The Kineo newsletter
 
Contents this month:

Free guide: Credit crunch survival manual
Another free guide: Virtual classrooms insights
Get more out of Moodle: Free webinars in March
Market update: Towards Maturity report reviewed
Book review: Mohive on rapid e-learning
Top tips: Authoring tools and online tutoring

Editor's note

Hi,

If you were at Learning Technologies at the end of January, you were probably overwhelmed by people talking about how the credit crunch and what it means for learning. By people, I mean us, of course. We’re not ashamed to face up to the issue. And neither are you it seems. We met hundreds of you over the two days, and some clear messages came across: Budgets are crunched. You need to deliver as much, if not more, than you did last year. With less. We predict a riot…

What can help? Stress balls will only get you so far in a squeeze like this one. We gave away something a little more practical - our Credit Crunch Survival Manual. It’s full of practical advice for getting more done for less. We share it with you this month. And as a double helping, check out our free guide on virtual classrooms. Plenty of shelter from the continuing storm…

Best,

Stephen

1. Free guide: Credit crunch survival manual

There has never been a greater focus on reducing costs than right now. The latest Bersin research in the US revealed that training spend per learner fell between 2007 to 2008 and is likely to fall further in 2009. ASTD’s recent survey showed that over 50% of respondents are being challenged to do more for less with their budgets. What to do? Our survival manual looks at the practical steps that you can take to reduce your learning and development costs and deliver more for less. Get the guide here.

2. Another free guide: Virtual classrooms insights

One of the key pieces of advice in the survival manual is to look seriously at virtual classrooms. So we decided to go even further this month and provide a free report on virtual classrooms too. In partnership with our good pals at Kineo Open Source, we’ve explored the best virtual classroom tools – both open source and commercial, to save you a little legwork. Get the guide here.

3. Get more out of Moodle: Free webinars

Talking about webinars and open source, surely there must be some way of bringing those concepts together….Oh, right. How about a free webinar on the poster boy of open source, Moodle? Like it. Come and join us and Kineo Open Source and learn more about how to make Moodle you new best friend.

The webinars are on March 11th, 18th, and 25th at 230pm.

4. Market update: Towards Maturity report reviewed

Good to see Laura Overton and the team from Towards Maturity at the show last month, and we’re pleased to see their new report is available. We took a look at it this month and picked over the findings. Read about it here.

5. Book review: Mohive on rapid e-learning

The Mohive team, they of the server-based authoring tool, has brought out a book on rapid e-learning. They kindly put a copy our way and we’ve been thumbing through – rapidly, of course. Nah, we’ve actually read it. And now you can read our review.

6. Top tips: Authoring tools and online tutoring

We’ve kept up the pace of giving you a tip every week to help you stay sharp on all matters e-learning. Recently we’ve shared five key questions to ask about an authoring tool, and 10 tips for being an effective online tutor. You can catch up with these, and all our tips, here.