Blog posts
StudioShot | Premium headshots from anywhere
Another tool for creating headshots from existing photos. The person who shared it said she got 80 images for $30...but only about 10 of them were usable. They aren't probably good enough for hero images on a website, but they might be good enough for social media.
Secta Labs - Reinventing photography
This service turns other photos into more professional headshots. From discussion in a group where people have used these services, your quality of original images really matters. Some of the results end up with bad uncanny valley problems, weird jewelry and hair, etc.
10Web - AI -Powered WordPress Platform
AI help to speed up building WordPress websites. One of the features is to find a website you like and then copy it so you can use another site as a starting point. While I think that would make it way too easy to just copy without doing enough customization to make something your own, I can see the use of getting a quick starting point for a site.
Career Tips All Women Should Know - Scissortail Creative Services, LLC
Kayleen Holt recaps the TLDC Women of L&D 2023 event with a summary of key points addressed in multiple sessions. Reading this article may help you determine how to prioritize which recordings from the event you want to watch.
Ranting on the Gender Pay Gap in e-Learning
An old blog post from Julie Dirksen about the gender pay gap in the elearning field. Even though this is over 10 years old, the discussion is sadly still relevant. Julie reviews some of the reasons women are often paid less and the problems with putting the burden of fixing the problem on women.
Role-Play Training – Insights From Clark Aldrich
A lengthy article from Clark Aldrich on how to create Short Sims or branching role-play training. One of the most useful things in this article is the section "7 steps to create an effective role-play," where he breaks down his process for creating branching scenarios with time estimates for each section. While some of this is specific to iSpring, the process is similar to what I teach in my branching scenario course.
Perhaps the perfect way to learn is by doing something worthwhile that lines up with the real world, and very judiciously receiving some friendly guidance when we get stuck.
If you’re running a flight simulator and want your pilots to learn how to land an airplane in a snowstorm, Short Sims can only have introductory benefits. They can teach you some of the strategies.
With practice, you should be able to create an entire role-play in about 40 hours over two weeks. If you are going over that, you’re probably overthinking or over-executing it. Remember that you need to keep it simple.
Transcripts | Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) | W3C
I have been creating both basic and descriptive transcripts for a project with animated microlearning videos with a lot of visual information. However, I didn't know the name for that descriptive transcript until now. Most people I have talked to have been unsure how to handle transcripts for animated videos, but this page explains it.
<p><strong><em>Descriptive transcripts</em></strong> for videos also include visual information needed to understand the content.</p>
<p><img src="/WAI/content-images/wai-media-guide/braille.jpg" alt="" class=" normal right"></p>
<p><em>Who:</em> Descriptive transcripts are needed to provide audio and video content to people who are both Deaf and blind. They are also used by people who process text information better than audio and visual/pictorial information.</p>
AI Text to Speech: Human-level Voices | LOVO AI
This AI voiceover tool has options for adding emotions. While there are several AI text-to-speech tools that do reasonably well for a flat narration, most of the tools are weak if you want to add some emotion and dynamics. This one seems worth exploring for those additional features.
Standard or Extended Audio Description: Which Do You Need?
Explanation of the difference between standard and extended audio description for making videos accessible. Extended audio descriptions pause the original content to allow more time for description, extending the overall time of the video.
Videos that lack natural pauses or contain a lot of important visual information can be tricky to describe without interrupting the original audio. In these cases, extended audio description is necessary.
Ask the Cognitive Scientist: Does Developing a Growth Mindset Help Students Learn?
Daniel Williingham reviews the theory of growth mindset and the conflicting research.
Is it worth trying to promote a growth mindset in students? Yes. The effect may seem small, but it’s in the range of <em>lots</em> of education effects. We know there aren’t any silver bullets. We have to take many small steps with the expectation that each will make a small contribution to greater student success.
<p>Growth mindset suggests three concrete steps for educators when a student suffers an academic setback:</p>
<ol><li>Encourage students to seek feedback about what went wrong.</li>
<li>Encourage students to analyze these errors and use them as opportunities for learning.</li>
<li>Encourage students to think of ways they might do things differently when they try again.</li></ol>
ID-Assist
A Google Doc add-on for using AI and NLP to help with instructional design tasks. This is an interesting concept, and I can see the value for things like summaries or course descriptions based on content provided. However, even their provided example has significant problems (weak objectives, low-level multiple choice questions, a truly terrible scenario). It might be worth playing with it to see where it can be useful, like speeding up the process of first drafts or generating ideas.
Designing game-inspired narratives for learning
Conference paper by Miranda Verswijvelen, Ricardo Sosa, and Nataly Martini on what we can learn from how game designers write narratives and apply that to scenario-based learning.
This study turns for guidance to the expertise of narrative designers for games, where storytelling for interactive narrative has a long history of testing, iterating and perfecting. A collection of proven techniques described by game narrative practitioners will inform creative writing efforts to craft prototypes to test the transferability of those techniques to interactive narratives in a healthcare education context.
The Audio Issue
"Against Access" by John Lee Clark is a very different view of accessibility than you might find in more prominent channels like disability Twitter. The author is DeafBlind, and he talks about how many efforts at accessibility fall short of meaningful experiences. This article is worth reading just for the DeafBlind perspective, which isn't typically included in most accessibility discussions. For example, how would you make a version of the game UNO usable to DeafBlind players? Not just accessible with Braille that references colors they can't see--but an enjoyable game, tailored to their experiences?
E-Learning Edition 2023 - Enterprise Viewpoint
Enterprise Viewpoint's February 2023 issue is focused on elearning. I contributed an article (From "Click Next" to "Choose Your Path": Elearning with Branching Scenarios. Also, check out the other contributions on a range of topics from Michael Allen, Tom Kuhlmann, Cammy Bean, Allison Rossett, Jean Marripodi, Richard Goring, and Charles Jennings.
The Independent Consulting Manual - Your Guide to a Consulting Career
Free ebook and video series on independent consulting. I'm not familiar with all of these authors and speakers, but I have learned a lot from Kai Davis over the years. The topics include writing proposals, pricing, automating processes, email and phone scripts, positioning, and more.