Article on Cialdini's research on the principles of influence and persuasion, specifically on consistency. When people make active, voluntary, and public commitments, they try to be consistent with that commitment. Try to get people to make small commitments first.
Best Practices in Online Teaching for Student Engagement | Teaching and Learning Initiative
Blog post from the Northwest Indian College about strategies and tools for improving student engagement. This includes some general strategies for creating social presence as well as some “nuts and bolts” tips.
Tool for developing branching dialogue. It's designed for both video games and training. There are more features here than what I would need for most scenario-based training I develop, but for something complex this would be a great way to create and test a conversation. It also exports to a very clean screenplay for actors. The free version is only for personal use, but the Indie license is only $60 and would be worth it for a complex enough project. I can usually keep it all straight in my own head in Word, but I've had problems getting actors and developers to understand how the pieces fit together. The simulated dialog might be enough to help others see the flow.
Excel Blog - Using multiple criteria in Excel Lookup formulas
Good introduction to the different options for lookup formulas in Excel when you need more than one criteria and therefore can't use VLOOKUP. Shows SUMPRODUCT, SUMPRODUCT with INDEX and ROW, LOOKUP, and an array formula with INDEX & MATCH. SUMIFS would work in some situations shown too.
Clark Quinn's response to Ruth Clark's latest iteration of "Why Games Don't Teach." Quinn points out that Clark's definition of learning is mostly focused on memorization, but "remembering isn’t what’s going to make an organizational successful, it’s making better decisions, and that’s where games will shine."
Response to the Yahoo and Best Buy announcements eliminating/restricting telecommuting
Yet a work force culture based on long hours at the office with little regard for family or community does not inevitably lead to strong productivity <em>or</em> innovation. Two outdated ideas seem to underlie the Yahoo decision: first, that tech companies can still operate like the small groups of 20-something engineers that founded them; and second, the most old-fashioned of all, that companies get the most out of their employees by limiting their autonomy.
Why are companies so leery of this type of flexibility? Managers are tempted to use “face time” in the office as the de facto measurement of commitment and productivity. They are often suspicious about employees who work out of sight, believing they will shirk or drift if not under constant supervision. As a result, telecommuting is often viewed as a perk to be handed out after employees have proved their worth.
In the last week, I have heard a number of claims that research supports the idea that workers on-site are more innovative than those who work from home. I remain skeptical. The notion that impromptu conversations with colleagues in the cafeteria are the core of innovation seems a bit simplistic; in my experience, they are just as likely to produce talk of better jobs at competing firms or last night’s “American Idol” winner. Besides, much of this “research” simply shows that workers who collaborate with others in loose networks generate better ideas. It doesn’t suggest that the best way to create new products and services is by isolating your employees in the silo of a single location.
I Came, I Saw, I Learned...: Adobe Captivate, TechSmith Camtasia Studio, Articulate Storyline: Production Times
Kevin Siegel's estimates for production times in several rapid development tools. This is for production only, after a script has been written and recorded. He doesn't specifically say, but it sounds like this is for software simulation/demonstration content, not soft skills.
I have extensive experience using Adobe Captivate and TechSmith Camtasia Studio. In my experience, it will take you approximately <strong>2 hours of labor</strong> to produce<strong> 1 minute of eLearning playtime</strong> if you use Adobe Captivate. If you use Camtasia, your labor will go down a bit (<strong>1.5 hours for every 1 minute of playtime</strong>). If Articulate Storyline is your tool of choice, developers who use that tool have told me that Storyline is on a par with Captivate. In that case, you should plan on <strong>2 hours of labor</strong> to produce every <strong>1 minute</strong> of Storyline eLearning.
Google Reader is dying, but we have five worthy alternatives | CNET Reviews
Google Reader has been one of my primary tools for personal learning for years. I'm disappointed that it's going to be shut down. Hopefully one of these alternatives will meet my needs.
Bookshelf course created in Articulate Storyline. Basically a wrapper that lets people see multiple e-learning courses to show off what others have done for Storyline. You can download the template and you could use this for a portfolio or gallery of other work.
