BitLearning E-learning Blog

Serebra Connect on New York Times blog

2008-07-30T12:38:00.000-07:00

The freelancing site SerebraConnect recently received an article on a New York Times blog - Outsource Your Chores — And Feel Good While You’re At It. It positions SerebraConnect as an eLance with a twist:

It’s a similar model to the popular freelance marketplace Elance — but with a feel-good twist. Most of the people bidding on the jobs are students in developing countries who have taken a course.

Even more interesting are the comments, calling easy outsourcing evil and "shameful". That seems a bit excessive, but in industries that are seeing their work outsourced it must be a scary concept.

Also mentioned in the comments, it would be nice if outsourcing sites like this found specific ways to help people in N. America as well - there is certainly an ample supply of workers that will work for cheap even on this side of the world!

Online Customer Support portal

2008-07-10T12:45:00.000-07:00

This is a neat customer support option that is becoming popular with many Web2.0 companies like Twitter, Mozilla and Cisco - GetSatisfaction.com .

It's a great idea - build an online community, safe and distanced from the company that you want to get support from, but allow the company to have a presence there as well.

There are a couple outsourcing sites on there, such as Elance, oDesk and cebufreelancer.com. Not very many online learning companies though.

Lifehacker - how to find freelance work

2008-07-03T12:48:00.000-07:00

Great article on lifehacker about finding freelance work - Choose a Booming (or Crashing) Industry to Find Freelance Work. Interesting angle on picking an industry to work in.

20 industries that are better bets for any full- or part-time freelancers looking to pick up new clients than cold-canvassing.

The comments are full of references to online freelance websites.

Blackboard may lose Patent?

2008-03-31T16:36:00.000-07:00

Saw this online today at the Chronicle, it's being talked about on many of the e-learning blogs.

The patent office began re-examining the 44 claims comprising Blackboard's patent in 2006 at the request of The Software Freedom Law Center.

As great as this is, this is only one positive step in a process that could take years. Good luck Desire2learn!

Blackboard wins case

2008-02-26T08:15:00.000-08:00

Just read on Slashdot and on "The NOSE: Information Technology in Higher Education" blog that Blackboard won their case against Desire2Learn. From "The Nose":

The jury found Desire2Learn guilty of patent infringement. Although Blackboard sought $17 million in damages, the jury awarded $3.1 million ($2.5 million for "lost profits" and $630,000 for "royalties").

This is one of those Patent Troll moves, but unfortunately this gives Blackboard some good precendence to continue litigation against other LMS players.

A Canadian article at TheRecord paints Blackboard as being uncooperative and unlikely to compromise or settle, although the judge will probably press the parties to come to a royalty agreement. From the article:

Desire2Learn has several options on the table, including appealing the verdict; continuing to push the U.S. patent office to reconsider Blackboard's patent; and developing a software workaround that does not use the technology in dispute.

Good luck Desire2Learn!

Google before the Internet

2008-02-23T20:13:00.001-08:00

We ran across these via the Google Operating System blog. It's fun to imagine what Google would have been like before the Internet.

Phone based "Question Desk" from 1924:

Google circa 1960:

Some people remember calling their local library help desk to get answers to questions - funny to think that we all have this information at our fingertips now.

SCORM and multiple SCOs

2007-11-05T08:18:00.000-08:00

I've worked so much more with AICC than SCORM, but a friend had an interesting question. He's creating courses in Adobe Connect and Captivate for a client and he wants to break the course into multiple SCOs.

It seems that all the main courseware vendors these days just create single unit courses and basic manifest files and AICC course descriptor files. I guess it's easier and it makes it easier on the LMS.

Anyways, we manually edited the manifest file. For each SCO, we added a new record and the associated records. There is a tool called Dreamweaver Manifest Maker that will also help create these manifest files.

Apparently SCORM 1.2 doesn't support linking from one SCO directly to another. Only the SCORM runtime can launch another SCO.

SCORM 2004 supports this - it's referred to as "sequencing". One SCO can issue a "navigation request" to the runtime environment.

Serebra Connect offering free assessments

2007-10-16T12:34:00.000-07:00

It looks like Serebra Connect is offering free assessment exams when you sign up for their mailing list at www.serebraconnect.com.

When you sign up, it presents you with a list of topics, including Microsoft Office, graphic design, communications, etc. You choose one, and it lets you write the exam for free. When you pass, you become qualified to become a freelancer/provider on Serebra Connect.

I signed up for a ASP.NET web programming exam - I could be a Serebra Connect qualified seller!

Very neat. Looking forward to November 1st.

Serebra Connect is on the way

2007-10-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

It looks like Serebra Connect is on the way. A neat idea to take an established e-learning platform and expand it to help people find paying work doing small tasks on an outsource or freelance basis. There was an announcement at the Clinton Global Initiative regarding free "skills assessments".

While attending the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), a non-partisan project of the William J. Clinton Foundation, Ted Moorhouse, Chairman and CEO of Serebra said, "Through Serebra Connect, we will give them [people in developing countries] the opportunity to use their education to earn income - without leaving their home countries.

This is exciting stuff!

More information about the conference can be found here.

E-learning at Hogwarts?

2007-07-25T08:35:00.001-07:00

With the stepping down of the IT Directory at Hogwarts, it looks like they won't be implementing e-learning anytime soon!

I made a thorough and elaborate PowerPoint presentation on the
benefits that an online learning management system would deliver for
faculty and students (Professor Snape's contemptuous dismissal of it
as the work of a "PowerPoint wizard" was uncalled for).

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/071807-hogwarts-it-director.html?t51hb&

Blackboard friendly to Open Source only

2007-02-06T09:59:00.000-08:00

Blackboard pledges not to pursue legal action against open source or home-grown LMS systems

http://sev.prnewswire.com/education/20070201/DCTH01001022007-1.html

Follow up article from IT Business about Blackboard’s announcement.

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=42131

[Patent expert] Cameron said that the open source community might not be much of a threat to Blackboard's business interests. “When customers seem to be developing their own open-course software, the do-it-yourself thing doesn't always meet the needs of the customers, (leading Blackboard to say), ‘Well, you can still buy from us,'” said Cameron. “They're not going after the homegrown systems because they don't make much. (It's like) ‘We're not going to stop you if you're not making any money out of it.'”

Blackboard patented the LMS?

2007-02-06T09:58:00.001-08:00

From back in August.

"Online learning provider Blackboard announced the other day that it has patented the Learning Management System (LMS)."

http://mfeldstein.com/index.php/weblog/permalink/blackboard_patents_the_lms

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/02/1217219

They've already pursued legal action against one company.

A petition against them:

http://www.boycottblackboard.org/

Google newsletter mentions video learning

2006-10-01T00:13:00.000-07:00

Received a GoogleFriends newsletter today talking about An education via video.

The proliferation of online video brings the web to life in a compelling way for millions of people used to moving images. Perhaps one of the most interesting uses of online video is for education. We think we're just at the beginning of how video might reach people.

The newsletter goes on to mention to course series, one including courses from University of California-Berkeley, and the other called TED Talks (Technology, Entertainment, Design).

Very cool.

Can IT vendors make the world a better place?

2006-09-28T15:38:00.000-07:00

A great article about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for IT companies, drom IT Business magazine - Can IT vendors make the world a better place?

From the article:

While the need to demonstrate corporate social responsibility cuts across the business community, several issues pertain specifically to the IT industry around environmental stewardship, labour practices and the digital divide... the business case for taking part in such activies include reputation management, customer loyalty, licence to operate and employee retention.

E-learning is also a great way to bridge the digital divide and increase employee retention.

In the Middle of the Curve: So what do we do now?

2006-09-19T15:25:00.000-07:00

Great post by Wendy at Towson University about the practical difficulties getting one's mind around the concept of Learning 2.0 and how to practically implement the collaborative concepts in this new Web 2.0 mindset.

Makes me wish I had more to add.

Serebra Learning Management System - Cortex

2006-09-14T23:39:00.000-07:00

Serebra Learning Corporation has a great low-cost LMS.

Read more about the LMS (Learning Management System) developed by Serebra Learning Corporation - Serebra Cortex.

From the site:

Serebra's Learning Management System, Cortex:Campus, offers a user-friendly environment for companies to plan, create, deliver and manage online training and ILT scheduling.

We've personally worked with Cortex, so I'm biased, of course!

What is an LMS? What is an LCMS?

2006-09-13T23:42:00.000-07:00

A learning content management system is an environment where developers can create, store, reuse, manage and deliver learning content from a central object repository, usually a database. LCMS generally work with content that is based on a learning object model. These systems usually have good search capabilities, allowing developers to find quickly the text or media needed to build training content.

Learning Content Management Systems often strive to achieve a separation of content, which is often tagged in XML, from presentation. This allows many LCMS to publish to a wide range of formats, platforms, or devices such as print or web, all from the same source material.

Welcome to BitLearning

2006-09-13T23:18:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the BitLearning E-learning Blog.

We will have all sorts of e-learning articles for you shortly.

Thank you!

-BL