Great, Quick, To-the-Point, Video Learning from Ray Jimenez

Ray Jimenez has posted up some wonderful "Wacky Videos" as he calls them on his Videos on 3 Minute eLearning. The great thing is there is nothing wacky about them at all. They are quick and to the point on a multitude of topics. He refers to them as being different because they are not all full of glitz and glam, high budget, action packed, big-star, block busters. Exactly what makes them great.

The learner does not get distracted by too many unnecessary visuals. You only need to listen and concentrate and the clear precise message that Ray shares are wonderful learning tips. Another nice feature is if you are more keen to visual presentations, then there is something to watch Mr. Ray him self. However, if you are a learner who likes to multi-task and listen to material as you work, then no fear as you are not missing charts or animation.

Here are a few that I really enjoyed and learned from today.
2.03 - Two Trainer Dieseases: Control-itis and Content-itis
2.04 - e-Learning Behaviors How People Learn Online
3.02 - What is 3-Minute e-Learning?
4.09 - Reviews and Assessments: Not the Same

(Okay really I liked them all) - Thanks for the production Ray.

The Day After Earth Hour

I was happy to see many places last night observing Earth Hour, even if it was just dimming lights in stores. At least something was being done and participation occured. I happened to be at a Montana's restaurant (Newmarket) just before 8pm and asked if they were participating. I was expecting a yes as all staff members were also wearing TapProject.ca shirts, and that is exactly what I heard. They were indeed dimming their lights.

My friend and I then went in to Chapters (like Borders in the US) and I ask a worker as soon as I went in if they were observing Earth Hour. He informed me that we had just missed the message that they were shutting down as many banks of lights as they could. I can understand in a business where being able to see the books is going to be the only way to sell the product, I was happy to hear/see they were at least reducing energy consumption.

A drive along Yonge St. at 8:40pm showed that the mall had turned off all parking lot lights, most of the store front signs and thier scrolling displays boards were off. McDonald's had dimmed their lights, turned off their "Golden Arches" and all exterior lights. Jack Astor's restaurant was in complete darkness, you could see they were using little or no lighting onon all exterior signs and inside it appeared to be candle lit - an impressive job. Walmart did not appear to be dimmed from outside, but I do know during energy crunches in the summer that they always participate, so I expect that they as well turned off many banks. Then my final destination for the evening was the theatre. Yes, I should have stayed home in the dark, but made my plans without thinking. I was surpised when we pulled up to see so many lights on. But once inside they did have the normal lights over the ticket counter and all around the food stand off. They had the displays off going into each theatre and it also appeared that they were not running any of the normal presentations that roll as one is waiting for the show start time.

More impressive was how dark the town was. Most homes seemed to be quite dark with just the odd one having one light turned on. When I called my mother to see if they were abiding by the no lights I was unsurprised to hear the answer. They had for a little while had all the lights out with just a candle going, then drink got split, someone stubbed their foot on a chair, and....well the lights came back on. Again...at least they tried.

I haven't been able to find great results yet of last night's event but I'm sure more and more stats will become available in the next few days.

EARTH HOUR - MARCH 29, 8:00PM (the year - every year from now on)

Google.ca actually made me laugh today. Yes the Canadian Version. Have you seen their homepage today?

By now I hope you and your families, business, organizations have found a way to participate in tonight's global energy saving venture. Everyone around the world has been asked to turn their lights off for one hour. That's it, just your lights. Now imagine everyone in the world doing the same thing, for one hour, at 8:00pm their time. The amount of energy we are all going to be saving will be astounding.

So get out the candles and the boardgames, find someone to snuggle with, tell some stories, have a campfire, go for a walk, have a nap, sing a song. All it takes is one hour of your time to help save a little energy, the environment, our world.

Another way to edit and share photos

A friend of mine shared this editing site with me today, and "looky-here" it's from Adobe. Adobe Photoshop Express allows the user to upload, edit, and share photos.

The Adobe Photoshop Express beta site has the basic tools that you will find on other sites, but also with some cool tools for editing such as pop colour, hue, tint, sketch, and distort. Here are some samples a photo using these tools:


Original:

Pop Colour Sketch Distort

Here's also a sample of the sharing aspect of the site. The one thing I'm not sure I do like is that once you share photos they are up for puclic display. This may not be something for everyone, however there are some great pictures on the site to scan through.

Is Your Blog Your Own?

Yesterday I was approached by someone who was interested in increasing their writing portfolio and offered to write posts for my blog. They would stay true to "good, useful posts/articles on education/college/online education etc." but would like to make sure they had a by-line and a link to their web page.

I found this idea interesting and intriguing, but also a little invasive. It's my blog after all. So turning to Brent Schlenker, I ask for his opinion and advice (once again). He too thought he may have been approached by the same person; or is it a coincidence we got the same email from 2 different people. Brent suggested that, "if your blog is a brand and you are serving a group of readers then it might be a good thing. In this case, any time you can add value to your brand, whether its your content or not, its a good thing."

I'm still unsure how I feel about this co-authoring. I'm not sure I'm at the point yet to open my blog in this way. I'm not sure that I my blog has a "brand", but that's a great thing to think about and strive towards.

I'm curious as to what other think about this idea. Is your blog your own? Is it only to capture your learning experiences and items you find to be interesting? Or is it something more? Was your blog once yours and now serves a much larger audience?

2008 Annual Gathering 3 Weeks Away

Need I say more.....hope to see some of you there.

LMS Implentation Tips

It's a great feeling that after blogging for almost a year now, that I'm being requested to answer questions and give my opinion on various topics. I certainly am no expert in anything, but it is great to pass on experiences and opinions to others, as I have requested the same from many new colleagues I have met through blogging.

I had someone ask me yesterday about my LMS implantation and could I recommend anything after going through the "ordeal" (oh yes, people warned me, but would I listen...)

Some key primary things I wish I had known then:

• you want a very robust system to create content - interactive content
• content can be created and imported by a wide variety of tools (video, audio, PPT, Doc, xls, pdf, swf, basically anything you can think of and more)
• you want a very robust quiz/testing feature (multiple choice, yes/no, essay, matching games, etc, basically anything you can think of and more)
• reporting structure needs to be flexible so you can get the reports you want, but also have many already included, (by student, by course, by instructor, by date, etc)
• be able to import courses that are pre-purchased
• ability to import courses your self (not by the vendor - costs incurred each time)
• user friendly interface for instructors, administrators, and more importantly the students (staff)
• ability to easily interact with your staff database so that students can be created/updated/maintained easily
• easy ability to modify and change the system to suit your organization's needs (internally or by vendor)

My partner-in-crime here at work, Matt - in charge of the intranet side of this project, reminded me today of "How Projects Really Work". Make sure you take a look at this as most projects feel like this and true to form this currently represents our LMS implementation. Matt and I are determined to make it work, but we also would love to start over knowing what we know now. (I'm currently putting in a requisition for 2 super-hero capes....we'll need and deserve them by the end of it all).

Other posts from my LMS Journey:

Friday, September 7, 2007 LMS - I don't want to be Little Miss Should've
Monday, September 24, 2007 LMS Project....A Little More Progress
Tuesday, October 2, 2007 Creating a Nav Model with Mindomo - LMS Project continues
Thursday, October 4, 2007 Is your HR tracking prepared to take on your new LMS?
Tuesday, December 11, 2007 LMS Training Finally Here
Thursday, January 3, 2008 LMS - lingers on but isn't getting launched as hoped
Tuesday, January 22, 2008 Too many job roles is hindering the LMS launch
Friday, February 8, 2008 Looking for Types of Reports to Get From an LMS
Sunday, March 9, 2008 LMS still not up and going - but I have do have a new question?

Looking for a visual to explain parallel universes?

Well look no further it's very simple to comprehend. You only need to look at Super Mario to understand the complexities of it all.

John Pavlus created a wonderful video that visually displays what the idea of a multiverse looks like and how within we may interact with other objects. Abby Seiff explains further in her post for Popsci.com - "the 134 overlaid (Mario) playthroughs represent the manifold possibilities Mario encounters as he progresses through his world."

Just don't get sucked into watching the game play more than the accompanying explanation.

Help Needed for Naming a Link

We are embarking on pushing out a new intranet in a few weeks and hopefully the LMS will fall into place sometime shortly after.

I need some help for a link on the intranet that encompasses information for:

• classes are called all sorts of things (courses, workshops, sessions, classes, programs)
• are clinical (nursing, rehab, respiratory, etc.)
• are general (team building, management training, computer training)
• AND the link will have a place to login for the LMS (elearning, tracking courses, registering for courses, etc)

Education Programs & Services has been turned down as Programs and Services is what we call our general department areas.

Education Information - doesn't really capture the LMS portion to be housed here

Any ideas or advice on what to call this link? Any help is appreciated.

Elearning Design Course by William Horton Consulting Inc.

For the last 2 weeks (4 hours x 6 days) I participated in an elearning design course presented by Bill and Kit Horton from William Horton Consulting Inc. This was a great class and well worth the time. So many great tips and practical solutions were presented through the entire session. Many of examples can be found on their website.

The class was filled with people around Canada, the USA and a few other countries and I was able to learn a little bit from each of my fellow students. The way the Horton's presented the information was also a great learning experience as to some best practices for synchronous learning. There was a fine balance between lecture, interaction, discussion, homework, and take away job aids.

I was very impressed by the entire experience, but had expected nothing less as I had participated in a session that Kit taught through the eLearning Guild last year on how to get the most of out PowerPoint. I still use the tips and tricks she presented there every day. I highly recommend sitting in on any course you can from the Horton's as they consistently have presented me with sound advice, tools, tips, techniques, job aids, and numerous examples. Best of all their courses are not filled with any extra "fluff" just to fill time.

Great job Bill and Kit - Thank You.

I'm bringing Earth Hour and Pangea Day to my work

I spoke to our Corporate Communications department today about the upcoming Earth Hour (March 29) and Pangea Day (May 10). My colleagues there we excited to hear about the events and also thrilled to think about how our organization could participate as part of the global community.

These two events will be a great way for our hospital and other organizations to show to our local communities that we too care greatly about this world. With a younger and younger work force more in tuned to the environment and events globally surrounding us, it will also be a wonderful way to connect particularly with these staff. I'm excited that they immediately embraced the idea.

It will be challenging to participate as I did mention we are a health care facility, but we have decided we will find a method to at least dim as many lights as possible on March 29. Pangea Day we are hoping to host in our Lecture Hall on site. Potentially 200 community members could come together on our site to watch the days events.

Have you or your organization decided to participate in these events? Did you know Canada is currently leading the way with number of participants registered?

"Last year, WWF’s Earth Hour made its debut in Sydney and it was a huge success. More than 2 million individuals and businesses participated resulting in a 10 per cent reduction on the electrical grid, saving 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide." - http://www.wwf.ca/

Earth Hour


Pangea Day

LMS still not up and going - but I have do have a new question?

Well since my previous posts (Feb. 8, Jan. 22, etc.) until now, about our new LMS, nothing astounding has happened. In fact nothing at all has happened. The only step forward I can speak of is that someone has finally realized that the organization's method for tracking reporting stinks. We have a system that only can tell you who get's paid by whom. No where can you find out who supervises who and that is the way staff think of themselves. Luckily I have a semi-friend in IT who is taking on this task of figuring out a way to truely capture our structure. Leave it to the young folks.

Hopefully that will at least get my "student" list for the LMS for manageable and understandable for those that are going to be using it to track their staffs' learning.

The company that we got the LMS from is gun-ho to get a pilot training session up and running. I'm not comfortable with the admin side of the system. Nor am I comfortable with the student/teaching side of the system. I don't think it's true a good product yet and needs some tweaks and fixes before I would want to even think of a pilot. I'm pretty sure that my learners will think it's fine, but that is only because they aren't as familiar with e-learning. They'll be happy with anything.

Here is my question though... Do I just deal with it and go with something I professionally feel is substandard to get it going at least? Or do I stick to my guns and hold out until I feel it at least is in a presentable format and easily understandable and easy to navigate as a learner.

Sharing Presentations/Pictures/Learning Online with SlideShare

I came across SlideShare through a post by Cathy Moore. Cathy's "5 ways to make linear navigation more interesting" is not only a great post beacuse of the information she shared, but in the way she shared it. She didn't just type text into the post, she used SlideShare to share with everyone a great little presentation she created about linear navigation.

It was a great elearning experience in that I knew exactly by the end of the reading what she was trying to explain. Navigating through the presentation using the same concepts she was describing clearly illustrating the point she was explaining as I read.

From there I began to explore other great slide shows including the one she references as another great example, by Janet Clarey, of making linear navigation more interesting - "Meet Charlene". It too demonstrated a presentation that I wanted to click through to learn more about the topic. In the end I was happy to see that this presentation showed exactly how I was feeling in my home vs. work experience in relation to web 2.0 applications. I'll need to share this with my boss and training network.

Great job Cathy and Janet.

A Reading List of Instructional Designers

I wanted to point out this article from Cammy Bean's post. She added to her blog mid-February a wonderful collection of "Essential Reading for Instructional Designers".

I'm going to capture her post here in it's entirety for my own future reference and book list of things to read.

Thanks for this Cammy.

Essential Reading for Instructional Design?
from Learning Visions by Cammy Bean

As an instructional designer/eLearning professional, what books are the essential tools in your reference library?I'm not looking for the obtuse theory books. I prefer the get-down-and-dirty variety.These are my current faves. Easy-readers (a term of praise, in this case). Practical books with lots of real examples. They might refer to theory, but they don't get bogged down in it:

• e-Learning and the Science of Instruction by Ruth Clark and Richard Mayer
• Michael Allen's Guide to E-Learning by Michael Allen
• Gadgets, Games & Gizmos for Learning by Karl Kapp
  

Last May, I started a bit of a list in this post: Beginning Instructional Designer's Toolkit. Dr. John Curry was kind enough to post a really detailed reading list in his post How to Get an Instructional Design Education Without Paying Tuition (gotta love that title!)

After my appeal for something a little more pared down that I might actually be able to read, Dr. John came up with these essentials:

• The Conditions of Learning and Theory of Instruction, by Robert Gagné
• Training Complex Cognitive Skills, by Jeroen J.G. van Merriënboer [currently unavailable on Amazon]
• The First Principles of Instruction, by M. David Merrill [I couldn't find that listing on Amazon, but there are a number of results for M. David Merrill]
• The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald Norman
  

Other ID books of note that have been recently recommended to me:

• e-Learning by Design by William Horton (recommended by Christy Tucker)
• What Every Manager Should Know About Training by Robert Mager (recommended by Dave Ferguson)
• The Non-Designers Design Book by Robin Williams (not the comedian) (this was recently recommended to me by someone who asked the same question on LinkedIn.

TED2008 Quotes - Great Quotes from this Year's Speakers

I just love the whole TED concept. I imagine being there, in person, to hear so many great thinkers (and "unreasonable people" see below) with unbound imaginations would alter anyone's own personal thinking, imagination, and reason. The possibilities truly do seem endless when you listen to many of the talks. I end up thinking a lot...how could I build on that. If you've even just looked at the topics that are available to watch on the TED site they you know it's like the Discovery Channel and National Geographic wrapped into one great package and then shot with steroids. Okay, maybe that's just me, but I am just in awe of the ideas that flow out of this place.

The TED blog has summarized some fabulous quotes from each day of this year's event. You can certainly see them on their blog, but I'm going to capture them here as well for my own records.

Day 1

"Who are we? We're just an upright, walking, big-brained, super-intelligent ape. " - Paleontologist Louise Leakey

"The first thing we do when we're born is we breathe in, and we cry. And the last thing we do when we die is we breathe out, and other people cry." - Spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, before leading an exercise in breathing and meditation

"Western science is a major response to minor needs." - Wade Davis quoting Mattheiu Ricard

"Why do I believe that it is transformative? It enables you to experience the universe. You can tour it, with astronomers as your guides. It will enable a new generation of stories and storytellers." - Astronomer Roy Gould, while previewing Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope

"I think it is quite likely that we are the only intelligent civilization within several hundred light years" - Stephen Hawking

"I'm not blaming anyone. This is just who we are right now". - Photographer Chris Jordan, whose large-format works illustrate statistics of modern life, like the 40 million paper cups used by Americans every day

“You go in as an individual, but emerge as a community which reaffirms its sense of place on the planet.” - Wade Davis, describing a traditional run through the Peruvian mountains, taking in peaks of 11,000 and 15,000 feet in 36 hours

"It's as if my consciousness had shifted away. I could no longer define the boundaries of my body. Then I realize: I'm having a stroke. And my left hemisphere tells me: Wow, this is so cool; how many brain scientists have the chance to study that from the inside?" — Jill Taylor

"Before the Web, there was just one guy running around saying 'I KNOW!'" - Robin Williams, ad-libbing, after taking the stage during a technical problem in the BBC World Debate

Day 2

"There have been bangs in the past. There will be bangs in the future. We may live in an endless universe." - Physicist and TED Prize winner Neil Turok

“I have the modest goals of replacing the whole petrochemical industry." - Craig Venter, on his work creating synthetic lifeforms to generate alternative energy sources

"The line between good and evil is movable and it's permeable." - Psychologist Philip Zimbardo

“They’ve lowered the transaction cost of stopping genocide.” - Samantha Power on 1-900-GENOCIDE

“Chris Anderson is a computer-fabricated artifact.” - Paul Rothemund, joking about his work manipulating DNA, as if it were a computer program

"A lot of religious people prefer to be right, rather than compassionate." - Religion scholar and TED prize winner Karen Armstrong

“ 'Temes' [technology-enhanced memes] don’t care about us - they simply want to create more of themselves. Don’t think we created the internet for our own benefit - think about temes spreading for themselves because they must.” - Susan Blackmore

“Beauty and truth do not reside in the object themseles, but rather in the nature of the exchange between the object and the viewer,” -Thomas Krens

“Whoa dude, nice equations!” - Garrett Lisi, the "surfer dude" physicist, introducing his talk by displaying an enormously complex equation on screen. He went on to explain his controversial "theory of everything" without using equations

Day 3

“Imagine Martin Luther King saying, ‘I have a dream ... But I don’t know if the others will buy it.’” - Boston Philharmonic conductor Ben Zander, on the importance of persuasive leadership

"Human progress depends on unreasonable people. Reasonable people accept the world as they meet it; unreasonable people persist in trying to change it. Well, I’m Bob and I’m an unreasonable person. And if TED is anything, it is the olympics of unreasonable people." - Musician and activist Bob Geldof (above)

“Why are we ignoring the oceans? Why does NASA spend in one year what NOAA will spend in 1600 years? Why are we looking up? Why are we afraid of the ocean?” - Ocean explorer Robert Ballard

"I think it's the dopamine." - Anthropologist Helen Fisher, explaining to Chris Anderson why she's still optimistic about love, despite understanding its chemical and biological basis

"Relative to the universe, it's just up the road." - Physicist Brian Cox, after referring to Chicago as 'just up the road' from Monterey, CA

“If you think half of America votes badly because they are stupid or religious, you are trapped in a matrix ... Take the red pill, learn some moral psychology and step outside the moral matrix.” - Jonathan Haidt, author of The Happiness Hypothesis

“If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between 'for' and 'against' is the mind’s worst disease.” - Jonathan Haidt, quoting Sent-ts’an, from 700CE China

"The job of the C is to make the B sad." - Boston Philharmonic conductor Ben Zander, deconstructing a piece by Chopin

“How do we give credible hope to the billion poorest people in the world? It requires compassion to get ourselves started, and enlightened self-interest to get serious... If economic divergence continues, combined with global integration, it will build a nightmare for our children.” - Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion

“In order to solve the climate crisis, we need to solve the democracy crisis.” - Al Gore, urging citizen involvement not only on a personal level, but also on a political level

“How dare we be pessimistic? Maybe the future is better than it used to be.” - Peter Schwartz, co-founder of the Global Business Network

“It's important to leave the security of who we are, and go to the place of who we are becoming. I encourage you to let yourself out of any prison you might find yourself in. Because we have to do something now. We have to change now.” - Environmental advocate John Francis (below), who went 17 years without speaking

New colour scheme

It's not that I don't like the snow and the cold doesn't bother me that much, but frankly the dreary grey skies day in and day out are just getting me down. Time to start thinking of something a little warmer. Now I do realize I went a little extreme and used some of my tropical trip pictures, but just after having taken these my computer crashed. I now have neatly stored away my thousands of photos on a hard drive that I can't seem to access. Yet another reminder to everyone.....back up your stuff!!!! My brother-in-law is convinced we can get them off the hard drive, however now that we have each upgraded our computers we are monstering up a mix mash of older components we have had lying around to create something that will "talk" to every so old (3 years) hard drive.

So lessons learned....
1) back up frequently or upload photos/docs to one of the many free web apps out there
2) photos stored on separate hard drives are not necessarily safe
3)always keep every piece of computer hardware you have ever own, never know when you'll need a cable or screw (no dear it's not junk, I might need it one day)
4) ensure your sister or brother marries an IT person (it's always handy to have an IT, a mechanic, a plumber, a carpenter, and someone with some money in the family)

Here's to hoping the sun returns more regularly soon! Hope you're having a great winter.

Want to Explore the Universe?

This is an exciting project that will become available later this spring. The World Wide Telescope. Using Microsoft's Visual Experience Engine "the WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a rich visualization environment that functions as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground and space telescopes in the world for a seamless, guided exploration of the universe."

For a wonderful demonstration and some further explanation take a look at Dr. Roy Gould's talk at this year's TED talk.