CSS
Clive Shepherd recently wrote about “inductive learning.” He said: In my post last week, Whatever happened to inductive learning?, I complained how difficult it was with current rapid development tools to write more conversational inductive questions in which you as author are able to comment on each selection that the
ramblings
Before I get to my point, I’d like to give you some background information. For better or for worse, I’m something of a perfectionist. I’m also something of an idealist; this combination makes life very difficult sometimes. When I embark on a project, I’m usually driven
Blackboard v Desire2Learn
All 44 of Blackboard’s patent claims have been thrown out by the US Patent & Trademark Office. It’s not 100% official (this is the first step in the process), but things are looking up… for everyone except Blackboard. I really think they shot themselves in the foot by
e-learning
I read not one, but three great blog posts today regarding what kinds of questions you should asking yourself when working on a project. Two of the blogs were not specific to the e-learning industry, but they apply nonetheless. Why? The first blog, by Jason at 37signals.com, suggests that
Adobe Captivate
You may be familiar with the famous “Captivate variables” (see page 201 in PDF link), but did you know about “rdcmndHidePlaybar”? It isn’t mentioned by Adobe in their documentation, but it’s a handy one to know about. You can toggle the Captivate playbar’s visibility by importing two
accessibility
Adobe has a short but useful article detailing how to make your Adobe Captivate movies more accessible. These are pretty simple (borderline “no-brainer”) steps a Captivate author can easily implement: * Add a description to an Adobe Captivate movie * Add a description to an individual slide * Limit quiz questions to multiple
Adobe Flash
Geoff Stearns and Bobby van der Sluis have finalized SWFObject 2.0. It is no longer beta, and SWFObject 1.5 is now considered deprecated. SWFObject 2.0’s home is located at Google Code, which includes full documentation and downloads. I believe support will be handled by the SWFObject
Industry News
A press release issued today indicates the IMS Global Learning Consortium is piloting the use of Creative Commons licensing for some of their standards. This is excellent news for proponents of open standards, and will hopefully lead to more openness from the IMS. Excerpt: Historically, specifications and standards consortia have
accessibility
There are a great set links for free development tools (validation services, browser toolbars and plugins) posted on the Web Access Centre Blog today: Looking for alternatives to Bobby and WebXact? Try these! Anyone familiar with accessibility should already know about Cynthia Says and a few of the web-based validation
Industry News
The WCAG Samurai Errata for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 (link no longer available) were published this week by the WCAG Samurai group. They don’t contain anything I’d consider Earth-shattering, but there are some very solid guidelines that bring the 1999 WCAG 1.0 specs a
e-learning
Here are some great blog posts regarding the Blackboard vs Desire2Learn lawsuit. Michael Korcuska (Executive Director of the Sakai Foundation): Blackboard-Desire2Learn Verdict This is certainly not either the end or, frankly, the most important part of the ongoing patent dispute. Completely separate from the Bb-D2L lawsuit, the US Patent Office
Blackboard v Desire2Learn
Blackboard won its lawsuit against Desire2Learn. This really bums me out! I wonder if Desire2Learn will appeal (please say yes) and if Blackboard will start going after other LMS vendors? * T.H.E. Journal: Blackboard Wins Lawsuit Against Desire2Learn * Desire2Learn Patent-Info’s Blog * Jury instructions from the case (very long,