• 10 Ways Universities Share Information Using Social Media

  Social media approaches for universities. Nothing earth-shattering here, but includes real examples for each of the ideas listed

  tags: twitter, facebook, socialnetworking, highered, marketing, socialmedia

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• PR Tactics and The Strategist Online

  Twitter tips for PR/marketing

  tags: twitter, marketing

• CamStudio – Free Screen Recording Software

  Open source software for screencasts with audio. Exports to swf or avi.

  tags: screencast, opensource, tools

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• SpeEdChange: Refusing Free, Depriving Students

  Why do schools refuse to use free and open source software options, even when those options would improve accessibility for students? Ignorance? Fear? Politics? Probably some combination of all three.

  tags: education, diversity, accessibility, free, opensource, quoteable

  • If an electrician was too afraid of electricity to touch a wire, he’d be an electrician no more. So if an educator is afraid of the information and communication technologies of his/her age, then he/she can no longer be an “educator” in any meaningful way.

• Accessibility tools, web developer tools, wizards and markup generators | Accessify

  Create accessible forms, YouTube captions, skip nav links, etc.

  tags: accessibility, webdesign, tools

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• Lifehacker – Five Best Online Image Editors – Image Editing

  Five online applications for editing images: Sumo Paint, Photoshop Express, Pixlr, Picnik, & Aviary Phoenix. All have at least some free options, although premium accounts are required for some features.

  tags: photos, webapplication

• A Collection of Photo Effects – Online Photo Editor

  Browser-based image editing for special effects including a motivational poster, water reflection, film strip, and text collage.

  tags: photos

• Education – Change.org: Pharmer’s Market: The Cost of Producing “Successful” Students

  A comparison of standardized schooling with industrial agriculture and the effects of the obsession on productivity in both environments

  tags: education, changemanagement, change

  • In standardized environments, students with a high tolerance for monotony and the ability to repress their curious gene are deemed the fittest of the bunch.
  • It seems that despite (or maybe because of) our fetish with productivity, many of humanity’s most pressing issues seem to be getting worse. The unnatural selection playing out in schools creates what every educational institution’s mission statement pledges against: the creation of uncritical, passive, challenge-averse individuals, unwilling and unable to tackle the challenges of the 21st-century.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• The eLearning Coach » Blog Archive » 10 Qualities of the Ideal Instructional Designer

  Recognizing that most instructional designers don’t have a degree in the field, this post argues that it’s less important for IDs to have a degree than to be “self-didacts” interested in learning about everything on their own. This also includes a list of 10 qualities of instructional designers.

  tags: e-learning, instructionaldesign

• A Good Way to Change a Corporate Culture – Peter Bregman – HarvardBusiness.org

  A story about changing an organizational culture through stories. The stories we tell show what’s important; telling new stories shows new priorities.

  tags: change, changemanagement, orgculture

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• The 6 Levels of Engagement in Online Conversations | Lateral Action

  A framework for thinking about the depth and value of online conversations. It’s easy to have mindless, shallow conversations; it takes more work and creativity to have relevant conversations that show who you really are.

  tags: conversation, socialnetworking, engagement, identity

• News: U.S. Push for Free Online Courses – Inside Higher Ed

  The Obama administration is pushing for creating free online courses at the high school/community college level, focusing on basic skills and job training. Some sort of examination/assessment is also possible, plus the idea of mixing free and paid courses at community colleges to reduce the cost of tuition.

  tags: e-learning, education, free, openaccess, communitycollege

  • Bonk said that administration’s ideas about open courses are consistent with the “convergence” he sees taking place in online learning. There is a growing belief that for many kinds of courses, there are best providers whose work can be made available online, there are large numbers of students who could benefit from those courses, and those who might benefit don’t necessarily have a lot of money.

• Meta-Analysis Shows Online Learning Better, Blended Even Better

  According to a meta-analysis by the US Department of Education, face-to-face courses are less effective than online and blended learning. They caution against viewing this as simply a matter of the medium though. It’s the changes in what online and blended learning allow (like opportunities for collaboration) that are likely making the difference.

  tags: research, education, highered, e-learning, blended

  • The meta-analysis findings do not support simply putting an existing course online, but they do support redesigning instruction to incorporate additional learning opportunities online.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• New Literacy in the Web 2.0 World

  Presentation on now technology changes what it means to be literate.

  “‘Literacy’ as in the ‘new literacy’ is a metaphor for essential abilities required today to shape and communicate meanings, develop oneself, and participate in society.”

  tags: literacy, slideshare, presentation, 21stcenturyskills

• New accessibility features in Firefox 3.5 « Marco’s accessibility blog

  New features include support for text attributes, spell check, and HTML 5 video/audio

  tags: accessibility, firefox, WAI-ARIA, html5, webdesign

• Clive on Learning: It’s not enough to be a professional, you also have to act like one

  Good points on acting like real professionals, not just “order takers” when developing training/learning

  tags: instructionaldesign, career, training

  • You wouldn’t hire an interior designer only to inform.them that you’ve already chosen all the colour schemes and furnishings; you wouldn’t engage an accountant and then explain to them the way you wanted them to process your figures; you wouldn’t employ a fitness trainer and then tell them what to include in your workout; you wouldn’t buy a dog and then insist on doing all the barking.

    So why, then, do we continue to encounter situations in which line managers tell the guys from l&d exactly what they want in terms of learning interventions, with the expectation that the they’ll simply take those instructions and run.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• 25 Photoshop Tutorials for Creating 3D Text Effects | Vandelay Design Blog

  Lots of inspiration and how tos for 3D text effects in Photoshop

  tags: photoshop, graphicdesign, tutorials, 3d

• 5 Common Visual Design Mistakes – The Rapid eLearning Blog

  Common visual design mistakes made by instructional designers, plus links and resources for further reading.

  tags: design, graphicdesign, e-learning, instructionaldesign

  • 1. Not Considering the Impact of the Visual Design
  • 2. Lack of Unity
  • 3. Graphics Don’t Match
  • 4. Confusing Use of Contrast
  • 5. Misuse of Fonts

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• The Effect of Recessions on Employer/Employee Relations

  I’ve felt for a while that job security was a myth; this backs up that general feeling and shows how the workplace and employment has changed since the 80s.

  tags: career, economics

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Tom Kuhlmann’s post from last week about why everyone should have an e-learning portfolio motivated me to put mine together. In the past, I’ve always emailed a few samples to prospective employers rather than having a comprehensive portfolio. That did allow me to be less worried about privacy, but it didn’t give me a good way to explain what I was doing with each of the samples. I used Cammy Bean’s suggestion from the comments of using screenshots to give some idea of what the content looks like without needing to provide the full proprietary content.

Since this is the first time I’ve done an online portfolio, feedback is welcome and encouraged!