Has anyone used the Microsoft Semblio SDK to build a training or education product yet? If so, how was the developer experience and/or the user experience?
Yes and no. I've used it extensively (I work in L&D) in testing functionally and appropriateness for a corporate learning environment but finally decided against it. Some reasons:
- The learning curve for average
instructional designers was too
high. If it was meant for a
dedicated half-developer/half-ISD
person to somehow work in this SDK
and design great e-Learning, the
Vision/Scope of Semblio was way off
base. It's a good product for
developers - it's just that that
profile of person is not
particularly good at creating
e-Learning/CBTs.
- The Education PG (the group that
produces this product) has had quite
a few product blotches and
non-ships. This one actually made it
out the door, but it isn't getting
the uptake that EdPG was expecting.
It's likely going to be relegated to
"well, we tried but nobody wanted
it" in the fight between all
internal academic-focused groups
(Public Sector sales,
Partners-in-Learning, EdPG,
Unlimited Potential, etc.) - so my
guess is that support will fall
away.
- Most important was the decision to
use WPF instead of Silverlight. This
not a slight against WPF, which is a
fine technology, but it tells me two
things: This is a Windows-platform
play given that education uses
Windows/Mac/Linux. WinClient
Platform-Adoption products tend to
fall away pretty quickly at MSFT
(with the exception of Visual
Studio/Expressions). 2) There will
be deployment concerns of the .Net
framework and the Semblio packages. On this point, it makes
an assumption that most schools are
running semi-sophisticated IT
departments that have a good deployment server.
Semblio could have just as easily been created for Silverlight and made into a true Adobe Captivate or Articulate competitor. It could have utilized an organizations existing assets, such as Office, for e-Learning creation.
It was for these reasons I decided against using it.
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