Reducing Bullet Points and On-screen Text Reducing Bullets Points and On-screen Text One of the most common questions e-learning designers ask is around how to reduce the amount of bullets in their courses. And it's a great question, because when used appropriately, bullet points offer an effective way to organize content and increase readability. So, why are bullet points so misused? One reason is they're easy, right? Here are a few ways to reduce bullet points: Rewrite as a question and allow the narration to answer the questionShorten bullet points from full sentences to a phrase or even a wordUse one bullet point per slideUse an image, graphic, chart or animation in place of each bullet The following screencasts demonstrate some before and after examples. And Part 2: Here's an example of the storyboard used for this course Post written by David Anderson
Learning Techniques One of the things that we expect you to pick up by osmosis, but almost never mention explicitly, is techniques for learning itself. After you leave university, you will be expected to be able to learn by yourself for the rest of your life. And an hour spent addressing the meta-issue of learning skills pays off in reduced time to actually learn. A lot of work has been done over the past few decades about how people learn. This document suggests a wide range of techniques that may make your learning more effective. You may want to experiment with some of them to see if they work for you. I recommend the work on accelerated learning by Colin Rose and Brian Tracy. You can learn anything if you have a goal that requires it. There are a number of stages to learning, each of which involves a number of aspects. The right state of mind There are six aspects to being in the right state of mind to learn. Here are the six aspects: Find a personal reason to want to learn this material. Memorising
learning theory - models, product and process Photo by Antenna on Unsplash Contents: introduction · what do people think learning is? · learning as a product · learning as a process · experience · reflective thinking · making connections · committing and acting · task-conscious or acquisition learning, and learning-conscious or formalized learning · the behaviourist orientation to learning · the cognitive orientation to learning · the humanistic orientation to learning · the social/situational orientation to learning · the constructivist/social constructivist orientation to learning · further reading · references · how to cite this article See, also, What is education? Over the last thirty years or so, ‘learning’ has become one of the most used words in the field of education. Adult education became lifelong learning; students became learners, teachers facilitators of learning; schools are now learning environments; learning outcomes are carefully monitored. There has been a similar situation in the field of education. Taxonomies
Architect Bypasses Mortgage Payments, Builds a Tiny Home Idaho-based architect Macy Miller longed for a place of her own, but didn't want the burdensome cost of mortgage payments and decided to construct her own compact home. After having a dream back in 2011, Miller mustered up the initiative to design her small yet efficient home known as Tiny House. Interested in the ever-expanding DIY movement as both a way to save on costs and gain some experience with construction, Miller worked on the 196-square-foot home for two years in the hopes of making her dream come true. The house, which was built on top of a flatbed trailer with the use of sustainable materials, just recently finished construction. With so much accomplished on a tight budget, Miller's project is not quite complete as she is currently searching for a place to park her quaint dwelling. Macy Miller's blog via [Inhabitat]
5 Ways to Blow the Top Off of Rubrics This is a guest post from Shawn McCusker of EdTechTeacher.org which is an advertiser on this blog. Do you have a rubric for that? Rubrics, designed to help teachers grade fairly and convey their learning objectives and performance standards to students, can serve a critical role especially with technology-rich projects. Teachers also like them for standardizing grading among teachers teaching the same course. "If you assign a project and get back 30 of the exact same thing, that's not a project, that's a recipe." - Chris Lehmann Especially with 1:1 or BYOD classrooms, where individualized learning should be the norm, this is a huge potential problem. “Individualized instruction is a method of instruction in which content, instructional technology (such as materials) and pace of learning are based upon the abilities and interests of each individual learner” via Wikipedia “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in the creative art of expression and knowledge.”
chris argyris, double-loop learning and organizational learning @ the encyclopedia of informal education contents: introduction · life · theories of action: theory in use and espoused theory · single-loop and double-loop learning · model I and model II · organizational learning · conclusion · further reading and references · links · cite Chris Argyris has made a significant contribution to the development of our appreciation of organizational learning, and, almost in passing, deepened our understanding of experiential learning. On this page we examine the significance of the models he developed with Donald Schön of single-loop and double-loop learning, and how these translate into contrasting models of organizational learning systems. Life Chris Argyris was born in Newark, New Jersey on July 16, 1923 and grew up in Irvington, New Jersey. Chris Argyris enjoyed the outdoors – and, in particular hiking (especially in the mountains of New Hampshire and across New England). As well as writing and researching, Chris Argyris has been an influential teacher. Single-loop and double-loop learning
Beyond the Comfort Zone: 6 Ways to Build Independent Thinking Image credit: iStockphoto The shift toward applying more executive function (EF) within learning and assessment will cause some discomfort in teachers and students. The transition will not eliminate the need for memorization, as automatic use of foundational knowledge is the toolkit for the executive functions. One way you can help your students shift from blindly following instructions and memorizing single right answers is to help them recognize their successful use of executive functions throughout their learning experiences. The end result will be a greater awareness by the students, not only for how their brains work, but also for how they can push themselves to connect what they can recall with real-world problems and opportunities they encounter. Low-Risk Experiences Using EFs in Common Core Topics Using your grade- and subject-appropriate topics, the following examples can be modified or serve as suggestions for building knowledge and understanding using executive functions. 1. 2.
How to Change Your Life: A User’s Guide ‘You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.’ ~Mike Murdock By Leo Babauta Start with a simple statement: what do you want to be? Are you hoping to someday be a writer, a musician, a designer, a programmer, a polyglot, a carpenter, a manga artist, an entrepreneur, an expert at something? How do you get there? Do you set yourself a big goal to complete by the end of the year, or in three months? I’m going to lay down the law here, based on many many experiments I’ve done in the last 7 years: nothing will change unless you make a daily change. I’ve tried weekly action steps, things that I do every other day, big bold monthly goals, lots of other permutations. If you’re not willing to make it a daily change, you don’t really want to change your life in this way. So make a daily change. How to Turn an Aspiration Into a Daily Change Let’s name a few aspirations: How do you turn those lofty ideas into daily changes? You get the idea. How to Implement Daily Changes
Tools for Teachers Mobile Learning: 50+ Resources & Tips I believe mobile devices will transform education. This is why I created a free ebook, Effective Mobile Learning: 50+ Quick Tips & Resources with helpful tips and several resources to help support this trend. One reason is because mobile devices are designed in a way that forces the teacher to give control to the learner. When we equip a classroom with iPads, iPods, small tablets, or cellphones the learning is literally put in the hands of the students. The teacher has to facilitate and walk around the room to manage the learning. Below are a list of 50+ Mobile Learning resources & growing! Mobile Learning Free Ebooks Mobile Learning Posts/Presentations I’ve Given Mobile Learning LiveBinder of Resources Mobile Learning Mindmap of Implementation This mindmap is full of case studies, schools, teachers, free ebooks, and more to show real examples of mobile learning at its best.