Synopses & Reviews
“Shank’s straight to the point advice from world experts is invaluable whether it’s your first or fiftieth online learning project. Move to the front of the class with their guidance.”—Michael W. Allen, PhD, chairman & CEO, allen interactions inc.; www.alleninteractions.com
“Patti Shank has pulled together yet another set of fabulous ideas for designing and delivering online learning. As they are all come from experienced practitioners they have been thoroughly road-tested and will get you up and running quickly, easily and effectively.”—Jane Hart, Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies, Wiltshire, England
“It’s nice to ask your cube neighbor or call a respected peer when you’re absolutely stuck on a project and need a brilliant idea. The reality is not they are not always around nor are they as helpful as you’d hope. Shank harnesses the collective brainpower from a broad range of practitioners to give you the insight you need to make good projects even better. The Online Idea Book provides concise and pragmatic ideas that you can adopt as-is or quickly adapt for your specific needs.” —Frank Nguyen, PhD, director, Learning Innovation, American Express
“The Online Idea Book is a tremendous resource for those who are asked to do more with less. It’s like cramming an extra ten people into your cubicle to help you get your work done.”—Tom Kuhlmann, vice president, Community; author, Rapid e-Learning Blog, Articulate
“In the rapidly evolving field of e-learning, it’s important to stay abreast of the latest ideas and techniques. Patti Shank has again gathered a unique collection of practical, useful and effective ideas from contributors around the industry that’s sure to inspire you.”—L. Wayne Precht, applications architect, Tycho Project, University of Maryland University College
“If you’re a corporate training manager, the book’s many examples from many settings are not only great ideas to adapt, they are superb guides to understand the learning expectations of younger employees, especially recent graduates.”
—Ann Yakimovicz, training manager, The PBSJ Corp., an Atkins company
“Patti Shank is back with dozens of new activities, tips, and tricks for making our technology-based training efforts better. This new second volume offers a smorgasbord of practitioner-supplied ideas ranging from design strategies to just-in-time thoughts on supporting collaborative and social learning. Information here is relevant to many different areas of expertise: developers, synchronous facilitators, and designers of self-paced instructional materials. And it’s everything a training resource should be: interesting, engaging, inspiring, and helpful.” —Jane Bozarth, Ed.D., author, Social Media for Trainers and Better Than Bullet Points
Synopsis
This is practical book is written for practitioners, by practitioners. It offers step-by-step instructions for building online instructional materials or improve existing materials (online courses, modules, activities, or supplementary materials for classroom-based courses). The book can help practitioners discover ways to make them more engaging and compelling, by adapting great ideas from others. The ideas presented will be based on research and practice in usability, technical and creative writing, graphic design, information architecture, and instructional design.
Synopsis
Many books recommend teaching and learning strategies based on current learning research and theory. However, few books offer illustrative examples of how to take these strategies and put them into action in the real world.
The Online Learning Idea Book is filled with concrete examples of people who make learning more inspiring and engaging every day, in all kinds of settings, all over the world.
In this second volume of The Online Learning Idea Book you will find brand new and valuable ideas that you can adopt or adapt in your own instructional materials, to make them more dynamic and more worthwhile for learners and learning. These ideas will let you peek over the shoulders of some of the world's most creative instructors, instructional designers and developers, trainers, media developers, and others in order to help spark creative ideas of your own.
This hands-on resource will help you build online instructional materials or improve existing materials including online courses, modules, activities, or supplementary materials for classroom-based courses.
This book provides great tips, techniques, and tricks in the following areas: The Design and Development Process, Supporting Learning, Synchronous and Interpersonal Activities, Asynchronous and Self-Paced Activities, and NS Better Media.
Within these pages you will discover creative ways to give your online and blended instruction a boost by adopting and adapting great ideas from others.
About the Author
Patti Shank, PhD., CPT, is the president of Learning Peaks LLC, an internationally recognized performance and instructional design consulting firm. She is the co-author of Making Sense of Online Learning, editor of The Online Learning Idea Book, Volume 1, co-editor of The E-Learning Handbook, and co-author of Essential Articulate Studio '09.
Table of Contents
List of Figures and Exhibits ixAcknowledgments xv
Preface xvii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: Ideas for the Design and Development Process 7
Aligning Objectives 8
From Topics to Tasks 12
Online? Yes, No, Maybe So 15
Idea Title: Complexity Analysis 25
Frustration Reduction Checklist 29
Better Collaboration with Your Subject-Matter Expert 32
Multiple-Choice Question Checklist 36
Story-Based Learning v2 39
Chapter 2: Ideas for Supporting Learners and Learning 47
Survival Skills 48
Rules of Engagement 52
Team Review Form 57
Motivation Matters 60
Virtual Campus 64
Read Me First! 69
Pre-Work Verifi cation 72
Accountability Check-In 75
My Personal Learning Network 78
Reading Guide 82
Combating the Free-Rider 87
Learning Log 91
Project Grading Checklist 95
Life Web 101
Reminder Tips 105
Celebrate 108
Installment Plan 111
Chapter 3: Ideas for Synchronous and Social Learning 117
Open House 119
Roll Call 123
Reenergizing Lectures with Insert-Learner-Activity-Here Strategies 126
Group Formation 130
Better Connections with Online Learners 135
Comments, Please 140
Easy Collaborative Documents 143
Virtual Job Interviews 146
Who Are You? Alternative Online Meet-and-Greet Tactics 149
Making Connections 153
Alternative Structures for Online Discussions 157
"Rad" Libs 165
Nonverbal Cues 168
Online Classroom Clickers 171
Online vs. On-Campus Competition 175
Polling for Engagement 177
Back in the Day, Facebook Style 180
Side by Side 184
Turn Up the Music 188
YouTube YouTalk 192
Wiki Review 195
Word Me 199
Chapter 4: Ideas for Self-Paced Learning 203
Branched Scenarios with Three Cs and Placeholder Content 205
Talking Head Video, CNN-Style 210
Bad Advice? 215
Point It Out 219
Simulate It 222
Who's Who 227
Got a Clue? 231
Reduce OnScreen Text 235
My Own Path 242
Chapter 5: Ideas for Media and Authoring 249
Lose the Worn-Out Images, Up the Creativity 250
Pecha Kucha for Learning 253
Find the Right PowerPoint Clip Art 257
PowerPoint Clip Art Surgery 261
PowerPoint Graphics Library 266
Show to Tell 271
First-Person Point of View 277
Create a Television in PowerPoint 280
Easy Video 285
VoiceThread Virtuosity 288
Cheap Stock Photos 293
Silhouette Characters 297
Create Polaroid-Like Images 302
Word Clouds 305
EZ Forms 309
Recording Better Audio 317
Easy Mobile Learning Content: PowerPoint to MP4 321
Rollover Slidelets for Nonrectangular
Rollover Areas in Captivate 5 326
Easier Multi-Language Captivate 5 Application Simulations—Captions 331
Easier Multi-Language Captivate 5 Simulations—Narration 336
Easier Reformatting of Captivate 5 Captions 340
Creating a Slide Replay Button in Captivate 5 344
Using System Variables in Captivate 5 347
Adding a Non-Articulate Flash File as a Tab in Articulate Presenter 351
Linking from Engage to Specifi c Presenter Slides 357
Adding PDFs to Articulate Presenter Projects 361
Embed Articulate Quizmaker Quizzes (or Articulate Engage Interactions) into Adobe Presenter Presentations 366
Glossary 373
About the Editor 377