All of this week I am on the road working with teachers in Texas, Kansas, and Arizona. Rather than scrambling to write blog posts at the end of each day, I'm taking this time to feature some of the most popular posts and new tools of the 2015-2016 school year. Google Books is one of my favorite research tools that students and teachers often overlook. In a post earlier today I embedded a book that I found through a Google Books search. Google Books allows you to do that with books that are in the public domain. I have done that a lot over the years when I wanted to share all or part of book with my students in an electronic format. Embedding books into blog posts is just one of many features of Google Books that teachers and students can use. In the slides and videos below I provide overviews of the other useful features of Google Books. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesZing eBooks - Best of 2015-16 School YearGreat Google Drive Add-ons & Chrome Extensions for Teachers - Best of 2015-16 School YearHow to Create a Progress Chart in Google Sheets - Best of 2015-16 School Year 

All of this week I am on the road working with teachers in Texas, Kansas, and Arizona. Rather than scrambling to write blog posts at the end of each day, I'm taking this time to feature some of the most popular posts and new tools of the 2015-2016 school year. The Google for Work YouTube channel offers a bunch of great tutorial videos on everything from how to compose a new message to applying filters to messages. I have also made some of my own Gmail tutorials for teachers. Create a contact group: Creating and using contact groups can save you a lot of time when you're sending messages to groups of parents, colleagues, or students. Watch the video below to learn how to create a contact group. Use Gmail offline, unsend a message, reply all vs. reply: Setting your Gmail account for offline use is easy and makes it easy for you to work on email even when you don't have a connection to the Internet. Every once in a while you might hit "send" a bit too early. The undo send function can rescue you from that situation. No one likes to be copied on a email thread when they don't need to be. Make sure you know when to use "reply all" and when not to use it. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesHow to Create a Progress Chart in Google Sheets - Best of 2015-16 School YearGreat Google Drive Add-ons & Chrome Extensions for Teachers - Best of 2015-16 School YearAn Easy Way to Quickly Create Vocabulary Lists from Documents - Best of 2015-16 School Year 

All of this week I am on the road working with teachers in Texas, Kansas, and Arizona. Rather than scrambling to write blog posts at the end of each day, I'm taking this time to feature some of the most popular posts and new tools of the 2015-2016 school year. On Sunday evening I shared a list of ten good sources of social studies videos. To keep the video source series going I've created a list of sources for educational science videos. Here are ten good sources of science videos for students and teachers. On his website and YouTube channel Montana's 2011 Teacher of the Year Paul Anderson has uploaded more than 300 quality instructional videos like the ones about biology that are embedded below. TED-Ed offers dozens of videos on a variety of topics in science. I created a playlist of TED-Ed videos about how the human body works. That playlist is embedded below. Gooru is a service that aims to provide teachers and students with an extensive collection of videos, interactive displays, documents, diagrams, and quizzes for learning about topics in math and science. As a Gooru member you have access to hundreds of resources according to subject areas such as chemistry, biology, ecology, algebra, calculus, and more. Within each subject area you can look for resources according to media type such as video, interactive display, slides, text, and lesson plans. When you find resources that you want to use, drag them to the resources folder within your account. Gooru also offers you the option to add resources to your folders even if you did not find them within Gooru. Learners TV has organized hundreds of academic videos. They've also organized more than one hundred science animations. The science animations on Learners TV are organized into three categories; biology, physics, and chemistry. ScienceFix is the blog and YouTube channel of middle school science teacher Darren Fix. On both the blog and the YouTube channel you will find more than 100 videos demonstrating various science experiments, demonstrations, and middle school science lessons. Bright Storm's YouTube channel offers video lessons for biology, chemistry, and physics. The videos are nothing more than an instructor lecturing with a whiteboard for a few minutes which could be adequate if a student just needs a refresher on a science topic. NASA has a few different YouTube channels, but the one that has the most universal utility for teachers and students is NASA eClips. NASA eClips is organized according to grade level with playlists intended for elementary school, middle school, and high school. Reactions: Everyday Science is a YouTube channel that was formerly known as Bytesize Science. I have featured a few Bytesize Science videos in the past. Reactions: Everyday Science produces short explanatory videos about the science in common elements of our lives. In the past I've featured Reactions videos about the science of snowflakes and the science of grilled cheese. John and Hank Green's Crash Course channel on YouTube includes courses in chemistry, ecology, and biology. They're good videos, but they do go quickly so your students might have to rewind them a couple of times to catch everything. The Spangler Effect is a YouTube channel from Steve Spangler Science. Unlike his popular Sick Science videos which are no more than short demonstrations of science experiments students and parents can do at home, The Spangler Effect videos offer longer (15 minutes or so) explanations of science experiments. The Spangler Effect videos explain the science of do-it-yourself experiments and how you can recreate those experiments at home or in your classroom. A note about Khan Academy: I left Khan Academy off the list because it's the best known source of educational videos. Sal Khan doesn't need my help promoting his stuff. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesOpen Source Software Explained by @CommonCraftA Great Video Explanation of OnomatopoeiaThe Origin and Meaning of Memorial Day 

Teach Your Monster to Read is a great series of online games designed to help students improve the speed and accuracy with which they recognize letters and sounds. The website gets its name from the friendly monster avatars that students help learn to read through the course of the games. The Teach Your Monster to Read games are designed to help students improve the speed and accuracy with which they recognize letters, sounds, and word. The games have eight levels (or islands as they're called in the game) each containing four activities. Students play the game as a friendly monster avatar. On each island students can earn prizes for their monsters and customize the look of their monsters. This week the folks who have developed Teach Your Monster to Read announced that the games are coming to the Android and iOS platforms. You can download the Android app now and you can request access to the beta version of the iOS app now by requesting access. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesHow to Use ReadWorks Digital - Create, Share, & Grade Reading AssignmentsAccess LitCharts on Your iPhone or Android PhoneOpen eBooks - Thousands of Free eBooks for Students and Teachers 

Triventy is a free online quiz game platform that is similar in concept to platforms like Kahoot and Socrative. Triventy differentiates itself from the crowd by allowing you to accept question suggestions from students. You can see an overview of Triventy in this video that I published in January. This week Triventy add a frequently requested feature. That feature is the ability to download a history of responses to quiz questions. At the end of every activity you can now download a spreadsheet of your students' responses to questions in your quiz game. Applications for Education One of the neat features of Triventy for students is that they can ask for a hint or to have an answer choice eliminated. Students can also see an explanation of the answer to each question. Teachers can invite students to add questions to their games. Typically, as a homework assignment before running the game in class. This creates a comprehensive learning experience in which students are both ‘players’ and ‘tutors’ who share their knowledge with you and their classmates. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesA Quick Way to Create Rubrics Online - Best of 2015-16 School YearTry the Collaboration Option in TriventyA Guide to Google Books for Students & Teachers - Best of 2015-16 School Year 

Sketch notes about my video workshop.Good evening from Arizona where I'm relaxing after a great week of speaking at conferences in Texas, Kansas, and Arizona. Today, I had the honor of giving the closing keynote at the Native Innovation Education Conference in Flagstaff, Arizona. That conference was the second one this week that offered workshops on using technology to help teachers and students improve their physical fitness. It's great to see that trend. I was on the road all week which is why I re-posted some of the most popular posts of the 2015-16 school year. New posts will resume on Sunday. Here are this week's most popular posts: 1. An Illustrated Mathematics Glossary 2. 7 Blogging Platforms for Teachers Compared and Ranked 3. Good Tools for Learning to Type 4. 10 Good Video Sources for Social Studies Teachers and Students 5. 10 Resources for Teaching With Primary Sources 6. Great Google Drive Add-ons & Chrome Extensions for Teachers 7. 5 Things We Can Do to Help Students Learn & Work Independently Summer PD Opportunities With MeTake a look at the online workshops I'm hosting throughout the spring and summer. The Practical Ed Tech Chromebook and BYOD Camps are sold out! Email me to get on the waiting list. Bring Me To Your School or ConferenceClick here to learn about my professional development services.  Please visit the official advertisers that help keep this blog going.Practical Ed Tech is the brand through which I offer PD webinars.BoomWriter provides a fantastic tool for creating writing lessons. Storyboard That is my go-to tool for creating storyboards and cartoon stories.Discovery Education & Wilkes University offer online courses for earning Master's degrees in Instructional Media.PrepFactory offers a great place for students to prepare for SAT and ACT tests.FrontRow offers adaptive online ELA and Math practice activities.  Teach n Go is a comprehensive platform for teaching online courses.The University of Maryland Baltimore County offers graduate programs for teachers.Boise State University offers a 100% online program in educational technology.EdTechTeacher is hosting host workshops in six cities in the U.S. in the summer.Buncee offers a great tool for creating visual stories.  This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesThe Week in Review - Collaborate2ConnectThe Week in Review - A Leisurely Breakfast at HomeThe Week in Review - The Lilacs Have Arrived 

Last week Padlet introduced a revamped version of their online corkboard tool. The core functions of Padlet are still the same, but the user interface has changed a little bit. The primary changes are in the way that you customize your Padlet boards. In the video that is embedded below I provide an overview of the new version of Padlet. Five ways to use Padlet with students:Padlet as a simple blogging platform: Padlet walls can be arranged in free-form, grid, or stream layouts. Creating a Padlet page in the stream format could be a good way to create a simple, collaborative blog for students. You could create the page, select "stream" format, and make the page accessible for students to write short posts on. Their posts could include images and videos. If you want to, you can password protect your Padlet pages and moderate messages before they appear on your Padlet page. Padlet Mini as a bookmarking tool: Padlet Mini is a Chrome extension that you can use to bookmark websites. When you click the Padlet Mini extension in your browser you will be presented with the option to save to one of your existing walls or create a new Padlet wall. Click here for a video on using Padlet Mini. Padlet as a KWL chart: Padlet can be used to create a KWL chart that students can contribute to anonymously (or not anonymously if you want them to sign-in). Create a wall, make it public, and ask students to share what they know and what they want to know about a topic. If you allow anonymous posting you might get contributions from shy students who might not otherwise speak-up in class. Of course, if you allow anonymous commenting you should have a conversation with your students about what an appropriate comment looks like. (You could also turn on moderation and approve all notes before they appear). Padlet works well when projected on an interactive whiteboard. Padlet for group research and discussion: A few years ago I showed my special education students a short (18 minutes) video about cultural changes that took place in the US during the 1920's. After the video we discussed what they saw. Then I had students search online for other examples of cultural change in the 1920's. When they found examples they put them onto a Wallwisher (Padlet's previous name) wall that I projected onto a wall in my classroom. The wall started with just text being added to the wall and quickly progressed to YouTube videos being added to the wall. Once every student had added a video to the wall we stopped, watched the videos, and discussed them. Padlet as a showcase of your students’ work: If your students are creating digital portfolios, creating slideshows, or producing videos you could use Padlet to display all of your students’ best work on one page. Create the wall, call it something like "my best work this year," and have your students post links to their works. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesA Guide to Google Books for Students & Teachers - Best of 2015-16 School YearThe Week in Review - On the RoadTriventy - Collaboratively Create Online Games and Save the Results 

Yesterday I had the privilege to speak at the Native Innovation Education conference in Flagstaff, Arizona. The conference offered Android tablets to attendees. Many people who came to my video workshop asked me how they could upload their videos to YouTube. I promised to create a video on the topic. That video is now ready and is embedded below. I used the free AZ Screen Recorder app to create this screencast video. Learn more about AZ Screen Recorder in this blog post. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesHow to Use the New Version of PadletTeach Your Monster to Read - Now on Android and iPadHelpful Gmail Settings for Students & Teachers - Best of 2015-16 School Year 

Over the last couple of years I've made an effort to publish at least one new tutorial video every week. Most of those videos end up being featured in the Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week, but they all end up on my YouTube channel. I now have more than 300 ed tech tools tutorial videos on my YouTube channel. More than 5,000 people have subscribed to my YouTube channel. Subscribe to it and you'll be notified when I publish a new tutorial. To subscribe to my YouTube or any other YouTube channel simply sign into your Google account then click "subscribe" on the channel's homepage. The video below demonstrates how to do this. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesHelpful Gmail Settings for Students & Teachers - Best of 2015-16 School YearA Guide to Google Books for Students & Teachers - Best of 2015-16 School YearHow to Create a Progress Chart in Google Sheets - Best of 2015-16 School Year 

Over the weekend at the Native Innovation Education conference I facilitated a short workshop titled Recording History With Students. The focus of the workshop was on helping students record interviews with their elders. We started out by looking at the great questions list offered by StoryCorps. We then moved on to using the StoryCorps.me app, MicNote, and or Vocaroo to record the interviews. After making the recordings we then used those audio tracks in Stupeflix where they were played in the background of a series of images to complete the stories. Finally, we put the Stupeflix video links into placemarks in Scribble Maps. The slides that I used as an introduction to the workshop are embedded below. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related Stories10 Resources for Teaching With Primary Sources - Best of 2015-16 School YearA Great Journal for History TeachersThe Origin and Meaning of Memorial Day 

Over the last week I gave presentations and facilitated workshops Texas, Arizona, Kansas, and Missouri. Many people asked for copies of the slides that I used (slides were not used in every workshop). I put links to all of my slides on one slide that is embedded below. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesRecording History With Students - Tools & Ideas300+ Ed Tech Tools TutorialsHow to Upload a Video to YouTube from Your Android Device 

The latest lesson published by TED-Ed explains to students why the Bill of Rights was added to the US Constitution. In the lesson students learn about the positions of Federalists and Anti-Federalists, which states pushed for a Bill of Rights, and why the Bill of Rights was added as a set of amendments to the Constitution rather than rewriting the Constitution. Why Wasn't the Bill of Rights Originally in the Constitution? is concise and covers the basics of the arguments of Federalists and Anti-Federalists. The video is a good introduction to those arguments, but a little too basic for a high school classroom. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesThe Origin and Meaning of Memorial DayWhy We Make Irrational DecisionsA Great Journal for History Teachers 

Google Sites is flexible tool for creating school websites, classroom blogs, wikis, and digital portfolios. For years it has remained unchanged except for the addition of page-level permissions a few years ago. Today, Google announced that a new version of Google Sites will be rolling out over the next year. The new version of Google Sites promises a new drag-and-drop editing platform, enhanced collaboration features, and new responsive design templates. The new version will first be available to Google Apps for Business users, but should eventually appear in Google Apps for Edu too. I own a Google Apps for Business domain and I have applied for early adopter status to test the new Google Sites as soon as possible. When I have access I will be sure to post a video about the new version of Google Sites here. Thanks to Beth Still for heads-up about the new Google Sites. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related Stories300+ Ed Tech Tools TutorialsHelpful Gmail Settings for Students & Teachers - Best of 2015-16 School YearHow to Create a Progress Chart in Google Sheets - Best of 2015-16 School Year 

What's Due is a free homework reminder service that I like a lot and have recommended a handful of times over the last couple of years. Unfortunately, What's Due sent me an email earlier this week that announced their pending closure. The email didn't say they were closing immediately rather it said that they wouldn't be supporting the apps any longer. Some other ways that you can send assignment reminders to students and parents include using Remind, Cel.ly, or the Google Sheet's Add-on called Add Reminders which you can learn how to use in the video in this post. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related Stories300+ Ed Tech Tools TutorialsHelpful Gmail Settings for Students & Teachers - Best of 2015-16 School YearHow to Create a Progress Chart in Google Sheets - Best of 2015-16 School Year 

It’s time for some information sharing. I’ll be at the eLearning Guild’s Annual Gathering this week. On Wednesday I’m doing a session on Adobe’s eLearning Suite. My session number is 408 and the title is "Adobe e-Learning Suite - A Whistle-stop Tour of Favorite Features". According to the online schedule, you will find me in the Camellia room. On the same day I’m making an early start (7:15!), as I am facilitating one of the Breakfast Bytes Discussion Groups. My topic is "Mobile Learning, How Will New Technologies Affect Your Thinking?" and you’ll find me in the Narcissus room. Hmm. Should I be reading something into the room name?  Finally, on Friday morning I’ll be moderating one of the Espresso Learning Activities tables. The table discussion is "Bridging the Gap Between Page Turning and Learning Engagement".  The subtext of the title is: • We walk before we can run - we page turn before we engage. • What does learner engagement mean to you? • Creating learner engagement doesn’t have to be expensive or time consuming. Come and chat with me on table 15. I’m looking forward to learning from everyone else at the conference. The eLearning Guild always put on a great show, and they attract some of the best eLearning experts in the World, so I am honoured to be able to rub shoulders with them and be able to learn from them all. If you see me  at the conference, come and say hi. Posted in eLearning

I’ve seen a number of people asking about the Coursebuilder extensions that are installed to Dreamweaver CS4 in the Adobe eLearning Suite. Specifically, people have been trying to find out what is different between this version of Coursebuilder, and the version that was available a few years ago. So I asked the Adobe engineers who have worked on this, and this is the response I got:- The Course Builder in eLS has loads of new features, following is the list of new features added 3 new Interaction types Matching - Drag and drop, Combo box type. Sequence Interaction Likert Interaction SCORM 1.2 and 2004 Compatibility All the interactions support SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 along with AICC. The selection can be made in the tracking tab. Based on the setting in the tracking tab, Actions in the action manager can be selected for tracking the score. Compatibility with Different Browsers The New Course Builder supports the latest versions of Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. New look and feel The Interactions carry new icons and the Course Builder Wizard does not carry the legacy scroll bar. So there you have it, from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Posted in eLearning

The new custom variables in Adobe Captivate 4 make it fairly easy to capture, store and display your users name. Once stored you can also add the name to the Certificate widget and use it in many other ways. It is not immediately obvious just how you might achieve this, so I put together a quick demo that should show you all you need to know. Click this image to view the full demo. Posted in Adobe, Captivate, eLearning

Recently, a couple of different people asked me about Short Answer questions in Captivate 4. Apparently, when you create and publish a Short Answer question, the text entry box that your learner types into has small, 8-point text by default. That’s fine, you might think, but there is no way to edit the properties of this text entry box, so you are stuck with 8 point text. Short Answer questions in Captivate 4 have tiny text in the answer box I contacted ‘RJ’ Jacquez via Twitter and asked him about it. RJ is the Adobe Evangelist for eLearning and Technical Communication, which means he is a great go-to guy for all things to do with the eLearning Suite and the Technical Communication Suite from Adobe. Quick as a flash, RJ confirmed that it was indeed true, there is no way to format the answer text in a Short Answer question in Captivate 4. Now, here is where things get interesting. Most of the time, when an issue like this is raised, it must be reported as a bug and a fix may not appear until the next release of a product. But the Adobe Captivate engineers are special bunch - they rustled up a fix for this issue that requires no formal patch to Captivate 4. Those of you who are familiar with Captivate 4 will know that a new feature called Widgets. Widgets can be devised that extend Captivate’s features and functionality way beyond the original intent of the Captivate engineers. Those same engineers have realised that they can also fix some issues with the product by using Widgets. This Short Answer Input Text Formatting widget is a simple and quick fix … and so they made a widget that can be used to customise the font settings for the Short Answer question. This Widget is a 50k download, so it’s quick and easy to get and ind install. The only caveat, so far as I can see, is that the Captivate file must be published as ActionScript 3.0. The fix will not work if you publish your file as AS 2.0 compatible. Here's the same question with the answer text reformatted So where can you get this fix? RJ has a simple demonstration o fthe problem, which you can view here https://admin.adobe.acrobat.com/_a295153/p84127193/. At the end of the demo, there is a link to the download of the Widget file, and instructions on where to install it. You should follow RJ on Twitter if you want to get the best and latest eLearning and Technical Communication Suite tips and info @rjacquez Thanks RJ and the Captivate team! Posted in eLearning

I’ve been busy recently, so you have had to suffer another one of my blogging dearths. Fear not dear reader, I’m still here, hale and hearty and in one complete piece. Adobe Learning Summit I’m speaker at this years Adobe Learning Summit, where I will be talking about

INTRODUCTION Following is a largely unedited version of conference notes that I have just distributed internally where I work. There’s a lot. As a blog post it’s probably pretty crap - too long, too much scrolling, but as a record of the event, and a method for me to retain my learning, it is just dandy, thank you. Hopefully you, my brave reader, can get similar value from my scribblings, but I make no apology for the size or the content of this blog post. It is what it is, and is for me and my fellow DevLearners first and foremost. You will note there is no mention of all the extr-curricular learning, from the bar, the lunch table, the karaoke etc. *that* would take an entire book!!! During the week of November 9th, 2009 I attended two conferences in San Jose. The first was the Adobe Learning Summit, hosted by Adobe. The second was DevLearn, run by the eLearning Guild. Usually when I attend conferences I make some scribbled notes on various pieces of paper, usually the notepad provided by the conference, and then promptly misplace them when I return home. This year, I decided to actively take notes using Twitter. When I looked over the notes that I had taken, I realised a couple of things • There’s a lot of great stuff here that helps me remember more from the presentations I attended than I might otherwise recall • Being forced into 140-character messages, I had to constrain each ‘tweet’ to a complete thought whenever possible. Sometimes this was a bad thing - I would miss some good info because I was busy re-crafting a message. Other times it was great, as it concentrated my thoughts into being a lot more specific than I typically might be. • Hundreds of other people were doing the same thing, at the same time. All of their notes are online and searchable. Someone is compiling a ‘tweet book’ of all the tweets posted about DevLearn that week. I also realised that if I wanted to write ‘proper’ notes from the tweet-scribbling I took, I’d be working on them for days. So instead I decided to compile all of my notes into individual blog posts. I also made the choice to not rewrite the notes as proper sentences and paragraphs. People used to reading Twitter will be comfortable reading these notes, and even if you are not used to Twitter, you should have no difficulty following along. Ideally the slides from each presentation should accompany these notes, but there’s already enough here for now! I also realised that if I didn’t attack this task all in one go, I probably would never finish it. As you can see from this post, there’s a lot of notes. Lastly, it would still be a lot of work to compile this as separate blog posts, so in the interest of saving my typing fingers, not your eyeballs, I decided to put the notes out ‘as is’ . If you have the time to read, or just skim through these notes you should find a lot of useful information - there’s also lots of web links to additional information. If you do manage to look through these, I welcome your comments. I want to know if this format is useful to you, or if you would prefer more traditional, legible notes published in proper paragraphs etc. OTHER NEWS - TWITTER IN CAPTIVATE I personally think this is stunning! Don’t underestimate the potential of this and any other tool that enables a backchannel to your training! Adobe demoed a widget for Captivate that allows Twitter to be embedded inside Captivate lessons. Some benefits:- • Twitter widget can associate comments with specific slides • Can hook up to Yammer too - Yammer is an internal Twitter-like client that allows 2.0 interaction behind the company firewall - safe, secure conversations not visible to the public. • Lets user report issues to moderator, or ask questions. • Posts made about the lesson are always available - so users can see the history of the comments made, including questions/answers/resolutions/links to more information etc. • Quick and easy to set up • Light - only a small (less than 100k) addition to the overall Captivate movie size. • No cost SESSION 807 - USING SHAREPOINT TO ENHANCE ONLINE LEARNING EVENTS This session described CITI’s experience in creating a learning solution that was orchestrated through SharePoint. Basically it was about how they customise standard SharePoint features and functionality to provide a more interactive ‘online school’ feel to their learning, including the use of discussion, calendar reminders and more. I didn’t find it particularly enlightening, but they did share a CD that contained all the code for their customisations. Perhaps that will be useful for me down the line. • "not everybody at CITI has access to email. They don’t need it." Say what now???? • Apparently some people find video hard to present in SharePoint. I use flash video all the time in SharePoint. easy Peasy. AVI etc also easy, but usually much bigger file size. • We got all of the info we need to go back and create this in our own SharePoints! Thank you Citi for free resource CD!   SESSION 712 - USABILITY IN LEARNING, BRIAN DUSABLON This session described the importance of usability in learning. Main outcomes/information:- • remembertheuser.com - blog with useful usability tips • Nielsen’s work on usability and web design is a useful start-point, but be prepared to disagree and justify your own choice - in reference to Homepage Usability book • a good number of people for usability testing of new content - 5 to 10 representative users. • when creating something new, take design out of the prototype process so you can concentrate on usability, not colours etc • Online test your colors for usability "colorblind filter" http://colorfilter.wickline.org/ • Photoshop has tools built-in that you can use to test your designs for colour-blind viewers - see my previous blog post • for pallets - learn to love Adobe Kuler http://kuler.adobe.com • Many Lessons exhibit poor use of fonts and colours - don’t go crazy with fancy fonts, moving fonts. Use sparingly for effect • @rebecka7: I keep hearing over & over again…get your course/training RIGHT ENOUGH for your deadline and then improve. • http://bit.ly/aYr99 Articulate showcases. Beware, 1st one is great, but suffers from cognitive overload • If it is slow and unpleasant, people are likely to go away and not use it. • Usability - "Is it *EASY to use for the *purpose it was intended" See also this fantastic presentation on usability from AdobeMax last month http://max.adobe.com/online/session.213 by Anthony Franco http://anthonyfranco.wordpress.com/   KEYNOTE: LEO LAPORTE Leo presented generally on his thoughts about mass media and how ‘social’ media is a great benefit to us all. He talked a lot about how he got his start in radio and television etc. Following notes are just bullet-point snippets from his presentation. • Looks like Leo has no slides - unusual. Refreshing. [later he explained that he finds the visuals a distraction. Guess, being a radio man at heart, he doesn’t enjoy the huge value that quality slides can bring.] • He says mass media is a 20th century invention that is breaking down • and that’s great because now we are replacing it with ‘new media’ with new technologies and attitudes • prior to Mass Media, companies advertised through things like Sears Catalogue • "the more people you can subvert with your" underhand marketing the more money you can make • RT @GuildMeister: "If you want to know about water… Don’t ask the fish" Laporte [I think this was in reference to asking mass media about the state of mass media, I think] • "brand is the refuge of the ignorant" every advertiser knows this. Smart people don’t care about brand, not swayed by advertising. So advertisers don’t typically target the ‘smart’ audience. Stress - typically • … the only way to get people to buy stuff is to trick them • which means advertisers were not keen to advertise to smart people on a niche tech tv show like This Week in Tech. Only smart people are watching - says Leo. Hence his show didn’t last too long - too expensive to run, not enough viewers, too few advertisers. Fix one or two of those three and it may have made it. • so Leo started his own show online http://techguylabs.com/radio/pmwiki.php • re: YouTube - there’s too much crap there. How can you watch it all? Well, you can’t. But there’s lots of great stuff to find • but the thing is "80% of everything is crap" but that leaves plenty room for ‘good’, ‘great’, ‘excellent’, ‘interesting’ etc The next Spielberg might just be found on YouTube. Or Britney Spears or Colbert etc. • Leo claims are our kids more cynical about adverts than we are/were? "4 out of 5 Doctors agree .. give me a break!" I don’t agree. I say *some* kids are more cynical, and surely *Leo’s* kids are… • Re. social networking, social media: it’s got to be a conversation - passive consumption is no longer enough. (Maybe because the ’2.0 we’ are cynical about mass media honesty) • some people get scared by the internet because they see opinions they don’t like or understand … • … but that’s a good thing because more eyes are being opened to new ideas. • Corporate America wants to change the Internet to meet their needs, to fit in with their "we rule" model. This does not meet the needs of the consumers of Web • Leo then spoke about the ACTA treaty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement and how it is gaining traction, in legal terms, due to the weight of Mass Media being thrown after it. e.g. if you are *accused* 3 times of piracy, you get internet service cut off, and your name circulated to prevent access elsewhere • this is the ACTA treaty, adopted in a few places like maybe Korea, France. Not in the best interests of consumers! It is much more wide-reaching than just anti-piracy (so says Leo) • go to SaveTheInternet.com for more info. Michael Geist blog too http://www.michaelgeist.ca/ • Question to Leo - what do you think of Rupert Murdoch’s plan to close all News International web sites to Google etc. Answer: Murdoch is a dinosaur - representing the old way. Big media corps can’t hack the openness of the internet and want to subvert • Murdoch needs a new business model. Hard to do. Kodak did it … went to Digital. May never be so big as they were but changed anyway • • Twitter is a symptom of a larger trend: the Internet Nervous System. Millions of resources that we filter with the help of our friends • Q to Leo "what are your thoughts on short attention span of the audience? " No problem, because Leo’s shows are engaging so audience wants more • Observation (heard phrased in many different was during DevLearn) reading ‘everything’ on Twitter is a waste of time. Just read what’s going on now - treat it like a river where you go down to drink or to bathe a few times a day or once or twice a week. • Still in reference to attention span: ideal podcast length is the duration of your commute. and the good news is commutes are getting longer   SESSION 505 - CATCH THE WAVE - GOOGLE WAVE AND E-LEARNING APPLICATIONS, GOOGLE This session was supposed to talk about Wave and eLearning, but the original presenter could not make the conference. Instead, the presenter was one of the developers of Wave, and he was more interested in telling us about Wave in general. Useful intro, but not much about eLearning applications. Notes below are unedited. • if you want a WAVE invite, you just might possibly get one if you come to this session. Maybe • if you don’t like the web interface for Wave, you can create your own. • Q What is Gears? Browser Plug-in that helps browser store stuff offline. Built into Chrome • everyone who is in the room at this very moment is going to get Wave invite • wonder if its coincidental that a flush of people just came in … • www.getwaveboard.com to get an iPhone app sometime soon … ? But you can use Wave on the iPhone anyway by going to wave.google.com … just kinda s l o w • ultimately companies will be able to run their own wave server - behind firewall if they want • current issue - notification system not officially designed yet - so no notifications, You must manually check for updates • cannot currently remove a participant from a wave • Advanced permissions (ACLs) not yet included so no tiered security features • www.completewaveguide.com for full wave info • private blip shows up in different colour, and is hidden from everyone … it’s a note to self. You can invite others….. • … for back channel or private consult. • private invitee cannot see the rest of the Wave, unless already invited. Will see only private part until invited to main • Q "Will you be able to remove someone that you didn’t personally invite to the Wave?" • answer: well removing someone opens a can of worms… do you delete participant? His contributions? His edits? • … hence remove not enabled yet. Someone needs to figure a way to knit the worms into neat order. • Q "am I able to decline a Wave invite?" A. "new feature today, you can click ‘unfollow’ button to unsub from unwanted wave" • parallel feature is new explicitly "follow" button. Unfollow does not remove your contributions. • Q "what’s the business model for final delivery?" maybe market place for gadgets and robots. No ads yet no plans to add them • Q "how does Wave integrate with Android?" no special integration yet. Runs fine, but a little slow. No concrete plans   SESSION 0407 - EXPLORING THE NEXT GENERATION INTERACTIVE MEDIA AUTHORING ECOSYSTEM, MICHAEL ALLEN Michael Allen, the man who created/invented Authorware, has started developing a new tool. This presentation was his opportunity to introduce the tool to the eLearning developer community, explain his reasons for creating it, and to get feedback on his direction. Following are my notes, with some small expansion. • discussing a new authoring tool. • Driver - "it doesn’t seem like it’s less expensive to do learning activities than it was when Authorware came out." • Driver - "for us and our clients, current tools are inadequate" - output of great stuff is still too expensive • Driver - "e.g. Flash takes too long to learn, and Flash-based apps are inflexible" • Driver - "majority of courses are glorified (or not) PowerPoint slides because of tool limitations (in part) • Aside - Courselab free learning development tool http://bit.ly/heTOx • "if your goal is page turners, current tools are adequate. Sometimes page turners are fine. Just can’t think of when" • Buzzword - motivation meaningful memorable • Allen spoke a lot about using sketch outlines to define your early design, so that features and functionality can be concentrated on, with final design being plugged in later. Separating design and functionality. Based on book by: Bill Buxton "Sketching User Experiences" the power of sketching your design • if you try to make the design look too pretty (complete) too early in the process it stifles innovative design • tool - codenamed Zebra • Zebra metaphor is wiring/linking properties/actions like building a circuit. Looks like it could quickly get messy - • all file properties save as xml. So you could tweak xml too if that floats your boat • @visualrinse I really like this. But I want to see the newer version to see how pasteboard works etc. Scalability hasn’t been covered … • messy authored app diagram view can be cleaned up/organised by grouping, like using Authorware maps • we can sign up to get access to early builds at Allen’s booth in the expo. • to be added - coverflow-like paging interface during authoring • you can add multiple flags to ‘run from flag’ • you can create your own template/widget library to drop in … millions of icons?   SESSION 202 - RESEARCH PANEL DISCUSSION: EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND THE FUTURE OF ELEARNING Title should be self-explanatory. Representatives from Brandon Hall and other respected research institutes discussed how they see eLearning being affected by emerging technologies. This was an interesting, but dry discussion. A few gems emerged, as can be seen below. • primary barrier to web 2.0 adoption in enterprise is inability to link back to business objectives. Contrast standard perception that resistance is about security/control! • to successfully implement internal wikis: start small, have solid goals. Document goals as business case for executive level • the attendees are not seeing a drop-off of ‘traditional’ elearning attendance as social learning grows = social is additive to current list of learning tools • huge growth in the use of 2.0 technologies in recruiting and on-boarding. • panel sees succession management - knowledge transfer - as huge growth area for social learning • Wagner - anyone who thinks they can be successful at 2.0 in corporate without a business case is wrong. • Wagner: think of our digital learning efforts as products (as opposed to tools, I guess?) • "are you training your users in the use of 2.0 tools?" yes to this is key indicator of best in class 2.0 util/implementation • good alumni networking is huge indicator on successful 2.0 learning success [extends and maintains traditional networking, like Facebook for grownups] • Wagner "how do you like to learn?" questions are a red herring - preference and performance not correlated • Q "what’s the bottom-line most effective way to utilise 2.0 techs for learning?" panel says "it depends" • McDonalds has great free webinar and research showing how successful informal learning can be • bestbuy 401k video on YouTube: great example of informal, user-created learning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqpKgTmkHIk . • Q "if you were a venture capitalist, what emerging tech would you invest in?" • A Wagner "rich internet applications with annotation attached" • A "anything that allows annotations to be attached" - user-tagged/enhanced training • A the application of perfectly-working semantic search" • A "augmented reality" • A "competency-driven learning" "workforce planning" • closing thought - call it talent management instead of eLearning - it’s easier to sell.   SESSION 104 - EVIDENCE-BASED TRAINING, RUTH CLARKE I’ve blogged about Ruth’s research and presentations before. The reader is probably also familiar with her work. Ruth’s presentation was very fast-paced, and packed full of facts and figures. I wasn’t able to capture all of the numbers or even a fraction of the great content, but, frankly, that is available in many places already. The notes below are what I did get, and typically represent what I felt might be useful for us to apply in our learning. • Know what to do and why. Participate in communities of practice - in other words, don’t work in isolation, learn from your peers, especially outside of your organisation. • "content covered is not guaranteed to be content learned" - just because it’s in the manual, or in the training, that is no guarantee that your learners know the stuff. • how much did we spend on eLearning last year? about $134 Billion. Huge, important industry, but somehow not glamorous. Don’t underestimate the power of the industry, or the amount of growth ahead of it. Expect slow steady growth, not the explosion that has been predicted for over a decade. • what is the reality about learning styles? Ruth says there is no significant correlation between self-reporting of style vs. learning performance by style • college students are typical white mice of learning style studies - research professors get easy access to them • … which is interesting, How does that research compare to how older learners perform? Can we even find out? • learning can be better when we have words and visuals compared to words alone. • but for whom are the visuals more important? Typically for those who don’t already have firm understanding of subject matter • Are all visuals equal? No - visuals that are irrelevant to the subject are not helpful, and can be harmful to learning. • beware of adding too much anecdotal or supportive info, as it can disrupt learning goals. Stick to the point. • or, in Ruth’s words "learning is better when extraneous details are omitted" • is there a correlation between liking (high ratings) and learning? Yes, but it’s minimal. Too small to rely on student ratings… to evaluate the quality and effectiveness of the training. • Text plus narration that reads the text is the least effective method for achieving learning • Combinations of text/audio/images all better. Audio plus supportive text (i.e. associated bullets, but not parroted words) is most successful • Text plus matching audio - redundancy principle. Also a form of cognitive overload. Audio plus supportive text = better • more on learning styles. We are *all* visual learners, and we can all benefit from accompanying audio • There are exceptions - novice users, for instance, respond better to text+audio that match • when using visuals, place the image as close to the supportive text as possible - contiguity principle. Think newspaper image with description underneath, vs. textbook, where picture is on one page, but the explanatory text is only seen when you turn the page. Disassociation of content deflects learning. • are animations better? Depends: simple diagram often be more effective - animation may be too much info, moving pic hard to study line drawings vs. 3D drawings … • … especially true if you have a series of stills vs. animation • what is more effective learning? Less is more. Sketch graphics very effective. • or animations if you have to learn a procedure - like origami or knot tying? animations are better when complex motion involved • This is because we have a [postulated] ‘mirror neuron"; we are adapted to learn by copying, so if we have animated instruction our natural learning stimulated • … and this overrides possible cognitive overload. May not even have to see hands manipulating, just animation process • How to learn/apply guidelines, which is better? Text, video, animation . Animation and video best. • stills vs. animation: Stills for how things work, animation for motor skills (mirror), Dynamic visuals for social skills (video animation) • Closing thought - don’t waste time on learning styles. Meaning, concentrate on quality learning methods instead. THOUGHTS ON OPENING KEYNOTE FROM ANDREW MCAFFEE Andrew MacAfee talked around the content of his book, Enterprise 2.0. The book discusses how corporates can harness all that social stuff that is out there and turn it into a powerful corporate resource. When many companies are resisting the (apparent) anarchy of the Web, it is interesting to see this take on how it can be best utilised to the benefit of corporates. The following notes are sparse - Andrew had a lot of great things to say, and I failed to capture most of them as I only had my phone with me during his session. Actually some of the comments came from other people - part of the open conversation that went on live during the presentation. I bought the book, so maybe I’ll have a useful summary at a later date. MacAfee started out talking about how Twitter and other 2.0 apps have sparked a new altruism at work and at play. This sparked off a brief side conversation between me, "KoreenOlbrish" and "carmean" on Twitter. carmean Web/Ent 2: Creates phenomenon of altruism. People want to help each other. In real time. ([corporates should] Stop obsessing about risks. Altruism trumps) me Yeah but web-based altruism has been around for decades with bulletin boards etc. Now it’s ‘mainstream’ carmean Lots of altruism has been around, I think @amcafee claims new tools make it …not just easy…but integral. No? me 2.0 reduces the cost of altruism to near zero 10 seconds to read and respond, instead of longer newsgroup/email process KoreenOlbrish For a guy who talks so much about web 2.0, most of what McAfee is talking about is people. Love it! me Isn’t 2.0 *all about* people?? • According to MacAfee we are an uber-geeky crowd because we’ve heard of Nupedia (wikipedia predecessor) • Nupedia devolved into Wikipedia, removed all barriers to posting (Nupedia had 7 layers of bureaucracy, which choked it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nupedia) and then it took off • http://www.innocentive.com great place for outsourcing crowdsourcing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing • RT @mrch0mp3rs: People are motivated by a weird mix of different things. Stop questioning it - use it. [Me: yeah they are smarter than I] • MacAfee explains how groups of people can solve problems better and faster that individuals or small teams. Web-based ‘groups’ can be massive crowds. Don’t be fooled into thinking that ‘groupthink’ is always perfect, though. Just be aware that it can be very very good, like Wikipedia. • RT @davemerwin: #dl09 a lot of what MacAfee is saying is in a book called Wisdom Of Crowds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_Crowds • Prediction Markets more accurate than smart guy with heaps-O-statistics and Big Computer http://bit.ly/Yi42D • RT @roninchef: @mrch0mp3rs Reputation Currency it’s called Whuffie - http://bit.ly/15GtEF #dl09 • Personal observation: this is the most active back channel I’ve seen at any function. Geek crowds rock! [there was a lot more twitter chat than shown here!] • Great question from Tridib Chowdhry: Isn’t it useful in enterprises to open up to alternative viewpoints and allow them to bubble up? • @TerrenceWing I’d say "potential wisdom and strength of the crowd"   Posted in eLearning

Last month, at the Adobe Learning Summit, Shameer Ayyappan demonstrated a great new widget that Adobe is working on. This widget allows us to integrate Twitter with Adobe Captivate, creating a ‘live’ back channel in our training, one that is also archived and searchable. Now students can easily havea conversation with the teacher and each other. By creating a custom Twitter account and appropriate hashtags, learners and teachers/moderators can see what is bing said about a lesson. Some extra trickery also makes it possible to associate a comment with a specific slide within the lesson, so that a visual hint will appear on a slide when a comment exists. Shameer intimated that a release version of this widget might be available sometime this month, but until it is released, you can begin planning how you might use it by watching this recording of Shameer’s demo. Click the image to view Shameer's demo of Twitter in Captivate Posted in eLearning

I’ll be speaking at the eLearning Guild’s online forum, Converting and Repurposing Content for e-Learning on February 12th. The online forum runs on the 11th and 12th of February, and features some great-sounding presentations. I’ll be speaking about a pet project that I’ve been working on for my employer NASCO in Atlanta. In this project we have taken Visio process flow diagrams, and converted them to Flash. We’ve then added video, Captivate movies, links to Word and PDF documents to create an intuitive application that enables users to easily explore the process and learn about how their own role fits in to the process, what other peoples’ responsibilities are, and access detailed documentation where appropriate. Case Study: Bringing Visio to Life for JIT Learning The two day forum looks to be a very interesting and informative event. Head over to the eLearning Guild’s web site to register. Filed under: eLearning

I’m not interested in discussing the current Apple/Flash/iPhone/iPad wars right now. All I care about is that Adobe just released their Connect Pro app for iPhone. I saw this demoed briefly at Adobe MAX conference in October. I’ve downloaded and started testing it. Looks very sweet. You can test it for yourself once you download it by heading to RJ Jacquez’s iPhone Connect room. [Update] Oops - RJ had that room open only for a short while. You should be able to view any Connect Pro meeting, though, so you can try it out next timne you get a Connect meeting invite. I did try linking to a Connect recording (This one https://admin.adobe.acrobat.com/_a295153/p84127193/ for instance) but so far it has not worked for me. I’ll find out if links to recordings *should* work or not. [Answer] No, apparently … fingers crossed the ability to view recordings comes in an update. No recordings on Connect Pro for iPhone Filed under: eLearning

Apparently, if you install Adobe Flash Builder Pro application, and then install Master Collection or an other Creative Suite that includes Flash Builder, the Flash Builder Pro installation will be reverted to Flash Builder Standard. It appears the reason for this is that the installer for the suite, or maybe the serial number used, confuses Adobe’s licensing system and it ‘forgets’ that you already installed and correctly licensed the Pro version of Flash Builder. Follow the instructions in Adobe technote 83941 to fix the problem. Filed under: eLearning Tagged: adobe, creative suite, flash builder, flex, serial