Now You Know Blog - LCMS features

Show, don’t tell! Using video in your e-learning courses

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:29:00 -0400

Say the word video at the start of an e-learning project, and many of us will enthusiastically call out, "Lights, Camera, Action!" And then we'll pause, as we start thinking of the Hollywood budgets often required for projects using video. But the success of YouTube should give us all inspiration that creativity can count for more than budget when it comes to adding video to a learning experience. The Authoring Tool in our dominKnow LCMS includes a video capture feature that allows video to be recorded from a web cam directly to a page in your e-learning course. The first idea that most people think of when they discover this feature is that it's a quick and easy way to record a talking head video clip, like an introduction to a topic or a welcome greeting at the start of a course. But flex your creative muscles a little further, and you'll see there are far more engaging learning experiences that can be created with this tool. Here's an example. Last week I was asked by a client to show them what a video-capture screen can look like in the LCMS. I didn't have an example readily at hand, so I quickly put one together. Instead of just recording myself doing an introduction, though, I took a few minutes and developed a bit of a back story to use as part of a scenario, in this case a phone sales call. In the example, the learner watches the video to hear and see my responses to the conversation so far, and then makes a decision on what action to take next. Creating the page only took about 10 minutes, including recording time. Here's a screen cap (and yes, that's my mug in the video). An approach like this takes advantage of video's ability to help us tell a story, and stories can bring powerful engagement advantages to the learning experience. And almost as importantly, it doesn't take a Hollywood budget to carry out. In fact, the nature of the scenario even turned the limited quality of my computer's mic into a contextually-relevant production feature for this clip. Since the scenario is based around a phone sales call, no one will expect big budget editing or foley effects in the soundtrack. A little mic and background noise is just what you'd expect in a phone call. There are many other inexpensive ways to bring video into your next e-learning project. Try sending your SMEs out with video cameras to record clips that explain important topics or demonstrate critical skills. Hey, the budget could be very tight on this, since so many of us now carry a video recorder -- also known as a cell phone -- in our pocket every day. Your SMEs won't likely be expert videographers or even professional actors or voice-over talents. But their in-depth knowledge of the topic or task and the personal experience they speak from can give the video clips an authenticity no actor could ever reach, either. And authenticity is another great way to create engagement in a learning experience. You'll be surprised at how much usable video you get in a hurry, and if anything needs to be reshot, you'll already have a working prototype of it for use during storyboarding. What's the lesson here? Don't let your ears hear "video" and your mind automatically think "Hollywood budget". Daring to think differently can hep take your next e-learning course to a new level of learning engagement -- and that really is the goal, after all. Chris Van Wingerden is Vice President Learning Solutions at dominKnow Learning Systems.

dominKnow LCMS workgroup Edition launched at combined IFTDO World Conference and CSTD Conference

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:27:00 -0400

Got plans to be in Toronto this week? Be sure to check out the International Federation of Training and Development Organisations (IFTDO) World Conference being held in conjunction with this year's Canadian Society for Training and Development (CSTD) annual conference, where dominKnow is releasing the workGroup Edition of our dominKnow Learning Content Management System (LCMS). The dominKnow team is at booth 214 Tuesday evening, Oct. 20 and Wednesday Oct. 21 and Thursday Oct. 22 – so if you're in the neighbourhood, feel free to drop by! We'll be more than happy to give you a tour of the workGroup Edition, which we're pretty excited about. The workGroup Edition gives teams of up to five e-leaning authors the full feature set of our integrated Authoring Tool environment, plus all the benefits of working together using the LCMS's collaboration tools like our Design Notes feature, internal communication and RSS feeds to keep track of what's going on in your course projects at any time. It's SCORM-compliant so you can plug your completed courses into any third-party LMS without hassle. Learning Content Management Systems have traditionally been seen as a tool for large enterprises, but many smaller organizations face the same issues of rapid content development, the need to share media assets like images and video files, and the critical requirement of having many people work together, from instructional designers to graphic artists to subject matter experts and reviewers. The dominKnow LCMS workgroup Edition is a hosted approach to helping smaller organizations create e-learning. The dominKnow LCMS WorkGroup Edition allows teams to:
• Work together and collaborate within a single development environment
• Rapidly create online courses with pre-and post-testing
• Incorporate audio, video and animations to enrich the learning experience
• Share images and multimedia assets from a single, tracked asset library
• Quickly and easily update content as learning requirements change
Can't make it to the IFTDO and CSTD conference? Here's a quick way to learn more about the dominKnow LCMS workGroup Edition. Hope to see you in Toronto! Chris Van Wingerden is Vice President Learning Solutions at dominKnow Learning Systems.

Re-use in the Real World: The Evolution of SPI's Learning Content Approach

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:08:00 -0400

Last Friday I attended a great webinar on re-use and the dominKnow Learning Content Management System (LCMS) hosted by our partners at GeoLearning. The hour-long session was presented by Rick Judson of Sales Performance International (SPI) and GeoLearning's Dr. Paul Schneider. SPI is a dominKnow LCMS client through our partnership with GeoLearning. If you've ever heard of the phrase "Solution Selling®" then you are aware of the impact SPI has had on the world of sales. Solution Selling is SPI's trademarked methodology for approaching sales from a customer-centered perspective, and innumerable organizations use this approach throughout the world. It is the core of Microsoft's internal and partner sales training approach, for example. SPI offers training on the Solution Selling methodology, including online training created using the dominKnow LCMS. Last Friday's webinar offered a look at how SPI's use of the dominKnow LCMS and its content management and re-use options has evolved in the past three or so years. Evolved is the key - SPI's Rick Judson explained that SPI is currently in its third phase of re-use, and is already looking forward to evolving again. SPI started out initially just using the LCMS as a course structuring system, working with a third-party partner to create Flash movies as pages uploaded into the LCMS. This approach, Rick explained, was one of expedience - SPI needed to get new courses made and simply altered an approach that it already had in place in order to meet initial timelines. These courses could be re-used for various audiences quite quickly, and tweaks and changes could be made by altering the Flash movies and updating them in the LCMS. SPI's next leap in re-use came with the move to using the LCMS's integrated authoring tool. By moving to the authoring tool, SPI was able to make more granular re-use of page assets such as images or media files. Rather than having to update a graphic in several different Flash movies then update the files in the LCMS, graphic updates could be updated once in the LCMS's asset manager and then shared by all pages using the image, for example. The next evolutionary step, Rick explained, was to move to the re-use of Learning Objects within the LCMS. The dominKnow LCMS allows the creation of complete, stand-alone instructional packages that address specific topics, tasks or enabling objectives to support the overall learning objectives in a course. These packages include knowledge presentation pages, review exercises and assessment questions. Here's a visual that explains how a Learning Object is constructed in the dominKnow LCMS. Rick noted that making this evolutionary step has offered several advantages to SPI, such as speeding up development, reducing errors and improving control over content. Along with this step, SPI has also taken advantage of the LCMS's translation support features to create versions of its online courses for other languages. Rick said that SPI's next evolution will be to make a more concerted effort to work with re-usable templates in the LCMS's integrated Authoring Tool. The webinar was a great glimpse into how a client is successfully taking advantage of re-use in many forms, all empowered by the LCMS, and we definitely appreciated Rick's time and energy. If you are interested in learning more, here's a PDF copy of the presentation slide deck. Our thanks to Rick and Paul for putting together an excellent learning event! Chris Van Wingerden is Vice President Learning Solutions at dominKnow Learning Systems.

Taking advantage of your investment in PowerPoint presentations

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:25:00 -0400

Microsoft PowerPoint is far and away the most popular presentation software tool. In fact, it's really hit that level of status where the product name is synonymous with the generic product category, like Kleenex for facial tissues and Ski-Doo for snow machines. PowerPoint really is the default, the standard, the go-to tool for almost everyone in the training and education space, and most trainers and training departments have invested a great deal of time and effort in creating PowerPoint slide decks to support instructor-led and face-to-face training. This week dominKnow is releasing a set of feature enhancements that dramatically improve the process of importing PowerPoint files into the dominKnow LCMS. These enhancements really expand the flexibility of the imported content, making it simple to move from an instructor-led course to an online course - without losing the time, effort and cost you've already invested in your original training material. The feature enhancements import each slide into the dominKnow LCMS's integrated Authoring Tool as a new page. And once the quick import is complete, the full range of Authoring Tool features is available to help you edit, update and improve every page. Want to add or create engaging and instructionally sound e-learning interactions? No problem. The Authoring Tool's full range of interaction support tools is right there for you. Need to record narration? No problem. The narration wizard can walk you through that process. Need to change text? No problem - the text editor is instantly available. Need to add an assessment? No problem. The dominKnow LCMS's test-question wizards let you add test questions in a matter of minutes. Need your new e-learning course to run in a third-party LMS? No problem. The course is easily exportable as SCORM 1.2 or 2004 compliant, or as AICC and PENS compliant. What's really impressive is how robust the import process is. All media files are automatically imported into the Authoring Tool's asset manager. This means all images, all audio files and all video files are instantly available for re-use on other pages or in entirely different courses, with full usage tracking and the ability to assign metadata to help in searching. All master slides are automatically used to create layout templates that can be used for adding new pages to your course or any other course. And all speaker notes are imported into the Authoring Tool's new developer notes feature as well. New Ways to Work Together

The feature enhancements also open new ways for development teams to create e-learning. A subject matter expert or instructional designer can now use PowerPoint to create a storyboard for a course, with text in place and placeholders for any images or media files required. The instructional designer can use the speaker notes in PowerPoint to describe what's required on the page, such as outlining how an interaction needs to work. The storyboard PowerPoint can be quickly imported into the dominKnow LCMS, where other members of the development team can move it forward. One developer might move through the course standardizing the look and feel. A graphic artist can come in and add images as required. A Flash developer can come in and add any required animations or complex interactions. You get the idea - everyone works to their strengths, together in the LCMS. With PowerPoint having such a wide user base within the world of learning, it's only common sense to be able to take advantage of it when moving to e-learning. And the feature enhancements we're releasing this week really simplify the PowerPoint import process and increase the flexibility of the imported content, creating real advantage for e-learning development teams. Chris Van Wingerden is Vice President Learning Solutions at dominKnow Learning Systems.

Unveiling new LCMS features to UK audience at BETT

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:51:00 -0400

Visitors to the 2009 edition of BETT, the world's largest educational technology event, will be able to get a first-hand glimpse of some exciting new features in the dominKnow Learning Content Management System (dominKnow LCMS). BETT - once known as the British Educational and Training Technology show, but now just going by the shorter acronym alone - saw almost 29,000 visitors walk the aisles at the Olympia facility in London, UK. And we're excited to be at booth SW 30 in the software area to show off the latest developments in the dominKnow LCMS. [More]

dominKnow LCMS 5.2 launched at annual GeoLearning user's conference this week

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 22:56:00 -0400

"Remember the e-learning!" This new battle cry has replaced the classic "Remember the Alamo!" this week in San Antonio as the GeoLearning 2008 Summit on Learning & Performance has rolled into town. Today marked the official release of version 5.2 of the dominKnow Learning Content Management System (LCMS), and the Summit was a great place to mark the occasion. dominKnow Learning Systems is the platinum sponsor of the event, honouring the six-year partnership between the two companies. [More]

Language Module helps dominKnow LCMS reach wider learner audience

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:50:00 -0400

Attend a hockey game here in the Great White North, and you may well hear O Canada sung in a mix of French and English. It's a boisterous exercise in bilingualism and a gentle reminder that we don't always speak the same language. It seems fitting that as we roll out the new Language Module for the dominKnow Learning Content Management System (LCMS), one of the first available languages is French-Canadian. [More]

Apple's iPod touch and iPhone make the dominknow mobile e-learning experience sizzle

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 16:23:00 -0400

A week and a half ago the iPod touch was officially released in Canada, and this week we're rolling out the beta version of our touch and iPhone-optimized mobile portal for the dominKnow Learning Content Management System (LCMS). The portal has been designed using the iPhone User Interface (iUI), a framework and sample code released by Joe Hewitt, a software engineer and major contributor to the iPhone development community. Taking advantage of our iPod touch-optimized portal puts the dominKnow Learning Center in the palm of a learner's hand. Learners can log in and access full courses, as well as Learning Objects as single-topic information and any documents or Web links added as resources to a course. Learners can also access their internal e-mail inbox, progress reports and more. We knew as soon as we had the iPod touch in our hands that this device could open up tremendous new access to learning on the go - all because of Apple's focus on the user experience. There's been a fair bit of talk about these features for a while now, since the iPhone hit the U.S. last spring. Chief among these is the ability to zoom in and out when viewing a web page. This solves so many display issues typically associated with mobile web viewing. Our office has been buzzing with excitement over this for the past two weeks, starting with our CTO, Luke Hickey, who kicked off the portal project as soon as he had his iPod touch in hand. Since then, team members have been walking around the office, showing each other the latest additions and tweaks to the portal. I can't count the number of hallway huddles I've been in, as people gather around to see the portal in action - it creates that kind of interest. I've had my iPod touch for a week and a half, and so far I've spent far more time using Safari than I have listening to music - the Web user experience is that good. And it's easy to see so many ways it can get even better moving forward. The iPod touch really points to a whole new generation of devices that could put this technology to great effect. It seems inevitable, for instance, that one next step will be a full laptop device with touch control, and in fact tech blog sites like engadget have been buzzing about just such a device since last year. (I already find the iTouch so much quicker for Internet searches at home and when traveling, since the power-up process is so much faster than my laptop.) For many people the iPhone is already that device, and Apple's announcement that it will release a Software Developer Kit (SDK) in February should make things really start to cook.

Mashups and more - making learning content more accessible

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 18:03:00 -0400

Our new API is an exciting development for the dominKnow Learning Content Management System (LCMS). By giving clients better tools to access the LCMS and the learning content it contains, we really feel we're taking the idea of re-usable learning content another step forward. I'm writing this from the Brandon Hall Innovations in Learning Conference, where Stephen Downes opened with this morning's keynote address - a presentation on the development of E-learning 2.0 that included the audience's live blogging comments on one side of the stage while Downes' presentation ran on the other side. It was an interesting experiment, one that hopefully inspired the creativity of those sitting in the crowd. Our new API is something that we hope will lead to some interesting and inspiring experiences as well. We can already predict some applications for it, such as simplifying the process for hooking the dominKnow LCMS up to an e-commerce site, for instance, or for allowing Learning Objects to be used in context-sensitive help within other applications. What I think will be most interesting, though, is what others may try to do. The new API opens up a world of learning possibilities and can help remove barriers to learning. We have no doubt that there are challenges out there, waiting to be solved and the API is an important way for us to empower our users to solve those challenges.

Everyone's an Expert - The LCMS in the User-Generated Era

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:18:00 -0400

E-learning systems such as the Learning Management System (LMS) and Learning Content Management System (LCMS) face an upheaval, says Elliot Masie of the MASIE Center. The e-learning futurist has his eyes on the e-learning prize, and says the target is not just moving but changing altogether. "In a nutshell, we are moving from traditional branched e-Learning to a much wider set of informal learning, media-based objects, performance support objects, search based objects," he says in a "Briefing on LMS Changes", available on the website promoting the LMS 2007 Learning Systems User Group conference scheduled for Las Vegas April 12 and 13. The reason? Changes in both the ways e-learning is being created and who is doing the creating, Masie says. Here's what he says about the ways: "We are evolving from using just formal types of training to ever-increased production and distribution of informal content." Here's what he says about the who: "Increasingly, Content is now coming not from a single syndicator of content, but rather from multiple sources. It is coming from internal and external sources and increasingly, Content is coming from the crowd. We are creating content at multiple points in the organization and we are giving the ability of subject matter experts and users, even sometimes customers and people in our supply chain, the opportunity to create Content as well." And the challenge, he says, is helping learners find what they need: "We need to figure out a way in which our content becomes discoverable. Our learners are wanting to be able to get at Content in multiple formats...and our instructional designers are wanting to be able to get at the Content that's being created in other parts of our enterprise." So what's an LCMS to do? Well, the answer really is to keep on doing what you've always done, only more of it. That big capital C and big capital M in the acronym LCMS is what I'm talking about: Content Management. The dominKnow LCMS has always been more than just a course creation tool. It has always been a searchable, indexed content management tool that gives learners and developers alike the ability to find the learning content they need, whether that content is a full-fledged course with learning objectives and testing or a smaller piece of knowledge focused on an individual topic. And it has always taken advantage of whatever content format works best for the individual creator of the content, whether it's a Microsoft Word or PowerPoint file or a PDF file or HTML pages or Adobe Flash movies (which includes content created by any tool able to export a .swf file.) And, with the 5.1 version, that now includes audio files such as podcasts. This means: 1. Anyone can make the e-learning content they need to make 2. Anyone can find the e-learning content they need to find. And it means that an LCMS is a good choice to help any organization deal with the changing natures of learning.

Good PENS pals -- dominKnow LCMS development team earns kudos

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 17:01:00 -0400

Sometimes, even good news travels slowly!

We've just noticed that PENS has offered congratulations to dominKnow Learning Systems for adding the new standard to the list of industry compliances and standards supported by our Learning Content Management System, the dominKnow LCMS.

Those congratulations were extended last December when we released version 5.1 of the dominKnow LCMS, which included PENS compliance. PENS particularly applauded what it describes as dominKnow's "impressive time to market", noting that we announced support for the standard only 90 days after members of the dominKnow development team had attended the inaugural PENS Plugfest. The Plugfest got under way on Sept. 19, 2006, in Vancouver B.C., and we rolled out our PENS compliance on Dec. 19. The Plugfest was attended by members of the dominKnow LCMS development team, who were also attending the simultaneously-held AICC meetings. Adding PENS to the list of e-learning industry standards we already conformed to (which include AICC and SCORM) was a pretty easy decision for us.

In fact, when I asked why we made the move to add PENS support, our CTO Luke Hickey said, "because it's cool."

In addition to the coolness factor, PENS helps us help our users get their online learning content into the hands of learners more easily, by simplifying the way e-learning courses move from a content and authoring system like our LCMS to a Learning Management System (LMS). In fact, the PENS specification describes this as "single click publishing" - and it doesn't get much easier than that.

Podcasting gives new voice to e-learning

Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:04:00 -0400

Bersin and Associates rolled out their predictions for 2007 last week, announcing that this will be the year that "E-learning 3.0 arrives." The company is predicting that organizations will make greater and better use of self-published training resources. And dominKnow Learning Systems is ready to help make that happen. Version 5.1 of the dominKnow LCMS includes support for managing and deploying podcasts as part of an organizational learning strategy. We see this as opening a lot of doors for organizations and their employees or team members. It gives learners another channel for learning, particularly auditory learners. It frees up the learning process, allowing learning to take place without requiring an online connection. With the RSS feed capability of the podcast feature, learners can have content forwarded to them without logging even into the LCMS. It also gives organizations an opportunity to encourage subject matter experts and even learners to help create learning content. It's fairly easy to create an audio file - almost anyone can do it on their computer. So now it's easy for learners to share success stories or tips, for example. In this way, everyone in the organization benefits from each learner's knowledge and experience. We also hope it will open new creative options for designing learning. Last month, the E-Learning Queen offered some observations on ways the best-written television shows generate interest and hold a viewer's attention - and how these could be used in educational podcasts. More creativity will flow, no doubt!

Informal learning is anything but casual

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 22:41:00 -0400

According to the eLearning Guild's The Informal Learning Research Report 2006, 97% of survey respondents strongly agreed or agreed that "Informal learning takes place wherever and whenever people have the need, motivation, and opportunity for learning." Okay, that's not so startling. In fact, unless we want to get picky in our definitions of informal learning, just about anyone in the training or education field would agree with this statement. What's really interesting is that more than half of the respondents to the survey (57%, in fact) strongly agreed or agreed with the following statement: "Informal learning works better than formal learning because it is learner-driven." As organizational learning culture grows into a full embrace of technology and e-learning becomes more and more common, companies are looking to take best advantage of everything technology can offer. And at some point just about all of us had the lightbulb go on above our heads as we typed a keyword into a search engine, and we realized just how much informal learning was going on around us. The result is nearly unanimous - 98 % of respondents to the survey strongly agreed or agreed that "Informal learning can be deliberately encouraged by an organization." Why wouldn't we want to encourage it? What better learning opportunity could we hope for than helping an employee get access to information right when she needs to know it and is able to put that information to immediate use? The dominKnow Learning Content Management System can help organizations encourage informal learning. One of the chief advantages of our approach to Learning Objects is that it is driven by instructional design principles, not just technology principles. The LCMS creates Learning Objects that are complete instructional units intended to support learning of a specific topic. And this means that courses aren't the only application for these Learning Objects. The LCMS's Reference Feature gives learners access to learning objects as individual reference items. Learners can search the Reference by keyword to quickly find the topic they are looking for and access the Learning Object immediately, without having to take or return to a course to find it. They get the information and training they need, right when they need it most. And since the Learning Objects are designed as complete instructional units, they get the full learning they need.