Simplicity packaged - A peak at Claro and OneRoom

Simplicity packaged - A peak at Claro and OneRoom:

I have had some interesting product briefings lately and
wanted to call your attention to two. The first is Claro, from dominKnow Learning Solutions. It was released
in April. You may know dominKnow as a mature LCMS platform which has been
around for many years.

Claro (actually dominKnow LCMS v6) is a web-based
collaborative e-learning authoring platform with the content management
features of a robust LCMS. Claro has been under development for two years
(mostly interface and usability improvements) and it shows. It is a well
thought out and incredibly simple yet powerful solution for enterprise
learning. I was briefed by Chris Van Wingerden, dominKnow’s VP of Learning
Solutions. Some key highlights:

·       
All HTML 5

·       
Video, image, and multimedia can be done within
the tool and on-the-fly – no need for other software

·       
Online review mode (Love this! See below)

·       
Browser-based collaborative SaaS authoring

·       
Easy to mashup with YouTube, Vimeo, etc.

·       
Role-based settings

·       
Nice asset library from e-learning brothers

·       
2-day (or less) learning curve

·       
Direct support, YouTube tutorials, social media support

·       
Publishes to mobile devices (create once,
publish everywhere). Yay!

·       
LCMS functionality (learning object / central
repository)

·       
WYSIWYG interface with templates or custom branding

·       
Attractive pricing (It’s published on the
website!)

·       
30-day free trial

·       
Canadian J

Most of the above features you are no doubt familiar with
but I just want to call out the beauty of one - the review feature (screen shot
below).

 

Have you ever sent around course content to multiple people
through email and then tried to aggregate all the feedback? You probably find
that many comments are duplicates or conflicting or in need of further review
up the chain. Often, meetings are scheduled and the email continues. It’s an
antiquated review method that results in serious productivity issues. Wouldn’t
it be nicer to just open a browser, login and mark up the document? Since it is
role-based it is easy to control changes.

Claro isn’t a game changer or even super innovative. It is
just powerful and simple all rolled up into one. We need more of that in the
land of shiny shiny. With a free trial, what’s not to love?

The second product I wanted to call out is OneRoom from Pollstream. Pollstream
started 10 years ago as a polling tool for the enterprise. Since then, they
have introduced several products including The Hive, The Poll, Comment Engine,
and Sparkplug. OneRoom is a platform-independent SaaS communication tool. Basically,
it is a platform for live events which allows for real-time dialogue with SMEs.

I know that sounds a lot like a virtual classroom however,
OneRoom is text-based. Face it. We have become text-based. We send texts over
answering calls. Emails and IMs over listening to someone talk. We send links
to videos and other resources. We share. We have a dialogue – all without
audio. It is what it is. OneRoom is a platform that recognizes our networked,
connected communication methods. And, like Claro, it’s simple.

OneRoom isn’t a solution targeted for L&D however, there
are some companies starting to use it for live online training. I think OneRoom
helps us think of how we can create an environment for learning vs. duplicating
online what is done in the classroom. I’m excited to try it.

You can view an event by author
Guy Gavriel Kay.