Microsoft IT Academy Student Pass

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Microsoft DreamSpark

The Microsoft IT Academy Student Pass is a special no-cost online learning opportunity for students. IT Academy Student Pass provides free e-learning courses to verified students who are interested in extending their technical skills with Microsoft technologies.

The IT Academy Student Pass offers 12 to 22 hours of FREE e-learning courses, aligned to the first set of topics you need to master for the first Microsoft certification exam within the track. Each track is unique, and most will require you to take additional e-learning courses to complete all of the topics you need to succeed on the certification exam.

The goal of the IT Academy Student Pass is to give you a head start by providing hours and hours of rich, award-winning e-learning content that sets the stage for the learning to come.

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Is e-Learning a Distinct Profession?

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More and more institutions (usually at the prompting of funding councils) are demanding that courses be available on-line. Of course the distance between the aim of providing a course on-line and the final course is a long one and is not a journey that, whether from lack of interest or lack of skill, not all learning professionals can take.

Is there a place, then, for professional e-learning practitioners who exist solely in the ether?

Angela Boothroyd explores that question further here:

Studying Online: E-learning as a profession: Part 1

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Credit Crunch Creates Courses

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Interesting Article in Science Daily about how the complete lack of available cash could lead to a boom in e-learning.

Bottom line is that companies see savings to be made by creating a course once and rolling it out to many users rather than paying a trainer to deliver the course personally.

I agree with the sentiment; although the statement

The newest solutions make it possible to turn a PowerPoint presentation into a course for a thousand employees within two hours.

makes me cringe. There's more to learning that presenting information. And there's less to PowerPoint than presenting information.

Economic Crisis Boosts E-Learning

dimdim is SmartSmart

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DimDim is a free, web based video conferencing utility. As they say:

With no software to download or install, Dimdim forever democratizes webbased live meetings. In seconds - right from your browser - you easily host or attend web meetings complete with audio and video conferencing, desktop and document sharing.

With Dimdim you can host meetings for up to twenty people at no cost. With no software to install it may be easier to use in institutions with locked down desktops.

Give it a try here:

Dimdim: Free Web Meeting, Free Web Conferencing, Meetup, Open Source, Net Meeting, eLearning, web conference, Unified Collaboration, Online Meetings, Online Training, Free Screen Sharing, collaboration, live meeting

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Welcome

My previous blog, Creating e-Learning, had reached a natural conclusion I think. While it started being devoted solely to e-learning and branched out into e-assessment it has evolved into a smorgasbord of education links, useful software and general outpourings covering my work with Ayr College, the Scottish Qualifications Authority and the Scottish Further Education Unit.

It has made sense, therefore, to spin off my blog and rename it. The original blog still exists, and might even see some updates, but my main blog efforts will be here from now on.

Hope you stay with me.

Tony