Click here for: "Mobile Learning in the Classroom: An Empirical Assessment of a New Tool for Students and Teachers" by Douglas McConatha and Matt Praul

OHE Associates

November 22, 2008

Does PowerPoint have a role in mLearning?

Posted by Ann Boland of OHE Associates and James Geboski of Hot Lava Software

Before this week, I always said, “No”.  Sure, you could make an image out of the slide and reduce it, but it was hard to read – crowded characters, horizontal scroll.

This week, Hot Lava introduced their PowerPoint Conversion Tool.  It’s impressive.  James is the author and he’s going to give you the technical aspects.  I’m the sales person, and all I can say now is, “Wow, PowerPoint does have a role in mLearning.”  Below is a screen grab of a PP slide and next to it, that same slide in a mobile phone after going through the converter.  
 
This is a boon for mLearning authors – and like most Hot Lava features – accomplished with the click of a button.  And now James will tell you how he accomplished this magic.

-----------James’s Input----------

The converter converts Microsoft Office 2007 Power Points (PPTX file).  It is a web based converter that will save your files to the server for later downloading if needed.  It is also possible to share your files with other people via a download link.  You can also turn off sharing so that nobody can download the file.  Though the converter will not insert your images it will list them in the resources section of LMA.  The converter is written in PHP.  It works by extracting the necessary data from the XML files inside the PPTX file.  It will then take the data it collected and then construct it into and LMA file that you can then open.  The converter is a good tool there is no doubt.

Workforce Magazine Article - contains good case history of mLearning users and results of the Kauffman Project with Hot Lava Software re STEM learning over mobile