webqem blog

The power of Adobe Connect Pro has found its way into a unique not-for-profit organisation by the name of Mensheds Australia. Mensheds Australia specialise in the health and well-being of men through local organisations that act like a social groups aka a ‘Men’s shed’.

One of the biggest challenges faced by Mensheds Australia was reaching men throughout the country, in particular in remote areas. Furthermore, even where men’s sheds have been established, successfully managing and maintaining them was particularly hard to achieve from head office in Sydney as each men’s shed requires resources, training, and detailed information 24/7.

So, thanks to the team at webqem, Mensheds Australia has implemented a very successful solution – Adobe Connect Pro. From an administrative perspective, Connect Pro has drastically reduced the cost of delivery, travel, training, and Occupational Health & Safety compliance. Explains managing director Peter Sergeant, “When you consider the thousands of documents and information packages used by Mensheds Australia to communicate and collaborate with individual men’s sheds and our partners everywhere, Acrobat Connect Pro is worth approximately $5 million to our organisation.”

Now Mensheds can conduct online meetings to remote areas via Connect Meetings. They can provide access to an plethora of information via the Connect Pro Training module, and can easily create engaging mulitmedia presentations via Adobe Presenter.

The feedback from supporters and stakeholders on the organisation’s portal, www.mensheds.com.au has been outstanding and exceeded all expectations. “Simply put, without Acrobat Connect Professional, we would not have been able to continue with our work at Mensheds,” concludes Sergeant. “We couldn’t deliver the volume of information needed anywhere near as efficiently and compellingly without the Adobe software.”

For more information about this success story, you can view a full article online.

So it seems like the world of online education is growing. Yes, this is no surprise, as the internet is taking over our lives, but more surprising is online education for K-12 students, which according to Jodi Church’s online article ‘Is online education more effective than traditional learning?’, is becoming more prominent.

Recent studies have proven the benefits of online education, as Church writes: “According to a recent study conducted by SRI International for the US Department of Education, online learners perform slightly better than students in traditional face-to-face classrooms.” A key outcome of this report is that it will put an end to the myth that online learning is inferior to traditional learning, as well as generating greater interest in developing technology for education.

A client of webqem’s – Kaplan University, is at the forefront of developing online education. Kaplan is renowned as a giant in online university degrees, and is now offering programs for students in grades 6 to 12 – an area previously untouched by online education. One of Kaplan’s key technologies for online education is Adobe Connect Pro and Presenter, which they use to conduct online meetings and to develop high impact online presentations.

So how much further will online education grow? It seems like we have only scraped the surface of the possibilities as many education institutions are only now  just adopting online education, so lets just say there is still a long way to go.

Leading kitchen retailer – Australian Kitchen Industries (AKI), is prospering from the power of Adobe Connect Pro. In recent years, AKI has significantly grown and prospered into a large franchise. With this growth, communicating with, and training it’s geographically dispersed network of franchisees had become particularly difficult and more costly. To streamline training and communications company-wide, AKI found a cost-effective, powerful solution: Adobe Presenter and Adobe Connect Pro software.

Since implementing Connect Pro, AKI have noticeably benefited from the high-impact web conferencing and ease of access that eLearning provides. Over 400 people across the company are now using Connect Pro to conduct online meetings and training. The solution has been so successful that it, amazingly, paid for itself within the first seven months. The team from webqem were instrumental in implementing this solution, which involved: software procurement, installation, hosting & training. A full report is available online.

For all the photographers out there, there are some great eSeminars coming up for September.There are a wide range of topics for the beginners and the advanced. All of Adobe’s photography software are covered: Photoshop, Lightroom & Photoshop Elements. Best of all they’re free! All you need to do is register. If you still need more training, there is always webqem’s Photoshop training course.

Septemeber eSeminar Photography topics:

• Introducing LightRoom & ‘The Five Rules’. 7th Sept
• Lightroom’s Powerful Digital Asset Management Features. 14 Sept
• Fast Raw Workflow Techniques – PART 2. 21st Sept
• Professional photo galleries with Photoshop, Lightroom and Photoshop Elements. 28th Sept

For the August ACUGA meeting, we were joined by Terry Shane – the President and founder of Refined Data Solutions. Terry showed us the synchronization and automation that can occur between two completely different systems: Adobe Connect Pro and Moodle. Terry’s company has developed a level of integration between the two systems that is “unmatched”. It is so well integrated, that students would never see the Connect system, only the Moodle interface.

The two systems work so well together, it must be magic! No, its just a great piece of technology that has enabled the two systems to work together. For more details check out the recording, or click on the image.

Building studies and virtual classrooms? You would not think they go together. However, a keen teacher from Armidale TAFE in NSW, has managed to successfully put the two together with the use of Adobe’s Connect Pro. Graeme Wilton regularly uses Connect Pro to teach his teach his Certificate IV in Building Studies course to a range of distance education students in North-West NSW. His students “absolutely love it”.  He says that “It’s added an enthusiasm that I haven’t seen for a while, but I must say that part of that would come from me because I’m a little ‘g-ed’ up about the whole thing too,” he laughs.

This is another Connect Pro success story that the webqem team was instrumental in – Good work team! You can read the full report here.

Adobe has announced the launch of Captivate 4 and the new Adobe eLearning Suite. To celebrate the launch, webqem has a limited time* offer – for anyone purchasing or upgrading to Captivate 4, we will give you a voucher for $150 off your next webqem Adobe Captivate Training course.

With Adobe Captivate 4 software, you can rapidly author professional eLearning content with advanced interactivity, software and scenario simulations, quizzes, and other engaging experiences—no programming or multimedia skills required. Go to webqem’s Captivate 4 page to see the great new features of this new release.

Offering seven innovative applications in one complete, integrated package, Adobe eLearning Suite includes full new versions of: Adobe Captivate 4, Adobe Flash CS4, Adobe Dreamweaver CS4, Adobe Presenter 7, Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro, Adobe Soundbooth CS4, Adobe Device Central CS4, Adobe Bridge CS4, and SCORM Packager. The eLearning suite is great for instructional designers and developer, training managers, and educators. Got to eLearning Suite on the webqem site to find out more information.

Contact webqem for more information about the Captivate 4 and eLearning Suite software, plus the various upgrade paths that will save you money, as well as special education discounts and bundles. webqem is an Adobe Solutions Partner and Adobe Authorised Training Centre and a leading Australian reseller of Adobe products and services.

*Offer ends 31/03/2009

webqem’s Larry Adler and Gavin Perry will be in Hong Kong next week attending the International ITC Expo at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. The Expo runs from 14 – 17 April 2008.

While the two will be manning a booth at the Expo, Larry is also part of the speaker line-up – presenting the topic “Rapid E-Learning with Adobe Connect Professional” on Tuesday afternoon.

webqem has recently opened offices in Hong Kong, Singapore and Auckland.

The International ITC Expo is one of the largest information & communication technology exhibitions in the region with product and service providers exhibiting from 18 countries and regions. Details for the International ITC Expo can be found online at http://ictexpo.tdctrade.com/index.htm

Royal Philips Electronics have introduced Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional as a part of their training strategy. Connect’s Training and Meeting modules are being used to deliver training, video conferencing and web seminars to a potential audience of 135,000 registered users of its Healthcare Learning Management System.

Philips has integrated Connect into their in-house SCORM-compliant Learning Management System, using it as part of their healthcare education programs globally.

Additional information is available online from this press release.