OLPC for the Dutch?

We Dutch also want our OLPC laptop! While everybody in the world who is slightly involved with e-Learning in a professional way, is playing around with their 100$ laptop, I'm still waiting for mine.



Potential
Also in The Netherlands there is a huge potential for the famous laptop. It ships with a robust OS, a lot of educational content and unique and refreshing networking capabilities. In Dutch schools the penetration of computers in classrooms (especially within primary education) is still not that impressive. In primary and secondary schools, there is one computer for every seven pupils. See a report (867 kB, PDF) about the Dutch IT-situation within primary education.

Goal
And I wrote before about the great initiative to buy two computers: one for yourself and one unknown kid. Simple and efficient system.

But…
Although we ordered 3 (or six as you like) OLPC's back in 2007, we are still waiting. First they messed up with the credit card transaction (to many laptops on the bill). Later it turned out that we didn't order them. After that we received an e-mail that our computers were shipped in December and since that moment we keep trying to contact the organization in various ways, without success.

So if anybody knows how to order them in a successful way: please tell me so we can start creating powerful learning experience, both for our and for other children. As an e-Learning consultant I cannot wait use the OLPC and to develop content for it!

Open source Storyboard tool

When you are writing scenarios for your educational video or your digital storytelling project I found a nice tool to support you.



The tool, that can be used for Windows, Linux and Mac OS, is available in 20 languages including Chinese, Russian and Dutch. It is free to download.

On the website they say about it:

Celtx is the world's first fully integrated solution for media pre-production and collaboration. It replaces old fashioned 'paper, pen & binder' media creation with a digital approach to writing and organizing that's more complete, simpler to work with, and easier to share.

I'm not sure if they are the first but I know for sure that this application works intuitive and it is a very complete environment. You can even add functionality if you are using the (paid) webservices.

But even without the webservice you get a complete set of useful functionalities. You can use Celtx in the different production phases, the main areas where you can use it:

- WRITING TOOLS (scripting, index cards, etc.)
- PRE-VISUALIZATION TOOLS (storyboarding, etc.)
- ORGANIZATION TOOLS (scheduling, back up, etc.)

So far I used mainly the storyboarding tool and that one is enough reason to download the package.

New Dutch blog!

I know there are too many blogs to keep up and still I felt the urge to start another one. Again it is about 'powerlearning' and the main difference between my new blog and the one you are reading now is the language.

My new blog is in Dutch and will also differ a bit because I will also write about specific Dutch issues and news. For the rest I would like to have the same approach as with Powerlearning: I will post on a regular base but not daily and only when I have something interesting to write about. Not because I 'have to'.

For me there are some more differences: I start having my own webspace again. With also another open source application: Wordpress. So far I like it but it is not as user-friendly as Blogger. For the first time of my life I'm into PHP and that's not what I want to learn. HTML and XML is enough for me. I used one of the many themes and designed it a bit further. Only one problem with the language because my installation was an English version and some text is still in English but I don't feel like re-installing again…

So for the Dutch readers: please add www.leerbeleving.nl to your RSS reader. Enjoy!

I want to thank you for reading this blog in 2007 and I would like to see you all back in 2008. Have a nice party and all the best for 2008!

Review eXe authoring tool

I already posted about the eXe authoring tool for creating WBTs. The last 6 weeks I developed 6 WBT's with the tool. This review is about version 0.24, on both the Mac and the PC. This week version 0.95 was released.



Ease of use
The tree structure on one hand side and the edit pane on the other one makes it a clear and clean environment. eXe opens in FireFox. If you have a basic understanding of Windows or Mac OS it will be easy to start with eXe. A basic knowledge of HTML comes in easy because although it is a kind of WYSYWIG editor sometimes you need some code to clean things up or to correct some flaws. For the rest it is not hard to work with eXe. It speaks for itself and it is consistent. Creating a structure is the same as creating folders, three levels can be used. Moving pieces of the content to other places is very easy. That is sufficient for most content. There is a help function but that is quite limited. If you need to know more you can visit fora. Adding metadata and exporting the content into SCORM packages or other packages.

Functionalities
With eXe you can create attractive WBTs. You can easily add different and attractive learning interactions. You can add some question types, some reflection activities, images, add RSS, you can integrate web pages, MP3 and also video. And many more. Video has to be in an flv format. In the version I used (0.24) it was kind of a hassle. And for my Mac it was not available. Still the Windows version has the most functionalities but with the 0.95 version, the difference is not that big anymore. The so-called iDevices do the things they are promising. Sometimes they can be improved, e.g. the one where you can show a row of images. First of all you have to select and upload them one for one, but if you open them in the WBT you need to click twice to enlarge them. Some learners even didn't find the second click.

I also miss some basic functionalities. I missed simple things like anchors. It would have been nice to be able to create anchors (e.g. you sum up some subjects in a list and you want to jump to a certain point on the page of you click on subject 1, 2, etc.). This can be done now but you have to use HTML. I also missed hotspots.

But hey, with some smart things you can do a lot. You can copy code from different places. I embedded code from YouTube, Zoho polls and Blip.tv. I also tried to use HotPotatoes but that didn't work.

Technical performance
During the hundreds of hours I worked with it, I only had one crash. The first weeks I made a stupid (?) mistake by closing the FireFox browser when I wanted to close eXe. That causes a crash. You have to close the application by using the menu.

I was using a standard standardwhite style. That worked fine. Only a few flaws where some white space was added between the iDevices. I still don't know what happened and I couldn't correct it because in the source code I couldn't see.

Version 0.95
In this mayor update the possibilities seems to be significant improved. The simple thing I like the most is the possibility to embed images within text fields (wish I had that a few weeks earlier). Also the video and SCORM-quiz possibilities are available for the Mac OSX version. New is also the JAVA-applet iDevice.

Conclusions
A nice and easy to use application to create your own WBTs. It doesn't has the possibilities (yet) as some of the commercial applications like Lectora or AuthorWare but if gives you the opportunity to develop interesting e-Learning modules in a fast way. Especially if you are new to e-Learning development I would like to advice you to start with eXe. And if you are an experienced instructional designer: keep an eye on this project because during the 6 weeks I was using it, 2 updates were introduced. eXe is becoming a mature tool.

176 $ laptop will boost education world wide?

'One laptop per child' is a non-profit organization founded by Nicholas Negroponte. They were planning to give the world an easy to use, 100$ laptop.

Their goal:

To provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves. The further say that the laptop is a potent learning tool created expressly for the world's poorest children, living in its most remote environments.

The machine is using open source software (e.g. it is using elements of Red Hat's Fedora Core 6 version of the Linux operating system) and is promising a very user-friendly experience. The laptop creates its own mesh network out of the box. Each machine is a full-time wireless router. Children in the most remote regions of the globe—as well as their teachers and families—will be connected both to one another and to the Internet.

This week Negroponte was speaking at a Harvard University conference and he talked about the groups of children in Nigeria, Thailand and Uruguay who are using the laptop already. At the end of the year the plan is that 1.000.000 laptops are produced every month. The price has to reach the famous 100$ level in 2009 again.

Love this initiative and I hope this will bring a lot of joy and learning to kids all over the world.

Please visit the website or the wiki to see if you or your organization can support the project in any way.

See http://www.laptop.org/
or the wiki: http://wiki.laptop.org/

In the wiki you can also help the project by creating content!

Mindmapping tools helps you learning

An old but still very impressive method that can be used within learning situations is Mindmapping. It visually represents a semantic network or mental model. The technique can be used by learners e.g. to make notes during college and I'm also using it as a trainer when I'm want to have a fast and clear image of the prior knowledge of the learners. For the last matter I'm using it with the whole group together on a whiteboard or beamer.

I'm facilitating the process with electronic tools since 5 years. I started with good old MindManager. A very sophisticated piece of Mindmapping software. You can easily relocate branches and it can be exported as HTML files and also it can be used during presentations instead of PowerPoint. With the extended version of MindManager you can connect to Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Project.

With the Mac I was using MindManager again. But the functionalities of the OS X version where much more limited compared to the Windows version I was using on my other laptop. Now I found a better solution and it is one of the many open source Mindmapping tools. It is called FreeMind and it works just fine. For Windows, OS X and Linux. You can do almost everything and it can export to almost every possible format. And…it also imports MindManager files.



If you want you can also use online Mindmapping tools. The great thing about that is the possibilities to work together with your colleagues or co-students on the same mindmap. A good online tool is Mindomo. So, if you never used one of the Mindmapping techniques and/or Mindmapping tools: give it a try.

You can find more on Mindmapping on wikipedia.

Great open source e-Learning authoring tool: eXe

Since a few weeks I have a nice app on my computer: eXe. A great and simple tool to create e-Learning content. eXe stands for e-Learning XHTML Editor.

It's available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux and it ships with some solid documentation. The downloading and installation of the tool is just a matter of some clicks. No technical expertise is needed. This is also the case for the authoring process.

It is available in several languages (over 20!) and it is using the tool Reload. It combines a simple and clear user interface with the basic needed functionalities to create a webbased training. As an author you can use 20 different templates for your pages. Navigation buttons are created automatically and you can select the skin you want. Examples of templates with technical/didactical interactions are:

• - case study;
  
• - objectives;
  
• - multiple-choice question;
  
• - RSS;
  
• - reflection;
  
• - Wikipedia article;
  
• - activity;
  
• - image with text.
  

These templates (called 'iDevices'....maybe Apple is behind this ;-)) can also be created by authors, without any technical knowledge.

It exports to some nice packages like SCORM 1.2, IMS content package, website, single webpage and a text file.

For instructional designers who want to create technically basic but didactical powerful e-Learning this can be a useful tool. Of course because you are using templates you will possible face some restrictions when you compare it to the freedom you have with tools like Lectora and Authorware but it will speed up the development process like crazy. When you combine this with the possibilities of a learning environment like Moodle you will have educational gold in your hands!

Check the Dutch site for downloads or the English site.

Some screenshots:


Authoring environment


Authoring environment


Published WBT


Published WBT