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.

Click here to see the complete report.

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?

(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.

1. Twitter:
   The best source for finding, following & talking with smart people.
   twitter.com/tmiket
2. Google Reader:
   …so I can subscribe to those smart people’s blogs and
   reader.google.com
3. Diigo:
   Diigo has stepped inherited bookmarks after the horrendous Delicious debacle.
   diigo.com
4. PowerPoint/Articulate:
   The Articulate community alone is worth a top 5.
   articulate.com
5. Adobe Connect:  
   Web conferencing & online training
   adobe.com/products/adobeconnect.html
6. WordPress:
   For hosting this personal blog and weekly tips
   wordpress.com
7. SnagIt / Camtasia:
   The gold standard for screen capturing
   techsmith.com
8. Dropbox:  
   So I can get my files when/where I need them whether it’s at home, work or on the road.
   dropbox.com
9. Survey Gizmo
   Excellent for gathering feedback & survey responses. So many uses for this..use it virtually everyday.
   surveygizmo.com
10. SharePoint
    Necessary evil but a step in the right direction away from email, network folders, etc towards more open collaboration
    sharepoint.microsoft.com

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…“

“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:

1. Replace some problem exercises with worked examples to manage cognitive load.
2. Explain a visual example with audio rather than text when teaching in multimedia to manage cognitive load.
3. 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.
4. Train learners to self-explain examples to promote deep processing and maximum learning from examples

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.

1. elearningcoach Connie Malamed
2. CatMoore Cathy Moore
3. tomkuhlmann Tom Kuhlmann
4. JaneBozarth Jane Bozarth
5. pattishank Patti Shank
6. cammybean Cammy Bean
7. Articulate Jeannette Brooks
8. elearning David Anderson
9. LearnNuggets Kevin Thorn
10. aaronesilvers Aaron Silvers
11. moehlert Mark Oehlert
12. hjarche Harold Jarche
13. sumeet_moghe sumeet_moghe
14. JudithELS J Christian-Carter
15. finiteattention Chris Atherton
16. bschlenker Brent Schlenker
17. dpontefract Dan Pontefract
18. kelly_smith01 Kelly Smith
19. trinarimmer Trina Rimmer
20. sparkandco Holly MacDonald
21. TriciaRansom Tricia Ransom
22. OpenSesameNow OpenSesame
23. CraigTaylor74 Craig Taylor
24. articulatebrian Brian Batt
25. jenisecook Jenise Cook
26. arossett Allison Rossett
27. jmarrapodi Jean Marrapodi
28. MikeCollins007 Mike Collins
29. realwplearn RealWkplaceLearning
30. jsuzcampos Jeannette Campos
31. Quinnovator Clark Quinn
32. C4LPT C4LPT
33. EndersDesign Mike Enders
34. hypergogue Simon Bostock
35. roninchef Mason Masteka
36. mpetersell Mike Petersell
37. nickfloro Nick Floro
38. oxala75 Craig Wiggins
39. jclarey Janet Clarey
40. spotlearning Joe Fournier
41. kasey428 Kay Wood
42. minutebio Jeff Goldman
43. rjpanetti rjpanetti
44. anicole87 Allison Michels
45. denniscallahan Dennis Callahan
46. LnDDave David Kelly
47. TerrenceWing Terrence Wing
48. jwillensky Jason Willensky
49. jkunrein Judy Unrein
50. row4it Kevin Bruny
51. stipton Shannon Tipton
52. dawnjmahoney Dawn Mahoney
53. BdotW Brandon Williams
54. megbertapelle Meg Bertapelle
55. weisblatt Adam Weisblatt
56. britz mark britz
57. thinkingcloud David Becker
58. jaycross jaycross
59. stevier Stevie Rocco
60. sifowler Simon Fowler
61. Schnicker Nicole Fougere
62. sahana2802 Sahana Chattopadhyay
63. StephanieDaul StephanieDaul
64. bearclau Claudine Caro
65. nancyrubin nancyrubin
66. usablelearning Julie Dirksen
67. simbeckhampson Simbeck-Hampson
68. kellygarber Kelly Garber
69. eLearningGuild eLearning Guild
70. busynessgirl busynessgirl
71. Spydeesense S. Marcus Hswe
72. edwsonoma Ellen Wagner
73. ThomasStone Thomas Stone
74. DonaldClark Donald Clark
75. wwickha1 Wendy Wickham
76. hybridkris Kris Rockwell
77. LisaAGoldstein Lisa Goldstein
78. billcush Bill Cushard
79. cliveshepherd Clive Shepherd
80. Dave_Ferguson Dave Ferguson
81. KevinDJones Kevin D. Jones
82. dwilkinsnh David Wilkins
83. WillWorkLearn Will Thalheimer
84. smartinx Stephen Martin
85. ZaraLynnKing Zara King
86. Tracy_Parish Tracy Parish
87. judyb Judy Brown
88. bjschone B.J. Schone
89. marciamarcia Marcia Conner
90. lisagualtieri Lisa Gualtieri
91. onEnterFrame James Kingsley
92. slhice Stephanie Harnett
93. niallgavinuk Niall Gavin
94. duncanmaciver Duncan MacIver
95. belowit David Lindenberg
96. _Kavi Kavi
97. lau_casey Laura Casey
98. cfidurauk Christie Fidura
99. espnguyen Steve Nguyen
100. klowey22 John Hovell

“21 Questions to ask before Designing Any Training Program”  Part 1  |  Part 2  |  Part 3

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.