Campus Technology as an interesting article with Tips for using Chat as an Instructional Tool.  Here's an excerpt

The main concepts for instructional use are:

• Chat is conversation software and therefore lends itself well to the support of academic exchange;
• Chat is a real-time connection, therefore takes the learning experience outside the classroom but retains the real time connection and, thus, the interactive dynamics of real-time exchange;
• Chat is collaborative and not directive in essence so should be used to promote collaboration and idea sharing;
• Chat is an Internet tool, therefore provides flexibility in scheduling working sessions to suit students' lif ... Read More »

Adobe provides a reference card for Accessible PDF creation from Word.  This reference cards covers the most common issues in regards to accessibility when creating PDF's.  These include:

• Provide equivalent for images in Word
• Use Word's styles to define structural headings
• Identify table headings for simple tables
• Use Word's column feature instead of text boxes
• Enable generation of tagged PDF's. 

The Accessible PDF creation reference card is available at http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility/2008/03/reference_card_for_acc ... Read More »

Hiram Kuykendall did a presentation to the Austin Adobe User's group recently on creating Visually Accessible Flash Based Applications.  The presentation is available at http://www.microassist.com/ELearning/AccessibleFlashBasedApplications/tabid/165/Default.aspx

Creating accesible applications is an area of focus of MicroAssist. 

   I had the pleasure of presenting "How much does E-Learning Cost?" three times today at DIR's Learning Expo (whew!).  I ran into Sue Tedford who runs the Adobe User Group and she gave me a link to her website which has a bunch of resources for Training.  Check it out at www.sueresources.com

I saw an interesting question on the ASTD Discussion Boards on preventing cheating with online testing.  We faced this problem with numerous clients.  Some of the things we did to reduce cheating included:

• Create a large test bank of questions from which we drew a random subset.  We also randomized the answers This prevented people from sharing answers. 
• Made sure that the tutorial portion of the e-learning could not be opened while the test was being taken.
• Timed the test and ran reports on the students taking the test.  We ended up checking on folks who ran through the test a bit too quickly.

If it is important to insure the integrity of the test then a proctored environment is necessary.  It is impossible to& ... Read More »

This paper describes how  Moodle was introduced as the new Learning Management System (LMS) to the University of the South Pacific with the aim of improving teaching and learning. This whitepaper examines the development process from test and selection of the platform through to project planning, gathering of political support within the institution, technical factors, the design and roll out of training, the impact and consequences, the growth and future prospects of the platform are discussed, with a focus on the university’s redesigned online law program.

The University of the South Pacific is the only university of its type in the world, and the introduction of an online learning management system there was, in turn, a unique experience. The university is jointly owned by the governments of twelve island countries: Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Samoa& ... Read More »

The American Society of Training and Development is offering a certification program, Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP™) for workplace learning and performance professionals.  The program covers 9 areas of expertise:

1. Designing and Learning
2. Delivering Training
3. Improving Human Performance
4. Measuring and Evaluating
5. Facilitating Organizational Change
6. Managing the Learning Function
7. Coaching
8. Managing Organizational Knowledge
9. Career Planning and ... Read More »

Albert Mehrabian, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, UCLA, is best known for his publications on the importance of verbal and nonverbal messages.  In his studies Mehrabian comes to the conclusion that there are three elements to face-to-face communication:

• Words (7%)
• Tone of Voice (38%)
• Body Language (55%)

The relative importance of verbal and nonverbal messages were derived from experiments dealing with communications of feelings and attiudes. 

How does this effect E-learning?  Does it have a different effect on E-learning dealing with the communication of information vs. professional development training such as leadership training?

Read More »

Conference Alerts offers a listing of E-Learning conferences worldwide at http://www.conferencealerts.com/elearning.htm.  Be warned that the list is not comprehensive.  For example the ASTD TechKnowledge 2008 conference which MicroAssist will be attending is not on the list (http://tk07.astd.org/TK2008.htm)

Qipit.com ("Clip It") offers a free service that allos you to copy whiteboards and documents with your camera phone (or a camera) Read More »