July 2011
4 posts
mikehighfield: Work-Day.co.uk - Business day... →
mikehighfield: iPads Generate 1% of the World's... →
mikehighfield: http://t.co/KtJuPiS →
mikehighfield: http://on.ted.com/9Pwb →
June 2011
4 posts
Watch“A fresh look at Instructional Design” - eLN webinar presentation
Upside Learning Blog – This Flash Player... →
May 2011
2 posts
mikehighfield: http://on.ted.com/9Bg8 →
3 tags
E-Learning in the 21st Century #25
Our educational systems, so far, look as if the internet hasn’t been invented yet. Scratch most conventional academic departments and you see little hint of restructured courses, let alone restructured thinking.
Great article and a challenge to all educators and instructional designers involved in Higher Education. Read the full article by Prof. Cathy N. Davidson of Duke University.
April 2011
3 posts
mikehighfield: I just published a new project to... →
5 tags
2 tags
Alternative to Articulate? #23
I’m a huge fan of Articulate. Where Adobe Captivate was once the first choice in my Instructional Designer/Developer tool kit, it was soon displaced by the versatility and sheer quality of Articulate Studio ‘09. However, I’m going to check out what iSpring Presenter has to offer. At first glance I like the option to create a single .swf (something I still find useful with...
January 2011
1 post
2 tags
e-Learning Recipe for Success #22
The Chartered Institute of Professional Development is an excellent source of information regarding the effectiveness of e-learning within organisations. Visit the link for details, but here are four key principles that are useful for Senior Instructional Designers and Learning and Development Managers to remind themselves of:
Start with the learner - recognise the limitations of the population...
December 2010
1 post
5 tags
November 2010
1 post
1 tag
Boost your screen real estate when using...
Articulate Engage™ has many great interactions. A great technique that I favour is using Articulate Presenter™ to generate an animated swf that can be EMBEDDED in the Engage™ interaction. However, this technique has one big problem – the swf size can end up being quite small if you use interactions like the time line (in which case its 413 x 310). Of course you can make it FULL SIZE, but that...
October 2010
1 post
4 tags
August 2010
3 posts
4 tags
5 tags
Loading screens in Articulate Presenter #18
Here’s a really simple tip for anyone loading an .flv or .swf file into presenter and is worried about loading times. It can be the case that a user clicks on a link to a video or .swf file and they are presented with a blank screen while the animation or video loads. Get round this problem by inserting a simple text box that loads VERY QUICKLY and warns the user that content is loading. Here’s...
3 tags
Links to Presenter from Engage #17
This is a tip I originally found on Dave Perso’s blog. It took me a while to see the advantage of this but after some experimentation with a series of courses that I am currently developing I found it invaluable. In this early example I had the user navigating via the engage interaction navigation bar.
I made this decision because I wanted to restrict the user to the options within sub...
July 2010
6 posts
2 tags
WatchLesson #16 Make Captivate sound like Articulate
Using Captivate interactions in your course, but want to make them sound like Articulate Engage interactions?
3 tags
WatchLesson #15
Automatically minimise a series of menu items in the sidebar menu. Thanks to James Kingsley (On EnterFrame). Go to his blog to download the source file (null.swf).
3 tags
Lesson #14 Quality Assurance – how to produce an...
If you are working as part of an instructional design/e-learning production team there will probably be some kind of structure. If there isn’t you need to get one. Marking your own work is not a good recipe for success. At some stage you will need a fresh pair of eyes.
I always fall back on my “Five D’s” when producing elearning and this is easily communicated to clients. 5 D’s are; define,...
2 tags
Lesson #13 iStock Photo – the key to quality
High quality images make the biggest difference to the professionalism of your e-learning content. This doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of cash. A few well targeted purchases will not cots much. Where to go for them? One simple answer: iStockPhoto. There are free alternatives from sources such as Flickr but, unless you are time rich, trawling through thousands of images of often...
2 tags
WatchLESSON #12 - Eliminate the white border in Articulate Presenter
When using Articulate Presenter, using non-white grapics will leave a white border around the edge. This can be eliminated using this technique…
Lesson #11 The Freelance Guide to Invoicing
The Freelance Guide to Invoicing: Deciding how much to charge.
If you find yourself doing freelance work one of the hardest things to do is to decide what to charge. Now let’s be clear here, I am not talking about and hourly rate – that’s easy. Just look at any job ad and you can decide what your worth. No I’m talking about how much TIME it will take you so you know, therefore, what you should...
June 2010
11 posts
Lesson #10 Toolkit
The Instructional Designers Toolkit and League Table: What do I need to shop for?
It used to be Captivate. Now it’s Articulate™ – Presenter that is.
PowerPoint 2007. You can’t have Presenter™ without PPT. Oh and it has to be 2007, for two good reasons. The first is the selction pane (animating multiple objects is virtually impossible without it), the second the image enhancing and Smart...
1 tag
Lesson #9 It's all in the design
Design documents need to be shared. Typically your Subject Matter Expert will need to review one of these at some stage to ensure that the text/script is correct in relation to the Intended Learning Outcomes. Making these documents clear and easy to read is a challenge. I use a tried and tested template which has certain key features:
Its colour coded. Different sections can be referred to by...
2 tags
WatchLesson #9 See the light - again
A great tutorial.
2 tags
Lesson #8 See the light
You can’t shoot good quality video interviews without thinking about the lighting. The three point lighting principle is a simple set of guidelines and is easy to follow. Purchasing lights costs money ($1000 for a simple x3 set of “hot” lamps). However, if budget is an issue you can improvise with overhead projectors. Media College.com provide an excellent interactive lighting guide.
2 tags
WatchLesson #7 - Encode twice
Encoding video is a bit of a black art! Ideally, if you are streaming video over the web aiming for a max file size of 10mb improves the performance of your learning object. To get a piece of video to this optimum can involve some tweaking. The first stage is to reduce the bit rate. This usually does the trick. However, the downside of this is that videos can be...
Lesson #6 Collaborative tools rule
Working across three universities with key stakeholders in very different roles presents a nightmare when it comes to testing and quality assurance of e-learning courses. The answer – use a collaborative TRACKING tool. I have tried Elementool (although I would love to find a free version of this tool!) which has proved to be a life-saver. It allows a transparent audit trail and a list of tasks...
Lesson #5 Screenr is a great way to communicate
For years I thought Camtasia was the best for screen capture (and t’s still great). But now we have Screenr - use it! It’s also a great way to communicate remotely. Sometimes it’s easier to show a colleague/SME/client than email or phone them.
1 tag
Lesson #4 Instructional Design Stages
My 5D’s – a set of simple stages to follow when design a piece of technologically enhanced learning:
Define (Scope the project wthat are the intended learning outcomes?)
Design (Write it! – get your SMEs to get you the content you need and document it clearly and precisely. get the content AGREED and SIGNED OFF before you go any further!)
Develop (Get a copy of Articulate and the rest of...
2 tags
Lesson #3 Audio matters
There’s only one thing worse than interactive learning with no audio and that is interactive learning with poor audio. Users absolutely despise poor quality audio – it will make them switch off immediately. When using Articulate™ follow these guidelines and you won’t go far wrong! Otherwise buy a decent mic and a pop filter (try Shure KSM 27 with a mic stand and an external MBox mini). Other...
Lesson #2 Folllow the blogs
I adopted Articulate as the main component of my e-learning toolkit in December 2008. The software is incredibly intuitive without any support. However, you soon feel like you could push the boundaries a little more. Two things are a help here. The first is looking at best practice by other users, the second is to get direct technical help from “those in the know”:
Best...
Lesson #1 - Use Articulate™
If there is one tip I would give to anyone developing an e-learning course from scratch it would be to buy a copy of Articulate. No other single piece of software can give such rapid results. The learning curve is very, very short.