Developing a good presentation can be challenging. We thought, “wouldn’t it be cool if we could combine both the informative power of video as well as the engaging power of a live presentation?” Well, we did it using three Apple iPads and their bluetooth capabilities. The iPad provides a uniquely personal (and somewhat sexy) presentation platform using Bluetooth to synchronize the three devices and broadcast the sound to an external speaker. Each device has a video which makes up a third of an originally very large After Effects composition. Add a little choreography and voilà: a new kind of “demo reel.” Check it out:

See what others are saying about our iPad demo:

• http://www.padgadget.com/2010/06/24/creative-marketing-video-integrates-ipad/
• http://www.ipadzona.ru/news-ipad/kreativnyj-marketing-pri-pomoshhi-ipad/

From June 8th to the 24th Steve McNair, founding partner of the Iona Group, and a group from his church went on a missions trip to Mombasa, Kenya.  The purpose of the trip was to set up a computer lab in a local Bible school where they did some teaching.  They also assisted in the construction of a home and church in a nearby rural village to encourage the church members.  They hosted a Bible school for elementary school children and also had the opportunity to speak at a rural government school where the student teacher ratio was one teacher to every 70+ students.  The team spent time at a rural church whose focus is ministering to HIV/AIDS orphans.  This is a very serious problem in Africa.  The group brought solar powered flashlights as gifts for many who they met.  Consistent electricity is still an issue in many of the rural areas along the coast. This was the second year in a row a group went to serve this area of Africa and it was a great success.

The Iona Group’s very own Chad Udell is scheduled to speak at the first-year conference, Flash and the City, on May 15 in New York City. This is an incredible opportunity, as Chad will be speaking about technology that Iona created for a recent project for the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.
Speaking to a sold-out conference, Chad will be presenting “Hacking Robots for Fun and Profit.” This is an inside look at how Iona developed the advanced technology to allow Flash to drive model “rovers” that travel on a fabricated planet surface in the exhibit at Adler. Conference attendees are application developers and programmers who will have a strong interest in Iona’s innovative thinking and creativity.
You can discover more about Chad’s presentation and Flash and the City at the conference website: http://tinyurl.com/2akbccd.
To learn more about the Adler project or how Iona can make their creativity work for you, call Scott McCormick at 309.263.4662.

Some companies recycle their containers and paper and we at The Iona Group applaud those efforts. We have a longstanding history of actively caring for our community and our planet.

But, as a company, we are going to take our recycling efforts one step further! On April 22nd, the entire staff of The Iona Group will visit the Midwest Recycling Center in Normal, Illinois to learn how containers of every kind are recycled – and paper too. We will tour the Center and heighten our ecological awareness by having a better understanding of what it takes to recycle different materials and divert them from a long life in a landfill.

This company field trip is just part of Iona’s increased “green” efforts that have been implemented this year. Driven by ideas of our Iona Green Team, we have dedicated an entire room in the office to recycling collection of items such as plastic bags, batteries, CDs and DVDs and several other products and materials.

Also, now every employee has a “Before you go… go Green!” placard at their workstation reminding them to shut off the many energy-burning devices at their desk before they leave for the day. Lights, monitors, CPUs, speakers and other components all get shut off to save energy and reduce the electric bill.
Maybe you can spark some green efforts at your company or home and join us in our quest to keep our planet around for a long time!

This year, as our company Christmas gift, we thought we would continue our charitable history but bring it a little closer to home.  The economic challenges are great this year and each of us are aware of many families who are struggling to provide for their basic needs.  In keeping with the importance of both family and community, Iona decided to Adopt-a-Family this Christmas.

Realizing that the need is great, employees contributed personal funds to the company allowance knowing that joining together, we would make this Christmas a little brighter for a local family.  Working with Peoria Friendship House, employees divided into teams that had the responsibility to shop for one family member.  This program targets families with children in 8^th grade and younger to provide a new outfit and one of the toys on the child’s wish list.

It was a great effort as everyone pitched in – from shopping for their person, to donating additional monies to go to the family shopping, to helping wrap the gifts.  Our front hallway was lined with 11 very large, very filled bags.  They contained toys, electronics, clothing, coats, boots, hats, scarves, gloves, cleaning supplies, games and hot cocoa.  They are filled with our Iona family helping out another family that needs help.

We are all blessed in so many ways.  What a great way to share those blessings with others and a nice way to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas.

BJ Aberle, Jeremy LeBeau, Mark Tovey, Matt Forcum and Jeff Idleman wrapping gifts

he Iona Group is pleased to announce that it is working with Campus Vena, a division of Veolia Environnement, to develop an eLearning orientation module as part of their Veolia Induction Program for new managers. The module will be developed using Iona’s Doctum® Learning Development system. In order to meet the learning objectives of the course and to effectively influence this particular audience, additional functionality is being developed in Doctum. The additional functionality will provide a user interface that reinforces the key message and provides real-time feedback to the learner. “This eLearning module must do more than just educate our new managers. We want it to influence their attitudes and their sense of pride about Veolia and the people they will lead,” says Gina Gardner, Training Manager for Campus Veolia.

Campus Veolia is a new division of VENAO LLC (Veolia Environment North America Organization) established in April 2008 in Lombard, Illinois. It forms part of the VE Campus network which is present in 14 different countries, the largest of which is in France. Campus VENA is headed by Ronnie Bennett who successfully set up and ran the Campus in the United Kingdom for 7 years.

Two prominent Peoria area service organizations, the American Red Cross and Catholic Charities began using Iona’s Doctum® eLearning Development System in March. Both organizations will be using Doctum to create their own, custom eLearning courses that can be delivered to employees, volunteers as well as those who use the services of Catholic Charities and the Red Cross.

Doctum, with its easy to use interface and variety of output options, offers several advantages for service organizations looking to produce eLearning content. Doctum’s web-based interface allows training professionals and individuals who have little or no eLearning development experience to quickly and easily produce eLearning modules. In addition, Doctum facilitates collaboration between individuals by providing an easy way to review and comment on modules as they are being developed. Doctum’s Software as a Service (SaaS) subscription model makes it simple for those new to eLearning to experiment without incurring the higher costs associated with purchasing packaged software or hiring outside consultants to do the work. “The Red Cross is always searching for effective ways to reach more people with disaster prevention and health education. Iona’s Doctum eLearning Development System is an exciting opportunity to expand our training.” Anne Fox, CEO, American Red Cross Central Illinois Chapter.

In today’s economic times, organizations are turning to eLearning as a way to do more for less. The “create once, share with many” nature of eLearning allows non-profits who have a large constituency to distribute learning to many people at a significantly lower cost than delivering on-site, instructor-led training. “Using this software will be a great asset for our workers and help us reduce travel costs and time away from the office for training,” says Becky Cobb, Training Coordinator/HR Specialist at Catholic Charities Diocese of Peoria. ELearning also has the advantage that it can provide people the ability to work at their own pace. Plus, once they have taken a course, it can be easily used as a reference or taken again at a later time as a refresher.

Recently Caterpillar Racing learned of an opportunity to promote the team and the company by displaying a 30-second video on the Sprint Vision jumbo monitors at the Fontana Raceway in California. That was the good news. The challenging news? The video had to be in California in just days. Cat Racing called on The Iona Group because of their in-house capabilities to produce high-end, high impact video and because of their deep experience with the company and Cat branding. Iona was able to bring fresh ideas to the project as well as leverage existing application footage to create a video that was bold, loud and fast enough to capture the attention of even the most discerning race fan. The video crossed the finish line under budget and was at the raceway quicker than expected resulting in the client giving Iona the checkered flag.

The new version of Doctum has been completely re-architected, using Adobe’s Flex and ActionScript 3 technologies. This advance increases Doctum’s flexibility for developing custom eLearning applications while maintaining the usability and intuitiveness of previous versions. In addition to the architecture change, the newest version of Doctum has several new features including:

Selectable course “Layouts” (for menus and navigation) Selectable course “Skins” (user interface appearance) Support for H.264 Video (including High Definition video) Multiple file uploads

The new version will be made widely available early 2009. We look forward to bringing to market a strong application that helps our clients build cost-effective learning in a rapid, collaborative environment.

“Learning in a Web 2.0 World” was the theme of DevLearn 2008 Conference and Expo sponsored by the e-Learning Guild. Wikis, blogs, tweets, mobile learning and serious gaming were several of the topics covered at the conference. The Iona Group’s Chad Udell and John Feser attended this year’s event in San Jose, California from November 10 – 14.

The conference began on Monday, November 10th with the Adobe Learning Summit. This one day event provided attendees with the opportunity to see some of Adobe’s latest products and learn how they can be used to produce effective tools for learning. On Tuesday, the Guild’s preconference workshops and symposia were offered with topics ranging from Measuring eLearning Success, to Mobile Learning and Immersive Learning Simulations. The main conference went from Wednesday through Friday. Each day featured a key note speaker. Tim O’Reilly, Founder and CEO of O’Reilly media discussed innovation and the Web 2.0 phenomenon on Wednesday. On Thursday, Dan Roam, Founder of Digital Roam, Inc. discussed using simple pictures as a way to explain and solve complex problems. Dr. John Medina, author and developmental molecular biologist rounded out the conference on Friday by discussing his research into how the brain works and the implications for developing effective learning.

While the theme of the conference focused on Web 2.0 technologies, a wide variety of eLearning topics were covered in the more than 125 various break-out that were offered during the three days. The conference was well designed and catered to everyone from the experienced instructional designers to those just beginning to explore the power of eLearning for their organizations.

For The Iona Group, a highlight of the conference was DemoFest. This event provided DevLearn Conference participants with an opportunity to showcase their own eLearning work. Chad and John participated in the event by demoing and discussing the International Society of Arboriculture’s Introduction to Arboriculture set of 10 eLearning modules. Iona developed the suite of ISA learning modules over the past 3 years.

The event proved to be a great learning experience as well as a great forum for networking and meeting new people all focused on producing and delivering great learning solutions. Iona came away with a much stronger understanding of the current state of learning and as importantly, where effective, low cost learning is headed in the future.