Your local library (Houston Public Library for me) may have access to the online Mango Language program.  If so, you can probably access the training classes for free.Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day (Sept 19th). HPL will let you access the pirate lessons for free without a library card - http://www.mangolanguages.com/try-it.php?course_id=224To access any of the other courses at the Houston Library website, you will need your library card.  http://www.houstonlibrary.org/homeGo to Research, click Alphabetical Database Listing, and then M for Mango Languages.  Mango immerses you in real, everyday conversations in multiple languages, including Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Arabic or learn ESL for Spanish, Vietnamese, Arabic and more.

If you enjoy Science, and don’t mind reading online, you’ll never be bored visiting LiveScience.com. There is always something there that’s new, interesting, innovative and worth a read.You might say,I know lots of Science sites. What’s special about this one?Well, it’s set up like a blog. Each article is a post. You can comment on the posts and discuss their content with other readers and sometimes with the author.You could say,Science sites I know always have the same stuff.I don’t want to read the same stuff all the time.LiveScience posts several times a day, so you’re never short of new things to read. You might then say,What! Several posts per day! How could I possibly read all those?You don’t have to. But I recommend you pop the address in your RSS reader rather than bookmark the site.Just take your pickThe feeds are short summaries, so you can scroll quickly through six or a dozen of them on your RSS reader to see what takes your fancy.That’s what I do. Like picking strawberries - I pick ripe and juicy ones. There’s no way I’d sit and gorge them all. But I don’t have to. There will be another pick of fresh juicies to harvest tomorrow.You’ll maybe say,What if I want to see what’s gone before?You can do that too. The site has a great archive and a fine search mechanism that’s easy to use. It also has categories that you can browse, for these tabs are displayed across the header of the site: They give access to the latest articles in the category of your choice.What do I best like about LiveScience?LiveScience is hosted by Imaginova, a leading digital and commerce company.The articles are well written, well sourced and invariably well provided with links to the source sites to give you more background information. It’s like a Science newscast, giving you the latest on the most recent that’s hit the news in the world of Science, with the opportunity to read more.And it’s not all reading either. There are diagrams, displays and illustrations galore, often with informative videos or podcasts, appropriate and relevant to the topic.So if you’d like to taste today’s selection of LiveScience fare, check out this strawberry. You might toss the address into your RSS reader for future munching.Go on! Spoil yourself.Pick the strawberries!A Green Pen Society contribution

Golden Dreams Therapeutic Riding Center started operating at Baileywyck Farm in Middleburg, VA in March 2007.  After operating for almost three and a half years, the program has made a difference in the lives of many children and adults in … Continue reading →

Imagine having all of your education records in a Gem housed in your own data vault, conveniently at your fingertips and ready for reuse in your private, personal network. In January 2012 the U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Technology announced the MyData initiative to encourage schools, education organizations, and software vendors to allow students... Read More ›

About once per month,The University of Chicago Press offers a free e-book. This month's book is "Revel with a Cause: Liberal Satire in Postwar America".  "Before there was Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, or Bill Maher, there were Mort Sahl, Stan Freberg, and Lenny Bruce—liberal satirists who, through their wry and scabrous comedic routines, waged war against the political ironies, contradictions, and hypocrisies of their times. Revel with a Cause is their story."Enter your e-mail address and click "Get E-book." You will receive an e-mail confirmation with a link to download your free e-book, as well as a link to Adobe’s Digital Editions software, used to display the book.  Once you get the e-mail, click the link in your device to load.Please note: iPhone, iPod, and iPad readers: You will NOT need Flash. Pleasevisit the download link on your iOS device in Safari. You will be able to openthe ebook from there directly, into the Bluefire Reader app.Check it out:  http://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/freeEbook.html.

Over 100 years of Swiss excellence in the field of education. Lemania College was founded in 1908 by Dr. Paul Du Pasquier, giving the opportunity to young people who decided late to study and get prepared for the official exams … Continue reading →

There are some fundamental principles that are important to pedagogy, if not actually good pedagogy, when building an elearning resource.The metaphor is the construction of a building. What’s listed here is about the composition of the cement between the bricks.I leave the intricate fabric of brick and foundation - the individual subject pedagogy - to other discussion.Myth, method and madnessSelect the right mediaMore meaningful mediaSimple text supports instructionSpell-check all textFonts of knowledgeCharter for diagrams and graphsThe art of using visual objectsBeware dead or morphed external linksProvide links to all required pluginsMyth, method and madness Elearning is complex. Digging up any idea that pedagogy can be applied easily to building elearning resources unearths bones of contention. Such is the endowment of the instructional designer, or teacher who embarks on the task of making elearning material.With any new medium in the hands of a designer, the tendency to construct philosophies from scratch is too tempting. Ambitious though this approach may be, I think that it is unwise.Considering the time usually allocated to preparing elearning material, it is unlikely to be efficient. It is especially wasteful given the time that’s needed to prepare effective elearning resources.Fortunately, much of what assists learning can also be applied to elearning.return to menuSelect the right media Podcasting an interview may be more appropriate than displaying a text transcript. Choosing to video it might be even better especially if the interviewee is performing an action, such as explaining how to take cuttings from a woody plant in horticulture. Selecting appropriate media to fit the purpose is often vital to successful elearning.Michael Hanley, in his post Podcast Authoring: Understanding and Remembering, describes explicitly the difficulties encountered when a designer is forced to use an elearning medium that’s clearly unsuitable for the content that’s to be delivered. If you have the choice, choose your media wisely.return to menuMore meaningful media Interaction and feedback, in whatever form they take, are key tools in elearning. The opportunity to make use of them should be exploited whenever possible. It is helpful to remember this when considering the use of a long and detailed video or podcast as part of a module. Interactivity may not be optimal with such media length unless a stepped series of clips is used.For instance, interaction over key points can be inserted as breaks in a sequence of related video clips. Such treatment permits timely and specific feedback. It would be far superior to a long video followed by an interactive session covering all the points.return to menuSimple text supports instructionWriting effective elearning text is a skill. Writers are sometimes advised to use the simplest and shortest words they can. But often that’s just too simplistic. Editing a draft may well be a more practical plan - culling redundancies and replacing long and perhaps complex words with simpler more common equivalents.Getting meaning across unequivocally is an acquired skill. It takes a lot of practice. A frequent mistake is stringing complex sentences together in paragraphs that are far too long.Cathy Moore recommends using Flesch Reading Ease as an indicator tool, rather than a disciplined approach. It is worthwhile on large bodies of text. It can also assist a writer who is new to resource writing. The key lies in conveying necessary meaning by simple language in concise sentences within short paragraphs but not so briefly as to be ambiguous.Acronyms or abbreviations are best annotated frequently throughout the text, giving precise meanings where appropriate. Another helpful ploy is to annotate all new and required vocabulary relevant to the subject. Glossing can assist with this provided it’s unobtrusive.return to menuSpell-check all text and text insertionsThe introduction of typos and misspelt words occurs more often while editing and making insertions than at any other time during the writing process. It pays to leave thorough spellchecking to the last stage before text is finalised in a resource.As well, labels and instruction bubbles such as those on images and diagrams should be carefully spellchecked. Nothing is more likely to create distrust of online learning than obvious typos or misspellings.return to menuFonts of knowledgeType size and style of font were discussion points among web designers in the 1990s and even early this century. Research and dogged experience has shown that reading from the screen tends to be harder on the eye than reading from other media.Serif fonts tend to require a larger type size for the same ease of reading. Even so, some readers find that serif fonts lend an uneasy busyness to a block of text.It has become common practice to use plain sans-serif fonts.return to menuCharter for diagrams and graphsA writer can do disservice to the elearner by not considering the conventions used in the discipline of the subject. Being creative by displaying a graph that contravenes convention may be smart on a billboard.When it comes to teaching, subject-associated conventions should all be adhered to. This applies especially to charts, graphs and their attendant labels and codes. Nothing new here.return to menuThe art of using visual objectsIn the 1960s, my Art teacher told me that garish colour is seldom effective unless used for a special purpose. The same applies to colour used in an elearning resource. Constant use of primary colours can convey undue business and be tiring to look at. Natural colours are often effective as are soft pastel colours.Colour, as much as design and form, should have an accord that contributes to the whole. But there is also an art in the design and placement of visual objects. If unsure, seek advice from an experienced designer, well trained in the use of colour.You can’t go far wrong to follow the advice of Tom Kuhlmann.He has good tips on avoiding visual design mistakes including the use of inappropriate fonts, on designing great looking charts, and on directing where the learner looks.return to menuBeware dead or morphed external linksLinks to external resources have a half-life since sites have a habit of either disappearing or being relocated.A relocated site may not necessarily be accessible from the old link address. Many designers follow a policy that all links must follow closed loops within the resource itself. But if it is required that external links be provided, vigilant automatic link-checking provides some help in alerting when a replacement address in a link may be needed.Avoiding learner distress through failed or inappropriate external links is difficult. A practice of providing several links to related resource materials, not on the same site, can give some ease with this. Links still have to be checked regularly, however, using a link checker or equivalent process.The problem becomes even more critical if the resource is delivered on a DVD or CD. Any updating with replacement link destinations on such resources is not possible unless the links point to an editable page held on an accessible web server. Such a provision can make fixing malfunctioning links much easier in more ways than one.None of these measures gives any indication if the content of a page changes so that it’s no longer relevant to the original intent. It comes back to manually checking the links for content relevance. Learner feedback can provide alerts with this, but they are seldom timely or frequent enough to be practicable.return to menuProvide links to all required pluginsIn fairness to the online learner, notice of requirement of plugins and links to those should be given in an appropriate part of the introduction to the elearning module. Any other special requirements important to the resource, such as required computer specifications for their use, should be announced clearly on the same page. related posts - >> ( 11 ) ( 10 ) ( 9 ) ( 8 ) ( 7 ) ( 6 ) ( 5 ) ( 4 ) ( 3 ) ( 2 ) ( 1 )

As we move to a model where learners have options in terms of how they learn, there is a new role for assessment in diagnosing how best to support an individual learner. This new role should not be confused with computerized adaptive testing, which has been used for years to give examinees different assessment items... Read More ›

October26th, 1:00pm ETSpace isLimitedReserve Your Webinar Seat Now At:http://www.rapidintake.com/free-tools/ As a trainingdeveloper, you're no stranger to budget cuts. Companies everywhere are turningto e-learning and mobile learning as a solution to improve performance whilecutting costs. But how do you create engaging, high-quality content for youronline training courses? How can you make simple adjustments to images andrecordings without having to spend thousands of dollars on a suite of products?In thiscomplimentary webinar, learn about 16 different free tools that can help youwith your media creation and revision. Edit videos and vector graphics, mixaudio tracks, sharpen your images, and record tutorials; all without spending adime. Tools covered will include:• JayCut• Video Spin• The Aviary Suite of Tools• Audacity• GIMP• Jing• Kuler• Inkscape• More Thepresenter will show all 16 tools and give a brief description on how they canbe leveraged to create professional-quality assets for your online trainingcourses.

CARe Europe is an International network which serves professionals, service users and organizations to promote the transition from institutional to community-based and recovery-based care in the field of social care and welfare services. CARe Europe is active in 17 different … Continue reading →

The paperback of THE NEW DIGITAL AGE: Transforming Nations, Businesses, and Our Lives (Vintage) by Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and Google Ideas Director Jared Cohen hit the bestseller lists in March. But the issues the authors discuss have not lost their currency since then. From digital surveillance by the U.S. government, to Twitter troubles in Turkey,... Read More ›

SlideSharkis a free app that allows mobile professionals & educators to view and showPowerPoint® presentations on the iPad®.If you're an iPad user, you may have noticed that there isn't a PowerPoint orMicrosoft® Office app for viewingPowerPoint files available in the App Store. In their absence, mobileprofessionals & educators have had to come up with "workarounds"that end up falling short.  With SlideShark, you can easily and reliably convert PowerPoint into ahigh fidelity iPad-optimized format that keeps animations, fonts, colors, andgraphics intact. That way you can view and show PowerPoints on the iPad the waythey were meant to be seen.Check it out:  https://www.slideshark.com/default.aspx

Sometimes I feel like Winnie-the-Pooh when I try something different in a blog post. Being a bit like his venture with a balloon, such trials can be launched into cyberspace, leaving me suspended in mid-air.Nothing to do except hang about and wait and see.It can turn into one of those things that numbs the mind with a nauseating tedium. It can be quite a while before anyone comes out to have a look. First one or two, then a dozen or sometimes more.There are times I get the impression that, perhaps, just perhaps, they suspect something. That I’m not really a ‘legitimate’ after all. I think on the pros and cons of letting go the balloon. There’s no parachute when you post, you know. It just floats up and stays there and you’ve just got to hang on and wait.These are the times when I’ve felt that maybe I should have blogged and posted under a disguise. Of course, no guise would be truly effective, just like Pooh’s small-black-cloud-in-the-sky idea wasn’t.There have also been some unexpected adventures that surprised me with the yield brought forth by a seemingly bearbrained idea. Hmmm. That, I guess, is the secret of having great adventures.Have plenty of bearbrained ideas.You never can tell with Bs.

Since 2007, StartUP Foundation has been actively involved in growing the startup ecosystem in Bulgaria. By making partners with other organizations and business to make sure their joined efforts are making a difference in the Bulgarian society. Nowadays, StartUP is going to … Continue reading →

Did you know that there is a screen capture tool built into Office 2010?  Access the tool in any Office application (Word, Excel etc.) by clicking the Insert ribbon and then clicking Screenshot.  Available Windows will allow you to capture a screenshot of an entire window you already have openScreen Clipping option will let you draw a box around an area so you can pick and choose your screenshot area

Learning Registry a framework to facilitate the exchange of data to share resources, as well as information about how those resources are used by educators in diverse learning environments across the Web. Led by Dept. of Ed, White House as well as numerous other government agencies and marketplace providers. The Learning Registry provides a platform... Read More ›

Design from the Māori fable of Māui and his brothers taming the sunThe Marae, Te Papa Museum of New ZealandNovelists and playwrights are done without it.The success of the film industry depends on it.Folklore is embedded in its construction.It is the basis for substantive contributions to world poetry.The Old Testament is so graced with it there is not a pagein that book where it is absent.Its might is well known and celebrated by educators,instructors and coaches of all disciplines and in all cultures.It is the fascination of children, the bread and butter ofstorytellers, the potion used by keynote speakersand even the magic pill of bloggers.Yet in an age when change is the watchword, the modest story remains steadfast and unvarying in its ability to capture the attention of people of all ages and in all walks of life. The conundrum is that it should be so commonplace and yet so potent.How can this simple device still be so assiduously engaging?CaptivatingAt a recent meeting I attended, the guest speaker made an inelegant approach to the topic, was inept at choosing words appropriately and had a tendency to ramble. What saved the too long speech and made it memorable was a story told near the close of its delivery. I watched, fascinated as people moved from angles of repose to more attentive postures.Designers of adverts use its arousing magic in a similar way to the speech-maker. Executed well in the manipulative exploit of advertising, it can result in awards being won, and not just for sales statistics.RelevanceNo other teaching device can bring context so uncontrivedly and adroitly to a teaching moment as the story. Whether written, narrated or depicted in scenes in a video, it has the knack of introducing a packet of learning incognito.Through the conduit of the story, the whole of Māori folklore has been passed down to us by word of mouth, as were the traditional beliefs expressed in stories and songs of many other cultures.InterestThere is an innate tendency in everyone to follow the passage of a story. The successes of the publishing and film industries are testimony to that, individually and jointly. What senses-able child in western society today does not know of Harry Potter?For as much as adventure-games appear to captivate and engage participants with the matrix of the game, it is the unfolding escapade that captures the interest of players. They create and experience their own stories within the contexts of their games.At the start of this century, my wife, Linda, learnt of the Sid Meier’s computer adventure-game Civilization III. Despite my total disinterest in adventure games at the time, she enticed me to partner her while she played out her first game. We chose to be joint advisors in building a British civilization ruled by Queen Elizabeth.Being new to the rules and capabilities of CIV III, we had to learn a lot to help our growing civilization to survive. And did we learn a lot!After a long struggle, successfully avoiding conflict after conflict, we won a cultural victory, according to the rules of CIV III, in building a virtual civilization on a resource-rich land-locked virtual continent. For as much as we have played the game since then, perhaps hundreds of times, we can still remember the thrill of our first CIV III adventure.ImaginationMy daughter, Catriona, is as familiar with ice-cream as she is with the Eye of Sauron in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy directed by Peter Jackson.She was just 12 years old when she first took an avid interest in all that The Rings had to offer. Catriona saw the films and then read the trilogy by J R R Tolkien a year or so later. When I discussed the nature of the Eye of Sauron with her, I was astonished at what she knew."It’s not the same in the films as in the books", she told me. She explained that the film depicted the Eye of Sauron held in a tower, but in the book it was like the eye of a spirit that was seemingly ubiquitous.Catriona read Tolkien only after having seen the films many times over. Yet the image of the Eye of Sauron as depicted in the film did not interfere with her ability to imagine quite a different concept of it as read from the book.This experience showed me how able Catriona was at discerning a screen depiction from its counterpart in the original novel. But it was also proof of the power of the written story to excite the imagination, even in the wake of a different mental image laid down by a series of scenes in a movie.MemorableI first learnt of Winnie-the-Pooh when I was eight years old, but not from a story read directly from one of A A Milne’s novels. My friend next door had a well-read older sister who delighted in telling stories to her younger brothers and anyone else who cared to listen.In her own words she told the story that was later to become a favourite of mine and that I read to my children many times, "In Which We Are Introduced to Winnie-the-Pooh and Some Bees and the Stories Begin".Never underestimate the power of the story. Its unique ability to capture the imagination can make an everyday event memorable, add interest to an otherwise mundane activity, bring relevance to a teaching moment and wake up an indifferent audience.

Мы рады приветствовать "НТУ" Украины, как нового партнера  в миссии: "Демократизация обучения с помощью технологий". Университет основан в 1944 г. и продолжает выпускать профессионалов в широких областях и по сей день. Уже на протяжении 70 лет университет старается использовать новейшие … Continue reading →

Tue, Nov 8, 2011 12:00 PM - 1:15 PM CSTThis webinar will deal with the latest trends around Learning & Talent Systems and Services. They will share a portion of a clip from the ELCE show, where they asked the "founding fathers" of the LMS industry, "With the growing trend towards social and informal learning, what do you think the role of the LMS will be in the future."Who were these "founding fathers" and CEO’s? You know them all: Bobby Yazdani of Saba Systems; Alan Todd of KnowledgePlanet/Mzinga, now CEO of Corporate University Xchange; and Frank Russell, the former CEO of GeoLearning, and now the CEO of Prositions.Register at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/970415786

At the ending of 2013, IBM revealed its predictions for five big innovations that will change our lives within five years. The number one on the list is "The classroom will learn you". This claims that Learning Analytics(LA) will change our learning. The innovations are being enabled by cloud computing, big data analytics, and adaptive learning technologies. This infographic... Read More ›

This week is proving to be busier that usual for me, with no time to catch my breath, or thoughts in posts, so it seems. I'd decided to catch up on my post reading, reduce the list on my RSS Reader and do some hard thinking rather than writing. But it doesn’t always work out that way, of course.I end up commenting on posts on other blogs and writing more there than I would if I’d written a post. That’s how it’s been for me since the weekend.ShareGeorge Siemens’, Why Groups Fail To Share Information Effectively, was such a post that drew my comment. He picks up on the Psyblog article of the same name.I recalled Tony Karrer’s post, Reduce Searching start Talking, that prompted my long reply in June, and also Michele Martin’s earlier discussions on homophily.George’s enviably short post summarises a number of related ideas that get me thinking:Failure of (group) interaction to take advantage of the value of critique and debatesharing information that will not cause conflict or upset othersthe need for a degree of self-confidence (and a supportive environment) to ensure contrary voices are heardgroup pressure to normalize ideas.At TCS we have been and are following a series of sessions of appreciative inquiry. These involve staff group discussions where shared ideas, once collated, are ostensibly contributing in some measure to the path of the current restructuring of the organisation.In the light of all of the above, perhaps you can figure the way my mind’s working right now?FreeTony Karrer’s post, Free, picks up on Chris Anderson’s new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price, and homes in on the idea that "we value atoms more than bits".Tony highlights the theme that content delivered as bits (online, etc) has less value than the equivalent atoms version (printed book, say).He summarises a number of interesting key questions related to how consumers might contribute to the system and how the effectiveness of networks might best utilise the system.It bothers me that bits are regarded as being less valuable than atoms. I’d already discovered that within my own family, bits are encouraging time-debts that are unlikely to be repaid, in the form of stocks of never-to-be-viewed TV video recordings, not to say too much about the posts on my RSS Reader that I might never get round to reading - sigh.Upcoming eventsSome free elearning events are coming up, now and till the end of October. Perhaps you might like to contribute to these enriching, free webinars through bits of participation and sharing?related posts - >> ( 2 ) ( 1 )

Apture is a free browser extension that works with most major browsers.  When you highlight a topic, a "Learn More" bubble pops up but you don't leave the webpage you are viewing.  Click the bubble to get a pop-up window with more information.  Check it out:  http://www.apture.com/

Walta Mothers & Children Health Care Organization is a not for profit Non-Governmental Organization established in 2007,by volunteer individuals/health professionals that aspires to see an Ethiopia where all mothers get the necessary services to positively raise their children, and children can … Continue reading →

An infographic about verbs categorized according to Bloom’s taxonomy, from Mia.