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3 Best Laptops for Instructional Design – 7 Things to Know
3 Best Laptops for Instructional Design – 7 Things to Know
Scott Winstead's recommendations for laptops for instructional designers. The Acer Aspire is #3 on his list. That's what my last 2 laptops have been, and both have lasted 5 years. I probably will switch brands for my next laptop, but they have been solid options for me in the past (although I did not have lower end options like Scott reviews).
Imported from Diigo#laptop
·myelearningworld.com·
3 Best Laptops for Instructional Design – 7 Things to Know
Best Laptops for Instructional Designers in 2020
Best Laptops for Instructional Designers in 2020
Devlin Peck walks through the important factors for picking a laptop for instructional design and elearning professionals. His top 3 recommendations are a Dell XPS 15, MacBook Pro, or Surface Pro, but he lists the recommended specs so you can find other brands that meet the requirements.
Imported from Diigo#laptop
·devlinpeck.com·
Best Laptops for Instructional Designers in 2020
AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic
Answer the Public describes itself as a "Search listening tool for market, customer & content research." It's a way to see what search terms people enter about a particular topic or brand. If you're wondering what questions people have about a subject, this would give you data about what they search for online. You can only do one search per day for free; otherwise it's $99/month for unlimited searches (which only makes sense if you're doing a LOT of market research).
Imported from Diigo#marketing#tools#free
·answerthepublic.com·
AnswerThePublic
An H5P Branching Scenario That Might Break the Boat – CogDogBlog
An H5P Branching Scenario That Might Break the Boat – CogDogBlog
Alan Levine built this very complex branching scenario in H5P and Pressbooks. This includes some scenario images and descriptions, plus a separate tracker where you have to fill out forms with info and keep track of finances and other notes. Alan's blog post explains how he built the random events (which were originally a card draw in the physical version).
Imported from Diigo#branching#h5p#elearning#scenario
·cogdogblog.com·
An H5P Branching Scenario That Might Break the Boat – CogDogBlog
Avatar Maker - Create Your Own Avatar Online
Avatar Maker - Create Your Own Avatar Online
Free tool for creating avatars. I don't see licensing info, so it appears to be free to use. This only creates head shots, and the choices are limited. The SVG version of the download has editable layers, so you potentially could edit it for other expressions.
Imported from Diigo#tools#free#images
·avatarmaker.com·
Avatar Maker - Create Your Own Avatar Online
Rewordify.com | Understand what you read
Rewordify.com | Understand what you read
Paste difficult to understand text into the yellow text box, and this website will give you a simplified version. While this is intended for people learning English vocabulary (or teachers helping students), it might be helpful as an instructional designer. It doesn't do anything for absurdly long sentences (in fact, sometimes the simplified version is longer), but you could use this to take a first pass edit on complex SME language.
Imported from Diigo#writing#tools#free
·rewordify.com·
Rewordify.com | Understand what you read
Descript | Create podcasts, videos, and transcripts
Descript | Create podcasts, videos, and transcripts

This tool is geared mostly for podcast producers, but it might have some applications for elearning. When you record audio, it generates a transcript. If you want to edit out some text, you can edit it via the transcript rather than editing the wave forms.

The other interesting feature is "Overdub," which uses an AI generated synthetic voice based on the real voice to fill in changes. If you need to make minor edits in wording, you can use the synthetic voice rather than re-recording the sentence and replacing the audio. You can certainly hear the difference, even in their demo, but i bet for quick edits it would be good enough.

Imported from Diigo#audio#tools#podcast
·descript.com·
Descript | Create podcasts, videos, and transcripts
Klixel8
Klixel8
Company that creates "High-Res eLearning": virtual environments with very high resolution photos that you can zoom in and explore. Click hot spots to move around or select objects. You can add multiple choice questions or link to other resources and activities. Currently all custom development, but this is good inspiration for creating similar projects in other tools (maybe without the high res zooming).
Imported from Diigo#elearning
·klixel8.com·
Klixel8
19 Ways to Write Better Dialogue — Well-Storied.
19 Ways to Write Better Dialogue — Well-Storied.
Tips for writing better dialogue like "every line of dialogue should serve a purpose." While this is aimed at general fiction writing and not learning, most of this applies to writing scenarios for learning too.
<p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Before writing a conversation, take the time to ask yourself what key purpose(s) the conversation will serve. Most often, conversations work to resolve or create tension, establish context, or reveal new information that moves the story forward.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">With an established purpose in mind, you can begin writing dialogue with the confidence that you're adding value to your story rather than setting readers up for boredom.&nbsp;</p>
One easy way to identify dialogue missteps, however, is to read your story's conversations aloud.&nbsp;If the dialogue doesn't flow when spoken, you'll know exactly where to revise your work.
Imported from Diigo#writing#storytelling
·well-storied.com·
19 Ways to Write Better Dialogue — Well-Storied.
Open Broadcaster Software®️ | OBS
Open Broadcaster Software®️ | OBS
Open source tool for live mixing video streaming. You can put a text overlay on top of a video, for example. You can also set up different scenes in advance so you can transition between different combos. This also has an audio mixer so you can adjust the volume between a shared video and your own microphone (or other inputs). It's compatible with other platforms, so you can use it with Zoom or whatever you're currently using for video conferencing or streaming.
Imported from Diigo#video#tools#opensource#free
·obsproject.com·
Open Broadcaster Software®️ | OBS
Zoom breakout workaround
Zoom breakout workaround
Want to let people choose their own breakout rooms in Zoom? Check out this solution. This would probably work best with an audience with at least some prior experience with Zoom (so they don't do anything as co-hosts accidentally), but it wouldn't take too much training to give people enough skill to manage it.
Imported from Diigo#vILT#zoom#howto
·plpnetwork.com·
Zoom breakout workaround
Designing Scenario-Based Learning for Skill Development | Learning Solutions Magazine
Designing Scenario-Based Learning for Skill Development | Learning Solutions Magazine
This article from Bill Brandon gives an overview of the development sequence for scenario-based learning, plus a preview of my session on Streamlining Branching Scenario Planning and Design.
<a href="https://learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/1108/how-to-engage-learners-with-scenario-based-learning-/?utm_campaign=lspub&amp;utm_medium=link&amp;utm_source=link">Scenario-based learning</a> (SBL) and the inclusion of practice with feedback are much more effective approaches to the development of skill and competence.
Imported from Diigo#instructionaldesign#elearning#scenario
·learningsolutionsmag.com·
Designing Scenario-Based Learning for Skill Development | Learning Solutions Magazine
Making people aware of their implicit biases doesn’t usually change minds. But here’s what does work | PBS NewsHour
Making people aware of their implicit biases doesn’t usually change minds. But here’s what does work | PBS NewsHour
"Discretion elimination" means changing systems to make choices more objective and less subject to the effects of implicit bias. First, you need data to know where the problems are so you know how to change the systems.
And once you know what’s happening, the next step is what I call discretion elimination. This can be applied when people are making decisions that involve subjective judgment about a person. This could be police officers, employers making hiring or promotion decisions, doctors deciding on a patient’s treatment, or teachers making decisions about students’ performance. When those decisions are made with discretion, they are likely to result in unintended disparities. But when those decisions are made based on predetermined, objective criteria that are rigorously applied, they are much less likely to produce disparities.
Imported from Diigo#training#diversity
·pbs.org·
Making people aware of their implicit biases doesn’t usually change minds. But here’s what does work | PBS NewsHour
Learnexus
Learnexus
Learnexus is a platform for freelancers to find projects and clients to find freelancers. It's focused on instructional designers and elearning developers, rather than being a general freelancer site like UpWork. They also screen freelancers, so they are hopefully filtering out some of the folks at the low end of the market. The site is new though, so the pool of people and projects is small currently.
Imported from Diigo#instructionaldesign#freelance#elearning
·learnexus.com·
Learnexus