Last week, I had the opportunity to participate in the string of interviews for the release of the new Minecraft Education Edition and I’ve been eagerly anticipating how others would respond at the today’s news of its summer 2016 release. By now, attendees at the BETT conference in London have experienced a sneak peek into the future of Minecraft in the classroom. I imagine that they were excited about the internal camera block, student portfolio, interactive map and single file export. I also imagine that they were as excited as I am about not having to set up a server anymore or about students being able to download and play at home. For a second, they were probably okay with the pricing model of $5/user and then they walked away, did the math and connected with the fact that where minecraftedu was a one time seat license fee, this new Minecraft Education Edition is a yearly subscription per student and teacher. In a climate where schools barely have money for paper, this can get quite pricey. Now…hear me out on this next part and I mean this coming from someone in a high poverty rural community without accessible devices for every student. Don’t get caught up on pricing. I always said that If I had it my way, I would send every kid home with a copy of minecraft as I know first hand how powerful of a program it is and can be. It’s just never been financially feasible to do so. At $5/student (even lower with volume pricing), we can now do that. In addition, we pay yearly subscription fees for programs like Discovery Education, Brainpop and a nice collection of content based assessment tools…programs that our students barely access. (That’s an entirely different story) At least with DE, kids can download media to remix in projects but if we value creative learning, minecraft should be a choice too. In other words, perhaps we should consider what we value and what matters to our students. I’m not saying that we should not have math/science/reading programs but we should consider that perhaps if we look at how kids learn differently, in lieu of multiple choice, we might see progress in ways that we are unable to imagine. That was my experience with Minecraft anyway. Is Minecraft for You? I read an article in the Wall Street Journal where the writer quoted the senior policy analyst of the NEA saying basically that Minecraft was a supplementary tool that could not fit the bill in the classroom and should simply be an after school program. (Clearly, he is dead wrong on this) I have no idea if the senior policy analyst of the NEA has ever actually been a classroom teacher but I imagine that if he were, he taught with desks in perfect rows and classrooms as quiet as a mouse. If he used any technology at all, it was provided by the text book company and deviating from that would have been a sin. In addition, I imagine that if he were to look for apps for teaching, he would have insisted only on those that provided complete and total teacher control because heaven forbid kids learn something that wasn’t itemized in the standards. Basically, Minecraft is probably not his thing and if this describes your classroom or the culture of learning in your building, it’s probably not for you either. …Unless, you are willing to give up control, give students choice in how they show/share learning or simply accept that sometimes kids just need access to create amazing things, whether they use it in the classroom or not… I will tell you that in my school district, we will struggle with having computers for kids to use Minecraft in school. We utilize a virtual network and right now, we are exploring options to add graphics cards to our servers. We have minecraft via ipad, but it won’t be compatible with Minecraft Edu Edition just as it isn’t with Minecraft EDU. I’m still going to put it in my budget to provide Minecraft for all of our students, grades 3-8. I’m doing it because even if teachers aren’t entirely ready, kids are. The fact of the matter is that to start, it’s not about teaching teachers the mechanics of how minecraft works but the mechanics of asking more thought-provoking questions that lead to ideation and creation. It’s about empowering teachers to see that there is value in expression and for many of our kids, Minecraft creates pathways towards that. In year 1, we may only have 10 teachers across the district who actively include Minecraft in instruction but we’ll have a district of kids who know that it is available to them. Perhaps, like tonight, our kids will help our teachers get there sooner than later. Intro to Minecraft Session, faciliated by students, using Minecraft PE  

In my last blog I talked about three tips to help you stay on track to achieve your New Year’s resolutions. Now that you are a few weeks into the process, you might be struggling a little bit, so let me make another suggestion. Over the years, I’ve realized that the people who have the most trouble accomplishing goals and sticking with resolutions are the people who are the busiest. The problem with these people is that too often they go through the motions of day-to-day busy work instead of focusing on the most important things first. You have probably heard the theory that we all have two selves—the external, task-oriented self that focuses on getting the job done, and the internal, thoughtful, reflective self that considers things before acting. The task-oriented self is the first to wake up in the morning, of course, and is only focused on task achievement. You read email while you are eating breakfast, then jump in the car, head to the office and start attacking your to-do list in order to get everything checked off before you go home. It’s so easy to get caught in this kind of activity trap—you’re so busy doing urgent but unimportant tasks you don’t have time to think about the important goals you may have set. So how do you get out of this trap? How do you help yourself focus less on task achievement and more on goal achievement? I suggest that in the morning, instead of jumping out of bed and right into task achievement, you enter your day slowly and thoughtfully. Take 20 or 30 minutes to think through what you really need to accomplish for the day. Remember how I suggested you write down your New Year’s resolutions and read them every day? Now is the perfect time. Look at your resolutions to see where they can fit into the day’s plan. Entering your day slowly gives you the opportunity to plan your day out so that you can both accomplish your tasks and fit in time to work toward your resolutions. Then, at the end of the day before you go to bed, jot down a few notes about your day in a journal. If you don’t want to take the time to write in a journal, at least give yourself the gift of thinking about your day for a few minutes. What did you do during the day that was consistent with your New Year’s resolutions, and what got in the way? Soon you’ll be able to spot both positive and negative patterns so that you can make changes in your schedule to get yourself back on track toward goal achievement. You might be thinking, "I don’t have time to spend twenty minutes in the morning to plan and more time at night to reflect." But I guarantee that if you take that little bit of time, you’ll set yourself up for success in achieving your goals—and your New Year’s resolutions. And you know what? You’re worth it!

So, let's pretend you've been given the 'opportunity' to install a Learning Management System (LMS), a Customer Relationship Manager system (CRM), SAP, or a new Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system. According to Design Thinking practitioners, each of these are mysteries and impossibly chaotic. It is statistically unlikely the project will go smoothly or even finish. But re-framing the goal can provide an emotional dream that will align humans to success. For example, an LMS can provide employees with ways to learn and grow to the jobs they want, a CRM system can help you build strong relationships to bring success to your customers, SAP can help companies grow and hire with accurate financials and EMRs help sick people get better. Dorothy spent very little time looking at her shoes or drawing maps to Oz which would ultimately be wrong. Instead, she skipped away toward her dream and never let her eyes drift from it. With the end in mind, there's still a problem with workload. How do we know when we're 'full' or when our staff has too much to do? This video with Faith Martin proves that multitasking is not only slower but stupid. Stop pretending you can multitask and figure out how to hold larger chunks of time to work on things. Isolate your meetings to certain times of day. Only you can change the organizational chaos. Give yourself permission to challenge the organization's bad habits that are keeping you from your potential. My friend Michael Mah says "We ARE the Emperor with no clothes on." Parker Palmer says:"Take everything that’s bright and beautiful in you and introduce it to the shadow side of yourself… When you are able to say, ‘I am … my shadow as well as my light,’ the shadow’s power is put in service of the good."

Last week was a bit of a whirlwind of activity for me. As well as being one of the organisers for the latest iteration of #BYOD4L, and running a number of drop in sessions throughout the week here at GCU, I was also in Sligo on Thursday and Friday giving a keynote at Sligo Institute of Technology’s Learning and Teaching Symposium. I was very impressed to hear about the way fully online delivery has been developing at the  Institute of Technology Sligo. They now have 55 fully online courses, nearly half their staff teaching on fully online courses, and  are one of Ireland’s largest providers of online learning. This has all been done from a very small beginnings with a very bottom up, pragmatic approach. Now their online courses are beginning to generate some considerable income, they are investing back into staff development and infrastructure which is always good to hear.  I think we could all learn a lot from their approach, and I’ll certainly be keeping in touch. I shared some of the approaches we take to blended learning here at GCU which seemed to go down well. My slides are available below. New blends in digital bottles from Sheila MacNeill     Tagged: #ITSTEL16

Last week’s #BYOD4L, and in particular, the nightly #byod4lchat tweet chats were fun, at times frenetic and fascinating insight into how our community is connecting, communicating collaborating, curating and creating using a range of mobile apps and devices. Thanks to Martin Hawksey’s fantastic, open TAGSexplorer tool,  we can delve into the twitter stream a bit more. In the main #BYOD4L there were 1028 unique tweets sent over the week, and 813 links which is quite a bit of sharing. Unsurprisingly, the #BYOD4lchat was a bit more active with 2467 unique tweets sent over the week. The screenshot below shows the list of top tweeters. When we go into the TAGSExplorer interactive view we can get a far richer picture of the the community and its connections.  As well as the "swirly twirly" diagram,  we can explore not only the top tweeters, but also the top conversationalists (there are some users in both but differences too). We can also explore and search a time line archive of the tweets which is fascinating and gives a really nice visual overview of the periods of twitter activity each night last week. We really did hit twitter every night last week between 8 and 9 pm.  We may or may not have been responsible for twitter going down on Friday night. . . . I know I enjoyed all the tweet chats I managed to be part of. I found out about lots of new (to me) things and practice, made some new connections as well as catching up with old friends. That’s really the point of events like #BYOD4l, we all learn best by sharing with each other. I hope that the new connections made over the course of last week grow from strength to strength and I look forward to the next round of #BYOD4l.   #BYOD4L TAGS archive #BYOD4Lchat TAGS archive   Tagged: byod4l

Continuing on with theories related to thinking, I’ve seen several articles in recent weeks discussing Design Thinking, so I figured it would be a timely term to discuss. Design Thinking The concept of design thinking came to be as a method for solution-based thinking. This idea ties in with last week’s discussion of convergent and divergent thinking (considering one, solitary, correct solution, and considering many solutions), as design thinking begins with divergent thinking to identify many potential solutions and ends with convergent thinking to identify one of the many potential solutions that will be employed as THE solution. The process of design thinking includes several phases (define, research, ideate, prototype, choose, implement, and learn), which in education can be easily compared to Instructional Design models, such as ADDIE. Define/Research = Analysis, Ideate = Design, Prototype = Develop, Choose/Implement = Implement, and Learn = Evaluate. Very familiar, no? If you’ve participated in workshops or interactive conference sessions, you’ve likely witnessed design thinking first hand. Last year, I was involved in a workshop-style presentation of research findings. In this presentation, participants were prompted to provide some guided feedback at several junctures. At the end of the presentation, it was then revealed that the researchers were conducting data collection throughout the workshop, and our feedback would be used within their research. Genius! Design thinking in action! Design thinking isn’t a new concept, and it isn’t always employable within our organizations and/or institutions, but it is a great method for eliciting creativity to solve broader problems. Interested in reading more?  ‘Design thinking’ is changing the way we approach problems big and small by T. Johnson Design Thinking and How it Will Change Management Education: An Interview and Discussion by D. Dunne and R. Martin

In today’s competitive online training landscape, it’s essential that you listen to learners and consistently find ways to test online training and improve learning experiences. Let’s look at three areas in which you can focus your efforts: Quality assurance testing, acceptance testing, and engagement analytics. Learn how to use quality assurance testing, acceptance testing, and engagement analytics to test online training and improve it. 1. Quality Assurance (QA) testing QA testing typically covers two broad areas: Content and functionality. Testing content at this stage is about checking whether your content matches your style guide. Testing functionality is technical; does the project behave correctly in all required technical environments? QA testing can fall under the following categories: Multi-device testing This involves testing your eLearning on each device type. Services like Browser Stack enable you to test in different environments, but if the project needs to run on a touch-screen device, you should test it on the actual device so you can see how the touch screen behaves.Some authoring tools -like Elucidat- can make it easy to quickly test what your training looks like on different screen sizes. Check out Elucidat’s responsive slider in action below: Multi-browser testing Browser Stack can also help you quickly test your course on different operating systems and browsers. Remember to test both portrait and landscape views. Stress testing Stress testing is the try to break it approach, seeing how your course performs beyond the specified number of concurrent users. For example, services can help you bombard your course with requests from servers so you can analyze how it handles the increase in traffic. Stress testing is important because you don’t want your eLearning to crash when learners are actively completing it. Localization If your course needs to be in different languages, make sure you test to see if the languages are translated correctly. If you’re stuck for time, Elucidat’s Master Course feature can make it easy to create and test different versions of your course for each language you support. Related: See how easy it is to handle translations with Elucidat’s authoring tool 2. Acceptance testing Acceptance testing determines if a course meets the requirements originally set out in the specification phase. Here, you need to test how actual users might interact with the course. For example, test against the workflow that a group of people might embark on. Acceptance testing ensures the course works in the real world and has the integrity to support a valid learning experience. Here are some examples of things you might build into your acceptance testing plan: First impressions: Is it clear what the user is being asked to do? Navigation: Is the layout intuitive? Could users find what they needed? Functionality: Did users experience technical issues? 3. Engagement analytics Too much eLearning is released and then forgotten. Engagement analytics can provide insights to help you understand how your course is performing. For example, Elucidat’s integration with Google Analytics lets you track valuable information about how people use your course and how you can improve it. Take a look at this screenshot to see what I mean: Here are some metrics you should assess from Google Analytics: How long is someone spending on a page? Spending a long time on pages could indicate the page is hard to understand.  Are some pages more popular than others? Do learners want to focus more on a specific topic?  How long does your course take to complete? Does the 10-minute course really take 30 minutes?  Where are people accessing the course? Mobile or desktop? Office or home? This data help you tweak and improve the learning experience. You may also use data to visualize correlations and identify interesting trends. For example, you might find that the time of day affects the pass rate. You can use this information to suggest the ideal time for people to work on the course. Related: Stay on top of the latest elearning ideas, trends and technologies by subscribing to the Elucidat weekly newsletter. Conclusion If you’re not testing and improving your online training on a monthly basis, you risk losing students to competitors. Use QA testing, acceptance testing, and engagement analytics to find new ways to enhance the learner experience. By improving your eLearning, you can increase learner satisfaction, which will help you create a great product that attracts and retains more learners in the future. Related: The new way to measure the performance of your eLearning The post Are you testing? Here are 3 ways to test and improve online training appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

Stuck for new ideas? Draw inspiration from these elearning examples from Nuggethead, Microassist, Smart Sparrow and Tim Slade. Nuggethead: PwP is a campaign to educate people who are living with HIV Why we like it: A great example of the use of a comic/graphic novel approach. Good example of storytelling in elearning. High end illustration makes it very compelling. Good use of voiceover and sound effects. Extra information is permanently available via the slide out tabs. Clear, easy to use navigation. There’s a ‘scenario map’ that can be used to jump quickly between scenes. Visit elearning Microassist: This training teaches new HIV case managers how HIV replicates and spreads in the body Why we like it: Simple design based on animated presentation of information about a specific aspect of the pathology of the virus. Clean clear imagery helps ensure the presentation isn’t over-complicated. Uncluttered interface helps focus attention on the presentation content. Presents the facts very simply, with voice-over. Visit elearning Smart Sparrow: Learn genetics by collecting genetic information from a patient in a Virtual Lab Why we like it: Provides video ‘help’ function which shows the step-by-step process and leads the learner towards the correct response. Great use of imagery - full-screen background image to situate the learning in a lab, and high quality content illustrations for the activities. Good example of a simulation - lets you conduct the experiments and practise the processes. Scaffolded instructional design - provides guided learning to help you if you get stuck, but doesn’t force the learner to go through training if they are progressing well. Gives learners a chance to take the test again after the training intervention. Gives learner opportunity to do some research first or press ahead in the process. Visit elearning Tim Slade: Alter ego interactive magazine Why we like it: Great example of borrowing elements of other digital design to enrich elearning. Uses rich multimedia, high-end graphics and layouts. Has all the elements of interactions familiar in elearning such as hotspots and pop-ups. Uses high contrasting colours and fonts for visual enhancement. Good demonstration of the basic principles of graphic design such as proximity and affordance in a learning context. Visit elearning Related: Stay on top of the latest elearning ideas, trends and technologies by subscribing to the Elucidat weekly newsletter.   The post Elearning inspiration: Nuggethead, Microassist, Smart Sparrow, Tim Slade appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

As an online training provider, you will need to produce quality courseware quickly if you are to meet the ever-changing needs of your customers. To do this effectively, you’ll require a range of software tools. Here are five categories which you need to consider. 1. Authoring tools Your authoring tool is probably the most important item in your elearning delivery toolkit. Ideally an authoring tool should be flexible, easy to use and enable quick content development. Many modern authoring products, like Elucidat, tick all of these boxes. Ease of use is especially important so that you can rely on Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), rather than tech-savvy developers to create content. Spreading the development load in this way enables you to get the product to the market more quickly. I wrote an article last year comparing five elearning authoring tools. If you’re investigating new rapid authoring software, that article’s a good place to start. 2. Learning Management Systems (LMSs) Depending on your business model, and in addition to standard LMS functionality, there are three important aspects of an LMS that warrant your attention: Learner/client ease of use e-Commerce functionality Sub-branding capability Ease of use is pretty self-explanatory. If the interface is cluttered, unintuitive, clumsy or aesthetically unappealing, learners won’t be inspired to take your courses no matter how good they are. If you plan to sell your training, you need to make sure that the learner experience is as clean, simple and pleasurable as possible. The e-commerce functionality should obviously enable people to pay for any courses that they want, but you may also want to consider how learners will browse your course catalogue to find what they want to purchase. How easy is it for a learner to perform a catalogue search, and how much control do you have over who sees different parts of the catalogue? E.g., perhaps you’ve customized some courses and only learners from selected organizations should be able to access these. Creating a sub-branded site within your main LMS may also be important to you. No matter how well known or attractive your brand is, clients—especially larger clients—are likely to want the LMS landing page and the catalogue relevant to their own learners to look as though they’re part of their own brand. Even if sub-branding is a listed feature in an LMS you’re considering, find out how much control you will have and how easy it is to implement. For example, some LMS products may claim to give you branding control, but you may need to be a CSS expert or PHP programmer to implement it! Your own unique needs will determine which LMS is best suited to your organization. Five well-regarded LMSs that you may want to investigate are: Cornerstone Docebo LearnUpon DigitalChalk TalentLMS 3. Screen and audio recording tools Capturing static screenshots and screen interaction sequences is useful when developing content for learners. Here are some helpful tools: Snagit: This is a really powerful tool for screen capture of videos and static screen images. Snagit is a staple tool for most elearning pros. Screencast-O-Matic: This allows you to capture screen interaction videos (e.g., software how-to videos) either with or without your webcam ‘narrator’ image included. If you have a Java-enabled web browser (which is becoming increasingly rare) you can launch the recorder directly from your web browser. If not, there’s a small download that enables your web browser to launch the recording app. It’s very powerful considering its free price tag, but there is an inexpensive annual subscription that provides many extra bells and whistles. PrtScn: If you just want a static image of a computer screen, use your PrtScn keyboard key. Use the Alt + PrtScn key combination to capture the active window rather than your entire desktop. PrtScn copies the image to the Windows clipboard. From there you can paste it into a PowerPoint slide or Paint and export the slide as a PNG or JPG graphics file. Audio can be very powerful in elearning, for example when providing the audience with different stakeholder perspectives, providing information via a simulated phone call, or just providing workplace sound effects to help immerse the learner and contextualize the learning. Audacity: This is the go-to tool for most non-professional sound recordists. It’ll give you all the functionality that you’re ever likely to need. Twisted Wave: This is a very simple sound recorder and editor. Its advantage is that it’s web-based, so no downloads or installs, but there are downloadable versions for Mac and iOS, too. 4. Design tools We all need graphical inspiration from time to time. One of the best places to go for design inspiration and tools for creating infographics, layouts and stunning presentations is Canva. Here you can see how the pros match fonts, graphics, color and layout to best effect—and it lets you apply it to your projects. 5. Mind Mapping tools An important task during the early design stage of most large elearning projects is prioritizing and chunking the main headings and sub-topics. Mind Mapping tools, and especially collaborative Mind Mapping tools, are great for this. Here are two to look at: Coggle: This is a web-based tool that allows teams or individuals to brainstorm, group and prioritize ideas very easily. Mindjet (MindManager): This product has evolved over many years, so has greater functionality than many other Mind Mapping products. This functionality comes with a slight learning curve and is also reflected in the price. Related: Stay on top of the latest elearning ideas, trends and technologies by subscribing to the Elucidat weekly newsletter. In conclusion Like any crafts-person, the quality of the tools you use and how effectively you wield them will directly impact what you create. In these competitive times, you need to maximize quality and output by using up-to-date technology and techniques like those highlighted here. The post Five Essential Tools for Online Training Providers appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

How Could Students Make Online Learning More Productive… https://t.co/VTYuAZv0vX

How Could Students Make Online Learning More Productive https://t.co/ixEsHDIRsF

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Hello everybody! In his previous post JoeVains shared with you a pack of location icons. Initially they were designed for the PeHaa THEMES recent premium WordPress theme (YaGa) where they are used as custom Google Maps markers. We decided to extend the Yaga Theme pack and share it with you (free for both personal and commercial use). This post is for those who do not have much experience with customizing Google maps with Google Maps Javascript API. I’ll show you how to generate a map and add markers using our location icons (or your own location icons if you prefer). We’ll discuss improving user experience and browsers inconsistencies. Don’t hesitate to download the .zip folder to have a complete version of the code. Generating a map Our main reference is developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/tutorial If you are just experimenting you do not necessarily need to generate an  API key. If you put your map online you may need to control if the requests quota is not exceeded and be able to increase it. With an API key you can also set which web domains are allowed to access your maps - this will protect you from any unauthorized usage. To get it visit this link. We will start with a slightly modified example code that you can find in the Google Maps Api tutorial. We will center our map in Place de Vosges, Paris, France - our coordinates are {lat: 48.855510, lng: 2.365505}. <html> <head> <style> html, body {height:100%; margin:0; padding:0;} .map {height:100%} </style> </head> <body> <div id="map" class="map desk-three-forth"></div> <script type="text/javascript"> var map; function initMap() { var myLatLng = {lat: 48.855510, lng: 2.365505}; map = new google.maps.Map(document.getElementById('map'), { zoom: 18, center: myLatLng, styles: [{"stylers": [{ "saturation": -100 }]}] }); } </script> <script src="https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/js?callback=initMap"></script> </body> </html> We zoom in 18 times and we also modify the map styles. Our style modification is one of the simplest possible - basic desaturation. If you want to play with map styles you should visit snazzymaps.com - a community built around creating great looking styles for Google Maps. Using the styles from snazzymaps in your website is as easy as copying a bit of code (JSON) and passing it to the map options of your map, ie. replace the [{"stylers": [{ "saturation": -100 }]}]. Please note that you have to determine the map dimensions, here we set height:100% together with the body and html heights set to 100%. Otherwise the map will not display. Adding Markers We will add two markers, they coordinates are: {lat: 48.856259, lng: 2.365043} and {lat: 48.85484, lng: 2.366427}. We will use two different svg icons from the JoeVains pack. We choose svg because of their vector format assuring flexibility in sizes and a crisp look on retina screens. Using .pngs icons would always work, we will discuss it later. Let’s add the location of PEPSized Coffee to the map (unfortunately, it does not exists in the real life…). We will use the the Coffee_3.svg and display it 64px wide and 64px height. var marker = new google.maps.Marker({ position: {lat: 48.856259, lng: 2.365043}, map: map, title: 'PEPSized Coffee', icon: { url: "images/markers/svg/Coffee_3.svg", scaledSize: new google.maps.Size(64, 64) } }); Now you can replicate this code to add more markers, varying icons, titles and sizes. We’ll organise the code a little bit: var locations = [ { title: 'PEPSized Coffee', position: {lat: 48.856259, lng: 2.365043}, icon: { url: "images/markers/svg/Coffee_3.svg", scaledSize: new google.maps.Size(64, 64) } }, { title: 'PEPSized Office', position: {lat: 48.85484, lng: 2.366427}, icon: { url: "images/markers/svg/Arrow_1.svg", scaledSize: new google.maps.Size(96, 96) } } ]; and add the markers with the forEach loop: locations.forEach( function( element ) { var marker = new google.maps.Marker({ position: element.position, map: map, title: element.title, icon: element.icon, }); }); } Using SVG sprites The icon object has a few more attributes that we haven’t used so far. They are particularly useful if we use a svg sprite. In our example we use two icons, we could use a sprite as in the image below: The attributes we will need to properly scale and position each icon are: size, scaledSize and origin. The size attribute corresponds to the size of the marker that will be displayed on the map, scaledSize the size of the image we use and origin - from which point the image should be displayed, (0,0) being the top left corner. var locations = [ { title: 'PEPSized Coffee', position: {lat: 48.856259, lng: 2.365043}, icon: { url: "images/markers/svg/Arrows.svg", size: new google.maps.Size(64, 64), scaledSize: new google.maps.Size(128, 64) } }, { title: 'PEPSized Office', position: {lat: 48.85484, lng: 2.366427}, icon: { url: "images/markers/svg/Arrows.svg", origin: new google.maps.Point(96, 0), size: new google.maps.Size(96, 96), scaledSize: new google.maps.Size(192, 96) } } ]; An icon object has also an anchor attribute that we are not using in our example but that can be very important. The anchor attribute defines where the icon’s hotspot should be located (based on the scaledSize and origin value). You can see what happens when playing with anchor values in the image below. The red default Google Maps marker indicates the referenced coordinates. The default value of anchor (top left image) is the point in the middle of the icon’s bottom. For our 96px 96px icon it is: anchor: new google.maps.Point(48,96) The (0,0) anchor would mean that the referenced coordinates are indicated by the top left corner of the icon etc. Improving User Experience It may be very annoying when you want to quickly scroll down a page and instead you keep interacting with a map. That’s why we decided to disable the scrolling and dragging behaviour on small screens where the map takes full width. We will also set the initial map zoom parameter depending on the screen width. We will use a small custom modernizr build. We will use the Modernizr.mq option - that allows to check if the current browser window state matches a media query. We will also detect the hidden scrollbars - overlay scrollbars (when scrollbars on overflowed blocks are visible), common on mobile and OS X. We include it within the page HEAD element: <head> <title>PEPSized Places in Paris</title> <meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale=1.0"> <meta charset="utf-8"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" type="text/css" media="all"> <script src="modernizr.js"></script> </head> And we modify the piece of code where the map is generated var map, desktopScreen = Modernizr.mq( "only screen and (min-width:1024px)" ), zoom = desktopScreen ? 18 : 17, scrollable = draggable = !Modernizr.hiddenscroll || desktopScreen; function initMap() { var myLatLng = {lat: 48.855510, lng: 2.365505}; map = new google.maps.Map(document.getElementById('map'), { zoom: zoom, center: myLatLng, mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.ROADMAP, scrollwheel: scrollable, draggable: draggable, styles: [{"stylers": [{ "saturation": -100 }]}], }); ... Using .png icons You could use the .png icons instead the .svg - the difference would appear on retina screens. If you have your custom .png icon (for example my_icon_48.png) that you want to use as a marker, make sure to have it double sized (for example my_icon_96.png): icon: { url: window.devicePixelRatio > 1 ? "my_icon96png" : "my_icon48.png", scaledSize: new google.maps.Size(48, 48) } Troubleshooting The main problem with the svg approach is that it does not work in IE11 (it does in IE10 and Edge although). Here is our workaround - we detect the IE11 browser with javascript and use a png icon instead of a svg. var isIE11 = !!(navigator.userAgent.match(/Trident/) && navigator.userAgent.match(/rv[ :]11/)); var locations = [ { title: 'PEPSized Coffee', position: {lat: 48.856259, lng: 2.365043}, icon: { url: isIE11 ? "images/markers/png/Coffee_3.png" : "images/markers/svg/Coffee_3.svg", scaledSize: new google.maps.Size(64, 64) } }, { title: 'PEPSized Office', position: {lat: 48.85484, lng: 2.366427}, icon: { url: isIE11 ? "images/markers/png/Arrow_1.png" : "images/markers/svg/Arrow_1.svg", scaledSize: new google.maps.Size(96, 96) } } ]; The Demo Layout For those who might be interested, a few words about our demo layout. This is our markup: <div id="map" class="map desk-three-forth"></div> <div class="map-legend desk-one-forth"> <div class="location location-1"> <div class="location--inner"> <img src="images/markers/svg/Coffee_3.svg" alt="Coffee Shop icon"> <!-- or or instead of <img> if we use a sprite <span class="marker-icon marker-coffee"></span> --> <h3>PEPSized Coffee</h3> <p>13 Place de PEPS</p> <h4>Opening Hours:</h4> <p>Opened daily:</p> <p>9am - 8pm</p> </div> </div> <div class="location location-2"> <div class="location--inner"> <img src="images/markers/svg/Arrow_1.svg" alt="PEPSized Office icon"> <!-- or instead of <img> if we use a sprite <span class="marker-icon marker-office"></span> --> <h3>PEPSized Office</h3> <p>1 Place de PEPS</p> <h4>Opening Hours:</h4> <p>Tuesday - Saturday</p> <p>9am - 8pm</p> </div> </div> </div> We use background images for the location divs and an :after pseudo-element to add a semi-transparent overlay: .location { background-size:cover; background-position:center center; position:relative; color:white; } .location-1 { background-color:#554738; background-image:url( 'images/coffee_bg.jpg'); } .location-2 { background-color:#383838; background-image:url( 'images/office_bg.jpg'); } .location::after { content:""; background-color:inherit; opacity:.65; position:absolute; left:0; right:0; top:0; bottom:0; } .location--inner { position:relative; z-index:1; } We set the width of the map to 75% and float it left. We also use the flexbox property to vertically center the .location-inner divs: @media screen and (min-width: 1024px) { .map, .map-legend { height:100%; } .desk-three-forth { float: left; width:75%; } .desk-one-forth { width:25%; } .map-legend, .location { display:flex; flex-direction:column; } .location { min-height:50%; justify-content:center; align-items:center } } Displaying the icons within the location-inner divs seemed absolutely straightforward but… we discovered some strange behavior in Safari. If we modify the dimensions of the svg icon (the same .svg file as being used in a marker), the new dimensions interfere with the icon object size attributes. It happens both for and img element or if background-image is used. The workaround it to use transform:scale instead of modifying the dimensions directly, that’s why we have: .location img { display:inline-block; -webkit-transform:scale(2); transform:scale(2); } or if using sprites: .marker-icon { background-image:url("images/markers/svg/Arrows.svg"); display:inline-block; width:48px; height:48px; -webkit-transform:scale(2); transform:scale(2); } .marker-office { background-position:48px 0; } That’s all. We hope you got inspired! Thank you very much! Tweet this! Terms of use : You may use the effects demonstrated in tutorials in your own work, both commercial or non-commercial without any attribution. You may not reproduce entire nor large parts of our tutorials. The outcome of our tutorials may not be re-saled nor redistributed.

Developing an eLearning storyboard is one thing, but turning it into a practical guide for anyone involved in the eLearning project is of utmost importance. In this article, I will give you 7 tips & tricks you can use to design outstanding eLearning storyboards.

We discuss the trends and issues we observed during the weeks of January 2-17, 2016 as we flipped resources into our Flipboard magazine (http://bit.ly/trendsandissues). We have four trends that we discuss. The first is news from the recent Consumer Electronic Show. The second (and reoccurring) is virtual reality. The big news is Octlus Rift will […] Tags:   Del.icio.us Facebook TweetThis Digg StumbleUpon Comments:  0 (Zero), Be the first to leave a reply!Copyright © Trends & Issues [Episode 55 Trends for January 2-17 Consumer Electronics Show, VR, Gaming & Instruction, and ID Strategies and Cognition Research], All Right Reserved. 2016.

In part 1 of the Downright Sneaky Lectora® Tricks tutorial, you will learn how to create devMode, a special mode you can use that makes it easier on a developer when testing his or her course. In subsequent tutorials, you will learn how to give yourself superpowers in devMode and then hide the entrance. The secret passageway If you’re like me (and I know I sure am!), then you probably watched a fair amount of Scooby Doo as a kid. Most episodes featured a spooky building that was "haunted" by some sort of monster like a swamp ghost, rock-n-roll demon, or whatever. Upon investigating, the Scooby Doo gang would often find a secret passageway that the sinister villain exploited in order to sneak around stealthily and appear to have supernatural powers. I was quite disappointed to discover that my own home didn’t have any secret passageways. But now I can build my OWN secret passageways and so can YOU using Lectora! We will use our secret passageway to access devMode. What is devMode? DevMode (which is shorthand for Developer Mode) enables you (the developer) to bestow the ability to bypass obstacles so that you can zip through your online courses quickly and SNEAKILY —like a ghost! This is especially useful when you are testing your course. Here are a few examples of special abilities you can give yourself in devMode. Display the Next button immediately on page show (instead of waiting for the end of narration). Reveal a hidden menu that links to every page in the course. Identify the correct answer to a quiz question. Automatically enter a correct response. You can do whatever you want in devMode to make it easy to test your course… just make sure you keep those "meddling kids" from finding your secret passageway. Defining the devMode variable Do variables give you the CREEPS? Variables might seem scary at first. ("Zoinks! It’s the DISC DEMON!") But once you master them, you realize they’re nothing to be afraid of ("Why, it’s just Ace Decade, the studio owner’s nephew.") Don’t let them intimidate you. One way to apply a variable is to use it like a light switch: you can turn a setting OFF or ON. In our case, we want to be able to turn devMode OFF and ON, so we’ll make it a variable. When you create a variable, you have to decide what values will represent OFF and ON. I like to use 0 and 1 to represent OFF and ON states. If devMode = 0, then devMode is OFF If devMode = 1, then devMode is ON You can define variables in lots of ways: for example, you could use the words OFF and ON to represent those states. Using 0 and 1 is just a convention I follow. How to create the devMode variable 1. On the Tools ribbon, click Variables to display the Variable Manager dialog box. 2. Add a new variable and name it devMode and enter the following settings: In the Initial Value field, enter 0. That means devMode is turned OFF (0) by default. Ensure that Random Initial Value is not selected. If we set this value to random, occasionally it might be 1. We don’t want that. Select the Retain variable between sessions checkbox. This option means if I turn devMode ON (1) and exit the course, when I reopen the course, devMode will still be ON because it "remembers" how I left it. It is optional to select this (but I like to). 3. Click OK and click Close to close the Variable Manager window. OK, you’ve defined devMode as a variable. Good work! Next, we’ve got to think about how we are going to turn it on. Come back to the blog this Thursday for the next tutorial, where we’ll create a button that will turn devMode ON and OFF. Download the Lectora and Lectora Online files for this course in the Trivantis® Community. John Mortenson is the Online Learning Manager for The Fresh Market. He has been developing online courses for over 10 years and is a member of the Lectora Advisory Board. He is also an Adobe Creative Suite Guru and cartoonist. You can contact him on LinkedIn and Twitter. The post Downright Sneaky Lectora Tricks Part 1: How to Build a Backdoor in Your Course appeared first on .

The Learning Technologies 2016 Conference and Expo takes place from February 3rd - 4th, at the Olympia, London. Learning Technologies is Europe’s leading showcase of organisational learning and the technology used to support learning at work. Learning Technologies 2016 will cater for more than 7,500 visitors, 150 free L&D seminars, 250 exhibitors, two exhibition halls packed with the […] The post PulseLearning to attend Learning Technologies 2016 appeared first on PulseLearning.

Each day I try hard to recognize my biases, and make sure that I am not ‘oppressing’ others because of my biases. I don’t know if I ever will fully be conscious of all of my biases however, my thoughts and behaviours certainly feel ‘authentic’ to me. But I know that there are other ways […]

______ Join us for NCCE 2016, the 45th Annual Conference and Exposition held in Seattle, Washington, at the Washington State Convention Center, February 24-26, 2016. Through the annual conference, NCCE delivers innovative and cutting-edge programming to Northwest educational leaders. NCCE’s conference and expo brings educators of all types and grade levels together to share discoveries and develop solutions for their greatest challenges—all while connecting to a global network of education resources. NCCE 2016 is expecting over 1800 attendees and more than 130 exhibiting companies. Join like-minded educators focusing on implementing technology as a tool in teaching and learning.  When you register for NCCE 2016, you’ll get:  Three Full Days of innovation and learning Networking with over 1800 attendees and 400-exhibitor representative Two powerful keynotes 60+ hands-on workshops 100+ sessions Access to the largest Ed-Tech Expo in the Northwest One-year NCCE membership Membership gift Don’t miss out on the great Early Bird Pricing! Register Today! The post Early bird Registration ends Friday for NCCE 2016! appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

In constructing a literature review of any proposed research topic, especially for new arrivals to research, there is often a tension between giving a straight description of the relevant academic articles rather than providing a critical analysis. This is understandable. The main purpose of the literature review is to provide subsequent readers with an introduction to the subject area of the research, and this is done by constructing a narrative - a story - of the evolution of the subject area to the stage that we understand at present. This description describes the "landscape" of the research subject area - the significant and salient points and the less well-known or contested points. The literature review, however, needs to be more than just a simple description of each significant article, more than a sort of "He said… then she said…" list of opinions. The literature review, to be really useful, needs to critically evaluate the importance of each article, as well as providing a description of what was said, what methods were used, what degree of reliability the data has, etc. The reader has not only to understand the history of the development of the research topic, but to appreciate the relative merits of previous work. This is relatively easy at the start of the project, but by the end, juggling several hundred citations, it becomes a challenge. A number of students and colleagues have drawn to my attention an app called RefME which is a really interesting piece of software which enables the compilation of a reference list very quickly. Once a (free) account has been created on the app, entries of citations for books, journal articles, and lots of other artefacts can be added instantly by scanning the bar-code of the publication using a phone with the app. The reference list can be built-up and accessed from any device with a web connection. Reference lists can be divided into lists for particular projects (articles, conferences?) and each list can be exported to various formats, including a simple word document. Each citation can also be annotated, so using a simple set of phrases and tags, a critical reference list can be compiled in minutes. The app also allows citations to be input manually, which is required for older publications and those without a bar code. There are several "easy" referencing systems available at present, but the simplicity, elegance, and flexibility of this app really impresses me. Whichever method is used to compile the reference list, there are two golden rules to adhere to. Firstly, start early to compile the reference list and keep on top of it. As an article or book is read, and if you know it is going to be referred to in the text of the dissertation, it should be immediately added to the reference list. Secondly, keep a list which is an annotated bibliography, not simply the list of all the references, but copy the file and add short notes on each reference. Do not trust the memory to remember details such as page numbers (for direct quotations) and DOI numbers (for direct web access), or even for the key points of analysis and critique. As the numbers of citations begin to mount, the details begin to blur and disappear. This will act as a memory jog, and also as a useful item to share with a supervisor to discuss the merits and demerits of individual articles. As time progresses, because they are focussed on one specific research topic, the PhD student will discover relevant articles which the supervisor(s) may not have seen, and anyway, there is life after the PhD so you might want some of this material again, years down the line. Don’t trust the memory!

Living with a Seal I don’t recommend books to often. The reason is there are not a lot of good ones out there. Also, people in business tend to suggest books about business. Some of these are worth a quick browse through the table of contents to see if anything stands out. Most are not worth the time. They can be verbose and repetitive. A friend of mine told me to check out "Living with a Seal" Read More The post Get off your butt with this motivating book appeared first on renshicon.com.

As technology continues shaping the L&D space, how do we fuse learning and technology to reimage current practices and better help leaders learn, develop, and perform?

Out with the old and in with the new: DDI experts reveal what boardrooms will be buzzing about in 2016.

Zum 20. Mal wurde in dieser Woche das Unwort des Jahres von einer diesbezüglich ehrenamtlich tätigen Jury aus Sprachforschern und Journalisten gewählt. 2015 stand ganz im Zeichen der Flüchtlingskrise und deshalb ist auch das Unwort des Jahres eine Wortschöpfung aus diesem gesellschaftlich kontrovers diskutierten Thema. "Gutmesch" ist das Unwort des Jahres für 2015. Im sprachlichen Gebrauch sei "Gutmensch" entgegen des eigentlichen Wortsinns ironisch umgekehrt und als Schimpfwort für Menschen gebraucht worden, die sich speziell im Zusammenhang mit Flüchtlingen helfend und sozial engagieren. Der Sprecher möchte dem Angesprochenen damit meistens eine übertrieben helfende Einstellung und damit zusammenhängende Naivität unterstellen. Besonders in Foren und sozialen Netzwerken sei "Gutmensch" ein "Kampfbegriff gegen Andersdenkende" von politisch Rechten und Konservativen gewesen, um so ihre Argumente zu diffamieren - so die Begründung der Jury zu ihrer Wahl. Herkunft des Wortes Das Wort taucht zum ersten Mal 1989 im Feuilleton einer Tageszeitung auf und wird von Autoren wie Rainer Jogschies, Matthias Horx und Klaus Bitterman verwendet. Doch schon Anfang der 90er wird der Begriff politisch im Zusammenhang mit "politischer Korrektheit" verwendet. Das Unwort des Jahres seit 1991 Die Verleihung für das Unwort des Jahres ist rückblickend auch ein Spiegel für das vorherrschende Thema, mit dem sich die Gesellschaft zur gegebenen Zeit beschäftigt. Speziell beim Blick auf die ersten Unwörter 1991 und folgende bemerkt man, das sich die Nachrichtenlage von vor 20 Jahren und heute offensichtlich sehr ähneln. Als erstes Unwort des Jahres wurde "Ausländerfrei" gewählt und auf Platz 2 landete damals "Durchrasste Gesellschaft" - ein Begriff der Edmund Stoiber in einer Rede über die Lippen gekommen ist. 1993 wurde dann "Überfremdung" prämiert. In den Folgejahren wurde die überalternde Gesellschaft zum Thema und folgerichtig 1996 dann "Rentnerschwemme" auch zum Unwort des Jahres. Anfang des Jahrtausends machte dann der Irak-Krieg von sich reden und Wörter wie "Weiche Ziele" oder "Gotteskrieger" schafften es auf den ersten Platz. 2008 haben wir die EU-Finanzkrise und damit auch "Notleidende Banken" als wichtigstes Unwort. Mit der Wahl wollte man die sprachliche Gleichsetzung von Banken mit real leidenden Menschen kritisch thematisieren. Interessanter Weise schafft es dann schon 2009 die "Flüchtlingsbekämpfung" auf Platz 2 bei der Wahl zum Unwort des Jahres und das aktuelle Unwort "Gutmensch" schaffte es 2011 auch schon auf den 2. Platz. Doch Platz 1 ging noch an Wortschöpfungen aus der Griechenlandkrise, wodurch 2011 "Alternativlos" als Wortschöpfung der Bundeskanzlerin gewürdigt wurde.