Author: Yerbol Adamov

Avallain Author Release 29: Improved to explore beyond

Posted on by Yerbol Adamov

With new visuals and a more intuitive user experience for managing resources as well as new functionalities, additional options and ground-breaking new Activity Types, Avallain Author Release 29 brings a series of highly exciting updates to our already powerful authoring tool.  

Create and manage new Activities more easily, organise your Media Library and try out new ways to make full use of the integrated voice recognition technology. All of this serves to make the process of creating learning materials even smoother and increase your opportunities to provide your learners with highly individualised and engaging learning experiences.

Enhanced backend design and functionality

Avallain Author Release 29 greets content creators with several new features aimed at making the content creation experience even more intuitive than before:

  • New user interface design: Avallain Author Release 29 features a redesigned main menu layout which makes it easier to perform global actions while remaining familiar to experienced Avallain Author users. At the same time, we have separated the project toolbar from the header, leaving all project editing functions available under the project name. 
  • New Media Library design: Managing media resources is now even smoother, with a more intuitive design that will be further enhanced in upcoming Avallain Author releases.
  • Improved Product Builder: Avallain Author Release 29 makes working on complex builds and content packages much more convenient, with significantly enhanced performance across the board, resulting in a much more stable working experience. The enhanced Product Builder also comes with new Building Platforms for Android and iOS, ensuring full compatibility with all common operating systems.

New user interface design: Switching between projects, managing profile access and sessions, and separated Project toolbar from the header with all project editing functions.

New projects and asset management features and functionality

Our powerful online authoring tool has always excelled at incorporating a wide variety of media in learning materials while ensuring full compatibility between different versions of the software and the learning materials created with it. In Avallain Author Release 29, we further enhance this vision:

  • Improved Learning Object import: To ensure compatibility when importing Learning Objects across multiple installations of Avallain Author, the new release provides content creators with a detailed report on the differences between the configuration of the Learning Object and the target project. If the differences are significant, Avallain Author Release 29 can be set to replace missing but indispensable properties and options with the closest available alternatives. 
  • Enhanced Header Media Option: In this newest release of Avallain Author, we have exchanged the Header Audio Option for a new Header Media Option that allows either audio or video assets to be displayed in the header of a Learning Object. This enhancement also assures that video files displayed in the header run smoothly and continuously, even when learners switch between Activities. 
  • HLS video support: To optimise video playback on unreliable internet connections, Avallain Author Release 29 can automatically adapt (or be manually set to adapt) video players to the bandwidth available. This ensures stable video playback even when connectivity is weak, provided that Design Pack support is available and certain changes have been made to the video conversion setting of Avallain Author.
  • Enhanced Design Pack support: Design Packs can now customise the design of Learning Objects to a greater extent, offering new options for end-result syntax, button mark-up, placement and much more. At the same time, users gain more language support options, such as choosing a default language or setting a specific language as the default for a specific Learning Object.

Header Media LO Option

New authoring options and syntax

In addition to new features aimed at enhancing the workflow of content creators, Avallain Author Release 29 also offers several new settings for creating even more individualised Learning Objects:

  • New Reveal Object functionality: On Present activities, that are currently using the Reveal Object functionality, content creators can now set Show Forward to “After all answers” or “After one answer”. This ensures greater control over when users can use the Forward button when engaging with Reveal Object tasks. 
  • Info text: New dialogue display: In any given Learning Object, info text can now be displayed as either a tool tip or a dialogue, provided the Design Pack used allows for it. The new “Dialog” value can be set in the Global Option “Show Info Text”. 
  • New option: End Results Button: Content creators can now use the Global Option “End Results Button” to decide on which screens the button will appear: “Every Screen” allows students to be able to switch to the End Results screen whenever they finished a screen or “Last screen” if you prefer learners to complete all screens before they are shown their results. 
  • New End Results – screen syntax: The new End Results screen can be customised to display results based on specific categories defined by metadata. Content creators can also use Design Packs to create visual representations of these scores, e.g. pie charts etc.  

Brand-new Activity Types using voice recognition technology

We are excited to roll out new Activity Types that make full use of the groundbreaking voice recognition technology that is available through Avallain Author.

The first one is called Input:Match:Voice and enables you to create voice recording activities that evaluate the pronunciation of complete sentences by artificial intelligence. Thus, learners can get immediate feedback on specifically which words and expressions they have pronounced correctly or not.

Pronunciation evaluation with a new voice recognition Activity Type

The other new Activity Type which benefits from it is called Identify:Select:Radiobutton Voice. With this new Activity Type you can create Radiobutton Activities in which the selection is made orally. The learners record their selection and the voice recognition technology transcribes the recorded audio and gives instant feedback whether their recording matches the answer.

Workflow optimisation and more diverse content creation – with Avallain Author Release 29

The newest build of our leading authoring tool takes a big step in redesigning and improving existing content creation features while providing brand-new functions. As Max Bondi, Product Manager Avallain Author, puts it: “At Avallain, we seek to not only enhance our product with every new release but to expand its capabilities with proven, cutting-edge technology at the same time. Avallain Author’s new voice recognition Activity Types are proof that this concept works. We can’t wait to see how our customers will implement the new features in their learning materials in the future.”

The rollout of Avallain Author Release 29 has already begun, with the next regular update to be released in three months time.

Avallain joins Cornelsen’s mission to help students during home learning with Avallain Unity’s high-performance Learning Record Store

Posted on by Yerbol Adamov

When much of the world instituted lockdowns at the beginning of the current pandemic, teachers and learners realised that e-learning solutions helped them keep up with their studies at home. In fact, online education quickly became the new norm in many countries.

With their online learning platform Cornelsen.de, the German educational publisher Cornelsen is at the forefront of this development, offering digitised books and learning materials online since 2014 and playing a major role for education during the shutdowns of 2020.

Cornelsen has shown remarkable dedication and initiative for overcoming the educational challenges of the pandemic, providing learners and teachers with the best possible online education solutions, turning a challenging situation into an opportunity for innovation. Avallain is proud to be a reliable partner for Cornelsen in this endeavour.

Cornelsen and Avallain have a long history of shaping education technology together, as Cornelsen uses our market-leading content creation tool, Avallain Author, to create the innovative educational content which their online learning solutions are known for. 

Now, profiting from Avallain’s microservice approach, the otherwise in-house developed online learning platform makes use of the Avallain Unity’s Learning Record Store (LRS). This is where progress data from learning is stored and accessed anonymously, and with high-performance, crucial to a modern learning and teaching experience.

Avallain boosts its visual identity to thenew age of digital education

Posted on by Yerbol Adamov

To us at Avallain, the year 2020 bears special significance, as we approach the beginning of our third decade in business. For us, this is a cause for introspection as much as celebration. We are proud to say that Avallain has quickly evolved from a 3-person company into one of the world’s leading providers of software solutions for digital education. To represent this tremendous forward momentum, we have decided to develop and re-design Avallain’s visual identity.

What it means to represent Avallain’s identity

In 2000, two years before the official founding of the company, Ursula Suter and Ignatz Heinz, co-founders of Avallain came together to decide upon the brand that would represent their new company for years to come. They quickly agreed that the Avallain logo would have to be more than just a recognizable symbol – it would need to represent the very identity of the company they were hoping to build.

Since the founding days, the core of this identity has always been the will to use education technology as a way of enhancing human lives all over the world. Thus, Avallain has always focused on the human element, from learners and teachers to our customers as well as our own staff, and symbolized by our use of the symbol “ningen” – the Japanese word for “human”. Thereby, the original concept of the Avallain corporate identity was born.

Our human-centered symbolism was a statement of intent as much as a brand: Today, some twenty years later, we have successfully aspired to the ideal of an international company identity, building relationships and understanding with as many cultures and countries as possible by putting people at the center.

Avallain now holds a presence on five continents and employs over 15 nationalities in our staff. Representing our international approach, our focus on the human element and our values of harmony, stability and humanity leading toward exceptional quality and achievement, the Avallain visual identity went through some slight changes in design over the years.

Avallain has 20 employees and is working for Oxford University Press.

Avallain reaches 90 staff and serves 5 Million learners.

Times have changed, our values remain

When we decided to re-design our visual corporate identity, we knew we wanted to keep all of these ideals intact, as they still accurately reflect on the work Avallain does throughout the world of today. We also wanted to represent the current forward momentum of digital education, allowing the human “ningen” to move boldly – but not hastily – into the future.

Thus, our new visual design was born, representing Avallain’s commitment to its original values while commemorating the company’s new, dynamic role in the world of digital education.

Japanese sign for “human” → Reduced shape of the sign → Design mark for Avallain

Our new visual design reflects the identity of Avallain while also signifying the stability which we offer our customers as well as learners and teachers all over the world in an age of unprecedented change.

At the same time, the very act of changing our logo represents our commitment to ceaseless creativity and our willingness to improve upon the old whenever such a change is truly necessary – be it in terms of changing corporate identities or technological innovation.

Avallain fully prepared to grow and lead the digital education market momentum, ready for the next decades. 

Richmond boosts e-learning during the Coronavirus crisis – powered by Avallain

Posted on by Yerbol Adamov

The ability to communicate in English is an important skill that can have a tremendously positive effect on job prospects in a globalised world while opening up opportunities for further education as well. If students miss classes due to Coronavirus lockdowns, the repercussions are equally significant to their lives. Thus, we are thrilled that Richmond, one of the market-leading publishers of cutting-edge English language teaching materials, has boosted its digital content and made access to their learning platform easier and cheaper for learners throughout Latin America during this global health crisis.

Since the Richmond Learning Platform is powered by both Avallain Author and Avallain Unity, we are proud to be a small part of this generous offer to Latin American learners. As Ursula Suter, Executive Chairwoman and Co-Founder of Avallain puts it: “With Richmond making access to their high-quality learning materials even easier and more affordable for select users in Latin America, they can now use their time in quarantine to keep up with their studies without taking unnecessary risks. E-learning is actively helping to flatten the curve while improving the lives of students at the same time.”

Richmond is equally pleased with this development: “Providing effective English-language education to students in Latin American countries is vitally important to us,” says Deborah Tricker, Group Publishing Director at Richmond Santillana, “and we are happy to be able to continue to do that in the current global health crisis through the innovative digital content we offer on the Richmond Learning Platform, powered by Avallain. The company has been a huge support throughout this endeavour, providing us with cutting-edge e-learning technology at individualised prices and helping us every step of the way.” Avallain will further support Richmond to ensure the stability of their learning platform during the crisis.

Avallain Author Release 28: Enhanced usability delivers higher productivity

Posted on by Yerbol Adamov

The latest update to Avallain Author is all about making the content creation process more accessible and giving our customers more tools to create the best learning environments they can: Quickly build entirely new products, comfortably navigate the Media Library to find exactly what you were looking for and allow users to login using their Google accounts. As always, we have also added some great new ways to further individualise learning objects within the authoring tool. Get ready for the most convenient and most comprehensive Avallain Author experience ever.

New major feature: Product Builder

Avallain Author is a flexible and powerful authoring tool for creating professional learning materials and publishing it instantly to learning platforms powered by Avallain Magnet or Avallain Unity. Now, it can even be used to create entirely new software products with only a few clicks. The new Product Builder feature allows our customers to create and publish products as applications (Windows, Mac, Linux or web-based) with all necessary files included.

The Product Builder is fully compatible with all content created in Avallain Author. This allows creators to quickly assign or update content from the authoring tool and organise it using the Structure Tool. Naturally, our customers can also manage different versions of their applications using the Product Builder’s intuitive user interface. Create different versions of your applications for different markets or target audiences and then decide which content updates are assigned to which version. 

Note: This feature requires a separate license agreement and in some cases integration effort.

Enhanced feature: Next-generation Media Library

Avallain Author has several powerful features to implement media such as images, video or audio within learning materials. With the new and enhanced Media Library, finding the right piece of media for any Learning Object is easier than ever. Media assets are now more convenient to sort and filter, while extra-large thumbnails make sure that you know exactly what you’re going to get from each of your search results.

Adding to and maintaining the Media Library has also become more accessible than ever. The importing process has been simplified, and metadata can now be kept up-to-date thanks to the new bulk editing feature. To make things even easier, content administrators can now round-trip metadata with CSV.

New login option: Google authentication

The “sign in with Google” feature has been a popular option for various tools and websites in recent years. Avallain Author Release 28 now supports this method of authentication as well, allowing your content creators  with Google authenticated email addresses to use the tool without the need to create specific user accounts (which only add to the long lists of passwords that need to be kept secure).

Tweak: Improved user administration

With Avallain Author, administrators have always had a wide range of roles and privileges to assign to specific users. This helps organise usage of the authoring tool, especially in large companies and publishing houses. One such role – the support user – is now set to “invisible” for admin users. This improves usability, as admins no longer need to contend with user accounts created solely to support content creators when using Avallain Author.

In addition, the Users Overview now notifies administrators if the allotted number of Avallain Author user accounts has been reached. Once the maximum number of accounts has been reached, Avallain Author sends out an e-mail notification.

New feature: Project-wide application of Specific Options

When creating or editing large numbers of Learning Objects within a project, bulk editing has been an extremely popular feature added to Avallain Author over the years. No wonder! It makes editing more straightforward, quicker and more efficient. With Avallain Author 28, bulk editing can now be used to apply Specific Options to any of the Learning Objects within a project. Simply add any Learning Object to the queue and hit the “Apply” button – Avallain Author does the rest.

New option for content creators: Two new hotspot types for eBooks

Interactive eBooks are a great way for students to revise. To facilitate this, Avallain Author now allows content creators to set two new types of hotspots which will be especially useful for solutions pages:

Using the single-solution hotspot type, users can click on a hotspot to reveal and hide a solution. Using the solutions-group hotspot, multiple single-solution hotspots can be revealed in order and hidden again once all have been revealed. This allows learners much greater control over which solutions they want to reveal during revision.

New syntax: Arbitrary hint characters for Text Gap activities

When using the Text Gap Activity Type, content creators can now choose to have specific letters in a text gap revealed to the learner. This is particularly useful for steering struggling learners in the right direction or simply to change the difficulty of a Text Gap Activity.

Avallain Author 28 – more convenient for content creators, more options for learners

“Avallain Author is a flexible and powerful authoring tool that fits smaller companies just as well as giant publishing houses,” says Max Bondi, Product Manager Avallain Author. “Thus, streamlining the content creation process and helping our customers with administering even extensive user bases is very important to us. Avallain Author 28 has taken a huge step in that direction. We’re very eager to hear our customers’ thoughts on the new features so we can use that feedback to make Avallain Author 29 even more accessible and efficient.”

Avallain Author Release 29 will be rolled out within the next three months, while the implementation of Avallain Author 28 has already begun.

National Geographic Learning’s online learning platform, powered by Avallain, has been nominated for an SIIA Codie Award

Posted on by Yerbol Adamov

Update (20.05.20): We are proud to announce that Our World 2e Online Learning Platform has won the 2020 SIIA Codie Award for Best ESL, ELL, or World Language Acquisition Solution.

In 2018, National Geographic Learning (NGL), a part of Cengage, approached Avallain with the idea of producing high-quality digital learning materials to accompany their world-renowned “Look” and “Our World” product line of English-language teaching materials. Today, we are happy to announce that the Our World 2e Online Learning Platform has been nominated for a 2020 SIIA Codie, one of the industry’s most prestigious awards. This nomination is a great recognition of the effort that went into the NGL online learning platform – and a testament to the highly advanced technological foundation of the platform, provided by Avallain.

What is the best way to learn English as a second or foreign language?

NGL’s Our World 2e Online Learning Platform provides primary English learners with learning materials from innovative interactive activities and games to stunning video and audio content. These digital materials are designed as supplements that augment the classroom experience with individualised learning paths that perfectly accompany the print edition of Our World. Meanwhile, teachers enjoy a robust Learning Management System to guide their students through activities specifically chosen for their individual learning progress. The Avallain platform is also appropriate for secondary and adult learners.

This two-pronged approach is made possible with Avallain technology. NGL first draws from Avallain Author’s pre-designed learning activity “blueprints” to create a highly varied assortment of individualised learning activities to accompany the print version of Our World, then Avallain Unity packages all of this into a coherent and intuitive learning platform, with an accompanying learning management system for teachers.

“By nominating NGL’s learning platform, the SIIA Codie Awards judges have recognised that great e-learning requires both amazing learning materials and a robust but flexible technological foundation to build upon,” says Ignatz Heinz, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Avallain. “National Geographic Learning has been able to produce a staggering amount of high-quality learning materials in a concise time frame, and we have continuously supported them throughout this process. This is how you keep refining all aspects of your learning platform, and I think this SIIA Codie Award nomination will not be the last for NGL.”

Free access to digital textbooks: VERITAS and Avallain support Austrian schools

Posted on by Yerbol Adamov

Since 2018, VERITAS, the largest educational publisher in Austria, has been offering its complete range of textbooks digitally. With interactive e-books, this innovative range of products supports learning success through individual content and targeted feedback – regardless of location. It was created with Avallain Author, our market-leading authoring tool, and made accessible via our feature-rich learning platform architecture Avallain Unity.

Throughout much of our planet, the Covid-19 virus is preventing everyday school life as we’ve always known it. But times of crisis are always a starting point for innovation and solidarity as well. In order to help teachers, parents and students to bridge the time between classes and to ensure the continuity of education, VERITAS and Avallain now offer free access to the entire digital offer described above.

“The individual learning success and continuity in education for all students in Austria is a heartfelt concern for VERITAS. We are pleased that with the support of Avallain we can provide schools in our country with free, fast and stable access to our digital learning offer”, says Mag. Nikolaus Donner, Managing Director of VERITAS.

“The advantages of digital education are numerous and, in addition to the possibilities for creating highly individualised learning experiences, the independence of location is a significant added value – especially in the current situation. We are proud that we are able to support our long-standing customer VERITAS with our technology and a service tailored to the crisis to keep school education in Austria running”, explains Ignatz Heinz, Co-Founder and President of Avallain.

Free access is available now at https://www.scook.at/.

Business Continuity through Digital Education solutions

Posted on by Yerbol Adamov

In this challenging moment for our world, we in Avallain remain committed to playing our part, bringing to bear our 20 years of experience in the Digital Education industry.

More than ever, companies, institutions, and individuals need continuity in the central pillars of daily life. Education is one of these pillars, and we believe that if deployed well, online learning tools could greatly reduce the impact of the current situation to at least this aspect of our lives.

Preparedness and proactivity

As a digital company with a 100% smart work/home office setup and 100 team members in 15 countries, we had a head start. However, we are still working hard to ensure that we support one another in terms of homeschooling and family support.

School closures in many countries have radically changed the usage landscape. We are seeing exponential increases in platform use as homeschooling and distance learning initiatives take hold. So working closely with our clients, we responded quickly to increase infrastructure monitoring and capacity, ensuring an uninterrupted high level of performance.

Ultimately, we are in uncharted waters, so if things get tight, we will rely on our formal Business Continuity Plan, which has been designed over the past years to allow us automatically to implement fallback options and communication plans in times of crisis. Any client can ask for a copy of this, or for further details about our preparedness.

Human-centered and technology-driven solutions

An essential component of our Digital Education strategy is to address the growing need for real-time interaction and features that enable teachers and learners to minimise the impact of the absence of face-to-face lessons.

Central to this has been an immediate need for live video integration within learning platforms, which allows realtime interaction and online classes without much preparation. We have reacted quickly to this need, and this month are rolling out the first integrations with virtual classroom / conferencing tools.

Our commitment to education

Avallain is keen to help you to support learners and teachers in the challenging weeks to come.

During this public health crisis, we are offering a limited number of free accounts to our leading Avallain Author authoring tool for creating interactive e-Learning content.

Anyone interested can apply directly to info@avallain.com or through the contact form on our website. Our team will help speed up the process of implementation and delivery to ensure the continuity of learning. For institutions, and education departments, we also offer limited free consulting to help implement a fast, accurate, seamless and appropriate solution for the current needs.

We have over 20 years of experience in technology-enhanced education for institutional learning, and now more than ever we understand the value of cooperation and delivering fluent combinations of our own and third party technology as needed.

Appropriate solutions for challenging times

For language schools needing to switch instantly to an online solution, we have a ready-made product suite to offer that will bring you online seamlessly in minimal time.

Our content production department can help create a critical starting mass, and through our long collaboration with the leading educational publishers, we can easily enable access to the best digital learning solutions in the market.

A word of hope and thanks

On behalf of all Avallain members, we thank all the professionals who are keeping up their essential work in these times, including those who keep education running. Driven by education and science, our collective effort, clarity of focus and creativity will see us through this crisis.

Our best wishes to all our clients, partners and friends in the education world.

Avallain and EDIA partner on creating Smart Content for Educational Publishers

Posted on by Yerbol Adamov

Avallain (avallain.com), a Swiss-based company, that provides award-winning education technology and tools to create, manage and disseminate educational content, and EDIA (www.edia.nl), Dutch-based, EdTech company applying Artificial Intelligence to create smart content for educational use, have announced a technical and commercial partnership.

Avallain and EDIA will work together by integrating EDIA’s Smart Content capabilities into Avallain’s online authoring tool Avallain Author and learning platform architecture Avallain Unity. EDIA applies natural language processing (NLP), a form of Artificial Intelligence, to create metadata. Its technology analyses educational texts in order to determine readability levels on the CEFR framework, extract keywords and classify topics in a taxonomy. EDIA’s capabilities will further enhance Avallain’s powerful tools and offer educational publishers easy access to metadata automation. These services can be applied both in the process of content creation in Avallain Author, where authors and editors get better tools to add metadata, and in the learning content management in Avallain Unity, where automated tagging can be used to tag and analyze existing content portfolio.

“We are very pleased with our cooperation as we have complementary technology that will help educational publishers in their digital transformation”, says Walter Montenarie, Chief Commercial Officer at EDIA. “The two companies work very well together as we share the same values and are determined to make an impact on education.”

“Our clients have the highest standards when it comes to developing and delivering digital learning products. We are proud to be providing them for more than 15 years with the tools and experience they need to implement these standards and excited about the cooperation with EDIA. Because EDIA’s Smart Content capabilities will add lasting value to our solutions and in EDIA we have found a new partner on our journey to empower companies all around the globe to unlock human potential with technology-enhanced education.” says Ignatz Heinz, President and Co-Founder of Avallain.

About Avallain

Founded in 2002, Avallain quickly took on the role as a pioneer in Digital Education. Located in the idyllic canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden in Switzerland, this was the ideal starting point for what was to come. Ever since our first steps in Digital Education, Avallain has grown into an international premium supplier with staff all around the globe and proud to be working with some of the world’s most ambitious brands, serving millions of learners in various educational settings. Together, our sole aim is to achieve a positive impact on human potential with technology-enhanced education.

About EDIA

EDIA education technology was founded in 2004 and is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In 2006, EDIA launched its first AI product for education, which used machine learning and natural language processing to curate online text sources for vocabulary training. The product won several international awards and is still widely used today. In recent years EDIA transformed into a SaaS platform by applying Artificial Intelligence technology to analyse text.

Avallain Author version 4.13: Accessibility is key!

Posted on by Yerbol Adamov

When we rolled out Avallain Author version 4.12 three months ago, we included new gamification features to make learning more individualised and more fun. Now, it’s time to make sure learners of all ages and educational levels can use your learning content the way it was meant to be used: Avallain Author 4.13 introduces additional accessibility options as well as new ways in which content creators can individualise their materials to account for slower or very young learners.

New Gapfill Behaviour: “Tap Swap”

Do your learners use touchscreen devices? The new Tap Swap Gapfill behaviour for the Sequence Activity Type makes sure they can work efficiently by introducing the ability to quickly move items in the sequence in either direction. Tapping or clicking on an item makes two arrows appear which can then be used to move the activated object to the left or to the right without bringing the entire sequence into disarray.

This new behaviour is also ideal for very young learners without much experience navigating digital user interfaces: just tap on the item you want to move and then move it through the sequence, one step at a time. Then tap anywhere on the screen to hide the arrow buttons again: It’s as easy as A-B-C.

New Options for the Exams Timer

When it comes to preparing for exams, teachers may want to limit the time which learners are allowed to spend on solving the task at hand. After all, providing all students with exactly the same amount of time to solve a Learning Object makes exam preparations much more realistic and effective. With Avallain Author 4.13, content creators can now set either a hard time limit or a soft time limit:

  • A hard time limit prevents learners from taking more than the allotted amount of time, automatically submitting the current state of a Learning Object once time has run out.
  • A soft time limit notifies learners once they have reached the time limit. They can then choose to either submit their work or use additional time. Naturally, Avallain Author also keeps track of how much additional time learners have taken.

Content creators can fully customise the popup window which appears once the time limit has been reached. In addition, the format of the countdown clock can be customised and the allotted time for a Learning Object is reported in the End Result Screen.

Audio support when submitting a Learning Object

“Remember to check whether you have completed all tasks before submitting” – simple messages like this can now be recorded and stored as an audio file attached to a Learning Object. Once a learner clicks to submit, they are given the option to listen to the audio file before finalising their decision.

This is a great way of giving additional support to students, remind them of important things they may have forgotten, or simply make digital learning more fun, especially for very young learners. The audio message also helps learners who might not yet be able to read well enough to understand the written confirmation message.

More efficient content creation: Bulk apply

Content creators sometimes have to change option values for a specific subset of existing Learning Objects. Thus far, Avallain Author has allowed such changes to be applied to either a single Learning Object or all Learning Objects within a project. With Avallain Author 4.13, this is a thing of the past, as a new apply option popup now allows project managers to choose individually which Learning Objects to change. Several new options such as filtering by Work Packages or searching by ID or name ensure that content creators quickly find the Learning Objects which they want to select for changes. This speeds up the content production process significantly.

New shortcut: Republishing Learning Objects

Using the Auto Republish button in the Project Settings now opens up a popup window which allows republishing large numbers of Learning Objects simultaneously. Simply select the target environment and the Learning Objects you wish to republish. Click “republish” and once the background task has been completed, all of the Learning Objects will have been republished. You then receive an e-mail which lists all Learning Objects and their respective statuses.

New workflow enhancement: eBook hotspot: Learning dependency

When deleting a Learning Object that is connected to an external hotspot in an eBook, there is now a new dialogue popup which warns the user that the external hotspot will be removed, along with the Learning Object. When using the export button, the user receives an e-mail with the Learning Object dependency list, along with the eBook name, ID and title, the Learning Object’s name and the page number.

Enhancing education, one step at a time

Once again, the new version of Avallain Author includes lots of new options to further individualise learning while also making education more accessible for learners and easier to handle for content creators as well as teachers. “We’re continuously working on all aspects of Avallain Author, from technical improvements to additional individualised learning options,” says Max Bondi, Product Manager Avallain Author. “This time, we have focussed on providing accessibility options and giving content creators more flexibility and more efficient workflows. Let’s see how they use these new features to make their learning materials even better. As always, Avallain will take an active interest in our customers’ feedback and use it to develop new features for Avallain Author, due to be released in three months.”