The Instancy Mobile Learning Management System (Mobile iLMS) was released today with a new user interface. Mobile iLMS comes in two flavors – Mobile Web App (requiring no download from an app store) and a Native App that can be downloaded from an App store. In this post, we’ll talk about the Mobile Web App; more on the Native App in our next article….stay tuned.

What is a Mobile Learning Management System?

A Mobile Learning Management System provides your learners with a single on-demand learning portal and gateway, on the mobile devices (phones and tablets) that they are using today..

A mobile LMS lets your learner community use all the features of your LMS on their portable devices.  Learners can search for and enroll in classes, and report their progress.  More importantly, learners can take courses and engage with instructors and other students on their devices.  Learners can view video, audio, documents, tests and assessments and online courses. Each learner can follow a personalized learning track, if that is the way your system is set up.

In other words, a mobile LMS lets your users do everything they used to need a PC for, on their phone or tablet.

Mobile iLMS’ new interface updates the entire learner experience.

Sign-up with Social Login

By enabling social login, you can make the registration process easy. New users can sign-up with their Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, or Twitter IDs, instead of  asking them to set up yet another new profile and new login credentials to remember.

Side Menu Navigation

The menu navigation now offers easy to use side navigation that may accessed from anywhere in the mobile iLMS App. This solves the problem of having many menus on the main app screens that take away much screen space. Users can see where they are and where they can go.

Content Purchasing Made Easy

If your implementation of the mobile iLMS supports retail sales, the new mobile interface makes the process of buying learning content easier for your clients.

A new shopping cart icon shows the number of items in their shopping cart. Learners can access the shopping cart at any time from catalog listing or from the content details page. Also, users have the choice of paying online with a credit card option or offline (with a purchase order, check, etc.).

Browsing Content by Category

Users can filter learning content by categories and sub-categories. The “tree view” category structure helps users browse content easily.

Alphabetical “People Listing”

The “People listing” interface has been improved to search people by alphabetic order. Users can just scroll down to see users’ names by letter of the alphabet.  Names can be sorted by first name or by last name.

Improved Catalog Interface

The catalog interface has been redesigned to keep easy navigation in mind. Items in the next page of the catalog are loaded when users reach the end of the scroll. This approach reduces bandwidth consumption and loads catalog items faster

We are excited about the new Mobile iLMS features and usability.  You can continue to expect innovation from Instancy as we make our entire system easier for both your learning users who consume your learning content, and for your management and support teams who acquire, create and provide this content to your community.

Instancy re-released its flagship product, the Instancy Learning Management System (iLMS), with a new user interface to support multiple browsers and multiple languages. New and current clients can use the new interface in April, 2013.

The iLMS received a major overhaul of the user interface, which makes the entire application much easier to use.

Instancy LMS’ new Home Page

Instancy LMS’ new Home Page

Browse Catalog

Action links have been improved across all the Administrative areas by removing multiple pop-up browser windows, which have been replaced pages that appear as overlays on the browser window. The new interface makes it easier to manage content, from both the administration (uploading) and the user (downloading and consuming) sides.

Browse Catalog

Portal Design Options 

The new user interface is cleaner with neutral color and is streamlined for ease of use. In addition, straightforward website design choices allow administrators to customize the look-and-feel of their own installation of the portal. These tools are as easy to use as other familiar tools like WordPress. Users can add corporate or institutional branding elements to make the portal integrate seamlessly with other websites.

Portal Design Options

User Administration

The menu structure has been improved to consolidate the user and content administration under a single Administrator role.

You can organize users in groups or build group hierarchies, such as regions, departments, schools or classes

User Administration

User Reporting 

The graphical reports help you visualize learning progress and completion at a specific learner, course, user group or entire site level.

User Reporting

Read More…

No doubt the new learning world has arrived with the speed of mobility, as Web 3.0 has become the new reality in organizations. The use of Android devices by Samsung, Motorola, and HTC, along with the Apple iPhone and iPad, has changed the way everyone receives and retains information. Additionally, we can now create new and intriguing mobile learning apps without coding.  Because there is always something new to discover, enhancing contemporary learning and increasing the knowledge base on a wide array of platforms are essential.

Traditional eLearning standards like SCORM (conceived in the late 1990s) are inadequate to meet the demands of digital and distributed learning today. We need a more flexible learning architecture that can enable learning to occur anyplace, anytime, with any device and support myriads of learning opportunities from traditional courseware, games, simulations and social interactions and sharing.

Instancy and its Tin Can API integration is now the answer. Implementing Tin Can API Integration within the Instancy Learning Management System (iLMS), along with Instancy Learning Content Management Systems (iLCMS), can create an integrated learning environment that interoperates data with other learning systems and legacy enterprise applications.

Instancy’s Tin Can API support allows you to:

• Package your eLearning content with built-in support for Tin Can API after creating it within Instancy’s easy-to-use Authoring tools
• Deliver the content through Instancy LMS and track user progress through a Learning Record Store (LRS)
• Have it all translated into a learning progress report or a dashboard  

Instancy Learning™ platform supports this new interoperability specification from Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL), Tin Can API also known as Experience API, to help any organization create, deliver and track learning content seamlessly on the web and mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

The Instancy web-based authoring and Learning Content Management System (iLCMS) are designed to help you create SCORM compliant content. The iLCMS not only supports traditional SCORM (eLearning specification for content packaging and interoperability) but also supports the latest Tin Can API.

Instancy Tin Can-based Learning Management and HTML5 Authoring Platform

Tin Can API based eLearning content developed with Instancy web authoring tools & LCMS can be:

• Delivered onto the web and mobile devices
• Tracked within Instancy LMS for learner progress reporting 
• Exported as SCORM packages with built-in Tin Can API calls for third party LMS/LRS delivery

The mobile learning content resources can be:

• Delivered through a mobile browser
• Downloaded on the mobile device via Instancy Native App framework.

Tracking offline and synching the learner experience and progress are also critical ingredients:

• Instancy Platform and the Mobile App framework support learner experience supports offline tracking and synching with an LRS
• Learning content may also be downloaded on a mobile device within the Instancy native learning app
• The downloaded content can be launched in offline mode
• The student experience and progress data is recorded locally on a mobile device, then synched back with the LRS when Internet access is available.

Next generation learning is here now – freedom to learn anywhere and on any device is what your audience expects. With Instancy, all the pieces of the next generation learning architecture puzzle come together. Tin Can API is a key component of next general learning architecture and Instancy is mission is to help you get there faster and better.

Ever since the first Smartphone arrived on the market with the Apple® 3, those in the eLearning community have been discussing how this will change the way we deliver education. While mobile learning, also known as mLearning, hasn’t replaced our current methods of delivering training, it certainly can and will add an interesting depth. More and more companies and educational institutions are either researching or becoming early adopters to mLearning, and Instancy is poised and ready to take you there!

Both third party vendors and internal instructional design and content development departments are expected to specialize in many aspects of learning. Now they are also expected to know how to use an increasing number of authoring tools, understand the different ways to publish those courses, deliver and track the content, and now provide users/students access to this information on iPhones, iPads, and various tablet devices running the Android or Windows operating systems. There are even specialized trade shows that deal only with mobile learning and handheld education, such as Mlearn, IADIS, and WMUTE.

Instancy has been busy – very busy! While other companies are shaking their heads and trying to determine how to do this, Instancy has gone one step further….not only have we done it, but we have integrated everything into a suite of products – the iLMS and the iLCMS. Most of you understand the LMS – the Learning Management System. Some of you may understand a LCMS – a Learning Content Management System. But just in case…the LCMS, especially Instancy’s iLCMS has a great authoring tool built in that will energize your training content through multimedia presentations that synchronize audio or video with animated content, interactive simulations, and mobile output.

It is so difficult to find people who are experts in instructional design AND have the expertise in graphics and programming knowledge to make your training courses come alive without writing complex HTML, XML, software programming scripts, or code. Instancy helps solve this problem by the advanced authoring functionality in the tool.

An example of NOW technology is the HTML5 support for operability across SmartPhones, Tablets and touch interfaces on mobile devices.  And a real key for mobile output is the ability to resize to both larger and smaller form factors – resizing done dynamically – no more worries about your content displaying correctly.

The ability to convert content from Microsoft Office products continues to be a popular feature of Instancy products. You can convert content from MS PowerPoint, MS Word, and MS Excel and create mobile learning modules and quizzes.

The Instancy Mobile LCMS (iLCMS) allows you to reduce training costs because of the powerful framework of the product suite. Use the collaborative functionality to create content within a team environment and allow contributors and reviewers to work together to get a final product ready much faster. Collaboration is very important in learning or mLearning projects as it is important that the data, information, reviewers, subjects matters experts, and writers/developers are all working together, in sync, and produce quality content across the supply chain.

At a glance, the iLCMS provides:

• SCORM Compliant Learning Object Repository (LOR)
• Collaborative and web-based access
• XML based content repository
• Configurable content development workflows
• Multiple and configurable roles including author, designer, reviewer and publisher
• Meta-data search
• Reusable multimedia asset library

Yes, there are many great authoring tools available today; however, when one of the best authoring tools is integrated, it saves time which equates to money and makes the process of ensuring a course deploys across the LMS seamlessly. Once again, Instancy doesn’t disappoint.

At a glance, the authoring tool provides the following features to create blended learning curriculum:

• These tools are web-browser based and don’t require any installation or set up.
  • Create Content Repository: Import documents, media files, SCORM & AICC (eLearning Standards) course packages into your content repository.
  • Create Learning Module: Create a learning module with multimedia elements and quizzes.
  • Create Assessment: Create an Assessment (Test) using single choice, multiple choice, fill in the blank, true/false and drag and drop question types.
  • Create Learning Track: Create a learning track by assembling learning modules, assessments, events and references, etc.
  • Create an Event: a class-room training, virtual classroom or webinar or meeting with date, time, duration and presenter.
  • Create Reference: Create a reference to online learning resources or link to other sites.
  • Import and automatically convert a Document into Mobile learning: Import word, excel, PowerPoint and PDF documents into the content repository.
  • Exam Preparation: Create and deliver online exams to the students preparing for professional or continuing education exam

Learning professionals are increasingly thinking about how to achieve their interactive content. Do you continue to use Flash or start migrating to HTML and more specifically HTML5? We are also finding that there is confusion on exactly what the technology is…is it Apple versus Adobe or Flash versus HTML5? Don’t spend too much time fretting about the terminology. Spend time thinking about the functionality and the end result you wish.

At Instancy, we are different from other eLearning providers because our focus and approach is the durability of your content. Once you make the investment in content, the length of time it is able to be viewed without special software upgrades is important. Instancy also wants to ensure that as delivery technology change, your investment in content is preserved.

If you are an Instancy customer, you already know the power of our Learning Content Management System (LCMS) which includes a powerful authoring tool. If not, we look at what technology can bring now, but also look into the future of where we feel technology is going so we can do everything we can to advise our customers how to invest their Learning and Training budgets. If you are using our authoring tool, your investment in content is preserved and you do not have to recreate or reprogram the course. You just republish the course/content through Instancy’s automation engine. Instancy separates the content from the presentation without sacrificing content quality, interactive features, etc.

Now, let’s talk about the difference between HTML5 and Flash. There is both good and bad news when discussing this subject. Although we’re finding HTML5 to be a significant technology for the future, Flash is alive and well and will be around for the foreseeable future.  HTML5 is NOT a Flash killer. Flash is still the best way to deliver ‘reliable’, interactive content for distribution over the web. From what we can tell at Instancy, our research department feels that the HTML5 standards, once completed, will continue to support browser plug-ins. This means that there is no reason to think Flash will not continue to be supported.

What about video capabilities? Will HTML5 allow you to design the same interactive learning experiences as Flash? We think so, but until the standards are complete and we see what Adobe does with Flash, we just don’t know yet. Let’s see what industry leaders feel are the pros and cons of HTML5 and, of course, we just must add some of the comments from the Instancy developers!

HTML5 – The Good:

• Improves video and audio quality – and the improvement is extensive.
• Social Learning and Social Media is a much richer experience.
• Vivemo, Blip.tv, and a beta of YouTube are already offering HTML5 players.
• Improved interactivity over Flash.
• The code is Open Source and not proprietary like Flash.
• Supports enhanced multimedia.
• Full featured APIs and Localization support.
• Uses 20% of computer resources compared to 40% for Flash – this makes a big difference when someone is trying to view anything, regardless of their internet connection (DSL, Cable, Modem, T1, etc.)
• Works in the IPad Tablet and will work in other manufacture’s tablets, and Smartphones phones too. This will take mLearning to the next level and will support eReaders soon.
• The code is more stable than Flash which can be buggy at times and it MAY eliminate plugins as we know it.

HTML5 – The Not So Good:

• Right now, the only downside are video codecs.  Sadly, there is not one standard. Video codecs enable you to view video on your computer (they exist in your player for example), and are already installed. Sometimes, you may see the infamous, “unable to play video” or “codec not installed”, which means you are missing that codec.   So, you have to go online to a codec directory and download the appropriate codec.  Codecs exist for audio and video.

Now, don’t let all these stats on HTML get you down because Flash is not dead, at least not in the foreseeable future. There are industry analysts and none of them can come to a consensus on the demise of Flash. Some analysts say HTML5 web page development and implementation will be mainstream sooner to 2012 while other analysts say it will be 2021 before Flash is dead. We at Instancy think it will be more like the middle with early adopters really moving ahead with HTML5.

Although Adobe announced they will support HTML5 in the next version of Dreamweaver, it will be interesting to see how they handle the bigger battles, especially since Apple uses only HTML5 and future tablet vendors, plus all the major browsers will support HTML5.

Why should Instancy be your choice for tool vendor as well as content vendor?

• Our authoring tool goes beyond the beyond…provides both HTML and Flash outputs without creating learning content again and again – a huge cost saving.
• Instancy tools create content once and allow you to publish your eLearning content both for HTML and Flash giving you maximum flexibility to offer to your users.
• We realize that some of our customers lay awake at night worrying about how to write action scripts. At Instancy, no action scripting is required.
• Let Instancy’s tools publish the content in HTML5 – no need to tweak the code.
• Have you wished you could offer your users long answer questions for tests or quizzes? No problem, Instancy has you covered. Your students/users respond and the administrators can login to the portal to grade the question and, if necessary, contact them online to ask them to retake the question.
• We provide functionality called Media Sync. You can author media elements like text and images to fly in and out based on the audio. This gives you the web-based control to create simple animations – we’d call it animation for dummies but that might get us into some copyright trouble!

Take the Instancy leap – we go where other authoring tools and Learning Management Systems only wish they went. We’re here to stay and have the personalized service and support you have always wished for.