Mylearning.be

Microsoft released a new version of its Learning Content Development System, the free content authoring tool. The release notes show the following changes:

• E-learning created is compatible with Firefox 3.5.9 and Firefox 3.6.3.
• Microsoft Silverlight 4 Media Player for animations that include closed captioning.
• Enhanced keyboard accessibility for the sort and tile games, adventure interactivity, and Voice of the Expert element.
• LCDS authoring and e-learning created are completely compatible with Microsoft Silverlight 4.0.

An interesting new feature is the possibility to create content on the “lesson” level. Previous versions did not allow this, which sometimes resulted in blank pages in the course structure when you imported the SCORM package in an LMS.

When you open a course in the new version, you will notice an option to enable the content at the lesson level:

Tip: if you don’t know which version of LCDS you are running, open LCDS and press Shift+F1.

I have been playing with the co-authoring function in Office 2010, SharePoint 2010 and the Office Web Apps. Co-authoring allows simultaneous editing of the same document by multiple users. It took me some time to figure out which apps actually support this functionality, because not all of them do.

The following site gives a good overview: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/document-collaboration-and-co-authoring-HA101812148.aspx

The table below (taken from the article) is a good summary:

In Office 2010 Beta, the File menu contained a Share option, that allowed you to save a file directly to a SharePoint site, or even to SkyDrive.

I was looking for that option in the final release, but could not find it. Well, the Share option is no longer there, but all the functionality is under Save & Send.

It took me a while to figure that out, so I thought I might share it with you.

Recently, I had to produce screencasts that needed to be published/played in a Microsoft Silverlight player. I know, most people are still using the very popular Flash format, but sometimes there are reasons why you need to use Silverlight. For instance because it needs to be published on a Microsoft platform. ;–)

The trouble is that this requires your movies to be in .wmv format. Captivate currently ony produces Flash output (of course).

If you are starting from scratch, you can use a screencasting tool that produces .wmv files directly. You can use Camtasia Studio, or Microsofts Expression Encoder 3. This will give you a nice .wmv file that you can then embed in your authoring tool, or play directly with a Silverlight player (e.g. the free one on Codeplex.).

But what if you have tons of Captivate movies ready to be published? Or if you like Captivate better than Camtasia? Well, no worries, you can follow these steps:

1. Remove the “interactive” elements from your Captivate movies. This includes buttons, playback controls, question slides, anything a user can click on. This is important, otherwise your conversion will fail.
2. Publish your project  and get the .swf file.
3. Convert the .swf file to .wmv. I used Camtasia to do that (via Import media you can import an .swf file, and publish your project as .wmv), but I heard of other people using tools like Prism to do this.
4. Integrate the .wmv in your Silverlight authoring tool or in your player.
5. Done!

You can view an example of the final result. Requires the Silverlight Player (duh!).

Any tips or tricks? Share them in the comments!

How do you follow the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas if your boss didn’t want to pay your ticket?

• You watch the keynote from your desk on http://www.mssharepointconference.com.
• You follow the twitter stream. Hash tag: #SPC09.
• You watch the live stream of Endusersharepoint.com.