patrick's blog

Way behind the times

2008-04-13T15:01:34-05:00

Okay folks,

So.. yeah. It's been awhile. Here's an update on what I've been up to:

Family: Mary and I are expecting our second child any day now! You hear this all the time as a matter of course, but being a father is truly the greatest thing I could imagine for my life. Watching Sophia grow into a "real little girl" has provided endless [and really, excessive] amounts of joy to our lives. It makes everything more fun, exciting, and new. Adding another to our family just keeps things interesting!

Transport: Of course, we need a little bigger vehicle. The new VW Tiguan fits the bill for us. Not too big, still Golf-like, but taller and with AWD. No diesel, though, yet, so we'll be keeping my Golf TDI for my commuting needs.

Travel: I've been traveling a bit back and forth to San Francisco but that will be put aside for awhile with the new baby. In the meantime videoconferencing will have to do, expect a post on my research in that domain soon! In July I'll be in Salt Lake City for the eLearningDevCon, one of my favorite conferences. In the fall I'm planning to attend DevLearn in San Jose. Something on the east coast would be nice too but probably not until next year.

Technology: I'm probably going to give away my giant Silicon Graphics machines and a bunch of other stuff (some of them with four wheels) in a spring fever-inspired simplification of "everything". Those who know me will understand that is something I could use (i.e. how can a professed minimalist have so much STUFF)...
I've been focusing my efforts on...

* fortifying our development workflow
* getting developers onboard with the iPhone, beyond the hype and into the corporate sphere
* considering research opportunities
* playing with the latest crop of clever open source e-Learning portals
* contorting Subversion/Apache/DAV into an even more awesome version control platform than it already is
* rolling out a corporate chat server
* ...and finally getting to the intranet portal.

Clean integration with existing infrastructure and workflow is the name of the game as disjointed-yet-cool technology never, ever gets adopted! I could go on and on but that's a decent slice of what's kept me busy.

There is a lot more, too, but I'll be focusing on the above topics in individual posts outlining my recent work in some future posts. The best part is we are on the verge of Spring in Minnesota, who could ask for a better season in a more beautiful part of the country!

Science & Techmology

2007-11-29T13:26:32-06:00

What is it all about?

Situation in Nigeria seems pretty complex

2007-11-29T12:55:39-06:00

Do your internal meetings feel like this sometimes?
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ADL [the SCORM people] using Moodle!

2007-11-12T11:34:07-06:00

Now, call me behind the times. I just stumbled upon http://adlcommunity.net/ which is undeniably significant evidence of the Moodle LMS's entry into the mainstream. This is great news for those of us striving for a new era beyond the stranglehold the corporate LMS vendors have maintained for years. Anyone familiar with industry-specific software will understand the need for competition in these venues. Let's welcome the gentrification of the corporate LMS!

ADL is the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative of the federal government.

Mahara and Moodle on the horizon

2007-11-09T17:35:20-06:00

If you haven't heard, Mahara in an up and coming open platform for electronic portfolio and social networking. Sure, there are tons of social networking "web 2.0" doo-dads out there but this one is angled toward the e-Learning industry and grew out of the same general community as the excellent [and also free] Moodle LMS. There are even plans to integrate the two complementary packages.

I asked Penny Leach, one of the Mahara developers in New Zealand, what she envisions as potential applications for the platform:

"Off the top of my head, I can see a number of uses and application for Mahara within a corporate setting:

One example - it could be used to track and display Professional Development plans and activities between employees and their managers.

Another - a corporate group, for example an IT group could use Mahara to create lists of interesting articles of what's happening in IT.

It could also be used for employee profiles.

In terms of integration with other systems, Mahara has a really good authentication framework, similar to Moodle's, so it's relatively easy to write new plugins, which allows Mahara to integrate with HR systems for user information."

Thanks Penny. I don't know about you, but this excites me! Any new addition to the general mess of e-Learning deployment platforms can only be good, especially when it grows out of a well-established community.

How will you use Mahara? Or should I ask, how long will it be before Mahara and its contemporaries enter into the fickle e-Learning mainstream?

Penny's Blog

Lesson #1 on Indian Outsourcing

2007-11-08T16:24:33-06:00

Hey, it can work [well kind of, and in some cases]. Just make darned sure there is someone on staff who is available during your own business day.

I can't tell you how many times I have had to be up in the twilight hours just to get a course deployed on a foreign hosted LMS. As long as there is at least one person over there with some general acumen who is in available for email or IM during our business day, potential for a successful deployment is about 10 times higher.

How inefficient is your project management?

2007-11-05T15:55:16-06:00

Does this describe your company? Well, doesn't it describe them all?

Time and again inefficiencies in resource allocation and project management damn project teams to a hard slog if not to outright failure. I want to be clear in stating that I'm no project management expert, but regardless of expertise I never discount the commentary of any astute observer.

What I find to be the most effective means of breaking a project team is attitude and pride. I don't think the computer software trade is unique in its dependency upon the dedication of its individuals for success. Actually, I'm certain it's not. A sense of conviction and oneness with the overall direction of the company is an imperative and oft-overlooked prerequisite in assembling any project team. Without that 'spirit' [and I'm not suggesting I know how to universally achieve it] the group is far more vulnerable to things like personal attitude and bull-headed pride. How many times have you been on a team where one or more members deviated from the greater objective through a sense of unique pride, and in doing so, derailed the delicate balance-train any project teeters upon?

Attitude and bull-headedness can also affect an otherwise talented project manager's ability to do proper resource allocation. Are team members tapped to advise on the decisions they're best qualified to ruminate on? Or are members selected based mostly on personal relationships or convenience? Sometimes in companies, cliques can form which are reminiscent of what you might find in your local prep academy. Not to lean toward conspiracy speculation, but if you see one low-performing project after another staffed with the same folks, something just might be amiss.

Always be sure to look throughout your company [with an eye to schedule/availability of course] to be sure you have the best instructional talent, writer, developer[s], manager, and a good technology adviser. The best teams are assembled objectively with a primary eye to the best interest of the client. Overlooking preconceived notions and rash assumptions [and not ignoring the blatant] will go a long way to building a spirit of trust and unity. Experts exist for a reason, use them so your team members know they have the support they need. Does it seem like I'm speaking the obvious? Look at your company, and if you do postmordem analysis on low-performing projects, look for the hallmarks of loose technical architecture planning and/or arbitrary job assignments. Maybe you're in the minority and you don't have any low-performing projects, but if that were the case you probably wouldn't be reading this far!

I hope this gives you a bit of pause and fosters some discussion on the topic of project team building without cynicism or preconception. Of course, some projects are damned to fail from the start due to political goofiness built into a lot of giant corporations, computer environment flaws, communication disconnects, etc. Those are fixed risks, though, and validate even more a need for a healthy internal culture and the kind of good project management that only comes from talent and experience. The kind that cannot come from any 'certification'.

P.S. Sorry about the balance train, it was a silly analogy from a railroad nerd :)

Subversion for Flash developers?

2007-11-04T14:50:15-06:00

I'm looking for some good case studies on development groups which are using Subversion for Flash version control. Best case would be groups of 5 or more collaborating on projects.
I'm less concerned about the actionscript-only side of things.

What I'd like some commentary on especially is the process of collaborating on binary media files. Our organization is accustomed to the pessimistic locking paradigm in which only one developer is ever working on a given file. This even goes for ascii files as clearly more and more code is being externalized. Developers who are used to working this way are afraid to switch to a copy-modify-merge paradigm for obvious reasons and our organization is no exception. Many e-Learning developers come more so from the designer slant so programmer's tools like version control tend to be less familiar.

So.. who is using Subversion? What type of industry are you in? What client did you select? I am leaning toward Tortoise as the client since it should allow for an easier transition due to its integration with Windows Explorer. This migration will go hand-in-hand with an overall move to more of a programming-focused development paradigm while still maintaining the creative spirit and integrity of our iterative process. That means a completely object-oriented framework, external code editors, and a clearer delineation beteen 'media/design' and 'development'.

I have been attracted to Subversion as a tool for e-Learning development ever since a friend on the East Coast presented it to me. That same year I presented the idea of Subversion as a Flash version control system at the e-Learning Guild DevLearn conference. I was relegated to a small room and attendance was, let's say, moderate.

Its advantages [from my perspective] over more common "windows friendly" version control systems are as follows:

Platform independance (server runs on any system, there are a myriad of clients)
Atomic commit (like any good database, sending your updates will never fail partway through)
Flexibility to do either copy-modify-merge or lock-modify-unlock
Network friendliness [like any good system, but that is new to most designer types]

These major advantages mean a lot to me and will allow us to depend far less on a VPN for collaboration with contractors, freelancers, and across office locations.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

No updates, and how to ruin a Flash designer's day

2007-11-03T16:20:41-05:00

Yes, that's right, this fledgling site has not quite gotten off to a good start. Surely I've got enough caffiene at my disposal to write plenty of observations here over and above the typical work and family stuff! As much as I'd love to elevate the likelyhood of getting some serious traffic here, my own self-deprecating nature causes me to ignore clear opportunities every day to update the site with my newest ramblings. I'll be talking soon about upcoming technologies in e-Learning, some great conferences, and my usual ranting about archaic LMS architectures and the challenges of working in massive corporate.

Anyway, I've been doing a lot of research lately as I have been assembling the 2008 development plan for my employer. While much of the e-Learning industry tends to lag technologically, I'm trying to avoid that going forward. It is an exciting prospect to look for points where we as a vendor might expand our field of view to encompass the latest goings-on in interactive media development.

Here's what I'm looking at. We'll finally move completely to a modern version control system in Subversion. Further, I'll offend some designers by moving coding out of the Flash IDE and into an external IDE [Eclipse or Flashdevelop would be two suitable options]. One developer I know of will be elated to hear this but just about the entire rest of them are going to run in fear, it seems. So much it has been a debate between whether or not modern programming techniques fit into our creative and abstract environment, but I am going to argue that the argument is moot, or, something like that. My point will be that it has become obvious that building interactive media is every bit as complex and involved as any other software application development process. The reasoning behind the use of patterns and standards in object-oriented programming become obvious in practice. To me, having come out of BeOS applications development and considering my affinity for the new, new thing, it was obvious years ago. I think it is just a matter of discomfort to push software development practice on interactive designers in general. Adobe knows this, as it has accentuated how its latest Flash IDE is "easier to use". It didn't have to be easier.

Traditionally, Authorware had been the development tool of choice for e-Learning applications for its visual ease of use and dedicated purpose. This remained true for many years. Today, even a brief look at all of the 'rapid' tools foisted upon developers shows there is still demand for this type of easy tool. However, the industry is moving toward more and more sophisticated degrees of interactivity, and it is going to go way beyond tossing a single monolithic courseware at a user. Tomorrow's e-Learning applications are going to need to captivate the user not only by presenting nice interactivity, but by giving contextual relevance. Specifically, relevance to the topic and how it applies to that user personally. This will require far more sophisticated architecture at least at some level in the development, and e-Learning development teams are going to need at least one very savvy lead developer who understands this. What the tool of choice will be is irrelevant [whether it is JavaFX, Flash, or Silverlight, or tomorrow's new thing]. The bottom line is the level of sophistication is going to be on par with applications development itself.

It will also be increasingly important to continue to pay attention to AIR and Flex advancements. Tomorrow's e-Learning isn't going to need a browser in order to be network aware. Much like there is a convergence of television and the web, there will be a pervasive emergence of 'lifestyle' e-Learning which will better suit the differing needs of learners. That means applications which are capable of delivering the same level of richness and instructional value regardless of their deployment to mobile devices, thin kiosks, or whatever new immersive media platform presents itself.

Contextually relevant media is all the rage today. You walk into the bank and right there you have flat panel televisions giving you weather, stocks, news, and whatever else. Hospitals display currently on-call practitioners, and universities display classroom status and upcoming classes outsite each door. These are just the beginning for this emerging media industry. This same level of contextual relevance needs to be applied to today's monolithic LMS-and-courseware architecture. e-Learning might lag interactive media now, but I want to close that gap.

Cool example of e-Learning potential with AIR

2007-09-19T02:06:17-05:00

Check out this really neat AIR application, Searchcoders / Dashboard.

This is the kind of thing that is the future of e-Learning. Desktop located resource available persistenly. Imagine this in a call-center culture, deployed globally. Likewise, consider the potential for highbrow-types; executive leadership action learning or something. This programmer's reference application is just the beginning. In the very near future we'll see flex-developed applications providing real-time maps/travel planning, maybe some fun geocaching games, numerous online university applications [think tutor or real-time class collaboration or competition], organic peer-based music lessons, and a ton of other stuff I won't think of now because it's 2AM!

Outsourcing the Corporate LMS - Good cost savings effort or a deadly mistake?

2007-09-19T01:50:36-05:00

Ah yes, the good old 'outsource the services' effort to limit fixed costs. Nice idea, a nice thought really. On the surface it seems just as cut-and-dried as outsourcing your marketing or Human Resources. Surely a simple web application does not warrant its own dedicated in-house resource, right? Or not?

This is going to be a topic I will delve into deeper and deeper over the long term, but at least for now I'll give you my brief slice. I will say I do understand the effort to move to outsourcing for clearly delineated corporate services for the sake of cost cutting; it makes sense. Anything that does not degrade your firm's integrity and subtract from your ability to excel within your core competency should be considered fair game for the cutting. It makes good sense for things like marketing, payroll, and accounting [in some cases] to be passed on to dedicated outside resources. Running your corporate LMS is likewise a service being provided which is easily modularized and segregated.

Be wary, though, as there are some serious unknowns to be considered before making this move. Having at least one in-house resource intimately familiar with the ins and outs of your Learning Management System is going to serve as an asset in the way of conservation of resources. Sure, you can use an outside firm to run or host the e-Learning content, but watch out for firms which count on offshore resources or limit dedicated expertise. Many corporations are moving this way, inline with the tide of general HR outsourcing, but e-Learning is an IT asset which means there may be more to it than meets the eye.

Consider LMS debugging [sometimes a major time sink] when outsourcing completely to an offshore firm. Keep in mind the need for an [at least part time] internal expert who can serve as a watchdog for courseware testing and deployment. An arrangement where you are charged specifically for testing and verification access to the environment is simply unacceptable. If you are handing over hosting and administration completely, you are also handing over relevant technical communication with your courseware vendors. It may not be terribly efficient to hook up your vendor, offshore LMS firm, and your training manager in a courseware development task. This is especially risky when offshore folks are the only ones with intimate knowledge of your environment. No one outside your organization is going to have the same desire to ensure adherence to schedule and budget you'd like to see within your walls. Even if you have the aforementioned watchdog keeping an eye on the situation, undue delay and inefficiencies inherent in this type of arrangement are going to have a serious effect on the potency of your training organization.

I'm not saying never outsource your LMS, plenty of LMS's have used a hosted model for smaller firms for years. What I am saying is keep an eagle eye on the situation for a good solid introductory period to make sure things are working out once a courseware vendor approaches delivery.

More to come on this topic to be sure but in the meantime I welcome your comments.

Impact of Adobe AIR on e-Learning industry

2007-09-06T17:21:09-05:00

So how about this AIR thing?? Let me explain. You've probably heard of Adobe's Apollo project, which is a binary runtime for executing web client applications outside the auspices of a browser. Apollo's "real name" is AIR, or Adobe Integrated Runtime.

Using AIR, you can create widget-like desktop thingies or full windowing applications which integrate, network style. The best part is, they can be written in Flash, FLEX, or [like Yahoo and Apple Dashboard widgets] using AJAX. For you Flash nuts, this is great news.

There has been a little bit of buzz at the conferences about using widgets and gadgets for e-Learning applications. Where this coincides with my evil plot is that it allows courseware to be used more in a "lifestyle" methodology without the trappings and pitfalls of a big, fat, bloated web application [known as an LMS]. I can promise you that e-Learning will once again reside outside the browser almost exclusively within 5 years. How exactly that is going to happen, though, is still up for debate.

We have the two major "next generation" operating systems, OS X 10.5 and Vista, which use widgets natively. Further, we have Yahoo widgets [formerly Konfabulator] which are platform independent, and the Google Desktop. All of the above are exploding in popularity for those who wish to track flights, play silly games, blog, and do other small stuff on their desktop without having to open a browser. The potential of these little guys far surpasses their current implementations, however. Imagine as a very simple example a tiny program resident on your desktop [or in your Dashboard for you fellow mac people] which asks you a question or challenges you each day with something relevant to your work. You can interact with it, or it keeps trying to get your attention. Once you respond to it, it tells you how others in your team are doing. This is a bargain basement lifestyle e-Learning example, and the sky's the limit.

Enter AIR. For courseware vendors and other web geeks who have cut their teeth on Actionscript, Flash, and Flex, it's the perfect vehicle for yanking their way out of the browser. Inherently lifestyle training like you might have for call center personnel can be intertwined with their daily work, with a nice and efficient tool that takes no more effort to get to than Notepad. Of course, in the background it can be doing very sophisticated things, like intercommunicating with a tracking or streaming server or aggregating disparate content sources. A fun option might be an organic learning tool linking people in a worldwide organization [think the oft-overused term 'social networking']. Learners could see in real-time who they can interact with, get access to real-time coaches, and collaborate with their domain peers across vast physical boundaries. Since it doesn't require a browser or big elaborate portal to get to, folks might be more apt to fire it up daily or often. The key in the corporate landscape is the reduced level of effort, and the increased potential for simplicity.

This is all just a lot of hand-waving at this point but I'm optimistic for once about the potential for thin, efficient, sneakily advanced courseware tailor made for once to the learner's lifestyle. The obvious challenge for any of the packages aforementioned is the need for IT department acceptance of a new installation. I personally feel that AIR has a greater potential for such acceptance since it's just a runtime platform like .NET or Java, but I'd love to get your opinions as well.

Moodle seeing corporate use

2007-09-04T16:44:19-05:00

I had first heard of Moodle while attending a conference in California some years ago. The presentation was done by a (Australian?) University administration person or teacher who was using it to enrich instructor-led classroom material. I was of course interested initially due to its low price [a reasonable $0], open source, and architecture [PHP], but I became further invested once I'd installed it. It really is quite full-featured and given the erstwhile limited gamut of commercial LMS's, it brings something to the table. Especially taking into account its ability to integrate community learning features and a rich user heirarchy, it goes beyond its peers in some respects.

It was my observation for a number of years from polling the industry and serving as something of an advocate that interest in a free LMS was pretty much limited to academia. Over the past year or so, however, I have been asked more and more about this product of the 'open source community'. Not only is it being re-sold via third parties, corporate e-Learning managers are looking at installing it locally like a commercial LMS. Time will tell whether it sees long-term use, but at least for now the benefits seem to outweigh the challenges.

Like anything open source, it is no panacea. Someone who "knows things" will still need to be involved to fill the gap which is naturally filled by the LMS vendor's support people. However, this can work to your benefit, especially if you want a highly specialized system, or need to integrate into a CMS or e-commerce site. It is best to have access to someone familiar specifically with Moodle, but in a pinch a top-shelf PHP/MySQL expert will do. Keep in mind, like any LMS, it is a sophisticated system and its maintenance should not be underestimated. I have seen clients using Moodle run into issues and have nobody on their staff to turn to, so just make sure you have a good relationship with a suitable consultant.

If you're an e-Learning manager currently in the LMS discernment process, have a look at Moodle.