Yesterday I got a call from Anika in Wisconsin who was asking about scripting and structuring her online course. Anika was concerned that she was going to write scripts that were probably going to be too long or too wordy. She wanted to be more efficient in how she was pulling together information and delivering it to her students as online course. To help her out, I created a short video where we go over a really simple way to structure your online course. This is the process we’ve used to create our own personal courses, as well as the courses you see on our training site. Since outlining and scripting is the first step in creating an online course, I wanted to share the video with you as part of our new Youtube show - Teach Online TV. Enjoy! Start With Why The first step to creating a script is to look at it from the perspective of writing an outline and start with the question of why. Why is your student taking your course? Really think about that question and dig deep. Think about how taking your course will change your students’ lives. Will they be better off financially? Will they learn a new skill and make money with it? Will they be able to complete some new art project or be more fit and eat better? Because that’s really what people are looking for and this is going to impact all of your marketing efforts. So, start from that question, how is their life going to be different when they finish your online course and then work backwards to create the steps that they’re going to take to get there. Note - We’ve also created a worksheet that you can download and use offline. Click here to get it! Break It Down Now that you have the answer to that question, you need to come up with five or ten steps that someone is going to take to arrive at that destination. So, for example, let’s say my life is going to be different because I will be eating much healthier after following the ten steps in your course. So those are your ten high level steps and that’s what you start with. Write those down, they should just be a couple of words each, and once you’ve got that then, within each of those steps, you’re going to break it down into another hierarchy. So to accomplish that first step, what are the sub-steps that you need to take to get there? Here’s an example of what your course break down could look like. Essentially you can keep breaking down the topics into steps until your lowest level step is small enough that you can teach it in 2-7 minutes. At that point you can start scripting those individual steps. How will my life be different after I take your course? ___________________ Big Steps or Milestones to achieve the result above: _______________________ (First milestone) Step 1 towards your first Milestone Micro-Step 1______________ (usually by this point you have broken things down far enough that each of these micro steps can be a 2-7 minute lesson) Micro-Step 2 Micro-Step 3 Step 2 - towards first Milestone Step 3 - etc. _______________________ (Second milestone) etc. And you can continue doing this for each of those high-level steps. Generally, I find only two or three levels is ideal. so you’ve got your first set of, say, ten steps and then each one of those steps is broken down into sub-steps and then, at most, each of those sub-steps is further broken down into a few more. Now, when you get to the bottom of that hierarchy, each one of those items is a two to seven minute lesson and you can deliver that message in video or a presentation with voice-over. Create Lessons After you’ve broken it down you can start to work, one by one, on what you’re going to teach people to achieve that goal. It simplifies the whole process, because when you’re writing your script you’re not necessarily thinking about the huge structure of the course and working all the way to that endgame. You’re writing your script from the perspective of this one little goal that you’re going to achieve that’s going to work up that hierarchy and eventually down all of those steps and flow into that end result that you want. I think that’s a great way to approach scriptwriting and a great way to approach coming up with that overall curriculum for your course. It’s going to break it up into bite-sized pieces and it will give you a much better end result. Give It A Shot Hopefully, that gives you a simple framework for structuring and scripting your online course. Give it a shot and let us know how it worked out for you in the comments below. We’ve also created a worksheet that you can download and use offline. Click here to get it! We’re also here to answer your questions, so if you have more questions about creating and marketing and launching online courses, let us now, we’d be happy to help. You can get your questions answered on Teach Online TV by asking us on Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag #TeachOnline. And if you haven’t checked out Thinkific yet, what are you waiting for? It’s free! The post Teach Online TV #01: Scripting Your Online Course appeared first on Thinkific.

Top Topics and Trends from Learning Technologies 2016! #LT16 A long foot soak was required after a very busy two days at Learning Technologies 2016. The PulseLearning team has been catching up on the main take-away topics and trends presented and discussed during this year’s conference. Conference Tagline: Mobile First! To date the industry has […] The post Learning Technologies 2016 | What we Learned! appeared first on PulseLearning.

They say everything's bigger in Texas. Well the #TCEA16 Annual Conference and Exposition Feb 1 - 5, 2016, did not disappoint. Not only were there a lot of people (over 9000 attendees), but the energy and enthusiasm were equally grand. This year, EdTechTeam went all out with sessions, workshops, exhibit presentations, panel participation and so much more. We kicked things off on Monday by participating in the Google Academy panel. 1100 educators participated by providing pressing questions around the use of Google Apps. One of the key topics that came up most was around identifying the best digital platforms for learning, best tools, resources, creative spaces, safety, and more.It helped solidify that educators in Texas are pushing the envelope beyond the tech and towards creating safe creative and engaging learning environments for students. The panel was led by Google Academy Steering Committee members Stuart Burt and Kasey Bell. Panelists included Carolyn Foote, Eanes ISD; Rafranz Davis, Lufkin ISD; Scott Floyd, White Oak ISD; Monica Martinez, EdTech Team; and Tom Woods, AmplifiedIT. The entire day's program can be found here: Google Academy.Google Education now has a dedicated Texas team to help support GAFE and Chromebook initiatives. Throughout the week they too had a big presence. During the Google Academy and in Room 2 they showcased the Google Expeditions program. With more than 100 current expeditions, the virtual reality platform built for the classroom, engages students in a whole new perspective. Since August 2015, over 500,000 students have gone on an Expedition.If you didn’t get a chance to experience Expeditions, check out the program here: https://www.google.com/edu/expeditions. Sign up to let them know you’d like the Expeditions Pioneer Program to stop at your school. They’ll be making their way to as many schools as possible, but spots are limited. So sign up today!Monday night we had the opportunity to lead and co-sponsor the Texas Google Educator Group Party honoring the Texas GEG Leaders, Texas Google Certified Innovators, Texas Google Certified Trainers, and Administrators. Along with our partners Google for Education and AmplifiedIT, we hosted a two-hour networking event with games, food, and door prizes. 175 Google enthusiasts came together for the night. Texas is well represented among the Google certified educator community. To date there are:>150 Google Certified Trainers>25 Google Certified Innovators>97 district + 6 ESCs in the Texas GAFE Technical CollaborativeAcross the world there are 50 million using Google Apps for Education (GAFE) and 10 million using Classroom. There are 30,000 Chromebooks being activated in schools every school day making it the #1 device in the US two years running.With the continued growth of GAFE deployments and Chromebook implementations across Texas, we’ll be working with passionate educators interested in becoming certified educators. To learn how to become certified and to host a certification training at your school or campus, contact Kate Petty (kate@edtechteam.com). Hosts will receive 3 comp tickets. Huge thanks to Google for Education for their continued support and Google Fiber for the space to host the event. Thanks to AmplifiedIT for providing the funding for our food and WeVideo for providing some of our door prizes.  Monday was only the beginning! We continued the week with back to back sessions and workshops with the Google Edu Team in Room 2, with ViewSonic in the exhibit hall, and throughout the event including a live radio spot on the official TCEA Radio channel. EdTechTeam featured Monica Martinez (EdTechTeam’s Regional Director), Stephanie Villegas, and new to Texas, Sergio Villegas. These Texas rock stars facilitated 21 sessions throughout the week. We tweeted all of our resources, but in case you missed them, here they are: edtech.team/AtTCEA16.On that note, huge thanks for the love on Twitter last week. If you're looking for resources on Google Apps or edtech, here are some great folks to follow and don’t forget to search twitter for #gafesummit. EdTechTeam @edtechteamMonica Martinez @mimg1225Sergio Villegas on Google+Stephanie Villegas @Ms_CerdaOut of everything we shared, our GAFE Tips poster tweet got the most love. People signed up to receive our 11x17 posters that showcase tips on different Google Apps services like Docs, Slides, Chrome, Cardboard, and more. During the TCEA conference, we designed two more: Chromebooks and GAFE Workflows. If you're interested in receiving these posters, sign up here: edtech.team/GAFEposters.All in all, it was a great event for us. We loved being able to connect with old friends like our partners TextHelp and WeVideo, and our 2015 Google Apps for Education Summit hosts. It was also great to make new connections. Among the discussions, we identified new hosts for Google events in 2016. Last year we had amazing hosts in South Texas (Weslaco ISD), East Texas (Sabine Pass ISD), and the Texas Panhandle (Canyon ISD). In addition to these areas, we’re super excited to announce our new 2016 hosts for Google Apps Summits:South Plains Summit (Lubbock ISD) June 1 - 2North Texas (Burleson ISD) June 8 - 9Dallas Area (Royse City ISD) Coastal Bend (Corpus Christi ISD) June 14 - 15and back for year two…Texas Panhandle Summit (Canyon ISD) June 22 - 23And that's not it! We have more in the works for west Texas (Big Bend area and El Paso), East Texas (Beaumont/Port Arthur area), central Texas (Temple, Waco, Hays County), and south Texas (Rio Grande Valley). We hope that you will join us at one or more of these events. More information can be found at tx.gafesummit.com.

Dublin, Ireland February 11th 2016 - Craig Weiss, the most influential person in the global eLearning sector, has named LearnUpon his #8 LMS for 2016. LearnUpon was also named the #2 LMS for SMBs and #2 LMS for associations in Weiss’s influential industry analysis. LearnUpon is the only LMS in the top 10 that allows users to "buy now, go live now" at all price points. The feature enables businesses to deliver eLearning from the moment they sign up to the platform. In positioning LearnUpon ahead of 682 other systems, Weiss recognized the company’s impressive expansion. LearnUpon has doubled its customer base over the past year to become the fastest-growing LMS in the world.   This is the third consecutive year that LearnUpon has risen in Weiss’s annual report ranking the top 50 of 690 learning management systems available globally. Weiss praised the cloud LMS for delivering "a lot for a low price point, even at 1,000 users." The industry’s most respected expert commended LearnUpon’s dedication to constantly improving the platform, with new features released monthly. Weiss singled out LearnUpon’s Gold, Platinum and Enterprise packages for recommendation to prospective LMS buyers.   Rankings are based on an independent assessment conducted by Weiss’s company, E-Learning 24/7. LearnUpon was awarded its three top positions based on criteria like pricing, features, ease of implementation and integration, and the security, reliability, and scalability of the LMS. In his blog post announcing the award, Weiss described LearnUpon as "a very easy to use LMS which continues to go up the rankings, every year."   The achievement confirms LearnUpon’s leading position in the LMS market. The cloud-based LMS now serves over 500 customers internationally, including PING, Mars, Citrix, Deliveroo and DocuSign. Commenting on the award LearnUpon’s CEO, Brendan Noud, said: "We’re delighted to have risen once again in Craig Weiss’s definitive report on the LMS market. As one of the most influential people in the eLearning industry for many years, it is great to be ranked in the Top 10 LMSes globally for the 2nd year in a row. Our solution is unique in the top 10 in offering instant implementation from the moment of sign up. Placing in the top 8 of almost 700 LMS vendors is something we’re very proud of. We’re getting ready to roll out some of our biggest ever developments to continue to deliver the best service in the market to our hundreds of happy customers."   Try LearnUpon free for 30 days .learnupon.com Agree to Terms of Service Start my free trial The post Craig Weiss names LearnUpon a top 10 LMS for 2016 appeared first on LearnUpon.

Exploring the CIF: The importance of Data Analytics Guest writer: Judy Bloxham Recent headline cases of poor and inadequate Ofsted inspection results should act as an alert to all, of the change of focus in the Common Inspection Framework (CIF) introduced last year. The results of the first five colleges inspected under the new CIF […]

Content from the nowcomms.com: the B2B marketing company for tech busineses in education, sports, security & ID. See the full story here Say hello to #NoFluff marketing It’s fast, honest and it’s free. This week, during a quick rush of blood to the head, we launched our #NoFluff marketing offer. It’s a free and exclusive deal for anyone mentioned in the #LTExitpoll we ran last week. Here’s the skinny Every year we get lots of people asking questions about the squeaky details behind the #LTexitpoll. Those who do well naturally want to know exactly how well they did. Those with honorable mentions want to know just how close they came to getting the cigar. So this year we thought we’d answer these calls by producing #NoFluff ads based on real feedback from actual #LT16UK visitors. Here’s the brave and the bold bit You don’t get to see the ad before we publish it. It’s #NoFluff. Its message is based squarely on honest feedback from the real L&D professionals we questioned at Learning Technologies last week. And when you think it right through, what possible added value could highly paid, well educated company brand managers add to that ;). Here’s one we did earlier Want one of your own? Just like us on facebook.       See the full story Say hello to #NoFluff marketing

Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds. "Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." - John F. Kennedy - via @AdriaanG_LP @Tom_Peters: "Presidents rarely get good advice. Every "presenter" presents a totally biased solution-often suppressing competing evidence." @DonaldClark: Unified theory of ‘learning’ emerges - and it’s mind blowing "The idea is that learned behavior, and not just environment and genes, influences the direction and rate of the evolution of psychological and physical traits. The mind is a learning machine and it is the various aspects of this ability to ‘learn’ that may have had driven evolution and our success as a species. The Baldwin Effect places ‘learning’ on a larger theoretical canvas, lying at the heart of evolutionary theory. It is no longer just a cognitive ability, albeit a complex one, with many different systems of memory, but a feature that defines the very success of our species." Informal knowledge sharing alone will create employable workforces - via @C4LPT [I can’t really disagree with this] "For a company to thrive, it must create a culture where knowledge is actively shared between employees, partners and customers. This mostly comes from informal learning, which can include everything from social interactions both online and offline and curated insights from various sites and key influencers that are personalized to each individual’s interest-graph." Elon Musk on how to build knowledge - via @AndreaKuszewski How do you learn so much so fast? Lots of people read books and talk to other smart people, but you’ve taken it to a whole new level. Musk: I do kinda feel like my head is full! My context switching penalty is high and my process isolation is not what it used to be. Frankly, though, I think most people can learn a lot more than they think they can. They sell themselves short without trying. One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree — make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to. Coopération : la technologie renforce le naturel "Jacques Lecomte insiste sur ce point : "nous sommes prédisposés pour l’entraide, mais non programmés pour cela". Les travaux de Robert Axelrod, notamment The evolution of cooperation, ont d’ailleurs bien montré l’influence du milieu sur l’apparition et la diffusion de comportements coopératifs." Image: Gapingvoid Art

I am excited to be bringing you our 11th episode on adapted physical education and activity (APE/APA). This episode specifically focused on non-profits within the field of adapted physical activity for people with disabilities. We were able to gather a terrific panel of directors from various non-profits from across the nation. In this podcast we discuss topics relating to why someone would start a non-profit all the way to how to get people with disabilities more involved in physical activity.Additionally, we are very excited to have added a new portion to the show. It is called What's New in History in Adapted Physical Activity. The portion looks at interesting events and facts in history with people with disabilities. Not all of the features will pertain to APE/APA events. Such as the one I chose to spotlight today, where does sign language (ASL) come from. Let me know what you think of the new portion.We interviewed three different non-profits from throughout the nation. Here is a quick description of the organizations that were on the podcast:RISE Adaptive Sports:RISE is based in North Texas. RISE offers a variety of different inclusive activities and sports for people with disabilities. A few of the sports they offer include WCMX (Extreme Wheelchair Skating), Wheelchair Rugby, and Water Skiing. RISE's mission is to empower and inspire people with disabilities through recreational and adaptive sports. Click here to learn more about RISE.TEAM GUTS: GUTS offers fitness opportunities to people with special needs. Team GUTS offers programs such as strength training, yoga, dance, ballet, Zumba, and Boxercise (boxing/exercise), as well as sports-specific programs like soccer, football, and baseball for people with disabilities. GUTS is located right outside of Detroit, Michigan.  Click here to learn more about GUTS. Adaptive Sports and Recreation Association (ASRA):ASRA works to build programs of adaptive sports for individuals with a physical disability by providing competitive league sports, recreational team sports, instructional camps, sports clinics, and offers other adaptive sports based on need and interest. ASRA is based out of San Diego, California. Click here to learn more about Adaptive Sports and Recreation Association.One last announcement for the podcast, is that we are currently looking for sponsors to help our podcast movement grow. Please let me know if you are interested in running a quick advertisement on the show. You can message us through the comments section on the right side of the blog. All the ads are required to be related to disabilities or disability services. 

Last week, the folks over at LEGO® Education were kind enough to send me their new WeDo 2.0 kit for review.  This kit is designed to help teach elementary students the basics of programming, robotics, and even STEM skills through hands-on, interactive methods.  It’s a pretty awesome tool, with a lot of educational potential, and you can find out more on our reviews page!

In the spirit of professional growth and a bright beginning to the New Year, please enjoy The Learning Café’s new Six Word Aspiration tool. You may be familiar with six word stories; they have been used for over a decade as a creative way to express important ideas in communities, business, churches, even the military. There is something about succinct, distilled phrases that draw out our deepest intents. Pretty cool, it works. And of course, you’re welcome to share with your colleagues, friends and family. Click here to view the PDF.