Flash Media Serverの導入から活用までを事例でご紹介するセミナー - 6:49pm

Source: Adobe Blogs

来週開催のセミナー告知で恐縮ですが、下記アドビ・サムライズ共催セミナーを開催します。Flash Media Serverを使った配信について、事例を中心に紹介いたします。

【事例でわかる！Flash Media Server 導入から活用まで】
開催日時 2010 年 2月 18日（木） 13時30分から17時（受付開始 13時より）
会　場 アドビシステムズ株式会社　セミナールーム（大崎）
（ゲートシティ大崎　イーストタワー 19F）

セミナー申し込みや詳細は、下記のサイトよりお願いします。

http://www.samuraiz.co.jp/event/100218.html

皆様にお会いできるのを楽しみにしています。

Getting the current value on a Spark Spinner control in Flex 4 - 6:42pm

Source: Flex.org - Rich Internet Application Development by Flex Admin

The following example shows how you can get the currently selected value from a Spark Spinner control in Flex 4 by getting the value property.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

[...]

TLF Showcase: LovelyReader - 5:35pm

Source: Adobe Blogs by Alan Stearns

LovelyReader.com has a web and desktop epub reader based on the new text features in Flash Player 10. Text resizes and reflows in layouts you choose. You can navigate with hotkeys or a table of contents. All the text is searchable, and you can add notes. There's a longer feature list and a demo here:

http://www.lovelyreader.com/product

TweetDeck Updates with YouTube and Flickr Support - 3:07pm

Source: Flex.org - Rich Internet Application Development by Flex Admin

Windows/Mac/Linux (with Adobe Air): TweetDeck—the most popular Twitter client among Lifehacker readers—just released an update to version 0.33, bringing with it more support for viewing media inline without opening a page in your browser (including YouTube videos and Flickr images) and a nice new column navigation tool.

Adobe Beginner Classes catch up - 2:47pm

Source: Adobe Blogs by Dennis Radeke

Adobe Beginner Classes has been taking a somewhat forced break from regular posting over the last couple of months as so many other things have been taking precedence.  I've got at least two episodes already done to some extent and several more ideas in the works.  I'm definitely going to finish up my last episode by animating the Encore Menu inside of After Effects.  The Christmas theme will be quite silly now in February, but it will all look good again when people hit it in November!  I'm also strongly thinking about doing some subtitles inside of Encore.  As always, if there are some ideas you want, I'm always taking suggestions.

In the meantime, I'll mention again that this content is available via iTunes as a podcast and on Vimeo. On the podcast, I'm catching up slowly with episodes, so it will be a month or so before I can get all of my older content up there.

I'll be busy banging away on all kinds of exciting new things until I can return to this, but if nothing else, know that my heart is in this and I am going to continue to post content as often as I can. Wish me the best in clearing my calendar!

Cheers, Dennis </dennis/>

Adobe Beginner Classes

The Flexible Configuration Options of Parsley - 2:25pm

Source: Adobe Blogs by Tom Sugden

One of the nice design decisions taken by Jens Halm when he created the Parsley Application Framework was to separate the configuration mechanism from the core of the framework, so different forms of configuration can be used as required. This idea in itself is not particularly new, since Martin Fowler advocated it in his 2004 article, "Inversion of Control Containers and the Dependency Injection pattern":

"My advice here is to always provide a way to do all configuration easily with a programmatic interface, and then treat a separate configuration file as an optional feature. You can easily build configuration file handling to use the programmatic interface. If you are writing a component you then leave it up to your user whether to use the programmatic interface, your configuration file format, or to write their own custom configuration file format and tie it into the programmatic interface" - Martin Fowler

The application of this design principle is particularly effective in Parsley. While some frameworks are restricted to specific configuration mechanisms, Parsley provides programmatic interfaces for synchronous and asynchronous configuration, and several out-of-the-box implementations. These interfaces provide an extension-point so developers can plug-in their own configuration processors when the need arises.

Configuration Processors

In Parsley, a configuration processor uses some form of configuration data to build up a registry of object definitions. This process is abstracted by the following interfaces:

• ConfigurationProcessor
• AsynConfigurationProcessor

Parsley has a number of standard implementations, including the following two most commonly used:

• ActionScriptConfigurationProcessor
• XmlConfigurationProcessor

The developer manual has a section explaining how to extend the framework with a new configuration processor:

• Custom Configuration Mechanisms

Example: Modular Configuation Processor

There are various reasons to write a custom configuration processor. Perhaps you want to support your own particular configuration files, loaded and processed at runtime. However, these interfaces open up some other doors for more interesting forms of configuration. For example, they can be used to process configuration data from a compiled module.

Consider a large, modular application. Let's say the application consists of a Flex shell application that loads 20 modules, and 10 of these rely on the same set of shared services. It's undesirable to compile these services into the shell application, where they could be inherited by the modules, since the shell should have no knowledge of these lower level details. Instead they could be compiled into a module and the shell application could load that module at start-up, so the services are available for inheritance, but there is no dependency imposed on the shell.

This can be achieved quite simply by writing a new configuration processor, something like this:

package com.adobe
{
     import flash.events.ErrorEvent;
     import flash.events.Event;
     import flash.events.EventDispatcher;

     import mx.events.ModuleEvent;
     import mx.modules.IModuleInfo;
     import mx.modules.ModuleManager;
     import mx.utils.StringUtil;

     import org.spicefactory.parsley.core.builder.AsyncConfigurationProcessor;
     import org.spicefactory.parsley.core.builder.ConfigurationProcessor;
     import org.spicefactory.parsley.core.registry.ObjectDefinitionRegistry;

     public class ModularConfigurationProcessor 
          extends EventDispatcher 
          implements AsyncConfigurationProcessor
     {
          private static const MODULE_LOADING_ERROR : String = 
               "Unable to load the module at URL {0} due to {1}";
          private static const MODULE_INCOMPATIBLE_ERROR : String = 
               "The module doesn't implement the ConfigurationProcessor interface.";

          private var url : String;
          private var module : IModuleInfo;
          private var registry : ObjectDefinitionRegistry;

          public function ModularConfigurationProcessor( url : String )
          {
               this.url = url;
          }

          public function cancel() : void
          {
               module.removeEventListener( ModuleEvent.READY, moduleReadyHandler );
               module.removeEventListener( ModuleEvent.ERROR, moduleErrorHandler );
          }

          public function processConfiguration(
               registry : ObjectDefinitionRegistry ) : void
          {
               this.registry = registry;
               module = ModuleManager.getModule( url );
               module.addEventListener( ModuleEvent.READY, moduleReadyHandler );
               module.addEventListener( ModuleEvent.ERROR, moduleErrorHandler );
               module.load( registry.domain );
          }

          private function moduleReadyHandler( event : ModuleEvent ) : void
          {
               try
               {
                    processConfigurationWithModule();
                    dispatchEvent( new Event( Event.COMPLETE ) );
               }
               catch ( e : Error )
               {
                    dispatchErrorEvent( e.message );
               }

          }

          private function processConfigurationWithModule() : void
          {
               var instance : Object = module.factory.create();

               if ( instance is ConfigurationProcessor )
               {
                    ConfigurationProcessor( instance ).processConfiguration( registry );
               }
               else
               {
                    throw new Error( MODULE_INCOMPATIBLE_ERROR );
               }
          }

          private function moduleErrorHandler( event : ModuleEvent ) : void
          {
               dispatchErrorEvent( MODULE_LOADING_ERROR, url, event.errorText );
          }

          private function dispatchErrorEvent( message : String, ... rest ) : void
          {
               dispatchEvent( new ErrorEvent(
                    ErrorEvent.ERROR,
                    false,
                    false,
                    StringUtil.substitute( message, rest ) );
          }
     }
}

The processor is initialized with the module URL. It loads the module, creates an instance, then checks whether the module itself is a configuration processor. If so, it delegates configuration processing to the module. Here's an example module:

package com.adobe
{
    import mx.modules.ModuleBase;

    import org.spicefactory.parsley.asconfig.processor.ActionScriptConfigurationProcessor;
    import org.spicefactory.parsley.core.builder.ConfigurationProcessor;
    import org.spicefactory.parsley.core.registry.ObjectDefinitionRegistry;

    public class MyModule extends ModuleBase implements ConfigurationProcessor
    {
        public function processConfiguration(
            registry : ObjectDefinitionRegistry ) : void
        {
            new ActionScriptConfigurationProcessor(
                [ MyModuleConfiguration ] ).processConfiguration( registry );
        }
    }
}

Parsley's extension points can be taken a little further by writing a complementary configuration tag:

package com.adobe
{
    public class ModularConfig implements ContextBuilderProcessor 
    {
        public var url : String;

        public function processBuilder( builder : CompositeContextBuilder ) : void 
        {
            builder.addProcessor(
                new ModularConfigurationProcessor( url ) );
        }
    }
}

So now a modular configuration can be easily combined with other forms of Parsley configuration using the usual MXML tags:

  <sf:ContextBuilder>
     <sf:FlexConfig type="{ MyShellApplicationConfig }"/>
     <adobe:ModularConfig url="MyModularConfig.swf"/>
     <adobe:ModularConfig url="MyOtherModularConfig.swf"/>
  </sfConfigBuilder>

  ...

Conclusion

When creating a framework, it is wise to define generic interfaces for configuration processing, so that different formats can be used where appropriate. In many cases programmatic configuration with MXML is the simplest and most desirable option, but there are several valid cases for configuration from XML and other kinds of file (including SWFs) loaded at runtime. The configuration interfaces provided by Parsley satisfy this requirement nicely.

Social From The Start - 2:21pm

Source: Flex.org - Rich Internet Application Development by Flex Admin

New version of Gwibber has been uploaded. No more ugly Adobe Air app. No more closed source Twitter client. No more lack of identi.ca support. No more horrible notification bubbles. Instead, sweet, native, effortless microblogging, right from my Ubuntu desktop. A veritable ass kicking at at it’s finest.

Materials for Acrobat for Healthcare eSeminar - 12:03pm

Source: Adobe Blogs by Rick Borstein

I'm getting ahead of the game and posting the slides for my upcoming "Acrobat for Healthcare Professionals eSeminar" scheduled for Friday, February 12, 2010.

All the links in the slide set are active in the downloadable PDF.

You can download the slides directly from the link below, or preview the slides in the Acrobat.com window.

Acrobat_9_Healthcare.pdf (620K PDF)

Revamp your Twitter with Seesmic LOOK - 9:18am

Source: Flex.org - Rich Internet Application Development by Flex Admin

I installed Seesmic Look(Adobe Air-based application for windows) 2-3 days before and really I’m in love with its unique user interface. This application is a Twitter client aimed at tech novices with superb design and looks. The UI of Seesmic Look allows for a comfortable touch experience even if it is used for Window’s Tablet PCs.

Flashbelt, Robotlegs – JXLTV Episode #4 - 6:56am

Source: Flex and Flash Developer - Jesse Warden dot Kizz-ohm by admin

Registration for Flashbelt, a Flash conference for the midwest, is open!  Also, a brief overview of Robotlegs, a new MVCS application framework.

Mentioned links:

• Flashbelt
• Robotlegs
• SmartyPants IoC
• Guice
• Spring
• DRY – Don’t Repeat Yourself

Beers

• Hopslam Ale
• 1554 Black Ale

Setting the corner radius on a Spark BitmapImage control in Flex 4 - Feb 07

Source: Flex.org - Rich Internet Application Development by Flex Admin

The following example shows how you can set the corner radius on a Spark BitmapImage control in Flex 4 by creating a mask with a corner radius (in this case a Spark BorderContainer container with the cornerRadius style set).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
http://blog.flexexamples.com/2010/02/07/setting-the-corner-radius-on-a-s... -->

Improve Flash 10.1 and AIR 2.0 - Feb 07

Source: Ted On Flash by Ted Patrick

Speaking at eLearning Guild Online Forum, February 12th - Feb 03

Source: Steve Howard's eLearning ++ Blog by stevehoward999

I’ll be speaking at the eLearning Guild’s online forum, Converting and Repurposing Content for e-Learning on February 12th. The online forum runs on the 11th and 12th of February, and features some great-sounding presentations.

I’ll be speaking about a pet project that I’ve been working on for my employer NASCO in Atlanta. In this project we have taken Visio process flow diagrams, and converted them to Flash. We’ve then added video, Captivate movies, links to Word and PDF documents to create an intuitive application that enables users to easily explore the process and learn about how their own role fits in to the process, what other peoples’ responsibilities are, and access detailed documentation where appropriate.

Case Study: Bringing Visio to Life for JIT Learning

The two day forum looks to be a very interesting and informative event. Head over to the eLearning Guild’s web site to register.

Update to Flex SDK 3.5 - Feb 02

Source: The Official Flex Team Blog by Vera Carr

The Flex team has released an update to the 3.5 SDK that addresses an issue with the Flex-based AIR auto-update UI packaged within the SDK (SDK-24766). The refreshed build, SDK 3.5a, has only a few files modified in order to fix this issue and this change does not affect the signing and caching of the SDK 3.5 RSLs originally released in December.

We encourage all developers using SDK 3.5 to upgrade their build to SDK 3.5a to continue their development. The SDK 3.5a can be found in the "Latest Milestone Release Build" table here: http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Download+Flex+3.

Debugging Responder Result Functions - Feb 01

Source: Amy's Flex Diary by Amy B

Check Out The Cool New Features Under The Bonnet Of Edublogs - Jan 31

Source: Edublogs - teacher and student blogs by Sue Waters

We’ve got some big plans for Edublogs.org for 2010 — including cool new features.

So to kick start the New Year we’ve just installed these new features on Edublogs!

Add New Users

This is a nice simple feature, but very powerful tool for creating and adding new users to your blog in batches of up to 15 users.

This is the fastest way to add students quickly to your class blog — if they don’t have a username.

Off course this means there’s now four tools that create usernames slightly differently so here’s a quick summary of their differences.

Limiting who see comments in dashboard

You told us you didn’t want students who are contributors or authors seeing unapproved or spam comments — to prevent younger students from seeing inappropriate comments.

So we’ve:

1. Removed the Recent Comments module from the dashboard of contributors and authors
2. Made it so they can only see approved comments on their comments page

Now they can’t see any comment until you’ve approved it!

Giving Contributors ability to upload media

You want to moderate all student posts by making them a contributor but that’s been annoying you because contributors can’t upload media such as images, videos….

Problem solved!

We’ve adjusted the role of contributors so they can now upload their own media and you can review their posts before publishing them!

My Blogs

Sick of the endless searching for your students dashboard on your My Blogs page?

We heard your pain….and transformed your one column into four!

Clicking That Pesky File URL

Been caught out by remembering to click on File URL before Insert into Post when you’ve been uploading audio, video etc files to your posts?

Yes it’s driven us crazy too so we’ve done a quick patch to solve the problem….now you don’t need to remember as it does it for you!

Free Trial Of Edublogs Campus

Heaps of schools, districts and Universities are taking advantage of our 30 Day free trial of Edublogs Campus, get in touch with us any time to start yours!

Apple’s iPad, HTML5 Video, Gaia Flash Framework – JXLTV – Episode #3 - Jan 31

Source: Flex and Flash Developer - Jesse Warden dot Kizz-ohm by admin

I talk developing for Apple’s new iPad, how you can use your existing video to play on it. Also the Gaia Flash Framework’s history with a quick summary of what she does.

Mentioned links:

• Apple iPad
• Alternative Videos for iPhone/iPad
• Building iPad apps with Flash CS5
• Gaia Flash Framework
• Ruby on Rails
• Unload Flex Modules

Beers

• Shiner Bock
• Lagunitas Brown Shugga
• Bridgeport Hop Czar
• New Belgium Fat Tire

Locating the Text-to-Speech voices - Jan 28

Source: The Adobe Captivate Blog by Shameer Ayyappan

We receive many enquiries on how to download the Text-to-Speech voices from our site... I have to say the experience can be a little bit of a treasure hunt. For now, RJ, our senior evangelist, has created a quick how-to movie to help users with locating and installing this content:  http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/text2speechdwnld/

captivate,text-to-speech

Printed version of an E-Learning course? Ironical!..Well not always... - Jan 27

Source: The Adobe Captivate Blog by Manish Anand

Adobe Captivate,printed version of E-learning course,publish to word,E-Learning

Well yes!.. Printed versions of your e-learning courses prove to be instrumental in re-iterating the learning. They can turn out to be of huge help when you need a reference at future point of time when the e-learning course is no more accessible. 

Recently, I took an e-learning course on how to file income tax returns. Boy!! Believe me filing IT returns in India is pretty taxing. When I actually sat down to file my returns I wished I had some kind of hard copy of the e-learning course which could have helped me file my returns.

It then struck me that the e-learning author should have provided us with a printed version of the course so that people like me could refer it at later point of time. Adobe Captivate could have helped here. Adobe Captivate does a great job in converting you re-learning course into MS Word document. Once you have the document you could print it to create the hard copies of the course which can be referenced by the users at later point of time. In my opinion this is a huge advantage which re-iterates the learning.

Let us check out what Adobe Captivate has to offer in this paradigm. Well, with captivate you could publish your file to MS word in following formats:

• Handouts : The ‘Handout’ output converts your Adobe Captivate project into handouts showing all the slides as they would appear in the e-learning project. You also have options to control what objects from your e-learning course get printed to handouts. For e.g. you could eliminate printing of mouse objects, in your e-learning course, in the handouts by simply un-checking a checkbox.
• Lesson : The ‘Lesson’ output converts your Adobe Captivate project into a lesson, complete with your questions and an answer key.
• Step by step: The ‘Step by Step’ output converts your Adobe Captivate project into a short reference guide. This is the best option when you intend to provide a hard copy of a software demo for future reference (say when the user is actually using the software). Btw, this is exactly what I was looking for while browsing through the thousands of controls on IT website in-order to file my IT returns..
• Storyboard : You are a content designer and have been given a set of requirements to create an application for a client. You design the application using Adobe Captivate and want your manager to review it, but your manager doesn't have Adobe Captivate installed locally to review your project.  You can select the Publish Your Project as a Storyboard option so that others can review a printed version of the project. The storyboard option outputs two sections:
• A brief summary of the entire project such as the number of slides, duration of each slide, project preferences selected, quiz preferences, hidden slides, background audio, and so forth
• A detailed view of each slide, including each slide's properties, such as transition, navigation, audio, background image and so forth; it also shows the objects within each slide.

You would find above options in the publish dialog:

Captivate at ASTD TechKnowledge 2010 - Jan 26

Source: The Adobe Captivate Blog by Shameer Ayyappan

The Captivate team is going to present in full strength at ASTD TK 2010 in Las Vegas. Do stop by the booth to meet our evangelist, Allen, who recently delivered the popular webinars on Cp and mLearning. Also at the booth is Tridib, the director of products (and my boss). They will be discussing our plans for the future, and will help answer any questions or concerns you have about the current product. Tridib is also hosting one of the concurrent sessions titled ’Collaboration thru the cloud’. If you’ve been toying with ideas on fostering collaboration in your elearning authoring process; or about getting the learners more involved to become active participants in making the course a living document- Tridib’s session will help you analyze the advantages of different collaboration models; and identify areas where you could improve some of your current processes by benchmarking against your peers.

Come prepared to share the current modes of communication between the different entities (author, SME, learner); and collaboratively create a model that can be used in different parts of the learning workflow.

Session #: W105

Date: Wednesday, 1/27, 11.00AM- 12.15PM, Room Miranda 3/5

captivate,collaboration through the cloud,astd techknowledge 2010,allen partridge,tridib roy chowdhury

Conferences, Why Frameworks, Cairngorm 3 – JXLTV – Episode #2 - Jan 26

Source: Flex and Flash Developer - Jesse Warden dot Kizz-ohm by admin

Jesse talks about upcoming conferences, why use a framework, clearing up whether or not he’d use Cairngorm 3 on a project, and MLK quotes of note.

Mentioned links:

• 360Flex
• Flash and the City
• MIX
• Cairngorm 3
• Swiz
• Parsley
• Mate
• SpringAS
• Robotlegs
• Martin Luther King, JR
• Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout

Tell Zend about PHP development - Jan 26

Source: The Official Flex Team Blog by Mike Potter

Our friends at Zend are looking for more information about how PHP developers use front-end design and development tools like Flash, Flex and Ajax. The results of the survey will help shape future solutions from Adobe and Zend.

Take their online survey to and then be entered in a drawing to win a free Macbook.

Error 2112 in Flex Using EarthBrowser’s Mac Middle Mouse Fix - Jan 25

Source: Flex and Flash Developer - Jesse Warden dot Kizz-ohm by admin

We’re using the EarthBrowser Mac Mouse Wheel fix in our current Flex project. I was noticing some sporadic “SecurityError: Error #2112: Provided parameter LoaderContext.ApplicationDomain is from a disallowed domain.” pop up, but only when scrolling our TileList via the middle mouse. If you used the mouse on the scrollbar, it worked fine.

I found the cause of the problem was when the JavaScript called Flash Player via ExternalInterface, eventually the loader.load call in the Flex Image control would throw an exception. Since the Flex 3.3 SDK< doesn’t wrap the load with a try/catch, there is no way to catch this error.  If you’ve ever attempted to debug ApplicationDomain errors in ActionScript, you know it’s a time sink… and hard.  So, I never really found out the problem, but did find a solution.

The fix is to delay the MouseEvent.MOUSE_WHEEL dispatched by 1 frame using UIComponent’s built-in callLater function.  I wish I had time to find out the true cause, but at this point, all I have is conjectures.  My guess is that the call stack that JavaScript is initiating via ExternalInterface is sequestered in memory, perhaps in a temporary ApplicationDomain.  This then is perhaps why the ApplicationDomain.currentDomain differs from the usual one.  Since there is a lot of security around MouseEvents now (triggering File downloads/uploads, initiating full screen playback, etc.) it makes sense.

Anyway, in my testing, my fix seems to work pretty good; haven’t gotten an error yet.  We’ll be testing the updated code all week, so if I find any issues, I’ll update this post.  Here’s the code I modified in MacMouseWheelHandler.as on line 72:

static private function _externalMouseEvent(delta:Number):void
{
        // [jwarden 1.25.2010] Originally, it'd just dispatch the event immediately.
        // However, we were getting image loading errors when you scrolled on some tile pages.
        // I believe this is because when JavaScript executes, the stack is in a protected
        // memory space, and the ApplicationDomain.currentDomain utilized by the Image control
        // is different than normal.  This causes a 2112 error, and since the Flex 3.3
        // image control doesn't wrap loader.load with a try/catch, the exception blows
        // things up.  If I wait a frame via callLater, the problem goes away.
        // Still trying to find out why, but for now, she works.
        if(_currItem && _clonedEvent)
        {
                var mouseEvent:MouseEvent = new MouseEvent(MouseEvent.MOUSE_WHEEL, true, false,
                                                              _clonedEvent.localX, _clonedEvent.localY, _clonedEvent.relatedObject,
                                                              _clonedEvent.ctrlKey, _clonedEvent.altKey, _clonedEvent.shiftKey, _clonedEvent.buttonDown,
                                                              int(delta));

                if(_currItem is UIComponent)
                {

                        UIComponent(_currItem).callLater(_currItem.dispatchEvent, [mouseEvent]);
                }
                else
                {
                        _currItem.dispatchEvent(mouseEvent);
                }
        }
}

If you’re not using Flex, and just pure AS3, you might try providing a way for your components to wait a frame utilizing Event.ENTER_FRAME.

Simple Method Closure in AS3 - Jan 15

Source: Ted On Flash by Ted Patrick

1 vs Many, Mediator vs Presenter, 30 mins – JXLTV – Episode #1 - Jan 15

Source: Flex and Flash Developer - Jesse Warden dot Kizz-ohm by admin

Jesse talks about 1 class vs. many classes, the Mediator vs. Presenter pattern contest on Twitter, & the 30 minutes a day tactic.

Mentioned links:

• Atlanta Flex User Group
• Follow Sean Moore on Twitter
• Gaia Flash Framework
• Robotlegs
• Mediator Design Pattern
• Presenter Pattern
• 2° Below Ale by New Belgium

mLearning eSeminars now aVailable - Jan 15

Source: The Adobe Captivate Blog by Allen Partridge

I couldn't resisted the opportunity to highlight the growing number of lowercase aTtachments to various terms in an attempt to describe efficiently the evergrowing array of associations. ;)

We've created links to this weeks Adobe eLearning eSeminars at the locations below. The sessions were well attended and each lasted about an hour. The first has a more pragmatic emphasis with a focus on creating and delivering mLearning solutions using Adobe Captivate and the eLearning Suite. The second is a deeper dive into the issues surrounding mLearning. Is it time to explore this channel? Are we hitting a new wave? Is it all still just hype? Links are below;

Title: How do I make eLearning mobile?
Duration: 01:00:29
URL for Viewing: https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?loc=en_us&id=1578639&event=register_no_session

Summary: A step by step walk through of producing mobile eLearning content with Captivate and the eLearning Suite.
Language: English

Title: Is it really time for mobile eLearning?
Duration: 01:03:48
URL for Viewing: https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?loc=en_us&id=1578643&event=register_no_session

Summary: mLearning; Beyond the Hype. A discussion of deeper issues relative to mobile delivery and eLearning. What is the critical tipping point? An examination of the mobile environment demographics and fiscal motives. A quest to find and share information about successful, and unsuccessful attempts at eLearning with mobile delivery.

Language: English

Making Su (sudoku) - Jan 14

Source: Ted On Flash by Ted Patrick

Captivate survey- now Live! - Jan 12

Source: The Adobe Captivate Blog by Shameer Ayyappan

Many of you must have received a mailer yesterday, inviting you to participate in the Captivate User Survey. Unfortunately, due to some technical glitches, the survey site was down. Our vendors have fixed the issue, and the survey is now live. We apologize for any inconvenience caused yesterday, and hope that you will take 15 mins to answer this survey. Your feedback is invaluable in helping us in improve the product.

If you did not receive the mailer, but would still like to participate, please do so by following this link.

captivate survey

Flex SDK 3.5 Released - Jan 05

Source: The Official Flex Team Blog by Vera Carr

Flex SDK 3.5, the latest official build, has been released for a few weeks on the Flex Open Source site and can now also be found on the main Adobe.com downloads page with the updated data visualization components. We are not releasing a new version of Flex Builder, but the 3.5 version will work in Flex Builder using the multi-sdk feature.

This release supports the security updated runtimes of Flash Player 10.0.42 and AIR 1.5.3. Additionally, it includes key bug fixes in the SDK, which can be viewed here (please login to the bug system to see this list).

The Flex 3 Language Reference have also been updated to 3.5.

Sizing AIR NativeWindow to Stage - 12/23/09

Source: Ted On Flash by Ted Patrick

Take a 15 minute survey for a chance at great prizes - 12/18/09

Source: The Official Flex Team Blog by Vera Carr

We're calling on you, Flex and Flash users, to tell us the next generation of features you'd like to see. Please take this 15 minute survey, which will help us plan future releases. For those who take the survey you'll be entered to win one of the following prizes:

One Apple 64 GB iPod Touch (valued at $399)
One Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5K 9 MP Digital Camera with 10x zoom (valued at $350)
One of two $250 gift cards from Amazon
One of five $100 gift cards from Amazon

For more information on the raffle rules, click here.

Introducing Premium Support And Premium Themes - 12/16/09

Source: Edublogs - teacher and student blogs by Sue Waters

Christmas has come nice and early for Edublogs supporters, with two fabulous new features in your Supporter Tab.

Premium Support

Do you have a question about Edublogs, need personal help or would rather not use the forums?

Supporters can email us support requests using the form located in their Premium Support Tab, and we’ll get back to you as a matter of priority.

How freakin’ cool is that :)

Now supports just a click away!

Please Note:

1. Our reply is sent to email address shown in Settings > General.
2. We recommend you include an alternative email address in your support request if your email address has changed, or there is a chance your organization’s filters will block our emails!

Premium Themes

Supporters now have an extra menu item under Appearance, namely ‘Premium Themes’ (and you’ll also see it under your ‘Supporter’ menu).

Under this menu you’ll be able to see new gorgeous themes that are only available to Supporters.

Currently you have three new themes (WPMU-Dixi,  WPMU-Triden and WPMU-Nelo) — and more themes to be added in the new year!

These three themes are incredibly popular on Edublogs Campus sites.  They are massively, massively configurable and with each you can choose between using blog homepage or a custom homepage.

The custom homepage is very popular on Edublogs Campus sites for their school websites and main blog of the sites.

Here’s Dixi in action

As a blog homepage on my personal blog:

And Nelo doing it’s thang:

As a custom homepage on John H. Leichty Middle School campus site.

Please Note:

1. WPMU-Dixi,  WPMU-Triden and WPMU-Nelo all include nested comments — to enable go to Settings > Discussion
2. Don’t use the Threaded Comments plugin on these themes because it won’t work and isn’t needed because they include nested comments
3. For tips with using WPMU-Nelo check out Getting More From Your Homepage with WPMU-Nelo

Enjoy!

RIAdventure Inspiration - 12/16/09

Source: Amy's Flex Diary by Amy B

Integrating Twitter in Adobe Captivate - 12/15/09

Source: Steve Howard's eLearning ++ Blog by stevehoward999

Last month, at the Adobe Learning Summit, Shameer Ayyappan demonstrated a great new widget that Adobe is working on. This widget allows us to integrate Twitter with Adobe Captivate, creating a ‘live’ back channel in our training, one that is also archived and searchable.

Now students can easily havea conversation with the teacher and each other.

By creating a custom Twitter account and appropriate hashtags, learners and teachers/moderators can see what is bing said about a lesson.

Some extra trickery also makes it possible to associate a comment with a specific slide within the lesson, so that a visual hint will appear on a slide when a comment exists.

Shameer intimated that a release version of this widget might be available sometime this month, but until it is released, you can begin planning how you might use it by watching this recording of Shameer’s demo.

Click the image to view Shameer's demo of Twitter in Captivate

CoolIris Express Launches - Put a 3D wall anywhere using Flash Player - 12/08/09

Source: Ted On Flash by Ted Patrick

Flex Builder Linux Alpha 5 release - 11/24/09

Source: The Official Flex Team Blog by Matt Chotin

The Flex Builder for Linux alpha bits posted on Adobe Labs have been updated to extend the hardcoded timeout period. The current FB Linux Alpha 4 product will expire on Dec. 1st, 2009, so if you are currently using Flex Builder for Linux be sure to download the updated Alpha 5 bits from Adobe Labs prior to Dec. 1st. There are no changes to the functionality of the product in these new bits; however they have been tested on later versions of Linux distros. Please see the release notes posted on Adobe Labs for complete details.

Notes from DevLearn and the Adobe Learning Summit - 11/17/09

Source: Steve Howard's eLearning ++ Blog by stevehoward999

INTRODUCTION

Following is a largely unedited version of conference notes that I have just distributed internally where I work. There’s a lot. As a blog post it’s probably pretty crap – too long, too much scrolling, but as a record of the event, and a method for me to retain my learning, it is just dandy, thank you. Hopefully you, my brave reader, can get similar value from my scribblings, but I make no apology for the size or the content of this blog post. It is what it is, and is for me and my fellow DevLearners first and foremost.

You will note there is no mention of all the extr-curricular learning, from the bar, the lunch table, the karaoke etc. *that* would take an entire book!!!

During the week of November 9th, 2009 I attended two conferences in San Jose. The first was the Adobe Learning Summit, hosted by Adobe. The second was DevLearn, run by the eLearning Guild. Usually when I attend conferences I make some scribbled notes on various pieces of paper, usually the notepad provided by the conference, and then promptly misplace them when I return home.

This year, I decided to actively take notes using Twitter. When I looked over the notes that I had taken, I realised a couple of things
• There’s a lot of great stuff here that helps me remember more from the presentations I attended than I might otherwise recall
• Being forced into 140-character messages, I had to constrain each ‘tweet’ to a complete thought whenever possible. Sometimes this was a bad thing – I would miss some good info because I was busy re-crafting a message. Other times it was great, as it concentrated my thoughts into being a lot more specific than I typically might be.
• Hundreds of other people were doing the same thing, at the same time. All of their notes are online and searchable. Someone is compiling a ‘tweet book’ of all the tweets posted about DevLearn that week.

I also realised that if I wanted to write ‘proper’ notes from the tweet-scribbling I took, I’d be working on them for days. So instead I decided to compile all of my notes into individual blog posts. I also made the choice to not rewrite the notes as proper sentences and paragraphs. People used to reading Twitter will be comfortable reading these notes, and even if you are not used to Twitter, you should have no difficulty following along. Ideally the slides from each presentation should accompany these notes, but there’s already enough here for now!
I also realised that if I didn’t attack this task all in one go, I probably would never finish it. As you can see from this post, there’s a lot of notes.

Lastly, it would still be a lot of work to compile this as separate blog posts, so in the interest of saving my typing fingers, not your eyeballs, I decided to put the notes out ‘as is’ .

If you have the time to read, or just skim through these notes you should find a lot of useful information – there’s also lots of web links to additional information. If you do manage to look through these, I welcome your comments. I want to know if this format is useful to you, or if you would prefer more traditional, legible notes published in proper paragraphs etc.

OTHER NEWS – TWITTER IN CAPTIVATE

I personally think this is stunning! Don’t underestimate the potential of this and any other tool that enables a backchannel to your training!

Adobe demoed a widget for Captivate that allows Twitter to be embedded inside Captivate lessons. Some benefits:-
• Twitter widget can associate comments with specific slides
• Can hook up to Yammer too – Yammer is an internal Twitter-like client that allows 2.0 interaction behind the company firewall – safe, secure conversations not visible to the public.
• Lets user report issues to moderator, or ask questions.
• Posts made about the lesson are always available – so users can see the history of the comments made, including questions/answers/resolutions/links to more information etc.
• Quick and easy to set up
• Light – only a small (less than 100k) addition to the overall Captivate movie size.
• No cost

SESSION 807 – USING SHAREPOINT TO ENHANCE ONLINE LEARNING EVENTS
This session described CITI’s experience in creating a learning solution that was orchestrated through SharePoint. Basically it was about how they customise standard SharePoint features and functionality to provide a more interactive ‘online school’ feel to their learning, including the use of discussion, calendar reminders and more. I didn’t find it particularly enlightening, but they did share a CD that contained all the code for their customisations. Perhaps that will be useful for me down the line.
• “not everybody at CITI has access to email. They don’t need it.” Say what now????
• Apparently some people find video hard to present in SharePoint. I use flash video all the time in SharePoint. easy Peasy. AVI etc also easy, but usually much bigger file size.
• We got all of the info we need to go back and create this in our own SharePoints! Thank you Citi for free resource CD!
 
SESSION 712 – USABILITY IN LEARNING, BRIAN DUSABLON
This session described the importance of usability in learning. Main outcomes/information:-
• remembertheuser.com – blog with useful usability tips
• Nielsen’s work on usability and web design is a useful start-point, but be prepared to disagree and justify your own choice – in reference to Homepage Usability book
• a good number of people for usability testing of new content – 5 to 10 representative users.
• when creating something new, take design out of the prototype process so you can concentrate on usability, not colours etc
• Online test your colors for usability “colorblind filter” http://colorfilter.wickline.org/
• Photoshop has tools built-in that you can use to test your designs for colour-blind viewers – see my previous blog post
• for pallets – learn to love Adobe Kuler http://kuler.adobe.com
• Many Lessons exhibit poor use of fonts and colours – don’t go crazy with fancy fonts, moving fonts. Use sparingly for effect
• @rebecka7: I keep hearing over & over again…get your course/training RIGHT ENOUGH for your deadline and then improve.
• http://bit.ly/aYr99 Articulate showcases. Beware, 1st one is great, but suffers from cognitive overload
• If it is slow and unpleasant, people are likely to go away and not use it.
• Usability – “Is it *EASY to use for the *purpose it was intended”
See also this fantastic presentation on usability from AdobeMax last month http://max.adobe.com/online/session.213 by Anthony Franco http://anthonyfranco.wordpress.com/
 
KEYNOTE: LEO LAPORTE
Leo presented generally on his thoughts about mass media and how ‘social’ media is a great benefit to us all. He talked a lot about how he got his start in radio and television etc. Following notes are just bullet-point snippets from his presentation.

• Looks like Leo has no slides – unusual. Refreshing. [later he explained that he finds the visuals a distraction. Guess, being a radio man at heart, he doesn’t enjoy the huge value that quality slides can bring.]
• He says mass media is a 20th century invention that is breaking down
• and that’s great because now we are replacing it with ‘new media’ with new technologies and attitudes
• prior to Mass Media, companies advertised through things like Sears Catalogue
• “the more people you can subvert with your” underhand marketing the more money you can make
• RT @GuildMeister: “If you want to know about water… Don’t ask the fish” Laporte [I think this was in reference to asking mass media about the state of mass media, I think]
• “brand is the refuge of the ignorant” every advertiser knows this. Smart people don’t care about brand, not swayed by advertising. So advertisers don’t typically target the ‘smart’ audience. Stress – typically
• … the only way to get people to buy stuff is to trick them
• which means advertisers were not keen to advertise to smart people on a niche tech tv show like This Week in Tech. Only smart people are watching – says Leo. Hence his show didn’t last too long – too expensive to run, not enough viewers, too few advertisers. Fix one or two of those three and it may have made it.
• so Leo started his own show online http://techguylabs.com/radio/pmwiki.php
• re: YouTube – there’s too much crap there. How can you watch it all? Well, you can’t. But there’s lots of great stuff to find
• but the thing is “80% of everything is crap” but that leaves plenty room for ‘good’, ‘great’, ‘excellent’, ‘interesting’ etc The next Spielberg might just be found on YouTube. Or Britney Spears or Colbert etc.
• Leo claims are our kids more cynical about adverts than we are/were? “4 out of 5 Doctors agree .. give me a break!” I don’t agree. I say *some* kids are more cynical, and surely *Leo’s* kids are…
• Re. social networking, social media: it’s got to be a conversation – passive consumption is no longer enough. (Maybe because the ‘2.0 we’ are cynical about mass media honesty)
• some people get scared by the internet because they see opinions they don’t like or understand …
• … but that’s a good thing because more eyes are being opened to new ideas.
• Corporate America wants to change the Internet to meet their needs, to fit in with their “we rule” model. This does not meet the needs of the consumers of Web
• Leo then spoke about the ACTA treaty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement and how it is gaining traction, in legal terms, due to the weight of Mass Media being thrown after it. e.g. if you are *accused* 3 times of piracy, you get internet service cut off, and your name circulated to prevent access elsewhere
• this is the ACTA treaty, adopted in a few places like maybe Korea, France. Not in the best interests of consumers! It is much more wide-reaching than just anti-piracy (so says Leo)
• go to SaveTheInternet.com for more info. Michael Geist blog too http://www.michaelgeist.ca/
• Question to Leo – what do you think of Rupert Murdoch’s plan to close all News International web sites to Google etc. Answer: Murdoch is a dinosaur – representing the old way. Big media corps can’t hack the openness of the internet and want to subvert
• Murdoch needs a new business model. Hard to do. Kodak did it … went to Digital. May never be so big as they were but changed anyway
•
• Twitter is a symptom of a larger trend: the Internet Nervous System. Millions of resources that we filter with the help of our friends
• Q to Leo “what are your thoughts on short attention span of the audience? ” No problem, because Leo’s shows are engaging so audience wants more
• Observation (heard phrased in many different was during DevLearn) reading ‘everything’ on Twitter is a waste of time. Just read what’s going on now – treat it like a river where you go down to drink or to bathe a few times a day or once or twice a week.
• Still in reference to attention span: ideal podcast length is the duration of your commute. and the good news is commutes are getting longer
 
SESSION 505 – CATCH THE WAVE – GOOGLE WAVE AND E-LEARNING APPLICATIONS, GOOGLE
This session was supposed to talk about Wave and eLearning, but the original presenter could not make the conference. Instead, the presenter was one of the developers of Wave, and he was more interested in telling us about Wave in general. Useful intro, but not much about eLearning applications. Notes below are unedited.
• if you want a WAVE invite, you just might possibly get one if you come to this session. Maybe
• if you don’t like the web interface for Wave, you can create your own.
• Q What is Gears? Browser Plug-in that helps browser store stuff offline. Built into Chrome
• everyone who is in the room at this very moment is going to get Wave invite
• wonder if its coincidental that a flush of people just came in …
• www.getwaveboard.com to get an iPhone app sometime soon … ? But you can use Wave on the iPhone anyway by going to wave.google.com … just kinda s l o w
• ultimately companies will be able to run their own wave server – behind firewall if they want
• current issue – notification system not officially designed yet – so no notifications, You must manually check for updates
• cannot currently remove a participant from a wave
• Advanced permissions (ACLs) not yet included so no tiered security features
• www.completewaveguide.com for full wave info
• private blip shows up in different colour, and is hidden from everyone … it’s a note to self. You can invite others…..
• … for back channel or private consult.
• private invitee cannot see the rest of the Wave, unless already invited. Will see only private part until invited to main
• Q “Will you be able to remove someone that you didn’t personally invite to the Wave?”
• answer: well removing someone opens a can of worms… do you delete participant? His contributions? His edits?
• … hence remove not enabled yet. Someone needs to figure a way to knit the worms into neat order.
• Q “am I able to decline a Wave invite?” A. “new feature today, you can click ‘unfollow’ button to unsub from unwanted wave”
• parallel feature is new explicitly “follow” button. Unfollow does not remove your contributions.
• Q “what’s the business model for final delivery?” maybe market place for gadgets and robots. No ads yet no plans to add them
• Q “how does Wave integrate with Android?” no special integration yet. Runs fine, but a little slow. No concrete plans
 
SESSION 0407 – EXPLORING THE NEXT GENERATION INTERACTIVE MEDIA AUTHORING ECOSYSTEM, MICHAEL ALLEN
Michael Allen, the man who created/invented Authorware, has started developing a new tool. This presentation was his opportunity to introduce the tool to the eLearning developer community, explain his reasons for creating it, and to get feedback on his direction. Following are my notes, with some small expansion.
• discussing a new authoring tool.
• Driver – “it doesn’t seem like it’s less expensive to do learning activities than it was when Authorware came out.”
• Driver – “for us and our clients, current tools are inadequate” – output of great stuff is still too expensive
• Driver – “e.g. Flash takes too long to learn, and Flash-based apps are inflexible”
• Driver – “majority of courses are glorified (or not) PowerPoint slides because of tool limitations (in part)
• Aside – Courselab free learning development tool http://bit.ly/heTOx
• “if your goal is page turners, current tools are adequate. Sometimes page turners are fine. Just can’t think of when”
• Buzzword – motivation meaningful memorable
• Allen spoke a lot about using sketch outlines to define your early design, so that features and functionality can be concentrated on, with final design being plugged in later. Separating design and functionality. Based on book by: Bill Buxton “Sketching User Experiences” the power of sketching your design
• if you try to make the design look too pretty (complete) too early in the process it stifles innovative design
• tool – codenamed Zebra
• Zebra metaphor is wiring/linking properties/actions like building a circuit. Looks like it could quickly get messy -
• all file properties save as xml. So you could tweak xml too if that floats your boat
• @visualrinse I really like this. But I want to see the newer version to see how pasteboard works etc. Scalability hasn’t been covered …
• messy authored app diagram view can be cleaned up/organised by grouping, like using Authorware maps
• we can sign up to get access to early builds at Allen’s booth in the expo.
• to be added – coverflow-like paging interface during authoring
• you can add multiple flags to ‘run from flag’
• you can create your own template/widget library to drop in … millions of icons?
 
SESSION 202 – RESEARCH PANEL DISCUSSION: EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND THE FUTURE OF ELEARNING
Title should be self-explanatory. Representatives from Brandon Hall and other respected research institutes discussed how they see eLearning being affected by emerging technologies. This was an interesting, but dry discussion. A few gems emerged, as can be seen below.
• primary barrier to web 2.0 adoption in enterprise is inability to link back to business objectives. Contrast standard perception that resistance is about security/control!
• to successfully implement internal wikis: start small, have solid goals. Document goals as business case for executive level
• the attendees are not seeing a drop-off of ‘traditional’ elearning attendance as social learning grows = social is additive to current list of learning tools
• huge growth in the use of 2.0 technologies in recruiting and on-boarding.
• panel sees succession management – knowledge transfer – as huge growth area for social learning
• Wagner – anyone who thinks they can be successful at 2.0 in corporate without a business case is wrong.
• Wagner: think of our digital learning efforts as products (as opposed to tools, I guess?)
• “are you training your users in the use of 2.0 tools?” yes to this is key indicator of best in class 2.0 util/implementation
• good alumni networking is huge indicator on successful 2.0 learning success [extends and maintains traditional networking, like Facebook for grownups]
• Wagner “how do you like to learn?” questions are a red herring – preference and performance not correlated
• Q “what’s the bottom-line most effective way to utilise 2.0 techs for learning?” panel says “it depends”
• McDonalds has great free webinar and research showing how successful informal learning can be
• bestbuy 401k video on YouTube: great example of informal, user-created learning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqpKgTmkHIk .
• Q “if you were a venture capitalist, what emerging tech would you invest in?”
• A Wagner “rich internet applications with annotation attached”
• A “anything that allows annotations to be attached” – user-tagged/enhanced training
• A the application of perfectly-working semantic search”
• A “augmented reality”
• A “competency-driven learning” “workforce planning”
• closing thought – call it talent management instead of eLearning – it’s easier to sell.
 
SESSION 104 – EVIDENCE-BASED TRAINING, RUTH CLARKE
I’ve blogged about Ruth’s research and presentations before. The reader is probably also familiar with her work. Ruth’s presentation was very fast-paced, and packed full of facts and figures. I wasn’t able to capture all of the numbers or even a fraction of the great content, but, frankly, that is available in many places already. The notes below are what I did get, and typically represent what I felt might be useful for us to apply in our learning.

• Know what to do and why. Participate in communities of practice – in other words, don’t work in isolation, learn from your peers, especially outside of your organisation.
• “content covered is not guaranteed to be content learned” – just because it’s in the manual, or in the training, that is no guarantee that your learners know the stuff.
• how much did we spend on eLearning last year? about $134 Billion. Huge, important industry, but somehow not glamorous. Don’t underestimate the power of the industry, or the amount of growth ahead of it. Expect slow steady growth, not the explosion that has been predicted for over a decade.
• what is the reality about learning styles? Ruth says there is no significant correlation between self-reporting of style vs. learning performance by style
• college students are typical white mice of learning style studies – research professors get easy access to them
• … which is interesting, How does that research compare to how older learners perform? Can we even find out?
• learning can be better when we have words and visuals compared to words alone.
• but for whom are the visuals more important? Typically for those who don’t already have firm understanding of subject matter
• Are all visuals equal? No – visuals that are irrelevant to the subject are not helpful, and can be harmful to learning.
• beware of adding too much anecdotal or supportive info, as it can disrupt learning goals. Stick to the point.
• or, in Ruth’s words “learning is better when extraneous details are omitted”
• is there a correlation between liking (high ratings) and learning? Yes, but it’s minimal. Too small to rely on student ratings… to evaluate the quality and effectiveness of the training.
• Text plus narration that reads the text is the least effective method for achieving learning
• Combinations of text/audio/images all better. Audio plus supportive text (i.e. associated bullets, but not parroted words) is most successful
• Text plus matching audio – redundancy principle. Also a form of cognitive overload. Audio plus supportive text = better
• more on learning styles. We are *all* visual learners, and we can all benefit from accompanying audio
• There are exceptions – novice users, for instance, respond better to text+audio that match
• when using visuals, place the image as close to the supportive text as possible – contiguity principle. Think newspaper image with description underneath, vs. textbook, where picture is on one page, but the explanatory text is only seen when you turn the page. Disassociation of content deflects learning.
• are animations better? Depends: simple diagram often be more effective – animation may be too much info, moving pic hard to study line drawings vs. 3D drawings …
• … especially true if you have a series of stills vs. animation
• what is more effective learning? Less is more. Sketch graphics very effective.
• or animations if you have to learn a procedure – like origami or knot tying? animations are better when complex motion involved
• This is because we have a [postulated] ‘mirror neuron”; we are adapted to learn by copying, so if we have animated instruction our natural learning stimulated
• … and this overrides possible cognitive overload. May not even have to see hands manipulating, just animation process
• How to learn/apply guidelines, which is better? Text, video, animation . Animation and video best.
• stills vs. animation: Stills for how things work, animation for motor skills (mirror), Dynamic visuals for social skills (video animation)
• Closing thought – don’t waste time on learning styles. Meaning, concentrate on quality learning methods instead.

THOUGHTS ON OPENING KEYNOTE FROM ANDREW MCAFFEE
Andrew MacAfee talked around the content of his book, Enterprise 2.0. The book discusses how corporates can harness all that social stuff that is out there and turn it into a powerful corporate resource. When many companies are resisting the (apparent) anarchy of the Web, it is interesting to see this take on how it can be best utilised to the benefit of corporates.
The following notes are sparse – Andrew had a lot of great things to say, and I failed to capture most of them as I only had my phone with me during his session. Actually some of the comments came from other people – part of the open conversation that went on live during the presentation.
I bought the book, so maybe I’ll have a useful summary at a later date.

MacAfee started out talking about how Twitter and other 2.0 apps have sparked a new altruism at work and at play. This sparked off a brief side conversation between me, “KoreenOlbrish” and “carmean” on Twitter.
carmean
Web/Ent 2: Creates phenomenon of altruism. People want to help each other. In real time. ([corporates should] Stop obsessing about risks. Altruism trumps)
me
Yeah but web-based altruism has been around for decades with bulletin boards etc. Now it’s ‘mainstream’
carmean
Lots of altruism has been around, I think @amcafee claims new tools make it …not just easy…but integral. No?
me
2.0 reduces the cost of altruism to near zero 10 seconds to read and respond, instead of longer newsgroup/email process
KoreenOlbrish
For a guy who talks so much about web 2.0, most of what McAfee is talking about is people. Love it!
me
Isn’t 2.0 *all about* people??

• According to MacAfee we are an uber-geeky crowd because we’ve heard of Nupedia (wikipedia predecessor)
• Nupedia devolved into Wikipedia, removed all barriers to posting (Nupedia had 7 layers of bureaucracy, which choked it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nupedia) and then it took off
• http://www.innocentive.com great place for outsourcing crowdsourcing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing
• RT @mrch0mp3rs: People are motivated by a weird mix of different things. Stop questioning it – use it. [Me: yeah they are smarter than I]
• MacAfee explains how groups of people can solve problems better and faster that individuals or small teams. Web-based ‘groups’ can be massive crowds. Don’t be fooled into thinking that ‘groupthink’ is always perfect, though. Just be aware that it can be very very good, like Wikipedia.
• RT @davemerwin: #dl09 a lot of what MacAfee is saying is in a book called Wisdom Of Crowds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_Crowds
• Prediction Markets more accurate than smart guy with heaps-O-statistics and Big Computer http://bit.ly/Yi42D
• RT @roninchef: @mrch0mp3rs Reputation Currency it’s called Whuffie – http://bit.ly/15GtEF #dl09
• Personal observation: this is the most active back channel I’ve seen at any function. Geek crowds rock! [there was a lot more twitter chat than shown here!]
• Great question from Tridib Chowdhry: Isn’t it useful in enterprises to open up to alternative viewpoints and allow them to bubble up?
• @TerrenceWing I’d say “potential wisdom and strength of the crowd”
 

Flex Template Component - 11/16/09

Source: Amy's Flex Diary by Amy B

We’re improving Edublogs! - 10/27/09

Source: Edublogs - teacher and student blogs by James

We’ve got some big plans for Edublogs.org for 2010 to make your experience better and improve our service and functionality.

So we’ve put together this really, really quick survey to help us find out how we can best help you.

And, to sweeten the deal, we’re giving away several Amazon Kindles to survey participants!

So please, take 60 seconds to complete the quick and easy survey, it’s designed to help us identify how we can best help you.

And as the usual response rate to surveys is about 5% there’s a great chance you could be a winner!

Here’s the link to the survey again (it’s also a great example of what you can achieve with Google Docs :)

Many thanks for opening this email and taking part in the survey – we can’t wait to implement your feedback to provide you with a much improved experience.

P.S. A whole heap of schools, districts and Universities are taking advantage of our 30 Day free trial of Edublogs Campus, get in touch with us any time to start yours!

RIA Adventure Conference/cruise - 10/27/09

Source: Amy's Flex Diary by Amy B

Speaking at DevLearn and Adobe Learning Summit - 09/04/09

Source: Steve Howard's eLearning ++ Blog by stevehoward999

I’ve been busy recently, so you have had to suffer another one of my blogging dearths. Fear not dear reader, I’m still here, hale and hearty and in one complete piece.

Adobe Learning Summit

I’m speaker at this years Adobe Learning Summit, where I will be talking about the value that Adobe brings to the eLearning Suite by adding integration between the various tools. Since I am a developer, not a teacher or Instructional Designer, this topic is close to my heart. I don’t claim to be expert in many tools, but I do have to dip my feet into many and various tools in order to do my work. The integration on the eLearning Suite can improve my workflow significantly.

DevLearn

In the last couple of years I have travelled to San Jose for the eLearning Guild’s DevLearn conference. With each visit, I learn more, I network more, and I become more impressed by the professionalism and organisational brilliance of the eLearning Guild team. This is a great conference, with its heart firmly set in eLearning, and a solid bias towards the more technical aspects of eLearning (tools and technology) rather than the teaching aspect. That’s not to say that there’s nothing there for Instructional Designers, teachers and managers, just that DevLearn is a great conference for people like me who are tasked with making the technology do what the educators need.

I will be speaking at Devlearn

This year, I am also speaking at DevLearn, where I will talk about some of my favourite features in the Adobe  eLearning Suite. This is a similar session to the one I presented at the Annual Gathering earlier this year, though it will be updated to reflect my more recent experiences.

Captivate 4: Fix for small text in Short Answer question - 07/21/09

Source: Steve Howard's eLearning ++ Blog by stevehoward999

Recently, a couple of different people asked me about Short Answer questions in Captivate 4. Apparently, when you create and publish a Short Answer question, the text entry box that your learner types into has small, 8-point text by default. That’s fine, you might think, but there is no way to edit the properties of this text entry box, so you are stuck with 8 point text.

Short Answer questions in Captivate 4 have tiny text in the answer box

I contacted ‘RJ’ Jacquez via Twitter and asked him about it. RJ is the Adobe Evangelist for eLearning and Technical Communication, which means he is a great go-to guy for all things to do with the eLearning Suite and the Technical Communication Suite from Adobe.

Quick as a flash, RJ confirmed that it was indeed true, there is no way to format the answer text in a Short Answer question in Captivate 4.

Now, here is where things get interesting. Most of the time, when an issue like this is raised, it must be reported as a bug and a fix may not appear until the next release of a product. But the Adobe Captivate engineers are special bunch – they rustled up a fix for this issue that requires no formal patch to Captivate 4.

Those of you who are familiar with Captivate 4 will know that a new feature called Widgets. Widgets can be devised that extend Captivate’s features and functionality way beyond the original intent of the Captivate engineers. Those same engineers have realised that they can also fix some issues with the product by using Widgets.

This Short Answer Input Text Formatting widget is a simple and quick fix

… and so they made a widget that can be used to customise the font settings for the Short Answer question. This Widget is a 50k download, so it’s quick and easy to get and ind install. The only caveat, so far as I can see, is that the Captivate file must be published as ActionScript 3.0. The fix will not work if you publish your file as AS 2.0 compatible.

Here's the same question with the answer text reformatted

So where can you get this fix? RJ has a simple demonstration o fthe problem, which you can view here https://admin.adobe.acrobat.com/_a295153/p84127193/. At the end of the demo, there is a link to the download of the Widget file, and instructions on where to install it.

You should follow RJ on Twitter if you want to get the best and latest eLearning and Technical Communication Suite tips and info @rjacquez

Thanks RJ and the Captivate team!

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