Lots of gems from Jane Bozarth here about elearning, instructional design, meaningful interactivity and engagement, social learning, PLNs, and more. This is a very quotable interview.
To “get” from a PLN you need to “give.”
I think that we are getting the idea of more interactivity, of more engaging real stuff, not just making it spin and zoom and move. And I think the authoring tools that have made that easier have certainly helped people understand that learners need to actually get their hands on the content in some way.
<p>You do not blame the hammer because the house fell down. It’s the person using the tool. It’s really about effective design. You can do fabulous stuff with PowerPoint. You can do dreadful stuff with PowerPoint. You can do dreadful stuff no matter the tool.</p>
<p>In PowerPoint you can actually build nice little branching scenarios and reveals. You can make choices. You can do interactivity. There’s a lot of stuff that I think people just don’t take the time to learn.</p>
Nuts and Bolts: Read Up! by Jane Bozarth : Learning Solutions Magazine
Even if you don't have a degree in instructional design (and maybe especially if you don't), you can improve your skills by reading deeply in more academic literature. Jane Bozarth shares some recommendations for authors to start with and strategies for finding sources.
You may find something that surprises or unsettles
you. Or you may find something that confirms what you believe with data and not
just some anecdotes or gut feelings. Some time spent here will help you move
past “I think” or “it feels right” to “evidence shows.”
LMSs for experts to sell courses. These aren't all completely free, in spite of the title. This list is geared more to teachers who want to sell something online on the side. Udemy, Odijoo, RCampus, Learnopia, Peer 2 Peer University, Teachers pay Teachers
Platforms for selling courses. These are mostly not full LMSs but aimed at SMEs who want to sell courses. Academy of Mine, Coggno, CourseMerchant, DigitalChalk, EdLoud, Educadium, EZLCMS, Inquisiq, Learning Cart, Litmos, MindBites, Mindflash, OpenSesame, Pathwright, ProProfs, Ruzuku, SkyPrep, Teachable, Udemy, WizIQ
The Growth Mindset : Telling Penguins to Flap Harder ? | Disappointed Idealist
Lengthy criticism of growth mindset, looking at both Dweck's research and the way it is misinterpreted and applied in educational policy
To a certain extent, I feel the growth mindset is the equivalent of putting a penguin next to an eagle and inviting them to both take off. When the eagle is a speck in the sky, the observer then tells the penguin that the only reason it isn’t also flying is that it isn’t putting enough effort in. If only it flaps its wings harder, it’ll be chasing the eagle in no time.
Seth's Blog: Training and the infinite return on investment
This assumes the training actually has an effect on behavior (and let's be honest--it doesn't always), but this is a good breakdown of how training someone to be better at their job has a great ROI
The Problem With Having a 'Growth Mindset' - Finding Common Ground - Education Week
Growth mindset doesn't seem to work as well in classrooms as it does in the research environments, partly because it gets oversimplified as simply "more effort" rather than providing useful feedback and rewarding trying new strategies.
Samples of different styles for conversations (comic book, text message, interactive conversations, pull quotes, etc.) Read the comments for additional examples. Most of the samples are in Storyline, but you could do similar actions in any tool.
How To Create A Money-Making Online Course - Forbes
This isn't about instructional design--it's for SMEs who want to create courses on Udemy to share their expertise. I like the comparison used that creating a 2-3 hour online course takes about as much time as writing a book; that's a good metaphor, at least for an audience of experts with knowledge to sell.
This is an older tool and doesn't look like it's being maintained anymore (the last news update is from 2008), but it appears to be able to repackage SCORM packages. Might be worth testing if you have SCORM packages created in software you don't otherwise have access to.
Top 5 LMS Off the Beaten Track Infographic - InsiderHub
I think Canvas is too well-established to be on this list. The others are worth exploring (Adobe Captivate Prime, LearnDash, UpsideLMS, and Matrix). They have a quick summary of each, including price, and notes on the intended audience.
How to Fix E-Learning Course Content & Graphic Design
Tips for how to clean up e-learning design. This is mostly about visual design including picking images, fonts, color schemes, and using grids. A few tips on cleaning up content are included, but that topic could be a whole series of posts.
Copyrightability of Charts, Tables, and Graphs | U-M Library
Excellent analysis of the case history and interpretation of copyright law. The quick answer is that because data itself can't be copyrighted, charts and graphs that just represent that data also can't be copyrighted. Infographics are an exception because they can demonstrate creativity.
Charts, graphs, and tables are not subject to copyright protection because they do not meet the first requirement for copyright protection, that is, they are not “original works of authorship,” under the definitions in the Act.
Automatic Bookmarking for your Twitter Favorites | Diigo
Diigo can automatically save your Twitter favorites. Links are saved as bookmarks. If you choose to save favorites without links, they're saved as notes. This lets you categorize and organize your favorite Tweets in your library.
No Clarity Around Growth Mindset…Yet | Slate Star Codex
A rare criticism of Dweck's growth mindset research, largely centered around the idea that the results are so dramatic for such small interventions that they can't be real. No proof for falsification is provided (although the author says he looked). There are some more legitimate concerns raised about the social psychology and alternate research showing that yes, innate ability does matter.
A rare point of agreement between hard biodeterminists and hard socialists is that telling kids that they’re failing because they just don’t have the right work ethic is a <i>crappy thing to do</i>. It’s usually false and it will make them feel terrible. Behavioral genetics studies show pretty clearly that at least 50% of success at academics and <a href="slatestarcodex.com/2015/02/01/talents-part-2-attitude-vs-altitude/">sports</a> is genetic; various sociologists have put a lot of work into proving that your position in a biased society covers a pretty big portion of the remainder. If somebody who was born with the dice stacked against them works very hard, then they might find themselves at A2 above. To deny this in favor of a “everything is about how hard you work” is to offend the sensibilities of sensible people on the left and right alike.
So basically, you take the most vulnerable people, set them tasks you know they’ll fail at, then lecture them about how they only failed because of insufficient effort.
Amy Jo Kim looks at the types of players for social games and provides verbs and descriptions for each. This could be useful for thinking about games for learning and the different approaches possible (i.e., it's not all just about badges and competition).