The LPI Capability Map - Learning and Performance Institute
Free self assessment on skills and competencies in learning and development
Blog posts
Teachers in Need of a New Career Path: Think Instructional Design
Article from a graduate of the IDOL academy on how and why to transition from teaching to instructional design
The Ultimate L&D Podcast Guide - Training Industry
Extensive list of podcasts related to learning, training, instructional design, and technology
Donald Clark Plan B: Video for learning –15 things the research says – some may shock you…
Summary of research on using videos for learning. Video length, using "talking heads," cuts, screen size, and more.
The Complete Guide To Creating Opt-in Forms That Convert
Massive article on creating opt-in forms and building an email list by Brennan Dunn
How to quickly find the cause of a performance problem
A great idea for digging into the reason for a performance problem. Instead of just asking "why," ask "what for." What drives behavior may not be a problem that can be fixed with training.
Ger’s Learning Notes #32 - From Classroom Learning to Blended Learning - aNewSpring
Ger Driesen's curated collection of resources on elearning, blended learning, and moving training from classroom to online. Two of my blog posts on converting content are included.
Resources for Creating Branching Scenarios - E-Learning Uncovered
Diane Elkin's curated resources on creating branching scenarios, including examples, books, blog posts, and templates.
Accessibility posters
Guidelines for developing media with different aspects of accessibility. These are also available as downloadable PDF posters.
Free Online Video Maker - Create Videos in Minutes | FlexClip
Free browser-based tool for creating quick videos. This would be good for creating short promos for upcoming webinars or training.
Change Management for Maximum Software Adoption
Software training can fail without change management support. Learning new software means you'll be less efficient for a while, so you have to get enough motivation to push through the learning process. In fact, this applies to many areas of training.
Sharing the Wealth - Mindful Mornings
Patti Bryant mentions me in a blog post about how helping others and being generous with your resources helps consultants gain credibility and find new clients. A scarcity mindset says there aren't enough clients to go around and you should hoard your resources and knowledge. An abundance mindset says there's enough, so go ahead and share generously. (She doesn't use the phrase "abundance mindset," but that's what she is describing.)
How to Copy Text from Flash Courses When You Don't have the Original File | The Rapid E-Learning Blog
Images and audio files are relatively easy to recover from a published SCORM package, but text is hard to get from courses if they were published in Flash only. This shows two methods for using OCR to get text from Flash images.
Extract content from SCORM package - Building Better Courses Discussions - E-Learning Heroes
I'm bookmarking this for Matthew Bibby's reply. If you have only the published SCORM files for a course published in Storyline 3 or 360, you can use this Javascript code snippet to select the onscreen text. That at least lets you copy and paste rather than retyping everything.
<p>If the course was published with SL3 or SL360 then dropping this code in the JS console will allow you to select the text onscreen (so it can be copied):</p>
<pre>document.querySelectorAll('text').forEach(node => {<br> node.style.pointerEvents = 'all';<br> node.style.userSelect = 'all'<br>});</pre>
<p><a href="https://blogs.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/how-to-copy-text-from-flash-e-learning-courses-html5/" target="_blank">This article</a> may also be helpful.</p>
How to Update an Old Course Without the Source Files
With the impending demise of Flash, organizations will need to upgrade their libraries of old Flash elearning to HTML5. If you can't recreate them from scratch, Tom Kuhlmann shares this method using screen captures to quickly convert old courses. You still have to manually add interactions, but you can bring in a lot of content as screen capture images.
Three Answer Options Are All You Need on Multiple-Choice Tests!
While we are used to providing 4 options in multiple choice questions, using 3 is just effective. Writing good distractors is the hardest part of writing multiple choice questions. If you only have to write 2 distractors instead of 3, you can create questions faster. While it's not mentioned in this post, reducing the number of options also immensely reduces the complexity of branching scenarios.
So here’s the main finding: <u>no significant differences were found in terms of item difficulty</u>. There were also <u>no differences found in terms of test reliability</u>. Thus, Baghaei and Amrahi (2011) concluded that three answer options are all you need. If the test characteristics are essentially the same, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to spend our time developing additional answer options.
Rodriguez (2005) argues that shifting to three answer options also increases the amount of content that can be tested. Because students don’t have to spend as much time reading four or five answer options, there will be more time during the test for students to read additional questions on different course content. Instead of spending your time on identifying more answer options, spend your time developing additional test questions.
Finding Your Place In an Instructional Design Career
"Instructional design" is a big umbrella that can mean different things in different organizations. This post describes a number of options for the focus of instructional design and related roles.
Part 1 Bloom's Taxonomy Lorin Anderson Part 1 Off-the-Cuff Episode #022 - YouTube
Alexander Salas interviewed Dr. Lorin Anderson, author of the 2001 revision of Bloom's Taxonomy. They discussed how the taxonomy was intended for writing test items in higher education, not helping performance in workplace learning. It wasn't designed for writing learning objectives.
How to Be a Knowledge Worker - The Startup - Medium
That is, cast the net wide and try to gather information in whatever format it comes, but when you give out information, make sure it’s in a much better, more consistent and useful format than it came to you.
How to Become an Instructional Designer: The Definitive Guide - Devlin Peck - Performance Consultant for Corporate Training Teams
This 10,000-word guide starts at the very beginning, explaining what instructional designers are and what they do for different types of organizations. There's a quick summary of theories and different tools, tips for creating a portfolio, and info on ways to learn more.
Our Brains Tell Stories So We Can Live - Issue 75: Story - Nautilus
How stories are critical to how humans understand the world
Citationsy
Create citations, reference lists, and bibliographies automatically with this free browser extension
Scenario examples for training – Learn instructional design for the workplace from Cathy Moore
A collection of example scenarios from multiple sources, built in multiple tools. Cathy describes each scenario and asks questions to help you reflect about the design.
Now Even the New York Times Has It Wrong |Education & Teacher Conferences
You've probably heard that taking handwritten notes results in better learning than taking notes on a laptop. That research has been oversimplified in the media reporting though. What the researchers found is that rewording and summarizing while taking notes is more effective. People taking handwritten notes are more likely to reword as they go because we write slower than we type. However, if people could be trained to take notes on a laptop while rewording and summarizing, taking digital notes would probably be MORE effective.
It's HOW you take notes that matters, not the media or technology--just as has been seen in numerous other studies about learning.
The correct way is: students should <span style="text-decoration: underline;">reword</span> the professor’s lecture, rather than simply copy the words down <span style="text-decoration: underline;">verbatim</span>.
<p>If students can learn to reword the professor’s lecture when taking notes on a laptop, then Mueller and Oppenheimer’s own data suggest that they’ll learn more. And yes, I do mean “learn more than people who take handwritten notes.”</p>
<p>(Why? Because laptop note-takers can write <em>more words</em> than handwriters, and in M&O’s research, more words lead to more learning.)</p>
Yo Scenario | The branching scenario builder
A browser-based branching scenario builder. Free for 5 scenarios to try it out. Paid plans start at £20/ month.
The Mindset Controversy: Carol Dweck Speaks... |Education & Teacher Conferences
A summary of Dweck's response to recent unsuccessful research on growth mindset. It's probably less important to teach the concept of mindset than to adjust methods of teaching and providing feedback.
<p>Dweck emphasizes that mindset interventions should not be one-time events.</p>
<p>Anything that happens just once — “a chart at the front of the room, a lecture where you define the two mindsets” — isn’t likely to work.</p>
<p>Instead, we should focus on “the policies and practices in the classroom. <em>It is not about teaching the concept alone</em>, it is much more about implementing practices that focus on growth and learning.” [emphasis added]
</p>
RightMessage | The Beginner's Guide To Segmenting Your Email List
How to segment email lists (what segments to use and how to gather the info)
Learning Technology Mystery Series Presents “The Case of the Disengaged Learner” with Cara North - The Training, Learning, and Development Community
Cara North's recorded presentation on engagement in learning. Engagement can be cognitive, behavioral, or emotional. Additional resources at go.osu.edu/disengaged
Book — The Learning Scientists
Quick summaries of key points from each chapter in a book on learning science and effective strategies (spacing, elaboration, concrete examples, visuals, and retrieval practice). I wish the graphics were easier to read though. Medium blue italicized serif text on a lighter blue background isn't enough contrast. I don't think low contrast counts as desirable difficulty, just bad accessibility.
The Science of the Job Search, Part VII: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements” – TalentWorks
Job listings are descriptions of what they imagine the ideal candidate should have. Don't be afraid to apply to jobs because you can't check every single box. You can get interviews while meeting only about half the requirements.
<strong>You’re as likely to get a job interview m</strong><strong>eeting 50% of job requirements as meeting 90% of them.</strong>
You may have seen stories before about how women in particular <a href="https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless-theyre-100-qualified">don’t apply for jobs unless they’re 100% qualified</a>. We wondered if they were on to something – maybe there’s gender discrimination at play and hiring managers look for women to meet more of the requirements. Turns out, <strong>our findings apply just as much to women as to men</strong>, and actually, <strong>for women, the chances of getting an interview start increasing as soon as you meet 30% of requirements</strong>.