Time for the next tech-isode in the "Tech It Up Tuesday" series in which I will share an edtech tool, app, site or other resource that can be utilized in the educational setting. This week’s edu-goodness begins with a question: Ever seen a cool font in a magazine ad, poster or on the web and wondered what font it is? Well, now you don’t have to ponder all that any longer because there’s a web tool that can identify mystery fonts. What the what? Well, almost. It’s actually called WhatTheFont, a really swell site that assists users with discovering the names of unknown typefaces. So, the next time you catch a glimpse of some must-have text, then simply snag a screenshot of it, upload it to the WhatTheFont interface and wait for the result. Yep, it’s that simple—and that nifty. Oh, and as you may have guessed—there’s also an iOS app for that. Once installed on your device, all you have to do the next time you want to know the name of a font is whip out your iPhone, snap a photo of it and you can get your font fix right there on the spot. Another cool feature of the WhatTheFont app is that it can also identify images saved from apps such as Safari and email. After you have pinpointed the name of the anonymous font, all you have to do is locate it on the Internet, download the file and have at it. Your print and digital projects will never be the same again! Classroom Connection:  OK, so I realize that WhatTheFont isn’t the most educational web tool or app on the market, but I give it a two thumbs up because most teachers I know (including myself) are font fanatics, so this is definitely a must-have for the toolbox. Students can learn how to use the resource as well.

Using videos in eLearning courses not only keeps learners engaged, but also enables them to remember the content easily.Many industry experts recommend using videos in online courses to enhance their effectiveness. However, we face aproblem when we use videos directly in our courses’ slides. Problem:The dimensions of videos should be adjusted based on the dimensions of the GUI (Interface). This may affect the viewing experiences, if there are minute objects or animations in the video. Solution:In order to display the video better, the video needs to be opened in a new browser window so that we can set our own dimensions as per our requirement. In this post, I would like to share how to open a video in a new browser window from an eLearning course developed in Articulate Storyline. No knowledge ofHTML or JavaScript is required. Follow the steps below and use the code snippet I have provided. Step 1: Design your slides with the content. Step 2: Develop anHTML page,and add your videotoit.Refer to the screenshot and code below. Note 1: Adjust the height and width values in the above code as per your requirement. Note 2: You can even make the video play automatically by adding the word ‘autoplay’ to your <video> tag. Eg: <video width="400″ height="250″ autoplay>…</video> Step 3: Add a button/object in your slide. On clicking it, your video needs to open. Step 4: Add a trigger to execute the JavaScript code when the learner clicks the button, and add the code below. window.open("your_path/video.html", "_blank", "toolbar=0, scrollbars=yes, status=0, resizable=yes, top=200, left=200, width=400, height=300″); Step 5: Publish your course,and check the output. The video with of the required size will open in a separate browser window as shown in the screenshot below. In this way, you can display your video in a browser using Articulate Storyline. Note: All your video, html file and .story file may be placed in the same folder to avoid complications as shown in the screenshot below. Hope you find this post useful. Do share your thoughts. Related PostsHow to Combine Your Adobe Captivate Projects Into Single Course?Rapid E-learning through Storyline Tool: 5 Infographics Sharing Key FeaturesHow to Create Section 508 E-learning Course Using Flash

How to escape education’s death valley - Sir Ken Robinson Sir Ken Robinson outlines 3 principles crucial for the human mind to flourish, and how current education culture works against them. In a funny, stirring talk he tells us how to get out of the educational "death valley" we now face, and how to nurture our youngest generations with a climate of possibility. There are three principles, on which human life flourishes, and they are contradicted by the culture of education under which most teachers have to labor and most students have to endure. Principle 1 Humans are naturally different and diverse. Principle 2 Curiosity makes humans learn almost without further assistance. Principle 3 Humans are inherently creative. View interactive transcript of Ken Robinson: How to escape education’s death valley The post Sir Ken Robinson’s 3 Crucial Principles For The Human Mind To Flourish appeared first on VivaeLearning: The Best Free Video Tutorials Online.

The Agile eLearning Authoring Team With the growth in eLearning authoring tools, seemingly anyone can be their own eLearning developer, designer and project manager. The benefit of this do-it-yourself approach is that organizations can save thousands from their budgets, whilst retaining complete control over the content and design. With this being the case, commissioning departments no longer require the services of eLearning agencies - but that doesn’t mean they don’t need an agile eLearning authoring team. So how do you get your team to think like an eLearning agency? 1. Boost productivity by using the right tools Choose the right tools. If you have non-technical or inexperienced authors creating your eLearning, you’ll need to source a simple system - like Elucidat - that is easy to use. By empowering more of your team to author eLearning, you can increase your team’s productivity and get your courses out to learners faster. 2. Collaborate and iterate directly inside your authoring tools If you’ve been around the eLearning block a few times, you’ll be familiar with the roadblock that the review phase creates. One of the biggest challenges in managing your project is that subject matter experts and reviewers are busy people with full-time jobs and often content reviews have to fit in around the day job. Make this process as easy as possible for SMEs and reviewers by using a tool with an online review and comment system. In the old days, if you had an eLearning module built in Flash that needed review, you would end up with a Word document full of screen shots. Reviewers would leave feedback by referencing Page 4 or that picture in a separate document. Fortunately, these new tools allow your team to put a fully-functioning module online for your reviewers who can write a comment directly onto the system. In terms of tools, online review is a huge step forward in helping your review cycles to become more efficient. Watch this video to see how a comment and review system works: 3. Design and develop once, build many One of the big challenges (ergo, opportunities) that you may be facing in your organization is BYOD (bring your own device) and how to ensure your content renders correctly on different browsers and devices. It’s not feasible to build a separate module for every device - the development and maintenance alone would bust your budget. So the key is to select authoring tools that have done the hard work to ensure cross-browser compatibility and responsive rendering on different devices. This will allow you to design and develop once, but build for many environments. Related: How Utility Warehouse Rolled Out Responsive eLearning To 46,000 BYOD Learners For elearning inspiration, check out PetSync's living with a dog in a shared community. Developed in HTML5, this elearning utilizes a responsive design which allows the course to be displayed on desktops as well as mobile devices. 4. Create an agile culture We know that easy-to-use authoring tools, a central system and an agreed process all help create a high-performance team. We’ve done research into what makes a high-performance learning team that shows this. Whilst the widening choice of eLearning development tools available to author and develop online learning has greatly helped, the need to involve multiple team members with different talents in the process still poses a number of challenges. These will have an effect on your culture, but the most important thing is how you view your team. In an agile approach, the team is one and everybody in the team is responsible for the result. This is a big game changer. No more being late because the testing didn’t finish on time. The team is responsible for the tasks (user stories) and for keeping the project on track. In the ideal situation, all members have all necessary skills. This is never the case in the real world, but it is still surprising how much work and responsibility people can share if that’s the expectation set from the start. 5. Create an agile customer In waterfall methodologies such as ADDIE you will have a lot of contact with the customer (internal or external) during the sales process and the design stage. But during the production period, there will be hardly any contact. And then suddenly: the delivery of the result. In an agile approach, you stay in contact all the time, iterating and demonstrating the results every week or every two weeks. You show progress, get feedback and decide together what the next priority needs to be. This connects the customer with the process and gives them responsibility. Instead of being we (developers) and them (customers), it can become us (collaborators). Final thoughts to help you build an agile authoring team Use inbuilt online review. The best way to improve team efficiency is to use a tool with inbuilt online review. Consider selecting an authoring tool - like Elucidat - that provides reviewing and commenting functionality. Host team hangouts. Try hosting knowledge-sharing hangouts twice a month where your team comes together and presents a project. Discuss the challenges they encountered and how they worked around them. This helps teach your team new practices that increase efficiency. Improve design skills. There is a lot more to eLearning development than meets the eye. That’s why instructional and graphical design as disciplines are differentiators in good eLearning. Great eLearning design not only covers the important knowledge and skills, but also maximizes learning and actually changes behavior.  It is not simply enough to put the information on a page and hope that learners will assimilate it. Remember the basics. Improve efficiency by reusing assets, aligning the right person with the right task and sharing knowledge across your team. The biggest mistake I see is eLearning managers letting their teams work in silos. This is an instant efficiency killer - avoid it at all costs. Keep learning. Stay up-to-date on the latest technology and ideas that can be used to make your authoring process more efficient. Register for Elucidat's eLearning time-saver course. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

A learning management system (LMS) is an software application which helps to deliver online training. With the help of it, we can deliver courses as well as track users’ status and scores. An LMS also helps the training manager prepare reports and provide the result for each user individually. One of the good tools to develop an LMS is Moodle. As Moodle is an open-source (free of cost) platform, it is used by many organizations. Moodle provides many plugins which help perform "extra" activities. This makes our work easier. You can install the plugins very easily. Here are some of the advantages of using an LMS. Companies can conduct eLearning as well as classroom training programs Users can take courses as many times as they want Learners, from all over the world, can take part in the training programs Organizations can enroll ‘n’ number of users for a single course Users can take course whenever they want User can resume the course from where they have stopped Training managers or administrators can track each user effectively Firms can generate course completion reports Training managers can get a grade report for each course, which can be downloaded in .csv and MS-Excel formats Administrators can assign a course to all users in one go It is easy to add or delete users An LMS can be integrated with PayPal to sell courses Video conversations can be facilitated between learners and the trainer by integrating plugins such as WebEx and Skype These are a few features of an LMS. And, as the demand for LMSs is increasing, new versions of the systems containing innovative features are being released. Apart from the features mentioned above, an LMS also gives us the flexibility to change its look and feel by allowing the user to select default themes. We can also create a new theme and apply it. In Moodle.org, we can find many themes and can use them. The latest versions of LMSs are compatible with tablets and mobile phones, and this helps adapt eLearning courses to the mobile device. We can even send notifications to learners and administrators through e-mails as reminders. These are a few features available in an LMS by default. We can also add many new features to an LMS. If you want to know how to install and apply them or wish to have information on other relevant issues, you can contact me or comment on this blog. Hope this blog helps people who are looking for similar features and using Moodle to manage their training programs. Related PostsHow Can LMS Help Your Organization in Training Employees? - An InfographicHow LMS Helps The Training Managers?LMS Features for Effective Administration

What does an Instructional Designer do? Dr. Joel Gardner explains what Instructional Designers do. This is a very informative video that I highly encourage you to watch. Here is my perspective: For an instructional designer it is really important to have clear goals in mind and to keep his learners focused on the right things. His main obligation is to provide his learners with context and multiple perspectives and to pass this critical thinking approach. When a group of people reads the same short story, or looks at the same picture, you can be sure that every member of the group will take a different peace of information from the material. The purpose of the instructional designer is to draw the attention to all the small details and analyze all the bits, so the learners can see the bigger picture. The role of the instructional designer is to take the bits and pieces of information learners have picked and to put them together and make "a whole". The process may involves the following six steps. An instructional designer should conduct a needs research and analyze the needs of the targeted group. Then, has to determine whether these needs can be fulfilled by learning and how exactly. Then writes learning objectives and conducts research to see what are the outcomes. Assess each trainee’s entry skills and knowledge. Based on all of the above analyses and outcomes, an instructional designer should choose the instructional strategies, training techniques and select the media formats appropriate for the training. After the course is over, he needs to follow-up participants and make sure the course has been beneficial and sufficient for their future personal and professional growth. Last but not least, you may find valuable the following resources in order to answer What does an Instructional Designer do? What an Instructional Designer Does? 3 Myths Revealed At the following post I will give my perspective concerning "What Instructional Design really is?" "What Instructional Designers Do?", and I will talk about "3 Instructional Design Myths". You constructive feedback will be highly appreciated! What Does An Instructional Designer Do? Infographic Several professionals are involved in the instructional design field. However, do you know the full range of what an instructional designer does? A large group of ASU Instructional Designers and Technologists were asked to tell about the work they do! The post What does an Instructional Designer do? appeared first on VivaeLearning: The Best Free Video Tutorials Online.

The multiple choice question (MCQ) is the most commonly used question type in eLearning. An instructional designer prefers MCQs over other question types as they can be scored rapidly and feedback can be given easily. It is an effective way to test a large number of learners, quickly and effectively. Framing MCQs is a time-taking task. You need to consider the learning objectives and frame a question with multiple options. It is important to see that the correct answer to an MCQ is not obvious. The learners should think and analyze, before clicking the correct option. Here is an info-graphic which shares 7 best practices of framing MCQs in eLearning assessments.  Hope you find this post interesting. How do you frame MCQs? We’d love to know. Related Posts5 Variations of Multiple Choice Questions for Your E-learning Course4 Effective Ways of Presenting Scenarios in E-learning CoursesMultiple Choice Question Types in E-learning - An Infographic

Inculcating eLearning Culture - Some Tactics Some organizations try to achieve this by providing training and learning infrastructure - eLearning Material, Training Class Rooms, Trainers, Learning Management Systems, engaging Content and even customized Learning games. Learning technology companies are also continually researching new ways of learning, innovative content, and so on. However, even the most innovative learning solutions sometimes find little enthusiasm in learners, followed by low completion rates. So, where does the problem lie? Even with the best learning infrastructure, innovative learning design and engaging content, if there is a marked lack of enthusiasm then the problem might lie in the culture of your organization. Learning organizations, which effectively address the problem of "culture", reap the benefits of an organization-wide enthusiasm for perennial learning. It is not impossible to inculcate a sustained interest in learning and enterprise-wide elearning culture. Highly successful organizations have been able to create this culture and others could stand to benefit from adopting successful initiatives that have shown results. A report by Bersin reiterates that we live in a world of change and organizations must prepare for continuous innovation.  Innovations should not be related to just new products or creativity, but can actually be something basic that results in tremendous business benefits. Inculcating an enterprise-wide elearning culture might just be such an innovation! The report highlights Google's learning culture, bringing up key elements as well as the many benefits of adopting such a culture. The report reaffirms that organizations have to be proactive in creating avenues for learning and take positive steps towards sustaining learning. Here are some tactics that have worked for successful learning organizations: The Organizational Culture Always Drips Down The culture of learning has to be in the soul of the organization. This includes the members of the board, founders and the senior managers. An enterprise-wide elearning culture can be developed only if the initiative is from the top, rather than from the middle, like L&D Head and HR Head. The top-down approach to effectively generate interest in learning should come within the ‘necessary’ tasks for all - be it the top managers or the new sales executive. The efforts do not have to be time consuming and with the aid of technology, time utilization can be achieved. But business leaders should lead by example - not only in generating a diligent focus on working, but also in creating an elearning culture as well.  Business heads can spend some time every week on learning something new - be it on the mobile, on the way to office; or, on a tablet between meetings.  They can share their experiences and encourage the managers to do so as well. Soon the entire organization will make learning a part of work life - something that they enjoy and not something that is done only because it’s mandatory! Space For Learning Work is the main focus for most employees and organizations like to keep it that way. But it is also true that high expectation of productivity, targets, and huge workload from employees often leave little space for them to sharpen their axe. If employees do not have official time for learning, they are very unlikely to initiate learning themselves. Organizations, especially managers must work out learning time within the schedule of their team. Since most corporate employees do well with a target in mind, managers can create learning targets for teams or individual learners. Attractive prizes can be announced for top learners to let the spirit of competition drive the learning initiative. The carrot-stick approach might sound like adopting a forced-learning strategy, but might work for organizations who are serious about promoting a elearning culture. What's In It For The Learner? Employees work with certain goals in mind - make money, retain the existing job and be employable in future. Thus they are always keen on making efforts that help them meet these goals. If organizations can link the learning to these goals, then they can successfully increase the learners’ interest in learning - owing to the actual benefits they can reap out of the learning process. Organizations can weave learning into the learners’ deliverables or the Key Responsibility Areas (KRAs). Let the test scores at the end of an e-course or a new certificate attained reflect in the appraisal system to make sure that the efforts of the learner are recognized not only by the immediate superiors, but higher up as well. When the outcome of learning affects actual gains - like a raise or a promotion, then the interest in learning will be truly genuine and sincere.  Additionally, each certificate should be attached to some monetary incentives that the employees can enjoy as a prize for learning. Organizations spend considerable amount of money for building up the infrastructure. It makes sense to let some money trickle to the employees directly, increasing the impact of learning and making sure that the infrastructure is well utilized! A Little Fear Factor While organizations need to shoulder the responsibilities of learning initiatives, employees too need to share this responsibility equally. There will be reluctant learners, who will lag in spite of the evident benefits of learning. Changing their attitude might be difficult and it is then up to the managers who work closely with them, to counsel them on maintaining good learning habits.  Dwindling learning scores should raise flags and signal managers to talk to relevant employees on the benefits of attaining appropriate knowledge as per their job profile. There may be certain penalties as well for not completing the adequate learning targets, which will generate some ’fear factor’ to keep motivating the employees. The penalties may include suspended rights to something that truly engages all learners - like social platforms within the organization. If a learner fails to complete designated courses on the LMS, he may be not allowed to contribute to his favorite discussion board that week.  The chance to mingle with peers is highly coveted and the learner will be motivated to complete the required courses - as well as make sure that he maintains them throughout. Peer Pressure for Knowledge We all learn best in a social environment and corporate elearning should also provide the opportunity to learn with peers. Most learners value the admiration of their peers and put extra efforts for learning if that gets them the respect from their peers. In addition, the management must put in place strategies that create peer pressure on employees who do not work hard to keep themselves competitive and knowledgeable. An effective way to create peer pressure is to reward the employees who demonstrate high degree of knowledge, which is appropriate to their job profile. The awards must be something that all learners aspire for -- a cut above the ordinary to actually get their attention.  All high performers should be rewarded publically - on the company LMS, their name mentioned in the company newsletter or even a congratulatory mail that goes to everyone in the company. The fact that a fellow employee is being rewarded so well for his efforts is a great push for even the most reluctant learner. A strong and sound elearning culture can be the strongest indicator of how ‘modern’ the organization is -- for learning is certainly a part of the modern work culture. An elearning culture is not a one-off standalone course, which the learner needs to take on a yearly basis. It includes a wide variety of sustained programs, processes, and systems that inspire the employees to learn new things, build new skills, recover from mistakes, and innovate. Developing an elearning culture has long-term business benefits and an organizations’ enthusiasm for learning is the first step towards success. So, has your organization taken the first step? This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

A Complete PowerPoint 2010 Free Video Tutorial of Most Features The complete PowerPoint 2010 Free Video Tutorial covers the following 10 features: Getting started with PowerPoint 2010 and General Concepts Applying a theme or design to a presentation Inserting multimedia and SmartArt Inserting tables and charts Applying animation to slides in PowerPoint 2010 Modifying the slide master Using slide notes in PowerPoint 2010 Packaging a presentation for CD Screen capture - Photo Albums Annotating in PowerPoint 2010 Recording a lecture in PowerPoint 2010 The post How To Use PowerPoint 2010 Free Video Tutorial appeared first on VivaeLearning: The Best Free Video Tutorials Online.

6 Factors To Consider When You Choose Between Catalog eLearning Courses And Custom eLearning Courses   The oldest eLearning dilemma: custom or off the shelf? Sometimes it is difficult to decide. Both customized and pre-built eLearning courses have benefits and drawbacks, and unless your selection process is not carefully planned, you might end up with a product that may neither suit your needs, nor the ones of your eLearning audience. In this article, I'll share 6 top tips that will make your decision making process as easy as it gets. Decide whether you need custom or catalog eLearning courses.  The first thing you need to do, when deciding which type of eLearning course is right for you, is make sure that you know exactly what custom and catalog eLearning courses can offer you, as well as what they can’t. Some of the advantages of custom eLearning courses are that they can meet your audience’s unique needs, they do not require user licenses, they can be easily modified and you have complete ownership of the product. On the other hand, they are usually quite expensive, they take long to create, and they require high design and development skills. With respect to catalog eLearning courses, keep in mind that they are ready to use, they are relatively cheap and they require very few internal resources. In addition they are ideal for providing generic eLearning content. On the other hand, catalogue eLearning courses haven´t been designed to meet the unique needs of your organization, so they do not address specific goals of yours and, therefore, you might always run the risk they might provide you with irrelevant information. Your final decision on whether to opt for custom or catalog eLearning courses should be based on the particular needs of your organization and your available budget. Have a clear idea of expectations and desired results of the eLearning course. Before you start looking for a custom eLearning course provider, it’s important to have a clear sense of what you hope to achieve with the custom or catalog eLearning course. Prior to conducting your search for the best catalog eLearning course you should identify your learning or performance goals and objectives. Which skills do your learners need to develop? What key pieces of information do they need to take away from the eLearning experience? Formulate a list of learning objectives, goals, and desired outcomes, so that you can find the vendor that is going to offer you an end result that doesn’t fall short of expectations. Discuss these with any potential providers to check if they have a ready-made eLearning course that meets your requirements or if they can accommodate any special requests that you may have in order to develop a custom one. This will also give you an opportunity to get a more accurate quote, as they will be aware of any and all elements you need to include in your custom eLearning course design. Understand the needs of your audience. This is particularly crucial; before you deliver any eLearning experience, whether customized or pre-built, you must know your eLearning audience. If not, you cannot be sure whether the decision you are making is right or not. Analyze your audience by taking into account their ages, their backgrounds, their learning needs, their learning abilities, and their attitudes toward eLearning. Find out as much as possible about their background, expectations and how much they already know about the subject matter. By doing so, you have the chance to choose an eLearning course that meets their needs, without being redundant or too challenging. Furthermore, you should not just assume that every member of your audience is tech-savvy or net-savvy. Learners have their own technical requirements or limitations, as well as their own learning preferences. Determine if it has the features and activities your learners need. If there is a confusing mixture of different preferences, needs and prerequisites, you will need to make sure that either you decide to develop a custom eLearning course or to choose a ready-made eLearning course from catalog, all of your learners will be able to relate to it and to acquire the knowledge you are offering them.  While some catalog eLearning courses are solely content-based, others may include an abundance of interactive eLements. When assigning the development of a custom eLearning course or choosing the ideal eLearning course from a catalog, you will need to decide which features it must have and what specific eLearning activities you think might best suit your audience. Would they benefit from an eLearning course that includes a wide range of branching scenarios and simulations, or should you opt for an eLearning course that contains more text and visual presentations? Participate in the online course yourself to see if the layout and instructional design is in-line with your goals, and to determine if its individual components are suitable for all members of your audience. Choose eLearning courses that are effective.  No matter what your decision, both custom and catalog eLearning courses must be effective, and thus, they must offer your audience an immersive and impactful eLearning experience. But what does "effective" mean? It goes without saying: engaging, meaningful, memorable, and motivating. Whether you choose a custom or a catalog eLearning course, you need to make sure that it engages your learners by making them feel they can relate to it and that their learning has practical application in real life; after all, it is quite difficult for one to be interested in something that is not relevant to their personal or professional lives. Furthermore, whatever type of eLearning course you choose, it must be designed to help your audience to retain the knowledge you are offering; otherwise, the entire eLearning experience will be useless. Finally, it needs to motivate them to learn, develop their skill sets, modify their behaviors, or improve their performance. Having these factors in mind when deciding whether to choose between custom and catalog eLearning courses, the decision process will be much easier for you. Choose eLearning courses that are easy to use. Accessibility is a very important factor that you should take into consideration when choosing the right eLearning course, whether custom or catalog. In order for your learners to be able to participate in your eLearning course anytime and anywhere, it needs to be mobile and tablet friendly. The easier it is for your audience to access your online course, the more likely it is for them to engage in their eLearning experience. Furthermore, make sure that your eLearning course is concise, updated, it downloads quickly, and its navigation system is simple and functional; you don’t want your learners to waste their valuable time trying to figure out how to navigate within your eLearning course and platform. Choose the right eLearning course provider. Finding the eLearning provider to develop or help you to select from catalog the ideal eLearning course for your audience does not have to involve costly trial-and-error. Whether you choose a custom or a catalog eLearning course, have a close look at what your provider is able to offer you. Do they have a reputation for handling customer concerns promptly and professionally? Do they have a reliable customer support system? Can you immediately find them if a problem occurs? Ask about the support services they provide, as well as whether such services are included in their fee or additional costs are involved. In addition, check the list of vendors available and take advice from other customers who have used their eLearning products, whether customized or off the shelf and research each vendor’s experience and qualifications. Interview providers on your short list and look for online reviews from past clients to gauge their experience levels. This can help you to determine if they have the specific qualifications you are looking for, as well as, if they have worked on similar eLearning projects in the past. Take a look at their eLearning portfolio and ask if they have online examples they can show you. If you believe that the vendor has the necessary skills or experience to take on your project, you may want to request that they design a sample of the eLearning course, or a thorough outline and layout that gives you a clear indication of what they have in mind for your custom online course. Last but not least, feel free to ask for references from those who can share their experiences having worked with the provider in the past. Focus only on the top rated solutions and read carefully any shared experiences, appraisals, critiques, complains or comments, so that you can get a complete picture of whether a specific provider is a valuable and reliable option for your organization. This way, you will be able to get an insight of your providers' available options and thus make a well informed decision. Now that you know what to look for when you choose custom and catalog eLearning courses, you may be interested in learning how you can use them to impact as more online learners as possible. Read the article 6 Tips To Design eLearning Courses That Appeal To A Wider eLearning Audience and find out how you can further expand your eLearning market reach. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

As Quincy Jones once remarked, "I’ve always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, "Ain’t that the truth." That said, Edu-fun Friday is a series devoted to adding some humor to the lives of teachers who visit this blog. After all, there’s nothing better than ending the week on a positive note! Plus, do we have the best topics to provide us with some comic relief or what? My dog deleted it! Just what we need—another excuse regarding why students don’t complete their homework. Help us!

Welcome to today’s blog post. Every day, learning professionals try to find new ways to engage learners and make trainings more interesting to them. In this process, the current generation of learners stands as the most challenging target audiences. I’ve tried to understand the needs and tastes of these learners and had come out with an idea that can take our training programs a step closer to them. I had enquired quite a number of people about their likes and dislikes on current learning trends. Many of them expressed a common point that these courses lack personalization. I didn’t immediately understand what they meant. But, after going through some more details, here I am writing this post about how to add a personalization element to your course and make them believe that the course has been tailored specifically to suit their taste. What does personalization mean?  About twenty colleagues of mine use the same mobile phone that I use. But at any point of time, if you place all our mobiles on a table and ask us to identify our phones, at least 90% of us will pick the right ones. This is because even though the devices looked the same when they came out of the box, we personalized them according to our taste with components such as cases, wallpapers, themes, etc. We like to personalize everything we own,be it our wallets, shoes, cars or even our houses. This generates a great bonding and keeps us always connected our belongings. Yes! E-learning can be personalized and it can be a Wow Factor:  People gave me a weird look when I first talked about bringing personalization to eLearning. The myth is that eLearning courses cannot be designed specific to each learner. All learners see the same screens, go through the same media elements and attempt the same assessments to test their understanding. This is not true. The world’s best products came into existence only from what once were looked at as crazy ideas. Here’s one such idea that can change the way we are looking at eLearning courses today. In a software context, personalization usually refers to the user customizing the look and feel, sometimes the behavior of the software according to his requirements. An eLearning course is also a software application, isn’t it? So, what kind of personalization can we add to our courses? One good example would be to allow the learner to select the view mode of his choice. Some people like to view the content along with the menu and other components visible whereas some like to view it full screen. Another example would be to ask your young learners to select a theme during the launch of the course which reflects on the look and feel of the GUI throughout. This is an interesting way of capturing their attention. Incoming Personalized Assessments!! You can also use personalization during assessments. Everyone likes Avatars these days. People like to create their own digital avatars and play with them. We too can take benefit of this concept. When the course starts, we can display a few avatars to the learner and ask him to select one. This avatar will be used during the assessments to display whether he is right or wrong. For example, if the learner is wrong, the avatar comes in with a sad face saying "Let me try once again". This makes him feel involved in the course. Personalization is one strategy that’s helping many top companies reach their users easily and eLearning is no exception. What are your views on this? Please leave your comments in the comments section below. Related PostsFive Elements of Motivation for Games in E-LearningWhat, Why, and How to Use Avatars in E-learning Courses?How Effective is it to Use Gaming Interactivities in E-learning?

Camtasia Studio 8 Tutorial: Prepare, Script, Audio This Camtasia Studio 8 tutorial provides information about what users can do before they actually start recording to set themselves up for a successful, quality screencast. Specifically, it covers cleaning up your desktop, writing a script, and using a USB microphone to get good audio. 0:10 - Clean up your computer 0:55 - Write a script 1:25 - Do a practice run 1:45 - Record the best audio possible 2:10 - Recap of tips 2:15 - Proceed to next tutorial The post Camtasia Studio 8 Tutorial: Prepare, Script, Audio appeared first on VivaeLearning: The Best Free Video Tutorials Online.

What eLearning Designers Should Learn From Trainers A traditional trainer creates some kind of magic. In the stage of a training room the trainer has a vast portfolio of activities (training methods) which can be used to engage, motivate, make trainees curious, create "aha" moments, let trainees be together, etc. Skillful trainers dynamically mix and match all of these methods to deliver training goals - so the traditional training rarely looks the same as every training group is different. The problem with typical eLearning courses is that they don't have such dynamics as workshops. eLearning providers usually offer static material for self-learning. Instead of magic, trainees are given a set of screens with a [Next] button. Very often we forget that both the trainee and the eLearner are the same person - with the same abilities, motivations, attitudes. They expect to be provided with a learning experience of the same "power". Traditional training and eLearning don't have to be founded on the same principles - but they both have to be magical. How to bring moments of magic to the eLearning course? Let's discuss 8 ideas. They will not cover all possibilities (e.g. I will not elaborate on games which is a quite obvious mechanism of building magic) - I would rather focus on these which are usually neglected. 1. Support of trainees During traditional training a trainee is supported on various levels. He/she can count on the support from the trainer, from the co-learners, from the manager (mentor). The eLearner was used to be left by themselves. Withing eLearning processes we should support eLearners. We can provide to them ways of communication with a subject matter expert; we can provide to them channels of remote interaction with a trainer. We can explain things. We can connect a trainee with a trainer or a mentor. eLearning courses don't have to leave the eLearner alone with a computer - they should build communication bridges between these who don't know and these who know. We also have to provide a very good feedback to all learning moments. This feedback could be delivered not only automatically (by interactive mechanisms of the eLearning course) but personally (by a trainer or a mentor) as well. 2. Learning with people During traditional training people interact with each other. They discuss, share ideas, socialize. A typical eLearning course doesn't provide such important forms of building competencies. eLearning space gives many possibilities of reinforcing peer-to-peer learning. OK - it is hard to introduce discussion to the eLearning course but we can open such a discussion environment just outside of it (eg. in the eLearning platform). We can create a community of practice environment and give the eLearner a task to use it with a defined learning goal. Such a task, as well as participation in the threaded discussion, should be evaluated by a trainer and a feedback should be given to make these mechanisms as effective as possible (Support of Trainees rule). 3. Time Traditional learning gives trainees time - time to reflect, time to discuss, time to practice, etc. eLearning courses very rarely give time. eLearners usually have strict deadlines and they are expected by their managers to consume as little time as possible to click through the eLearning course. Let's give eLearners time. While designing the eLearning process we have to provide the time for reflection between eLearning modules. We also have to provide the time within every single eLearning module. We can suggest a time for reflection on a certain topic; we can suggest to write or draw something, or maybe to create a mind-map. We can suggest to stop the eLearning course for a moment and ask a colleague for a 3-minute discussion. It will not only give the eLearner the time, but it will also connect him/her with other people (Learning with People rule). 4. Experiments One of the most important elements of training adults is giving them a chance to experiment (Kolb's Cycle). Such experiments are often part of traditional training. This approach could also be used in the eLearning space. It will create a truly engaging learning environment. We can let people experiment by simulating things in the eLearning course. We can provide soft-skills training by letting eLearners play roles. Let's make them experience simulated situations - with a difficult client, with a layed-off employee, or with a very assertive colleague. Such experiments should be concluded with a very good feedback (Support of Trainees rule) building space for a good reflection (Time rule). 5. Emotions A skillful trainer brings a lot of great emotions to the training room. Well-prepared eLearning courses should provide them as well. People like to hear stories. A trainer is aware of such a need and tells a lot of stories, summarizes cases and his/her experiences, tells anecdotes. While designing eLearning courses we should use these learning forms as well. We can use texts to tell stories, we can visualize them with pictures or drawings (digital storytelling), we can use movies, etc. Emotions are also being built by using metaphors. They not only create vivid, emotional pictures in trainees' minds, but also effectively encode information in their brains. Emotions are also being created by the deliberate use of multimedia (visuals, pictures, narrations, etc). 6. Learning by doing According to the 70:20:10 theory, the majority of our competencies is being built by doing things. eLearning solutions could be also used to support this model of learning. The eLearning course itself gives only a limited number of such possibilities. Of course we can use simulations and role plays (Experiments rule) in it - but as eLearning designers we have much more chances to reinforce learning by doing outside of the course. We can use implementation tasks (tasks to be done in the workplace and support implementation of a new competence), we can recommend to deliver a project (personally or as a team), we can recommend to practice new competencies with a set of proposed experiments concluded with a self-reflection (Experiments and Time rule). 7. Kinesthetics Many people like to play with things. Such kinesthetic needs are easily met in the training room - trainees can play with a workbook, doodle in their notepad, create mind-maps, take notes, play with a pencil. An eLearning course gives some kind of a kinesthetic experience (we can click, interact with objects, solve quizzes, etc.), but usually it is a closed sandbox providing a limited number of routine activities. As eLearning course designers we can open the space of kinesthetic experiences. eLearners, during the eLearning process, shouldn't be limited by a space of a computer or a monitor. On the last screen of an eLearning course we can suggest to prepare a mind-map about the learning module and save it for future reference. In the product course we can recommend to design an infographic about its specification. Or to prepare notes about the course and discuss them with a colleague or supervisor (Learning with People rule). 8. Teamwork People feel motivated by working and learning with other people. Such a motivation is being heavily used by a trainer during a workshop - trainees compete or cooperate with each other while being engaged in various tasks and challenges. How to transfer this idea to the eLearning world where eLearners usually consume eLearning content individually? Well - new technologies bring new opportunities here. We can open a shared workspace environment and ask eLearners to deliberately use it with a goal of creating something. We can provide team assignments - ask eLearners to gather in teams and to prepare a project (Learning by Doing rule). Rules of these activities should be communicated within the eLearning course, but located outside of it. Such a teamwork could be gamified and should be evaluated by a trainer or mentor (Support of Trainees rule). This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

First impressions are usually the last impressions. This saying holds good for the description you give for your eLearning course. Typically, a course description is shown on the launch page of your eLearning course. The main aim of your course description is to provide your learners with an overview of the course; what it is all about, and what to expect from the eLearning course? As instructional designers, we are so engaged with the course and its content that we fail to realize the importance of the very first page of the course. In this post, we will have a look at a few ways to write better eLearning course descriptions. The Wrong: Writing broad or too many descriptions that covers everything in the course; if you try to fit everything about your course in the description, you’re most likely to confuse your learner than impress the learner. Take a look at the example of a course description that goes all over the place. The Right: Be precise, and focus on describing the global learning outcome and not the activities in the course. A good course description emphasizes on the end behavior and not the course content. Have a look at an example of a clear-cut course description. The Wrong: Write course descriptions that focus on the designer or training manager; most course descriptions tend to be a monologue by the instructional designer or the training manager. A course description is not about what the training material or instructional designer can provide, but about what the learner can do after taking the course. Have a look at a course description written from the instructor’s point of view. The Right: The course description is like your sales pitch to the learner. Take this, and you will learn that! A great course description clearly states what kind of behavior or performance is expected of the learner. The description focuses exclusively on the learner and not the trainer. Below is an example of a learner-centric course description. The first page of your course should motivate the learner to take up the course and learn something new! What do you think? Related Posts3 Interesting Ways to Design Elearning Intro Pages - InfographicApplication of Learning Cycle in Designing E-Learning CoursesThe E-learning Design Checklist - An Infographic

My theory is that age is just a number, so quite frankly I don’t really fret too much about it. But when I happened across this nifty graphic on Twitter the other day, I was definitely interested in knowing if I act my digital age. And now I bet you are probably wondering the same! Well, now you can find out the answer to one of life’s burning questions from The World According to Mr. N infographic, which calculates a person’s digital age according to the social media addiction you may have. Check out the image shown below to determine how technology habits can say a lot about who you just might be! Warning: Get ready to say "yikes" to yourself. Just sayin’… Click here for a full screen version of this interesting image. A shout out to Darin Nakakihara, a fifth grade teacher from Laguna Niguel, CA, for giving me the thumbs up to use his creation on my blog. It’s been great to connect with you on Twitter. (Don’t worry—neither one of us has an abnormally high opinion of ourselves.) And in case you might be wondering—I was hoping for the "Hipster" label, but after reading that description, I can honestly say I’m glad I don’t really use Instagram all that much! I’m also happy to report that I’m not a Friendster junkie either. However, I must get back to my endless searches for cool music on iTunes. I wonder what age bracket that obsession places me in—ha!

Camtasia Studio 8 Tutorial: Record Your Screen This Camtasia Studio 8 tutorial provides information about how users can record their screens. Specifically, it covers the following topics: 0:05 - The editor 0:15 - The recorder 0:40 - Recording webcam and/or audio 1:00 - Choosing an audio input 1:05 - Recording system audio 1:25 - Testing audio levels 1:30 - Stage your screen for recording 1:50 - Download the sample script 1:55 - Recording: F9 2:10 - Stop recording: F10 2:15 - Preview your recording The post Camtasia Studio 8 Tutorial: Record Your Screen appeared first on VivaeLearning: The Best Free Video Tutorials Online.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. - Nelson Mandela The online training medium is used extensively by multinational companies to train their staff members. According to a report released by IBIS Capital, 41.7% of global Fortune 500 companies use eLearning tools to equip their personnel with the needed knowledge and skills. Many companies deliver online courses in English, and this often leads to poor learning as international employees who do not speak English find it hard to comprehend the courses. So, it is important that organizations render their courses into the native languages of their people. Here is an infographic that lists 3 proven tips to translate eLearning courses in quick time, at low cost. Hope you find this post interesting. How do you translate your eLearning courses? We’d love to know. Related Posts3 Things to Consider while Translating Your E-learning Course - An InfographicE-learning Courses That Need to be Translated - An InfographicWhy Outsource Your E-learning Translations - An Infographic

ICHL 2015 purpose is to bring together researchers and developers from education and computer science to advance the research of hybrid learning. The term ‘Hybrid Learning’ is undoubtedly a New Frontier in Education as neither the virtual nor the physical resources alone can provide the best teaching and learning environment. Intuitively, Hybrid Learning provides a way forward for educators who are interested in helping students to learn. Educators could ultimately create learning experiences to compensate for the shortcomings of, or at least to complement, conventional face-2-face teaching. ICHL 2015 will include keynote addresses, paper presentations, and tutorial sections. The 2015 International Conference on Hybrid Learning (ICHL 2015) will be held at the Central China Normal University in Wuhan (China) on July 27-29, 2015. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Appy Tuesday, everyone! As you may have guessed from the greeting, this week’s edition of Tech It Up Tuesday focuses on a pretty neat mobile app, one that has just been released on the edtech scene. And it goes something like this: Hey, difficult homework assignments! You’ve met your match! Yep, thanks to a newly released iOS app called Snapsolve, students can get instant homework help for any grade level or topic any day, anytime , anywhere. And it works something like this: Just snap a picture of the challenging homework problem, optionally include additional info that will assist with solving the question and press send. The image is then relayed to one of thousands of highly qualified tutors, who within about 15 minutes on average, not only provides the answer but a customized explanation as to how the problem was solved. And you thought this stuff only happened on the Jetsons! Seriously, with its interactive and collaborative capabilities, this app takes homework helper to a new level! And just so you know: Snapsolve is currently available for the iPhone only, but plans are in the works to develop versions of the software for iPad, Android and OS X devices. Also, the app is a freebie and so are answers to simple math problems. However, there are pricing tiers based on question difficulty and wait time for responses that range from $1.99 (the Decaf option) to $9.99 (the Energy Drink option). Regardless of the amount, all paid selections have a money back guarantee if the services rendered are deemed unsatisfactory. Snap, send, solve… End of story! Classroom Connection: If you’re a math teacher, Snapsolve is a great resource to share with all of your students. You might even find that it’s a pretty cool app for your own use as well!

Camtasia Studio 8 Tutorial: Saving Files and Project Management This Camtasia Studio 8 tutorial provides information about how to save and manage your files. Specifically, it covers the following topics: 0:05 - Preview your recording 0:30 - Save and edit 0:35 - Project management tips 1:00 - Organize your source files 1:25 - Camtasia Studio 1:30 - Introducing the clip bin and timeline 1:35 - Editing dimensions The post Camtasia Studio 8 Tutorial: Saving Files and Project Management appeared first on VivaeLearning: The Best Free Video Tutorials Online.

Every Instructional designer needs to have good knowledge of standard instructional design models like ADDIE or Gagne’s nine events. These models facilitate the development of learner centric eLearning courses. But, it is not easy to remember all these concepts and apply them at the right instant of time to develop a successful eLearning course. So, how can you overcome this problem? Well, you need to concentrate on four things which will remind you of the ideas behind these principles and help you make good online courses. Let us see what they are. Hope you find this post interesting. Please do share your thoughts. Related Posts4 Effective Ways of Presenting Scenarios in E-learning Courses4 Must Have Slices of An Instructional Design Pie5 Tips for Designing an Effective Training Program

So, I was looking for some of the latest edtech statistics for a project I’m working on when I happened across this infographic published by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation using data collected from America’s Teachers on America’s Schools. Even though this info was compiled a few years ago, I would venture to guess that if a similar study was conducted today, the results would pretty much indicate the same: Technology is a useful tool—one that can be a benefit to the learning process. According to the study, 93% of educators agreed that digital resources such as classroom technology and web-based programs help in their students’ academic achievement. 49% of them strongly agreed with this fact. Learn more about teachers’ responses by checking out the infographic shown below. Click here for a full screen version of this visual. Classroom Connection: It’s no secret that today’s students are digital junkies who spend many hours a day using numerous technological devices. It’s their way of life, how they learn, communicate, collaborate. At the same time, it’s also pretty widely known that a plethora of digital resources are available for teachers to utilize in the classroom. However, despite these two circumstances, many schools are still forcing students to learn primarily through the use of traditional textbooks. Ugh! I don’t know about you, but this information reinforces what I’ve thought for some time: The current educational system needs to do a better job of finding ways to bridge the gap between the old and the new in order to create learning experiences for students that are more relevant and real-world. Will you make a pledge to do so in your classroom?