Like you, I get bombarded by feeds from social media, and frankly, I’m getting bored by most of them. For me - social media is about sharing thoughts, sharing observations, helping other freelancers, perhaps give away the odd company secret and/or technique for success. I am bored of getting endless re-posts, re-tweets, recommendations, and posts purporting to share knowledge that hide under a thin veil of "Buy my/our product". I appreciate the concept of "curating", but it does NOT just mean "Here’s a collection of stuff that you could probably find yourself if you learned how to use a Search Engine correctly". Many instructional designers, and many freelancers live in 1-person worlds, where communication time is short, and valued. I’d much rather receive a post from a co-worker, colleague or friend that asked an original question than get an In-Box full of content that was supposedly showing me the "52-best ways…" to do something, or covertly advertising something I do not need. I’d love to see more questions, more engagement, and more relationships formed rather than the same information going round and round. Let’s give more - more of us, not more of others.

Jeff sits down with Jeffrey Bennett to discuss his new book On Teaching Science and how your students can have an astronaut read to them from the International Space Station. About Big Kid Science Big Kid Science (www.bigkidscience.com) offers fun and scientifically accurate educational products, including award-winning books, school programs, author visits, and activities and resources for individuals, families, and classroom teachers. On Teaching Science: Principles and Strategies That Every Educator Should Know Math for Life: Crucial Ideas You Didn’t Learn in School (Updated Edition) Max Goes to the Space Station Max Goes to Mars Max Goes to Jupiter Max Goes to the Moon The Wizard Who Saved the World Links of Interest Website: http://jeffreybennett.com | www.bigkidscience.com | www.storytimefromspace.com Twitter: @JeffreyOBennett Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jeffrey-Bennett/159547380906805 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BigKidScience About Dr. Bennett Dr. Jeffrey Bennett (http://jeffreybennett.com) is an astronomer and educator in Boulder, Colorado. He holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in astrophysics and a B.A. in biophysics. He is the recipient of the 2013 American Institute of Physics Science Communication Award and the Entertainment Industries Council Science Engineering and Technology (SET) Award. He is the author of On Teaching Science, Math for Life, and What Is Relativity? He is also the author of five award-winning children’s books about science, which are currently onboard the International Space Station being read by astronauts as a part of Story Time From Space (www.storytimefromspace.com). The post Learn how to have an astronaut on the International Space Station read to your students | (@JeffreyOBennett) appeared first on TeacherCast.net: Educational Blogs, Podcasts, App Reviews and more. … Read more

Apart from the fact that a good Instructional Designer should probably not begin ANY sentence with "and", this blog post celebrates the triumphant return of The Monty Python Team, (nearly all of them…) to the London stage last night, and some complete silliness from a Skype discussion I had earlier. I was trying to discuss the merits of 14:9 Articulate Storyline slide dimensions with a colleague versus 4:3. When I type :3 something wonderful happened…. It interprets :3 as a cat licking its paw. I never knew that, and I suspect you did not either. Unless you are cleverer than me and understand social media more. Or talk about eLearning or PowerPoint slide dimensions a lot in your Skype-life. If you did NOT know this, promise me that next time you Skype someone, at an opportune moment you will just type :3, and then pretend you have no idea what you did. We all have to right to be silly once in a while - and on that note "Hurrah for Monty Python!" I just need to slap someone with a fish now…..  

I was recently at an event looking at how to use a "Crowdsourcing model" for #eLearning. Broadly, there seemed to be 2 perspectives. "Crowdsourcing is a way for groups of networked individuals in a Crowd to create content for clients, and the crowd benefits". "A Crowd enables clients to quickly assess individual skills in the group, and choose individuals for their projects". The first focused on benefits for the Crowd, the second focused on benefits for individuals IN a Crowd environment. I see the second option as more valid and workable. Like Star Trek - we are still individuals, and do not have a Borg "Hive-mind", (yet!) The Crowd (for me) is a way to link people with similar skills and aspirations, and make that accessible to clients. The end activity may not benefit the entire group, there is still a "competitive" element. Even Crowd funding still only benefits the ones that successfully. These 2 positions were amplified in a discussion on Portfolios. I suggested they should be on a subject of the Crowd member’s choosing, of a fixed length. Everyone would have a similar chance to shine, demonstrating their talents and vision to prospects. Some people recommended the subject should be what "the creator was passionate about", such as a sport. I am just not convinced by this argument. Do commercial prospects REALLY want to see this? Another view was that Portfolios should show the "skills of the Crowd" - benefitting "the whole". I do not see this as workable or scalable. A "portfolio by committee" could be a huge and lengthy undertaking, and secondly, as soon as (say…) another 100 people join the crowd, you would have to repeat the process again. In any herd (real or virtual) - there are leaders and followers. In any online community there are "lurkers" and "doers". Being in a Crowd does not guarantee anyone will require the skill you offer, Crowds, for me, benefit the member IF they possess skills the rest of the herd need, and it becomes a skill-exchange from people with known skills and shared values. As they become more prevalent, the skill as I see it, is joining the correct group/community. The Crowd provides benefits to clients if they reduce purchase time, and provide access to a community of tried and tested (?) individuals. If I were a client, I would want the Crowd to demonstrate diversity of approach, so that I could choose what I thought would work. I would just not be interested in "the Crowd" as an entity. If I audition for 4 different voiceovers I need for some eLearning, I do not want people to audition as a Barber-Shop Quartet unless I specify it. I want to use the Crowd to provide me with INDIVIDUALS as options. I do not see a model where the Crowd benefits everyone in that Crowd, especially for eLearning. This is still a market where the INDIVIDUAL is what matters, not a Crowd of individuals. Perhaps an individual like me then goes as a client TO the Crowd, and chooses a few people to help them, but I am still unsure of how the Crowd works as a concept other then this. I just can’t see the Crowd benefiting everyone in it. It’s another mechanism to benefit the (single) Buyer, and the few SINGLE individuals in the Crowd that end up servicing the project. Please help me understand more - am I missing something?

The Tech Educator Podcast is a weekly round table discussion about current topics in educational technology.  For more information, please visit www.techeducatorpodcast.com. Many great ways to participate in the TechEducator Podcast. TechEducatorPodcast.com Follow us Live on Video: http://www.TeacherCast.tv Leave a Voice Mail: http://www.TeacherCast.net/voicemail Email: feedback@Teachercast.net Twitter: @TechEdShow (http://www.twitter.com/techedshow) Hashtag: #TechEducator Hosts: Jeff Bradbury - TeacherCast.net - @TeacherCast Jeff Herb - InstructionalTechTalk.com - @InstTechTalk Sam Patterson - MyPaperlessClassroom.com - @SamPatue Chris Nesi - Education the Nesi Way - @MrNesi David Saunders @DesignSaunders -designsaunders.com Josh Gauthier @mrgfactoftheday -Mr Gauthier’s Tech Chat Show Information Evernote https://evernote.com/ IFTTT https://ifttt.com/ http://catlintucker.com/2013/08/if-this-then-that-connecting-tech-tools-saving-time/ Pocket https://getpocket.com/ Buffer https://bufferapp.com/ Google Bookmarking Manager http://www.omgchrome.com/google-stars-bookmarks-extension-chrome-now-live-web-store/ Livebinders http://www.livebinders.com Symbaloo http://www.symbaloo.com http://live.classroom20.com/archive-and-resources/category/symbaloo Neato https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/neato-jot-down-note-save-to/id931243944?mt=8 Pearltrees http://www.pearltrees.com/shellyterrell/tech-funding/id12201059 TweetDeck https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ Diigo https://www.diigo.com bookmarking and annotation YouTube Playlist http://youtu.be/Ci3H8hTOB0k?list=PLDxaqZv34U4xB3ibyPU3qv3mjFLboe_d5 Peggy George the K12 Online Conference has youtube playlists for years of presentations-great way to provide PD experiences with teachers! This is the 2014 playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6uAkjKkyJ6vJ2ookpdfEJT7XGQ2rS3Cv http://www.alicekeeler.com/teachertech/2014/06/25/iste2014-or-iste14/ Auto post to FB http://lifehacker.com/how-to-auto-post-to-facebook-or-twitter-from-google-wi-1352124886 tweetchat.com tchat.io Please join the TechEducator Podcast LIVE every Sunday night at 7:00 P.M. EST on http://www.TeacherCast.tv Please contact TeacherCast with any Questions or to become a guest on the show Host: Jeff Bradbury @TeacherCast Email: info@teachercast.net Voice Mail: http://www.TeacherCast.net/voicemail YouTube: http://www.TeacherCast.net/YouTube iTunes: http://www.TeacherCast.net/iTunes Watch LIVE: http://www.TeacherCast.tv | Broadcasting Schedule (http://www.teachercast.net/showcal)TeacherCast Broadcasting Community: http://www.TeacherCast.net/broadcastingcommunity Interested in starting your own podcast? Check out our Educators Guide to Podcasting today! | Video | Slideshare Presentation Hire TeacherCast to Speak or Broadcast at your conference Jeff Bradbury (@TeacherCast) is available as a Keynote Speaker, Presenter, or to Broadcast your conference LIVE!  Contact Jeff Today! Check out more TeacherCast Educational Broadcasting Network Shows TeacherCast Podcast (http://www.teachercast.net/education/teachercast-broadcasting/) TeacherCast App Spotlight (http://www.teachercast.net/education/teachercast-broadcasting/the-teachercast-app-spotlight/) The TechEducator Podcast (http://www.techeducatorpodcast.com) The post 15 Digital Curation Tools for the Classroom | #TechEducator Podcast 74 appeared first on TeacherCast.net: Educational Blogs, Podcasts, App Reviews and more. … Read more

I cooked a steak for supper yesterday, and finished off the mushroom, onions and red wine sauce with some umami powder. Some what? Umami - the taste of "savoury meatiness", found in parmesan cheese, lemon peel, mushrooms, and synthesized as monosodium glutamate, or "flavour enhancer". Scientifically identified in 1908, yet we still mainly teach that there are 4 tastes - sweet, salty, sour and bitter. Why over 100 years later is the term still in its infancy? What’s this got to do with Instructional Design? Well… We still talk about "learning styles" - perhaps they should just be viewed as preferences? Many people still let SMEs give us bullet points, but how often do we explain what bullet points ACTUALLY ARE? (…how many of us know?) We still mainly "tell" in courses, rather than let people discover their errors, and then learn how to solve problems. We are scared of people feeling as though they "failed", (even if they DID, but we then explain WHY and let them practice for success, in a safe, online environment). How long will it be before we have the courage, as a profession, to constantly and assertively let our Subject Matter Experts and customers know that there IS another way, that there is an alternative to linear courses? Changing perceptions and comfort zones is a hard road to follow, but it IS our job to do it. Challenging can be scary, especially when the next invoice is riding on it, but ultimately, it is HUGELY rewarding, both for us, and our clients.  

Here’s a link to a Guest Blog I made earlier today, some thoughts on "perfect" eLearning. If such a thing exists.

TeacherCast creates screencasts and instructional videos for the educational community.  Through student inspiration and educator feedback, I have had the privilege of creating online courses and video tutorials on subjects such as Evernote, Video Editing, student communication and mobile classrooms.  Quite often people ask about the tools that I use and my methods for creating these screencasts. There are several great tools both freemium and premium that I use for creating digital content.  Quite often, I just don’t have the time to use a free application such as Apple Quicktime and then transporting it into a video editor such as Final Cut Pro X to make the edits for exporting and uploading.  My favorite tool for creating screencasts is called ScreenFlow from a great company called Telestream.  It has a simple interface and has powerful tools to allow you to create amazing classroom resources. Telestream ScreenFlow recently pushed an update that introduces some amazing features.  Are you looking to create a video that not only shows your screen, but your pretty smile?  ScreenFlow can do that.  Are you interested in teaching your students about a new iPad app by doing a screencast??  ScreenFlow can do that too!  How about having a great app with the ability to publish to platforms such as YouTube, Dropbox, AND your Google Drive???  Yup…. ScreenFlow is the choice for you. For more information, please visit: http://www.telestream.net/screenflow/overview.htm Setting up ScreenFlow Once installed from either the Telestream Website, or the Mac App Store, ScreenFlow gives you a robust dialogue box where you can set up your recordings.  You can select from your various camera, and choose which microphone you wish to use.  Screenflow gives you the ability to record not only from one camera, but from multiple sources.  Need support for your iPad or iPhone?  ScreenFlow can even record these screens too. Recording your Screencast Once you have established your recording parameters, it’s time to start your recording.  Learning simple keyboard commands will help you create your screencasts quickly.  I have my commands set up as Command-2.  This allows me to toggle on and off the recordings.  One of the neatest features of ScreenFlow is the ability to hide your desktop icons.  I often find my desktop screens very cluttered and this option allows my audience to see a clean screen and not a cluttered mess. Recording Advice While recording, it’s inevitable that you will flub or mess up something.  If this happens, my advice is to keep recording.  Record everything… even if you have multiple takes… keep recording.  This way, your final product will be one single video clip.  If you stop and start your recording several times, your computer will now be dealing with multiple files and that becomes messy.  No matter what happens, I find it’s always best to have one single source file at the end from which to edit. There are times where, during the recording, you need to wait for apps to load, or websites to come up on screen…  just remember that the editing station is where the power lies in your screencasts.  You can always cut this time away by editing rather than starting and stopping the video recording. Editing your Screencast Once your video is recorded, ScreenFlow automatically enters you into a VERY powerful video editor.  Most of my screencasts are very basic and don’t nearly take advantage of the tools that are offered in ScreenFlow.  My advice here is to keep everything simple and only bring out the bells and whistles where needed. There are many tools that you can use in your recordings.  You can choose to make a video of just your desktop screen, or if interested,d you can layer in your second video camera to include yourself in the final edit. The editing screen allows direct access to your Photo and Audio/Video libraries in case you wish to bring in extra screen shots or B-Roll video. ScreenFlow is packed with powerful editing tools that can help make your users have a very enjoyable learning experience. Video: Scale your video larger or smaller.  Include a reflection or border around your video. Create a Picture in Picture type of experience. Audio: Overlap audio on top of other audio using "Ducking". Add audio effects and filters to your project. Screen Recording: Are you interested in showing your mouse on the screen?  Would you like your project to show every place you clicked your mouse? Call Out: Highlighting various places on your screen including a zoomed in follow on your mouse pointer. Annotations: Draw boxes or shapes on the screen to highlight various locations.  Create text effects on the screen for simple instructions. Exporting your projects There are dozens of options that are available when exporting.  From ScreenFlow, you can directly export to YouTube, Vimeo, Google Drive, and Facebook.  You can also choose to export a master file at various sizes.  My advice when exporting is to export directly to your desktop and then upload into these various locations. I also find my decisions for the export are all based on the size of the project I’m working on.  If i’m working on a smaller screencast, perhaps 5 minutes or less, I don’t have a problem exporting to YouTube directly.  If the project is closer to an hour of length, it’s best to export to the desktop, and then upload from there. My reasoning behind this is that unless you are simply posting for fun, you will want to log into these services and play with the settings of your final project any way… so, to export to the desktop and publish at that point is actually saving you a bit of time. Archival Options When you are finished, I always backup my projects onto a secondary hard drive.  I have often found that year to year, things change and it’s very simple to go back into a project and update for the new school year to adjust for updating websites or technologies. Overall impressions I have been a ScreenFlow user for several years now.  I also have been a fan of the other popular screen casting applications popular in the educational market.  ScreenFlow provides users with a very simple interface from which to create projects in.  Where I absolutely love using Final Cut Pro X to do my video editing, I find that more often than not, I am opening ScreenFlow to do simple video edits and projects.  There are features of FCPX that I wish were in ScreenFlow, and of course, there are features in ScreenFlow that I wish were in FCPX (Example: The screencasting) There are several advantages to all of these.  The important question is… what tool allows you to create your classroom resources quickly and effectively for your students to learn the best.  What provides a great experience for the user not only now, but in the future. ScreenFlow version 5 from Telestream is a great screencasting application that I would highly recommend to teachers and I think you will enjoy it too.   For more information, please visit: http://www.telestream.net/screenflow/overview.htm        Description:Record your screen. Edit your video. Share with the world. Telestream ScreenFlow® is an award-winning, powerful screencasting and video editing software for Mac that enables high-quality software or iPhone demos, professional video tutorials, in-depth video training, and dynamic presentations. With ScreenFlow you can record the contents of your entire monitor while also capturing your video camera, iOS device, microphone and your computer audio. The easy-to-use editing interface, updated with a fresh new look for Yosemite, lets you creatively edit your video, and add additional images, text, music and transitions for a professional-looking screencast. The result is an MP4 or QuickTime movie, ready for publishing to the Web or directly to YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, Facebook, Google Drive or Dropbox. Highest quality screen recording Retina display? No problem. Our efficient algorithm enables full-screen, 2880 x 1800-resolution screen capture with brilliant detail, while keeping file sizes low. Powerful video editing Easily add images, text, audio, video transitions and more to create professional-looking videos. Nested clips, closed captioning, chroma key, mouse callouts, annotations, rolling edits, video and audio filters, video actions such as iOS Touch callouts and freehand callouts are just a few of the touches that make ScreenFlow editing easy and powerful. Intuitive User Interface Every so often design and function combine to form an elegant piece of software that’s easy and fun to use. ScreenFlow makes editing video easy, so users can focus on creatively telling their story. Superior Export Quality & Speed ScreenFlow uses the popular x264 codec for significantly faster and higher quality H.264 exports. ScreenFlow runs as a fully 64-bit application, which improves overall performance, memory usage, export speed, and scalability. Expanded publishing options let you easily publish your video to YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, Google Drive, Dropbox or Facebook in just a few clicks. WHAT’S NEW IN SCREENFLOW 5 More options for recording • Record direct from your iOS device (Note: Requires a USB lightning connection, iOS 8 and Mac OS X 10.10) • Recording monitor • Add markers while recording • Customize your recording frame rate • Native support for MPEG Transport Stream/AVCHD file format Timesaving, powerful editing features • Streamlined new actions • Snapback actions • Action templates • "Touch" callouts • Direct access iPhoto and iTunes Library from the Media library • Improved media handling • Smoother playback of files using the Telestream Media Framework • Rolling edits • SRT import • Color labels on clips…Show Full Description & Screenshots    App Details:  Mac Screenshots:  $99.99 - View in App Store   by 14 users    $99.99    The post Video: Screencasting Tips and Tricks using the NEW @Telestream Screenflow 5.0 from appeared first on TeacherCast.net: Educational Blogs, Podcasts, App Reviews and more. Record your screen. Edit your video. Share with the world. Telestream ScreenFlow® is an award-winning, powerful screencasting and video editing software for Mac that enables high-quality software or iPhone demos, professional video tutorials, in-depth video training, and dynamic presentations. With ScreenFlow you can record the contents of your entire monitor while also capturing your video camera, iOS device, microphone and your computer audio. The easy-to-use editing interface, updated with a fresh new look for Yosemite, lets you creatively edit your video, and add additional images, text, music and transitions for a professional-looking screencast. The result is an MP4 or QuickTime movie, ready for publishing to the Web or directly to YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, Facebook, Google Drive or Dropbox. Highest quality screen recording Retina display? No problem. Our efficient algorithm enables full-screen, 2880 x 1800-resolution screen capture with brilliant detail, while keeping file sizes low. Powerful video editing Easily add images, text, audio, video transitions and more to create professional-looking videos. Nested clips, closed captioning, chroma key, mouse callouts, annotations, rolling edits, video and audio filters, video actions such as iOS Touch callouts and freehand callouts are just a few of the touches that make ScreenFlow editing easy and powerful. Intuitive User Interface Every so often design and function combine to form an elegant piece of software that’s easy and fun to use. ScreenFlow makes editing video easy, so users can focus on creatively telling their story. Superior Export Quality & Speed ScreenFlow uses the popular x264 codec for significantly faster and higher quality H.264 exports. ScreenFlow runs as a fully 64-bit application, which improves overall performance, memory usage, export speed, and scalability. Expanded publishing options let you easily publish your video to YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, Google Drive, Dropbox or Facebook in just a few clicks. WHAT’S NEW IN SCREENFLOW 5 More options for recording • Record direct from your iOS device (Note: Requires a USB lightning connection, iOS 8 and Mac OS X 10.10) • Recording monitor • Add markers while recording • Customize your recording frame rate • Native support for MPEG Transport Stream/AVCHD file format Timesaving, powerful editing features • Streamlined new actions • Snapback actions • Action templates • "Touch" callouts • Direct access iPhoto and iTunes Library from the Media library • Improved media handling • Smoother playback of files using the Telestream Media Framework • Rolling edits • SRT import • Color labels on clips…… Read more

Last week I was invited by a Marketing department to review their proposed eLearning. They were concerned at the constant re-education needed for sales people - "…they just don’t remember what we teach them". Their use of Articulate Storyline was excellent, branching, layers, states, and so on - so why wasn’t the training being successful? Over the first couple of hours, they mentioned, several times, that "…what we do is very complex", and their aim was to try and get salespeople to "expert" level. In this case, this was a valid requirement, salespeople do need expert-level knowledge to perform a consulting role for clients. Using a flipchart, I showed them that what they DO is actually very simple, using about 3 squares, 3 symbols, and two arrows. What was complex was HOW they did that - they had never put all the complex facts into a simple overall framework. Their teaching had no framework, and I suspect that this is why sales never remembered anything. Their role, as Marketing was to be "sales support", and I think they had just become the "sales confusion department". I received an email the next day, and I quote "… I can see now the importance of thinking from the end-user perspective and also to try to keep the content to a minimum and use illustrations, videos etc. to keep things interesting rather than bombarding the viewer with words." That is partly true, as it also needs to be relevant and meet sales’ ends, but they made a huge leap forward. When faced by the "classic SME" situation, be prepared to challenge, and talk in business-related language. Get out of your comfort zone. They wanted to know how to use Articulate Storyline more effectively. I explained how to run their business more effectively, using Storyline as one of the tools to get there, and they will now create courses, (and job aids…) so much for effectively because of that.

I was walking to a client earlier this week, and I passed an old-fashioned high street butchers shop. On the window was an advert which read "Pork…it’s tasty…try some now!" I laughed to myself, thinking about the simplicity and almost child-like communication. How "quaint". 7 hours later, after a heavy day of Articulate Storyline examples and semantic juggling, I walked back to the station, once again passing the same advert. It was a GREAT example of learning technique State the case for something to your learners - "Pork…" Explain the potential benefits to the user - "…it’s tasty" State the solution to an assumed problem (lack of pork), with a specific behavioural action - "…try some now" I had just spent a day largely doing just this - taking words and messages, and simplifying them with/for a client into learner actions. Perhaps we should all, occasionally, look back to the past to see where we are going. In the interests of keeping the "pork" theme going - I remembered a simple flowchart I once produced using Articulate Storyline - so I’ll leave you with the "Should I Eat Bacon" flowchart".