So I was looking at XMind - mind mapping app - and it looks good and all but especially considering the air-tight lockdown on desktops across the federal government, I really can't even look twice at something that requires an install. I mean AIR is probably years away from approval.
I did want to pass along WorldMapper. This site has some incredible visualizations. The one on the left is the proportionate world based on the presence of personal computers. The thing that gets me about visualizations like this is that I wonder what they might reveal about our organizations if we could view them through lens like this. What would your departments look like if they were sized by satisfaction with your training?
Now as soon as I say that about not being able to install products, I find Balsamiq Mockups. Their products allow you to create software mockups easily and quickly. Now why would I like to have a closer look given what I said earlier about not being able to install products? Because they offer integration with products that may already be behind the firewall - Confluence and XWiki. Nice move - building integration w/ existing enterprise products - especially KM ones. Learning/training departments looking to sneak in 2.0 capabilities under the radar should hook up with their KM teams and see what already may be inside the 'wall.
So a couple more tools...EtherPad. This one is dead simple. REAL real-time editing of text on the same web page. That's it.Its clean and simple and that is what works about it. Lets hope they don't fall prey to 'feature creep' and start loading down the site w/ more & more features. The last two tools are a bit more complex but offer some interesting options for building content.
Flowgram - If you've tried to use MSFT's Producer to marry up PPT with audio, notes, etc....then stop. Just stop. You can create 'flows' of web pages, photos, etc (great review here). One problem already noted is that learners can easily jump out of your 'flow' since all the HTML resources (links, etc) are live. This is maybe a less intimidating version of some of the functionality embedded in VoiceThread (below).
Voice Thread - Imagine you want to show a short video to your online class and gather their reactions. You set up an account at VoiceThread and upload your video, or your pictures, and then either share the link or embed the video in your site. Now your students can add voice comments via a phone, upload an audio file, capture a video response using a Web cam or simply add a text comment. Did I mention the "doodle" feature that lets you draw on top of the media? Oh wait, what about the ability to export your VoiceThread to something like say an iPod? Nifty huh? Better idea....ask your your content authoring vendor when they'll have this functionality available!
Mark, thanks so much for the pointer to Balsamiq. The way it embodies the "napkin look and feel" in a robust concepting application is fantastic. My team will be so happy I'm moving away from PowerPoint for this kind of work....
Posted by: DougN | January 18, 2009 at 05:40 AM