The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 9,300 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Most of us who design & build elearning materials have probably worked with video at some point. Typically working with video involves making a decision on what video format you will use for the final output. This decision is based on things such as what hardware/software your audience will be using, what kind of speeds are they connected at, etc. For example, if anyone in your target audience will be viewing on an iPad/iPhone then flash is immediately ruled out as an option. And that is only one of many scenarios you’ll need to grapple with.
What if I told you there was a video option that plays on virtually any device with no plugins of any kind required and even plays automatically INSIDE emails and Microsoft Office documents? I’d like to introduce you to consider….the “’lowly’ animated gif.
In certain situations, particularly when the recording is short, an animated GIF might make more sense than some other video formats. As a general rule, animated gifs load quickly, work on virtually any device and you don’t have to hit play to watch them. (As you can see in the example below.)
I use animated gifs for including screencast videos directly within emails and people love that they don’t have to launch any new windows or separate applications to see the video. What other video format will play anywhere from IE6 to iOS 5 and not blink an eye?
How It Works
Animated gif are very simply a collection of still images played in succession the same way you would see with a flipbook.
Tools
Camtasia
I use Camtasia to capture and produce my animated gifs. I like that I can do everything from the capture and editing to the final output in the same tool. For me the editing it the most important part since you want these to be pretty lean and lightweight files. Free 30 day trial available | http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html
Screencast-o-matic
Screencast-o-matic is a popular web-based screencasting tool that lets you create movies of your computer screen right inside the browser without requiring any software. It runs as a Java applet and can therefore record movies of any Windows, Mac or Linux machine. | http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/
Do you use animated gifs for anything? What has worked well for you?
P.S.
I’m not sure why or how but the example above is actually a .jpg. I *THINK* WordPress may have changed it from a .gif. Below is an animated .gif. Does it make any difference?
As part of the launch of her new book, “Design for How People Learn” Julie Dirkson is asking for a learning design tip in exchange for a chance to win a copy.
(Congratulations on the book Julie!)
Head on over to her site to add your tip or read the others.
My tip for designing learning content is that less is more. I recently post about a one page handout by Tom Peters that he used to boil down his leadership principles that he’s accumulate over 45 years. Yes there are a lot of details that go along with them but I’ll remember the one page list much better than hours and hours worth of content no matter how well it is done. And after all if it’s not remembered…what’s the point?
I’m certainly not suggesting that there isn’t a place for longer,deeper content just that we should always consider all our options including, at times,the option of not building a course at all.
We all hear the excuses about why we can’t cut extraneous content and I’m not buying it. If Tom Peters can get the gist of his leadership wisdom into a 1 to 2 pager so can you. Period.
5 Days to Compose45 Years to Prepare | tompeters!.
I challenge you to start emulating Tom and cut whatever project/document/etc you are currently working on in half. You audience will thank you for it.
My contribution to Jane Hart’s 2011 version of the Top 100 Tools for Learning
- Twitter:
The best source for finding, following & talking with smart people.
twitter.com/tmiket - Google Reader:
…so I can subscribe to those smart people’s blogs and
reader.google.com - Diigo:
Diigo has stepped inherited bookmarks after the horrendous Delicious debacle.
diigo.com - PowerPoint/Articulate:
The Articulate community alone is worth a top 5.
articulate.com - Adobe Connect:
Web conferencing & online training
adobe.com/products/adobeconnect.html - WordPress:
For hosting this personal blog and weekly tips
wordpress.com - SnagIt / Camtasia:
The gold standard for screen capturing
techsmith.com - Dropbox:
So I can get my files when/where I need them whether it’s at home, work or on the road.
dropbox.com - Survey Gizmo
Excellent for gathering feedback & survey responses. So many uses for this..use it virtually everyday.
surveygizmo.com - SharePoint
Necessary evil but a step in the right direction away from email, network folders, etc towards more open collaboration
sharepoint.microsoft.com
Lately I’ve had a few conversations around low, or at least lower, tech options to online courses which is prompting me to explore what others may be doing in this regard.
For example, one conversation with @pattishank, @abigrace & @jrandersoniii involved the question of using a document instead of a course.
http://twitter.com/#!/pattishank/status/113658353124786177
If its just a lower level, informational type situation allowing your audience to print out a document for reading when and where they prefer could be a better option couldn’t? I know I’d much prefer that over being chained to my PC having it read to me. (Which by the way is SLOWER than if I read it myself.) If it’s purely informational maybe that’s all you need. If you need some form of confirmation, a well written assessment could easily be administered. What do you think? Are you already doing something like this? What scenarios to think would fit with this approach well?
Another form of this ‘lower tech’ approach is delivering content via email. There are a number of situations where small, bite-sized content is the way to go and unlike RSS (which seems to be a less than mainstream medium) everyone has email. Some of the benefits of this approach include the fact that everyone has email, your audience doesn’t have to go anywhere or do anything – it just shows up in their inbox, and they can easily save the information if they need it later. (When was the last time you ever went back into your LMS to reference anything? I know I never have. )
I’ve been using this approach for almost five years now, sending a short (and hopefully sweet) tip via email every Friday morning. They are meant to be quick and easy to “get” within just a couple of minutes and the topics are usually driven by questions I get asking for help or useful shortcuts that I think can save people some. For example,this morning’s tip is about cropping images in Microsoft Office.
Another great email option is to set up a series of emails that can be sent at the appropriate time intervals. An example of this approach is the daily or weekly email courses on a variety of topics from about.com. Each “course” is sent via email and is designed around a specific topic. No grades, no tracking and no assessments but I’d say there is more and better learning than many of the courses I see. One nice thing about this is that it delivers a pre-defined series of content no matter when someone subscribes…if there are 10 items everyone starts with email #1 regardless of when they subscribe. Compare that to a higher-tech blog where you just pick up with whatever is current and don’t get to start at the beginning.
UPDATE:
I’ve found a few things describing this approach as ‘decelerated learning‘ which I believe is a ”…reaction to the appalling and ill-considered drive towards force-feeding huge quantities of low quality content…“
What do you think? Is lower-tech in your arsenal? Should it be? What other ‘low tech’ options should we be considering?
In putting together a webinar on Learning Design, stop number one was Ruth Clark. While browsing her articles I came across this article which is way too good not to share.
“Applying Cognitive Strategies to Instructional Design” [PDF]
“Instructional technology is a design science that must guide the professional production of instruction. This article recommends a move toward evidence-based practice. In other words, we need to allow research rather than fads and folk wisdom to serve as the infrastructure for the professional practice of training design and delivery.”
Research in the last 12 years, however, has provided a number of new guidelines regarding the optimal ways to select and place examples to maximize cognitive learning processes (Atkinson, Derry, Renkl, & Wortham,2000).
Four guidelines for best use of examples:
- Replace some problem exercises with worked examples to manage cognitive load.
- Explain a visual example with audio rather than text when teaching in multimedia to manage cognitive load.
- When teaching problem solving or decisionmaking tasks, present several examples that look different on the surface but that illustrate the same guidelines to maximize transfer.
- Train learners to self-explain examples to promote deep processing and maximum learning from examples
- Be sure that training will improve performance.
- Concentrate training on critical skills.
- Minimize receptive training. (i.e. info dumps)
- Repurpose training materials.
- Develop job aids that support desired job performance and wrap the training around the job aid.
- Evaluate performance outcomes.
I think this article ”The First 99 People to Follow on Twitter“ is a great idea. We recently introduced some of our internal learning people to Twitter, so I thought it would be a great idea to assemble a list of the first 99 learning professionals you should follow on Twitter.
DISCLAIMER: 99 isn’t very many and I greatly value all of the people I follow. So apologies in advance for the 1000+ people I follow who aren’t on this list These are in no particular order and the selection process was decidedly unscientific.
- elearningcoach Connie Malamed
- CatMoore Cathy Moore
- tomkuhlmann Tom Kuhlmann
- JaneBozarth Jane Bozarth
- pattishank Patti Shank
- cammybean Cammy Bean
- Articulate Jeannette Brooks
- elearning David Anderson
- LearnNuggets Kevin Thorn
- aaronesilvers Aaron Silvers
- moehlert Mark Oehlert
- hjarche Harold Jarche
- sumeet_moghe sumeet_moghe
- JudithELS J Christian-Carter
- finiteattention Chris Atherton
- bschlenker Brent Schlenker
- dpontefract Dan Pontefract
- kelly_smith01 Kelly Smith
- trinarimmer Trina Rimmer
- sparkandco Holly MacDonald
- TriciaRansom Tricia Ransom
- OpenSesameNow OpenSesame
- CraigTaylor74 Craig Taylor
- articulatebrian Brian Batt
- jenisecook Jenise Cook
- arossett Allison Rossett
- jmarrapodi Jean Marrapodi
- MikeCollins007 Mike Collins
- realwplearn RealWkplaceLearning
- jsuzcampos Jeannette Campos
- Quinnovator Clark Quinn
- C4LPT C4LPT
- EndersDesign Mike Enders
- hypergogue Simon Bostock
- roninchef Mason Masteka
- mpetersell Mike Petersell
- nickfloro Nick Floro
- oxala75 Craig Wiggins
- jclarey Janet Clarey
- spotlearning Joe Fournier
- kasey428 Kay Wood
- minutebio Jeff Goldman
- rjpanetti rjpanetti
- anicole87 Allison Michels
- denniscallahan Dennis Callahan
- LnDDave David Kelly
- TerrenceWing Terrence Wing
- jwillensky Jason Willensky
- jkunrein Judy Unrein
- row4it Kevin Bruny
- stipton Shannon Tipton
- dawnjmahoney Dawn Mahoney
- BdotW Brandon Williams
- megbertapelle Meg Bertapelle
- weisblatt Adam Weisblatt
- britz mark britz
- thinkingcloud David Becker
- jaycross jaycross
- stevier Stevie Rocco
- sifowler Simon Fowler
- Schnicker Nicole Fougere
- sahana2802 Sahana Chattopadhyay
- StephanieDaul StephanieDaul
- bearclau Claudine Caro
- nancyrubin nancyrubin
- usablelearning Julie Dirksen
- simbeckhampson Simbeck-Hampson
- kellygarber Kelly Garber
- eLearningGuild eLearning Guild
- busynessgirl busynessgirl
- Spydeesense S. Marcus Hswe
- edwsonoma Ellen Wagner
- ThomasStone Thomas Stone
- DonaldClark Donald Clark
- wwickha1 Wendy Wickham
- hybridkris Kris Rockwell
- LisaAGoldstein Lisa Goldstein
- billcush Bill Cushard
- cliveshepherd Clive Shepherd
- Dave_Ferguson Dave Ferguson
- KevinDJones Kevin D. Jones
- dwilkinsnh David Wilkins
- WillWorkLearn Will Thalheimer
- smartinx Stephen Martin
- ZaraLynnKing Zara King
- Tracy_Parish Tracy Parish
- judyb Judy Brown
- bjschone B.J. Schone
- marciamarcia Marcia Conner
- lisagualtieri Lisa Gualtieri
- onEnterFrame James Kingsley
- slhice Stephanie Harnett
- niallgavinuk Niall Gavin
- duncanmaciver Duncan MacIver
- belowit David Lindenberg
- _Kavi Kavi
- lau_casey Laura Casey
- cfidurauk Christie Fidura
- espnguyen Steve Nguyen
- klowey22 John Hovell
This is in response to a good thread in Articulate’s Elearning Heroes community about “Creative Ways to Include Links“
Here are a few ways that I’ve incorporated documents and attachments in presentations / courses:
This document graphic is from one of Tom Kuhlmann’s blog posts. In the post he shows how he built it along with providing a downloadable copy.
Plain Document:
I usually drop a screenshot of whatever document I ‘m referencing on top of this….which leads to something like this:
At the end of a course I’ve used multiple smaller versions that are animated with each document rising out of a pocket which is then linked to the actual document.
Download the PowerPoint Template
If you’re interested here is a PowerPoint file containing these examples.
View the published demo
and an Articulate published demo.
