Archive for May, 2009
Sketchup and Kerkythea – First Attempt
Posted by nobodytalking in Sketchup on May 29th, 2009
I had been using Google Sketchup for a few months, and I was ok with the export screen shots that Sketchup created.
Sketchup has a specific, cartoonish, drawn look. I was looking for a bit more realistic output, and I’d seen some renders of Sketchup models, and was impressed with the examples. However, I didn’t want to have to purchase a plugin for a few hundred dollars, as this is just a hobby for now. So I did some research into free plugins and stumbled upon Kerkythea immediately.
The download and installation was easy. Kerkythea has a set of about 20 lights which can be added into Sketchup, everything from desklamps to spotlights. Kerkythea adds export buttons right into Sketchup, so exporting is extremely easy. Below you will see my first attempt at rendering in Kerkythea. I have not even attempted to change any settings, this is straight out of the box with a spot light and the sun for light sources.
Sketchup:
Kerkythea:
With these promising results I plan on continuing to use Sketchup and Kerkythea to create realistic export images.
Moodle error – “Could not find a scorm course here”
Posted by nobodytalking in eLearning on May 28th, 2009
While working on transfering some of our eLearning courses onto our new Moodle deployment, I came across an error which took me a little while to figure out. After posting a new course I received this error message on the course launch page where the course SCORM menu should have been, “Could not find a scorm course here”.
You will receive this error message if you have the course visibility set to Hide in the SCORM/AICC settings of the course.
To fix the issue:
- Log into your Moodle site as the administrator.
- Navigate to the administrator section.
- Select Courses->Add/edit courses, then click on the course you want to edit.
- Once at the course page, click the Turn editing on button.
- Click the small Update icon at the end of the course name.
- When the Editing SCORM/AICC page loads, scroll to the bottom of the page and change the Visible drop-down from Hide to Show, in the Common module settings section.
- Click the Save and return to course button.
You should no longer receive the error.
Cross-Browser Compatible eLearning – What’s the point?
Posted by nobodytalking in Web Development on May 26th, 2009
It seems that in the past eLearning developers as a whole had turned a blind eye to cross-browser compatibility, myself included. For years we (hotelearning) created eLearning which was intended for a particular audience, who would, without doubt be using a particular browser, in our case Internet Explorer 6+.
It made our job easy – if the course functioned correctly in IE, then it was ready for deployment. We really had no reason to cross the compatibility bridge till we came to it.
Recently, some of our projects have become completely web-based, and only delivered on-line to an unknown audience, and we really have no idea which browser or operating system our users are utilizing. Browsers such as Firefox and Safari have seen a signifigant increase in adoption over the past few years, and must be taken seriously. Below are some general browser usage statistics as of March 2009.
IE 6.0+ – 57%
Firefox 1.5+ – 31%
Safari – 6%
Opera – 1%
For us to ignore roughly 38% of our audience would be to ignore 38% of our potential customer base, and that was just not acceptable. Our eLearning needed to be cross-browser compatible and yours should be too. It was time to cross the bridge.
So in an effort to try to make our content available to as large an audience as possible, we created a cross-browser compatible interface. In terms of development, it may have taken a bit more time. We found though that we really didn’t have to make many, if any, sacrifices to our design or user experience. Infact, our interface could be considered simpler and more user friendly.
So what is the point of creating a cross-browser compatible user interface? You’ll be able to reach more customers, and those customers viewing the content on different browsers will have consistent functionality and a consistent look.
Failing to plan is planning to fail.