I have been thinking recently about Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), as they seem to be ideal for the delivery of ‘paid for content’. In particular eCourses, which could range from Internet Marketing to Knitting!
This type of delivery is going to become huge in Internet Marketing. eBooks will still have a place out there, but with the increase in computing power, and the speed of the average net connection, rich media is the way forward for content delivery.
There are various ways this type of content could be delivered:
Blogs
Your material could be put on a blog. The advantages here are that it is a very flexible platform to publish any sort of media on, from videos and podcasts to articles and images. Plus it would be very quick to get set up.
The downside is that if you have quite a lot of content, this format doesn’t lend itself well to structured learning. How do you tell people what material you need them to look at first, without having to create an index page that links to all your content pages and blog entries?
Content Management Systems
I looked at CMS systems such as Drupal quite seriously. You can customise them quite easily, and add navigation through various administration panels. But it’s still really only 1 step away from a blog, and has some of the same disadvantages.
Open Source VLEs
Now we’re getting a bit closer. There is an open source package called Moodle, which is built specifically to admininster and deliver courses. It has modules for payment, course enrollment, blogs and forums. Various media can be embedded in it’s pages.
But I found that this might be a little too structured, depending on your needs of course. If your material is to be delivered over a fixed period of time, Moodle is probably ideal. But if your content is a little more open ended, lets say for a membership site where the content just keeps on expanding, this format might not quite offer that sort of flexibility.
Custom Built
Now I can tell you what my next project is going to be! I found a new site called the Encyclopedia of Life. It’s aim is to catalogue every species of animal on the planet. No I’m not getting into animal conservation. What I did notice is the layout of their pages. Just go and look at them now (if it’s working, they had some problems with their servers due to load). Take a look at one of the animal entries. They are just beautiful.
See how much content they managed to get on 1 page! Everything is Ajax, so there is no page reloading. There’s a tabbed media frame at the top, which can display images, video, maps, audio. Then there is a contents panel on the left, with an Ajax refreshing content pane in the middle.
Now relate that page to the delivery of course content. Wouldn’t it be great to deliver your content in an environment like that?
A Framework in Development
So, with that in mind, I am going to be developing a new framework which will concentrate on the delivery of new media on the web. So watch this space!
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