The Online Training Content Journal

Another Shot Heard Round The World From Boston..Techie Takes On Microsoft And Wins...

There was an interesting article on CNNMoney.com about Peter Quinn, the former CIO of the state of Massachusetts, who sparked a standards debate when he made it departmental policy that all documents must be saved in ODF (open document format), i.e. formats like html, pdf, and ODF so they can be opened and read on any type of operating system.

The geek who took on Microsoft by Jia Lynn Yang, FORTUNE reporter.

Whether it was coincidental or not, Mr Quinn was falsely accused of misuse of state travel funds, so he resigned, but was cleared later of the charges. Massachusetts Geek Validation

Dave Boggs
SyberWorks

 

New SyberWorks Media Center Article: 10 Tips For Writing An e-Learning RFP / RFQ

Check out our latest news & article.  Here is the press release:

10 Tips For Writing an e-Learning RFP / RFQ

Dave Boggs
SyberWorks

Memorial Day Holiday Friday May 26th Through Monday May 29th

I will not be posting over the Memorial Day Holiday from Friday May 26, 2006 Through Monday May 29, 2006.  I will resume blogging on Tuesday May 30th, 2006.

Dave Boggs
SyberWorks

Vista is coming...

From InternetNews.com, Are You Ready for Vista? By Andy Patrizio

Excerpt: "Microsoft has launched a program to help customers determine if their PC is capable of handling Windows Vista when it finally ships, and by doing so, the company is tipping its hand on just what kind of system requirements Vista will have.

Microsoft's (Quote, Chart) Vista “Get Ready” site features information and requirements for both "Vista Capable" PCs and "Premium Ready" as well as the downloadable Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor beta, which examines your system to determine its capabilities."

Dave Boggs
SyberWorks

A Small Dose Of Learning Theory...

Here is a brief article on Comparing Instructivism and Constructivism by Lambert Fooks

Dave Boggs
SyberWorks

A Look From The Other Side In Regards To Multimedia Accessibility...

On the Skills for Access Site, there are some case studies which really help one get a clear picture of how a person with disabilities has to cope with in regards to the lack of accessibility of the Internet and multimedia.  The case studies are quick reads, interesting and valuable because they systematically look at the technology they use, how their issues effect their learning, their problems when encountering multimedia, i.e. the challenges with Java, Flash, and PDF with screen readers and other issues.  Here are two:

Liz -  a PhD student, who is deafblind
Natasha - part time MSc student and Project Manager, who has dyslexia

Dave Boggs
SyberWorks

W3C Releases DIAL (Device Independence Authoring Language) For Mobile Content

W3C Turns Up 'Dial' For Mobile Content, by Clint Boulton, Internetnews.com

Excerpt: "The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) today published Device Independence Authoring Language (DIAL), a markup script for how authors can write mobile content software that will work on different handheld devices.

Mobile content is a multi-million-dollar opportunity for content creators and wireless operators. Millions of consumers want to play games, or download e-mail, video and audio clips from handheld gadgets.

In short, content consumers want to be able to do everything on a Palm Treo smartphone or handheld computer that they can do on a home PC."

Dave Boggs
SyberWorks

 

Tuval Software Application Helps Powerpoints Speak For Themselves

From cruising around on the net, Tuval  Software Industries produces Speech-Over Studio, an application that lets PowerPoint® speak by itself without any need for recording because it translates the text into speech.   

Dave Boggs
SyberWorks

Borrowing From Your Environment Can Help In Online Training Development

Jared Spool, on his Brainsparks Blog, has an interesting post about an ingenious and convenient resource for choosing design color pallets by using fashion designs........

Leveraging The Hard Work Of The Fashionistas

Now of course, there is a whole other dynamic to the discussion in terms of using color in regards to accessibility, but just the same, its tip that has some merit in online training development in terms of setting up a color pallet as well, so I thought it was worth a mention.

Reminds me of what my Marketing Director once said.  She told me that many years back in her agency days, before the advent of computers, photoshop, flash, etc. [yes, cutting and pasting, boy was it the dark ages or what!].  An old boss told her to  look at the  Arizona phone book as fodder for  advertising concepts because there was and still is today, a large artist community there [think Georgia O'Keeff]. He went on to say that many of them used to make money to pay their bills by drawing commerical clip art for the Arizona phone book while they were creating their masterpieces. 

Dave Boggs
SyberWorks

JavaScript Debugging

Since SCORM courses require JavaScript as the intermediary language between the course and the LMS to communicate with the API, get and set test results, and pass other data, it's important to be able to effectively debug your code. Debugging JavaScript can be done in a browser, although some browsers will only tell you what's wrong with one line of code and it may not be right about which line is problemmatic.

Firefox has a JavaScript Console, as does IE. In this WebMonkey article, Chris Klimas talks about other methods and tools for effective JavaScript debugging. Starting with simple Alert statements to advanced loggin methods, Klimas gives a rounded approach to debugging with some simple examples.

Al Lemieux
Senior e-Learning Developer
SyberWorks