I received an inquiry about resources that would help instructors who are about to move into teaching online courses.  It made me immediately think back to my first experience with an online session.  It was the first ever public session for Placeware - a virtual meeting software company that was much later acquired by Microsoft and became Microsoft Live Meeting.  Because it was their first ever public session and my first ever online session neither of us knew what we were doing.  The topic was roughly (surprise) New Technology for eLearning.  They had 100 people participating.  And because it was public they made sure that everyone was muted including the moderator. So we start the session and I’m sitting alone in front of my computer at Loyola Marymount (this must be before 2000).  I was holding my handset to my ear (no headset in my office).  And I had prepared the way I always did at that point for live, in-person audiences.  Remember I taught class several times a week to live audiences, and this was a topic that I presented all the time at professional conferences.  No problem, right? I was not at all prepared for what I experienced.  About five minutes into the presentation, with me alone in my office, and everyone muted (literally there is zero sound coming back through) and no prepared stopping points for interaction.  Well any good presenter who faces an audience that is completely quiet, sitting still knows they are dying.  And I felt like I was completely dying.  There was zero feedback.  I felt my energy level get used up completely.  I was doing everything I could to make it more interesting, but no matter how much passion I put into the phone - no reaction.  Panic set in roughly 7 minutes into the presentation! After that experience, I vowed to try to stink up virtual presentations less in the future.  And every once in a while, I realize that I’m not doing a good job.  It definitely takes additional thinking/preparation to be good online. And that’s only a single session.  If you are going to teach a course online or run an online learning event or an online conference, then there’s even more to being successful at that. So, what I thought I would do is go back and see what resources I could find some good resources that would help me and could be used by instructors be better prepared to teach online.  What a difference a decade makes - now there’s almost TOO much information. As always I do this by looking through eLearning Learning and related sites like Communities and Networks Connection.   I looked at Virtual Classroom, Distance Learning, ILT, Teaching Distance Learning.  I also did some quick searches for various kinds of things and added them into eLearning Learning (via delicious).  So together, I’ve collected a bunch of resources pretty quickly.  That said, there’s so much already out there on this - I’m at this point not quite sure what the real question was/is.  Certainly a lot of this is already findable.  I hope this is useful.  But I think the problem at this point might be something else.  Still here are 60 great resources. Books By going to one of these on Amazon - you can easily find a TON of additional books. Engaging the Online Learner: Activities and Resources for Creative Instruction (Jossey-Bass Guides to Online Teaching and Learning) Building Online Learning Communities: Effective Strategies for the Virtual Classroom (Jossey Bass Higher and Adult Education Series) The Online Teaching Survival Guide: Simple and Practical Pedagogical Tips Essential Elements: Prepare, Design, and Teach Your Online Course Making the Move to eLearning: Putting Your Course Online Creating a Sense of Presence in Online Teaching: How to Side note - one of the cool things is that one of these book recommendations came because my delicious activity (related to eLearning) auto-tweets and someone saw my tweets and then put in a recommendation to their book on the subject.  I would guess that’s an automated search or something - but still very smart way to market/PR. Teaching Online Top 10 Best Practices for Teaching Online- Litmos, The Secret of Delivering Outstanding Virtual Classroom Training by Frank Gartland- Ignatia Webs, April 15, 2008 Live online learning - a free download- Clive on Learning, October 13, 2009 The Agile Elearning Design Manual - Why Synchronous Learning makes so much sense today- Free as in Freedom, July 21, 2009 Using Teleseminars For Training- The eLearning Coach, September 7, 2010 Faculty Training for Online Teaching Better Beginnings: How to Capture your Audience in 30 seconds - webinar by Carmen Taran- Free as in Freedom, January 28, 2010 Progressing towards onlignment- Clive on Learning, August 14, 2009 What Makes A Successful Online Facilitator? 13 Tips for Virtual World Teaching Preparing Teachers to Teach Online Tips and Tricks for Teaching Online: How to Teach Like a Pro! Online Teachers: Instructions - Online Pedagogy/Teaching Tools How to facilitate synchronous learning for real and virtual learners using technology?- IDiot, March 28, 2010 Key Steps to Preparing Great Synchronous Interactions- Experiencing eLearning, April 1, 2010 NEA's Guide to Teaching Online (PDF) Web meetings, webinars and virtual classrooms compared- Onlignment, August 21, 2009 Tips For Making Virtual Classroom Sessions More Interactive | Mobile Technology in TAFE, November 21, 2008 Perceived Advantages and Disadvantages- MinuteBio, March 24, 2009 Rubrics for WebLessons Promoting Distance- Learning Technology Learning, September 24, 2010 Cheating in Online Courses- eLearning Acupuncture, April 28, 2010 Changing Roles for Educators (CCK08: Paper 2)- Learnadoodledastic, November 10, 2008 Rubrics for Web Lessons Faculty Training for Online Teaching Preparing Instructors for Quality Online Instruction Converting Instructor-Led Training to E-learning or Distance Learning: Keys to success- Bottom-Line Performance, April 30, 2010 Building Student Engagement in Online Courses- April 15, 2009 How do I learn to teach online?- eLearning Acupuncture, September 9, 2009 5 Easy Tips for Teaching Online Courses- Learning Putty, January 18, 2010 Online Games for Teaching Business Concepts and Ideas- Kapp Notes, October 16, 2009 Online Success - a recipe for learners and facilitators- Designed for Learning, February 14, 2010 5 laws of human nature and online collaborative communities- Thinking Cloud, December 18, 2009 37signals’ Idealogy Meets Online Training (Part 1): Meetings are Toxic- Mindflash, August 24, 2010 Teaching online forces better pedagogy- Learning Conversations, September 16, 2009 50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story (Alan Levine)- ZaidLearn, December 16, 2007 The power of Voice in online classrooms- eLearning Acupuncture, May 31, 2010 The Secret Recipe to Delivering World Class Lectures- ZaidLearn, August 29, 2009 E-teaching personality is good for e-learning- Electronic Papyrus, January 5, 2010 Online Discussions Face-to-Face Versus Threaded Discussions: The Role of Time and Higher Order Thinking Dr. Katrina A. Meyer, Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks Ten Tips for Generating Engaged Online Discussions Katherine Fischer, Donna Reiss, Art Young Online Discussions: Tips for Instructors Center for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo Organizing and Managing Good Online Discussions Learning Technologies Center, University of Manitoba The Effectiveness and Development of Online Discussions MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching Three-pronged approach to online discussions for learning A few strategies for setting the right tone for online discussions Some guidelines for discussion participation Social Networks TCC09: Evaluating Social Networking Tools for Distance Learning- Experiencing eLearning, April 14, 2009 Learning with 'e's: Teaching with Twitter- Learning with e's, April 23, 2009 Twitter for Learning - 55 Great Articles Effective Online Conferences 19 Tips for Effective Online Conferences Effective Web Conferences - 41 Resources Online Conferences and In-Person Conferences, Online Conference Formats eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

In response to the latest post in the series on Text-to-Speech (TTS): Text-to-Speech Overview and NLP Quality, Digital Signal Processor and Text-to-Speech, Using Text-to-Speech in an eLearning Course, Text-to-Speech eLearning Tools - Integrated Products, Text-to-Speech vs Human Narration for eLearning, and Using Punctuation and Mark-Up Language to Increase Text-to-Speech Quality. Javed Alam pointed me to a couple of Text-to-Speech eLearning Examples, so I thought I’d capture a few of the examples here. I would welcome pointers to additional examples! Example #1 - Introduction to Venice - Qwiki uses Text-to-Speech in really interesting ways. Example #2 - CompUSA Dealer Training - Legal Issues - Legal services presentation on a company web site Example #3 - Calculating Usain Bolt's Power - Math derivation. Example #4 - Jane Eyre Meets Mr. Rochester in the Garden Example #5 - Concepts of Calculus with Professor Paul Example #6 - Magic PowerPoint Voices - Dialog between Paul and Heather synched with animations Example #7 - A bit older example using NeoSpeech 1.0 Example #8 "Degree of Freedom E-Lecture with Animated Agent" - a bit older with an animated agent. Want to See Your Course as an Example? Dr. Joel Harband has made an offer to create some brief examples using PowerPoint-based courses that a corporation had developed using a real voice. He would need the original PowerPoint presentation of the course together with the narration script that was used. He could then create part or all of the course using TTS voices instead and we could demo the result. Of course, I would want to show the original so we can show a comparison. If you would like to do this, please contact me via email: akarrer@techempower.com Questions? And, if you have any questions at this point in the series on the use of Text-to-Speech, please ask away. eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

The most satisfying scene was a simple reunion in front of Botticelli’s "Primavera." The post Hannibal GIF and a Graf: TV’s Most Romantic Scene This Year appeared first on WIRED.

Dupree Jones is at San Diego Comic-Con, where's dressed like Darth Vader and throwing Force Choke holds to asphyxiate all who cross his path. The post Darth Vader’s Running Around Comic-Con Choking People
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I’ve been recently working on lots of eLearning strategy consulting engagements and one of my colleagues asked me to provide a set of resources around this topic.  I went back and looked at what I had written before on eLearning Strategy and saw that I had said at the time: I've spent several hours this morning trying to find good resources on eLearning Strategy development and particularly looking for examples to use in this post. I've really been striking out. I'm hoping that people will help out.  This time I had better luck and also had great luck searching for elearning strategy articles on eLearning Learning under the topic pages: eLearning Strategies, Learning Strategies and Strategy.  Here’s some of what I found.  It’s still needs more, but represents a good starting point for review: eLearning Strategy (PDF) Elearning - A Primer Learning 2.0 Strategy eLearning 3.0 Top-Down Strategy What does a real life e-learning strategy look like? 14 Things We Can Learn from the BEST - Part 1 The Ten Commandments of eLearning Optimizing eLearning Strategy (Bryan Chapman) The eLearning Guild's Handbook of e-Learning Strategy Strategizing informal learning When a Rapid Approach Makes the Most Sense by Patti Shank Social Learning Strategies Checklist Checklist of Social Learning Strategies How To Create Successful M-Learning Strategy: mLearnCon - Part I e-learning strategy - the year ahead Social Learning Strategies, Models, and Roles Getting strategic- Learnlets Your Enterprise 2.0 Strategy Is Flawed - Now Embrace It- Engaged Learning Strategy, strategically- Learnlets elearning, strategically- Learnlets 21st Century Learning Strategies- Spark Your Interest The Performance Environment- Learnlets Compliance training treatment hierarchy- Thinking Cloud Use Learning Paths to develop the right Learning Strategy- Free as in Freedom Strategy as Process, Not Product: The Learning Value Chain by Ellen Behrens 10 Strategies for Integrating Learning and Work (part 1) 10 Strategies for Integrating Learning and Work (part 2) 10 Strategies for Integrating Learning and Work (part 3) Breathing life into an informal learning strategy Web 2.0 Strategy Strategies for learning and performance support: a summary Twitter in learning strategies: Yes or No? Strategizing informal learning Five Steps to Mobile Learning Success by Brian Taliesin If you feel I’m missing good articles, please let me know. eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

"It is the quality of the moment, not the number of days, or events, or of actors, that imports." — Ralph Waldo Emerson I can imagine the conversation that Ralph Waldo Emerson and Conrad Gottfredson might have if they were to meet. Two big thinkers, tossing around ideas about how we humans experience our lives, our work and our learning. Oh, to be a fly on that wall. Gottfredson, Bob Mosher and many others are moving the training & learning world past a single event-based training model and really embracing all that we need to consider as we aim to support performance on the job. Hallelujah! In the training & learning world, we now commonly talk about the "Five Moments of Learning Need," or the five opportunities to support learners as they reach and sustain competence. From the Gottfredson & Mosher’s recent Learning Solutions Magazine article, the Five Moments of Learning Need are: When people are learning how to do something for the first time (New); When people are expanding the breadth and depth of what they have learned (More); When they need to act upon what they have learned, which includes planning what they will do, remembering what they may have forgotten, or adapting their performance to a unique situation (Apply); When problems arise, or things break or don’t work the way they were intended (Solve); and, When people need to learn a new way of doing something, which requires them to change skills that are deeply ingrained in their performance practices (Change). The first two to three Moments typically fall within the realm of formal learning, where decisions are being made centrally about what to learn, in what order and how to go about it. We can set up resources, brokered support systems and troubleshooting guides for Moments 3 through 5, but the what, when and how of the learning is informally driven by the learner. It’s not unusual for one of our project teams to think through a client’s situation using something akin to Cathy Moore’s Action Mapping approach for each of the Moments.   We didn’t think 5 was enough. In our work with clients, we’re finding ourselves adding a few more moments … and our experience tells us we’re onto something. We see two Moments that come before the first formal training experience: 0.            Before people know they need to know something (Aware) 0. 5         When people are preparing to learn something for the first time (Prepare) As training professionals, we have the opportunity to do something quite intentional as we make learners aware of a learning and performance gap, and as we help them prepare for their training. At Moment 0, it’s entirely possible that your target learning audience doesn’t even know that they need to learn something new in order to do their jobs well. Or, they may not know the extent to which the gap in their knowledge prevents them from helping move the organization toward its collective goals. Pre-course messages need to build this burning platform, ideally without embarrassing people about what they don’t know. In order to make sure that training is truly actionable - and not just an interesting diversion - it needs to be tied back to the goals of the organization, the department, the team and the individual. That’s where cleverly-numbered Moment 0.5 comes in. One of our favorite concepts around that preparation is from Rob Brinkerhoff & Anne Apking’s book, High Impact Learning. The Training Impact Map offers learners and their managers an opportunity to connect individual learning needs through the training event and on to departmental and organizational goals. Each participant will then be prepared to get a "specific most" out of the experience.   "Oh, you’ve been trained on that. Just go show Tim how to do it." Not so fast. Call me biased, but there is a qualitative difference in knowing how to do something and knowing how to teach something. That’s where our final moment of learning need comes in: 6.            When people need to teach the concept to others (Teach)   At Moment 6, when the learner becomes a teacher (or a guide or a coach), he or she will probably need more than just a brush-up on the basics. At this point, the key skill is in being able to generalize the skill and apply it in new situations that are relevant to the new learners. That’s now Eight Moments of Learning Need. What a needy bunch, these learners! In all seriousness, all the moments of need aren’t going to come into play every single time. It’s a good practice, though, that will uncover hidden requirements as it helps you think through all the facets of the problem at hand.   Now go do something momentous! Like perhaps join the discussion! Drop us a line here.

This post is part of the series on Text-to-Speech (TTS) for eLearning written by Dr. Joel Harband and edited by me. The other posts are: Text-to-Speech Overview and NLP Quality, Digital Signal Processor and Text-to-Speech, Using Text-to-Speech in an eLearning Course, Text-to-Speech eLearning Tools - Integrated Products, Text-to-Speech vs Human Narration for eLearning, and Using Punctuation and Mark-Up Language to Increase Text-to-Speech Quality. Text-to-Speech Examples In this post, we will look more closely at costs of Text-to-Speech and issues around TTS Voice Licensing and Pricing.  The subject of TTS voice licensing and pricing is important because it helps e-learning practitioners understand which TTS tools they are legally allowed to use for their specific applications as well as letting them estimate the costs and pricing models of using these TTS tools. Voice Talent Rates and Implications on TTS Licensing and Pricing When the TTS voice manufacturers looked for a pricing model for their product, they naturally looked at the model used by real voice talents, including the rates and the types of usage. Here are some examples of rates of voice talents suited for e-learning (voice talents for advertising can be a lot more). The rates are given in $ per hour of recorded sound. Site Rate per hour www.e-learningvoices.com/price-per-minute.php $1200 www.voices.com $800-$1200 www.voice123.com $1800 (median) www.narratorfiles.com $650 The average for this type of voice talent is about $1200/hour. In addition, voice talents and voice producers tend to charge depending on the purpose of the recording and size of the intended audience of the recording. If the recording is going to be heard by many people and helps the customer make a lot of money, the voice talents expect to get more money than if the recording has a very limited use. The rates will be different for local, regional or national broadcasts. For example: a 30 second recording for a TV commercial broadcast all over the US may cost several times more than a five minute recording for a local documentary (voice123.com). The TTS vendors learned two things from the voice-talent pricing model: The price level - Because of their perceived lower voice quality, TTS voices need to be priced much lower than their real counterparts to be an attractive alternative The TTS voice price need to be fixed according to the value of its use to the customer. Based on the second criterion, the TTS vendors work with the following two general usage categories: Personal Use - reading books, making sound files for personal use, etc. This is a low value usage. Audio Distribution - a sound file that was created with the voice is distributed and played to an audience. This usage has a higher value. Audio Distribution Audio distribution, which is similar to broadcasting a voice talent recording, is considered to be a usage that is more valuable to the customer. Within audio distribution the following categories exist. They are listed according to increasing value to the customer: Internal audio distribution - a company puts an audio training presentation with the TTS sound file on an internal server - intended for company employees only Public audio distribution - a company puts an audio product presentation they made with the TTS sound file on a public web site - intended for a more general audience. Includes call centers. Selling a TTS sound file for profit - a company sells an audio training presentation they made with the TTS sound file for profit E-learning courses created by corporations are typically in the category of internal audio distribution - the course is put on the company server to be accessed by company employees. TTS Voice Licenses The TTS voice vendors enforce the intended usage of a voice by a voice license, which precisely describes the restrictions on the use of the voice. Strictly speaking, the vendors sell a license to use the voice software rather than selling the voice itself. The following licenses are used: Personal Use License - this license covers personal use of the TTS voice by the customer and expressly prohibits audio distribution - thus cannot be used for e-learning. Examples of products that use voices with personal license are: Natural Reader, TextAloud, Read the Words, and Spoken Text. Personal licenses are sold for a low fixed price. In general, a price less than $50 indicates a personal license. Audio Distribution License (ADL) - This is the license that permits audio distribution and is the type of license required for e-learning in business and education. The voice vendors have fixed the rate for an ADL license to be around 1/3 - 2/3 of the price of the equivalent voice talent ($1200/hour), depending on the TTS voice quality. The basic TTS voices cost $360/hour of recorded time and for the best TTS voices the rate can go up to $720/hour of recorded time. The TTS voices with ADL are sold in three ways: Fixed Price - this model allows a company to purchase any TTS voice with full audio distribution rights from a vendor without being tied to the specific authoring tools (e.g., Captivate) and its bundled voices. In talking to vendors (Neospeech), I was told that this model had been selected by some companies. Acapela also offers a model like this for unrestricted ADL.  The fixed price depends on the exact usage. A typical price for internal training courses is $2500, which represents about 7 hours of recorded time. On-Demand - Voices can be purchased via on-demand web services or desktop products that accept text and generate sound files. They charge according to elapsed time of the generated file, at a rate of about $6/min ($360/hour). From a Reseller - A company purchases voices from a reseller at a reduced price. The price is lower because the reseller has bought voices in volume. This is the case for Adobe Captivate and Tuval Software’s Speech-Over Professional where those companies resell the voices bundled with their products and the voice license terms are specified with the product. At present, the purchase price for these tools includes a fixed price for the voice license that does not depend on the elapsed time of the generated file. Course developers generally are going to use bundled products, i.e., from a reseller.  In some cases, there will be use of other models.   eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

The cast and executive producer of the hit HBO show answered fan questions about the contentious scene at Comic-Con. The post Game of Thrones Team Addresses Controversial Rape Scene appeared first on WIRED.

At a recent conference session on using Agile project methods for elearning (what we call LLAMA), an interesting question came up. I’ll paraphrase. "Doesn’t the project team think this is just incredibly controlling?" Uh, no… "Really? I tried to do something very much like this and nobody liked it. They said I was controlling every minute of their lives with these very small tasks and time estimates on everything and checking in all the time. They said I was micro-managing them." Aha. Yes. Now I see. Yes, I would dread every moment of a project like that, too. Here’s the thing. With Agile-based methods - including the Lot Like Agile Methods Approach, or LLAMA for learning - the project manager is not making the plan. The project team makes the plan. The project team includes the client, subject matter expert, team members and the project lead. The beautiful thing about this is that the entire process sets up what I like to call a "work-directed work team." In the 90s, I spent a lot of time studying self-directed work teams. These teams were often high-performing, very collaborative, leader-less teams performing well-defined business operations. Very cool stuff. Not exactly what’s going on with an Agile team, though. Agile teams have a project leader. The leader’s job is to facilitate the planning and rituals of the Agile approach, keep track of key details and help navigate roadblocks to progress. On an Agile project, it’s the scope and priorities that drive what work gets done and when. The client and the team agree to the goals and the boundaries of the work, and the team gets down to business. On a work-directed work team, members are given the tools they need and trusted to get the work done. Getting the work done includes updating the task status as it changes, and to raise issues as soon as they occur. This changes the project lead’s role from one of planning, measuring and controlling to one of coaching, facilitating and communicating. It’s a far more enjoyable way to work for everyone involved.  

I just read George Siemens post Will online lectures destroy universities?  He makes the point that despite articles like Why free online lectures will destroy universities - unless they get their act together fast: Statements like "universities are obsolete" or "universities are dying" are comical. And untrue. Universities are continuing to grow in enrolment and general influence in society. Calling universities obsolete while we are early on in the so-called knowledge economy is like declaring factories obsolete in the 18th century just as the industrial revolution was taking hold. Utter nonsense. While George does talk about challenges in education, I think he misses part of the point of the article.  And this is something that I’ve been thinking (and writing - see Physics Lectures) about for a long time.  Here’s the point: It’s incredibly easy to capture and distribute lectures. Rather than getting a lecture from whoever is teaching your course locally, wouldn’t it be better to get a world-class lecture. As the article points out: At the same time, millions of learners around the world are watching world-class lectures online about every subject imaginable, from fractional reserve banking to moral philosophy to pharmacology, supplied by Harvard, MIT, and The Open University. Have you seen Planet Earth or watched a Professor Lewin physics presentation?  There’s basically no way to compete with those sources.  And wouldn’t it be better to get the best available lecture with local discussion, studying, testing, etc.? I’m not quite sure that I buy the article’s contention that: The simple fact is that university lectures never worked that well in the first place - it’s just that for centuries, we didn’t have any better option for transmitting information. In fact, the success of top universities, both now and historically, is in spite of lectures, not because of it. Maybe that’s because I’ve learned a lot in schools that way.  But even if you keep lectures, but you open up everyone to the Best Lecture available on a given topic … The implications here for education are profound.  Best Lectures in Corporate Training I also believe the implications here are profound for corporate training.  We can continue to hide behind the myth that our content is special and different.  Some of the time, that’s quite true.  But there’s a lot of content (leadership, management, safety, etc.) that really should not be replicated by every organization. Instead, we should be looking for the Best Lecture and work our specifics around that.  Of course, that’s sometimes made harder because despite the Open Content movement in education, there’s less of a movement in corporate learning (and some barriers: Open Content in Workplace Learning?, Creative Commons Use in For-Profit Company eLearning?). What’s also interesting about this situation is that there are similar barriers from the content creators standpoint.  In the Business of Learning, I talk about the challenges as a content creator and how the business models might work.  And every day, I’m talking with people who have great content and could be creating the Best Lecture on a topic.  And while they can easily capture it, getting it distributed in a way that pays is difficult.  Instead, they need to package it into a unit that is self-contained.  They need something similar to an LMS or a course that runs in a corporate LMS.  But it certainly won’t look like a Best Lecture model with corporate eLearning professionals being able to act like local discussion, studying, testing. I’m not sure what any of this will look like in education or in corporate training - but I am sure it will be quite different in 20 years from how we do it today. eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.