As a trainer, I often fell for the idea that if I was giving out prizes, trainees would only value them if they were “valuable”. But in fact, mere measurement does change behavior, and the oddest things can motivate us: achievements in WoW (most of which give nothing), virtual prizes (like clipart of a car that I saw one webinar presenter give out this past week), or simply seeing a full row of green checkmarks because we got 100% on a quiz.

There’s lots of stuff to discuss here. Watch. Tell me what you think.

(Alternately, view in parts on YouTube…)

On the upside, I caught Studio 360 going home, with Quentin Tarantino talking about Inglorious Basterds. And what struck me about Tarantino — what always strikes me about Tarantino — is that he is such a complete, utter movie geek. A big part of his becoming a brilliant writer, producer, and director is his lifelong education in film. He “basks in cinema”, as he said to Kurt Anderson, both as a fan and a contributor. And his movies show it.

What do you bask in? What are you passionate about? What brings out your inner geek? Work? Hobby? School? A volunteer gig? Family?

Whatever the subject, do your contributions reflect that passion?

because they're short. duh.

At KC-ASTD’s tech conference last fall, I attended a session by Sue Maden and Tony Maden on elearning pieces they’ve created at Burns and McDonnell. Some were Flip videos, some were screencasts, and some were interactive. Each took around 2 minutes. The whole point was to access the information just-in-time, so they weren’t serving them through their LMS.

Sound familiar? It did to me… We started doing something similar at my company this past year. We call them “trainlets”, and I’m going to get skewered in #lrnchat for spreading new terminology in our field, but the name has caught fire at my company, unlike “CBTs”.

I didn’t invent the term, but here’s what it means to me:

• <5 minutes
• usually not interactive, but can be
• probably not delivered through the LMS

Are you doing something similar? What do you call them?

Shamira (aka me)

I play World of Warcraft. One thing that fascinates me about WoW is how much learning happens in-game… mostly informally.

Monday night, my guild tried five times to down a boss we’ve killed easily before. Our leaders explained and encouraged. Repeatedly. Before we quit, one mentioned that some people weren’t executing, even those who had before. I spoke up.

“I know you don’t want to embarrass anyone, but will you tell people privately if they aren’t doing it right?”

“If you aren’t doing xyz, you aren’t doing it right.”

I was doing xyz. But other people might not be able to evaluate their own performance in the heat of battle… right? “What if people can’t tell?”

Pause. “Okay, fair enough.”

Incoming private message: “You’re doing it wrong.” D’oh!

How long do you wait to tell people they’re doing it wrong? Why?

This is the odd post as I’m going to get personal and let you know the other reason I’ve been neglecting my subscribers and readers: I’m pregnant with twins, and the last couple of months ain’t been easy, people. But thanks for sticking around.

(Even if you aren’t full-service, take a look… I don’t freelance for whole elearning development, but I do freelance voice work, so I just signed up in the Voices and Audio Services category. Maybe someone looking on the site will need an American voice at some point.)

And for those of you who buy elearning services, there are some great resources for you,  too… including a guide to buying elearning services and a guide to writing an RFP for elearning. Check it out!

I participate as often as I can, and tonight I decided to post some of my favorites from last night. (Yes, sometimes I blog purely for the pleasure of deciding to do something and then do it. No committee involved.)

So, without further ado…

Re: Q1) What new trends, approaches, etc are you suspicious of?

oxala75: i’m always suspicious of VW, but mostly because of its implementation, not its potential.

tmiket: I like easy to use software but ….just b/c you have a wrench doesn’t make you a mechanic..

Re: Q2) What skills are we missing in the suite necessary for good learning design?

Quinnovator: Q2: a willingness to go to the mat for the user experience, supporting fun over seriousness

And a bonus to take me over my word limit, but totally worth it…

Re: a side conversation?

Quinnovator: er,,, sex education or sex training: which would you want your daughter to have in high school?

It’s with somewhat less anticipation that I make my yearly requests for new software, but the shopping researching is still fun.

I know I’m not going to get everything I ask for (particularly not the Deluxe Chemistry Set), and yes, it will all be tied to the company’s business needs blah ROI blah etc increasing productivity blah etc. But having said that, I’m wondering…

What was on your software wish list this year?

This semester has been more time-consuming than I anticipated (a good thing because it’s not busy work), and I’ve also been asked to do a couple of webinars recently (which, so far, has been tons of fun), and my local ASTD chapter (of which I am a board member) is giving a conference (at which I’m presenting) in a few couple of weeks. So things are busy, but busy in a very productive way.

But posts are coming soon… including my first mondo post, on a topic that’s near and dear to my heart. Stay tuned.

Small piece of a visual comparison by Raynor

Even though instructional design is not synonymous with graphic design (contrary to some employers’ beliefs), graphic design is obviously a pretty big part of what we do. Even those among us who have the luxury of not doing our own graphic design have to judge and vet others’ work. So it seems like it behooves us to at least talk the talk and spot differences in design and type, to what effect on the overall product.

I’m working on my graphic design and typography chops informally for the time being, which is why I’m grateful for bloggers, among them John Gruber at Daring Fireball, who recently posted:

So You Think You Can Tell Arial From Helvetica? Quiz

and Arial Versus Helvetica

Extra credit: Not new, but very interesting… Helvetica (the documentary). Enjoy!

Just search for your name using Personas and it returns a graph of “how the Internet sees you”, based on predetermined categories:

Here's mine... click for a full view.

Obviously this is going to be more accurate if you have a fairly unusual name (like mine), but the creators of the project are well aware of this. Get a more complete explanation of the project’s aims and how to interpret your graph by going to Personas and clicking Read More.

But it gives me the opportunity to rant about an error that I see every single day now: the confusion between “it’s” and “its” (and general bad application of apostrophes in written communication of all kinds).

I feel it’s relevant to us as IDs because our writing needs to be nearly impeccable, and I don’t know many of us who have the benefit of a copyeditor. But I’m also pleading to you as learning professionals: does anyone know of a catchy way to teach the difference between “it’s” and “its” — or do you have a shorthand that you use to remember it?

If you haven’t seen it in action yet:

I always feel like the Joker whenever Google announces something new… Where do they get those wonderful toys?? But I then I remember they’re mostly free for me to use, for good or evil, as I see fit.

In the case of Sidewiki, I could see using this to enhance a company’s intranet/process documentation. I know of a couple departments that are considering moving to a wiki, replacing RoboHelp or another EPSS. Sidewiki would eliminate the need to rebuild the system… but I’m thinking it’s not going to work on some/most intranets, due to either technical or formal limitations.

Did any other uses of this app spring to mind when you saw it?

– Mark Twain

It’s been 3 months or so that I’ve been writing this short-form blog, and it’s been good for my writing overall.

But I’m also finding that there are some things that I can’t cover in the depth that I want to, using only 140 words at a time. I just can’t. Tonight after #lrnchat, Dave Ferguson assured me that that wasn’t a failure. Thanks, Dave!

Long story short (or vice-versa), I’m going to allow myself some Mondo Posts now and then: much longer posts that will have more depth… or more breadth. Definitely more words.

Okay fine, that's Mongo, not Mondo. Jeez, picky...

But I promise, I will respect your time and not write a Mondo Post just because I don’t want to take the time to edit. Much.

And not just in a creative sense, though we do a lot of creative work. Sometimes we need inspiration to come up with ways to meet a deadline. Sometimes we need inspiration to sweet-talk an SME into making our projects higher-priority. And yes, sometimes — often — we need an inspired way to present information, create a framework for practice, or motivate people to change their behavior.

I like what he has to say about pulling your inspiration from people in fields other than your own. As important as it is to commune with fellow practitioners in my field, I think I expand my horizons in a different way when I go outside and see how non-IDs solve their problems. It’s often surprisingly applicable.

One of them was to do volunteer work for an organization that is in need of your talents, and yesterday on ASTD’s LinkedIn group, I came across one such volunteer opportunity. The contact (company president Teegan Acree) has told me that they would be open to allowing designers/developers to use the work in their portfolios. They are creating coaching modules for job seekers and Teegan says they can use all the help they can get.

For more information, contact Teegan at tacree@hiringforhope.org and view information about the company on their LinkedIn page.

Having taken almost 2/3 of my coursework for my MEd, I’ve taken a lot of classes on learning design, but I’m hoping to approach things from a little different angle with this class. I’d like to get more basic in some senses… pay even more attention to what happens personally, cognitively, with the learner when using a computer as the teacher (or as an intermediary between a the learner and teacher).

I’ll probably post some musings here as the semester progresses…

You have to download and install it before the offer expires, but according to my reading, you will then have a fully-functioning copy of this software. Here are the limitations, from the enclosed README:

1) No free technical support
2) No free upgrades to future versions
3) Strictly non-commercial usage

Read more and download here, then come back and tell me what you think of it!

The topic has very little to do with my everyday work, but like many people who I’ve talked with from the conference, it has inspired me to get going on my next projects and maybe take a fresh look at what I’m doing and how.

Mostly, it’s just been a privilege to be around performers, scholars, and composers who approach their work with such dedication and commitment, and often, a great sense of fun.

Perhaps more on other insights later, as they come…

For now, if you want to peek in on the party, try Kyle Gann’s blog.

Techsmith did release a comparison chart between Camtasia Studio (for PC) and Camtasia for Mac, and indeed, the Mac version does have fewer features. But it does a great job, it’s fairly intuitive to use, and I like how it integrates existing Mac functionality (such as font selection).

Most disappointing to me is that there is no closed captioning capability at this point. I’m sure Techsmith is going to bring it up to speed, but of course, no one knows when.

I’m thinking about doing a more complete comparison of the new Camtasia for Mac with other Mac screencasting tools… which ones would you like to see compared?