Editing audio is a fairly straightforward process, especially when you have excellent (not to mention free!) tools like Audacity at your disposal. There are a host of different ways to use this program to your advantage; but in this post, we’ll just cover some of the more essential functions that will probably be most useful to you in your training or course development work. What you will need: A supported
READ MORE about Editing Audio with AudacityThe Learning Dispatch
Interactive Graphics
People learn more about the world through their sense of vision than through any other channel. That’s one reason images serve an important role in training. The evolution of web-based technology has allowed us to move beyond static and motion visuals to online interactive graphics with the potential to deepen understanding of the topics we care about. This blog post demonstrates how effective the new generation of visuals can be.
READ MORE about Interactive GraphicsWhy Should Instructional Designers Use Visuals in Their Training?
As John Medina states in Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School; vision trumps all other senses. If you want learners to recall your message, use images any time they are appropriate. According to Dr. Medina, when information is presented orally, people remember about 10 percent when tested 72 hours after exposure. That figure goes up to 65 percent if you add a meaningful
READ MORE about Why Should Instructional Designers Use Visuals in Their Training?Connect the Dots in Training
When a mobile game has over a million downloads in the week it launches, it deserves attention. I admit to being in the multitude of people who are hooked on Dots. A recent conversation with colleagues stimulated ideas about how this addictive little game could be used in training. Estimated reading time: 3 minutes For the uninitiated, Dots is a pattern recognition game. Points are awarded for the number of dots you connect
READ MORE about Connect the Dots in TrainingAgility and ICE
It’s always interesting to look at conference themes to get a sense of the trends and important topics. Agility was an undercurrent that caught my attention at the ASTD International Conference & Expo (ICE). Once John Seely Brown addressed the topic in his keynote presentation, I noticed the concept in many places. Dr. Brown spoke of entrepreneurial learners who embody the agility to learn in any situation or environment. Estimated
READ MORE about Agility and ICEWebinar Recording: Why Public Facing Training?
A recording of Linda Warren’s presentation on What Makes Good Public Facing Training at Elearning Symposium 2013 in Austin.
READ MORE about Webinar Recording: Why Public Facing Training?First Impressions: Books Are Judged by the Cover
Why do people say, “You can’t judge a book by its cover?” We make snap decisions all the time and those decisions are based on the first impression, which metaphorically speaking, is the book cover. Books by Chip Heath and Dan Heath got me thinking about their high impact book covers and how important first impressions are to online training. Estimated reading time: 3 minutes For the uninitiated, Chip Heath
READ MORE about First Impressions: Books Are Judged by the CoverTraining Metrics that Matter: Thoughts from a West Texas Road Trip
Recently, my wife and I rented a minivan for a family trip to Taos, NM. The dashboard computer for the vehicle supplied a mind-boggling number of metrics, including arrival time at destination, trip mileage, miles to empty, average miles per gallon, instantaneous miles per gallon, etc. On the ten-hour drive through the monotonous scenery of West Texas, I got a bit bored and started trying to optimize some of the
READ MORE about Training Metrics that Matter: Thoughts from a West Texas Road TripMischief Managed: What “Harry Potter” Can Teach You About Managing Elearning Projects
Kelly Rossi has been project manager at Microassist since November 2007. She maintains the scope, budgets, and timelines of client projects. Kelly earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from The University of Texas at Austin and worked as a project manager for four years before joining Microassist. Other content by Kelly includes her 2016 post, “The Client’s Critical Role in Custom Elearning Development. Mischief Managed: What “Harry Potter” Can Teach
READ MORE about Mischief Managed: What “Harry Potter” Can Teach You About Managing Elearning ProjectsControversy over Objectives – How to Communicate Objectives to your Learners
We all know that objectives provide the foundation for training design and performance improvement. A challenge in the training industry is how to communicate this information to our target audience without creating a mind-numbingly dull introduction. Novices in the training world frequently think the only legitimate way to start a lesson is with the list of learning or performance objectives we used as the framework to design the training. My
READ MORE about Controversy over Objectives – How to Communicate Objectives to your Learners