To promote their new Windows 2008 server, Microsoft announces the availability of learning snacks. A learning snack is a short module that illustrates one specific topic or learning objective. Of course, Microsoft uses Silverlight as the underlying technology.
Have a look yourself on the Windows 2008 learning portal (click the Learning Snacks tab). Microsoft uses very simple, but effective interactions: mouse-overs, software demonstrations, click-to-reveal-more, …
What I like about it:
- simple but very nice layout
- good performance
- easy to navigate interface
What I do not like about it:
- voice-over quality is not consistent: sometimes good, sometimes very bad;
- it does not work on my Mac. There is a Silverlight version for Mac, but the learning snack player does not seem to load the content, not in Safari, not in Firefox;
- clicking on some of the links is blocked by the IE popup blocker (althoug it seems to be a simple hyperlink)
Still a great initiative. Wouldn’t it be nice if this Silverlight player could load SCORM manifests? What if Microsoft made it freely available? Wouldn’t that be a great promotion for Silverlight?
after installation, my presence icons in Outlook 2007 did not work anymore. And this made me realise how convenient these things are, and how quickly you get used to them: you start a new message, type in your recipient, you notice that he is in the office,… you close the message and go see him!