A chat box for your lifelong learning program is one of the top 7 eTools in lifelong learning for 2018, according to Dan Belhassen, one of the foremost authorities on eTools for the field of lifelong learning. See that story on our LERN Home Page.
Here are his 6 other top news and trends for lifelong learning in 2018, plus his favorite 10 new eTool software programs and apps for this year.
2. Do Visual Surveys
Getting people to respond to surveys is always a challenge, and response rates are not as high as any programmer would want. Belhassen says there is a new class of survey tools that are far more visually engaging. He notes the way people feel about the survey design often determines whether they complete the survey or not.
New visual surveys, some of which Belhassen calls “gorgeous,” are now available. Anecdotally, Belhassen says his experience is that these more visual and colorful surveys generate 25% more responses. One such visual survey is Typeform, which is free. Typeform’s marketing tag is “How you ask is everything,” and echoes Belhassen’s view.
3. Prezi No Longer PowerPoint Killer
Prezi, a few years ago touted as “the PowerPoint killer,” is no longer generated the buzz it did a few years ago, reports Belhassen. Belhassen says his organization uses Prezi for limited special kinds of presentations that involve relationships and limited screen movement.
But Prezi is clearly not replacing PowerPoint right now. He noted that many people have reported that Prezi slide shows with quick movement actually makes some people dizzy.
4. Simulations Gaining
Simulations have been around for twenty years, but the cost of building them has been hugely expensive. Now some inexpensive eTool software are creating a little more sophisticated simulation games.
LERN online experts say simulations and gaming are clearly ahead for the field of lifelong learning, and will compose a significant part of learning and teaching.
Right now cartoons (like PowToon), animation, and a growing number of drag and drop software is being released now than in the past. More drag and drop games are also involving images and images on images, as opposed to just words, like Jeopardy or Crossword Puzzle type drag and drop games.
Look for animations, simulations and games to continue their gradual ascent with more inexpensive tools, more sophisticated features, and more popularity.
5. Top Audio and Video Editing Tool
Camtasia Studio continues to be Belhassen’s top pick for a video editing or screen recording and editing tool. He reviews hundreds of eTools and says this is his favorite for editing. Camtasia Study is $199/month. If you want a cheaper tool, he says WeVideo is just $5/month.
6. Captioning Between Human and Automatic
The state of captioning of videos and audio presentations, often mandated by disability act law, is a mix of human translators, which often cost a lot, and automatic speech recognition (ASR), which is a little more difficult to find online at the present.
One service is SyncWords, which offers both human transcription but also machine transcriptions.
Automatic speech recognition is likely to become more sophisticated, but right now there are still a lot of real human translators working the web sites. One site, called Gengo, offers human translation for six cents a word. It also has the advantage of specialists in dialect, Belhassen noted. So one could translate not just Spanish but a Puerto Rican speaker of Spanish, into not just Chinese but Hainan Chinese.
7. Adaptive Microlearning Premieres
Huge big news this year for the field of online learning is the premiere of new adaptive microlearning eTools. Belhassen’s company Neovation just released OttoLearn, an adaptive microlearning eTool that works on people’s cell phones.
“Adaptive” means that the software adjusts the difficulty of the learning to the individual participant. So if someone already knows a particular topic, the software “ups the game” and takes it to a more challenging level. And if someone is not doing well, the software ramps down the level of challenge to match what the individual knows and builds from there.
“Microlearning” is a word usually associated with self-study online tools that present a small chunk of material at a single time. Then the tool integrates questions into each learning chunk to see if the learner has mastered that piece of knowledge.
One fascinating aspect of OttoLearn is that the software also tracks the confidence level of the learner in answering a given question. The introduction of confidence level into learning as a measurable gauge of knowledge is brand new to the 21st century.
With OttoLearn, a user has a two minute study set, comprised of 6-10 activites. Belhassen says his software “obsessively tracks” learning data to adapt to each learner’s progress. The tool may be especially useful in certification or exam prep learning. It is priced at only $50/month.
Ten Software Tools to Check Out
Here are some of the many software tools Dan Belhassen featured in his 2018 update on eTools for the field of lifelong learning. To check them out, just add dot com after the name.
1. Office Mix, part of Office 2010, converts Powerpoint presentations, for free.
2. ZebraZapps, does simulations for $10/month.
3. GoConqr, for very visual mind maps and flowcharts.
4. TinyCards, simple to use flash cards.
5. Zoom, the latest entry into the Webinar field.
6. PollEverywhere, still one of the best live polling software out there.
7. iSpring Scenarios. “Choose your own adventure” software that responds to the user’s choice of dialogue ‘answers’ to illustrate great, and bad, ways to respond to various situations.
8. Flipgrid. Respond by video instead of text message, price 0-65$ a year.
9. PrtScr, Belhassen’s top choice for screen clip and screen shot capture.
10. h5p.org, interactive HTML5 content in your browser, free.
Belhassen, founder and head of Neovation Learning Solutions in Winnipeg, Manitoba, gave his fourth annual update on eTools for participants in LERN’s Certified Faculty Developer program this spring. In addition to spending hours every day keeping up with the online learning field, he has just released his own new adaptive microlearning eTool called OttoLearn. He and his colleague Susan Hurrell also teach the 4th most popular online UGotClass program, Digital Marketing Certificate.