Trainers Talk Tech

It's been a while since I had a podcast, but I am setting a new one up for this upcoming weekend! My topic will be Learning Management Systems (LMS). Love them or hate them, they can be an important tool in any organization. For the tracking, storage and reporting on learner activity, they can be an amazing asset.

However, they can also be a major pain in the butt! From installation issues, vendors over-promising (that never happens anymore does it???) to data integration and SCORM course issues, LMSs can be a nightmare.

I have an expert lined up who will demystify LMSs, talk about the reality of the LMS and hopefully give you new ways of thinking about this software. Keep your eye on this site...as soon as I am able to get into the studio, the new podcast will be up!

The next edition of the Trainers Talk Tech podcast is here! The topic of this podcast is synchronous learning. You can call it synchronous learning, web seminars, webinars or even edu-marketing, but I was fortunate enough to interview an expert in this area: Roger Courville.

Roger is a trainer, blogger at TheVirtualPresenter.com, and principal of 1080 Group, an independent training firm that helps companies learn and optimize online presentations and webinars. Together with his co-founder, they have created one of the industry's first independent curricula to teach trainers how to organize and accelerate their synchronous training and edu-marketing efforts.

Listen to it here:

Subscribe to the Trainers Talk Tech podcast here:
http://dwebstudios.hipcast.com/rss/trainerstalktech.xml

During the podcast, Roger and I talked about various books, websites and vendors. Below are the links:

Roger's Resources

• Roger's Blog: www.thevirtualpresenter.com
• Roger's Company: The 1080 Group
• Roger's Toolkit: www.webseminartoolkit.com
• Roger's Tips: www.webseminartips.com
• Follow Roger on Twitter: 1080group

Synchronous Learning (Web Seminar) Software

• Microsoft LiveMeeting
• WebEx
• Acrobat Connect Pro
• Acrobat.com
• Dimdim
• Yugma
• Elluminate
• Saba Centra
• Citrix GoToWebinar

Books

• Work Naked: Eight Essential Principles for Peak Performance in the Virtual Workplace by Cynthia Froggatt
• Little Red Book of Selling by Jeffrey Gitomer

PowerPoint Tips

• Guy Kawasaki's 10-20-30 rule
• 5X5 rule of PowerPoint - no more than 5 words across, and five lines down

Please enjoy the podcast and subscribe if you like it! I'm going to be accelerating the frequency of the casts to one every two-three weeks instead of monthly. I have my next interview lined up for the first week in March!

Thank you for reading and listening...I hope you enjoy the podcast. Also, a sincere thank you to Roger for sharing your expertise and experience.

I wanted to give a heads up that I am interviewing another amazing expert for the Trainers Talk Tech podcast tomorrow morning. If you've ever wondered about the secrets of good synchronous learning, this is the podcast for you! Tips, tricks and secrets to maximizing your synchronous learning experience as an instructional designer and facilitator will all be discussed. It's going to be great!

If you want to subscribe to the podcast feed, use this link:
http://dwebstudios.hipcast.com/rss/trainerstalktech.xml .

I'm conducting the interview in the morning and after production, it should be up before noon MST. Be sure to subscribe or come back to this site to hear the podcast.

If you missed the first edition covering online social networking with Jenna Papakalos, you can read about it and listen to it here.

I have received a mountain of emails, hits and link backs regarding our first podcast with Jenna. The responses have been extremely positive. Thank you to YOU for tuning in, and thanks again to Jenna for an awesome interview.

In some of the email's I've been receiving, people have asked me what I used to record the session and how I got it all online. Here are the details:

I used Skype. Yes, the free software you can download to make calls using voice over IP. Jenna did not have a Skype account, so I called her cell phone using Skype's land line service - at a whopping .02 cents per minute.

I recorded it using a cool $15.00 tool called Call Recorder from eCamm. It plugs right into Skype and is easy to use:

1. Login to Skype
2. Call the person you want to talk with
3. Click the record button

It's just that easy! It records any conversation in Skype, land line or Skype to Skype.

It saves the recording as a .mov file which I gets into Quicktime Pro and converted to a .wav file. I then took the .wav file and dropped into Adobe Soundbooth. I found some copyright free music, added 4 seconds to the front and back of the Skype recording and then exported it as a .mp3 file.

I use a podcasting host called HipCast to store and catalog my podcasts. Its $9.95 per month and is a killer deal. I uploaded the mp3 recording to hipcast and then embedded it into my site.

In an earlier post, I talked about adding Web 2.0 functionality to your eLearning. I spent $20 on a microphone, $15.00 on the Skype recorder and Soundbooth came with my CS4 purchase. For less than $100, I recorded an interesting conversation and shared it with the world. It took less time to produce it then it did to record it! You can do it too!

Add podcast functionality to your LMS. If you use SharePoint, you can connect to the HipCast stream from the RSS Web Object that comes with it. If you blog, HipCast can auto-feed into your blog. Imagine an eLearning program around leadership that comes with a weekly or monthly leadership podcast, where you interview leaders around the firm. What about a customer service program that allows users to register for the Customer Service Podcast where you interview people in the firm who are doing a great job with customer service. The possibilities are amazing, but you must figure out how to make it work in your environment. The investment is very small, but the impact can be huge!

Now...go build something cool! I'm boarding a plane to ASTD TK 09 in Vegas!