Playing and Learning in a VLE

As an enthusiast, I often forget that many people haven't started playing with the internet yet.

They may shop there, or do their children's homework, or chat, or seek true love, but haven't really begun to explore how much more we (as a human tribe in a global village) could do with it. But then again, many people don't consider themselves creative.

And, yes, I realise how irritating acronyms can prove.

VLE = Virtual Learning Environment

I feel my experiments in setting up elearning options for staff don't seem to attract people yet. I blame myself, not the Moodle / Learning Pool environment. As Michel Thomas points out, the burden of 'teaching failure' should lie with the teacher, not the student...

[update 13 Oct 09] Just to add to the confusion, some people use 'DLE'= Dynamic Learning Environment. For instance, you can view a conference presentation on Learning Pool, called "LP’s DLE: A Social Media Solution for Collaborative Working Within and Across UK Local Government" here:
(although staff in Cardiff can't watch Vimeo video at the moment).

So, accidentally coming across Producer (a free add-on to Powerpoint) has motivated me to attempt something a bit more interesting - and use video, screen grabs, sounds, etc to make staff training more interesting. It'll take a while, of course...but it does look a lot like Movie Maker, so perhaps I can crack it...

Meanwhile, the search goes on for a good way to transform Powerpoint to MPEG for our plasma screens. (sigh)