What I’m Missing at Learning Solutions, Part 2

Jealous! (Did you know that orange was the color symbolizing jealousy in Shakespeare's day?)

I enjoyed peeking in to the #ls2010 backchannel today! And I realized that yesterday I didn’t even mention anything that wasn’t a concurrent session… lots of stuff going on in the ID Zone sounded really cool, too, but I’m way too tired from my week to make this post any bigger than it’s already shaping up to be. I’m kind of glad I didn’t have to decide what to actually go to. Here are my picks for tomorrow…

The Top 10 Must-Do’s for Developing Successful e-Learning Programs – Having spent the last 3 years building an elearning initiative from the ground up, I have to wonder what I missed. There must be something.

Giving Voice to Your e-Learning - Okay, selfish choice. Since I do a little voiceover work on the side, mainly for elearning, I might figure out a few things about how to market my services in this session. :D

Designing Continuous Learning: Leveraging the Power of a Learning Continuum – Again with the movement away from learning “events”…

McGyver e-Learning: Creating e-Learning with Open-source and Common Tools – Even if you weren’t a proponent of open-source tech (which I am, don’t get me wrong), who could resist something called “McGyver e-Learning”?

The Evolving LMS/LCMS:  Their Role in the World of Learning 2.0 and Social Learning – While I’ve heard of several LMS/LCMSs that support social learning, the ones I have the most experience with definitely don’t fall into that category. It would be nice to get more education there.

Rapid Deployment Leveraging Social Networks and Google Wave – Or maybe it would be better to see some concrete tools and examples along the same lines…

Case Study: Converting a Live Workshp to e-Learning – This just sounds good. Lots of us grapple with converting ILT to elearning and the decisions that must be made in that design process; I’m always interested to see how others do it.

Visual Design Essentials: Practical Techniques for Designing Better Online Courses – I had to reread this description before I “got it” that when the writer says “design” he means “visual design”, and that made me chafe a little (that confusion being something that bosses and clients often fall victim to, as well). Having said that, visual design is important and it’s always something I’m up for learning more about… particularly when it relates directly to what I do.

“Don’t Make Me Think”: Creating Effective e-Learning with User Testing – I reread Steve Krug’s book recently because I hope to step up some of our user testing at work; this session would be relevant. And I like that they’re recognizing how relevant web design/development is to elearning design/development…

New Applications for Mobile Games and Simulations – mLearning has never been a huge interest for me, but I’m currently doing some research on HTML5 and therefore wish I could peek into just about every mlearning session I hear about…

When Worlds Collide: Social Media and the Learning Organization – Again, interested in how social media and collaborative tools can affect learning.

Don’t be shy! Tell me what I missed… even if it’s not listed above.

Edit: I have to say (as if there are people out there who are going to get offended) — there are a few sessions that sound really cool, but I might have caught the same speaker doing what sounds like a similar topic at prior conferences. So I pretty much didn’t list those here. No offense! And from the tweets coming in about Michael Allen’s session, I might be wrong about that anyway. Again, wish I were there…

Is Your Life Just One Big RPG?

My husband sent this video to me this week: a recording of Carnegie Mellon professor, author, and former Imagineer Jesse Schell talking about the future, game design, Facebook, and lots more at DICE 2010. There are several ID implications here, but one that speaks to me most initially is about motivation.

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…)

The Wish Book, All Grown Up

chemistrysetWhen I was little, the day the Sears Wish Book arrived at our house was one of the best of the year. Second only to Christmas, even… My sister and I would eagerly page through the book for weeks, picking out what we were going to ask Santa for.

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?

Free Today – QuizCreator 3.0

I’ve never used this software, but Free is one of my favorite words, so I’m going to try it out. It looks like this offer is available until 2 AM Central, 9/11/09.

QC_box_120

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!

Camtasia for Mac is Here!

I spent some time tooling around with the newly released Camtasia for Mac this evening, so here’s a quick follow up on my August 9 post.

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?