"What if our world would be turned into a game - indeed, what if?" Esta é a pergunta que surge no blogue de Sebatian Deterding na antevisão do que será um livro de que é co-autor a lançar em 2013: Steffen P. Walz, Sebastian Deterding (eds.): The Gameful World: Approaches, Issues, Applications. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. O livro tem já o seu próprio site onde é possível registar um endereço de email para notificação quando o livro for lançado e uma conta no Twitter: @gamefulworld. O livro pretende lançar alguma luz no debate sobre as consequências de introduzir elementos de jogos na vida quotidiana (a gamification of life), ou seja, criando um "gameful world". As consequências sociais, éticas e políticas e ainda as consequências para cada um de nós são discutidas por um conjunto de pessoas, umas contra outras a favor, que apresentam os seus depoimentos no livro a par de aplicações concretas e abordagens teóricas a esta tendência de evolução para um "gameful world". Sem dúvida, um debate interessante e a acompanhar.

When you create training material or an e-learning course, you do a target audience analysis. You basically think from a learner’s perspective while  designing a training.  You do this so that the learning process is effective. Now when it comes to creating help manuals or user manuals for applications, do you apply the same principle?  I have heard people say that when you do Technical Writing, you do not have to understand the user’s mind. All that you have to do is understand how the application functions and document all the tasks and procedures to work with the application. I partly agree with this. However I believe there is much more than understanding the application and features when it comes to creating  user manuals. When you create user manuals, target user analysis is extremely crucial. When I say target user analysis, I do not mean that you need to interview prospective users of the application. Target user analysis for user manuals has got to do a lot about determining how a user would use the application or product. How does this matter?  How does it help? Before we  proceed, download this  N73 user manual. The  N73 user manual is : Nice looking Covers all features Has all the instructions to use the features Well, is that not enough? Let us look at the Table of Contents (TOC)  of the manual. Here is a snapshot of  the Table of Contents  (TOC) of the N73 user manual:   When you check the TOC closely: Topics such as Camera, Media Applications have been given maximum priority because they are placed in the first page of the TOC. Topics  such as Making Calls and Messaging have been placed in the second page of the TOC. Topic such as Support has been placed in the first page of the TOC.  Let us shift our focus on the user. When a user uses any phone, what does he/she use it for?  Let us list a few things for which a user might use his/her phone for: Make Calls Message Listen to Music/Radio Take Pictures Things listed above form the natural workflow of a phone. In any phone, the priority is to make a call and then may be to send an SMS. Music Player and Camera are nice to have, cool features. Now imagine a user looking for information on how to make calls using N73. He/she has to go to page 63 to learn how to make calls when ironically anyone will want to first make a call using a phone. One reason why the N73 help manual gives a lot of priority to extra features in the phone is to bring those features to the user’s attention. Many people today buy a phone for its additional features like music player, camera etc. This is valid.  N73 is fairly easy application/product to use and you do not need a help manual to teach you how to use it. So may be it does not matter how you structure information in user manuals for such products. You have other complex software applications and people feel completely lost and clueless about where to begin and how to proceed.Most people scan user manuals or look for the information they want. In such cases, when the information structure in your user manual reflects the product’s natural workflow, it helps a great deal. Users instantly get a clue about the logical order of working with the features in the product.  I have tried this and it really works well. Please leave your comments/thoughts. I would love to hear from you

Foi publicado na Revista Iberoamericana de Evaluación Educativa o resultado de um trabalho de investigação sobre os fatores facilitadores do uso de recursos educativos digitais pelos professores do ensino básico e secundário. O trabalho é da autoria de Cornélia Castro, António Andrade e José Lagarto. Resumo Este estudo exploratório e descritivo procurou determinar empiricamente o grau de concordância, através de um questionário e-Delphi que decorreu em três etapas com 40 participantes de instituições de ensino superior e outras, relativamente aos fatores facilitadores do uso de recursos educativos digitais pelos professores do ensino básico e secundário. Os participantes foram cooptados em universidades públicas e privadas e em outras instituições, em áreas de conhecimento relacionadas com a educação, nomeadamente em investigação, na utilização das tecnologias e da informática em particular. Os resultados obtidos indicam algum grau de concordância na comunidade de participantes na investigação sobre os fatores facilitadores da utilização de recursos educativos digitais pelos professores. Estes resultados preliminares desafiam-nos a desenvolver o mesmo estudo junto dos professores do ensino básico e secundário, de forma a confrontar as perspetivas das duas comunidades que desempenham um papel preponderante na área da educação em Portugal. Pretende-se, desta forma, apresentar um contributo para que a prática da adoção e utilização de recursos educativos digitais nas escolas portuguesas seja sustentada. Está igualmente disponível o Abstract (in english). Neste trabalho de investigação foi usado um questionário e-Delphi. O método Delphi, citando o próprio trabalho, é definido como uma atividade interativa desenhada para combinar opiniões de um grupo de especialistas (grupo específico de pessoas especializadas no tema estudado) denominado de painel Delphi, para obtenção de consenso em torno de um problema complexo. Tive a oportunidade de participar no painel de especialistas do questionário cujos resultados foram usados por este trabalho. A análise dos resultados do inquérito revela que o fator considerado mais importante foi Usabilidade - qualidade científica e o fator considerado menos importante  foi Usabilidade - durabilidade. O trabalho pode ser consultado em formato HTML ou PDF. Referência Castro, C., de Andrade, A. M. y Lagarto, J. (2012). Identificação de Fatores Facilitadores da Utilização de Recursos Educativos Digitais pelos Professores: A Perspetiva de Especialistas num Estudo e-Delphi. Revista Iberoamericana de Evaluación Educativa, 5 (3), pp. 161-178. http://www.rinace.net/riee/numeros/vol5-num3/art10.pdf

I just finished a demo for a mobile application for a client and the good news is that he is really impressed. This demo was to introduce people to a particular feature in a mobile phone. It also had to cover the steps to use the feature. The objective was to make an impact and to draw people’s attention to a cool mobile feature. I am happy with the success of this particular demo. There was also so much learning that it prompted me to write this post. Before we proceed here is a sample demonstration of a mobile application: The video above is a nicely done demonstration for Gmail for Mobile. The demo has a host and captures actions done on the real mobile. You can also see fingers pressing the mobile key. I was very impressed with this demo for Gmail for Mobile. I have done a lot of tutorials and demos for software applications. With tools like Camtasia, you can very easily capture tasks done on a software application. When I was given a mobile application, I was a little uncomfortable because I had to do a demo for a physical application. I wanted to do something like the Gmail for Mobile demo but then budget was a constraint. Also I was worried about executing any idea that I had only because  of the fact that it was a physical application. My Experience With all the constraints in my mind, the first question that came to my mind was "How do I shoot the movie?" Some options were: A camcorder A web cam A SLR We did actually shoot a real movie using a camcorder. The quality was really poor. I was not convinced. Then I discovered that there is something call emulators for mobile phones. Using the emulator, you can project the mobile screen on your computer screen and you can use your keyboard keys to control the keys on the mobile phone. This sounded amazing. I suggested to my client that we ditch the movie taken using camcorder and try using an emulator. My client agreed and finally gave me the mobile screen captures in the from of avi videos. My plan was to use Camtasia to edit the avi videos and include my voice narration. When I saw the avi videos, I discovered that the videos showcased only the mobile screen. Something like shown in the image below: It did not make any sense just to show the mobile screen. I had to show the entire mobile. "Now how do I do this?" -  This was my next question. I had raw avi videos and some ppt slides. I did not think about execution first. It was important to plan the video before anything. How  my Instruction Design skills helped me My Instructional Design skills helped me visualize and plan the video well. I decided to use the powerpoint slides as my introductory slide. I displayed the output in the beginning itself. Then I showcased the steps to achieve the output. The feature was about transferring a particular image from one phone to another. So I made sure the workflow was right. I made sure every action and the expected result was placed one after the other. I removed all unnecessary portions of the video and focused on what is most important. I had to keep in mind that the video had to be not more than 2 minutes. Execution After I was sure about the storyboard, the next challenge was the execution part. I edited all the raw avi videos using Camtasia. I recorded my voice also using Camtasia. Since this was my first  voice recording, there were lot of retakes and it was lot of effort to achieve perfection. I decided to use a static background image of a mobile phone and wanted the movie to play in the mobile screen area. Something as shown below:   Crescent Shopping Centre Mobile Application by MobaNode from MobaNode on Vimeo.  Camtasia failed me here  because it did not allow me to include any background image. I realized that rapid e-learning tools have their own limitations. Finally I got my friend, a graphic designer to help me. I sent him the voice over files, the avi files and told him what he needs to do.  The video that I edited and exported using Camtasia did not play in my friend’s machine. That was the camtasia codec problem.  Despite downloading the codec, the problem persisted. Then I settled for taking screenshots from the avi video and sent all the images to my  friend. He used Flash to execute the whole video. The output was fantastic.  The demo was simple, appealing and the message was very clear. All our efforts got paid. I was happy with the design of the demo and surprisingly my voice was not  bad at all. Lessons Learnt Rapid Elearning tools have their own constraints Quality need not suffer because of budget You do not need a professional artist for voice over all the time It helps to visualize and plan your video Coordination skills help you execute well Please check the demonstration that I created below: Please visit: http://aquilonis.com Meanwhile, please leave your thought

A EDULEARN13 - 5th annual International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies terá lugar em Barcelona (Espanha), nos dias 1, 2 e 3 de julho de 2013. DEADLINE SUBMISSION: 27th March 2013 É possível nesta conferência a apresentação virtual de artigos que evita a deslocação ao local onde se realiza.

By ruparajgo | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon In school I am sure all of us have go through reading comprehension exercises. I am not sure how many of us enjoyed it though All of us understand what Reading Comprehension means. The web definition of Reading Comprehension is the level of understanding of a writing. Most of us have grown up reading a lot. We are used to reading novels, stories and magazines. We have honed our reading skills over a period of time. Yet there are times when we do not understand something or we might not be able to focus. If you are reading a novel or a story and it does not make sense, you can afford to keep the novel aside. What if you are an Instructional Designer dealing with content/information? If you are an Instructional Designer, I am sure you read content/information all the time. Content is King in any training material and Instructional Designer have to read/understand/evaluate the content before proceeding any further. Instructional Designers cannot afford to skip any subject matter. Instructional Designers cannot be choosy about what they want to read or work on. Instructional Designers have to deal with any subject. It could be algebra, biology, personality development, leadership, software, technology and any thing and everything. Imagine how much Instructional Designers have to read and grasp! Here are some questions with relevance to what an Instructional Designer do with content/information and what are the challenges he/she might face: What do Instructional Designers do with content/information? Read volumes of content/information and glean what is most important to learners. Read every bit of  information and identify which bit of information will make sense to learners. Read  information from different sources and present it in a logical and engaging fashion. What’s the challenge? Instructional Designers might have to read volumes of content within a short span of time. For example, if you have to convert a book to an online training material, you might have to read about 150 pages of content/information  in 6 hours or so and come up with the content outline.The challenge is not just reading the content but internalizing the information and looking at the content in terms of creating value for learners. What does this indicate? Instructional Designers must have Enhanced Reading Comprehension Skills. By enhanced, I mean not just superficial reading and understanding but getting to the essence of the subject matter. As an Instructional Designer, you must be able to go through volumes of content and glean the essence of the content in a short span of time. This is because project deadlines are always tight and you will not have the time you actually require to read up all the content. Well, gaining this enhanced reading comprehension skill is not so impossible as it appears. You can master any skill through a systematic approach and through a lot of practice. Here are some tips for budding Instructional Designers to gain enhanced reading comprehension skills: Before you start reading the content/information: Keep the objective of the training material/e-learning course in mind. Keep the target audience in mind. When you read the content/information from different sources: Scan through the content the first time. This way you will get comfortable with the content. Do not attempt to read line by line or word by word. You will waste a lot of time by doing this. Make sure you read all the content atleast twice. This will help you get a good grip of the content. When you read the content/information the second time, read closely. If you do not understand something and you have no external help, quickly google for the keyword. Again do not spend too much time researching if not required. If there is something you have no clue about, raise the alarm and get your superiors to attend to the problem. When you go through every page, make notes of interesting/important information. Make sure you note down the page numbers. Go back to the notes, examine the notes carefully and try to arrange the information in a logical order. By the end of this exercise, you will be able to visualize what the course outline must contain. As you work on the training material, keep going back to the source content every now and then. With this I end my post here and leave it open for discussion. What do you think? Do you think Instructional Designers must have excellent reading comprehension skills? As an Instructional Designer do you find any challenges reading content/information? What tips would you give for budding instructional designers to read/understand content/information well

A cometdocs é uma aplicação on-line que pode integrar a panóplia de ferramentas TIC usadas como auxiliares ao ensino ou integrar ambientes de e-learning. A Cometdocs.com é uma empresa canadiana sedeada em Toronto. A primeira versão da aplicação foi lançada em 2009 sendo na altura uma ferramenta gratuita de conversão de formatos de ficheiros. Agora, permite também o armazenamento, gestão e partilha de documentos na "nuvem". A conversão de formatos é feita on-line. A partilha pode ser pública ou privada, através de um link próprio. É possível a partilha com outros utilizadores registados e é também possível a partilha anónima não obrigando a registo de utilizador (através de um link válido por 24 horas). A interface da aplicação é simples e funcional. Testando a conversão de ficheiros de formato PDF para DOC verifica-se que funciona sem problemas para textos em inglês mas que não suporta caracteres específicos (caracteres com acento, cedilhas, etc), pelo menos, das língua portuguesa e espanhola que foram as testadas. São diversos os formatos suportados para conversão: doc, txt, xls, pptx, png, gif, jpeg, etc. A aplicação permite a criação de uma conta gratuita com espaço de 1 Gigabyte. Os ficheiros estão limitados a 100 Megabytes, é permitido fazer 15 conversões e transferir ficheiros para mais uma pessoa. As contas Premium e Pro permitem mais espaço de armazenamento, ficheiros maiores, conversões ilimitadas e maior número de pessoas com quem partilhar. Estas contas custam respetivamente 9,99 e 19,99 por mês (curiosamente, não é indicada a moeda. Serão dólares canadianos?). Apesar da concorrência de peso no que diz respeito a armazenamento, como a Dropbox ou o Google Drive, a Cometdocs é uma aplicação muito simpática e simples de usar, funciona inteiramente on-line e acresce a possibilidade de conversão de ficheiros e de partilha de documentos através de um link. As funcionalidades permitidas na conta gratuita são muito razoáveis. Pode ser que futuras versões suportem a conversão de textos noutras línguas que não o inglês. Apesar disto, é sem dúvida uma ferramenta a ter em conta.

Sometime back I had written a post on character driven stories for e-learning. This post talks about including emotions in e-learning that make a great impact on the audience. While strong emotions can make an impact, something light hearted can also make a great impact. I have always felt amazed at how some creative people come up with amazing ideas to include humour and fun in learning. I have also seen that when humour and fun is included in learning, it is always creativity at its best. When you want to use humour and fun in learning, you must think out of the box and you must not be restricted by traditional teaching/learning formats. Here are two amazing videos that illustrate humour and fun in learning. Facebook Manners This video is about dos and don’ts in the social networking site - Facebook. I love the way the dos and don’ts have been presented through a scenario. It is not just the scenario that appeals but the way the element of humour has been used. The video uses style parody of the 1950s to bring out the element of humour. I also like the way the rules are displayed from time to time on the screen. I really can remember every facebook rules taught in this video. This is because every scene is fresh in my mind only because of the humorous interaction between Alice and Timmy The next video is called  Creative Staircase. This is one other video that illustrates how the fun element makes learning happen so well. This video also illustrates well how an idea can be made to put to practice by creating a fun activity. Well coming up with such ideas does require a lot of creativity and imagination. Creative Staircase Hope you enjoy these two videos. Have you ever used the element of humour or fun while designing your e-learning or any training for that matter? I would love to  hear from you

Mais uma colaboração na análise de um caso de estudo de aplicação de gamification, proposto pela Gamfed - International Gamification Confederation. Depois de Disco Flipper, segue-se o TechHub Google Campus Noise Meter, que é um leaderboard (ou tabela de liderança) que mede o "barulho" que cada uma das start-ups presentes no TechHub no Google Campus em Londres. A tabela é publicada semanalmente por Toby Beresford, CEO e fundador da Leaderboarded, já mencionada aqui. A Leaderboarded também participa, ocupando o segundo lugar da última tabela publicada. A Leaderboarded como o nome indica, oferece um serviço de criação de tabelas de liderança a partir de diversas fontes de dados. O Noise Meter tem como objetivo "show who’s making the most noise on the twitterverse each week". É medida a atividade e a reciprocidade de cada start-up. A atividade é medida pela pontuação no Tech Kred Outreach adicionada com o número de posts publicados pela empresa. A reciprocidade analisa as respostas exteriores às atividades da empresa o que inclui o número de vezes que a empresa é mencionada no Twitter, no Kred influence score e nos comentários recebidos nos blogues. As pontuações obtidas na atividade e na reciprocidade são combinadas, com ponderações, para produzir a tabela. Esta é publicada na rede interna e afixada em papel. Atualmente, 60 empresas estão a participar. Para análise destes casos de estudo são considerados os objetivos da aplicação, se se trata de um uso efetivo de gamification, se esta poderia ter sido usada de uma forma melhor, quais as mecânicas usadas, se implicam um envolvimento de curto ou de longo prazo, se foram bem usadas, etc. O prazo para participação termina a 28 de março. Posteriormente será disponibilizado o respetivo white paper.

This post is in response to the Big Question December 2009 - What did you learn about learning in 2009? I guess this year I learnt much more than last year. Let me quickly list some highlights here: I have written better quality articles. I have gained good instructional designing and technical writing skills. I learnt microblogging through Twitter. The Instructional Designers Community of India was formed this year and I got the opportunity to organize learning sessions . I must say I was able to network with a lot of learning professionals through the community. I also gained a lot from these learning sessions. This year has also been very special because The Writers Gateway got featured in eLearning Learning and my post got listed in the Top 125 Workplace Elearning Posts . Also people have come to this blog  and left Thank you messages for the kind of help they found here. This is really exciting and encouraging Well, 2009 is also now very special because this year I decided to become an independent professional. This being said, presenting top posts from The Writers Gateway. Here are the top 10 posts of 2009, first from elearning Learning. 7 Invaluable Thoughts About Film Making that Applies toInstructional Designing too! Why You Should Have User Centric Tutorials for Software Products Have You Thought of Character Driven Stories for Your E-learning? Why Enhanced Reading Comprehension Skills Are a Must for Instructional Designers? My Experience and Lessons Learnt While Creating a Demonstration for a Mobile Application Check the complete list here. Posts that invited lot of discussions  in The Writers Gateway are: Technical Writing vs Instructional Designing - Is it really a tug of war? A "Hello World" Approach to Teaching Instructional Design According to The Writers Gateway Stats, the following posts have also got a lot of attention: Storyboard Templates for Instructional Designing What is a Scenario Based E-learning Course? Game of the Week : FarmVille Top 4 Things That You Can Do to Get Started with Instructional Design How Humour and Fun Work Wonders in Learning. Thank you all for making The Writers Gateway so special for me. Hope you continue to read posts @ The Writers Gateway. regards Rupa