How To Become An Instructional Designer As you may have already noticed, there is no typical route into Instructional Design. I have met brilliant Instructional Designers who have started as educators, or graphic designers, or tech engineers, or even artists, federal government employees, and communication managers. Of course, they all had one thing in common: a true passion for creating great eLearning. But the question remains: What does it really take to become a brilliant Instructional Designer? In our Free eBook: How To Become An Instructional Designer I've asked 24 Instructional Designer Experts the same question and I've collected dozens of straightforward, super creative, and awe-inspiring uses, tips, and insights into one of the most fascinating careers in the world. In this article, I present the 24 tips that really stand out from their unconventional stories in order to help you get an idea of what takes to become an Instructional Designer. Keep reading; all you have to do is make sure that you have a true passion for eLearning. Focus on teaching, particularly languages. "I think that teaching, especially languages, provides an invaluable experience to anyone wanting to become an Instructional Designer. This is because it provides a set of transferable skills that allows you to approach course design in a creative yet pedagogically rigorous way. As a learning expert it gives you the confidence and the credibility to advise the client to find solutions to their learning requirements." By Antonella Veccia  Go beyond formal learning. "Look at options to "knowledge acquisition" to "knowledge application". I have used Performance Support Tools intervention very effectively to support formal learning." By Asha Pandey  Never stop learning. "Become a learner yourself and you’ll have the edge when connecting with your audience. Develop a passion for knowledge and always pay attention to how content is structured and presented." By Bronya Benvin  Don't be an order taker. "People will say "We need training". Nod, smile, and respond "Let's take a look". Build the business case for what you really should be doing. Sometimes that's training or eLearning. Often it's something else (like a job aid)." By Cheri Lockett Zubak  Play video games. "You'll learn a lot about things like guided onboarding and habit-building. What makes you intrinsically motivated to keep at it? If you don't find it interesting, what would you change to make it interesting? Write your answers down. How do your conclusions relate to motivating trainees?" By Christos Anthis  Create a portfolio. "Even if you haven’t worked as an Instructional Designer, you can create a portfolio. It should include at least one finished piece of work, and all the documents leading to that work. Choose a topic you already know something about. The topic of the training isn’t as important; show the "bones": the curriculum plan, the content outline, the storyboard, and the finished product. Show how you made your instructional decisions." By Clare Dygert  Get education, whether formal or informal. "If time and resources are available, get a degree; if time and resources are limited, get a certificate; if time and resources are non-existent, find a mentor and/or read some of the great Instructional Design books out there, such as Instructional Design (by Patricia L. Smith and Tillman J. Ragan) or The Accidental Instructional Designer (by Cammy Bean)." By Deborah Decker Halvorson  See the system and see the people in the system. "I’ve been lucky enough to work in a field where my colleagues include human factors engineers and people who apply design thinking to innovation in health care. It’s made me realize the importance of systems thinking when designing learning programs and the need to empathize with your learners. Bottom line: When you focus on what you want people to do, don’t lose sight of how they feel." By Dianne Rees  Continually learn about what’s happening in the industry. "Go to eLearning conferences; read books and blogs; ask your peers and go to Lynda.com; become a super user of Storyline and PowerPoint; know more than the basics about graphic design. Look at examples of other people’s work and become hypercritical of what looks good and delivers a great learning experience. You have to continually learn and push yourself to improve." By Frances M Weber  Develop your own philosophy. "There is no one way to design instruction. There are several theories to draw from, but, ultimately, the course design will rely on your interpretation of those theories and the context in which you are applying them. It’s important to develop your own approach to design, one that is influenced by the past, grounded in the present, and open to what is yet to come. So while this profession requires that you serve many masters, all with opinions on how people learn, you can stand firmly on what you know is true and what you believe is right." By Hadiya Nuriddin  Have a passion for understanding how people learn and how learning styles differ from generation to generation. "Never undersell the design part of Instructional Design; both the learning experience and the visual and auditory experience. Often I develop for people I never see, so it’s really important to understand their generational learning style and tailor the learning design, including the visual element, to meet their expectations. How I want them to learn is as important as what they learn." By James R. Andersen (Jim)  Study how to create sequential, progressive learning that supports the students. "Draw on popular and sound learning theories (i.e. adult learning theory, brain-based learning, experiential learning theory, etc.) to help you understand how to design effective education. I went away from following theoretical frameworks and got lost in my course development work. Now I can’t design without them. Simply put, they inform my designs, which are effective and consider the impact on learners." By Dr. Kelly Edmonds  Evaluate your audience’s reaction. "Did they see what you were attempting to communicate? Did they learn? Did their performance improve? You must continue to observe your audience and be able to provide your client with a measurable result. Also, you must be willing to make changes to your composition to better engage your audience, to improve the results, and to create the masterpiece that fulfills the client’s request." By Kenney Reynolds  Find what your strengths are and expand on them. "My strengths were my media and teaching experience, which has led to my current job where I run the Faculty of Medicine's media room and teach professors how to make videos for their teaching. For you it could be teaching, management, or sales experience." By Lila Azouz  Keep current on trends in all aspects of learning and performance improvement. "I do that by reading books, attending conferences, being an active member of the International Society of Performance Improvement, and actively searching out thought leaders in a variety of fields through Twitter and LinkedIn. In the last year I’ve been very interested in what happens in the brain when we learn. I’ve used that knowledge in both classroom training and eLearning that I’ve designed, with great results. Keeping current is invigorating and results in engaging courses." By Lisa (Pekrul) Lange  Develop project management skills, communication skills, and critical thinking skills. "Project management skills will help you juggle multiple projects and manage overlapping tasks, deadlines, and an iterative cycle to course design, including assessment and revision. Good communication skills will improve your ability to communicate clearly and negotiate with all players in the Instructional Design process: Subject Matter Experts, teachers/trainers, and clients, as well as information technology specialists, visual designers, editors, and others. And, finally, critical thinking skills will help you establish creative and innovative training and learning solutions to identify and meet needs of specific learners." By Lynn Lease  Listen to the needs of your client. "Instructional Designers have to deal with clients all the time. Start with a clean slate and ask a ton of questions until you get to the very root of the issue the client is trying to solve. These questions also help the client understand that their initial solution might not be ideal. Once you have gathered enough information, you will be able to work collaboratively with the client towards a solution." By Manon Bourgeois  Develop skills associated with educating others. "With the myriad of available resources, such as books, webinars, MOOCS, certificate programs, and more, as well as abundant determination on your part, you can learn the fundamentals of education and the Instructional Systems Design approach. Your credibility as an Instructional Designer will come from consistently applying the tenants of education and Instructional Systems Design first, and skillfully using electronic tools and gadgets second." By Melissa Bassett  Question. "Instructional Design is an art and a science. It is always reinventing itself. Opinions, especially those borne of experience, are the cash currency of our field. To read, discuss, and question is what the job requires. When you propose a learning design plan, be ready to defend your decisions." By Michael Hotrum  Develop Your Empathy. "The ability to get underneath the skin of your audience is a really important trait. One thing I found useful in helping to build my skill in this area was volunteer work for a children’s advice charity. It was a hugely rewarding experience, and taught me a lot about empathy and being able to tune into the ‘wave-length’ of a particular audience." By Rhea Stevens  Be multifaceted. "Understand the psychology of learning, technology, gaming, eLearning, online instruction, curriculum design, classroom instruction, assessment design and evaluation, etc. You can learn from various fields and professions and transfer that knowledge to Instructional Design and vice versa." By Sharonne Joy Jacobs  If you are not a good writer, hone your writing skills. "Most excellent Instructional Designers are also excellent writers. They know how to develop crisp, clear materials." By Valerie A. Sunyak  Promote your Instructional Design skills when working with Subject Matter Experts and training stakeholders. "I facilitated many Subject Matter Expert meetings as a Subject Matter Expert in Instructional Design. Instructional Design skills is what I bring to the group when helping them determine training requirements, develop training content, and design training solutions for performance improvement." By William Allen Van Brunt  If you’re looking to transition into Instructional Design from an existing career, look for opportunities in your current career that allow you to train or educate others. "Ensure that, when these opportunities arise, you create deliverables that you can include in a portfolio. These deliverables should include a needs assessment that identifies the knowledge gap of your target audience, learning objectives based on the findings from the needs assessment, an instructional plan, storyboards, instructional materials, an assessment plan, an evaluation plan, a project tracking document, and feedback to be used for continuous improvement. In addition, after completion of a successful project, ask for references (e.g., LinkedIn recommendations) for classes, programs, or curriculum that you have created or helped to create." By Yvonne Wade Sanchez  Now that you know the best tips on how to become an Instructional Designer, you may be interested in learning how to become an eLearning professional. Read Inspiring Tips To Become An eLearning Professional and discover 23 invaluable tips that will help you reach your dream eLearning professional career. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

TransformingEDU 2016:Powering Up Education at CES 2016 TransformingEDU brings together the thought-leaders, decision makers and technology developers to discuss the rapidly evolving needs and challenges in PreK-20 education. From resource management to cost savings, from student retention to educator collaboration, from digital content evolution to personalized learning solutions, TransformingEDU is at the forefront of educational innovation. Curriculum and content publishers, higher ed institutions, hardware developers, telecommunications providers, learning and content management systems makers, investor groups, software and learning games or apps developers, PreK-20 non-profit organizations, K-20 decision makers, technology buyers, and public policy makers will all be on display and part of the discussion at TransformingEDU 2016. Don’t miss out on the largest audience of high-tech solutions in the world at CES. Visit TransformingEDU 2016 to: DISCOVER how new and existing technologies are making their way into classrooms and on campuses internationally. NETWORK with academics, deans, superintendents, CTOs, policy makers, entrepreneurs and corporate leaders in a unique education conference where technology takes center stage. SEE the latest advancements in preK-20 education—from ideas to products, from hardware to apps, and from pioneers to visionaries. HEAR from high-profile educational leaders from a broad range of specialties who all share one common goal: leveraging the best technologies to impact student learning outcomes. TransformingEDU 2016 Speakers John Katzman is the founder and CEO of The Noodle Companies, an education enterprise focused on improving transparency and efficiency in education. Previously, Katzman founded 2U, and served as its CEO and Chairman until 2012. The company works with major research universities to create high-quality online degree programs. Prior to founding 2U, Katzman founded The Princeton Review, and served as its CEO and Chairman until 2007. John’s writing has been featured in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and MSNBC; he has authored or co-authored five books; and he is a frequent lecturer and panelist. He sits on the Board of Directors of several for- and non-profit organizations, including the National Association of Independent Schools, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, and Renaissance Learning. He has also advised or invested in dozens of education tech organizations. When he’s not thinking about education, John plays hockey, runs, skis, and argues politics and urban planning. He is married to Alicia Ernst, and they have two children. Steven Mackenzie is an Education Specialist at LEGO® Education. Having been a teacher in elementary, secondary and Special Education for 13 years, Steven moved to Denmark to join LEGO Education in 2014. Steven has earned a Master’s Degree of Education in Leading Teaching and Learning from Cambridge University in the UK, where he focused on student creativity, leadership and empowerment. He brings his wealth of experience to his current role, leading a project with the Ministry of Education in China. Steven has also worked extensively in Language Arts, where he oversaw the development of LEGO Education’s products for elementary: StoryStarter, BuildToExpress and LearnToLearn. Steven is an avid board gamer, both playing and designing, and will have his first game published next year. He also enjoys coaching and watching football and walks and cycles as often as possible. When doing none of these things, Steven can be found listening to any music that has come recommended. Drew Minock a rising star in the world of educational technology and motivational speaking. Minock is an expert at using augmented reality to deepen comprehension and enhance the learning experience. Drew has worked with educators and students around the world as an Education Evangelist at the world’s leading augmented reality developer, DAQRI. Drew is the Co-Founder of the globally recognized educational blog Two Guys and Some iPads and the iTunes News and Noteworthy podcast "The Two Guys Show." He specializes in using emerging technology to inspire innovation and creativity. He believes relationships are the core of creating a culture and community of life long learners. Drew’s knowledge, passion, and powerful message ignites a love of learning in his audience. Shawn Nason, Innovation Evangelist & Chief Innovation Officer for Xavier University says, "Innovation isn’t work, it’s a lifestyle." At Xavier University, Shawn leads the strategy and implementation of the innovation process within Xavier, while developing a portfolio of innovation clients and strategic partners, which will drive non-tuition based revenue within the university through the Center for Innovation. Jeffrey R. Young is an editor and writer focused on technology issues and the future of education. He is currently a senior editor at The Chronicle of Higher Education leading coverage of technology and innovation. He is also an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of Maryland at College Park, teaching a course on multimedia storytelling. TransformingEDU 2016 will take place at the Sands Expo and Convention Center (Las Vegas) on January 6-9, 2016. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Making Camera Presentations Exciting With These 5 EdTech Tools A successful video presentation has a variety of qualities. The voice over or audio should be crisp and clear. The animations for presentation should not be incredibly distracting. The list could go on and on. However, there are many incredible EdTech tools out there to help create these engaging camera presentations that will help you keep your audience's attention. PowerPoint Online. We have all had those incredibly boring PowerPoint presentations. You know, the ones with black text on a simple white background and no photos whatsoever. These presentations often have "blocky" slides - slides with too much text. The presenter is pretty much reading from the presentation! PowerPoint Online allows you to work with others on your team to put together a wonderful PowerPoint. If there’s one person who does really well with making the information clear and concise, they can work on the text while another person works on putting in animations or pictures. A good rule of thumb when working with others for a PowerPoint is to make sure that there is an element of everyone in the presentation. PowToon. Not unlike many sites online, there are two types of membership for this site: Free (or basic) and paid (or premium). The basic membership is free to sign up for and use. There is only one fee that you must pay to access the full site, but a good portion of the site is available via the free account. PowToon does not allow you to work on the same presentation from multiple accounts; however, you can share presentations. Be wary of using this for long presentations - the longest PowToon you can create is five minutes long, whether or not you pay for the account. It's incredibly easy to use, and there are animations free and ready to use when you sign up for free. You get access to about half of the music library and you can upload MP3s if you don't see one that you like. You can also do a voice over, but you must do it in one take. Prezi. If you’ve seen a Prezi presentation, it is worth using. If you have not, there is not enough space to do it justice in this article. You can sign up completely free and get access to hundreds of different templates. These templates allow you to create one of a kind presentations that you can use like a PowerPoint in a video presentation - but more engaging, with less work on your part. You can more easily embed videos than in PowerPoint, and this allows you to be more interactive. There’s no download required to use Prezi. You can easily log in on any computer that has internet access, and then work on your presentation from wherever you are. It'll automatically update on your account, and then you can access the new version from another computer. ZooBurst. This is for the whimsical company. ZooBurst allows you to create pop up books online. You can upload pictures for free to use in your presentations, and you can move them around, change the angles, the shadows, etc. There is a free version, but premium and school licenses for $9.99 monthly or $29.99 yearly, respectively, are available. The premium and school options offer the same benefits. You can have up to ten pages for free and ten books for free. AuthorSTREAM. This tool allows you to upload PowerPoint slides and share them. You can password protect individual presentations, create custom channels, upload videos to YouTube or Vimeo, and share to social media. You can use it on the web or download a desktop app. You can see an analytics report of your presentations, and much more. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Technology-aided Learning Solutions Help Employees Balance Work And Learning: A Corporate Insight With the aim of gaining professional excellence, most employees are willing to engage in lifelong learning, if only they find a way to manage work and learning commitments. Examining barriers to success in online learning, studies have found that the main issues that stand in the way of successful eLearning are social isolation, followed by administrative issues or lack of instructor support, learner motivation, and time management issues. Working around these issues, eLearning enthusiasts within the corporate structure can make sure that learners are duly motivated and equipped to utilize the best out of eLearning courses. Give a reason for learners to be motivated. While corporate learners have different proficiency levels as well as varied experiences in their area of work, the common constant is the learning program’s content and curriculum. This remains the most important push for and the main motivator to complete an eLearning course. The learning content has to be useful in the learners’ professional context with implicit gains out of the learning endeavor being the constant reminder of "why am I learning this?". The gains could be many - including the possibility of a promotion, a raise or monetary gains of other kinds, job security, as well as professional recognition. Another contributor in getting learners motivated is the opportunity to immediately apply newly learned skills and competencies in the work environment. Many learners find that the opportunity to build relationships in face-to-face classroom sessions (that are included in a blended learning approach or interaction with instructors or peers on a virtual discussion boards) to be a strong motivational factor for utilizing a technology-aided learning program. The online learners gain a lot of academic support as well as a social support to help stay focused and dispel the isolation that often creeps in. Thus it is evident that the emphasis of social presence and connection cannot be over-stated as a key motivating factor for online learners. Time management skills need to be strengthened. The emphasis on developing time management skills and techniques is also important in the success of an eLearning endeavor. While providing support, learning managers need to help out learners in ways that empower them to manage their workload. Learning managers have to guide learners to set their learning goals, prioritize and plan, as well as provide scheduling techniques that can help learners utilize all aspects of the learning curriculum. Though having spent considerable time in the corporate sector, many learners have no experience or knowledge of time management concepts and theories. This can be the reason why many eLearning endeavors fail to make an impact, as many learners simply cannot make the time to complete them or utilize them fully. The importance of time management techniques as a support to achieve a balance between studying, working, and leisure is thus an important factor in the success of online learning. As more and more learners are realizing the need for lifelong learning, they also realize that a lot of time within their workday goes unproductive as they often have to leave their workstations. In this context, the introduction of mobile learning is a huge boon for learners who are often away from their desks but are keen on making time for learning. Mobile learning provides them the opportunity to learn whenever and wherever they want - as per perceived need. This increases the impact of learning, as the biggest benefit it provides is that it gives the learner the opportunity to make time for learning - no matter where he or she is. Help improve study skills. In addition to ways to manage time better, learners also need support to increase learning skills - both cognitive, such as recall strategies, and in terms of format, such as recording findings or achievements for sharing with peers. It is important to note that learners have preferences for varied learning styles. While a lot of them can remember things by heart better, many do not find an inclination for rote learning. For them classroom or peer discussions help create and contextualize knowledge. Many learners are motivated to know more or research a topic when it is discussed by fellow peers. Discussions also help learners reflect on the content more and even help in the process of desired change in behavior that can be triggered by an overtly simple online discussion post. For some learners online discussion boards help concentrate, as there is less distraction and "noise" in online learning environments. Providing ample opportunities to improve skills -personally and along with peers- should be part of an eLearning program. It can be an important factor that catapults it to success. Work and learning have to go hand in hand. It is not just enough to create compelling eLearning material for your employees - it is equally important to make sure that it is relevant to them and their nature of work. Support to help learners gain the most out of online learning opportunities is also important for success, as is a continuous way for learners to enrich their experiences. Keeping in mind the immense increase in the number of employees and the need for learning, eLearning is surely the way to go for modern learners; though its success depends on how well we are able to support learners and align the learning as per their needs. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

6 Reasons For Selling eLearning Courses Through Talent LMS  Want to have a slice of a booming multi-billion dollar worldwide market that's only getting bigger? If you're involved in eLearning, then you already are. From its humble beginnings a few decades ago, to its estimated 110 billion dollar revenue in 2015, eLearning not only has taken the enterprise training world by storm, but the LMSs have also changed how we approach education in general. And the best thing is, you don’t need to be some well known educational establishment like the MIT or some massive online learning business to take part in the eLearning boom. In fact, you can reach a world-wide audience with your eLearning courses with just an LMS server; which, if you go for TalentLMS, you don't even need to host yourself, as it comes as a cloud-based, turn-key solution. Interested? In this article we'll have a look at the eCommerce options that eLearning platform TalentLMS offers and how you can leverage them to sell your eLearning content. 1. Sells Hard.  Like the rest of TalentLMS, its eCommerce feature was designed to be simple but flexible, letting you, at its most basic level, two well defined things: Courses and subscriptions. For the former case, the user can select one more specific courses and pay your set price to access them. For the latter, a user has access to all of your paid eLearning courses by paying a single monthly fee, as opposed to a per-course one‐time purchase. 2. Discounts Hard. Merely selling things for a fixed price is no fun; just ask any used-car salesman. Special deals and promotions are powerful weapons of customer persuasion and TalentLMS supports several different kinds of these. Specifically, TalentLMS allows you to have global discounts that are applied across your store, lets you market special offers to specific users (and for specific courses) through coupon codes, and supports the creation of sales bundles with special pricing for certain groups or categories of courses. Between these and the subscription options that we already covered, you have all the tools you need to make offers your users just can't refuse. 3. Gets Paid.   When it comes to getting paid, TalentLMS integrates with Stripe, the fast growing payment processor that's currently catering to the US, Canada, and western Europe, and PayPal, the established payments behemoth that covers most of the known world (some unmapped areas of the Amazon excluded). Between these two services, TalentLMS lets you set up business and accept customers from all over the world, and allows you handle payments from all major credit card companies. To configure either service, your administrator just has to enter your PayPal or Stripe credentials in TalentLMS’ eCommerce settings screen. 4. Integrates.  While you can sell your courses directly from your TalentLMS-based eLearning portal or integrate it to your separate website (if you prefer a fancier web presence), TalentLMS also lets you integrate it into eCommerce platforms such as Shopify (see integration LMS with Shopify) and WooCommerce (see LMS and WooCommerce integration). Shopify, a cloud-based eCommerce service which boasts over 150,000 merchants and billions in sales, can be used as a marketplace for your TalentLMS courses, while our Zapier-based integration middleware makes the sharing of customer information between the two platforms a breeze. WooCommerce, on the other hand, is an open source plugin that sits upon the leading CMS/blogging platform WordPress giving it full eCommerce capabilities. Hooking up TalentLMS with WordPress/WooCommerce is quite easy, and allows you to have the best of both -well, actually all three-, worlds: TalentLMS for eLearning, WordPress to handle your webpage, and WooCommerce for advanced eCommerce options on top of both. If you already have a working WooCommerce installation, then you just need to install our TalentLMS-WP plugin to have your TalentLMS courses available for sale as WooCommerce products, and your TalentLMS course categories shown as WooCommerce product categories. 5. Customer experience friendly. TalentLMS lets users register through their already existing social accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.). This removes another small, but important, barrier to entry, and lets potential paid users register and check-out your eLearning offerings without having to create yet another web account. And while some other platforms force an impenetrable wall between registered and non-registered users, TalentLMS can be configured to show some courses to all users, regardless of their registration status. 6. Scales courses with ease. As a turn-key, cloud-based service, TalentLMS lets you set up shop and start accepting users within minutes. It also allows you to accept more users as your needs grow; from a few dozen to hundreds of thousands, there are plans to cover all your needs. Of special interest to TalentLMS users who wish to sell their courses are its 4 Unlimited Plans. Those, as the name implies, allow for an unlimited number of online users to be registered. Each of the plans comes with a number of active users that can be connected for free; above that number it's only $4 for each additional active user per month (inactive users, e.g. abandoned demo accounts are not charged). Closing The Deal  In this post we had a look at how TalentLMS handles selling courses and the integration options it offers with popular eCommerce services and tools. There are many more features and details in TalentLMS to help you create, organize and sell your eLearning courses but not enough digital ink to cover them all in this article. Take TalentLMS, a turn-key Learning Management System, for a test drive, start selling your courses, and claim your own slice of this $110 billion eLearning industry pie today. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Enhancing Your Teaching With Comic Strip Making Websites  I have always believed that learning should be fun. That was my own experience since childhood. When I was a kid, I began learning how to read while looking at the beautifully drawn cartoon characters in the Sunday funny pages. I was challenged to decipher the white balloons coming from the characters mouths or above their heads. I knew instinctively that if I could begin to understand what the black printed letters in the balloons meant, I could better understand what the amazing stories were about. And with help from my parents, I began sounding out the letters which made words. In a short time I became a good reader. I never forgot the pleasure of reading comic strips and joke books and when I grew up I began working with cartoonists and illustrators to create art for the newspaper I edited and for the books I began to write. I knew that comic illustrations would provide a way to draw in people to read and saw in the computer the power to generate comics. A few years ago, I launched a website -http://www.makebeliefscomix.com- to empower teachers, trainers, and students to create their own comic strips online. Since then more digital comic strip generators have become available. Comics To Build English Language Skills As a teacher in ESOL and literacy programs, I understood that enabling struggling students to write and tell stories by building comic strips online would be a way of strengthening their emerging English language skills and make the difficult job of learning English a much more enjoyable experience.  If students are having fun they can accomplish anything they want in learning. The MakeBeliefsComix.com site works this way: Users can select from more than 200 fun characters with different moods; happy, sad, angry, worried. The characters are a combination of human and animal characters with human characteristics. The characters are meant to be diverse and inclusive and are of various skin colors and types, including one who is in a wheelchair. All are friendly and engaging so that users will want to play with them and create words for them in the blank talk and thought balloons to make their characters talk and think. There also are story ideas and prompts provided to help users create graphic stories. This site can be used by educators to teach language, reading, and writing skills, and also for students in English-as-a-second-language programs to facilitate self-expression and storytelling. A teacher, for example, could use the strip to practice dialogue spoken by characters. And with computer literacy so emphasized today in ESOL and literacy programs, the very act of encouraging a student to create a simple comic strip online also provides a way for students to become more comfortable in using the computer. As they learn to negotiate the site and move characters and thought balloons around, they are also improving their computer skills. Helping People Who Are Autistic Some educational therapists also use the site with people who are deaf or autistic and trauma victims to help them understand concepts and communicate. Teachers can create scripts to help people practice certain situations, such as greeting someone, or interviewing for a job, or talking with a teacher about their children’s problems. Some teachers use the strips as storyboards to help students more easily understand books that their students may be reading in class. One teacher in Australia told me, for instance, that she created story boards with the site to help her students better understand Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Students reading a book might use MakeBeliefsComix to extend the story by writing about a character whose life and adventures continue after the book is closed, or even to write a different ending. Better yet, they can use the online comix-maker to write their own story. Educators who are teaching new vocabulary might have students create a comic strip in which the characters use the new words that have been learned that day in class. Having to write sentences for characters to speak also provides a way to practice sentence structure and learn grammar. Students who have been assigned a book to read might create a comic strip or strip series summarizing the book’s ideas. In making comic strips, we also have an easy, fun way to engage in make-believe conversations that allow students to practice speaking, to work individually or collaboratively, as well as to practice creative writing. A teacher also could put together a comic strip with characters and blank thought or talk balloons, print it out, and ask students to fill in the balloons with words and narration. Better yet, a student can choose his or her own characters and develop stories alone or with a partner. One teacher I know who was teaching prepositional phrases had her students use online comics to include sentences with such phrases. Having to write sentences for characters to speak provides an engaging way to practice sentence structure and learn grammar. After a student completes her comic strip, she is encouraged to publish or print out copies to keep of her work. This validates her creative writing effort. The site also allows her to email a copy to a friend or relative. The students love seeing the finished comic strips and can keep them in their portfolios to look at and enjoy their hard-earned effort to create something new. Students like showing their families and friends what they have created. The creation of the comics, thus, becomes an empowering experience for many students and reinforces the learning they have accomplished. Creating Comics To Draw Families Closer Parents and children in family literacy programs can also create stories together, print them to create comic books or email them to friends and family. Generating strips also becomes a tool to help parents and children work jointly and communicate effectively in creating something new. Others will find the site a resource to be creative, calm down and have fun - something that is needed as students struggle so mighty in class to master a new language. I have been conducting workshops both for students who are learning English as a second language and with those who as struggling to be literate. Generally, in showing students how to use the site, I will create with them a group comic strip incorporating their ideas. This becomes a great class collaboration. We’ll choose a subject for example, such as going for a job interview, or making conversation with a friend, or going on a date, or deciding what we want to do this coming weekend or where we want to go on a vacation. Then we’ll create a story together, using one or two characters in each panel. The characters become surrogates for ourselves and can be used, too, to help students work out problems or situations that are troubling them in their lives, such as bullying. I might then start a dialogue in one of the talk balloons, asking the students to choose a character and for suggestions for dialogue, and then I’ll ask for more dialogue for another character to speak. Then we’ll try to move the story along by moving to a second panel. Later, when students start their own comic strips, I encourage them to work with a partner to help each other along. Such collaboration gives students more confidence and ideas in creating a story, and in working together the students improve their language skills as they come up with words and ideas for the characters to say and execute. I remember working with a group of Chinese and Hispanic students who were first learning English. For almost three hours at one session they worked collaboratively at the computer site for almost three hours until they had fully shaped and completed their comic story. Each student helped the other put the words together into sentences for the dialogue balloons. Just the experience of having to talk together and create make-believe dialogue for the characters enhances communication skills. There also are story prompts included on the site to give students ideas for themes, such as Travel to a Mysterious Place, A Day at School, Write a Love Story, Finding Your Courage, Making Wishes Come True, and A New Fairy Tale. I have yet to see a frown or a tear shed in the language learning process of creating and working with digital comics. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Democratizing Higher Education In Africa With eLearning Sub-Saharan Africa’s higher education sector has expanded exponentially since the 1970s. The number of tertiary education students increased approximately 50-fold from 200,000 in 1970 to over 10 million currently. For Africa to accommodate students who will reach university enrolment age over the next 12 years, the continent would have to build four universities every week with a capacity for 30,000 people. With already stretched resources, the majority of African countries is unable to meet the demands of increased student enrolments and unable to invest in the building of new universities. The adoption of modern technology presents an opportunity to increase tertiary education access. By shifting from the "brick and mortar" approach, universities will be able to maximize on the output they derive from existing physical and human resources. eLearning is the best possible solution to the problem of access to quality higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa. Only about eight percent of tertiary school-aged youths and adults in Sub-Saharan Africa are enrolled in tertiary institutions, compared to the global average of 32 percent. eLearning may be the most effective answer to democratizing higher education in Africa. How eLearning Is Democratizes Higher Education Unlimited Geographical Reach. The demand for learning has never been so high, and this in conjunction with the need to geographically broaden learning has prompted universities to introduce eLearning initiatives. The number of distance learning institutions has increased dramatically in Sub-Saharan Africa. The African Virtual University (AVU) for example has grown from five countries at inception in 1997 to 27 today. Most universities however have been static in their structure and delivery of higher education courses. Distance learning via eLearning will allow universities to reach students in multiple geographical locations using pre-recorded lectures and Learning Management Systems. The University of the People (UoPeople) has built a model that has transformed access to higher education. As the world's first non-profit, tuition-free, accredited online university, UoPeople has admitted more than 2,000 students from over 150 countries to date. With eLearning even the rural populations in Sub-Saharan countries can be reached with higher education. There is massive potential to use mobile smart phones in connecting higher education institutions more effectively with distance learners. By communicating and sending course materials via mobile smartphones, students receive more frequent support from their educators and can pursue their education wherever and whenever they want. Geographical location will cease to be a limitation. Lower Tuition Costs. eLearning allows institutions of higher learning to provide students with affordable high quality education. The decline in public expenditure per student and projected increase in population suggest the need for a systematic approach that addresses the issue of higher education quality in conjunction with a flow management policy at secondary and primary education levels. The expansion of higher education systems will require considerable investment for increasing the capacity of existing establishments such as libraries, laboratories, workshops, and lecture halls and this investment will likely result in the increase of tuition fees. eLearning also makes it possible to respond to steep increases in the number of students at a marginal cost significantly lower than that of face to face teaching. Online courses generally cost less in tuition and fees than traditional courses, thus reducing the average cost of attendance. Online courses provide unlimited educational opportunities which drastically reduce tuition costs. Access To Quality Academic Resources. eLearning ensures the democratization of higher education by giving students universal access to quality academic content. It is possible for high quality academic resources to be accessible by anyone, anywhere, anytime. Recently the City of Johannesburg in South Africa rolled out online university education in partnership with international institutions through the city’s public libraries known as Massive Open Online Varsity (MOOV). The University of Adelaide in Australia, Rice University, Wharton Business School, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have come on board to offer their courses on MOOV. Students now have an alternative method of getting a tertiary education without having to deal with the high costs. Through the use of advanced technology, students who previously had no access to higher education will now have the opportunity to study at the location that best suits their needs. eLearning brings a new model to how higher education is designed, implemented, and delivered. African universities have been static in their structure and delivery of higher education courses, but with demand for higher education being so high, there is need to geographically broaden and democratize education; and eLearning is the solution. References: Fred Hayward and Daniel Ncayiyana Confronting the Challenges of Graduate Education in Sub-Saharan Africa and Prospects for the Future (Chronicle of African Higher Education March 2014) The World Bank Financing Higher Education in Africa, 2010 Gurmak Singh, John O’Donoghue, Harvey Worton A Study Into The Effects Of eLearning On Higher Education (The Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 2005) David E. Bloom, David Canning, Kevin Chan, and Dara Lee Luca Spurring Economic Growth in Africa: The Role of Higher Education Sixth Issue: December 2014 Africa’s Post-2015 Development: The Role of Mobile Phones in Higher Education 7 October, 2015 Making higher education work for Africa: Facts and figures This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Is Classroom Technology Changing The Landscape Of Student Engagement?   Technology is entangled with every part of our life. It dictates our way of shopping, socializing, connecting to others, and playing, so it is quite logical that it is going to have a significant influence on the way we learn. Students generally have a favorable attitude toward technology. However, according to Eden Dahlstrom from EDUCASE, technology has only a moderate influence on students’ active involvement in particular courses or as a connector with other students and faculty. The rest is still up to the teacher and how they can inspire their students. Introducing technology into your classroom does not just include bringing a netbook or iPad. Teachers need to use technology to enhance their and their students’ performance. There are several ways to go about this, for example assigning online course content and using adaptive software for students with special needs has had a great positive impact. Equally beneficial is the usage of online student assessments and other available digital tools. Along with the tablets and iPads and Kindles, smartphones have also been given a place in a classroom. A recent study on the mobile device use has shown that this has opened a door to some negative influences. For example students who spend more than four hours using their smartphones get less sleep, while students who did not use smartphones at all and studied 30 minutes a day had higher scores on a math exam than those who spent two hours a day both studying and using mobile devices. Based on this data it can be concluded that the use of technology does not directly increase students’ productivity. How Have The Roles Changed?  In their pursuit to keep up with their students and to keep their interest more and more, educators are implementing technology in their lectures. From the simple visual means like PowerPoint presentations to more advanced methods like Voice Thread or Moodle Glossary that enable students to actively participate and mold their own learning experience. Another major benefit of the usage of technology in the classroom is that it changes the role of a student from a passive to an active one. Students are no more just recipients of knowledge; they have become seekers, makers, and distributors. They are put in a position where they can define their own goals, have an impact on design decisions, and even evaluate their own progress. This change has proven to have a positive impact on both their self-esteem and their motivation. Do Social Media Belong In The Classroom?  The views on whether social media belong in a classroom vary. Most educators these days use platforms like YouTube on daily basis to enrich their lectures and make them more engaging. Many university professors have admitted to also using Facebook and Twitter to inform their students about some changes or to assign tasks. Jim Newman, a Ph.D. student and instructor at Northern Illinois University, says that he uses Twitter not as a news source for his class, but as a bulletin board: "I use it as an additional way to let students know if there’s some last-minute news, like class being cancelled." On the other hand there have been some negative outcomes from the usage of social media in the classroom. Slang terms and text-speak have become common in the classrooms. Student assignments are filled with things like IDK (I don’t know), SMH (shaking my head), and BTW (by the way) and teachers are still uncertain how to deal with these issues. Also punctuation and capitalization have sadly gone out the classroom window, and the students are not even aware that they are doing it. The lack of acre that they give to punctuation and spelling when using text messages and social media has now been transferred to school assignments and writing tasks. Conclusions  The fact that technology has entered our classrooms and is here to stay is undeniable. What is left is finding the best possible way to navigate through the sea of pros and cons finding the best possible solutions for your students and their needs. Educators on all levels need to be alert and to at least try to nip all the negative outcomes in the bud before they let their students out into the real world. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Global Expansion = Training Expansion - Insider Insights Into Localization "The economic recovery is clearly here: Spending on corporate training is soaring (…) and the research is striking: US spending on corporate training grew by 15% last year (the highest growth rate in seven years) to over $70 Billion in the US and over $130 Billion worldwide." - Forbes, Feb. 2014. Companies are investing internally first, through training, to fill in the skill gaps within their own companies. This is great news for Training and Development teams! Most of us don’t have the luxury, however, of being capable of developing training outside of our own native language. As a result, we depend on internal employees or outside language service providers to help us develop this training on a much broader scale. With rare exception, you will be dealing with text expansion when converting your training to other languages. This is important to know when planning and developing your courses. Ultimately this will affect your seat-time. For most languages, you can expect a 25-30% increase. For some languages like German, for example, you can expect a 40% increase. It’s the nature of the target languages. For eLearning courses developed in most authoring tools, the text expansion may increase the overall number of slides you have. It will also increase the running time of your audio scripts. During the engineering builds, the slides will be synced to your new audio. From a technical standpoint, it’s not a big deal. The real concern is the new seat time for the end user. A one-hour English course could easily become a 1.25 - 1.5 hour course in another language. The real challenge comes in with video training. Text expansion for on-screen text, subtitles or captions, and much longer audio files can be an issue with this type of training. Most often, we commonly see final edited videos that are based on the English. There’s only so far you can stretch a video to accommodate the new language without compromising its quality. The other option is to try to match the translated scripts to the actual running time of the English. Often, due to text trimming by necessity, you end up with a video that is less impactful than the original and ultimately sounds more unnatural. With some strategic planning up front, you can alleviate the majority of this challenges and maintain the integrity of your original training: Don’t edit your final English video too tightly. Leave some breathing room since you know another language version will be longer. Even with subtitles, your viewer needs to have time to read the subtitle while watching what’s happening in the video. Choose your voice-talent wisely based on your target audience. Accents can vary greatly by geographic area. Audio production will most likely be your biggest expense during the localization phase. If you have a limited production budget, this can be a concern for localization. Each voice talent typically comes with a minimum charge as does studio time. Do you really need 5 different narrators in your video? Or, can you live with 1 male and 1 female? Maximize your dollars. Try to group your smaller videos together as a single project if you’re outsourcing. Typically, you want to pull together around 30 minutes of source video to maximize your investment in the minimum charges to studio time and voice talent. Be cognizant of your framing when shooting your video. If you plan to use subtitles or captions rather than record audio, remember that the lower third of your screen will be covered up. You don’t want to cover up what people need to see. Talk to your language partner during the planning stage if you can. Your language expert can help guide you in the development based on your specific target languages. Localization of training content should be a fun experience and not a painful one. Hopefully, these tips will help guide you in the right direction in planning well for your next global training initiative. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

IICTC-HAWAII2016 Theme: "Convergence and Divergence" The International Academic Forum, in conjunction with its global university and institutional partners, is proud to announce the Inaugural IAFOR International Conference on Technology in the Classroom in Hawaii. This international and interdisciplinary conference will act as a centre for academics, practitioners and professionals to discuss new research in education. IICTC-HAWAII2016 will create opportunities for the internationalization of higher education and sharing of expertise. We invite professionals from all corners of the world to develop policies, exchange ideas, and promote new partnerships with organizations and peers. The Inaugural IAFOR International Conference on Technology in the Classroom 2016 - Hawaii will be held alongside the Inaugural IAFOR International Conference on Language Learning 2016 - Hawaii and the Inaugural IAFOR International Conference on Education 2016 - Hawaii. Registration for either conference will allow attendees to attend sessions in the other. This open and exploratory theme of "Convergence|Divergence" asks at us to look at the many and varied collisions and frictions involved in the coming together of individuals, cultures, ideas, as well as teaching and learning contexts and approaches, that we negotiate as educators. In language education we have best practices that can be seen as a type of convergence. We want a solid foundation to our teaching that is based upon important shared principles, but we also see many areas where beliefs diverge or where areas of interests are different. For example, over the years some teachers focused on task based language education, others are doing motivation research, and still others have looked at critical pedagogy. These are examples of divergence, but they are overlaid on converging values such as creating safe spaces for learners, respecting all in our classes, and having a deep commitment to our profession. Take the changes in digital communication over the past 20 years. We have moved from the open World Wide Web of Tim Berners-Lee to a more contained online experience that is found in mobile phone apps or social media. Some decry this filtering into "walled gardens" as stultifying and robbing the future of open inquiry because when everyone accessed the same Internet, they could roam widely and make discoveries. However, as we are funneled into application silos that do not interact with each other, we become isolated, leaving the open bazaar of the Internet, and are-dare we say-forced to gather in niche communities. Moreover, at each convergence and divergence is the possibility of connection. The connection or connector is the human intelligence that we apply to our creative work. It is our humanness that ultimately connects us whether we are converging or diverging. Are you on the inside of a supportive community that wants to make itself understood to those outside? Or, are you on the outside watching as schools of thought and competing values seem to draw colleagues in different directions? The reality is many of us find ourselves in both situations-continuously converging and then diverging. This International Academic Forum can be the medium that brings us together to negotiate the vibrant appeal of openness and the power of a concentrated coherent view. Through an interdisciplinary approach, we can embrace the ebb and flow of these contradictions to better understand our way forward as we develop as educators. We look forward to converging on Hawaii, Dubai, the UK, and Japan in 2016, and to an exciting divergence of ideas. IICTC-HAWAII2016 Keynote Speakers Dr Paul Lowe, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London Professor Chung-Ying Cheng, Professor of Philosophy, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, USA The IAFOR International Conference on Technology in the Classroom 2016 (IICTC-HAWAII2016) will be held at the Hawaii Convention Center on January 8 - 15, 2015. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.