{"id":11954,"date":"2018-04-02T08:39:28","date_gmt":"2018-04-02T13:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lern.org\/?p=11954"},"modified":"2021-08-01T16:20:41","modified_gmt":"2021-08-01T21:20:41","slug":"top-7-etools-trends-for-2018","status":"publish","type":"club_article","link":"https:\/\/lern.com\/lernclub\/club_article\/top-7-etools-trends-for-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 7 eTools Trends for 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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.<br \/>\nHere 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.<br \/>\n<strong>2. Do Visual Surveys<\/strong><br \/>\nGetting 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.<br \/>\nNew visual surveys, some of which Belhassen calls \u201cgorgeous,\u201d 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\u2019s marketing tag is \u201cHow you ask is everything,\u201d and echoes Belhassen\u2019s view.<br \/>\n<strong>3. Prezi No Longer PowerPoint Killer<\/strong><br \/>\nPrezi, a few years ago touted as \u201cthe PowerPoint killer,\u201d 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.<br \/>\nBut 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.<br \/>\n<strong>4. Simulations Gaining<\/strong><br \/>\nSimulations 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.<br \/>\nLERN 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.<br \/>\nRight 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.<br \/>\nLook for animations, simulations and games to continue their gradual ascent with more inexpensive tools, more sophisticated features, and more popularity.<br \/>\n<strong>5. Top Audio and Video Editing Tool<\/strong><br \/>\nCamtasia Studio continues to be Belhassen\u2019s 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.<br \/>\n<strong>6. Captioning Between Human and Automatic<\/strong><br \/>\nThe 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.<br \/>\nOne service is SyncWords, which offers both human transcription but also machine transcriptions.<br \/>\nAutomatic 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.<br \/>\n<strong>7. Adaptive Microlearning Premieres<\/strong><br \/>\nHuge big news this year for the field of online learning is the premiere of new adaptive microlearning eTools. Belhassen\u2019s company Neovation just released OttoLearn, an adaptive microlearning eTool that works on people\u2019s cell phones.<br \/>\n\u201cAdaptive\u201d means that the software adjusts the difficulty of the learning to the individual participant. So if someone already knows a particular topic, the software \u201cups the game\u201d 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.<br \/>\n\u201cMicrolearning\u201d 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.<br \/>\nOne 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 21<sup>st<\/sup> century.<br \/>\nWith OttoLearn, a user has a two minute study set, comprised of 6-10 activites. Belhassen says his software \u201cobsessively tracks\u201d learning data to adapt to each learner\u2019s progress. The tool may be especially useful in certification or exam prep learning. It is priced at only $50\/month.<br \/>\n<strong>Ten Software Tools to Check Out<\/strong><br \/>\nHere 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.<br \/>\n1.\u00a0<em>Office Mix<\/em>, part of Office 2010, converts Powerpoint presentations, for free.<br \/>\n2.\u00a0<em>ZebraZapps<\/em>, does simulations for $10\/month.<br \/>\n3.\u00a0<em>GoConqr<\/em>, for very visual mind maps and flowcharts.<br \/>\n4.\u00a0<em>TinyCards<\/em>, simple to use flash cards.<br \/>\n5.\u00a0<em>Zoom<\/em>, the latest entry into the Webinar field.<br \/>\n6.\u00a0<em>PollEverywhere<\/em>, still one of the best live polling software out there.<br \/>\n7.\u00a0<em>iSpring Scenarios<\/em>. \u201cChoose your own adventure\u201d software that responds to the user\u2019s choice of dialogue \u2018answers\u2019 to illustrate great, and bad, ways to respond to various situations.<br \/>\n8.\u00a0<em>Flipgrid<\/em>. Respond by video instead of text message, price 0-65$ a year.<br \/>\n9.\u00a0<em>PrtScr<\/em>, Belhassen\u2019s top choice for screen clip and screen shot capture.<br \/>\n10.\u00a0<em>h5p.org<\/em>, interactive HTML5 content in your browser, free.<br \/>\nBelhassen, founder and head of Neovation Learning Solutions in Winnipeg, Manitoba, gave his fourth annual update on eTools for participants in LERN\u2019s 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 4<sup>th<\/sup> most popular online UGotClass program, Digital Marketing Certificate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17628,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"tags":[525,533,534],"club_category":[767,788,790,791],"class_list":["post-11954","club_article","type-club_article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-teaching","tag-tools","tag-trends","club_category-club-articles","club_category-teaching","club_category-tools","club_category-trends"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Top 7 eTools Trends for 2018 - LERN Club<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/lern.com\/lernclub\/club_article\/top-7-etools-trends-for-2018\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Top 7 eTools Trends for 2018 - LERN Club\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"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. 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