How Midjourney Evolved Over Time (Comparing V1 to V6 Outputs)
Great examples of how much Midjourney has improved in the past two years, with sample results from the same prompt in different versions.
Blog posts
What We Learned from a Year of Building with LLMs (Part I)
A detailed article with lessons learned about working with LLMs like ChatGPT. Check out the tips on prompting strategies and notes on limitations of LLMs.
A few prompting techniques have consistently helped improve performance across various models and tasks: n-shot prompts + in-context learning, chain-of-thought, and providing relevant resources.
Have small prompts that do one thing, and only one thing, well
Prompting an LLM is just the beginning. To get the most juice out of them, we need to think beyond a single prompt and embrace workflows. For example, how could we split a single complex task into multiple simpler tasks?
The most successful agent builders may be those with strong experience managing junior engineers because the process of generating plans is similar to how we instruct and manage juniors. We give juniors clear goals and concrete plans, instead of vague open-ended directions, and we should do the same for our agents too.
Hallucinations are a stubborn problem.
Unlike content safety or PII defects which have a lot of attention and thus seldom occur, factual inconsistencies are stubbornly persistent and more challenging to detect. They’re more common and occur at a baseline rate of 5 – 10%, and from what we’ve learned from LLM providers, it can be challenging to get it below 2%, even on simple tasks such as summarization.
Rory Flynn on LinkedIn: Hacking Multiple Characters in Midjourey. | 156 comments
While you can create multiple poses of a single character in Midjourney, it's really tricky to get two or three characters in a single scene. Rory Flynn has a suggested process that involves creating multiple character sheets as the starting point then creating scenes with multiple --cref URLs or using Vary Region to add another character.
Topmate
Topmate is a platform for paid 1:1 calls. Some of the features look similar to clarity.fm, which I have used for a number of years. Instead of paying by the minute like with Clarity and some other sites, you set a rate for sessions and create a landing page. They take a percentage fee for each call. Topmate has some additional features for selling subscriptions and webinars too. I could see this being useful for paid coaching calls. It also looks like a good option for people requesting calls to "pick your brain" to get them to pay something for your time and expertise.
25 Neuroscience Myths
Lots of myths from pop psychology about neuroscience (plus a few from cognitive psychology or other non-neuro fields). While this isn't specific to learning, many of these myths are shared uncritically in L&D circles.
Neuroscience techniques can only reliably answer “how” people behave or process information, but they should never answer “why” people behave the way they do.
WorkWise Design | Instructional Design Subscription
This is an interesting model for instructional design work. It's essentially a retainer, where you subscribe and get to make multiple requests per month (but only 1 or 2 at a time). This is focused on workshops and classroom training, not elearning, but you could use a similar model for selling elearning development as a subscription/retainer.
Apple's New AI-Based Accessibility Features Are Pretty Wild
AI may be able to make technology more accessible to more people. AI-generated captions and transcripts are already making it easier to make audio and video content accessible (even with the inevitable errors). Allowing technology to be controlled with eye movements rather than a mouse or keyboard is a significant potential leap for accessibility.
Contract Creator - Freelancers Union
Free fill-in-the-blank form for creating basic contracts for freelancers
scormPROXY | cloud SCORM for remote elearning distribution
SCORM Proxy works similarly to SCORM Cloud Dispatch. You upload a SCORM file and then create a connector/dispatch package that clients can upload to their LMS. With the dispatch, you can manage licenses for different clients and update content remotely.
Wizardshot - Create AI-Powered Step-By-Step Tutorials In Seconds
This is a Chrome extension to capture your clicks and automatically create tutorials, similar to Scribe.
Use Gamification In Your Next E-learning Course With Marie-Jo Leroux
Tip 13: Experiment with Structure
Hadiya Nurridin continues her series on storytelling with more examples of narrative structure and how they affect the message of a story. When we use storytelling for training, we're not just trying to entertain people. We're using the story to convey a specific message, shift attitudes, or motivate people to change behavior. Different structures may change the message or create a more compelling story.
Exploring different perspectives in personal storytelling enriches the narrative by fostering a deeper understanding and empathy toward the characters and situations involved
RenderNet: Create AI images with character consistency
RenderNet is an AI image generation tool specifically designed for creating consistent characters
Expansion and contraction factors | Andiamo! The Language Professionals
When you translate between languages, the text often expands or contracts. Going from English to German, the word count may decrease, but the text expands.
The Definitive Guide to Translation Rates in 2023 – German Translator
Average cost for German translations
Masters' Q&A - Christy Tucker
My answers to questions on simulations on Dan Topf's blog. I share my views on why simulations and scenarios are valuable, how they help participants demonstrate learning on-the-job, why they're meaningful, and what energizes me about my work.
Tips to share your files - Google Workspace Learning Center
Directions to share links for Google Drive files as PDF files
Storyline Accessibility and Mayer's Principles - Scissortail Creative Services, LLC
Kayleen Holt shares tips for creating accessible courses in Storyline beyond just adding closed captions. This includes tips for adjusting the focus order when you have animated content, providing a "skip animation" button for screen reader users, and allowing users a choice to autoplay media or not.
TIP: The Eightfold Path of Troubleshooting - Articulate Storyline Discussions - E-Learning Heroes
Judy Nollet's tips for troubleshooting Storyline courses. Judy gives great advice in the Storyline forums, and she's seen a lot of the same kinds of errors come up over and over. Following best practices like naming your objects and variables will make your life easier when trying to track down issues.
Cognitive Load, Student Attention and PowerPoint Presentations
Results of an eyetracking study of PowerPoint slides with tips on how to design slides so the information attracts attention and is easy to scan.
<h2><strong>Our top 5 tips for PowerPoint presentations summarised</strong></h2>
<ol>
<li><strong><em> </em></strong><strong><em>Less is more</em></strong></li>
</ol>
<p>To optimise student engagement and comprehension, use minimal text per slide and present examples before explanations.<strong><em><br><br></em></strong></p>
<ol start="2">
<li><strong> </strong><strong><em>Keep text with diagrams to a minimum</em></strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Minimising text on slides containing diagrams <a href="https://www.innerdrive.co.uk/blog/the-split-attention-effect/">focuses students' attention on the visuals</a>, facilitating better engagement and understanding of complex information.<br><br></p>
<ol start="3">
<li><strong> </strong><strong><em>Focus on how you present information</em></strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Focus on delivery by breaking down content into key words, bullet points or simplified blocks to ensure student engagement and comprehension when presenting extensive information.<strong><em><br><br></em></strong></p>
<ol start="4">
<li><strong> </strong><strong><em>Draw attention to key information</em></strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Vocally guide your students through the content of data-heavy slides to ensure focus on essential information and accommodate varied scanning habits.<strong><em><br><br></em></strong></p>
<ol start="5">
<li><strong> </strong><strong><em>Use handouts</em></strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Providing handouts alongside PowerPoint presentations can significantly enhance your students' learning by emphasising key points and consolidating information, offering a more engaging and effective reference tool.</p>
Moho Animation Software - Professional 2D Animation
For projects that need animation control beyond what's possible in tools like Vyond or Powtoon, you need dedicated animation software. Moho is an alternative to Adobe Character animator that can animate characters and lip sync animation to audio. The Moho Debut product for beginners is reasonably priced ($60 for a lifetime license).
The Pesky Challenge of Evaluating AI Outputs – Usable Learning
Julie Dirksen observes that lots of people (myself included) talk about the importance of making sure that any content created by AI is reviewed by a person. The task of evaluating the outputs of AI is a challenging one though, and it's one worth paying attention to as we continue to explore the possibilities of AI.
First of all, you need <em>the expertise to judge an output</em>, and second you need <em>the discipline to exert the effort </em>required to assess an output.
<p>More thoughts to come on this, but for now, I think there are a few questions we should be asking:</p>
<ul>
<li>Does this person have the knowledge and expertise to judge this output?</li>
<li>Is it reasonable to expect this person has the discipline to evaluate the outputs in detail?</li>
<li>What is the risk if output errors are not caught?</li></ul>
Beginner's Guide to Midjourney Consistent Characters.
Tips from Rory Flynn on how to use Midjourney to create consistent characters. This shows how to use CREF in your prompts, with sample prompts and a few tips to improve your results
GamiFlix - Netflix like course template with gamification for Kajabi
A Kajabi template with gamification elements like badges and settings for customization
Kajabi Gamify Pro - Ultimate gamification course template for Kajabi
A course template for Kajabi with badges and Easter eggs
AI Story Generator (Free, No Signup & Unlimited)
This seems like something that could be done with a combination of other tools (an LLM plus an image generator), but this is a tool that creates stories plus images to accompany them. It would be interesting to experiment with as inspiration for training scenarios. However, note that the site claims copyright of all stories created, so don't plan to use this for commercial purposes. Use it for inspiration rather than as the actual content of a story.
Paperbell Coaching Software
Software for managing coaching, including scheduling coaching calls and payments. h/t Patti Bryant
10 Rules You Need to Create Great Captioned Videos – Meryl.net home
Meryl Evans shares rules for creating great closed captions. While these are described as rules for videos, this applies to other elearning too.
10 guidelines for accessible captions: Readable, accurate, synchronized, length, position, sound, credits, voice changes, speaker identification, and motion with one or two sentences describing each one.
Facilitation Techniques and Workshop Activities | Library | SessionLab
Looking for ideas for planning a workshop or instructor-led training? Check out this library of facilitation techniques. There's a category for remote facilitation, but some techniques not tagged that could potentially be used or adapted for vILT too.
12 Books for Instructional Designers to Read This Year
Connie Malamed shares 12 books for instructional designers, all recent publications. I've only read 3 of these (although I have the previous edition of one), so it looks like I have some new selections for my "to read" list.