I always love Tom Kuhlmann's rapid e-learning blog. Tom is insightful and generous with his ideas. Today's blog is directly related to how our Learning Technologies team developed our course creation tools, DEScribe and DEViewer.
That is, put the tools into the hands of those closest to the learners. Let them create courses in their language and in their context. Tom articulates this better than I can, so I encourage you to read his blog, not just today, but sign up and become a better trainer.
Our tools can be downloaded from our products page.

On my recent trip to Asia to interact with LT staff there, we discussed the question, "Why is it that someone will not spend much time doing an e-learning course yet will spend hours playing a video game?" Our discussion led us to make a list of the characteristics of a video game that keep players involved. Here is a list of what we thought were important elements of a video game.

• Frequent rewards
• Convenient (available)
• Competition (among various players)
• Approximates real life in some way (we've seen pictures of dragons, the character I play looks something like a person or object I can relate to, etc.)
• It is believable
• Popular--if I don't participate, I feel left out (especially true for young people; Angry Birds may be an example)
• Boys like games better than girls
• Choices must be made
• Decisions must be made
• Danger--I can fail or take a risk to get the reward
• I decide when to start and stop
• I can try again--failure is not permanent
• Challenges to overcome
• Short challenges
• Challenges are easy in the beginning

And two interesting additional comments by an Australian e-learning practitioner, perhaps more difficult to introduce into e-learning: 

• It is not required work
• It has no meaning

And my American colleague added comments about why he does not play video games: 

• If it does not help me be better at something, then I don't want to do it
• I have to see it as beneficial, not a waste of time

As an e-learning practitioner, it is helpful for me to think about how I can introduce some of the elements listed above as a way to motivate my students, not by creating a game situation, but to include activities that have the elements listed above that make the course more motivating.

Here is another person's ideas on this: 

What Can e-Learning Learn from “7 Ways Video Games Reward the Brain?”

If you've ever wanted to read the Bible offline (while not connected to the internet) on your computer or mobile device, here's a great option for you.

This article by John Dyer at the Don't Eat the Fruit blog gives an overview of the Bible Browser app. A live demo can be viewed here. One thing to note when trying it out is that your web browser (Google Chrome in my case) may need to have a setting changed so it can run the app locally. Thankfully, the Bible Browser App reported this for me and gave a simple solution. Also of note, the app includes references to the ESV and NET Bibles in the mobile version, but they are not actually available (an error is given).

The Bible Browser includes 11 Bibles in 9 languages (Arabic, English, Greek, Spanish, Hebrew, Russian, Turkish, and Traditional and Simplified Chinese) and has other nifty features, such as Strong's word highlighting, search, and more. Check out the video on the blog post for more info.

The app is written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, so it should theoretically work on any device with a web browser and enough storage for the app's files (which weighs in at about 150 MB). And, for the Web developers out there, the source code is available on Github so you can fork the project and contribute to your heart's content!

Leave a comment and let us know what you think of it.

Peter Nye, MAF-LT's Technical Team Manager and Jim Manley, Communications Manager, discuss a new idea for PropellerNet that would greatly extend the reach of distance education ministries serving in remote locations.  

Propeller Net? from MAF Learning Technologies on Vimeo.

Peter Nye and Jim Manley of MAF-Learning Technologies discuss a new idea for ad-hoc WiFi connections in the remote areas of our planet. MAF serves over 1.000 organizations worldwide. PropellerNet could greatly extend their reach.