We are currently holding discussions across various agencies about learning management systems and delivery of training. I will be providing a list of solutions here that are probably a best bet. Before I do that, let's look again at the problem we are trying to solve or the efficiencies we are trying to achieve.

Common forms of training like orientation, financial procedures, health and safety are delivered face to face, sometimes involving travel and often repeated. These forms of training are good candidates for conversion to eLearning.

Additionally, many of these courses are very similar in nature and content across agencies is also very similar which means that if we can gather a common set of technologies and skills, agencies will be in a situation to share courses and content for repurposing without having to build from the ground up.

We can divide the learning requirements into training and support.

Training is transferring skills and knowledge and support is more about help desk style support or advice.

Training could be in the form of a PowerPoint posted to a website or a word document distributed by email.

Support can also be via email, but the nature of human beings is that a video is more personal and presents to ear and eyes and allows for immediate question and answer support (if it is a video conferencing style webinar).

Providing training videos supported by textual materials and a follow-up live video interaction using video conferencing solutions is definitely a great way to engage people.

All of these direct intervention activities required dedicated resources which of course are in limited supply. By converting some of those resource hungry support and training tasks into self-service based eLearning objects, we can provide a richer service to more people.

Building highly interactive courses is challenging and time consuming. There has been a transition over the years from computer based training that took 100 hours of development for every hour of content to a rapid eLearning model that tends to sit over the top of content created in PowerPoint.

Faster internet speeds mean that media rich content can be stored on our servers or in the cloud and delivered to the learner's desktop with a close approximation of being there.

So, our internet world has changed, but have we?

I am fortunate to work in an area that is more agile technology wise than other areas. Being agile means picking best bets as you are generally not following but leading. Being agile in government also means being conscious of using taxpayer dollars wisely to secure the best outcome for funds invested.

Training is about communication and the non-disruptive communication tools we have at our disposal are websites and the applications and content hosted on them. Examples of disruptive technologies are the phone and email, which are useful when the person at the other end is in need of support, so we won't discount them, but they can tie up a subject matter expert with questions that could be answered by fact sheet on a website.

So, to the tools, solutions and how we use them.

SharePoint 2010 - public facing websites, intranet, class site, e-portfolio content sites.

Windows Media Server with IIS smooth streaming - Streaming of television shows, live broadcast events and on demand playback of recorded events or transcoded training videos. These videos can be embedded in websites with contextual information surrounding them and be locked down to a selected audience. Schools and selected groups can be granted rights to upload into their own directory, effectively creating for them a channel of content for the audience of their choosing.

Moodle is our learning management system which contains our course content which is created in a variety of tools from MS Office applications to the authoring tools described below.

OCS/Lync video messaging system for video conferencing from the desktop, instant messaging and screen sharing. Because of presence awareness, this also falls into the disruptive technology basket, but it is an excellent enterprise application for synchronous audio visual interaction between people.

In a similar vein we also use Adobe Connect, REACT and to a lesser extent Polycom and Skype. For online teaching or virtual learning, Adobe Connect is the webinar tool of choice because of its interface and features although OCS rates higher in the reliability and quality stakes. REACT can be used over satellite connected internet sites and has a loyal following among remote locations.

Another solution involving video is RIVUS TV which is basically a mobile broadcast studio. Expression Encoder from Microsoft will also turn a PC/laptop into a broadcast studio as well, but you need access to a media server (like the Microsoft media server) to actually deliver content.

Finally we come to the authoring tools which was what actually prompted me to write this post. I read an article which listed the top seven authoring tools. I noticed that we use 6 of the top seven and in more or less the order they are presented. The article also points out that a number of these tools are add-ons to PowerPoint which then provides a gentler learning curve for an author.

Articulate and Captivate are the top two and Camtasia is another program that is very useful for preparing software training material.

For managing images, picasa is part of our operating environment as is audacity for sound recording and editing. Both of these products are good and free.

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