will display on an Android device. Although Flash is here to stay for years to come, and continues to run strong on PCs, Macs, and many current mobile devices, you may still have a wealth of knowledge that can be converted into something that can reach out to even more of your users.

Lectora - A Quick Look and a Few Tricks

Lectora is an eLearning authoring tool that produces courses in web, SCORM, and AICC formats. Lectora, like its Articulate and Captivate counterparts, does a great job giving you a blank canvas to populate with your content. While there is a slight learning curve to development, anyone who is familiar with PowerPoint would feel comfortable creating pages (or Titles as they are called in Lectora), and publishing to SCORM, or AICC compliant formats.

Lectora Creates Websites
eLearning does not require SCORM/AICC compliancy to work with an LMS or help educate. Sometimes you need to present your content as a simple website. Lectora is different than Articulate and Captivate in that it creates what most people would consider a standard website, in that it is HTML based, rather than Flash based. In fact, you can use Lectora as a website creator to create a website with a menu, pages, and even some form capabilities. When you publish a Lectora file in a simple web format, it creates all the HTML, CSS, and Javascript - all the goodies that make a website work under the hood. While this can be helpful bringing your course to your website, be aware that editing the code itself is not as easy.

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Happy Holidays and New Year From Illumen!

Have a wonderful non-working, food eating, and adventurous holiday and new year!

eLearning & The Human Touch

Whenever we find ourselves headed to a live event, we are subconsciously prepared to see teachers, training facilitators, and/or presenters expressing information. When we go online to learn, we are subconsciously prepared for far less human interaction; usually none at all. The evolution of eLearning is only now providing easier ways of bringing what we expect at live events, online. This evolution brings an enrichment of video, motion, imagery, and engaging content delivery tools, making the human touch no longer a thing out on the horizon. Providing the human touch to our projects can be easy (and fairly inexpensive) to implement. The human touch provides:

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Getting the Right Touch Screen for the Job

When your project requires a touch screen, getting what you need is kind of a big deal. To do this you need to understand your application, the environment the screen will be placed into, and the audience. With the the apple iOS for iphones and iPads, Android from Google, and Microsoft’s new Windows 7 Phone based devices, the media is all a stir about multi-touch based screens. Multi-touch is the ability to touch the screen in more than one place and have both points recognized as an interaction at the same time. This sure does come in handy if you are going to resize a photo by putting two fingers on screen and bringing them towards or away from each other, but, to be honest, not always needed for most kiosk based applications. As prices for all devices are dropping, you still shouldn’t pay for something you don’t need. If your application requires a simple touch of a button or sliding of a scroll bar, single-touch might be right up your alley.

Is your device going to be used in an industry, such as medical, that might require latex gloves to be worn? Perhaps cleaning fluids like water and soap are going to be making an appearance on the hand? You might need to check out a resistive touchscreen over a capacitive touchscreen. Capacitive touchscreens are seen with your iPhone or iPad. Notice that you can’t touch the device with any object and hope for recognition. Resistive touchscreens recognize a press between two plates and therefor recognize any object that can put force on the screen. This is ideal for glove wearers or if you need to cover the device with a clear material to protect it from the elements. There are many other types of screens as well and there is a lot of great information online about them.

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5 Tricks to Developing Better eLearning Experiences

1. Be Your Student
Try viewing your course as your student would. Look at the user interface (design and navigation). Do you know what section you are in? Do you know how many sections there are? Do you know how to review previous content? Here is a big one — Does your student know their goals and objectives for the course or the section they are in? Do they know why they are even there? Look at the content. Is it too high level? Where are the basics? What questions does the content raise? Let the questions flow and try and answer them all.

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6 Ways to Extend User Experiences Through Mobile Devices

More people are using mobile devices to handle their everyday computer tasks. Given three minutes and my iPhone, I can check my work and personal emails, my schedule, the news, the weather, and sometimes even get in a game of Tetris. It, like so many mobile devices, is usable, engaging, efficient, informative, and scalable. This mobile convenience should carry through training and marketing solutions as well. Unfortunately, often due to certain limitations of each mobile device and their short shelf life, there is often not a credible mobile counterpart to most training applications. To bridge the gaps, here are 6 ways to extend the user experience of your web or CD-ROM based app through mobile devices.

1. Limit Your Limitations
   It is often said that the difficulty in developing mobile experiences is that there are too many custom devices, all with unique technologies that need unique solutions, and therefore too many limitations to justify the development price. In reality, you can often find that two or three devices, or types of devices, make up a majority of what your audience uses. This may not always be the case, but survey your audience, you may find out that that most use iPhones and Blackberries, or maybe they tend to use more generalized cell phones. There is nothing wrong with developing towards a couple specific types of devices if it makes sense. By understanding what devices are typically used by your audience, you can limit the limitations, save time and money.
   


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Illumen at ASTD St. Louis 2010

Dave Denz will be speaking at the upcoming ASTD (American Society for Training & Development) 2010 Regional Conference & Exposition (December 8, 2010 7:30 a.m - 5:00 p.m.). Dave will be presenting and have a workshop titled Parallel and Concurrent Learning.

Illumen at the Chicago eLearning & Technology Showcase

Illumen was thrilled to be back the the third annual Chicago eLearning & Technology Showcase. We both sponsored and presented this year, which gave us the opportunity to meet some great people. David Denz presented Blending Creativity and Technology to Optimize eLearning Delivery to a packed room. The summary for Dave’s presentation breaks down like this:

Learners are individuals with vastly different learning styles, preferences, and conditions. Through a careful blend of purposeful imagination and technology, educators can use e-learning to allow learners to customize their learning experience and optimize knowledge transfer. At the start of this session, participants will take a survey to identify their learning styles and preferences. Then Dave will use the survey results and interactive demonstrations to show how different learning styles manifest themselves in online learning. Dave will also explain which delivery approaches support which learning styles and how multiple delivery approaches can be incorporated into e-courses.

At the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Explain how several creative approaches support different learning styles and how to efficiently and effectively build e-courses that incorporate multiple approaches
• Build a framework for developing and/or evaluating creative e-learning delivery concepts

Dave also provided a short survey which provided a quick glance at how different people there may learn differently.

We also had a great time at the Illumen booth and had many brilliant people wander by. It was great connecting with friends and meeting others in the business.

You can find out more about the Chicago eLearning & Technology Showcase by visiting their website, www.chicagoelearningshowcase.com.

Celebrate the emergence of Chicago as a world-class center for elearning. Join hosts CCASTD, CISPI, STC Chicago, and Roosevelt University at the Chicago eLearning & Technology Showcase on August 11 for a cutting-edge exploration of new media and interactive elearning tools.

Technology Innovation Center makes Forbes Top 10

Illumen is very happy to hear that the Technology Innovation Center has been selected by Forbes to be on their list of Top 10 Technology Incubators That Are Changing The World.

Illumen has worked with the Technology Innovation Center for many years on brand, marketing, and the full development of their website.