11 free authoring tools for eLearning, based on Christopher Pappas' presentation

This write-up is based on the original post by Christopher Pappas, who is the Project Manager at ANTENNA Group, which is the largest Greek media group in the world. Pappas had originally posted this write-up at elearningindustry.com and also at LinkedIn.com, where he has given the permission to share his presentation on blogs. As the tools seem to be quite handy, so I decided to share the presentation, along with the tools highlighted in the presentation. Additionally, I have also gone through the entire comments section and added the tools, which fit the criteria.

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As the name suggests, this write-up provides a list of "free authoring tools" that one can use in the eLearning design and development process. Pappas has also requested anyone, who has used these authoring tools, to share with him, a demo of the final output at the URL given above. In case, there are free authoring tools that is not included in the list please feel free to leave a comment describing the salient features and a link to the site.

"Offer Letters" at fifty thousand rupees - When will Indian students act smart?

An ex-colleague of mine had called me up last Sunday evening. He was a bit perplexed and wanted to discuss about a "deal" that his cousin has been "offered". This cousin has been studying in one of the average private engineering colleges for her B.Tech in Computer Science and is currently in the last semester. Although a decent student, she had failed to land up any job offers during the major campus recruitment drives conducted at her college. As a result, she has been a bit tensed over the last 4-5 months and has been attending all sorts of fresher recruitment drives conducted in the city. That's how she came to know a certain person, who claims to be an HR Manager with a company of repute. She had meet this man at one of the pulled-campus events conducted at a different college and where final year students from multiple colleges took part. After the interview was over, the so called HR Manager informed her and some of her classmates, through their college's In-charge for Training and Placement, that theirs were borderline cases and that they could be accommodated in the company if they are ready to pay a certain amount as "Training Fees". Once they pay the sum of Rs.50,000/- in cash, he would hand over the offer letters to them. He justified this by saying that the students did not meet the cut-off criteria set by the company and as such, the company will have to incur some costs in training them on the job and uplifting their skill-sets to the required standard. Even the In-charge of Training and Placement of their college was urging them to take up the offer. Now, the cousin is in a quandary and cannot decide whether to pay or not.
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This is just one example from the thousands of such "offers", which the students are bombarded with, every year. Of course, I told my friend that the most sensible thing to do in such a situation is to walk away. As far as I am concerned, I don't know of any company worth its salt, which will recruit candidates in this manner. But, every year many colleges and students are falling prey to these scamsters.

Great Indian Drama After The Petrol Price Hike

Since the last price hike by the central government, there has been a lot of sounds of discontent from different quarters, specifically targeting the prime minister Mr. Manmohan Singh and the finance minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee. Most of the political leaders have taken this opportunity to fish in the muddied water. So, we have a General Strike on 31st May, called by the BJP (or is it NDA?), we have a UP bandh called by Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party, we have protest rallies by CPI(M) & the left front, and even by their sworn enemy, the TMC. At last, amidst this intolerable heat and humidity, some good news! We are going to have some off days to chill. And, in the process, Indian economy will lose some hundreds of crores of rupees. But, that's acceptable. After all, the interest of the common man is sacrosanct.

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Common man? Yes. At least the political leaders, as well as our netizens, would like everybody to believe that.

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You still end up asking an idiotic question. Who actually can be tagged as the all important "common man"? Now, come on! Please don't show the entire world the true depth of your intellect, you will be told. Still, you persist on knowing how the common man is effected by the hike in the price of the petrol. You will be told in a very condescending manner that the common man in India today owns 2 wheeler and 4 wheeler, goes to his workplace normally driving his own car, goes to the neighborhood market riding his bike and still you ask such questions. After all, isn't India shining? You shake your head in acceptance and walk away.

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In the fear of making a joker out of yourself, you fail to ask the questions that had been trying hard to open the lock-gate and come out of your mouth. There were so many of them. You wanted to know whether the people who cannot spend Rs. 32 per day in a metro or the people who earn Rs. 33 per day, are they called "uncommon man" ? The people who travel by public transport system everyday because they cannot afford a 2 wheeler, let alone a 4 wheeler, whether they also are called "uncommon man" or not. The villager, who depends on the 100 days work scheme, what's his tagline? How do you classify the hawker on the pavement, the conductor on the private bus, the porter at the rail station, the panwalah near your home, the newspaper hawker, the domestic help, the vegetable seller? And this list is endless. Are not they the numerically superior group of people? If so, following the principle of democracy, should not they be called the "common man"?

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Oh, come on! These are irrelevant questions and raised simply to derail the agitation of the leaders of the masses. So what, if the daily labourer and his family have to skip a meal due to the strike? If the people from the bottom most strata of the society go on empty stomach for half a day or one day, is that a big deal? After all, they are used to it.

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But, we, the empowered common men of India, cannot travel in the crowded buses amidst this heat and humidity. We cannot walk to the market as we don't have the time. We have to switch on the AC in the car to beat the heat. And, all these require petrol as the source of energy. So, if the Government has given a free hand to the oil companies in deciding the price, that is so unethical. So what, if the oil companies have to bear huge losses by selling petrol at a price lower than the cost? So what, if ultimately the taxpayers' money is being used for compensating the oil companies? At least, we bought petrol at a cheaper rate na!

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And the circus continues!

Recent Controversial Advertisements

They say that an advertisement agency's job is a thankless one. Ad agencies are expected to deliver that killer ad every time, thereby resulting in a huge pile of additional cash for the advertiser. If it succeeds, the advertiser is the one basking in the glory. When it fails, it's head is the first one on the chopping block.
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It should not come as a surprise then that the agencies would try to hardsell the advertisers' offering(s) through whatever means, law permitting. Consequently, the mantra for the ad agency is to "sell, sell and sell". And if "everything else fails, then start chanting sex, sex and sex; because sex always sells".
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In the recent past, we have seen ad agencies falling back on this adage rather liberally and the resultant ad contents have sometimes bordered on the outrageous. As a consequence, both the agency and the advertiser have managed to more than ruffle a few feathers.
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In the end, even our parliamentarians took notice of the resultant commotion and there was a raging debate in the parliament on the ways of stopping such ads from appearing in the media and polluting the minds of the innocent general people of the country.
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Actually it amazes me that the politicians view themselves as self-styled guardians of the very people, who are otherwise matured enough to cast their votes and decide that the same set of politicians would be running the country for the next five years. At that time, the people are capable enough to judge what's good or bad for them. But, when it comes to the depiction of anything related to the most basic urge in the media, these same people are considered to be incapable of taking the right decision. Hence, the parliamentarians have to act as chaperone!
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While I do not support the creation of yet another regulator or the idea of censorship, even then I have to accept that some of the advertisements were really in bad taste. Let's take a look at the controversial advertisements that left a bad taste in the mouth.
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1. Clean & Dry "Intimate Wash": The advertisement for a new skin whitening product for private parts, Clean & Dry Intimate Wash, was the latest in a series of controversial ads, which created a public outrage. The campaign earned the wrath of different women's groups, who called this "an ultimate insult to women”.
The commercial promises that the product, with its special pH-balanced formula, cleans and protects the private area, and even makes the skin fairer.
To me, the very idea of the ad is sickening and the execution, appalling. When I first saw the ad, the questions that came across my mind were, "What the hell! Where are we going? What's next?" The fascination of the Indians about the fairer complex is well known. This has also resulted in a very real life discrimination against women of darker complex. Knowing all these, if a company introduces and promotes - during prime time - a product like Clean & Dry Intimate Wash, then the business ethics of the company should be questioned. Perhaps the company and its management are unaware of the term, "corporate social responsibility".

Flying Machine's campaign raised "some" dust.

2. Flying Machine: Flying Machine had hoped that its newest print ad campaign would help engrave the brand into the minds of India's youth. Instead, it has flown into a storm of controversy. One of the earliest home-grown jeans brands, Flying Machine, had released a series of print advertisement where the camera zoomed on the buttock of a female model wearing tight fit jeans. The tagline in big, bold font screamed, "What an Ass!" It was probably meant to inject or highlight the oomph factor and the cool quotient in an old brand, perhaps even mimic the edginess of the "All asses were not created equal" tagline from the advertisement, released last year, by larger rival Levi Strauss & Co. While the jury is still to be out on whether Flying Machine's latest campaign has been able to achieve the avowed objectives, the advertisement, most definitely, has been able to generate heat in some quarters, especially the women rights groups.
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3. Amul Macho - Yeh to bada toing hain!: Frankly speaking, I never saw anything wrong with this ad. There were three different versions of this ad and were shown mostly during the evening prime time hours. I thought that the ads, although suggestive in parts, were pretty hilarious, as well as good and could capture the essence of the product's tagline, "Crafted for Fantasy". Well, the persons, who actually matter in these cases, evidently thought otherwise. The ad was banned from the prime time hours due to its vulgarity and suggestive sexual acts. Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), the self-regulatory body of the advertising industry, later cleared it for public viewing. Judge for yourself.
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4. Fast Track: Fast Track, the cool brand of watches & shades from the house of Titan, introduced a TV commercial titled, "Why the world moved to autopilot?" The ad starred cricketer Virat Kohli and the chirpy Genelia D'souza. The content of the ad, created by Lowe, raised quite a storm as the ad showed the pilot getting cozy with the air hostesses. Predictably, neither the pilots nor the air hostesses were amused and asked for the withdrawal of the ad. I guess the ad agency guys were really over the top here. Worse, they stereotyped two professions and the professionals as of amorous nature. Check out the ad below.
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5. Tata DoCoMo: The last one in my list is the awful Tata DoCoMo ad. In another case of stereotyping people associated with a particular profession, the Tata DoCoMo ad shows a maid stealing a mobile phone and her employer catching her in the act when the phones starts ringing. The tagline, “No Getting Away”, suggests that wherever you may go, you'll have access to the Tata DoCoMo network. 

However, the depiction of the maid in this ad created a lot of controversies. There were several complaints that the advertisement was extremely crass and in bad taste, apart from casting aspersions on the integrity of the domestic workers as a whole. Activists argued that the domestic workers were a "super exploited lot", without any customary – let alone legal – rights worth the name. They also contended that the ad further reinforced the common prejudices against the domestic workers through stereotyping them as thieves.

The ad was, indeed, in a bad taste and the concerns raised were also very real. As a result, the company had to apologize and withdraw the ad.
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In spite of all these, be rest assured that we shall be able to create another list of awful ads around this time next year too. In the mad rush for selling one's products or services to the most number of customers, both the ad agency and the advertiser sometimes allow ethics to take a back seat and the resultant output deeply offends the sensibility of the prospective consumers. In the end, the advertiser, instead of gaining new clients, manages to even lose a part of the existing base. Yet, neither the agency, nor the company, has learnt the lesson. That's the amusing part.

Vocational Education in India - Next Blockbuster or Dud?

Historically, the Indian subcontinent, which covers the modern day Pakistan, India & Bangladesh, had its own system of education. Some say, they had the best system of the time, while some others, as usual, disagree. One thing is sure, in the historical entity called India, there were many avenues of learning. And this learning process not only included the teaching of Vedas or Economics or Jurisprudence etc. but also included different trades, so vital for the effective running of a society. The education systems of those era, not only concentrated on creating white collar professionals by teaching the Nyay or Niti-shastras, but also produced workmen. A person, who wanted to be a carpenter or a soldier or a blacksmith, could learn the art of their chosen trade through their Gurus - that too, theoretically as well as practically, through apprenticeship, and the society accepted this as the general practice. It's true that a person with knowledge of all the Vedas, Niti, Nyay and economic theories would be revered by the society. But that did not mean that the carpenter or the blacksmith or the masons were looked down upon as being part of lower strata. This ensured the rise of the Indian kingdoms, which in turn gave rise to the stories of their legendary wealth. On hindsight, these stories of richness attracted the attention of many groups of people, who, although not as sophisticated or civilized as the locals, definitely had better martial skills.
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Over the centuries, the region has been invaded by numerous groups, some of whom assimilated with the locals while others chose to retain their distinct identities. These people also brought along themselves, new beliefs, new systems and of course a different social structure. This melting pot of a country or sub-continent, thus developed a mixed system of beliefs, religions, social practices and over the ages, the dignity of labour was forgotten.
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Cut to current day India. An India, which has grown at a blistering pace over the last 20 years. A country, which has one of the largest talent pools - in terms of number of persons within the working age - and despite that there is a scarcity of employable candidates in almost all the fields. Now, isn't that a bit confusing? On one hand, we have the largest talent pool and on the other, we are not being able to effectively feed the hunger of industry's ever-increasing requirement of the manpower. This can only mean that either the industrial growth has been too high and as such the manpower requirements cannot be met from within the country or that our education system simply does not produce the skilled manpower that the industry is looking for. As we know that our growth-rate or actual growth hasn't been that high, so the only answer would lead us to accept the shortcomings of our education system, which, according to an industry veteran, teaches us to play Cricket, while the industry demands that we should be good in Baseball. You'll have to add to it the perception of social status among a large section of India's population.
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I was earlier talking about the great education systems of yesteryear, but can I claim the same for our present systems too? The answer is a plain and simple "No".

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If we look in to our education system, we'll find it to be divided in to pre-schools/KG/pre-primary, Primary, Secondary & Higher Secondary and Tertiary sections. Out of these, pre-schools are mostly in private hands and the Government's real intervention starts from the Primary Education. In these divisions, where does Vocational Education & Training (VET) fit in? The best fit would be to introduce vocational education parallely along Secondary & Higher Secondary and may be allowed to continue up to the Graduation. Of course, professional and technical education run along a different track on a separate plane altogether. This would have solved the problem faced by numerous "educationally qualified" but unemployed, as well as unemployable youths.
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Let's take the real life example of a person, who had cleared 10th standard with 41% marks and enrolled in the 10+2 Arts stream. He cleared the Higher Secondary examination too, but with a similar 43% marks and then enrolled in B.A. with Bengali, Political Science and Philosophy. In due course of time, he graduated with 42% marks and then started looking for a job.
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A couple of very valid questions then arose regarding his employable skills and those questions are valid even today for thousands of youth like him. What kind of job is this guy fit for? And, where is the scope for practical application of whatever he had studied/learned for 15 years?
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Unfortunately, this person, who had been one year my senior, has remained unemployed till date. In his case, the degrees obtained were merely for decorative purposes, so that his parents and family could claim that he is a graduate. The Indian psyche would still rate this "good for nothing" educational qualification as higher than that of a classmate who had enrolled in an Industrial Training Center (ITI) and earns five figure salary per month working as an automobile mechanic!
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Luckily for us, the situations have started to change at last, although the rate of change is way too slow. The ruling powers at both the center, as well as the states have or at least claim to have understood the importance of vocational training and have come forward with active support in terms of resources as well as creating an atmosphere that is conducive for such training and education. Suddenly, there has been a bevy of activities in this "supposedly" lucrative market segment in India and every Tom, Dick & Harry are coming up with a vocational education division. This may actually backfire and may result in people losing whatever faith they have in these training programs. Many of these companies also have some kind of tie-up with either the National Skill Development Council (NSDC) or some state government department(s). But the unrealistic target that they quote in terms of number of youths to be trained within a certain time period, makes one wonder about the long term ramifications.
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My personal experience tells me that no amount of Government subsidies or grants can ensure the success of the vocational education & training initiatives till the mindsets of the population are changed to accept the vocational qualifications as at par with the traditional degrees when it comes to deciding the social status. But, for that to happen, the entire primary education system, including the teaching methods, need to be overhauled completely. Moreover, the recruitment process for teachers should also be made free of the political considerations. But, in India, no one will seriously believe that such a thing could happen overnight. The Government can also help in this regard by designing courses/degrees which will be equivalent to the traditional ones.
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May be, the best bet for the vocational education & training would be to continue working with the same zeal and the results will start to show 5 years down the line. Its a long term business proposition in India. If the companies are there to make a quick buck, then they should rethink their position & goals and should take an informed decision whether they are in the right business or not.
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Ultimately, the success or otherwise of vocational education in India will depend on the seriousness of the training providers, quality of training being provided, a positive push from the Government's side and the perception of the general population, especially the middle class, about the vocational degree, diploma and certifications. By 2016-17, it should be clear to us whether we have been able to bridge the targeted gap or not.