Our e-learning team found and installed Microsoft’s new LCDS application recently (Learning Content Development System). It is a tool that allows you to author your own e-learning course structured with modules and topics and populate it with images, quizzes, interactivities, animations and audio/video.
Once you have created your course, you can publish it to the web or an LMS, as a SCORM ready package. It’s all template based and simple to use.
This would be a great asset for teachers who want to create their own e-learning courses. The only downside is that the software uses Microsoft’s own Silverlight plug-in for a lot of the multimedia elements. I uploaded a .wmv movie file and in order for it to be viewed I had to install Silverlight (without installing this it threw up an error and essentially crashed my course and had to start again from scratch).
From what I can gather, Silverlight is Microsoft’s attempt to halt Adobe’s monopoly on viewing interactive web material which Adobe has had for years with its Flash Player. Sadly, this means that if people want use the LCDS they have to install Silverlight – this might sound simple enough but a nightmare if the LCDS was to be used by College staff for students. Entire IT systems would have be updated with this new plug-in.