Presentation Zen: 10 Tips on how to think like a designer
Tips that can apply to instructional design, graphic design, web design, etc. They are broad, but it's helpful to have these kinds of ideas articulated clearly rather than being something that people do but can't explain. I especially like "Obsess about ideas and not tools."
Open source Google Docs backup tool. It checks whether the Google Docs file already exists on your computer and if it's an older version and only downloads a backup copy if needed.
Free tool for course authoring. Screen captures and PowerPoint imports are paid extras, but the basic tool is free. Might be nice for creating portfolio samples if you don't have access to Captivate or Articulate.
A slideshow about linear e-learning, games, and learning in "the flow zone." I wish a citation was provided for the stats about learning from lectures.
The Bamboo Project Blog: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose
Interesting ideas about intrinsic motivation for both managers and instructional designers. Rather than rewards, instructional design should focus on motivating learners through autonomy, mastery, & performance.
<p>Rewards actually impede our problem-solving ability because they cause us to restrict our consideration of other ideas and to focus on only one or two ways to solve the problem. As one of the studies Dan references discovered,<strong> "once the task called for even<span style="text-decoration: underline;"> rudimentary cognitive skill</span>, <em>(my emphasis)</em> a larger reward led to poorer performance." </strong></p><p><strong><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial;">In a nutshell, rewards work for tasks where you don't have to think. As soon as you have to engage in any kind of thinking, rewards STOP WORKING. </span></strong></p>
Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Group Following Educators on Twitter: How to Get Beginners Started
Vicki Davis' explanation of the TweepML educators list she created based on Jane Hart's 100 learning professionals to follow. This gives you an easy way to follow a bunch of educators and e-learning people without having to manually add each person.
Blackboard vs. Moodle: North Carolina Community Colleges Assessment
Highlights from a study comparing Blackboard and Moodle with several good points. Basically, neither system is much better than the other, but switching to Moodle saves money and ultimately makes students and faculty happy.
The Power of Educational Technology: 9 Common Principles for 21st Century Schools
Principles for 21st century schools like rewarding risk taking and teaching empathy. I don't think I've seen anyone else put empathy on their list of 21st century skills, and I'm not quite sure how you teach it.
Plain_Gillian - Reflections on Learning: How Connectivism and Constructivism Differ
More ideas on how connectivism & constructivism differ, looking at the role of personal perception in constructivism versus the role of the network in providing dynamic feedback in connectivism
eLearn: Best Practices - Discussion Management Tips for Online Educators
Tips for online facilitators, especially relevant for those used to teaching in a physical classroom who are moving online. Good practical stuff here like saving some of your best stories to re-energize students when motivation is lagging late in the course and preparing discussion questions and replies in advance.
Dave’s Whiteboard » Blog Archive » 21st-century skills: Downes’s OS for the mind
Dave Ferguson pulls out big ideas from Stephen Downes' "OS for the mind" essay. Essentially, the argument is that we need to teach more than just facts: we need to teach people what to do with facts.
<li><strong>You can learn to tell fact from non-fact. </strong>Detecting deception (or, I think, error, or misrepresentation) is a skill, Downes says, “and you need just as much as your computer needs to be able to detect malware.”</li>
<li><strong>You’ve gotta decide.</strong> This point is key: decision-making isn’t rote performance, which means it’s not based solely on facts.</li>
Summary of a debate on e-learning, where most of the negative arguments seemed to be that crappy "click next" e-learning is ineffective but the positive arguments didn't seem much more compelling. Some good quotes though.
An LMS is just an e-learning vending machine.
The debate is not about whether e-learning is useful or efficient, but whether the e-learning of today will meet the skills of tomorrow.