Intellum Blog

Intellum's Testing Tool!

2011-12-19T09:50:00.001-05:00

The most recent addition to our Rollbook LMS is a built-in, easy-to-use testing tool. If you enjoy simple and effective quizzes or tests to go along with your training material, Rollbook now offers this ability in the course creation layout.

You will have the option of including multiple choice, short answer, and essay questions on your quiz or test. The test creation interface is straightforward and user-friendly, so creating your test will be a simple process.

Making use of this option also allows for question-level reporting, so you can gather detailed information about your users' responses and scores on a question-by-question basis. If you haven't already, check it out!

Is interactive multimedia courseware more effective than text based courses?

2011-11-22T08:43:00.003-05:00

As new media continues to proliferate, a debate rages in the e-learning community as to best way to deliver course content.

Purists argue that text based learning was, is, and always will be the best way to deliver instruction. New media gurus argue that video, interactivity, and multimedia presentations offer a superior experience. Many others argue that information comprehension and retention are all dependent upon a person’s own unique learning style.

So is there truly a superior way to deliver course content?

Research shows that, in fact, multimedia based learning produces far superior course engagement and information retention that its text based counterpart.

An article entitled Benefits of Multisensory Learning published in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences explains that “it is likely that the human brain has evolved to develop, learn and operate optimally in multisensory environments (i.e. interactive multimedia)… training protocols that employ unisensory stimulus (i.e. text based learning) do not engage multisensory learning mechanisms and, therefore, might not be optimal for learning.”

In plain language, we’re all born, live and learn in a world where things are happening around us all the time. Our world is dynamic and constantly moving. It would make sense that we learn best in dynamic environments.

TEXT BASED LEARNING

But what does the research say?

Many other studies support the journal’s hypothesis.

A study of student teacher education at the University of New Mexico revealed that across two experiments, students who were exposed to video and animation reported more favorable attitudes towards learning and were better able to apply the learned principles than those who were given text or classroom instruction only.

Another study published in the Medical Teacher Journal sought to “assess the association between the use of multimedia materials, such as video clips, and collaborative communication tools with learning outcomes among medical students.”

The study showed that “video-watchers were more active in [Elearning]; they loaded more pages and more actively participated in discussion forums. Video-watching was associated with a better course grade. Students who watched video clips were more active in using collaborative eLearning tools and achieved higher course grades.”

VIDEO BASED LEARNING

When multimedia learning is combined with interactive elements, the results can be even more dramatic.

An article published in the British Journal of Education Technology describes the shift in instruction methods today, “Learning paradigms today are shifting away from the assumption that knowledge should be transferred between tutor (the instructor, textbook, etc.) and the learner. Today’s learning paradigms call for what I known as an ‘immersive learning experience’ where knowledge is transferred through interaction with the learning material.”

One study cited in an essay by Dr. Steven Hick of Carleton University showed that interactivity had a strong positive effect on learning, and often allows students to learn much faster than they would otherwise be able to.

When you think about peoples preferences for entertainment, it all makes sense. Nearly 80% of American households now own video gaming equipment. Nearly everyone enjoys seeing movies. Trying to get a group of friends over for a book club… good luck.

As new media continues to proliferate, and attention spans continue to shrink, this reality becomes increasingly important for course creators.

So when you’re planning your next e-learning course, look to interactive multimedia elements to ensure maximum course effectiveness and knowledge retention.

How to Choose an LMS Vendor: Five Steps Plus One

2011-09-22T23:07:00.005-04:00

I’ve had the extreme pleasure over the last two months to participate in several BrandonHall webinars. It’s a neat way for me to connect with companies all over the globe, and for the prospect watching on the other end, I believe the content to be very helpful in their quest to choose the correct fit for their company’s needs. The two most recent topics were: How to Choose an LMS for an SMB; and How to Replace Your Existing LMS. Although the drivers for reaching a decision are different, I don’t believe the process in getting there has to be.

BrandonHall (and other analyst firms out there) really pushes a Five-Phased approach for navigating through myriad vendors in our space, and I agree with most of their suggestions. I’ve listed the steps below and included some comments on each. I hope it helps any prospect currently experiencing the “What do I do now” effects of being tasked with choosing an LMS vendor.

Phase 1: Create a Short List of Vendors

I totally agree with this first step. There are over 130 LMS providers currently in the elearning industry, and clearly, there is no way a prospect can review each option in detail. Instead, I suggest using a tool, like BrandonHall’s LMS KnowledgeBase, to distill down a short list (maybe 10 initial providers). KB is basically a form you complete with check boxes and drop-down options, and after filling out the fields, their software will generate a list of vendors who meet your criteria. I’m not sure of the costs for using the portal, but I can tell you it is probably worth every penny. To make an analogy, think of buying a car. There are thousands of options out there, and you wouldn’t judge their ability to meet your criteria by going to the Ford or Toyota websites. All you will find there is marketing gibberish. No, you would go to Consumer Reports or Kelly Blue Book, and what you would read there is analysis done by researchers whose job is to write reviews on the exact car you are looking to purchase. Take the same approach with your LMS decision.

Phase 2: Develop a Set of Use Cases

Oh how I love thee! I cannot tell you how many times we have gotten calls from prospects that don’t even know why they are talking with us. Literally, we had a young lady call the other day wanting to learn about our Rollbook LMS application. When we asked why she needed an LMS, she had absolutely no idea. I know that may sound crazy, but we get these calls every week. If you don’t know why you need it, how in the world can you justify spending the money! So, create a list of use cases, involve as many departments in the company as possible, and use the list as your roadmap for driving the decision.

Phase 3: Set Up Scripted Demos

Another awesome idea! Folks call and talk to our sales staff for five minutes to prequalify Intellum as an option (BrandonHall’s KB would have been a better bet, right!). Boom, the next step is to set up a demonstration, except that this demonstration has no value at all unless the prospect knows what they want the LMS to do. If you come into the demo with a list of features you’d like to see in action and know why you need these features, the demonstration will go much smoother, both for the prospect and the vendor. Further, outlining the scripted demos beforehand will allow you to hold each vendor accountable for how many steps it takes to accomplish the need. In a crowded LMS industry, almost every LMS accomplishes similar goals. The difference in vendors is HOW they accomplish it. I promise if you follow this phase the difference in vendors will highlight itself within the first five minutes of seeing the LMS in action.

Phase 4: Write an RFP

Okay, this is where it gets less awesome for me ☺ I understand the need to have a baseline of knowledge about each vendor you are reviewing, and I also realize the prospect is trying to get an apples-apples comparison of each. However, does an RFP really accomplish that goal? Not really in my opinion, and I’ve been doing this for over a decade. No, the RFP is the vendor’s chance to wow you with fancy marketing jargon, slick graphics, and kill three million trees while printing out seven copies of the 96 page RFP. If you feel the need to issue an RFP, my suggestion is to create your own RFP. Don’t go to an elearning consultant’s site and download a pre-made one. Their version will contain many things you don’t need and leave out aspects important to your decision. Understand, the person who created that RFP is trying to sell you their services. The document isn’t for you…it’s for them! Instead, write a simple document outlining your needs, requesting information on the vendor’s history, their technology, e.g. are they hosted or installed options, their pricing structure, and three references. Might take you a morning to write but it will be exactly what is needed.

Intellum’s Phase 4: Test.It.Out

If you really want to understand what a company offers in the way of technology, try it out. This is the most important aspect of your entire decision-making process. Don’t believe what you saw in the scripted demonstration, and definitely do not believe much of what you read in the RFP. Go take that sucker for a test drive, and make sure you can accomplish all of the scenarios yourself immediately after the vendor demonstration. Require that they provide a login to a sandbox account that is full-featured and has unlimited access. I have a client who just moved from another LMS application. They are a hospital, and the reason they moved…reports took 24 hours to generate. Tell that to the Joint Commission when they are standing at your doorway asking for a report on all nursing quarterly training done in 2010. Hospitals literally get shut down if they cannot generate this information on the spot. The other LMS's sales person conveniently forgot to mention this when “winning” their business. Do not take my or their word for it…find out for yourself, and if they can’t or won’t give you a sandbox account, off they go from the short-list.

Phase 5: Evaluate Proposals

This step is obvious, but I really do believe it should also be the most enjoyable. One step before finalizing the choice I would suggest though…make sure you contact their references. Another hole in the RFP strategy is that it is impossible to convey how we treat our clients. Were there any ‘gotchas’ during contract negotiations, any hidden fees that had not been discussed, does their support stink, did they meet stated implementation timelines….these are all virtually impossible to determine without speaking with references. As I wrote before, get three, and I like to set the prospect up with a client in their industry, a client with similar headcount, and a client that is local (so they can grab lunch to talk through in more detail). If you have followed the previous four phases, your choice of the best fit should be very clear. You know what you want, why you need it, how it works (first-hand), and how much it will cost. You are ready to drive off that lot with a shiny new car!

Lean Startups and Sproutcore

2011-09-22T17:06:00.000-04:00

I'm in the process of reading Running Lean by Ash Maurya. It's an excellent book that I would recommend to any entrepreneur, whether they are working on the web or not.

In a society where 9 out of 10 startups fail, some thinkers such as Steve Blank, Eric Ries, and Ash Maurya have been advocating a new approach to starting companies, based on the scientific method. They've named it Lean Startups.

Most entrepreneurs build startups assuming that their initial plan is flawless. They come up with an idea, develop it in their heads, then get a team together to execute on it. Often, when their product is ready to hit the market, that's when they realize that they've built something that no one wants or needs.

The problem is that an entrepreneur's initial vision is based largely on faith and untested hypotheses. That's why most Plan As do not work.

In his book, Maurya makes the case that "what separates successful startups is not necessarily starting with a better initial plan (Plan A), but finding a plan that works before running out of resources." He lays out a systematic process for building startups that involves iterating from that flawed plan A to a plan that works, by making and testing hypotheses along the way.

He advocates first creating a plan A. No need for a lengthy business plan here. A single page document describing that plan A is enough at this stage. This document lists things such as the customer segments targeted, the top 3 problems the company will be solving, the solution they've imagined, etc... He came up with a format for this document which he calls a Lean Canvas.

With the plan A in hand, the next step is to verify that the problem the company is set to solve is indeed a problem that the customers targeted have experienced. To figure that out, an entrepreneur should conduct interviews with people that belong to his target customer segments until he understands the problem.

Once he understands the problem the next step is to build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), which solves the problem. This is not a final product, but just a demo that the entrepreneur will use in the subsequent round of interviews. Maurya says: "The main objective is using the demo to illustrate how you intend to solve the problem, convey your unique value proposition, and test pricing." Therefore, the demo needs to be realize-able, needs to look real, needs to allow you to iterate quickly, and needs to minimize waste.

Maurya says that he himself uses Ruby on Rails to build these demos: "For those familiar with the Model-View-Controller pattern, I build my demos by going in the complete reverse order. I’ll first setup some controllers, then sketch the views on paper which I’ll then translate to HTML/CSS. The model is something I tackle only after I’ve qualitatively tested a screen and got a strong signal to implement it."

At Intellum, we've invested time into learning the Sproutcore framework in the last year. We've developed pretty good expertise in building applications quickly using this framework. As I was reading Maurya's requirement for a mockup and the way he uses Ruby on Rails to create his demos, it occurred to me that Sproutcore is a perfect tool for a Lean Startup. Let me explain.

The way we develop Sproutcore applications at Intellum is to start by laying out the User Interface (UI) the way we envision it. We can build a complete UI very quickly without the need for a backend by using data from client-side fixtures. The result is a fully functional application that we can serve from a web-server and have customers test-drive.

This approach meets the four criterias for a good demo listed by Maurya:

Realize-able

What we show a customer during these interviews is exactly what they will see when we are done with the product. There are no un-met expectations, because we are building the demo with the same tool with which we will build the final application.

Looks Real

The demo will not only look real, but the customer will be able to 'drive it' by clicking around and seeing what exactly is happening. Not only will the UI behave as a customer would expect, but this UI will actually be backed by a data model (Javascript objects) just like the real product will eventually be built.

Quick Iterations

Sproutcore views are very quick to build, and since we do not connect these client applications with the backend (we use client-side fixtures), it's really easy to iterate quickly and change things around in the mockup. Furthermore, we build applications that are backed by statecharts. This approach tends to make it really easy to quickly refactor the code and change things around. If you've never developped an application backed by an in-memory statechart, you should give it a try. It's a really nice and agile way to build applications.

Sproutcore also ships with a good set of UI widgets that we can use to create these demo applications. This means we spend less time designing. We do not need to involve a designer early in the process because these widgets are good enough for a demo.

Minimize Waste

There is literally no waste with this approach. All the code we wrote for the demo will be used for the final product. When we've found a demo that solves the problem at hand, we can quickly go from that demo to the final product. All that's needed is to create a backend for the application, modify the client-side code to use that backend instead of fixtures, and make other appropriate changes.

To make the process of demo to real-app even faster, we've been experimenting with using and syncing changesets between the client-side application and the server. This approach is very portable from application to application as a lot of the code can be reused.

As a matter of fact, whether you are using a lean startup approach or not, this is the best process we've identified to build Sproutcore applications so we do not have to take any detours in building our application. With Sproutcore, the development process closely matches the Lean Startup approach to building startups.

5 Things I've Learned About Implementing a New LMS

2011-08-29T11:41:00.000-04:00

For about six months now, I've been helping to train our clients for the smoothest possible Learning Management System implementation process. While the training process always differs depending upon the various types of training for which a company may be using Rollbook, there are some things that I've noticed always help the implementation experience to be much more enjoyable and valuable, for both the new administrators of the LMS and myself. Here are some of those tips:

Assemble a small team of LMS administrators and divide responsibilities. If you are a smaller company, this team may be comprised of just a couple of administrators; for larger companies, you may want to consider a more extensive team. There are many new things to learn and become familiar with when you purchase a new LMS. Even if you are switching from one LMS to another, the ways in which they operate are going to differ greatly. Divvying up the responsibilities of getting your LMS set up can be extremely helpful. For example, you could have one administrator in charge of entering your users and their information, while another administrator can be responsible for setting up and/or importing your courses.

Appoint 1 or 2 people who will be the main point(s) of contact between your company and the LMS provider. This just makes everyone's life easier. Communication can become very confusing throughout the implementation process if there are multiple people (on one or both ends) attempting to organize a successful LMS set-up. Having one or two people in charge of relaying information to the LMS provider really helps to streamline the process (and vice versa, your LMS provider should provide 1 or 2 consistent points of contact to keep things simple and organized).

For larger implementations, it may be helpful to have an IT connoisseur available to help with the more technical processes. While this would be helpful for the entire process of implementing a new LMS, having an IT specialist is particularly useful for bulk importing training records, courses, and large amounts of users.

Take baby steps. Familiarize yourself with the new LMS slowly. Trying to understand every feature and bit of functionality all at once will most likely confuse you and leave important questions unanswered. It may help to create a timeline/schedule that outlines a plan for thoroughly understanding each feature.

Understand the lingo. If you've previously purchased or operated an LMS, you may already know that the technical terms and lingo can seem like a foreign language at first. Making an effort to understand the general e-learning terms (SCORM, AICC, course authoring tool, custom courseware) can help out a lot. Also, depending upon the LMS, the lingo will differ. Tackling the feat of understanding the terms will prevent confusion down the road, when the implementation process becomes more advanced.

These are just some helpful hints that I've noticed while becoming accustomed to the implementation training process, not requirements by any means. Hope they provide some guidance in your LMS implementation experience!

Rollbook Testing Functionality Preview

2011-08-25T10:40:00.001-04:00

As the final touches are being put on the new Rollbook testing functionality, we thought you may like a sneak peak of what's to come. Check out the video below for a high-level overview of the new features.

The Future of Journalism

2011-08-17T16:20:00.014-04:00

Graph source: http://theunderstatement.com/post/3890398012/the-newspaper-business-implodes

US newspaper's classifieds and ad revenue have plummeted in recent years and online revenue isn't even close to compensating for the fall. Clearly something needs to be done or these organizations will not survive. It is within this context, that Bill Densmore of the Reynolds Journalism Institute submits a proposal that he believes can save the industry.

In "From Paper to Persona," Mr. Densmore outlines his vision for sustaining journalism in the new world of Internet facilitated information overload. To summarize, and possibly oversimplify to the point of absurdity, he thinks we all need a "persona" that will allow news organizations and independent curators to offer up content that matches our interests. In addition, there will need to be protocols that allow us to access content outside of the "walled garden" of publisher's websites and allow publishers to generate revenue from that access. Finally, he calls for the formation of an Information Trust Association that will oversee the creation of these protocols and will enforce rules to ensure the public trust.

The proposal goes into incredible depth that will appeal to people in the industry, but ultimately I think most of us care very little about the business case laid out in the proposal and want to know more about how these proposed standards will affect the way we currently read the news. We already have standards that help us escape the walled garden in the form of RSS and ATOM feeds, and we have personas in the form of iTunes and Facebook accounts, so it's not too difficult to imagine the world Mr. Densmore proposes.

Today, if I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal's feeds in my feed reader, I only get a small snippet of the content of each article. To get the rest, I have to click through to the WSJ site, where I may or may not run into a paywall. If I do run into a paywall, sometimes it will remember that I am logged in and other times it will force me to log in again. Compounding this terrible user experience is the fact that the feeds that I've tried subscribing to rarely show me stories that I want to read, which is not the case when I pick up an actual printed copy of the newspaper. And I'm not going to start checking wsj.com or an iOS app, because I simply have too many sources from which I get my news to go somewhere special for one publisher's content. For all of the reasons listed above, I recently canceled my subscription to the WSJ after over a decade of loyal readership.

If Mr. Densmore's proposal is to be adopted, I can imagine a world where I enter my credit card and profile information into Reader, which will allow me to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal in the same way I may rent a movie in iTunes. With this subscription, I would be provided a feed of articles that would automatically be customized from my profile information and reading history (and possibly the likes of my social connections). And the best part, when I run across a story I want to read, I never have to leave the comfort of Reader to do so. I imagine there would be some advertising embedded in the stories as well, but if it were done tastefully, I'm okay with that.

That's a future that makes sense to me, so Mr. Densmore gets a big thumbs up for not being completely out of touch, like some in the industry. I also think there are some interesting parallels that can be made between this model of news consumption and a possible future for e-learning, but that is probably best left for the subject of another post.

O'Reilly overview: http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/08/reynold-journalism-proposal.html
Full proposal: http://rjionline.org/people/bill-densmore

Haven't purchased an LMS before? Don't sweat...You've probably been through a similar process in your personal life.

2011-07-25T15:13:00.003-04:00

Haven't purchased an LMS before? Don't sweat...You've probably been through a similar process in your personal life.

I talk to prospective LMS and custom courseware buyers daily, and the overwhelming sense of trepidation they project during the initial discussions is clearly palpable. How do they compare offerings? How do they know that the sales person is being truthful? What if they make the wrong choice? You know what...I feel your pain. My wife and I have just completed vetting several building contractors for a remodel to our older home, and I had the exact same anxiety. Interestingly, my day job helped arm me with the right mindset (I hope) for choosing the right contractor.

We first set out by asking the bank which of their approved builders produced the best results, i.e. came in on time, within budget, and generally made their clients happy with the end-product. We then contacted four of them and began the interview process. We asked them what "gotchas" we should be aware of, and the feedback produced some hilarious exchanges. One contractor said he hated working for folks who had dogs...because they inevitably bit him as the hammers started flying. We don't have a dog, so that shouldn't be an issue. However...don't dogs have a sixth sense? Maybe this dude had some bad karma going. Another said that he always worried about tearing out the existing sheetrock and finding frayed wires that would mean extra electrical work for which he would not have accounted. Our home was built in 1969, so that is probably going to happen. We asked them various other questions, some of them not even related to the work itself, i.e. do you have children...and have you ever sent them to time-out? We have three, so that one was important :-) Anyway, we distilled down the list of four "good" contractors to the one we felt most comfortable with and, after contacting their references, signed the contract.

I see choosing an LMS as a very similar process. At the end of it, you have to live with your application every day, through good and bad. My suggestion to anyone in the market for an LMS or custom courseware creation services would be to talk to an industry "expert" first. BrandonHall and Bersin have vast resources from which to draw. All of the vendors they follow have been vetted, and there will be information on each company's pro's-con's in their research. Next, choose a handful you like, either because they have clients in an industry similar to yours or because the "expert" review is compelling. Then, start the interview process, and don't be afraid to step outside your comfort zone. Ask the vendor if they've ever had a management shake-up in the middle of an implementation. Ask what their client renewal rate is (very important and most telling, IMO). Ask if they have dogs or kids...maybe not that one, but you get my point. Review the software via a demonstration and ask for a site to play in afterwards. Finally, make sure you talk to at least three references, at least one who is in the same industry and ideally another who is local (so you can have a face/face meeting organized by the vendor with the client for the prospect to ask even more questions).

If you get to the end of this process and have identified a vendor you think is right for you, take the plunge. There is absolutely no way to be 100% certain you've made the correct choice, but digging into the vendor's history, identifying horror stories and their reactions to them, and insuring that folks who sign up with them remain their clients year after year will certainly help alleviate most fears you had at the beginning of your investigation. As for me, send me an email in seven months, and I'll either have an awesome builder to recommend or be living with my family in the minivan!

Testing Tool: We're Flip-Flopping

2011-07-22T15:16:00.001-04:00

Over the last few weeks, we've been speaking to our customers about their expectations for the testing tool and came to an interesting realization. It turns out most people wanted the ability to create and track simple tests to be incorporated directly into the Rollbook course management area and they weren't entirely comfortable with it being a secondary application. Additionally, it was also pretty clear that everyone wanted to get the functionality for free. Well, guess what? That's exactly what we're going to do.

Development has already commenced and we should have a more substantive update for you in the next few weeks. So what does that mean for GroupDock and developing new applications that work seamlessly with Rollbook? Let's just say that we still plan on developing a new application and stay tuned for an announcement.

Thank you to everyone who participated in our survey and has been kind enough to spend time fleshing out your expectations over the last few weeks. I hope you are pleased with the news. Also, I just want to point out that we will be maintaining our integration with the very robust ExamBuilder tool. If you have a need for more than the basic testing and question level reporting we will provide for free within Rollbook, ExamBuilder is an option you should seriously consider.

Results of the Development Survey

2011-06-27T13:39:00.002-04:00

The results from the development survey are in and the overwhelming winner was the simple survey / testing tool. We have started the wireframes for this new product and will be coming up with preliminary ideas for pricing this week. For those of you that have expressed interest in a survey / testing tool, you will be hearing from us shortly. As promised, we will provide the wireframes / spec, pricing, and proposed schedule for the project.

If you're interested, the following were the full results of the survey:

Simple Survey / Testing Tool (52%)
Talent Management (21%)
Project Management (21%)
Enterprise Social Network (6%)

The disparity between the industry hype around enterprise social networks and actual customer sentiment is probably deserving of its own blog post. Although, I personally still feel there is tremendous value in such systems.

"If you never did, you should. These things are fun, and fun is good." - Dr. Seuss

2011-06-23T15:35:00.001-04:00

My little brothers and myself at Father's Day dinner.

Ok, so sometimes I wish Dr. Seuss's rhymes weren't (often) geared towards a 5-year old's affinity for simple language, but I still love this quote. It's easy to overlook the moral of the message, delivered in a two-line, AA rhyme scheme, but I entreat everyone reading this to take Dr. Seuss a bit more seriously the next time around.

On an unfortunately regular basis, I come across individuals who want desperately to regain the ability to see the world through a child's eyes. I sympathize with this desire on the most granular level, in the sense that it would be nice to shut down the racing adult mind and think only about how much longer I can stay in the pool. (Sidenote: The commercial that states that adults have 3000 thoughts a day should be banned for misinformation. Forgive me if this does not apply universally to those reading this, but I cover that in a couple of hours.) In my opinion, there are two problems with the incessant, nostalgic vocalization of wanting to be a kid again:

1) The lack of moral or fiscal responsibility, the outbursts of extreme happiness over a lightning bug or the ocean, reckless noise-making and hopping around...I understand the nostalgia for these things. It seems odd to me, however, to want to return to the lack of consciousness or heightened awareness that we take for granted as adults. If necessary or entertaining, it would be very simple to coerce my little brothers into doing something highly illegal, all for five bucks; that ignorance-is-bliss mindset is something I'd rather steer clear of.

2) All bark and no bite? That's no way to live. If you truly want to live in a kid's world, there is absolutely nothing stopping you. You can doggie paddle around the pool for 8 hours straight, catch fireflies in jars, check your closet for monsters, and pitch screaming fits on the grocery store floor every day of your life, if you choose to do so.

I spent two days this past weekend running around Atlanta in a pink wig, and I cannot really tell you why. This may sound like a lot of things...odd, boring, immature, concerning...But it was really just a random act of stepping into a child's world for a couple of days. This silly (and very stylish) pink wig allowed for one of the best weekends I've had in a very long time.

Anyways, moral of the story: Buy a wig next time you walk by a wig shop. It's invigorating. Also, below is a video/song that always makes me happy and inclined to dance:

Atari Founder Takes on Education

2011-06-16T10:29:00.008-04:00

Ran across an interesting interview with Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari and Chuck E Cheese, on TechCrunch today. He, like many others, is interested in revolutionizing education through the use of technology. Although, it's clearly too early to tell what will happen with this, it struck me that he believes he can speed up learning the core curriculum (I assume K-12) by three times using game mechanics, physical interaction, and activities that raise the student's heart rate. Some of his ideas reminded me of the research in Brain Rules, which I'm a big fan of. So enjoy this brief teaser of things to come from the man who made one of my childhood Christmases magical and drove my parents crazy with singing, corny joke telling animatronics:

Ronaldo means much more than soccer for my generation

2011-06-07T10:40:00.009-04:00

Tonight, at 8:45PM EST, Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima also known as 'The Phenomenon' will wear the jersey of the Brazilian national team for the last time in a game versus Romania that will be held in Sao Paulo. He will only play 15 minutes as he has already retired and is in no shape to play more than that, but the Brazilian people wanted to pay him one last homage.

Ronaldo was a prolific goal scorer, has won the FIFA Player of the Year award three times (a record), was the highest goalscorer in history of the World Cup with 15 goals, has won two World Cups, played 3 World Cup finals... In short, if you ask any soccer fan under 35, I think most will agree that Ronaldo was the greatest soccer player of our generation. Some will argue he was the greatest of all time.

Yet tonight... when he walks on that field, that's not the only reason my eyes and those of millions across the world will be filled with tears. For us, Ronaldo is more then the greatest soccer player we've ever seen: he is our childhood hero!

Ronaldo's career was plagued by knee injuries. Soccer players rarely come back from a knee injury and get back to play at the same level as before. Yet Ronaldo did it, over and over again. He suffered his first knee injury in 1996 while at PSV Eindhoven yet managed to score 12 goals out of 13 games that season and followed with 47 goals in 49 games the season that followed while at FC Barcelona.

After losing the final of the World Cup with Brazil in 1998 and being mysteriously sick the day of the final, he came back in 2002 and won the World Cup for Brazil. The year before, he had 2 knee surgeries (same knee) and was out for months. Yet he came back and won the World Cup scoring two goals in the Final.

More injuries came later in his career, but Ronaldo kept fighting them and kept getting back on the field and scoring goals.

Ronaldo taught us all that with perseverance and a strong will: everything is possible! As a kid growing up, we all need a childhood hero teach us this lesson, to teach us the value of fighting hard for what you believe and what you want. These heroes come from different places. They could be a parent, an actor, an athlete, a cartoon character...

As the 37signals's write-up about Intellum last week highlighted, it took that kind of winning mentality for Intellum to be here today. I'm sure Chip, Matt, and Will were inspired by someone... by their hero.

Mine was Ronaldo.

And tonight... For the last time, I will see him come back to the game, again... and I'll remember all his struggles and how he overcame them all to be the greatest player I've ever seen.

The Brazilians have a word to express how I feel today: Saudade!

What are you going to do with that thing?

2011-05-26T14:53:00.002-04:00

What are you going to do with that thing?

As a kid, I had to have the best (and often most expensive) toys. When I was six, I wasn't satisfied asking Santa for a couple Star Wars figures...no, I had to ask for the Millennium Falcon. When I was 11, I asked for a dirt bike that was five times more expensive than my Huffy first ride. I didn't stop there though, required the pegs on the front and back, upgraded handle-bar package, the works. And on and on it went...until I had to start paying for my own toys. My parents always asked one question as I embraced the latest childhood craze, "What are you going to do with that thing?"

In retrospect, it was a valid question, though I loathed such examination and rolled my eyes at the time. Was I really going to tote around the 20lb Falcon when I only weighed a few pounds more? Did I honestly believe those bike pegs would turn me into Bob Haro (BMX Legend for the uninitiated). The answer to both was of course, NO, and my parents were right to question my wants compared to my needs.

I see it today in my professional life as I interact with companies across the world (it's not just a US mindset) looking to buy into their own latest HR craze, Learning Management Systems. The LMS landscape has been altered dramatically in the last decade and surely isn't done changing. As part of this change, many companies in my industry, all certainly savvy marketers, have begun to add many new features to their LMS suite. These new playthings include performance management, succession planning, survey/authoring tools, HRIS functionality, screen-sharing, payroll capabilities, social networking, mobile learning...and the list goes on.

Now, I'm not belittling their offerings. For a few prospects, these functionality sets are have-to-haves. But for many, the extra functionality serves merely to increase the LMS project's expense, both in terms of licensing and in duration of implementation. Yet, I have seen the enthusiasm for implementing an LMS overwhelm my prospect's normally grounded decision-making process. As they progress through the vendor review process, the committee members start asking for the bigger toys and cooler upgrades they've seen elsewhere. My question for them though is the same I heard uttered preceding my first 18 Christmas's and birthdays...'What are you going to do with that thing?' If you really need it, I say pay the premium and go for it. But, you better have a plan for using the added feature sets, or someone's going to have to explain to management why we spent six figures and only got five figures' worth of usage. That's never a fun conversation.

I met recently with a large, training challenged manufacturing company, and they are beginning the search for LMS technologies. As we concluded the initial consultation, I inquired about "other" LMS features, e.g. performance management, succession planning, etc. Their response was mighty refreshing, "Matt, we've never done any of this...still keep our employee list on spreadsheets with no HRIS." They continued, "We don't want to run before we crawl. We plan on getting the bare-bones essential LMS functionality out first, and then determine what else we want to bite off next year." And the final prescient comment, "Plus, if we had it, we wouldn't even use it." Mom...Dad...is that you?

Enhancements to our Auto Enrollment Feature!

2011-05-25T14:37:00.002-04:00

Hey hey, everyone. Hope you're all having a great week so far. Just wanted to let you guys know about some recent enhancements to the Rollbook LMS's Auto Enrollment feature. We've had a lot of requests for the ability to further customize this bit of functionality, so here ya go!...

Auto Enrollment feature available for Instructor Led courses: Previously, the option to Auto Enroll your students in Instructor Led courses was not available. However, now it is! Once a student is auto-enrolled in an ILT, they will be prompted to choose a Session to attend.

"Initial Due Within" option now available for Annual Recurring Requirements: If you currently use Rollbook, you're (hopefully) aware that using the Auto Enrollment feature allows you to set your students' enrollments to be annually required on a certain due date. To allow more flexibility with this feature, you can now customize a student's initial due date, in addition to the annually required due date. For example, a 'new hire' can now be automatically enrolled in a course, with their initial enrollment due with 30 days. Following their initial enrollment, the student will be on track to complete the course annually.

We hope you enjoy these enhancements, and, as always, feel free to provide feedback!

Announcing New Intellum Development Capabilities

2011-05-24T15:07:00.002-04:00

For over a decade, we have developed our software with the philosophy that less is more, continuously striving to strip away complexity and provide the most simple and elegant solutions possible. The result has been the Rollbook LMS, a product that we would hope you agree stands out among its peers as a refreshingly easy to use tool for both students and administrators. And although our faith in this approach has never shaken, we recognize that it does come with drawbacks, namely having to reject client functionality requests more frequently than we would like. Fortunately, that changes today.

Over the last 2 years, we have been working on a platform that would allow us to provide entire new categories of functionality to our users, without making Rollbook more complex or confusing. Internally, we've been using this technology for almost a year to develop and deploy our own software, but today we finally feel it's ready for outside consumption. So what does this mean for you? It means that we can now offer many of the feature sets that you have been requesting. However, there is one caveat: we don't want to go off half-cocked, developing something we aren't certain you want; therefore, we need your help choosing our next project. The following is a list of the most requested functionality, which we believe would be best suited for development as stand-alone products outside of the Rollbook LMS:

Enterprise Social Network - Activity streams, file sharing, and co-worker profile search
Testing/Survey Tool - Simple tests and surveys with basic question level reporting
Talent Management System - 360 reviews, competency management, and coaching
Project Management - Social project management with task assignments, progress tracking, threaded comments, and file sharing

Each of these projects would be a SaaS offering similar to Rollbook, for which you would pay a monthly or annual fee. If we receive enough interest for any (or all) of these projects, we will provide you with specifications, timeline, proposed pricing, and, in the case of the Enterprise Social Network, access to a prototype we use internally. After releasing the specifications, we will require a total commitment of at least $50,000 in annual subscriptions (e.g., 10 companies each paying $5,000/year) to move forward with the project. To some this may seem unorthodox, but it is an approach that has been gaining wide popularity among groups like the Lean Startup movement (see here and here) and we think it makes a lot of sense. By moving forward in this manner, you know your input/needs play a significant role in the final product and we know we aren't wasting time developing something no one finds valuable.

If you are interested in voting for any of these projects or would like to propose an idea we may have missed, please let us know by clicking here: [voting closed]

Also, rest assured that development on Rollbook will not cease. We still have big plans for features and improvements that fit naturally within the LMS and are continuing to push forward on that front.

Biting the Bullet

2011-05-18T18:08:00.001-04:00

"Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself. If all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying."

[This post errs on the personal side; you've been warned.]

As some of you may already know, we recently introduced some big, and pretty awesome, changes to our Rollbook LMS. In the process of preparing for the new updates, I've started the transition into the newest, most challenging part of my job description: training. Having (mostly) tackled the feats of maintaining client relations and social media, effective training and implementing is the next goal to reach.

So I'm training an audience of clients through web demos, covering a product with which I'm incredibly comfortable...What's the big deal? Well, five years ago, I wouldn't have been able to get through the first sentence of the demo without anxiety promptly putting an end to the training. (Case-in-point--during my initial phone interview with two of the three founders of Intellum, my voice was shaking so badly that I had to pause in the middle of the interview and apologize.) However, despite some minor nervousness before each of the three recent web demos, I was, for the most part, incredibly excited to take this first step into unfamiliar territory. Somehow, what used to induce mild panic attacks now had me riding an adrenaline high.

After the excitement of training was over, I had some time to think about how it's possible that my brain imperceptibly chose to respond positively, as opposed to negatively, to an adrenaline rush brought on by my biggest fear; I certainly did not perceive the switch. At the risk of breaching too loaded a topic, I'll keep this simple. My personal brain re-wiring story comes in three steps: awareness, positivity, biting the bullet.

Awareness: In February, when I was offered the job at Intellum, the primary (and hopefully, the only) concern with offering me the position was my lack of experience in working with clients...impressive ones, I might add. This was communicated to me from the very beginning, and I immediately acknowledged that, yes, developing a level of comfort with presenting to groups was something I'd have to work towards. Hence, awareness. It never does anyone any good to balk at constructive criticism (something else I'm still learning), and it only serves to sell one's potential short to shut out the idea of room for improvement. Hi, I'm Kate, and I'm aware that I am terrible at speaking to groups. There, the hardest part is over with.

Positivity: For anyone who really, truly prides themselves on their work, positivity is super hard to master. Workaholics, perfectionists, the likes...everything has to be just right for positivity to come naturally. Nonetheless, striving to maintain a positive attitude, ALL THE TIME, can't hurt; doing so really makes the process of overcoming your biggest fear (i.e. public speaking) much more bearable. Being a 9am-6pm neophyte, there are days when it feels like achieving positivity would be as difficult as growing wings and flying. But, if at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again. So now we have: yes, I'm aware that I have some things to learn, but I'm going to do my best anyways, with a smile on my face. Next.

Biting the bullet: Having the foundation of awareness and positivity makes the final step much simpler, in my opinion. I've known for a while that the next step for me at Intellum would be to start the training and implementing process, and I also knew this would be the hardest thing I've had to learn to do thus far. With positivity and a great work environment backing me, I went into the first web demo in a "now or never" state of mind (personally, my favorite state of mind). And guess what, I don't think one client noticed my voice shaking for the first five minutes of that training session. The world didn't end, either.

By no means am I trying to say that this nice little outline will work for everyone in their quest to overcome fears and/or phobias. (Although, read any book on the topic, and AWARENESS will be forever seared in your brain.) I just thought I'd share the things that helped me to tackle what could have been a pretty serious problem in my line of work. Additionally, I've really enjoyed speaking with and getting to know everyone over the last two weeks! Looking forward to even more hands-on relations with current and future clients. :)

Using a Riak session store with express.js

2011-05-05T17:51:00.012-04:00

express.js is a framework for creating web applications with node.js. It is very similar to Sinatra for Ruby.

Riak is a NoSQL key-value store built on Erlang with a nice HTTP interface. There is a Javascript library called riak-js that can be used within node.js to communicate with a Riak database. As part of the riak-js package, there is a session store so that express can store HTTP session information in Riak.

Express uses connect middleware which ships with a default session store called MemoryStore. As the name implies, it simply stores the session in memory. Obviously, while you can use this in development, it is not production-safe as it will leak memory and the session data will only be kept in a single node.js process. Even in development mode, you might not want to use it because everytime you kill your node.js server you will have to login again.

There are other session stores available such as a cookie session store, and session stores for other databases such as MongoDB, CouchDB, Redis, etc... The list is available here: https://github.com/senchalabs/connect/wiki.

For the project, I'm working on, we are using Riak as our database so it made sense to also store our session information in Riak so we've decided to use the Riak session store from riak-js.

To use it, add the following lines on top of your express main file: app.js.

var riak = require('riak-js'),

db = riak.getClient({port: 8098, debug: false}),

riakSessionStore = riak.getSessionStore({client: db});

Then, when you are configuring your express application, use it as shown below:

app.configure(function(){

// ...

app.use(express.bodyParser());

app.use(express.cookieParser());

app.use(express.session({secret: 'keyboard cat', store: riakSessionStore }));

// ...

});

Note that it is important that you have the cookieParser before the riakSessionStore since the session id is saved in a cookie.

At the time I wrote this post, the npm package for riak-js is not up-to-date so for this to work correctly, you will need to install riak-js from source and make sure you have the latest and greatest from github which has this patch that fixes a but in the session store. Follyow the instructions on the riak-js README file to install it from source. When you want to use the package, create a symbolic link from your node_modules folder to where you keep your copy of riak-js.

That's all. I hope this post will be useful to you if you are trying to use the Riak session store with node.js.

R.I.P. DVD

2011-05-04T10:24:00.003-04:00

Gone are the days of the reel-to-reel that would start to flicker during that oh-so interesting black and white documentary most of us were forced to watch during history class. The room would darken, the cart would get wheeled into position for optimum clarity and then that jittery image would project onto the screen before us. The timing always seemed horrible: just after lunch when all your body wants to do is fall into sleep mode for a few minutes. Many would nap while Panzers hurled themselves over the barricades and that horrible map graphic with the “flying” plane would take you from one star on the map to another. Unfortunately, for many it was that flickering sound and inevitable jamming of the reel right before the plane would reach the star, that woke you just as the drool began to settle on your paper. Quickly jolting back up into a seated position and yanking the page off the side of your face to minimize the obviousness of your disinterest, you realized that choosing the seat directly behind the projector in hopes of alluding capture wasn’t such a good idea after all. Well, fast-forward a few years past the VHS tape, because let’s be honest, why even mention that? And, onto that incredible silver disk, no not that one, the smaller one, we all came to know as the DVD. It was incredible! How did that entire movie fit onto that little thing? It was genius! So thin, so light! When not amazed by what was being played from it, it was the perfect weapon for blinding your classmate sitting in class trying to stay awake by blasting a ray of sunlight from across the campus through the window into their eyes! Some tried putting them into flight, but after many lacerations across the facial regions, we settled for the long distance burning of retinas instead. I remember thinking that these would be around forever! There was nothing that could replace such a multi-functional piece of gleaming multimedia plastic! We loaded them into the visor cases in our cars, hauled around five pound zipped binders that could hold 500 at time, and were proud of it! Well, all that fun of massive accumulation and eye-appointments has quickly dwindled thanks to new devices and methods that no longer require a slot drive or scratch resistant film. Sure, there are still many uses for the DVD today for many applications, but as the demise of major movie rental chains and kiosk attempts continue, it will be that new magical method of receiving your data from something much lighter than the DVD called thin air. The tangible storage device had better start picking out its plot for eternal rest because there’s something here to eventually replace it completely – nothing! You can’t see it or hear it until it streams past you into the device in your hands that make it possible to do so!

Impressive? Yes!

Convenient? Definitely!

Fun? Not unless the back of your device has a mirror finish.

Let’s be honest – making media invisible is a definitely a cool thing, but the physics of light is mind blowing!

So, move over reel-to-reel and VHS, you have a new partner coming to town. The DVD will need a place to rest since the reality of flash drives and streaming content is here to stay...

...forever? Well, for now.

Building Sproutcore with Garcon

2011-04-27T18:24:00.017-04:00

We have started using Sproutcore to create rich web applications at Intellum. Recently, on a project, our Sproutcore build started to fail when using abbot (the offical Sproutcore build tool). After spending some time trying to figure out the issue with no success, we took at look at garcon: an alternative that uses node.js, instead of Ruby.

The driving Philosophy of garcon is that a build tool for a Javascript framework should be written in Javascript. The guys that are behind garcon believe someone that is learning Sproutcore shouldn't have to also learn and install Ruby to use Sproutcore.

The garcon codebase is smaller then abbot's which makes it slightly more accessible for a developer trying to understand what goes on during the build process of Sproutcore. Thus, after getting my build to work with garcon thanks to some help from erichocean, I looked into the source code for garcon to try to understand what it does. This blog post is a summary of what I learned. I hope someone else will find this useful in their quest to learn how Sproutcore gets built and to learn how garcon does it.

Differences between garcon and abbot

Some of the differences between garcon and abbot are:

the biggest one: abbot uses Ruby, garcon uses Javascript and node.js
garcon is stricter than abbot with file requirements so you might have to add some sc_require statements in your codebase for your project to build correctly with garcon. For example in our case, garcon was not automatically requiring up all our custom views located in our views directory before it loads main_page.js. We had to explicitely add sc_require statements to the top of main_page.js
for our project, garcon builds our application must faster than abbot does. I believe this is due to garcon doing a lot of work in parallel thanks to the evented nature of node.js
garcon does not support dynamically loaded bundles yet while abbot does. (Note: this should be an easy addition and could be added soon so keep monitoring the garcon project on github).
garcon does not support Chance. Abbot does.
abbot uses YUI Compressor to compress CSS and minify code whereas garcon uses YUI Compressor only for the CSS files and uses uglify.js for minifying the Javascript code.

Configuring your app to build with garcon

With garcon, you can either build the project into static files to deploy on your web server or start a development server which you can use while you are developing your application. Therefore, a typical application that uses garcon will have two config files: one to build the files and one to start the development server. You can find two sample config files in the garcon code base: sample_build_config.js and sample_server_config.js.
To start using garcon with your project, first clone garcon into your project:

git clone --recursive git://github.com/martoche/garcon.git

If you don't already have sproutcore into your application's framework folder, you should add it:

git clone git://github.com/sproutcore/sproutcore.git frameworks/sproutcore

Then copy the two sample config files into your application's root folder:

cp garcon/sample_build_config.js build_config.js
cp garcon/sample_server_config.js server_config.js

Now you are ready to modify your config files. First, replace all instances of myApp with the name of your application. Then, change the htmlHead to use your application name in the title of the page rather then the default 'My App'. Once that is done, add frameworks as needed by your application. For example, I use Ki with my application so I added the following line right after the comment that reads 'a third party framework':

{ path: 'frameworks/ki', combineScripts: true },

If you are using a server in your backend and want to proxy to it, you need to add a proxyHost and proxyPort when creating the server:

server = new g.Server({
proxyHost: 'localhost',
proxyPort: '4567'
});

By default, the garcon development server will start on port 8000, if you want to change the port to another port, you can add a 'port' option to the options hash when creating the server, as seen below. Note that you only need that in your server_config.js since your build_config.js will not start the development server:

server = new g.Server({
port: '4020',
proxyHost: 'localhost',
proxyPort: '4567'
});

It seems like the garcon codebase was updated by the sample config files weren't so you will need to change htmlBody and replace that with htmlBeforeScripts towards the end of the config files.
Your build_config.js and server_config.js files will be very similar except for a couple of differences. First, your build_config.js file will use some extra options to minify and combine the Javascript and CSS files:

combineScripts: true,
combineStylesheets: true,
minifyScripts: true,
minifyStylesheets: true

Second, the callback method passed on the the build() method will be different. For the server it will make a call to server.run() whereas the build_config.js will save the application using myApp.save()

Building your application with garcon

Make sure you've installed node. For our project, we use node.js version 0.4.5. Then building is very simple. Go to your application's root folder and run one of the following depending on if you want to build or launch the development server, respectively:

node build_config.js
node server_config.js

If you've build the server, the files will be stored in a build/ folder under your root folder. These are the files you need to serve from your web server.

Sometimes, you might run out of file descriptors when building with garcon. I didn't have this issue running Ubuntu but heard it could happen if you are on Mac OSX. If you do, try setting ulimit -n 1000 and try again

How garcon works: the garcon internals

I wanted to understand what is being done behind the scenes by garcon or abbot to build a Sproutcore application so I read through the garcon source code to get a good understanding of what goes on behind the scene during the build. This section will be harder to follow. You should only read if you want to learn about the garcon internals.

To follow what happens, we are going to start at the config_file which is the entry point of the build. So open your config files and follow along.

In the config files, a Server object is first created with the appropriate options. Then the application being built is added to the server using the addApp method of server. This method returns an App object which we will use in the remaining of the config file.

Once we have our App object, we add the frameworks that it uses, starting with the Sproutcore framework (using addSproutcore) and followed by the other third party frameworks, themes, and finally ending with the code for the application we are building.

Once the frameworks are added, a few configurations such as htmlHead and htmlBeforeScripts are set in the config file. These will be used to create the HTML for the page and are added here to the config file to allow you to change that to your liking. There is also a htmlAfterScripts that you can set if you want. The names should be self-explanatory as to where it sticks these fragments of HTML that you define. If it is not, look at the index.html page generated by the build and it will be obvious.

Finally, the build method is called. This is where all the preparatory work to build your Sproutcore application is done. It creates all the Javascript objects needed to then either save the project in your build/ folder or start the development server. This method has a callback that is invoked when everything is ready. That is where you decide what you want to do when garcon has gone through and prepared your build.

Let's look at what happens in this build method.

First, buildRoot() is called on the application object. This method does two things:

It creates the index.html file by calling rootContent().
It creates a symlink to index.html so that yourdomain.com/yourappname servers the index.html page

Sproutcore uses handlers to build the frameworks and the handlers can be found on handlers.js. In each build step, the appropriate handlers are called to process the framework as needed. The build() process does the following, in the order listed:

selectLanguageFiles is called and returns the file names for the language that we are building since Sproutcore supports internationalization
The stylesheets are built by buildStylesheets(). One by one they are first minified if minifyStylesheets was set to true. Then, they are joined into one file. If you use less, the resulting file then goes through the less processor. You will need to install less via npm if you want that to happen. Then the rewriteStatic handler kicks in and replaces calls to sc_static with the appropriate string. Finally, the resulting combined css file is saved using the file handler.
(Handlers used in this step: ifModifiedSince -> contentType -> minify -> join -> less -> rewriteStatic -> file)
In buildResources(), the resources are created and added to the node http server to be served by the development server.
(Handlers used in this step: ifModifiedSince -> contentType -> file)
In buildTests(), the tests are prepared and built.
(Handlers used in this step: contentType -> rewriteFile -> wrapTest -> file)
In buildScripts() method, the javascript files for the project are first minified individually using uglify.js. Then for each of them, rewriteSuper is called to replace calls to sc_super() with 'arguments.callee.base.apply(this,arguments)' and rewriteStatic is called to replace sc_static with the appropriate strings. Once each file has been processed separately, they are joined into one. Then the handlebars templates gets compiled (if you use that) and the file is saved.
(Handlers used in this step: ifModifiedSince -> contentType -> minify -> rewriteSuper -> rewriteStatic -> join -> handlebars -> file)
Once the buildScripts method is done, the callback method that you passed when you called app.build() is going to get triggered. In there, in general you will either have a call to app.save() if you were building the project (in build_config.js), or a call to server.run if you were starting the development server (in server_config.js).

At this point, garcon is ready to move on to the final step: which can be starting the server or saving the files to disk in the build/ folder.
Saving the file to the build/ folder

In that case, garcon will iterate over all the files saved in server.files object during the build step and create two arrays with them, depending on if the file is a script or a stylesheet. If the file is a resource, the file will be created and written to disk. Then, one stylesheet file will be created from all the files in the stylesheets array and it will be saved to disk. Same thing happens to the files from the scripts array. Finally, the HTML file is created and saved to disk.

In summary, all the files who were created and prepared during the build step are written to disk in the app.save() method.

Starting the development server

In the server.run() method, a node.js HTTP server is created to serve the individual files. Notice that in development mode, garcon does not minify and combine the CSS and script files (based on our config) so a handler is created for each of these files on the node server. Then a proxy is created in node.js. When a request is made to the HTTP server, it will first see if there is a file handler for it. If it finds it, it will serve the file, if not, it will proxy the request to the proxy server you have defined (if you did).

Summary

We are done with our overview of the Sproutcore build process and the garcon build tool. We hope it was useful to you and that this write-up will help others who are getting started with garcon. We wish your Sproutcore application tons of success.

Rollbook Courses Get an Overhaul

2011-04-21T17:28:00.089-04:00

Today, we're announcing the first of a number of updates that are intended to make Rollbook courses easier to create and much more powerful. This release will focus on simplifying course creation, adding the ability to create courses out of video collections, and improving the student experience.

Simplified Course Creation

A common frustration experienced by new Rollbook admin has been making sense of the, apparently ambiguous, course types offered by the system. We have addressed that confusion by reducing the list of 6 options down to 3: Self Paced, Scheduled, and Learning Path. Don't worry though, despite the simplification, we still give you the same functionality you've become accustom to (and more). It's just easier to get started.

We didn't stop with simple semantic improvements. We've also completely redesigned the experience of building out the content. What once was a series of form updates and submittals is now a more creative endeavor, facilitated by our new adaptive templates. With these templates, you will always know what you need to do next, and with each change, you will instantly get a sense for what the student sees.

New Video Courses

Due to the ubiquity of ultra-portable HD video cameras (e.g., iPhone, Flip, etc.) and the simplicity of capturing casual presentations or impromptu learning opportunities with them, we believe video is becoming an indispensable tool for e-learning. That's why we've added the ability to easily upload MPEG-4 videos as the primary content of your course. Now, you can get important messages out to your employees quickly without the hassle of creating slide-based courseware.

Revamped Student Experience

The student experience was also a priority for this release. But before we started updating the most viewed pages in the entire LMS, we wanted to have a clear understanding of how our customers use the system. What we found is that SCORM or AICC courses are by far the most popular types in the system (63% of all course types). Despite the fact that a vast majority (99%) of these SCORM or AICC courses are single activities, when the student clicked into an enrollment, they would see a list view optimized for multiple activities. This behavior was clearly less than ideal. To make it easier for students enrolled in single activity courses, we made the call to action as unmistakable and attractive as possible with a customizable preview image and a super obvious open button.

There are more small updates and refinements in this release than we can cover in one post, but these are the major highlights. If you want to start playing with the new features before we roll them out, we have cloned production on our staging server (with data from 4/20/2011). You can find the staging server at [your subdomain].ec2.openlms.com (e.g., our usual url is intellum.rollbook.com, so we would go to intellum.ec2.openlms.com and login with our same login and password). If you're curious, please go try it out and let us know what you think.

We hope you enjoy the release and look forward to bringing you more exciting updates in the near future!

The Flip is dead. Long live Flip.

2011-04-18T15:16:00.015-04:00

[Opinion]

A year and a half ago, I received a Flip video camera for the holidays. It took about ten minutes for me to develop that weird feeling where you fall in love with a piece of technology; super-simple interface, portable and lightweight, good quality video, a screw mount on the bottom... now I had no excuse not to be making friends and strangers mildly uncomfortable by randomly pointing a video camera at them, hopefully just before they fall into a koi pond or get attacked by a panther.

So when Cisco announced last Tuesday that it would close down Flip, my heart sank a little. Why would they choose to shutter such a well-made product with a solid user base? Why not at least sell it off instead of shut it down? Even with the increased competition from the iPhone and other recent entries in the portable HD video department, the decision seemed abrupt and heavy handed.

Was the company's user base dwindling? Not according to Amazon, where as of this writing Flip still dominates 4 of the top 10 slots in the Camcorder Bestsellers category.

Were they somehow unprofitable? Not according to several reports, including Cisco's own vaguely positive statement that it experienced "noteworthy revenue growth" in 2010.

Some are suggesting that Cisco's failure to deliver on their promise to deliver WiFi capability was a significant nail in their coffin. I agree that it's much easier for me to use my iPhone to post video or stills to facebook or mobileme (does anyone else use this besides me? Anyone? It's still called that, right?), but is that really a dealbreaker? It doesn't look like any of Amazon's top ten bestsellers in Digital Point & Shoot Cameras or Camcorders have this capability either.

Plus, have you tried shooting video from the hip with an iPhone? I dare you. It's very slightly less than impossible. You've got to at least glance at the screen to see where the record button is, or to get some visual feedback that it's actually recording. The Flip has a recessed button that gives you a nice confirming tactile click when you press it.

So, the question's still out there... why did this happen? The best guess I can muster is that their recent pledge to refocus on their core competencies somehow excluded "video", but even that doesn't make sense. With the rising ubiquity of both WiFi and Skype, how does a company that specializes in networking and teleconferencing not see the utility of holding a solid 13% share of the portable camcorder market?

Here in Asheville, we have an excellent local chain of restaurants called Urban Burrito. To me, Cisco's treatment of Flip is analagous to Chipotle swooping down, buying up Urban Burrito, and closing them a year and a half later because they were getting back to their core competencies of burrito-making. Stifling, crazy-making if you think about it for too long, and rock-stupid.

Are you new to the industry and looking to implement elearning?

2011-04-13T16:37:00.007-04:00

Let’s take a 40,000-foot look at the usefulness and differences of Learning Management Systems, Course Authoring Tools, and Quizzing Tools.

Since I started in this business over a decade ago, the number of vendors offering “elearning” services has grown dramatically. When Intellum was founded in 2000, we identified ten probable competitors in our space. Today, only two of those are still around (not counting us, of course), and there are ten elearning companies in Silicon Valley alone. Given the dearth of information available on search engines and the confusing nature of this still relatively young industry, it is no wonder so many potential buyers have such difficulty identifying what they need and how to pull all of the disparate pieces together.

By far the most common point of confusion when we field a sales call is the difference between a learning management system (LMS) and authoring tool systems (ATS). Exacerbating the issue is the fact that some LMS providers also include authoring tool functionality within their application, and there are also now web-based quizzing tools on the market that offer their own stand-alone reporting engine. Confused already? Let’s take a look at some of the options out there, and I will try to distinguish a few common themes among them.

What is an LMS?

The LMS industry has truly exploded in the last four years. Bersin & Assoc. and BrandonHall have the task of trying to follow hundreds of companies now, whereas there was only a handful when the industry burgeoned in the late 90’s. At its core, an LMS is really beneficial for recordkeeping. I know LMS vendors will spend countless hours on their PowerPoint decks and demonstrations explaining all the bells and whistles that come with their system, but if you are new to the LMS search, the application does boil down simply to the reports it can generate.

Where these systems typically differ is in the type of training that can be tracked and the reports that can be queried. For instance, our Rollbook LMS can track web-based elearning, instructor-led training, read/print/sign documentation, Competencies, Certifications, and bundled courseware via Learning Paths. Other LMS solutions track only web-based elearning or solely report on classroom facilitated deliverables geared more towards the K-12 and secondary education market. If I could give a buyer advice when looking for an LMS provider (and it seems folks really try to do their homework on these with 10-12 demos on average), I’d say, ‘Know what you want and stick to those criteria.’ Sales folks are typically commission-based, so it is to their benefit to highlight every nook and cranny the system provides. If you know what you want and are fervent in following your Have-To-Have items, you won’t get side tracked and make an inadvisable choice!

What is an ATS?

These tools are almost always desktop applications. Companies like Articulate, Adobe Captivate, Camtasia, and Lectora have all done a fine job of building a nice suite of authoring functionality. With them, you can publish PowerPoint decks to the web or use industry standards (AICC/SCORM) to create elearning that will run/track in an LMS. You may also be able to insert custom Flash interactions and encoded video, build standard interactions, and record screen captures with their software. At their core though, this software is there to help you build content to be run somewhere else, either on the web, via DVD, or within an LMS.

And here is where it gets confusing. There are a few LMS providers who offer authoring capability within their LMS. We see many RFP’s that have included several line items asking for explanation of our authoring capabilities, and we are asked frequently on demonstrations to explain our options as well. The reality is built-in authoring tools can be a trap. Remember my advice earlier? Know what you want and stick to your guns! If you use LMS A’s authoring tool, you’ve just made leaving that vendor even more difficult if the relationship sours (and they do, a recent study showed 70% of LMS clients were unhappy with their provider). Why? Because, that content will not be supported in another LMS if you decide to leave LMS A. When there are tracking issues, no support from LMS A. When the courseware needs to be updated, no way to do that without a services agreement with LMS A!

What does all this mean to you? Well, the unfortunate reality (and I’ve had clients moving from LMS A to Intellum brought to tears over this realization) is that you are destined to completely recreate that content in another authoring tool. This process can be months of work, and it’ll be exponentially more frustrating because you are doing it a second time! So when we talk to prospects just starting their elearning exploration, our sales team makes a concerted effort to point out the downside of having the authoring tool built within the LMS framework. It may sounds self-serving, but we have actually built three web-based authoring tools over the last decade. We just don’t offer them because of these harmful outcomes. I know question-level reporting might be high on your wish list, but the costs of using an embedded tool far outweigh the benefits. Which leads me to our final application…

What is a web-based quizzing tool?

Zoomerang and SurveyMonkey have been around for years. You may have used one for sending surveys out to your employees and not realized they can be used to create “quizzes.” Their feature-sets are pretty similar, but in general, you can create all types of questions and solicit a variety of answers, from simple rankings to ordering and myriad other options. Once published, you will receive a URL that can be emailed from their system or sent out via your own email system. Participants then simply click the link and complete the survey/quiz. You have the option of having them login as well, so more detailed data can be collected on how folks answered.

Two other tools with which we frequently interface are ExamBuilder and TestCraft. Each of these offers AICC publishing for tracking within an LMS as well as the standard URL option that SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang offer. Further though, each has an extremely robust reporting engine of its own, allowing virtually limitless opportunities to slice and dice your data. So, you get the benefit of creating quizzes and surveys in a 3rd party tool (freeing you up from vendor lock-in), a web-based tool instead of a desktop application (making collaboration much easier), and you can still track these assignments within an LMS. Those are three very strong positives!

There are two negatives. One is that they do not send back question-level reporting data to the LMS, although the LMS is sent several variables, e.g. Score, Start Date, Completion Date, and other criteria. The most common concern from prospects when we explain this distinction is, “But Matt, how would I know if a question is poorly worded or an instructor is not delivering the message sufficiently?’ Well again, the LMS will be able to report an average score anomaly, say a quiz averaging a 62. At that point, you could easily log into the quizzing tool and get your detailed question-level reports, enabling you to take the corrective steps.

The second negative is that you will have to login to their system to create the quizzes, i.e. all administrative tasks cannot be done from one login. This is a valid concern, but I’d argue the alternative is much more destructive. In other words, would you rather have a login for your LMS and another for your authoring tool? Or would you rather have one login to an LMS with authoring tool functionality included and know that if/when you decide to move from their system, you will inevitably be shackled to rebuilding what you already have done once? In my opinion, after having done several client conversions from other LMS providers and over 300 total implementations, you should look for vendors who specialize in what they do. Find an LMS provider who has created an easy-to-use, robust system...affordability would also be a plus! Then, find a nice authoring or quiz tool from the companies that focus on…creating authoring or quiz tools. Although you may have two logins and lack immediate question-level reporting, those “drawbacks” pale in comparison to the potential headaches of going with the all-in-one provider.

A Little Bit of Spring to Brighten the Day!

2011-04-12T11:15:00.001-04:00

[Photo Credit: Sweet.Eventide flickr]

Love/Hate Relationship with Social Media. Which Side Are You On?

2011-04-11T18:35:00.000-04:00

"It's so much better

When everyone is in.

Are you in?" - Incubus

Social media and the closely-related exponential growth of technological advancements have evoked a wealth of theories, arguments, and opinions addressing the pros and cons of a culture immersed in technology. Once or twice a day now, I come across tweets directing me to new articles on social media side effects—either its incredible advantages, or its doomsday-esque disadvantages. (The irony of the social media haters utilizing blogs and tweets to broadcast these opinions is slightly amusing, in my opinion).

Not surprisingly, opinions on the matter tend to be both at-odds and unoriginal. Countless articles repeat the same information—Social media is quickly taking over as a marketing strategy (complete with vague How-To’s on this topic); social media puts us in danger of losing or not finding a job; social media is seriously compromising our interpersonal dynamics; and the list goes on. Every time I run across one of these highly generalized articles or blurbs, I’m very tempted to talk to my computer screen (a bad habit I’ve recently picked up) and tell these people to Get Over It. Or, at the very least, elaborate. Give us some new content, or find a different topic to write about. To each of the above overstated arguments, I have a very simple answer:

Social media taking over as marketing strategy – That’s awesome and also partly why I have a job; three cheers for Twitter, Blogging, and community development!
Social media and employment risks – This is not difficult. If you have any information or media that you don’t want viewable by people other than your friends, MAKE EVERYTHING PRIVATE. Done.
Social media and our interpersonal skills – This is the topic that interests me the most, because it has sparked interest in the evolving psychology as seen through the lens of technology and social networking. But, basically, oddities and the personal choice to be different are not new concepts. If someone wants to post up in front of their computer screen and create some elaborate online identity as opposed to developing social skills, what’s the problem? Anyone that may think that type of behavior is detrimental to social development, don’t behave that way.

Cynicism aside, I really would like to see more articles that delve deeper into the psychological benefits and downsides to such rapidly changing methods of communications. My favorite articles on this topic, thus far, tackle social networking from an original point of view. Social Media Examiner's article, "4 Ways Social Media Is Changing Your Relationships" isn't an opinion-based article, but it definitely goes beyond the 2-paragraph, unfeeling blurb that tends to accompany this type of title; rather, the article provides detail typically sacrificed in a culture ruled by instant gratification. "Nobody Gets Social Media...Yet" on ClickZ is also a refreshingly honest take on the still-young art of navigating the marketing-via-social-media phenomenon. Finally, Josh Rose's article on Mashable gets it right. No, it doesn't list in numbered format how to launch some intense marketing/branding campaign, but it does provide the elusive "Everyone just chill out" vibe.

We love our Facebook, Twitter, iPhones, laptops, and blogs, but by no means does that make those who participate in social networking inhuman or uninteresting. If anything, the idea of media "transparency" applies just as much to individuals communicating identity as to companies building a brand. I, for one, feel that the benefits provided by advancing technology are beyond amazing. I can irritate my brother, who deliberately moved across the country to Missoula, MT, using all of the following mediums--Facebook, e-mail, BlackBerry Messenger, and text or picture messages. But seriously, how can we complain that social media is breaking down our ability to communicate, when it seems to just be adding unprecedented value to communications?