XplanaZine

Some technology items of interest have entered the news of late.

First, a bit of news about more standardized and scriptable plug-ins for major providers like Apple, Adobe, Macromedia, and Sun. These companies, in partnership with the Mozilla Foundation, are working to develop a standardized plug-in technology that will allow greater interactivity with plug ins such as Flash, Shockwave, QuickTime and Java, resulting in a richer, more interactive web. Plugins are small programs that web browsers use to display multimedia content that the browsers themselves don’t know how to display, such as audio and video. Scriptability of plug ins is essential for building an interactive user experience on web pages that use plug ins.

The next item of note came from Apple with its newfound focus on “searching” and its new Spotlight technology. As Steve Jobs pointed out at this weeks Apple conference, the real solution for folder and file maintenance had been sitting under Apple’s nose all along with iTunes. Just as they do with their songs, people should be able to find any file on their computer system by browsing through pre-set categories or via full text search. In other words, Apple is promising to make sure that we never lose another file and that we will be able to find all existing files or documents easily.Finally, there was a piece this week about Microsoft’s new Web cam technology that is currently in the research and development stages. The new i2i system uses a specially developed algorithm to fuse what each camera sees to create an accurate stereo “cyclopean” image. This means it looks as if users are looking each other in the eye. It can also display floating 3D emoticons.

Standardized plug-ins, better searching, and more life-like virtual communication. While these technologies are important and fascinating in and of themselves, the two forces that are driving them are far more important.

First up is the force of enhanced experience. Market demand continues to grow for a seamless experience that is actually enhanced by all of the third-party “extras.” In 1982, one of my professors bought his first computer (it was a Wang, I think). I remember saying to him how great it was that he could produce all of that work and it could then be stored on a floppy disk that could be used on other computers. “Whoa there,” he said. “You can only share Wang information with other Wang computers.” That concept of incompatibility or non-interlaced functionality didn’t make any sense to me and, obviously, the rest of the market agreed. People demanded compatibility and standards and the PC evolution took over.

Enhanced technology experiences for consumers mean the greatest amount of experience and flexibility with the least amount of hassle and knowledge. Quite frankly, everyone is tired of incompatible plug-ins or the fact that you can’t take full advantage of all their functionality through cross use. This remains, perhaps, one of the biggest obstacles to wide-spread elearning adoption — the inability to guarantee a common user experience or technology, and the only way to solve that problem is via standards and cooperation among competitors.

A second force effecting the evolutions mentioned earlier is the need for information management. Everyone is indeed overwhelmed by the amount of information with which they are forced to deal, and the most daunting part of our information crisis is that we can no longer find pieces of the valuable information we are now able to collect. Apple’s foray into this arena will be followed by Microsoft and others.

Of course, these emphases on improved user experiences and improved information management in OS platforms bode well for learning object management and elearning in general. For online education to be successful, we must be able to craft valuable and consistent experiences for users in disparate locations with a variety of technologies. We must also be able to look forward and envision the life-long storage of learning content (personal and professional) and how we will be able to archive, organize, and personalize retrieve that content according to every user’s interests and tastes.