“Shift your mindset to look at something as an experiment rather than something with a potential of failure.”
Dorie Clark
We’re enjoying the last couple weeks before school starts around here. We got out for a nice kayak outing and beefed up our wifi since there will be four of us at home online all day soon. I hope you’re well and staying safe. Thanks for reading!
What I’m Listening to: Today is a Mellow Lo-Fi kind of day.
Last week’s most clicked item:
A collection of resources about “What L&D Should Steal from Marketing” on Bublup
Skills Everyone Needs To Succeed In The 21st Century
We live in a time of abundance when it comes to information, but some bits contradict others. You also have to be able to discern, for yourself, what works and what doesn’t. In this short video, Chris Do walks you through the basic cycle that will help you stay on top of the avalanche, and help you to learn anything.
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMJ2IAvthMI
What Makes a Good Instructional Video
In this post, Brad Nguyen reminds us that the goal during remote learning should be to leverage technology in service of what we know to be good quality instruction. While teaching is much more difficult when you are not in the same room as your students, video can be a powerful tool for providing students with worked examples, teacher modelling and pseudo-guided practice.
https://teachthinkblog.wordpress.com/2020/08/08/what-makes-a-good-instructional-video/
PDF: Still Unfit for Human Consumption, 20 Years Later
Jakob Nielsen and Anna Kaley share research spanning 20 years that show PDFs are problematic for online reading. Yet they’re still prevalent and users continue to get lost in them. They’re unpleasant to read and navigate and remain unfit for digital-content display.
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/pdf-unfit-for-human-consumption/
Why I Don’t Believe in Empathic Design
Human-centered design pioneer Don Norman, who coined the term ‘user experience,’ explains why he’s not convinced by the current obsession with empathy and what we should do instead.
My Top 10 Learning Tools for 2020
It is time once again for Jane Hart’s annual top tools for learning survey. And since I’ve been adding my contributions from the beginning (over a decade ago) I’ve got to keep my streak alive. Here are my top learning tools for 2020. Have you submitted yours?
https://mike-taylor.org/2020/08/11/my-2020-top-10-tools-for-learning/
Interested in a few other Top 10s? Check these out:
A few other things just because I can.
Podcasts
Here are three podcast episodes from this week that are worth a listen:
- Brian Washburn talks with Erin Peterschick about Taking a conference virtual
- Kineo’s Stream of thought podcast asks Can you really measure the impact of your learning?
- Mike Feerick on distance learning and alternative routes into the workplace on the Training Journal podcast
Tools & Resources
If you like this section, you might also like my latest experiment – the L&D Toolbox daily newsletter.
- [Portfolio] – Create great-looking portfolios with Adobe Portfolio (Free with Creative Cloud)
. - [Screencast] – RecordIt is a lightweight app for screen recordings.
. - [Image Editor] – Crop Here is a web-based app for quick & easy image cropping.
. - [Website] – Create a free website with DoneDave & add your own domain and email from £20 per year. It’s quick, cheap, and super simple!
. - [Automation] – Zapier has a new Gmail addin to help you automate your workflow
. - [Automation] – APIway is a free tool to connect data and software without needing to code. A free Zapier-like tool.
Conferences & Learning Events
Here are a couple of helpful resources if you’re looking for a L&D-related conference or webinar.
- Check out the upcoming conference schedule
- L&D Webinars for this month by Limestone Learning
Where You Can Find Me
I’ll be judging the Central Ohio ATD’s Virtual Trainer’s Throwdown August 25th
The online Learning Development Conference is running now and Bianca Baumann and I will be running an online master class for the VOV Network in Belgium starting in November.
Interested in the things that didn’t make the cut here? Follow me on Twitter or connect with me on LinkedIn
I love talking about learning, design, and technology. If you’re looking for a speaker, let’s talk! Speaking and Workshop Information Sheet.
Looking for a previous edition? Check out the archives
Mike Taylor 