Every so often I am reminded that while eLearning may be a practice that some of us have been doing for a long time, for many others eLearning is a great big shiny world of new opportunity. Whether you are...

I’m half way through my Technology Integration Course in my masters program and am finding the experience almost redundant.  A good deal of what I am learning, I have already tried or have considered adding to the repertoire in the near future.  Its a fun class.  I’ve made a Power Point game and am going […]

…this 1 minute video should help! EiE Principles - Value Failure for What it Teaches

One thing we can learn from the field of User Experience design is how to create user personas, better known as learner personas in the world of eLearning. Personas are well-developed profiles of audience member groups for whom we are designing a course. These audience groups are prototypes of learners in your target audience that share common characteristics, such as their training goals, job responsibilities, educational background or skill level. Every course has at least one audience group and most courses have several. Why Create Personas? Creating personas can help designers become more aware of their audience. Thinking through what a particular audience group needs and how they will react as they proceed through a course provides a tangible focus for the design. With a persona in mind, the designer might build more engaging lessons and discover new ways that learners can construct knowledge. In truth, many designers probably carry around a model of what their audience members are like. But developing personas helps to formalize the models so they can be documented, shared and used throughout the design process. This creates a consistency and unity in who your audience members are across the entire design and development team. Gather Information First The most effective personas are going to emerge out of an audience analysis that includes interviews and real conversations with sample audience members as well as supervisors and stakeholders in the training. This is one of the best ways to ensure your personas reflect reality rather than a projection of your ideal learner. Other sources of information might come from your client’s printed collateral and website or discussions with subject matter experts or personnel office. Then Write With this information in hand, write a descriptive profile of an audience group member. Give this person a name and borrow traits from real individuals of the group if you were lucky enough to hold interviews. Describe your persona’s demographics, job responsibilities, motivations for taking the training, experiences at work, attitude toward online learning, skill and educational levels and so on. Some groups go so far as to add a photo to their persona. Developing personas can be a collaborative process done with team members or created solo. How To Use Personas In the end, you should have several personas that provide a tangible sense of your audience members. Always share them with your team. Keep the personas in mind throughout design and development as though they are someone you know. Refer to them. Converse about them. Make them your imaginary friend. "Would Kathy want to spend her time playing this game?" "What would it take for Joe to pass the certification test?" The Persona Debate In User Experience circles there is an ongoing debate over whether personas are a help or a hindrance. Some contend that personas are a poor approach for understanding the needs and wants of the audience. Detractors say that personas promote distance between designers and users; that they are a product of what designers wish their users would be like. They say personas don’t reflect unique individuals and they prevent designers from having empathy for their users. Avoiding the Traps My recommendation would be to try personas the next time you’re working on a project with multiple audience groups. Then follow these tips to avoid the traps: Try to have conversations with sample members of your audience groups. Even a few conversations can help you remember the individuals behind the persona. Ensure the use of personas helps your team personalize and customize the design. If you find it has the opposite effect, you’re headed down the wrong path. Watch that stereotypes and social judgments don’t slip into your personas. These unrealistic profiles defeat the purpose. Build empathy for the audience groups. The more you can imagine their life and their story, the more likely you are to understand who they are. Have personas been helpful for you? Tell us about your experience. Articles related to connecting with an audience: Reality eLearning How To Add Realism To eLearning Post from: The eLearning CoachLearner Personas for eLearning

During the past several weeks, the tech press, Twitter-verse and Blogosphere have been filled with news, pronouncements, diatribes and debates regarding the future of Flash. Or more specifically, the death of Flash. To paraphrase Mark Twain, I would like to...

I came across a very interesting article the other day about using your cell phone camera to take pictures of children and what happens if you have your gps turned on. Naturally, quite frightening for those involved. Kinda funny to me. Till I thought about when I use my phone in the classroom to take […]

Here’s a panorama of the room overall (click to enlarge): Click here for the full set. Here’s the floorplan (click to enlarge) - I’ll get and post more exact measurements as soon as I can. There are huge windows along that rear 49′ wall.

I really like these apps!  Check out 7th Grade Lesson 5.1: Fossil Fuels on Notability: Lesson 5.1_ Fossil Fuels (3) I wanted to add audio to it, but there are apparently issues with the new iOS7 and audio.  It all came out as a scratchy mess… SOOOOOOOOOO I just took the whole thing over to […]

Do you know what Flash is? It's a serious question. During the past few months, volumes and volumes have been written about Flash. It's dead. It's dying. It's lazy, buggy and bloated. It's everywhere. It's efficient, it makes the web...

Today I attended a kickoff meeting to design and build a course that teaches medical personnel about venous access devices (VADs) and how to prevent infections from their use. VADs are those tubes that go into a large vein and hang around to administer fluids or medications. There’s more, but you probably don’t want to hear it. Anyway, this is  an important and complex subject in medical circles. This typical day reminded me of the hazards, joys and oddities of being an eLearning designer and developer, a few of which I’ll summarize here. We Can’t Be Stopped. The really important SMEs are often too busy to show up at a meeting. That’s not enough to stop us! As designers, we get the source materials and plow ahead anyway. We’ll find underling SMEs to use as replacements. We’ll do our own research. After all, not knowing the subject is the normal state of things for an instructional designer. The Throw-Away Reflex. Designers have their own throw-away reflex. As soon as we’re given a brain dump of information, we automatically come up with ways to organize and slim things down. It’s an instinct. Personally, I even have a prepared speech about the limits of what people can retain. For this particular course, we’ll remove content that can’t be remembered and provide it as reference material. We’ll take other content and turn it into a FAQ. We’ll squeeze, compress and extract until that content is manageable. Is There Anything We Won’t Do? Designers will do almost anything to fulfill a goal or to implement an idea. For the VAD course, we’ve proposed that a SME will present a webinar allowing audience members to ask real-world questions about the course content. We’ll record the webinar and use that to fine-tune the learning process. What will we do if no audience members show up for the webinar? We’ll bring the most important questions and ask them ourselves, of course. The goal is to get this nuanced real-world information recorded and available to learners. Ignorance As An Asset. Recently, a SME announced to a meeting of similar types that the best thing about me was that I didn’t know anything. Of course, she meant I didn’t know anything about the subject, and that this was an asset when designing for new learners. I’m not sure how the people at the meeting interpreted this comment. It’s "compliments" like this that keep you humble. We Can Make A Difference. If you’re not feeling cynical, you could argue that training is one of the most important ways to make a positive difference in people’s lives. It opens new worlds, provides new skills, changes attitudes and helps people advance in their careers. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons many of us are hopelessly addicted to this field. Related Articles: 10 Qualities Of The Ideal Instructional Designer Post from: The eLearning CoachThe Instructional Design Life Share this on LinkedinTweet This!Email this to a friend?Share this on FacebookShare this on del.icio.usStumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUponAdd this to 100 bookmarks

learningspaces (16)-uchicago by smaedli on Flickr (for illustrative purposes only - not a proposed design for my space) "Start with learning first.  Space comes out of that." - David Jakes David’s quote came to me a couple of weeks ago in an email conversation with several others in my personal learning network about this little classroom initiative of mine. I’ve been thinking about his words ever since. My goal with this post is to describe the learning I envision taking place in the K4STEMLAB. So, here goes! Learning in my new classroom will be: Self-directed & differentiated. I have been telling people that the K4STEMLAB represents the end of students in my class "doing the same thing at the same time using the same software." My students will decide for themselves how to approach a challenge; how many times to review instructions (whatever form they take) and do so at their own pace; and to know they can skip the instructions entirely if they already know what to do. Grounded in experimentation. My students will learn for themselves by controlling as much as they can about the learning process. I want them to feel free to fail while learning. Collaborative. Students will work together, sometimes in assigned groups, sometimes with whom they choose, or whomever is nearby, to create & compose, review, question, reflect and ultimately complete a task successfully. Multi-sensory. Some students prefer getting instructions from a person; some prefer using printed materials; some would rather watch a video. We will seek to accommodate them all. Science-focused. I want students to LOVE SCIENCE like the way they LOVE TECHNOLOGY in my classroom now. I want them to love asking questions about the world around them and I want them to wonder. I want them to take things apart, put things together, engineer things, and to tinker. So what might this actually LOOK LIKE in a classroom? Try this on for size. It’s an imaginary a 4th grade class. Some of what I describe below will have to be scaffolded for younger learners, and some won’t be possible at all. But the K4STEMLAB is all about seeing how much of this we can make happen with essentially a ZERO BUDGET. Without further ado: Students arrive with their teacher. Music can be heard in the background as they come in. They pick up their personal "daily challenge" folder, with in-progress projects or artifacts related to the task at hand. They grab a mobile device (probably a Chromebook) and log into our LMS (Learning Management System, probably Edmodo). They then interact with some other data gathering system (Google forms? Wikispace? Google Sites?) to update their status on project work, request information or assistance / collaboration with others. This information is posted in real time and acted on just as quickly. At that point, they begin working on whatever it is they need to do, using whatever technology they need, a Chromebook, digital camera, a microscope, a magnifying glass, the SMART Board, etc. They tune into my video channel where they watch screencasts I have created for them illustrating the key tasks and possible ways to get it done. Some students use printed instructions I have prepared for them. Some are in a small group led by me or another teacher. The rest of the students group themselves on their own, moving around the room as needed. Some kids, having completed the assignment (possibly including parts at home), relax in the "Game Space," maybe by playing Cut the Rope or experimenting with Google Blocky or TinkerCAD. The majority of kids are busy working, spread around the room, sitting comfortably where they can find space. The kids almost completely manage themselves. They are enjoying a blended learning environment. [For more about blended learning, see: What’s Your Main Purpose For Blended Learning? by Andrew Coulson and The Flipped Classroom Model: A Full Picture by Jackie Gerstein.)] As we approach the end of class, students update their status in the LMS with their progress for the day, upload anything they need to, perhaps print off an artifact, and put whatever they need into their "daily challenge" folder, which they put away. They line up and leave. When they get home from school, they can log into the LMS and continue working (because much of our instructional ecosystem will be web based), or even (yes, heaven forbid) work on their keyboarding skills via the online keyboarding program our district uses. When they reach pre-established keyboarding proficiency rates, they earn "badges," which display in the LMS. This applies to foundation skills like keyboarding as well as project work and even behavioral accomplishments (bestowed by me, like, for example, "Week’s Best Invention"). They can even submit projects to me from home via the LMS, where I can assess, add comments and return them. Sound like a stretch? Yeah, it does to me too. (I’d be honored to be considered one of the crazy ones.) But, here’s the thing; that’s why I’m so excited. I’m a sucker for a challenge! This post is part of a series about our plans to "reinvent" my K-4 Computer Lab class as a STEM (Science, Engineering, Technology & Math) course starting in September 2012. By "thinking out loud" here I hope to keep stakeholders apprised of our ideas, activities & progress while I gain wisdom and perspective from anyone who cares to join the conversation.

Rich Kiker is a nationally recognized and award winning Certified Google Apps for Edu Trainer and Director of Online Learning. In this episode he shares some great Google insight and tips for teachers of all levels. Follow Rich http://twitter.com/rkiker House of #EdTech is sponsored by Audible.com. There are over 150,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or other mp3 player. http://www.audibletrial.com/houseofedtech   All Links and shownotes at http://www.chrisnesi.com/2014/11/23-google-apps-for-education-gafe-with.html   FEEDBACK Call: (732) 903-4869 Voxer: cnesi4602 Email: feedback@chrisnesi.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/mrnesi Send a voice message from http://www.chrisnesi.com

Jenna Kleine is the Community Marketing Manager at Class Dojo. Kleine is a former middle and high school science teacher with a passion for technology and making a real difference in education for students we all teach. Follow Jenna http://twitter.com/jenna_kleine Follow Class Dojo http://twitter.com/ClassDojo House of #EdTech is sponsored by Audible.com. There are over 150,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or other mp3 player. http://www.audibletrial.com/houseofedtech All Links and shownotes at http://www.chrisnesi.com/2014/11/24-classroom-management-with-classdojo.html FEEDBACK Call: (732) 903-4869 Voxer: cnesi4602 Email: feedback@chrisnesi.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/mrnesi Send a voice message from http://www.chrisnesi.com  

Time to shed some negative… Time to dismiss the unhappy… Time to reject the bitter pretending to be content… Time to nudge the miserable out the door… Time to embrace the self reflective. Time to invite the joyful in. Time to accept the support system. Time to believe the praise. Time to change the outlook. […]

Dr. Spike Cook, principal of R.M. Bacon Elementary School (Millville, NJ), co-host of the PrincipalPLN Podcast and author returns to the show! Dr. Cook shares insight on his new book, Connected Leadership: It's Just a Click Away (Corwin Connected Educators Series). Follow Spike http://twitter.com/drspikecook This episode of House of #EdTech is brought to you by TodaysMeet. Visit http://www.todaysmeet.com/houseofedtech House of #EdTech is sponsored by Audible.com. There are over 150,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or other mp3 player. http://www.audibletrial.com/houseofedtech All Links and shownotes at http://www.chrisnesi.com/2014/12/25-connected-leadership-its-just-click.html FEEDBACK Call: (732) 903-4869 Voxer: cnesi4602 Email: feedback@chrisnesi.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/mrnesi Send a voice message from http://www.chrisnesi.com

The House of #EdTech is celebrating its one-year anniversary! This episode is packed with 26 great recommendations you should know about. Each suggestion was submitted by a listener or former guest on the show. This episode of House of #EdTech is brought to you by TodaysMeet. Visit http://www.todaysmeet.com/houseofedtech House of #EdTech is sponsored by Audible.com. There are over 150,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or other mp3 player. http://www.audibletrial.com/houseofedtech All Links and shownotes at http://www.chrisnesi.com/2014/12/house-of-edtech-smackdown-hoet26.html FEEDBACK Call: (732) 903-4869 Voxer: cnesi4602 Email: feedback@chrisnesi.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/mrnesi Send a voice message from http://www.chrisnesi.com

Sharon Plante talks about her experiences integrating technology in special education and her role as a technology director. Follow Sharon http://twitter.com/iplante This episode of House of #EdTech is brought to you by TodaysMeet. Visit http://www.todaysmeet.com/houseofedtech House of #EdTech is sponsored by Audible.com. There are over 150,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or other mp3 player. http://www.audibletrial.com/houseofedtech All Links and shownotes at http://www.chrisnesi.com/2015/01/edtech-and-special-education-with.html FEEDBACK Call: (732) 903-4869 Voxer: cnesi4602 Email: feedback@chrisnesi.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/mrnesi Send a voice message from http://www.chrisnesi.com

For all of you who are as fascinated by the Apple-Adobe Flash standoff as I am, here are some links to some of my personal favorite blog posts and articles capturing the highlights of the situation. As a certain CEO...

I believe I need a sign like this for my playground K4STEMLAB classroom: Image credit: niallkennedy on Flickr Just sayin’.

Tom Murray, State and District Digital Learning Director for Alliance for Excellent Education, explains what the Future Ready initiative is and what is means to be Future Ready. Follow Tom http://twitter.com/thomascmurray This episode of House of #EdTech is brought to you by TodaysMeet. Visit http://www.todaysmeet.com/houseofedtech House of #EdTech is sponsored by Audible.com. There are over 150,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or other mp3 player. http://www.audibletrial.com/houseofedtech   All links and shownotes at http://www.chrisnesi.com/2015/01/futureready-with-tom-murray.html   FEEDBACK Call: (732) 903-4869 Voxer: cnesi4602 Email: feedback@chrisnesi.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/mrnesi Send a voice message from http://www.chrisnesi.com

Courtney Kofeldt is the Technology Coordinator and a Teacher at the Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School which is completely on-line. She shares tools and resources that are valuable to an on-line school and you can find value in as well.   Follow Courtney http://twitter.com/Ms_Kof   This episode of House of #EdTech is brought to you by TodaysMeet. Visit http://www.todaysmeet.com/houseofedtech   House of #EdTech is sponsored by Audible.com. There are over 150,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or other mp3 player. http://www.audibletrial.com/houseofedtech   All links and shownotes at http://www.chrisnesi.com/2015/02/cyber-education-interview-with-courtney-kofeldt.html   FEEDBACK Call: (732) 903-4869 Voxer: cnesi4602 Email: feedback@chrisnesi.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/mrnesi Send a voice message from http://www.chrisnesi.com

Stacey Lindes is a former first grade teacher who now works as a Teacher Resource Specialist for Technology for West-Windsor Plainsboro Public Schools (NJ). Follow Stacey http://twitter.com/iruntech   This episode of House of #EdTech is brought to you by TodaysMeet. Visit http://www.todaysmeet.com/houseofedtech House of #EdTech is sponsored by Audible.com. There are over 150,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or other mp3 player. http://www.audibletrial.com/houseofedtech   All links and shownotes at http://www.chrisnesi.com/2015/02/11-programs-with-specialist-stacey-lindes-hoet030.html   FEEDBACK Call: (732) 903-4869 Voxer: cnesi4602 Email: feedback@chrisnesi.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/mrnesi Send a voice message from http://www.chrisnesi.com

The computer user interface is that nebulous space where humans interact with the machine. Many people find this space frustrating because it’s easy to get lost or because the system doesn’t work as expected. As designers and developers, we can make sure our audiences have smooth interactions with our courses. After all, good user interface design is an essential part of eLearning. It can influence a user’s perception of an entire learning event. So here are some basic rules for user interface design from the audience’s perspective. "I don’t want to think about the user interface." Make the user interface transparent to your audience. It shouldn’t be noticed. It shouldn’t be something people have to learn or decipher. If everything is clean and clear, then learners can get on with the task of learning and not have to think about how to interact. As Jakob Neilson, usability expert states, "Users don’t care about design for its own sake; they just want to get things done and get out. Normal people don’t love sitting at their computers. They’d rather watch football, walk the dog — just about anything else. Using a computer probably rates above taking out the trash, though." "I always want to know what to do next." Include instructions on every screen. If there are options, explain all of them clearly. Your audience should never—not even for a second—be wondering what to do next. Writing concise and clear screen instructions is a difficult task. After writing and revising several times, run your instructions by grouchy people to see if they complain about them. One more thing. Go revise those instructions one more time. The overly-simplified example below shows how you can strive to make your screen instructions ever more clear. The text on the left is unnecessarily long and mentions Next, which is not labeled. The shorter instructions on the right probably suffice and we avoid potential confusion about what to click to continue. "I want the program to act like I think it should." Everyone who is familiar with computer applications holds a mental model of how different types of software work. In eLearning, we can get quite creative with these models. Perhaps the user interface is a smart phone or a DVD player or a store front or an elevator panel. Or perhaps it’s a plain vanilla Previous and Next type of system. Whether your course uses a metaphor or a generic approach, follow logical and obvious conventions. Think about how audience members will expect the system to work and then make sure it does. In the example below, the user interface is an elevator panel. Learners choose a floor on the panel, ride up to the selected floor and partake in learning activities on each floor. As they climb higher in the building, the activities become more advanced. The elevator panel on the left doesn’t correspond to a typical mental model of how an elevator works. When the user realizes that going up to a higher floor is represented as going down, it causes cognitive dissonance. When we stick to conventions, as shown in the example on the right, we’re modeling the way most people think. "I don’t want to wonder what an icon means." When using icons for menu options and buttons, support the icons with text. Because there is no standard icon set in the world of eLearning, our audiences have seen numerous and diverse icons for "Menu" "Lesson" "Glossary" and such. Speed up the recognition process by adding text beneath the icon. If there really is no room for text (and this is hard to believe), then display the text in a tool tip—you know, the text that shows up when the mouse hovers over a button. In the example below, the icon on the left could mean Notes, Resources, Menu or something else. By adding text to the icon, as shown on the right, we help the user quickly identify the icon’s purpose and reduce unnecessary mental processing. User interface design is a complex and deep subject. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Please share with us your user interface rules of thumb. Post from: The eLearning CoachUser Interface Design For eLearning - Updated Share this on LinkedinTweet This!Email this to a friend?Share this on FacebookShare this on del.icio.usStumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUponAdd this to 100 bookmarks

I attended my very first Twitter Chat last night!  I have finally reached a point in my Twitter experience where I don’t freak out when people tweet at me!  It was a good experience and I can’t wait to do it again! *screaming like a banshee in my head* Ok, I’m calm now. So, the […]