Technology continues to impress and delight, as does the growth of online degree opportunities. The idea behind online degrees is that everyone should have a chance at a higher education, regardless of lifestyle. There is a new tool to spread the opportunities even further.

ToolBook Translation System is software that reduces the cost, time and complexity of creating multilingual content. Using TTS in conjunction with either ToolBook Instructor or ToolBook Assistant -- the two authoring solutions in SumTotal's ToolBook product line -- companies can create multilingual content for their global e-learning initiatives. TTS identifies what elements of an online course need to be translated, serves up these elements to a translation expert and preserves any format or design in the course for the pending translation.

"After an author creates a course using either ToolBook Instructor or ToolBook Assistant, he or she simply clicks a few buttons whereupon all the course elements to be translated are put in a digital package," said Brad Crain, SumTotal's vice president of ToolBook. "The ToolBook Translation System takes the digital package and delivers it to the person carrying out the translation from, say, English to German. As the translator prepares the German text, she can -- with a few keystrokes -- see how the course will look in German at any stage of the process."

ToolBook and TTS give employers a way to divide work between experts. First, instructional designers can tap ToolBook to build training courses. Second, linguists can focus on translations without having to understand how to manipulate software for creating elearning content (i.e., ToolBook Instructor or ToolBook Assistant).

With ToolBook and TTS, staff can create multilingual simulations, tutorials, assessments, courseware and other interactive learning content. And if a manager must update the content of a course because of a change in policies or procedures, then translators can tap TTS to handle these revisions without disturbing the online course's layout, hypertext information, pop-ups or any other data.

I would love to try this out.