Tech4learning

iPhone, therefore iWeb-conference

Having spent the last few weeks badgering the providers of rapid e-learning authoring tools to bring forward their plans to offer options to output content that can be played on a Blackberry, when offered an upgrade by my phone company the other week, I went for an iPhone!

So now I have a personal interest for looking for ways in which this device (albeit not a mainstream corporate mobile option in the UK at least) can be used to facilitate learning.

I was reminded that Webex has recently added the ability to take part in a web-conference from an iPhone, but not being a current user of this platform - and given the fact that competing Flash-based web-conferencing systems couldn't run on the non-Flash enabled iPhone - I was interested to find a solution that was designed specifically for the iPhone, complete with its own iPhone App.

Touch Meeting from web-conferencing provider, Persony, allows you to host or attend a web-conference from your iPhone (or a computer).  Two video clips show this in action.

It is possible to sign up for this service free of charge (but you are restricted to just three participants), although this would be OK for periodic small coaching sessions. 

The solution is US-based too, so at this point in time, for an international audience anyhow, I think this is just a great taste of what is possible.  Hopefully it won't be too long before other vendors develop their own solutions and if Apple ever moves to offer Flash on the iPhone, many other other major corporate web-conferencing provider will be able to bolt on this platform. 

Although I wouldn't see a need for a webinar to be delivered solely to an iPhone platform, on those occasions when a participant was travelling, they may rather attend from their iPhone (accepting some of the limitations posed by the size of the device), than miss the session altogether.

Boost Your Googling Skills

I'm focusing on a content solution for this posting.  I was trying to find some statistics I saw a long time ago about how much employee time is wasted by poorly executed Google searches - and it did feel slightly odd googling for such data via Google!

I didn't do too badly though with my search, as I not only found some data that looked similar to that I had seen before, but I also uncovered this e-learning solution from Boost eLearning, a company that specialises in providing training to help corporate knowledge professionals get the most from their online searches.

There are two types of course on offer:

1. Quick Lessons - 2 to 4 minute long skills-based modules that teach the key search skills quickly.  The total course in this format would take about an hour to complete.

2. Step by Step Lessons - 6 to 18 minute long scenario based modules that present the techniques in the context of everyday search requirements.  Studied this way, the total course time is 2 hours and 40 minutes.

What's more, you can preview one of each of the above without the need to part with your personal details.  I found both modules of interest, particularly the Step by Step Lesson.  The scenario, whilst not in my field of work, was one I could easily relate to.  The fact that I knew I was learning a valuable skill that would make my own Google searches more productive seemed to draw me in to this training.  It was actually refreshing to take an e-learning course that screamed "this will really help me straightaway!".

You can buy the course for personal use for $50, but corporate pricing is also available.  The enterprise solutions can be hosted on your own LMS or by the vendor.

Oh, and the data I was looking for:

• Average number of searches per day - 12
• Average number of failed serches per day - 4.7
• Percentage of searched that did not obtain the desired results:  39%
• Number of minutes spent daily on unsuccessful searches:  12.12

If this training can address the above, then it would be a powerful e-learning resource to have in any organisation.