Tag: elearning

Posted in mobile, singular experience, Uncategorized

Project Tin Can: Good Communication or just a Tin Can Alley?

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

Something I’ve been hearing about lately is something called, “Project Tin Can,” and it’s been a topic that seems to come back again and again in reference to m-learning. “Oh, I think great strides are being made with ‘Tin Can’,” or “I think ‘Tin Can’ might help to solve that problem in how it relates to m-learning,” I’d hear. I knew it has to do with how scoring and assessments are done, but what is it beyond that? Why should I even begin to pay attention to this?

Of course, I had to start doing some research, because if this is a hot topic that affects m-learning, I need to be on top of it, right?

First, if one doesn’t have an understanding of SCORM, one has to understand that first.  SCORM, for all you technical communicators that don’t know, is best explained by Rustici Software, which works very closely with the ADL who set these standards:

SCORM is a set of technical standards for e-learning software products. SCORM tells programmers how to write their code so that it can “play well” with other e-learning software. It is the de facto industry standard for e-learning interoperability. Specifically, SCORM governs how online learning content and Learning Management Systems (LMSs) communicate with each other. SCORM does not speak to instructional design or any other pedagogical concern, it is purely a technical standard…. The SCORM standard makes sure that all e-learning content and LMSs can work with each other, just like the DVD standard makes sure that all DVDs will play in all DVD players. If an LMS is SCORM conformant, it can play any content that is SCORM conformant, and any SCORM conformant content can play in any SCORM conformant LMS.  (See http://scorm.com/scorm-explained/ for more details)

Okay, so we have a set of standard for e-learning so that all content can work together congruently.

Great! So, why mess with what works?

Well, SCORM was developed about a decade or so ago, and while it’s worked great, a lot has changed in how educational content is delivered. A decade ago, we didn’t have smartphones in the same way that we do now, and tablets were still thought of as either pads of paper or slabs of slate that you wrote on with chalk. Mobile devices took off in the last few years much faster than anyone anticipated.  Obviously, if there are new means of technology, there are also new means of learning and delivering learning content to learners.  ADL, the SCORM proctors, realized that they need to stay ahead of the curve and start looking new solutions as mobile technology started to integrate into daily life.

While I had heard of Tin Can, it most recently was brought to my attention by Chad Udell of Float Learning. Float Learning is hot on the trail of TinCan, as evidenced by their May 2012 newsletter. Chad posted this link on Twitter to the following article by Reuben Tozman of the edCetra Training Blog: Instructional Design Tips for Tin Can, which talks about how Reuben and his company started to use Tin Can to start using methods that had their foundations in SCORM for a project, but ultimately needed the flexibility of Tin Can to evolve and progress with the project. I also looked at this article by Ben Clark of Rustici Software, as posted by Aaron Silvers of ADL on “What is Project Tin Can?“, which basically outlined what Tin Can was in broad terms, but it wasn’t completely clear to the “lay person” like me.

The most helpful thing in helping me understand what Tin Can is was to listen to episode #7 of “This Week in M-Learning” with RJ Jacquez and Rob Gadd, which can be found either on this website or on iTunes. They had Aaron Silvers and Jason Haag of ADL as guests on the show, and being that both Aaron and Jason are very much part of and deeply into the Tin Can project, they were excellent sources to consult.

The following are the notes that I took from the conversation (and hopefully I’m summarizing and paraphrasing most of the conversation correctly–let me know if I have any inaccuracies):

First and foremost, both SCORM and TinCan API (as it’s now known) are not standards, but rather they are specifications. SCORM is a widely adopted and used specification, but it’s still just a specification, not a standard. That’s an important distinction to make up front.

From there, it was explained in the podcast that Project Tin Can started around 2008, when ADL started looking at whitepapers and various resources to determine how they were going to develop new standards within SCORM to develop a platform that could move forward rather than a specification. With social media starting to have a stronger presence in the world, especially on mobile, something was needed that wasn’t being pre-defined or pre-described yet was something that SCORM tried to addressed. For example, how could people have ubiquitous access to online data? How could a self-sustaining, open source system be created in the process to build this new specification/platform/standard using as many ideas as possible to push the evolution of the system continually into the future?

Tin Can API–the end result thusfar of that research–is a major component of tracking of learning activity in next generation of SCORM.

RJ asked a major question in the podcast, which was, “What is the big deal of Tin Can?” It’s a valid question, after all. Aaron, Jason, and Rob (who is using Tin Can at his mobile technology firm) explained that Tin Can allows for mobile SCORM tracking to work optimally, both offline as well as online. The spec is meant to help level the playing field so that the content can plug into new platforms without losing content in transfer, giving it far more flexibility and ease to help mobile technology use SCORM specs.

It was noted that the need to be simpler was key for implementation; it needed to be more flexible than SCORM, so the concept behind Tin Can is not only to use it for e-learning and m-learning, but to provide deliverables of different code libraries that go beyond online learning. It was noted that Articulate Storyline is using a simpler version of Tin Can rather than SCORM, but it’s more capable in its deliverable, and Blackboard is using a form of it as well.

Another big point was that Tin Can API can be initiated with informal training and not start with an LMS (Learning Management System). The idea is that learning not initiated with an LMS would take credentials from social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, or Google (I believe Pinterest and Klout have these kinds of sign-ins). The idea is that by obtaining credentials from such sources, the content from a Tin Can-compliant app would already knows who you are. In other words, if you are already authenticated through a single sign-in ID, the app will be able to collect activity and log it. It was noted that not a lot of overhead to search for content, and Tin Can would allows smaller companies to do it for their projects.

So, the burden is lighter than SCORM. An LMS isn’t needed but it can integrate with an LMS; it is not specified to be a stand-alone but rather could expand the capability of any enterprise system by taking data about what you are doing in one place and allow other systems can see how you are performing, making it interoperatable and ubiquitous. Tin Can is meant to find a common ground to help look at data in context, helping disparate systems talk to each other.

As Tin Can API is a spec in early stages, it’s evolving very quickly thanks to
the project being highly community-based, in which things change quickly in weeks and months instead of over years like SCORM. Between the huge community support–slightly like crowdsourcing through specific online social media and other outlets– and getting some smaller m-learning “boutique” firms jumping in now, Tin Can is gaining great momentum. Rustici Software has been doing the research for ADL; ADL proposed what they wanted from their requirements, and Rustici were fortunate to get the job of bringing it to fruition. Aaron and Jason explained that Rustici released workable prototype that was incomplete–but workable–implementing the concept of using an activity stream in the Tin Can spec. (An example of an activity stream that they gave was Facebook’s layout.) Even after the initial project was completed, Rustici continued to build it out and offered what they did as open source, and their continued work was adopted readily by the Tin Can community.

So–the podcast was pretty informative and yield some of the best information to understand.

It seems to me that Tin Can API is still something to continue to watch, whether one is an m-learning developer, or even as an instructional designer or m-learning specialist. My impression was that Tin Can is meant to eventually go beyond m-learning and e-learning, and extend into other mobile applications as mobile technology specifications and standards evolve. Single-sourcing is a huge issue in mobile technology, and it seems to be that this is a project that is very much centered on making that happen.

For more information on Tin Can API, I recommend visiting the links above, and give a visit to http://scorm.com/tincan/.

Posted in Uncategorized

The Meaning of Graduating with a Masters in Technical Communication

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom
Techcommgeekmom
NJIT MSPTC Class of 2012

Today was a big milestone day in my life. Today, twenty-two years after I received my Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Mary Washington (Mary Washington College back then), I received my Masters of Science in Professional and Technical Communication from the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). Let me tell you, if you had talked to me at the time of my Bachelors degree and told me that a) I’d be getting a Masters degree and b) it would be in a program that involved computer related stuff and technical writing, I would have thought you were insane.

I put two and a half years of my life into this degree. There was blood, sweat and tears that were involved now and then (literally, in some cases!). My husband was a weekend widower for most of that time, and my son understood that Mom had to do her homework too, and it was way more than he had because she was anywhere from in the 17th-20th grades (compared to him being in 5th grade).

I started this program because I was unemployed. I was being laid off from a job that had certain aspects I liked, namely editing and the use of instructional design. I also had some e-learning and some instructional design from a prior job that I liked, so I decided to “work the system” in seeing if I could find some sort of coursework that would help to update my skills as job retraining through the state’s re-employment programs. By a miracle, there was an ad on Facebook–of all places– for NJIT’s MSPTC program and the grad certificates in technical communications essentials. When I looked at the curriculum, it was exactly what I was looking for, and so many of the electives that I wanted to take! I was able to complete all the paperwork and convince the state to pay for my tech comm certificate. I started with that, because I figured that it was a shorter commitment, I would still get some significant training out of it, and if I didn’t like it, I wasn’t stuck in it for the long haul. And if I did like it, I could always transfer the credits straight into the Masters program.

Well, you guessed it– I ended up loving it. The state ended up paying for my first three courses until I got a job that allowed me to pay for the rest of my education myself, which was an incredibly expensive investment.  I took as broad a range of subjects as I could, but found myself always gravitating towards e-learning and m-learning just the same. I oriented many papers to cover e-learning and m-learning topics over time, yet kept my options open so that I had more opportunities to not only expand my own knowledge base, but provide opportunities in other areas I liked in case the e-learning direction didn’t work out the way I wanted.

And now…I have a Masters degree. I think there was a point in my career that I knew I wanted a Masters degree, and that perhaps a Masters degree would help with my career– but doing what? The problem was that the kind of degree I wanted to do wasn’t around the way it is now when I first got my undergraduate degree. Creating websites was strictly for computer developers and programmers, and I wasn’t that. I wasn’t an English major who specialized in creative writing or journalistic writing either. Not that there’s anything wrong with those majors–not at all, but they weren’t me, or at least not quite me. Discovering the world of technical communication when I did and finding an educational resource when I did was purely fortuitous timing, if nothing else, but I’m glad it’s become part of my life.

I seem to recall that the advisor for the program said something about me in reference to this program to the effect of it being something where I learned about my own voice. I think this is definitely true. Growing up, and even through my undergrad years, I thought being a good writer had to do with being a “flowery” writer, someone who always included all these incredible details in their works. I couldn’t do that. Part of the reason that a History degree appealed to me was that I just had to collect and re-churn out facts in a cohesive manner. Even with that, I didn’t understand that I could do that well until my senior year of college, when my favorite professor motivated me to write some of my best work of my college career. Some of the papers I did for him that I thought were horrible were ones that he thought were my best. When I re-read them years later, I realized what he was saying– they were good. Maybe I really was someone who could write decently.

I think the understanding that I could write well was developed more as I winged my way through my professional life, but it really didn’t become clear until I joined this program. I did find my voice, and I could express my opinion, and…people listened. People understood my message. And people thought I explained myself well, and liked the work that I did.  I sometimes am still surprised that I was able to pull this off. But yes, I found my voice, and I found what makes me excited in the working world, and that’s technical communication with an emphasis on e-learning and m-learning the most. (But get me started on editing “International English“, UX or content strategy as well, and my engines get revved up as well!)

Today is a big day. Today is a day I realized that I can make a big contribution to global society just being myself and truly doing what I love. I know that even with a Masters degree in my hand, I still have SO much more to learn to realize my full potential in the e-learning and m-learning world, and I’m doing my best to take what I’ve learned from my MSPTC program and move forward. And I don’t mean just academically, but what I’ve learned about myself from the experience as well.

In my last post, I talked about how important it is right now in the technical communications world to keep up with skills and teach yourself new things. The world is moving SO fast that it’s hard to keep up, even with a brand-spanking new graduate degree in hand! Even as I write this, while it might seem like I’m done, I’m far from done. I’m trying to take some online tutorials in Adobe Tech Comm Suite 3.5 software, and I’m throwing myself into an instructional design project. I need to get my feet wet in the real world, and I have to keep it moving or else I’ll miss out or fall behind quickly.  Even if your goal is not getting a Masters degree, I highly encourage you to challenge yourself with something new. The ID/TC Education Resources link above is a list of programs that I curated to help others to find additional education to help further their careers as well.  I found that NJIT’s MSPTC program fit my needs at the time I started, but I’ve since learned of some other great programs that are listed on that page.  You might learn some new skills, but you might also learn more about yourself in the process.

Other than teaching myself more software, are there plans to continue with, say, a doctoral degree? While I would love to be known as “Dr. Villegas,” I think I need some time and space to still fully realize this MSPTC degree. It hasn’t sunk in that I have it. It still seems a little surreal.  I also need time to figure out, if I do go on with further education, if it only is a matter of getting another graduate certificate, or if a PhD or EdD is what I want to do. And then…in what, and how? Perhaps, like 22 years ago, the program I want or need isn’t out there yet, so biding my time will help.

Tomorrow is a new day, and a step towards a new future as a master of technical communication. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next!

Posted in Uncategorized

You make me feel like dancing…

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom


I’m feeling very excited right now.  So much so, I feel like dancing! (Don’t worry– I’ll restrain myself.) For those of you old enough to remember Leo Sayer, every time I hear the phrase, “You make me feel like dancing,” I think of him. Although the dance in my head these days is more like a Nikki Minaj/David Guetta soundtrack, but that’s neither here nor there.

Lots of things going on with TechCommGeekMom, both personally and professionally (since I consider this blog my “professional” blog).

First, I’m excited about my own academics. I just turned in my last assignment for the semester, which means that I am done doing the coursework for my Masters degree in Professional and Technical Communications! It’s been a long two and a half years, but just shy of getting the final grades and graduation, I’m done!  I’m very glad that I took the time and expense to get this degree. I’ve put a lot of hard work into this while at time juggling a stressful full-time job, being a Cub Scout den mother, and being the mother of a special needs kid. So if you don’t think you can do it, think again! It IS possible! I always wanted to get a graduate degree, but never knew what major. It’s been almost exactly 22 years since my undergraduate graduation, so there was plenty of reason to doubt that I could do it. But I’ve done it. I also know that it was worth the wait, because I not only validated many years of technical communications experience in the process, but gained a lot of new skills as well.  And who knew that I would do so well that I’d be accepted into the graduate honor society at my university? If you told me all about where I am now back when I first started this program, I would’ve told you that you were full of beans.  I’m excited to be moving forward from this experience!

Part of moving forward is also reliving some of the past, though! I’ve already made one post, but I will be posting some of my “greatest hits” from my academic blog here. While they are centered more on technical communications and editing at large rather than m-learning, I do think they provide some insight on things that all technical communicators need to keep in mind when looking at “the big picture”, no matter what specialty you work.

I’ve also added content to the ID/TC Links page now. I’ve listed links to commonly used ID and TC software as well as some of my favorite blogs and websites. If you’d like to contribute to the list, please drop me a line at techcommgeekmom@me.com.

Even though I won’t be in grad school anymore (at least for the time being…anyone know of a flexible PhD/EdD program? LOL), it’s not like I won’t be busy. I have lots of projects ahead, and lots of opportunities and chances for more opportunities. I’m looking forward to my webinar in June (register here if you haven’t already!), as well as several other projects I have on tap. If nothing else, being done with school means I can spend more time here on the blog and on Twitter! I genuinely would love any input and participation on this blog. Feel like guest blogging? Let me know! I want to create an m-learning community here where we can “talk shop” in a way that we can kick off our shoes and lounge on the couches while eating snacks-kind of way. I love a good discussion, and I love talking technology, m-learning and technical communications!

More to come, but please enjoy all the new stuff here on the site, and hopefully more great content is coming ahead!

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Thoughts on the state of mobile learning

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

See on Scoop.it – M-learning, E-Learning, and Technical Communications

So much about the way we teach, learn and communicate is up for grabs. Educators are using new tools and technologies to reach their students … but what do…

See this video on www.youtube.com

This is a REALLY great video to watch– this is why I’m so passionate about m-learning!

Two things I wanted to note:
1) Thanks to @snewco on Twitter for bringing this to my attention, and,
2)This was put out by Abilene Christian University. When I’ve done research on m-learning, they often seem to really have cutting edge stuff going on over there, especially with iPad and mobile learning research on the graduate level. Worth exploring their website.

–techcommgeekmom

 

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Just let me set the record straight…

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

Right now, I’m working very hard to finish up the coursework for my Master’s degree in Technical and Professional Communications. I’ve worked for two and a half years on this, studying part-time, usually taking two classes at a time, while most of the time working full-time while also being a parent to a special needs kid. It’s a lot of work, and it’s incredibly draining, but hopefully the fruits of my labor will pay off soon enough.

Part of one of my last classes is to present my e-portfolio of my professional and academic work for prospective employers.  I fought with my professor about my e-portfolio, because while I knew I needed to take the emphasis off the academic and put it in a more professional light, I really liked how I formatted it–it reflected my personality to a “T.”  She hated it, and made me reformat the whole thing. It was an incredibly laborious process, as I had to take something that took me two years to get it to where I wanted and liked it, and totally scrap it in favor of having something else together in a fraction of the time. I still wanted it to reflect my personality as well.  So, in trying to use some new software (Adobe Muse) to help me build it, I came up with something that I thought was pretty good. Visually, it was slicker looking, and while it didn’t have all the flexibility that I had in the old one, to paraphrase Project Runway’s Tim Gunn, I made it work. Even now, there are some very minor tweaks that need to be made, but I feel like I created a really good e-portfolio that prospective employers will respect and like.

Well, some smarty pants suggested to the professor that we get outside critiques for our e-portfolios before we present them for our upcoming capstone presentations and make them “public”. Sounds like a good idea in theory, but I wasn’t too keen on it. (Mine is already public, as far as I’m concerned.) I submitted mine for review. Overall, the reviews I received back were good, although it was hard to tell from the notes what was going on with some of it. First it criticized my navigation and menu choices, and then the next moment it praised it.

The part that actually stung me the most was that one critique told me to remove my blog page from the site, as the blog was mostly repostings of other articles. Yep, you guessed it, it referred to this blog. (I had also listed my academic blog, which I plan to integrate it with this one at some point.) I was royally TICKED. Yes, I know I am reposting things from other sites in here, but there is some original information in here too. I recently read a review of another very public e-learning blog site, and it was actually PRAISED for sharing articles from other sites as it made that particular blog current and showed that the blogger was sharing current thoughts and information. That’s exactly what I’m trying to do here!

Look, I know that I’m still a beginner at this m-learning and e-learning thing. I’ve blogged for many years on different subjects. I know the blogging game, believe me.

So let me set the record straight:

While this is a blog that reflects my personal interpretations on all things m-learning, e-learning and tech comm, I also am still learning about these subjects. I can’t write about the benefits of using some Lectora trick if I’ve never used Lectora. I can’t talk about e-learning pedagogy if I’ve never taken an instructional design course. I’ve learned things about e-learning “on the streets,” so to speak. I learned through experience, not through theory. I still have SO much more to learn, and I know it. I’ve never been in denial about that. But at the same time, the purpose of this blog is not only to share MY thoughts, but to also open up the forum and share information. I want to learn more from those who read this blog, who have more experience. I want other newbie e-learning and m-learning specialists to come here and share experiences and questions through the comments. Please, voluteer to guest blog on here–I’d love it! I’m trying to build this up as an m-learning/e-learning/tech comm community, so sharing articles that I think are helpful and useful WILL be posted. And as it is, my site stats actually went up once I started sharing these articles, so I don’t think I’m going down the wrong path.

So to the person who gave me that critique, I think you need to see the bigger picture, and read more blogs. The only impression I’ve ever had of the e-learning/m-learning community is that we share. As my husband would put it–we’re sharers. I haven’t seen it in any other field I’ve been in as much as I see it in the e-learning/m-learning world, and I’m happy and glad that this community has taken me into the fold.

So the next time you see an article that is just a repost from my ScoopIt account, please know that I post it because I want to share something that I don’t know well, yet find interesting and informational that I think others would benefit too.

And I’m not taking this blog off of my e-portfolio. I’m proud of what I’ve done here, and what I continue to do here. I still have big plans for this site. I’m working offline on the Educational Resources and Links items listed in the navigation above, and I have ideas for articles I want to write but can’t get to right now. I just stopped to write this…again, just to set the record straight. Keep watching this site…it’s only a month old, and it’s just getting started…

Just bear with me in the next two weeks, as I have to finish up this semester, and term papers from hell are calling me. Please keep me in your thoughts, hoping that I can make it through these next couple of weeks with my sanity intact. 😉