The Learned Man!

Veotag It

Check out Veotag, a new service that is able to text tag a podcast or video making it easy for the listener/viewer to directly jump to the section of relevance.

TATA Interactive Systems got Veotag to tag their Annual Review Of 2006 podcast and you can check that out here. I am sure you will agree that after seeing this, it is going to be very difficult to go back to your old way of listening to podcasts or viewing videos.

Indian e-Learning Bloggers - Way To Go!

Here are the top e-Learning related blogs in India by their Technorati rankings. Its good to see a few new blogs crop up, especially around the ID space.

I dont think any e-Learning blogger harbours delusions of being a Technorati Top 100 Stud someday, maybe he/she does!, but its fantastic to see the community growing and so many talented and vastly experienced people coming forward with their thoughts and opinions and weaving their own special communities around themselves. Some, a couple of years late maybe, but better now then never! I'm hoping tons more of you will hop on to the blog bandwagon in 2007. Try it...you might just get hooked on...!

To see the rankings and the buzz around these blogs for yourself all you have to do is go to Technorati and type in the name of [xyz] blog.

1. http://elearning.typepad.com  (now also accessed at www.thelearnedman.com)
(We are humbled that so many of you keep coming back day after day to get your dope on the Indian eLearning landscape. Our newsletter currently reaches over 800 mailboxes around the world!)

2. http://simply-speaking.blogspot.com
(New ID centric blog by TATA Interactive's Geetha Krishnan. This blog has gained ground fast, garnering a dedicated and growing readership. We are not surprised!)

3. http://e-learnindia.blogspot.com
(Asim offers his own quirky views on the e-learning landscape. I have enjoyed reading selective parts of his sometimes, long pieces. There is no doubting that this is a very opinionated blog and we would like to see an increase in the frequency of posts.)

4. http://elearning.kern-comm.com
(Multi-author blog by the team of Kern Communications. Should really be under "corporate blogs", but given the size of this company I thought I'd introduce it here for now. Once again...More posts please!)

5. http://discursive-learning.blogspot.com
(Another new ID centric blog from TATA Interactive's Anil Mammen, really - TATA seems to be churning out the bloggers! We would though, like to see an increase in the frequency of posts)

Maybe we shouldnt be asking for an increased frequency of posting from some of these bloggers, given that ID guys like to take their time and churn out long and very intense posts! :)

As usual, please mail in or plug in your comments and let me know about blogs that should be here and are not!

eLearning South Korea: Online Education Market Expands In 2006

From Yonhap News:

South Korea's market for online learning grew sharply last year, buoyed by strong public demand, the government said Wednesday.

• The country's e-learning business, measured in total sales, rose 10.0 percent year-on-year to 1.67 trillion won, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said.
• Private demand for e-learning rose 11.1 percent to 697 billion won, with demand in the public and corporate sectors contributing 137 billion won and 752 billion won each.
• The number of firms engaged in the sector jumped 63 percent annually to 621. In 2005, the number of companies was 381.
• "There was a surge in education-service firms entering the e-learning market, with private learning academies starting online programs," said a government official.
• The growth also caused the number of people working in the business to jump 19.7 percent vis-a-vis 2005 to 19,644, with firms surveyed expressing a need to hire more workers to meet growing demand.

Andheri-Kurla Road, Mumbai: e-Learning Hub Of India

I recently came across this post (someone very frustrated with the Saki-Naka traffic) on the NDTV Blogs network that has inspired me to write this...!

This below is a satellite image taken from Google Maps. Click to see expanded view.

 

You can see the Tata Interactive Systems Offices marked on this. I am sure a lot of you must have thought about the fact that this road, on and around, houses to my knowledge, 6 well known eLearning companies - TATA Interactive Systems, Hurix, Praxis, LearningMate, Lionbridge, Aptech As someone who works in the area, it completely beats me as to why this has happened!

We also have it on good word that Praxis CEO Jay Sitaram works out at a gym bang in the centre of this crazy road - one question for you Jay - How often do you really go to the gym??

The traffic conditions in this part have got to be the nastiest in Mumbai, good accomodation close to these offices is hard to come by and the rents are killing! Yet thousands of people come to work here and hundreds more apply from all parts of the country every single day! And lets not even get into the attrition and job-hopping that the HR guys of these companies have to deal with because of this!

Indian eLearning Wakes Up To Second Life

What do a NID grad, a bass guitarist, a street racer and a management grad have in common? 

The four of them have come together to launch a start-up called VR1. The website of this start-up says that their main goal shall be to "provide a platform that facilitates entry into the rapidly growing market of persistent online 3D virtual worlds."

Given that Second Life is currently the most popular of the lot, VR1 wants to work with their clients to create for them, a presence in this virtual world. This presence could be created toward efforts in brand building, marketing, promotional activities, and immersive training / 3D virtual education for their employees. VR1 is still in a very nascent, probably ideative stage and it remains to be seen what they will eventually bring to the table.

Read:

Economic Times article titled "Live life second time".
Glimpse Inside a Metaverse: The Virtual World of Second Life - From Google Tech Talks
Post on learning around Second Life by blogger Rich Hoeg
How Not to Teach in Second Life - An interview with the Second Life founder
Articles About Education In Second Life
The Big Business of Second Life
My Virtual Life - From Businessweek Online
Making A Living In Second Life - From Wired
Skills For Life In Second Life - From Simtech
Second Life As A VLE - Theodore Wright

Philip Rosedale and Cory Ondrejka, CEO & CTO of Second Life, take you inside Second Life. This talk was held at Google, March 1, 2006:

TheLearnedMan.Com

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Making the Grade - Online Education in the United States, 2006

Making the Grade: Online Education in the United States, 2006 represents the fourth annual report on the state of online learning in U.S. higher education.  This study, is aimed at answering some of the fundamental questions about the nature and extent of online education.  Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group in partnership with the College Board, the report, based on responses from over 2,200 colleges and universities, examines a number of key questions:

• Has the Growth of Online Enrollments Begun to Plateau?
• Who is Learning Online?
• What Types of Institutions Have Online Offerings?
• Have Perceptions of Quality Changed for Online Offerings?
• What are the Barriers to Widespread Adoption of Online Education?

To get the answers, download the free copy here.

iPhone - First Review

So finally this is what it is:

Click here for more from Apple's iPhone pages.

Dont miss the early iPhone review and the iPhone FAQS by David Pogue of The New York Times who spent an hour playing with this.

From David's review:

• It feels amazing in your hand. Not like an iPod, not like a Treo — but something new.
• You operate the iPhone with your fingertips. Apart from buttons that appear on the touch screen, the only physical buttons are volume up/down, ringer on/off, sleep/wake and a Home button.
• During my one test call, the sound quality was loud and clear.
  Typing is difficult. The letter keys are just pictures on the glass screen, so of course there’s no tactile feedback. Software helps a lot. You can afford to make a lot of typos as you muddle through a word, because the software analyzes which keys you *might* have meant and figures out the word you wanted.
• The phone won’t be available until June, so some of its software isn’t finished yet.
  I tried out the camera. It was really cool to frame a shot using the HUGE 3.5-inch screen; it’s rare to find that big a screen on any camera.
• The Web browsing experience is incredible. You see the entire Web page on the iPhone’s screen.
  

Harbinger Knowledge Products - FY 2006:2007

Pune, India Based Harbinger Knowledge Products who, in the past few years, has fast lost ground in the custom content development business to local competition such as Brainvisa Technologies and Maximize Learning (now Techbooks) has managed to hold on, on account of its rapid-authoring and interactivity building product line.

The company is currently working the PR channels to promote Raptivity which it claims is "the world’s first rapid interactivity builder for e-learning.". In a recent newspaper article the company's top executives discuss their expectations from this product line and plans going forward:

• The company has reported revenue of Rs 15 crore this fiscal, indicating a growth of 40 per cent at the group level.
• The product business, which contributes 35 per cent of the group’s turnover, grew at 150 per cent, contributing substantially to overall growth.
• Expects product business to contribute almost 50 per cent of revenues next fiscal
• Says it will add 500 square feet to its current facility immediately.
• Setting up another office at Pashan (Pune, India) at an investment of Rs 2 crore and with a capacity to seat 200 people.
• Plans to recruit 100 more employees, taking headcount to 300 by end of this year.
• Plans to grow to 500 people by end of 2008

List of Corporate Blogs In India

The Learned Man! Blog is attempting to track the evolution of corporate blogging in India. If you know of something that should make it to this list, please mail

Click on the little green Technorati icon to follow conversations building around these blogs.

1. TATA Interactive Systems Corporate Blog
   This blog kicked off in Dec 2005 and we think this may just be the first corporate blog  out of India put out by a major Indian corporate
   
2. Infosys Blog
3. FritoLay India