November 10 NewsletterKINEO NEWSLETTER - Issue 60 - November 2010
Some months are big. Some are massive. And then you have November 2010. Today, we launch the Totara LMS website. Totara LMS is a new distribution of Moodle, the world’s most popular open source LMS, for the corporate sector. Our aim is simple: to transform the LMS market with a highly cost-effective, feature-rich and flexible enterprise LMS to meet the demands of business – through open source. It’s been a major project and we have joined forces with two amazing companies: Catalyst IT, the open source experts and Moodle partners, and Flexible Learning Network, who lead the Mahara project, both based in New Zealand. It’s great to be releasing together what we believe will be a game-changing LMS to benefit our clients around the world. With Flexible Learning Network, joining forces has led to something else great: We’re delighted to announce that from today, Flexible Learning Network becomes Kineo Pacific. We’re delighted to be able to extend our reach to readers and clients in Asia Pacific, and look forward to working closely with the team there. Well, that’s good – but that’s not enough to fill a month by Kineo newsletter standards. We also share a module and case study for the ‘Fit for the future’ e-learning project we’ve been doing with The Football League in the UK – have a look and a play for yourself. With tool reviews, top tips, market updates and more, we hope the Kineo massive is keeping you as busy reading about it as we are doing it… We’ve been working long and hard with our partners, Catalyst IT and Flexible Learning Network (now Kineo Pacific), to bring Totara LMS to the market. We’re pleased to announce its launch today. Totara is a new kind of LMS for business. It’s a distribution of Moodle, the world’s leading open source LMS, so you know it’s built on a great foundation and is designed specifically to meet the needs of corporates. Totara is fully open source, with no licence fees and available on an annual subscription basis for support, updates and patches. We’ve taken our combined experience in customizing Moodle for business needs and created a new solution; one that’s going to change what you think you can get from an LMS – and at a cost that’s going to change what you think you should be paying for an enterprise LMS. Totara will be available from January 2011, but you can get a sneak preview now at www.totaralms.com. We are also after Totara Partners who can support and implement Totara around the world. If you are an e-learning company, become a Totara Partner to offer your clients a leading open source learning platform and to extend both your services and revenue opportunities. We are keen to help companies grow their services and revenues as a Totara Partner. Find out more at the Totara website. If you’re at DevLearn this week, stop by Booth 100 to find out more. Expect to hear a lot more about it in the next few months. We’re very excited… Flexible Learning Network is a highly regarded e-learning and blended solutions company serving government and corporate clients in New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands. Richard Wyles at Flexible is the lead on the Mahara project, the popular e-portfolio tool. Working together on Totara we shared many common goals and approaches, and now we’re sharing a lot more (romantic, isn’t it?). It’s great to have a new office and team to help us connect with more of you in NZ and beyond. You can find out more about the Kineo Pacific team here. Get in touch with Kineo Pacific on 64 (4) 801 6688 or at info@kineo.co.nz. The e-learning's all set in a flat in London, as a fictional bunch of teenagers are living together while preparing to compete in the games. So, you’ll know by now that we like to bring one tool to your considerably stretched attention each month and tell you what we think of it. This month we have to hold our hands up – this isn’t really a ‘review’ and it’s not really ‘independent’. But we wanted to tell you about it anyway. One of the many great things that Kineo Pacific (formerly Flexible Learning Network) does is project lead an open source tool called Mahara. Mahara is an e-portfolio tool. What is that and why do you want one? We are so glad you asked... Find out more here Mahara review. Where's the humanity? We look at making sure your e-learning has a human touch, and there are no Halloween zombie design decisions lurking under the counter Video done right: All nasties aside, we take another look at what makes for good video in e-learning Get these and all our other e-learning top tips. We’re not the only ones looking at the LMS market for trends of course. This month we share recent insights from prominent US commentators Bersin and the E-learning Guild, and give some more context on why we created Totara. |
