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Big Dog, Little Dog: Learning Styles are for the individual, not group
Big Dog, Little Dog: Learning Styles are for the individual, not group
Interesting and thoughtful response to the eLearn Magazine article "Why Is the Research on Learning Styles Still Being Dismissed by Some Learning Leaders and Practitioners" by Guy Wallace. Donald ultimately agrees with the idea that instructional designers don't need to spend their time worrying about learning styles, but people who work with individual learners may find them valuable.
That is, when you analyze a group, the findings often suggest that learning styles are relative unimportant, however, when you look at an individual, then the learning style often distinguishes itself as a key component of being able to learn or not.
Thus the main take-away that I get from the paper if that if you are an instructor, manager, etc. who has to help the individual learners, then learning styles make sense. On the other hand, if you are an instructional designer or someone who directs her or his efforts at the group, then learning styles are probably not that important.
·bdld.blogspot.com·
Big Dog, Little Dog: Learning Styles are for the individual, not group
Setting the Mood — Top Tips for Adding Stock Music to Your E-Learning | E-Learning Uncovered
Setting the Mood — Top Tips for Adding Stock Music to Your E-Learning | E-Learning Uncovered
Practical ideas for adding a little stock music to e-learning. It's probably not a good idea to add it behind narration, but a little bit of music might be beneficial in some situations. It can reinforce or shape the emotional feel of a moment in learning.
·elearninguncovered.com·
Setting the Mood — Top Tips for Adding Stock Music to Your E-Learning | E-Learning Uncovered
Curatr - Motivate your learners to truly engage with online learning
Curatr - Motivate your learners to truly engage with online learning
Tool for curating existing resources in a gamified learning experience. Lets learners explore resources at their own pace but with some structure from levels, badges, etc. Learners can comment on resources and discuss with each other. The free edition doesn't allow uploads, but you can link to content elsewhere online. The teacher edition has limited uploading but is still free for teachers. The corporate version is has more features but is costly.
·curatr.co.uk·
Curatr - Motivate your learners to truly engage with online learning
Questions Asked & Answered: Analysis and e-Learning Design
Questions Asked & Answered: Analysis and e-Learning Design
Ethan Edwards recaps a webinar he gave on "The 5 Most Important Analysis Questions You'll Ever Ask." Suggestions on how to get what you need from SMEs
<p><b>Questions:</b></p> <ol> <li>What do you expect learners to be able to DO after completing the course that they can’t do now?</li> <li>What are the consequences TO THE LEARNER if the learner fails to master the intended outcomes?</li> <li>Can you show me an active demonstration, a detailed simulation, or provide an opportunity to directly observe the desired performance?</li> <li>What specific performance mistakes do new learners regularly make?</li> <li>What tools, resources, job aids, or help do successful performers (or even experts) use to do these tasks?</li></ol>
·info.alleninteractions.com·
Questions Asked & Answered: Analysis and e-Learning Design
elearn Magazine: Why Is the Research on Learning Styles Still Being Dismissed by Some Learning Leaders and Practitioners?
elearn Magazine: Why Is the Research on Learning Styles Still Being Dismissed by Some Learning Leaders and Practitioners?
Comments from a number of experts dismissing learning styles, plus discussion on why we still talk about learning styles even though the research doesn't support it
·elearnmag.acm.org·
elearn Magazine: Why Is the Research on Learning Styles Still Being Dismissed by Some Learning Leaders and Practitioners?
Animated vs. Static Learning Agents - My M.Ed. Capstone Research | onehundredfortywords
Animated vs. Static Learning Agents - My M.Ed. Capstone Research | onehundredfortywords
Judy Unrein researched animated and static learning agents and found no difference in animation. Learning agents have value, but this research points to no extra value for more expensive and time-consuming animation.
·onehundredfortywords.com·
Animated vs. Static Learning Agents - My M.Ed. Capstone Research | onehundredfortywords
Design with Accessibility in Mind » oz: the blog of glenda sims ( the goodwitch)
Design with Accessibility in Mind » oz: the blog of glenda sims ( the goodwitch)
I'm not sure if the statistics on the increase in costs for accessible web design match exactly the costs for accessible e-learning design, but the reasons for designing e-learning with accessibility in mind are the same as given here. We're better off designing for accessibility right from the start than having to retrofit later.
·glendathegood.com·
Design with Accessibility in Mind » oz: the blog of glenda sims ( the goodwitch)
A Guide to K-12 Open Source LMS Options -- THE Journal
A Guide to K-12 Open Source LMS Options -- THE Journal
Overview of open source LMS options with examples of districts currently using them. This article covers Moodle, Sakai, Canvas, OLAT, ATutor, and Google CloudCourse. I thought CloudCourse was owned by Google, but it appears the code has an Apache license. CloudCourse seems to be mostly scheduling rather than a full-fledged LMS.
·thejournal.com·
A Guide to K-12 Open Source LMS Options -- THE Journal
Taking the Load Off a Learnerʼs Mind: Instructional Design for Complex Learning (Paul Kirschner) - Academia.edu
Taking the Load Off a Learnerʼs Mind: Instructional Design for Complex Learning (Paul Kirschner) - Academia.edu
Kirschner uses the 4C/ID model to show how to reduce cognitive load for complex tasks. Some skepticism is warranted due to the heavy reliance on cognitive load theory, but there are some solid strategies here: simple-to-complex sequencing, just-in-time information (supportive and procedural), etc.
·ou-nl.academia.edu·
Taking the Load Off a Learnerʼs Mind: Instructional Design for Complex Learning (Paul Kirschner) - Academia.edu
van Merriënboer's 4C/ID Model and Instructional Design
van Merriënboer's 4C/ID Model and Instructional Design
Don Clark's overview of the 4C/ID model, outlining the four components (4C) and the four instructional strategies for different audiences and types of knowledge
The Four-Component Instructional Design model or 4C/ID-model working assumption is that complex learning platforms can be described by four basic components (van Merriënboer, Clark, et al., 2002), which in turn creates a blueprint for the design of the learning platform:
<b>Learning Tasks</b> — concrete, authentic, whole task experiences that are provided to learners in order to promote schema construction for non-recurrent aspects and, to a certain degree, rule automation by compilation for recurrent aspects.
<b>Supportive Information</b> — information that is supportive to the learning and performance of non-recurrent aspects of learning tasks
<b>JIT Information</b> — information that is prerequisite to the learning and performance of recurrent aspects of learning tasks
<b>Part-task Practice</b> — practice items that are provided to learners in order to promote rule automation for selected recurrent aspects of the whole complex skill
·nwlink.com·
van Merriënboer's 4C/ID Model and Instructional Design
The Human Factor: How Gender Differences Matter in Software Training by Mary Arnold : Learning Solutions Magazine
The Human Factor: How Gender Differences Matter in Software Training by Mary Arnold : Learning Solutions Magazine
If your software training includes time to explore or "tinker," men and women will have different rates of success. A strategic approach may be better than going through individual features. This research focused on adding new features with an audience who was already familiar with the software; I'm not sure the same training technique would work with beginners with an application.
Tinkering with the spreadsheets seems to be a reasonable approach to working with a new problem, in line with generating and testing alternative strategies to find a solution. In other words, learning.&nbsp; Women who tinkered with the spreadsheets seemed to be doing just that, and, for them, tinkering predicted more effective problem solving. &nbsp;Counter-intuitively, though, when men tinkered with the spreadsheet, they were <i>less</i> effective in correcting the errors.&nbsp; The opposite results seem attributable to the fact that women paused before trying something else, long enough to process the information.
In the final experiment, researchers provided a different kind of tutorial — one that emphasized a strategic, rather than a feature-by-feature approach to the problem.
Women who participated in this condition were almost as likely to use the new features as the men in the same study, and were able to solve more problems more quickly than women who didn’t use the new features.&nbsp; Men in this condition were not significantly helped or hindered, which means that it’s possible to prevent a bias against women without introducing a bias against men.
·learningsolutionsmag.com·
The Human Factor: How Gender Differences Matter in Software Training by Mary Arnold : Learning Solutions Magazine
The Human Factor: How Gender Differences Matter in Software Training by Mary Arnold : Learning Solutions Magazine
The Human Factor: How Gender Differences Matter in Software Training by Mary Arnold : Learning Solutions Magazine
Tinkering with the spreadsheets seems to be a reasonable approach to working with a new problem, in line with generating and testing alternative strategies to find a solution. In other words, learning.&nbsp; Women who tinkered with the spreadsheets seemed to be doing just that, and, for them, tinkering predicted more effective problem solving. &nbsp;Counter-intuitively, though, when men tinkered with the spreadsheet, they were <i>less</i> effective in correcting the errors.&nbsp; The opposite results seem attributable to the fact that women paused before trying something else, long enough to process the information.
In the final experiment, researchers provided a different kind of tutorial — one that emphasized a strategic, rather than a feature-by-feature approach to the problem.
Women who participated in this condition were almost as likely to use the new features as the men in the same study, and were able to solve more problems more quickly than women who didn’t use the new features.&nbsp; Men in this condition were not significantly helped or hindered, which means that it’s possible to prevent a bias against women without introducing a bias against men.
·learningsolutionsmag.com·
The Human Factor: How Gender Differences Matter in Software Training by Mary Arnold : Learning Solutions Magazine
Intel Education: Designing Effective Projects: Thinking Frameworks
Intel Education: Designing Effective Projects: Thinking Frameworks
Review of Bloom's Taxonomy, including problems and the revised version, with information about the differences between factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive knowledge.
Those teachers who keep a list of question prompts relating to the various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy undoubtedly do a better job of encouraging higher-order thinking in their students than those who have no such tool. On the other hand, as anyone who has worked with a group of educators to classify a group of questions and learning activities according to the Taxonomy can attest, there is little consensus about what seemingly self-evident terms like “analysis,” or “evaluation” mean. In addition, so many worthwhile activities, such as authentic problems and projects, cannot be mapped to the Taxonomy, and trying to do that would diminish their potential as learning opportunities.
·www97.intel.com·
Intel Education: Designing Effective Projects: Thinking Frameworks
The impact of instructional elements in computer-based instruction_July2007.pdf
The impact of instructional elements in computer-based instruction_July2007.pdf

Study examining what happens when you remove common elements of instruction. Practice with feedback was critical; information, objectives, examples, and review made little difference.

"This study investigated the effects of several elements of instruction (objectives, information, practice, examples and review) when they were combined in a systematic manner." "Results indicated participants who used one of the four versions of the computer program that included practice performed significantly better on the posttest and had consistently more positive attitudes than those who did not receive practice."

·florencemartin.net·
The impact of instructional elements in computer-based instruction_July2007.pdf
Problems with Bloom's Taxonomy
Problems with Bloom's Taxonomy
Criticism of Bloom's Taxonomy, with two alternatives for classifying objectives
The categories or “levels” of Bloom’s taxonomy (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) are not supported by any research on learning. The only distinction that is supported by research is the distinction between declarative/conceptual knowledge (which enables recall, comprehension, or understanding) and procedural knowledge (which enables application or task performance).
·performancexpress.org·
Problems with Bloom's Taxonomy