New technologies offer a rich variety of ways in which learners can interact, communicate and collaborate, however both learners and teachers need to develop a complex set of digital literacies in order to harness the potential of these media.  This edited collection is an output from a DIVERSE conference held at Dublin City University in 2011.  It is an authoritative work outlining different strands of digital literacy research and is timely given the increasing impact that technologies are having on Education.  It covers both theoretical discourses on the topic, along with practical empirical studies of the use of different technologies, such as podcasts, mobile devices and virtual worlds. Yvonne Crotty sets the scene for the book in Chapter 1, describing the origins and focus of the DIVERSE 2011 conference, which included keynotes from two eminent speakers, Michael Wesch and Roy Pea. In Chapter 2, Micheal Wesch provides a philosophical account of the impact of new media and the means in which social and participatory media enable us to actively engage, interact, communicate and collaborate, or as he states ‘We were celebrating empowerment, new forms of connection and community, and new and unimaginable possibilities.  He states that this is not just a technology revolution but also a social one.  Despite this potential his research and the research of others show that students are not extensively engaging with this media and lack the critical literacy skills to make informed judgments about the relevance of resource they find for their own studies. Roy Pea and colleagues focus on a study for fostering collaborative learning through the use of digital video technologies for collaborative knowledge constructive in a classroom. The study provided evidence of how to improve guidance for student teams solving a complex authentic task for History. In Chapter 4, Vance Martin describes the use of wikis to foster democratic teaching.  He uses an action research approach and draws in particular on the work of Vygotsky, Lave and Wenger and the concepts of social production and the open source movements.  He concludes that ‘[Technologies] can offer all students the chance to find their voice, and become creators in their own education’. In Chapter 5, Theo Kuechel plots the evolution of audiovisual technology over the last sixty years and in particular the potential shift of the use of these media from one-way presentation to the promotion of different pedagogical approaches.  He describes a pedagogical model developed as part of a JISC-funded project, which consisted of the following elements: watch/observe, analyse/predict, empathise, create, share/publish and collaborate.    McNeill and Azriel also argue that we are witnesses to a global communication revolution in Chapter 6.  They describe a study using cell phones for journalism with a group of communication students.  They used the phones to gather data on a new item and to produce a newspaper style article. In Chapter 7, Williams focuses on Visual Educational Resources. He argues that ‘Visual content can be harnessed to enliven our classes, provide illustrative examples, and enhance learning.’  He summarises the work of Hariman, Lucaites and Finnegan on the power of visualisation.  He concludes by arguing that we need to help students develop visual literacies in order to participate in today’s media-rich environment. Crotty and Farren, the editors of the book, describe the development of Information and Communication Technologies at Dublin City University, in Chapter 8.  The chapter begins by describing the Irish Government’s policies on ICT in education over the last twenty years or so.  They go on to describe the establishment of the Centre for Teaching Computing at DCU, along with a Masters in Computer Applications for Education. In Chapter 9, Whitehead focuses on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (S-STEP), drawing on Schon’s research.  He concludes by stating that ‘the generation and legitimation of living educational theories takes place in contexts that have been influenced by different historical traditions and sociocultural influences and that these contexts are in a constant process of transformation’. Virtual Worlds are the focus of Fitzsimons’ Chapter 10.  Her interest is on understanding immersion in virtual worlds and the stages one moves through: from separation, through transition and finally transformation.  She describes her own experience using an ethnographical approach.  She argues that it is a challenging and experiential learning process.  In Chapter 11, Geng and colleagues describe the development of podcasts at Oxford University; the initiative was built on Oxford’s initial developments from 2008.  In particular there were a number of shortcomings identified with the then approach to developing podcasts, namely: remoteness of contributors, scattered hosting and split collection interfaces.  The JISC-funded OpenSpires project aimed to address these and to establish a rich Open Educational Resource repository.  Evaluation of the resource indicated a number of benefits: motivating distance learners, supporting existing students, helping teachings in their professional development and reuse in the classroom. Rolf and colleagues describe a lecture capture system developed at the University of Osnabruck in Chapter 12 and in particular a project funded by the Mellon foundation, Matterhorn, which involved 13 partners. In Chapter 13, Dougherty and Massanari outline best practices for bloggers.  They begin with an overview of the type and purposes of different blogs, ranging from personal diaries through to information portals.  The chapter provides a useful set of tips and hints for creating and maintaining blogs. In a postscript to the book, Vanbuel and Reynolds describe the establishment of the MEDIA awards scheme in 2007, which aimed to recognise and reward excellence in media to support learning. What I particularly like about this book is the rich set of empirically based examples of the use of different technologies to promote different pedagogical approaches.  Together they give an excellent picture of the potential of new technologies for education, but also demonstrate that both teachers and learners need to develop a complex set of digital literacies in order to harness this potential.  Providing practical examples (as given in this book), along with more structured guidance for the design of learning interventions, are the means of achieving this.  As Wesch states in Chapter 2, we are posed in a revolution in education. Technologies truly have the potential to transform; the question is, are we as teachers ready to embrace this potential?  

A picture is worth a thousand words. What pictures are you using in your course? Relevant, attractive, and appropriately stylized images can serve as powerful visual stimulation in online training. If you have software tools that let you edit your photos and carefully plan your diagrams, fantastic! If not, do you have PowerPoint on your machine? Not only is PowerPoint a powerful way to put together a presentation, it can also be a quick and simple way to export formatted, perfectly-sized images. Here are some quick tips to get you started. Set up PowerPoint to your target dimensions. To use PowerPoint as your image formatting tool, start by adjusting the dimensions of the PowerPoint deck so that the output perfectly fits the position you intend to put the pictures onscreen. In the 360training course player, the image for the visual-left or visual-right template is optimally 250 pixels wide by 360 pixels tall (or about 3.5 inches wide x 5.0 inches tall at 72 dpi). In the 360training course player, to prepare images for the visual-top or visual-bottom templates, set the image to be 900 pixels wide with a height no greater than 360 pixels tall (or about 12.5 inches x 5 inches at 72 dpi). Remember, with the visual-top and visual-bottom templates, if you have any body text it will take up some of the vertical space. Plan accordingly to avoid scrolling. To set PowerPoint to these dimensions: Create a new PowerPoint presentation. Click the Design tab, then click Slide Size > Custom Slide Size (or click Page Setup in older versions of PowerPoint). Set the target Width and Height, then click OK. Now you can place a photo or draw a diagram, and when you export the slide, PowerPoint will export it to the exact size you need for your course. Simple and reliable! Resize a photo. When resizing a photo in PowerPoint, always click and drag from the corner—NOT one of the sides. Dragging from the corner will ensure that your picture scales properly and help prevent it from becoming distorted. Once you resize, if you find that the dimensions are not quite what you need, you can always crop the image for a perfect fit. Crop a photo. PowerPoint has a variety of editing options under the Picture tools tab, yet my personal favorite is the Crop tool. When you "crop" an image, you remove (or hide) the outer parts of the image that you don’t want to show. You may need to crop a photo if it is the wrong size or shape for what you need, or if you want to get rid of certain parts of an image. Cropping can also allow you to creatively reuse the same image multiple times (for example, drawing attention to different aspects of the original photo by zooming in or reframing the view). Imagine that you have taken a picture from your smartphone that you plan to use in your training. You originally shot the picture in landscape orientation (so that it is wider than it is tall), but now that you’re building out your course, you think that it would look better in portrait orientation (so that it is taller than it is wide), leaving more room for text in the main column. You don’t want to have to reshoot the picture—and you don’t have to. You just need to crop the image. While it is possible in PowerPoint to crop images into Custom Shapes, rectangles are a standard choice and quick to accomplish. Click your picture, then the crop button. Special "handles" display on the corners and the edges of the photos. Then either: Click and drag to manually adjust the parts of the image that are shown. Use the Format Picture > Crop panel’s "picture position" "crop position" height and width boxes to precisely set the dimensions. Quick Tip: If you want to maintain certain standard proportions, try the Aspect Ratio command under the Crop option. Remove image backgrounds in PowerPoint In some cases, you may want to isolate a particular object. PowerPoint can even help you remove the background of your images. Double click the image on the slide and click the Remove Background option under the Picture Tools tab (PowerPoint manually identifies the background by highlighting it with purple color. Drag the handles in the corner to adjust). Select the areas that you want to keep by using Mark Areas to Keep option. Click Delete Mark option once you have selected the area that you want to keep in your image. Note: Although Remove Background is a handy option, it is not ideal to use for images with fuzzy surface areas. Use this option for simple pictures and illustrations. Stylize your image. If you removed the background of a given image, it may now be in its final state, ready to sit on the page. If you are working with a photo with distinct horizontal and vertical edges, you may want to stylize it further with a border. Select the image that you want to stylize and click the Picture Border button located under the Format tab. Select the desired picture border color from the available colors or use the More Colors option. Use the Weight option to specify the width of the image border. If you’ve included some background around your image, you may also want to consider visually popping your image off that background by applying a drop shadow (Shadow option in the Picture effects command) option from the Picture Tools tab. Export your PowerPoint "slide" an image. Now you’re ready to export your PowerPoint "slide" as an image you can bring into your course authoring program. Select Save As from the File tab and identify the image type (GIF, JPEG, PNG) you want to save your slide/presentation as. Once you click Save, you will be asked to specify whether you want the convert Every Slide or Current Slide Only into an image. Select accordingly and click Save. There you go! Now upload your perfectly-sized, well-formatted pictures into your course!

How Schools Are Using Social Media (Time to Get On The Social Media Bus) http://pmte.ch/1pYEI49 via Mike Paul (RT @AnibalPachecoIT: How Schools Are Using Social Media (Time to Get On The Social Media Bus) - http://t.co/RefgcsPKHU… Source: www.pinterest.com See on Scoop.it - FootprintDigital

Social media is great - right? I have made more connections through fb and Twitter than I can count, and have then met people face - to  - face and they have become friends. Cristina Costa, Ricardo Torres and many more. And online dating is a great way to meet people - right? You can find profiles of people you share things in common with, start a communication and get to know each other. But there is a darker, more sinister side to online interactions and unfortunately I have just experienced it…. Here is my story… I tried match.com a few years ago, but didn’t really have any luck, although I did meet someone who has since become a friend. I decided to give it another go and registered three weeks ago. On the Tuesday I saw someone’s profile who looked lovely and we seemed to share a lot in common. I sent him an email saying I liked his profile and if he liked mine to get in touch… He said his name was James Bishop, American, based in the UK for 4 years, divorced with a son in the States. We started having mega email correspondence on the site and then moved to our personal emails. Then we connected on a messaging App called Touch and exchanged literally hundreds and hundreds of texts a day…. We arrange to meet in London two Saturdays ago. Then on the Thursday before he told me he had to go to Tokyo because of a work crisis… Slowly but surely lots of things started to not add up… He sent me a friendship request on fb, I was his only friend. He said he didn’t like fb and only reactivated his account to connect with me… Plausible I thought but a little odd…. I suggested skyping, he said skype wasn’t working, something to do with upgrading his machine. We tried connecting via Google Hangouts, but it didn’t work, he said it was something to do with the hotel security network… We did have two brief phone calls. He sent me lots of pictures of him in Tokyo and his flight bookings, all looked genuine. We rearranged to meet today - in the evening. He was due to fly back on Wednesday. Then he said he had had a car crash and lost his wallet. He rebooked the flight for today and again sent the flight details. But then this morning he said he was at the Western Union bank when he should have been at the airport… So by now I was very very suspicious and just waiting for him to ask for money. Which he did in an email… Hey .. I hope you arrive safely .. Anyway some money came up and like I said I still need 3k pounds and is there anything you can do about it ??..  So that is that. I have de-friended and reported him on fb and will report him on match.com.  I am embarrassed to admit that I fell for this… particularly given the nature of my work. But I feel it is important to blog about this to warn others… Yes Mr or Ms right may well be waiting for you on some internet dating site, but just be careful there are some real sickos out there. This is supposedly a picture of him, wonder who’s digital identity he has stolen. So I am a little shaken and bruised… but will put it down to an experience….  

Scenario-based learning, though quite overused in today’s e-learning courses, still has a charm to it that attracts Instructional Designers to this strategy. Whenever there is a need to engage the learner and make courses interactive, use scenarios. And why not! After all, shouldn’t your courses be engaging enough to motivate the learners to take them? Scenarios are an icing on the cake to an otherwise dull, boring, and linear course. The learner would definitely be motivated now! The motivation, though, can be interpreted differently from a learner’s perspective - it could either be to get certified, achieve a training goal, or meet employer expectations.Argh!! There goes a brilliant strategy down the drain.Now, imagine if a learner’s real motivation is the fun and excitement of going through the course, enjoying full control over the learning. Wouldn’t that be great?Welcome to learner-driven scenarios, a slightly ‘difficult to implement’ but effective strategy to provide flexible learning options and opportunities for higher levels of engagement. Hand over the reins to the person who wants to learn. The learner gets to choose the learning method based on personal preferences. Excellent, it’s all very hunky-dory in theory, but how do you apply it?Well, to put things in perspective, consider learner-driven scenarios a subset of Exploratory Learning. Begin with analysing the starting point and the destination point the learner should ideally be at. Next, list out all possible methods the learner can utilize to make that journey exciting and the ones that will make the journey painful. Then, prepare a question bank from these methods and let the learner choose the path, learning from mistakes made along the journey. Remember, you should be a guide and a mentor walking the path along with the learner, rather than being that authoritative dictator using the stick to teach the learner.Scenario-driven learning; the traditional tried and tested strategy of building learning solutions or learner-driven scenarios; putting the learner’s needs first; bringing that much needed zeal to your courses! Which one would you choose? About the author: Ben is an enthusiastic learning and development leader with over 15 years of combined experience in delivering performance solutions to organizations. He is an International DiSC Certified Trainer by Inscape Publishing and brings a deep insight in the field of neuroscience in leadership, organization development and psychometric assessments.The post Learner driven scenarios- the new efficacy in learning appeared first on .

Today I was interviewed by people from Epigeum. Interesting set of questions, thought I’d provide a summary of my answers here. Questions 1.     Why is it important for an online teacher to establish a social presence with his/her online class? Establishing an online social presence is essential. In face to face situations you can gauge the situation by visual clues - eye contact, body movements, whereas these are absent online. You can to some extent mimic them through the use of emoticons etc. but it is not the same online. If students are going to engage in meaningful discussion online they need to feel at ease and feel that they can trust others, only then will a community of practice start to develop. 2.     What strategies would you recommend for a teacher seeking to establish a social presence? How do they differ from what you do in a face-to-face environment? Firstly, it is important to make it clear what the role of the online space is; how it will be used and what the benefits of participation will be. Secondly, you need to clarify the ground rules for how the students should interact, what is in scope and out. So for example, encouraging mutual reciprocity, supportive discourse and group engagement. Thirdly, you need to establish the level of digital literacy skills the students have; i.e. whether or not they have participated in online forums before and if not providing guidance and support for them to develop these skills. Fourthly, topics should be clear and interesting, topics that open themselves up for discussion, not simple yes or no answers. Fifthly, the moderator should introduce the topic and suggest possible lines of enquiry for discussion. They should then steer (not dominate) the conversation - providing both individual answers, as well as group replies. They should bring the conversation to a clear conclusion at the relevant point, to avoid the conversation fizzling out. This topping and tailing is one of the key success strategies in facilitating meaningful online discussions. Finally, it is advisable to have a clear start and end point to the discussion.   3.     Can you give an example of a situation where social presence has ‘broken down’? What were the consequences? In a sense the answer to this is the opposite of success strategies. So a discussion forum where it is not clear to the students as to what the purpose is or a forum with badly formulated questions. Sometimes the group dynamics doesn’t work and in this case the moderator needs to try and steer the discussion to redress the balance. 4.     What is the top advice you would give to a new/reluctant online teacher? Have a go! I think things like participatory workshops showing teachers good examples of effective moderation can be very helpful and opportunities for them to explore the online space and experiment. We do this as part of our 7Cs of Learning Design workshops and encourage participants to work in teams of 4 or 5, so that they can learn from each other. Questions What are the key concepts of the learning design model? Our 7 Cs of Learning Design framework is based around: Conceptualise, Capture, Communicate, Collaborate, Combine and Consolidate. See http://e4innovation.com/?p=628 for more details. The framework provides teachers with guidance and support to make more effective design decisions that are pedagogically informed and make appropriate use of technologies. How do you use learning design in your practices? In two ways. In the design of my own courses such as our MSc in Learning Innovation and reflectively looking at the evaluation of workshops we run to iteratively improve them   Could you describe the work that you have done with the OU on the Learning Design Initiative? What are the aims of the project and what insights are you gaining into the design process? The OULDI was the starting point in many ways for my learning design work, although it built on the DialogPlus toolkit we developed at Southampton. The 7Cs work builds on it incorporating the work at Leicester and in particular their Carpe Diem work. What are the fundamental benefits of using the learning design model? I think designing for learning is the key challenge facing education today. Despite the enormous potential of technologies to facilitate different pedagogical approaches and support rich interaction, communication and collaboration, technologies are not being used extensively. Learning design provides a mechanism to increase uptake and use of technologies.

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I am doing a keynote later this week at the 63rd ICEM conference in Singapore and wanted some new videos on emergent technologies. Here are a couple of classics…. ·      Social Media Revolution 2013   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUCfFcchw1w ·      Micheal Wesch the machine is us/ing us   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE ·      Micheal Wesch - a vision of students today   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9 Google Glass project  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSnB06um5r4   I asked for some suggestions on fb and there are the replies I got… thanks everyone! ·      Drew Wentworth - The Sinclair ZX spectrum o   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwsHACwuzyk ·      Alastair Creelman - The Clangers o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3Golf34zPQ ·      Rebecca Ferguson - Minecraft o   https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fminecraft.jokaydia.com%2F&h=OAQFEDAit o   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24177844 ·      Fiona Chatteur - Augmented reality o   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24177844 ·      Erik Duval -  16 films that got the future right o   http://gizmodo.com/16-classic-films-that-got-future-tech-right-1184346443 o   http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/806146824/melon-a-headband-and-mobile-app-to-measure-your-fo o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znYTmu2trKE ·      Tony Ratcliffe - Gray’s Anatomy in Twitter o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdprRW-Jvzk ·      Penny Bentley o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHEYtw4IMpY&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DHHEYtw4IMpY&app=desktop ·      Katherine Dalton - multi-media text and use of iPads o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yMT3pCEQIs o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH-WSJhI_i8 ·      Alice Godwin-Davey - A day made of glass o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cf7IL_eZ38&app=desktop ·      Joyce Seitzinger - entrepreneurial learning o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiGabUBQEnM ·      Emma Duke-Williams - Changing educational paradigms o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U ·      Andy Heath EPII o   http://gpii.net/ ·      Alice Goodwin-Davey future of learning o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw8c7Q-WIJQ&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DCw8c7Q-WIJQ&app=desktop ·      Mark Smith - Monty Python sketch o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arCITMfxvEc ·      Alice Goodwin-Davey I have a problem with my blackberry o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSpx3yVgv6k

Testing an @IFTTT trigger #lessoncrashers — Charles Cooper (@Thrasymachus) April 8, 2014 from http://ift.tt/1eJsdUe via IFTTTFiled under: In The Classroom Tagged: IFTTT, Twitter

What makes a great teacher, and how do they treat their students in the classroom? Source: www.topteachingcolleges.net See on Scoop.it - Educational News and Web Tools

Just been asked the following question: What are the most effective uses of mobile and online technologies in education? Here is my answer…  For me mobile and online technologies have transformed my practice as a learner, teacher and researcher in a number of ways. Firstly, social media mean that I am now part of a global, distributed network of peers, able to communicate and share on a wide range of topics. I can pose a question on Twitter and get answers in minutes, I can support Phd students with their research questions, I can share research findings and discuss the findings of others. Secondly, my blog has transformed the way I research - the way I think and the way I write, I truly value the comments that colleagues make and the feeling of being part of a connected community of peers. Finally, new tablet devices, like the iPad mini, mean I can connect and browse anywhere, anytime, through a rich set of interactive and communicative Apps. Technologies continue to evolve - wearable and seamless technologies are now becoming a reality. I cannot conceive what the impact of these will be on our daily lives; I can only say that I think they will be profound and, if used effectively, will certainly enhance our learning and the learning of our students.  

"A picture is worth a thousand words" aptly characterizes that a complex idea can be conveyed with just a single graphic. Visualization makes it possible to absorb large amounts of data quickly which shows why we happily share a child’s first drawings and cards with our friends and family. One of the many Cognitive Biases is the Picture Superiority Effect which states that concepts that are learned by viewing pictures are more easily and frequently recalled than concepts that are learned by viewing their written word form counterparts. Auditory images and motor images help memory. Aesthetics have not only been proven to improve usability, but also to increase retention. Effective eLearning deliverables require more than just text and a few random graphics. Good graphic design, user interface (UI) design and user experience (UX) design aren’t optional - they’re necessary. When choosing graphics for eLearning or designing media to compliment textual content in eLearning, it adds great value to implement ‘communication functionality’ in the media objects used. Let’s look at the images below. They present the anatomy of the human hip joint. Without any further reference, what can be perceived with the images? It is important to note that Image 1 and Image 3 are animated videos, while Image 2 and Image 4 are static images. Irrespective of the media type, if the above images are studied in a series, they provide sequential information on the anatomy of the hip joint. The different tabs thus transition from one visual space to the next visual space. It is thus important to note that what caused learning in this case is not exactly the media type. It is the ‘communication functionality’ of the series of images that presented the complete picture. In Series 2 of this article, we will share more about the visual design process, common pitfalls to avoid while designing eLearning media, communication taxonomy of media and more. Keep watching for the more information in this series of posts! About the author: Shikha Bhasin works with InfoPro Learning as a communications expert and brings more than 7 years of experience in content development. Shikha has worked with GE, DLF, Genpact and other companies in various roles and helped these companies in content development, training need analysis and eLearning development.The post Using the Right Graphics to Spruce up Your eLearning Engagement: Series1 appeared first on .

Over the past year, I’ve had the privilege and the challenge of being the publisher of The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard, by Stephen Jimenez. Source: www.publishersweekly.com See on Scoop.it - Educational Books and Scholarly Articles

According to a recent Gartner Research, each hour of information technology training increases an employee’s performance by 5.75 hours. It also states that: It takes an untrained employee twice as long to do it by themselves through experimentation. Every hour of training reduces help desk support time by a quarter of an hour. Every hour of training reduces review and fixing errors by one hour. From "The ROI on Learning" by Gary Boomer, CEO of Boomer Consulting, statistics show a direct relationship between training and performance. Similarly, for an organization to consistently perform at high levels of business performance, it has to understand and manage performance drivers. Measurable indicators provide feedback about the business performance, but results are delivered by the key drivers. Executives and managers often focus too much attention on dashboard metrics and too little attention on the drivers that produce performance. The key performance drivers to be impacted to produce breakthrough results are the company’s culture, its business strategy, processes, its business structure and its people. To build an organization that attracts and retains talent, a learning culture has to be created. Firms need to change if they want to benefit from new opportunities and leverage technology to increase productivity. Some people may say, that firms have been doing this for the past 25 years, but the rate of change is now faster. Today’s workforce requires continuous training and learning, which can average 150 hours on an annual basis. The ability of a company to compete in the marketplace is determined by the effectiveness of its business system, and not just by what it sells. An excellent company will always produce excellent results, but excellent results will not necessarily create an excellent company. Here’s a way to do a quick check to see how well your company is doing on the culture front. Think about and answer the following questions: Are the benefits of learning being given constant emphasis by your company’s leadership? Do they lead by example by investing in their own personal development? Do the employees create their career development plans as a formal process? Are the employees awarded for process improvement suggestions like "innovative ideas" or best cost-cutting ideas ? Are there any internal discussions conducted to analyze the impact of training interventions (Cost - Benefit Analysis)? Are internal job postings encouraged? Is there a Learning Management System for employees to monitor their formal training programs and learn through eLearning courses? Are the learners polled to understand whether or not the training content was beneficial? Learning Culture needs to be the rule, not an exception, for any organization. It is important to empower employees by making them in charge of their own learning. A strong learning culture would help an organization survive and thrive in a rapidly changing environment. About the author: Anurag Dayal works with InfoPro Learning as a learning and development leader and brings more than 13 years of experience in developing learning solutions. Anurag’s extensive, hands-on background includes creating Business Critical Learning, Learning/Training Needs Analysis, Training Evaluation, Training Consulting, e-Learning and Content.The post Developing a Learning Culture- Key to Business Performance appeared first on .

Teaching Students To See Quality Source: www.teachthought.com See on Scoop.it - Leadership Style & Teaching Methodology

Digital graphics used in eLearning come in various image types and present different types of information. In the Series 1 of this article, we learnt how communication functionality is important to usage of graphics in eLearning. Digital graphics can be stand-alone, self-explanatory, and usable as a learning object, with different informational value. They can be integrated into a broader story to complete the scope and story. Digital images may be stand-alone visuals, or they may be a series of integrated multimedia and text. They may be real video captures, illustrations in e-books, animated digital avatars or simulations. Different image types offer different types and level of information. They help clarify complex information and relationships with the context in entirety. Graphic images chosen for an eLearning engagement need to be copyright free and relevant to the content. Incorporating graphics helps the learners to relate to the content and enhances the overall professionalism. Let’s look at different ways in which graphics can be used in an eLearning course. Key Concepts/ Ideas/ Conceptual When learners are familiar with the items in a photograph or illustration, used to represent ideas or concepts, it motivates and helps them learn by correlating the present information with past experiences. Story telling / Scenarios While using Articulate storyline for narratives /stories, still photos help add depth and ensure the audience gets the message. Using too many images clutters storyboards and the flow of information is lost among the images. Diagrams and Graphs Diagrams and graphs help learners understand abstract concepts using corresponding visuals. For example, bar graphs and line graphs help learners understand trends, compare data etc. Labelled Parts Labelled illustrations help learners understand specific parts /components of a product or equipment. Labelled illustrations can significantly optimize cognitive load on the learner by maintaining focus on key areas. Motion and Paths Graphic visuals are a potent way to show the movement of one or more entities. For example, an aircraft’s path with connecting lines over that particular geography. Geography and Statistical Data Maps are ideal for helping learners understand location and geography. Statistical maps representing variations in quantity of a particular factor, such as population, cell phone usage etc. help learners quickly perceive and understand map information because it is a commonly used visual format. Metaphor Instructional designers like to use metaphors to explain something unfamiliar by comparing it with a familiar object or idea. For example, an idea is often represented with the image of a light bulb. In the next series of this article, we will share about taxonomy of communication, visual grammar and more. Keep watching this space for more! About the author:  Shikha Bhasin works with InfoPro Learning as a communications expert and brings more than 7 years of experience in content development. Shikha has worked with GE, DLF, Genpact and other companies in various roles and helped these companies in content development, training need analysis and eLearning development. The post Using the Right Graphics to Spruce up Your eLearning Engagement: Series 2 appeared first on .

At Leicester we are currently trialing two lecture capture systems - Echo360 and Panopto. This has been driven from the students; the student union found that around 85 % of students said that they would welcome lecture capture. Today we had a debate on the topic. The panel consisted of two academics, a student and someone from IT services. Details of the event can be found here, it was recorded so I will post the link when it is available.  The debate took the form of a panel, each member provided a two minute summary to introduce their perspective and then the session was opened up to the floor. Alan Cann, from the School of Biological Sciences, opened the debate. Alan has been a long term technology enthusiast and he’s been creating short videos for his students for a number of years, but surprisingly he was against lecture capture. He argued that recordings were likely to distance students, and that they should not be used to replace lectures, but to augment them. He felt that short videos focusing on threshold concepts were more useful. Alan has blogged about this. Michael Rubin, from the students union, was in favour. He argued that they can help learning and are particularly useful for revision purposes. He argued that they were also useful for: international students, those with learning difficulties and distance learners. He felt that they were particularly beneficial when used as a flipped classroom, i.e. lectures being recorded in advance, freeing up face-to-face time for more meaningful interaction and discussion. Dylan Williams, from Chemistry, was also in favour; like Alan he has been recording short videos for his students for a number of years and these are then augmented with MCQs. Again he reiterated the benefit of recording lectures and then redesigning the face-to-face session to be more interactive. Chris Gooch, from IT services, shared his knowledge about how other institutions were using lecture capture. He explained that lecture capture is not necessarily just video, it may be audio or PowerPoint slides. He stressed that one of the benefits was that lecture capture enabled lecturers to identify where students were having problems. He also stated that they were flexible. There was a good debate afterwards, here is a summary of some of the main points: There may be an issue in recording sessions where sensitive topics are being discussed It may erode elements of good practice The most popular time for viewing videos was during revision and assignment times Video is the third most important element after audio and PowerPoint There is a need for investment in staff development and a significant cultural change if this technology is going to be effective There is a time investment in creating short videos and a level of technical expertise needed Is there an issue that lecture capture will lead to students not attending classes? Evidence from elsewhere suggest that there is some, but not much, most still choose to attend classes Lecture capture may open up the market to disabled students, who may not be able to attend classes Benefits for disabled students and international students of having lectures transcribed There may be issues in terms of surveillance and performance management Who is looking at the data and how is it being used?    

TEST Learning Theories: Bandura’s Social Learning Theoryby Steve Wheeler, Associate Professor, Plymouth Institute of EducationThis is the third in my blog series on major learning theories. Source: www.teachthought.com See on Scoop.it - Educational Books and Scholarly Articles

Filed under: In The Classroom

What if the key to having great leadership at your company was to hire great people and leave them alone? Many companies employ just this model with surprising results: Within the first 18 months in a new role, 38-50% of new leaders will fail to meet the expectations of their superiors. OK. How about if we make a really great open enrollment management and leadership skills training curriculum available? We’ll even make both online and classroom based versions of the materials available! That should do it, right? Probably not. Our experience shows that companies with loosely guided leadership development programs produce leaders who lack courage to make tough decisions, confidence to take appropriate risks, humility to learn from others and change direction when needed and the skillset to lead and inspire teams. NOT the ultimate goal. In fact, leadership development is most effective when organizations offer a thoughtful mix of both formal and informal development options that are well supported by managed leadership development programs embedded in the culture of an organization and championed by senior leadership. That’s a lot to accomplish with one program. But, the fun doesn’t stop there. Great leadership development programs don’t focus on mastery of the status quo, but on preparing leaders for their next assignments - thereby steadily moving the entire organization forward. Many companies already realize they have some work to do if they are going to ensure they have the right leaders on the right trajectories at the right times. They know they need to evaluate their overall leadership development approach to ensure leaders at all levels have development paths to follow. But, it’s a complex task! So where on earth do you start? A great starting point is a leadership impact study and program review. This will help you evaluate the current state of leadership development offerings and determine where leaders need more support or direction. Once it’s clear what your organization has, it’s time to see what you need. A leadership competency appraisal will reveal what skills and experiences you’ll need in order to be able to respond with agility to changes in market and operating environments. To check your work and make sure you’re on the right track, you can then ask a couple of key questions: "Are we preparing the right people to be ready at the right time to do the right job?" and "How do our findings so far measure up to our strategy?" A capability assessment measuring the alignment between leadership readiness and business strategy will inform your plan for creating a healthy pipeline to develop the right leaders to sustain the organization over time. If you were to poll your HR executive staff, do you think they would be among the roughly 1 in 5 who believe their organization has a healthy and effective leadership development program? Or, would they be more likely to be in the group whose leadership pipeline lacks courage, confidence, humility and the skillset to lead and inspire teams? Contact us today to talk about how we can help you evaluate or build your next leadership development strategy. About the author: Cindi Johnson is an InfoPro Learning partner, and a senior HR strategist with more than 20 years in the field of leadership development, talent management and organizational effectiveness. Her mission is to help leaders and organizations grow and flourish: Vigorously! The post Developing a Healthy Leadership Development Strategy appeared first on .

Sphere Search for locations anywhere on the planet: https://www.thesphere.com/search Mrs. Dooley’s classroom: https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSxXTJkON2wDEm_LllqxS08OJJJ8ODv92LNrD_pTTWAKuD_PyvMhA Aurasma 3-D PopUps: https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSDikynDKJLBPA6FZG49v7leNBtIebh7Dd2Y0CazONJoi2s1jN- https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQe3QhAkJajcdkSVsv7NUYN9ZXFfFpbFvUyYiJO9fbt-SV2YYg9 https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTmWb7avqw_t-NQF8Vx-2f1PGRX03stS4yTdDtesEggbQsZpjpn2Q https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQpLjfOWgAVvxAw2XGywpckSvE67qbkbupAmgn9q4hRfiaJR7xljQ https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRu0Ed-VU40ogDgwLjZkGafG0zdoTfg34whlvooefqY9KBEBbMq https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQZA04fuoGBCFYdML67nJwxRDwwMxnIb1Wkdij8ZERWq3vQF9tu https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTzz6zBSNnz7eK_hoAPLl8ioK9HMHXufkKM6lZivD9xbxECFE2g https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSo825mfuMK1nfNetTvyQiHoNiJsXkG3P2UfjNQGVpemotmmwonNwFiled under: Technology

 Excellent share from Nobodhi Thank you! Source: connectwithluis.blogspot.com See on Scoop.it - Leadership Style & Teaching Methodology

Just like no two people are alike, no two customers are similar! In the day to day life of a project manager, s/he interacts with several different customers — each unique in their own way. And like them, their project requirements are quite unique as well. Can the same approach work for all? No! Let’s take the example of a customer who wants you to develop a training program that is user-friendly and very contemporary. Though this may sound simple, it is indeed a complex requirement - essentially, a combination of several unique needs. As a solution provider, you need to elicit the right needs by asking appropriate questions as well as articulating the customer’s thoughts. During many such discussions with the customer, you may often find that the requirements are much deeper and complex than stated. What is the key to managing customer requirements effectively? Understanding the unstated problems of the customer and providing solution that addresses them. In simple terms, customers have ‘problems’ and so you shouldn’t expect them to give ‘good, articulated’ requirements. Instead, the stated requirement is only a basis to get started. And therefore it becomes critical to understand the ‘problem’ the customer is trying to address with the stated need, in our example, the user-friendly and contemporary training. Many-a-times, the solution to their problem is different from the ‘requirement’ they state, sometimes subtly and sometimes drastically. Articulating a customer problem and tailoring the solution to address the ‘problem’ instead of a solution that meets their ‘requirement’ can take you a long way in customer service. As a customer facing manager for several years, I have found the following to be effective ways of managing customers and their requirements: Be their consultant: Think for them, with them. Customers often don’t know completely what they want. Define the problem, requirements, and the solution clearly: Get an agreement from the customer. Define the functional and design specifications and use these to define your user acceptance tests. Acknowledge that they are busy and often don’t have time to provide quality inputs: Offer to participate and think or review with them. This way you can block their calendars and accomplish the tasks. Work out risk/mitigation plans, with the customers: Articulating and discussing risks for both parties helps put together action plans for the successful completion of projects. Build prototypes: Plan for and build prototypes of a few screens. This can help iron out the requirements and solution. If possible, get a user testing done for the prototype to gauge the impact of your solution in addressing the problem. Don’t be afraid to ask questions: Over the course of the project, this will ensure that the solution being built stays in line with the overall objective. Along the way, be cautious of not deviating from the problem and solution established during project initiation. About the author: Kavita Lad works with InfoPro Learning as a Sr. Project Manager and Instructinal Strategist. Kavita manages high-value customer projects through her keen knowledge and experience in instructional design, project management and learning strategies. The post Managing Customer Requirements Effectively appeared first on .

Packaging Matters It isn’t important what your product is, if you can’t sell it.  Explosive dogs don’t get loved very often (look above if you don’t get it… it’s a poor translation of "Bomb Sniffing Dog" into English). Take two wonderful products and put them next to each other at an inappropriate angle…and the image my not be conducive to increased sales.  Packaging matters :) Sour tempered teachers may create awesome lessons, but if that disposition keeps students at arm’s distance…then few students will benefit from her expertise. For students, packing matters. But aren’t we all students?  Even teachers during a faculty meeting?  Packaging matters to them as well. Of course, packaging doesn’t do it alone. Multimillion dollar advertising agencies lose their clientele quickly if they sell snake oil to a steadily disbelieving mass of consumers. The pitch has to be back up with product (see our "pitch" video at the bottom of this post).  However… …packaging is the way you get others through the door. Most I.T./Integration Specialists know our tech tools. We know how to use them, when to use them, and to what degree we need to use them.  But the audiences that we "sell" to isn’t usually an audience full of Instructional Technology experts.  We earn our check with those reluctant teachers and administrator who fear or dismiss the role of technology in education.  Like our students, the packaging is crucial to sell our product to theses adults. Lesson Crashers and this blog isn’t for you, the seasoned I.T. specialist.  The real audience for this blog isn’t reading it!!!  To repeat what was said in our Lesson Crashers Session at TCEA-2014 in Austin, Texas, the Lesson Crashers crew was presenting PAST the hundreds of people in attendance to the audience NOT in attendance. The real audience for the Lesson Crashers are those teachers who are good or great at their craft, but apprehensive and reluctant to delve into the instructional technology world.  Those teachers may be highly lauded campus leaders, but are too comfortable in the lowlands of the tech world.  They are talented, but may be missing out on being able to bust down the walls in their classroom.  This is crucial because those kids are slowly, but surely helping to re-imagine everyone’s tomorrow.  To keep them entombed in a classroom that is isolated from wonderful enlightening opportunities, is to hinder those kids from fully participating in the creation of the future they will live in.  To those teachers… …The Packaging Matters! If we simply throw apps and tech tools at teachers during staff meetings or schedule trainings, the results are predictable. Teachers will shut down just as quickly as any student in the same situation. Since teachers are simply more advanced students, we can assume they will react in a similar manner (see our solution to this problem at the very bottom of this post). It’s funny that we expect our teachers to wow and zing our students with lesson hooks, but we rarely wow and zing them with PD hooks.  The same is true whether it’s a classroom we’re Crashing or a staff meetings we’re crashing in the principal’s name. Packing Matters To Them! We "train" them on tech during (from their perspective) rushed sessions.  We assume that their professionalism…which they DO have… will be enough to remind them to play with this new tech at home, during their conference time, or on the weekend.  I’d bet dollars to donuts that they WON’T  remember our rushed training sessions…however, they WILL remember that we either did or did not care enough to stop and dress up that training session in a fun and entertaining way. They will remember that we made an effort to think of them before they arrived. It’s not simply packaging, of course. We do (and must) deliver.  The packaging is a promise and our expertise is how we fulfill that promise. To be sure, the Lesson Crasher team are well versed in flipped classroom, workshop model, the fundamental  five, working on the work, and other pedagogical frameworks.  We are excellent teachers who have presented numerous times and have won teacher and I.T. awards.  But none of that matters, unless we explicitly show our audience that we care for them by handing the reigns over to them when Crashing their lessons. The Lesson Crasher ideal is all about the administrators, teachers, or students establishing tech goals for themselves. We enter their  environment and we guide them to their self-established finish lines. We don’t teach a tool we teach the process, as Integration Specialist team member Cara Carter says.  We are confident in our tech skills, social skills, creativity, and classroom management abilities enough to let go.  Just as student choice was front and center when we were teachers, it simply makes sense to allow our adult coworkers have most of the control in our Lesson Crashes.  We work within their expectations and work toward their goal. The Back Story Lesson Crashers was an idea that, nine short month prior, I had pitched to my Integration Specialist compatriot, Cara Carter.  We were talking about my up coming shift from classroom teacher to Instructional Technology.  I had not yet been hired to the I.T. team.  I was still teaching college and senior level government at Northwest High School.  I knew I’d likely be placed on a new set of campuses and wanted to find a way to introduce myself to those teachers. Cara wise suggested that I shouldn’t try to fill the shoes of the previous I.T. person.  She challenged me to look for a "Cooper" kind of way to slide into the new position. It hit me one day watching DIY’s "Yard Crashers" that people were being asked to work on their own yard with a little guidance and help from the hosts of the show.  The hosts, Ahmed Hassan and Matt Blashaw, didn’t do ALL of the work.  As a matter of fact, they did what appeared (on the surface) to be little.  They asked for the home owner’s "vision", told the home owners that they needed to collect some friends to help them achieve that vision, and guided the group to the goal.  GENIUS!!!  Why not do that with teachers!? Have strong teachers open up their weakest lessons to the I.T. team.  The I.T. team would get to work on the tech side of the lesson, adding several levels of tech resources and suggestions.  The teacher would remain the owner of the lesson and the goal.  We would simply come in and translate the teacher’s activities and lessons into a the language of education technology. The Process I certainly won’t belabor the what we did since much of it can be seen in our "feature length" video below.  But, we heavily promoted the contest on #NISDNOV8, our weekly tech centered Twitter chat session.  The application was sent out in the form of a Google Doc.  Teachers had to submit a sample lesson and a video.  Finally, we convened as a group and chose our Crashee based on a multitude of variables. I will simply add, as far as our first Crashee is concerned, that student choice and students teaching students was the focus established by our former teacher of the year applicant, Mrs. Reyff.  We came to see her when she was ready and incorporated levels of technology that she was comfortable with.  We learned lessons on how to stream line the process, of course, but the Crash went off well. A month later we Crashed a faculty meeting in one of our middle schools.  Mrs. Reyff’s Crash was so successful that people started coming to us.  We’re now getting ready to launch our second round of applications in preparation of Lesson Crashers, the sequel! Since we sold the concept as a T.V. show, we called our media academy for help.  Mr. Jeremy Rawe and his student crew put together our promo and our feature length show.  With some tweaking by Adam Bennet, we watched the final video and were blown away by the teamwork and the results. Finally This is a movement.  Like any movement, it takes a multitude of moving pieces and must be adapted to various circumstances.  Please join us in this movement by taking this approach and making it your own.  Email us, Tweet us, call us, or send smoke signals.  We don’t care.  We, Lesson Crashers, believe that this can make the consumption of technology in the classroom a state-wide endeavor.  Take the ideas, take the format, but leave the logo…that’s ours :) If you crash a lesson, and it conforms to the above parameters, send us a nicely done video documentation and we’ll send you a little gift. Rigor, transparency, comradery, and technology, that’s the Lesson Crasher way. Follow these Lesson Crashers: @Thrasymachus, @ashchapman3, @caracarter1, @teachkiwi, @Brit_Horn, @ReneEgle The Results Filed under: In The Classroom, Technology Tagged: aurasma, blog, classroom tech, classroom technology, crashers, edtech, education technology, instructional, instructional technology, iPad, iPhone, lesson, lesson crashers, moodle, moodle 2.0, padlet, pintrest, teacher, teacher technology, technology, tiki toki, Twitter, Wiki, wordpress