With much anticipation, our November meeting hosted Cammy Bean, VP of Learning Design from Kineo, Inc. on the topic of selecting elearning tools. Cammy showed us a list of over 120 tools currently on the market (as reported by Brandon Hall) for elearning creation. That’s a daunting list to research and choose from but Cammy to the rescue! She narrowed down the search and presented a list of 12 elearning tools sorted by category.
- Power Point Conversion Tools
- Desktop
- Server Based
- Systems Training
- Games
- Virtual Worlds
- Open Source
- Accessible
Cammy presented the attributes of the 12 selected tools including cost, ease of use, and specific use. A few tools were familiar to me such as Captivate (lightweight), Lectora (expensive) and Articulate (easy to use). A few new to me: Atlantic Link (pricey), Mohive (server based), eXe (free), Flypaper (server based) and Thinking Worlds (virtual world). Cammy had examples of each, showing us the possibility of the software with existing elearning. A lively discussion was had, as we had many experts in the audience. I’m always impressed with the expertise of our members.
For first hand reaction and more information, Cammy is has posted a blog about her presentation at Mass ISPI. http://learningvisions.blogspot.com/ Cammy also suggested Tom Kuhlman’s blog “The Rapid elearning Blog”, as a good source for more information. She also used a mind mapping slide in her presentation which she created using MindMice. Check it out.
