LearnKey Blog

Mobile Browser Download for Viewing LearnKey Courseware

Soon after I became the LearnKey Senior Instructor, I took a little road trip down to the corporate office in St. George, UT to meet many of the staff members I had not met, have a meeting or two about building the best course we possibly can (which we are working on now with the upcoming A+ 220-901 & 220-902 courses and other series), and of course, I did manage to squeeze in nine holes of golf.

While I was there, our IT Support Services Manager, Kevin Jacobsen, asked me “Hey..have you ever used the Puffin browser on your phone? It’s great!”  Of course, I asked how it was great and he proceeded to show me how Puffin actually does something a lot of mobile browsers do not do, and that is play Flash files!

Immediately, I thought “Oooh…that means I can watch LearnKey courses on my phone and my iPad!” I confirmed this with Kevin and indeed, the Puffin browser plays our courses, and having spent several hours watching courses my course authoring colleagues have built, I must say the quality both on a tablet (my iPad Air in this case) and my smartphone (an Android device) is quite good. I was even able to pinch in on my phone to get almost all of the course player into the screen, as seen here:

Puffin Browser

So how does this happen? Puffin supports a Flash engine over the cloud, allowing the browser to play Flash files. The speed is just about as good in the mobile browser as it is on a regular PC.

Puffin also displays most pages in their full web view, not in mobile view. So while this helps our course player, you may want to think twice about doing a crossword puzzle on a website on your smartphone using Puffin.

Anyway, I highly recommend this browser as now, you can view our courses from practically anywhere on a mobile device, using Puffin. You no longer have to think “Oh, I would study but I just don’t feel like getting off of this cozy couch to get my laptop.” You can view the courses on your device.

You can get the browser at the App Store for Apple devices or on Google Play for Android devices. For more information, go to puffinbrowser.com

Are you excited for the end of summer? You should be!

I know what you are thinking – “Why is this guy talking about the end of summer when summer has just begun?” Well, as promised in my last blog post I want to keep you up-to-date with some of the exciting happenings at LearnKey this summer. Here is a little sneak peek of some awesome OnlineExpert features to look forward to over the next couple of months.

Learning Management System (LMS) Tour

This free instructional course teaches educators and administrators how to easily access, use, and learn the functions of OnlineExpert. The LMS tour is broken into manageable sections, which allows users to easily find and watch material that is relevant to their needs.

This is one feature you don’t have to wait for – the LMS Tour was just recently released! Since it is free, current customers can easily have our representatives add it to their course libraries.

Projects

Teachers: We have listened to your requests – “More hands-on activities!” We are excited to announce that our Office 2007/2010, Adobe ACA, and IC³ courses will feature hands-on projects created by teachers who use our courses in their curriculum. These projects will help reinforce what students are learning by providing them with hands-on experience throughout the course.

Touchscreen support

In the past, our courses have made heavy use of Flash video and players, which certain mobile devices don’t support. Since these devices are becoming more and more popular in learning environments, OnlineExpert will allow students and teachers to use mobile devices as a learning tool with new touchscreen support beginning in August.

I am excited to be able to share these upcoming releases with everyone. After all, don’t we all need a good reason to actually look forward to the end of summer? Be sure to check back often for the down low on what’s going on at LearnKey.

I love getting comments, so here’s a question for you – What are your favorite summer traditions or vacation spots?