eLearning Blender

JUNE 1, 2010

With all the hype surrounding the upcoming arrival of Moodle 2.0, I thought it might be a good time to revisit what we love and hate about Moodle 1.9. In a previous post, " Moodle Pros and Cons " I set out on a mission to build a robust list of Moodle Pros and Cons that would be a great resource to someone researching whether Moodle would fit their needs.

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Moodle Wiki Low Cost LMS 91

eLearning Blender

MAY 26, 2010

Adobe Captivate and Articulate Studio have different skill sets and sometimes you need the best of both worlds. While Captivate is great for software simulations, I think Articulate is better for soft skills projects and tying the whole thing together. Because Captivate and Articulate have unique qualities you may come across the situation where you want the best of both worlds by using the two programs together.

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Adobe Captivate Articulate Presenter Articulate Captivate 63

eLearning Blender

MAY 17, 2010

I am working on a software training project developed with Articulate where the eLearning course transitions from a branching scenario into a software simulation and I wanted to create a smooth transition from the scenario into the simulation. The scene transitions from the character sitting at a desk in front of the computer to a full screen software simulation developed with Adobe Captivate.

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PowerPoint Simulations eLearning Software Simulation 60

eLearning Blender

MAY 10, 2010

Back when I started this blog about 3 years ago I was coming from an instructor led training background and transitioning into the world of eLearning. I was working on a variety of instructional design projects involving instructor led (face to face) training and beginning to implement eLearning within my organization. I was hot on "Blended" training solutions involving both ILT and eLearning so I thought "Blender - Training Solutions" was a decent name since I was blogging about instructional d

Blogging 44

Blogging Corporate eLearning Social Networks Change 44

eLearning Blender

MAY 3, 2010

As I described in my last post ( Help me Design Synchronous eLearning ), I am working on a school project that requires the design of an eLearning course that includes at least one online synchronous session. After getting some comments with tips and doing a little more research, I have come up with a decent lesson plan for the introductory session of the course.

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Synchronous Corporate eLearning eLearning Moodle 40

eLearning Blender

APRIL 21, 2010

I am working on a project for my Ed Tech class at SDSU which is putting me a little out of my comfort zone. The project requires the design of an eLearning course including a synchronous portion where the facilitator and learners meet online using web conferencing software. I have a lot of experience creating asynchronous "self paced" eLearning courses but rarely have the opportunity to work on eLearning courses with a synchronous session involved.

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Synchronous eLearning Wiki Moodle 60

eLearning Blender

MARCH 22, 2010

A great way to create effective eLearning is to throw the learner into a simulation of the task or performance you are training them to complete. Don't just tell the learner about it, make them do it. This often requires simulating the scene where the task takes place which can be difficult to make look realistic in whatever authoring tool you may use.

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eLearning Simulations eLearning Tools Photoshop 67

eLearning Blender

MARCH 14, 2010

I ran into a problem this week involving Moodle and SCORM and wanted to share the problem and solution for my own good and for the good of anyone else out there who may be having a similar problem. What I was trying to do is relatively common so I am sure I am not the only one running into this problem with using SCORM on Moodle no matter what authoring tool you are using.

Moodle 40

Moodle SCORM Problem Adobe Captivate 40

eLearning Blender

MARCH 7, 2010

If you are thinking about using Moodle and Adobe Captivate together one of the first things you need to take into consideration is the use of SCORM. Both Moodle and Adobe Captivate are SCORM 1.2 and 2004 compatible. What does this mean? It means that you can create an eLearning tutorial with Adobe Captivate that will communicate the users scores and other information to the gradebook in Moodle.

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Adobe Captivate SCORM Moodle Captivate 60

eLearning Blender

MARCH 3, 2010

I'm just finishing up my test drive of Articulate Studio 09 and I am sold on driving my own version off the lot. As I discussed in my post " Articulate, Captivate, Both, Or.? ", I have been using Adobe Captivate but would like something that integrates with Power Point and speeds up the development process. Articulate has definitely proven that it provides what I was looking for and many other benefits that I was not aware of.

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Articulate Adobe Captivate eLearning Tools Captivate 40

eLearning Blender

FEBRUARY 1, 2010

The Spring semester has begun and I started a new class in the Educational Technology program at San Diego State called Ed Tech 650 "Distance Education" although the name may soon be changing to something like "eLearning Design and Development." I'm excited about the class taught by Dr. Bob Hoffman because it really dives into the development side of eLearning by applying principles from the textbook; " Michael Allens Guide to eLearning.

Education 40

Education eLearning Tools eLearning eLearning Developer 40

eLearning Blender

JANUARY 19, 2010

I've been using Adobe Captivate for a while now and I am very happy with it for technical training projects but I can't help but wonder if other tools like Articulate may be a great addition to my toolbox. Since I already have Captivate, I need to determine whether it would be worth the investment to purchase new software when I may be able to get along just as well with what I already have.

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Captivate Articulate Adobe Captivate Moodle 57

eLearning Blender

JANUARY 12, 2010

I thought I knew about most of the cool tools out there for developing multimedia instructional materials but was proved wrong after reading " Moodle 1.9 Multimedia " by João Pedro Soares Fernandes. This is one in a series of books from Packt Publishing that will help you learn the ins and outs of Moodle. If you're looking to take your Moodle courses to the next level with easy to use multimedia tools then " Moodle 1.9 Multimedia " is a great place to start.

Moodle 40

Moodle eLearning Tools Corporate eLearning Jing 40

eLearning Blender

JANUARY 4, 2010

Making the decision to go with Moodle over other Learning Management Systems can be a very difficult decision, especially when you don't have the experience to know the benefits and drawbacks of Moodle. Something that can be very helpful in this decision making process is feedback from Moodlers on the Pros and Cons of Moodle. In an effort to help those struggling with this decision I am looking for your help constructing a list of the pros and cons of Moodle from multiple perspectives and opinio

Moodle 85

Moodle Wiki LMS Corporate eLearning 85

eLearning Blender

DECEMBER 31, 2009

Looking back at my top posts of 2009, it is obvious what I spent most of the year working on. 2009 was all about Moodle and Project Based Learning for me. Many of my most popular posts in 2009 were about Moodle which is not only a reflection of my year but also a reflection of the increasing popularity of Moodle. I look forward to another year of Moodle and increasing the amount of posts I write on other topics such as Blended Training Solutions, Instructional Design, Adobe Captivate and Trainin

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Adobe Captivate Moodle Captivate Adobe 40

eLearning Blender

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Why Moodle? One of the most frequently asked questions I get from blog readers is "Why did I choose to go with Moodle" over other Learning Management Systems. The answer is simple; Moodle gives you the most bang for your buck, especially if you don't have a lot of bucks. A huge factor in my case is that I had zero budget to implement eLearning in my organization so I didn't have many options.

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Moodle LMS RFP eLearning Guild 77

eLearning Blender

DECEMBER 10, 2009

The "Best Of" the information from my series of posts about Project Based Learning in a business environment was published on eLearn Mag today. With the help of Jill Duffy from eLearn Mag, I boiled down the key steps and tips for developing project based learning into one article covering it from head to toe. If you liked the PBL posts on my blog you will like how this article brings it all together.

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eLearning Project Tagging Tips 45

eLearning Blender

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Enough talking about how to design project based learning, let's get down to the brass tacks and look at an example of a PBL lesson. If you would like more information on project based learning before looking at an example please review my series of project based learning blog posts. This example is titled " Selling Sleep Disorder Relief " and was designed to help sleep products sales people improve their sales with customers suffering from sleep disorders.

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Examples Project Learning Simulations 56

eLearning Blender

NOVEMBER 23, 2009

Moodle does a lot of things great, but site wide reporting and bulk user management are definitely not included in those great things. If you are a Moodle administrator for an organization I am sure you know the pain of having to go into each course site to produce grade reports for multiple courses. In my case, I have to send out a weekly report listing every users grades in every course they have taken on Moodle.

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Moodle Report Learning Objects Management 61

eLearning Blender

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

An Instructional Designers "Cheat Sheet" for Designing Project Based Learning Four blog posts ago I set out on a long strange trip to dissect project based learning in a corporate environment. Along the way I have received some great comments on this blog and through Twitter with insight and examples of how to take advantage of project based learning.

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Project Learning Learner Instructional 40

eLearning Blender

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

You have developed your big idea and polished the driving question , now for the most important aspect of Project Based Learning - planning the assessments. The project based learning design process concludes by developing a plan to assess whether learners are able to demonstrate the instructional objectives you set out for to begin with by completing one or more projects.

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Assessment Project Design Learning 40

eLearning Blender

OCTOBER 16, 2009

In the last post of the Project Based Learning series, I introduced what project based learning is and the benefits of using Project Based Learning in corporate environments. Now that we know what PBL is and have seen an example of it's use in a corporate environment, let's dive into developing Project Based Lessons for corporate training. Project Based Lessons begin with what I believe to be the most critical aspect of the instructional design process, the Driving Question.

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Project Learning Learner Instructional 80

eLearning Blender

SEPTEMBER 21, 2009

In my last post I set out on a quest to dissect Project Based Learning in the corporate world by starting some conversations and writing some blog posts. I believe that project based learning is ideally suited for adults in corporate training but sadly there is not much information available. I am hoping to shed light on some best practices that will improve the effectiveness of my project based lessons and hopefully help other instructional designers out there looking to get started with projec

Project 53

Project Learning Wiki Corporate eLearning 53

eLearning Blender

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

Are you implementing Project Based Learning in a corporate environment? If so, I would like to hear about it. In an instructional design class I took over the summer we focused on "Project Based Learning." What I learned in this class inspired me to make it more of a priority in my work as an instructional designer in a corporate environment. I love the principles behind project based learning because they focus on the learner performing the instructional objectives being taught in a realistic s

Project 45

Project Learning Instructional Instruction 45

eLearning Blender

AUGUST 10, 2009

An assignment for my "Tech for Teaching" class at SDSU requires us to follow Ed Tech related blogs on our reader than write up a summary of what we learned from reading these posts and how these lessons apply to our professional goals. This is the third of 3 Personal Learning Network reports on some lessons I have learned lately through blogs I follow in Google Reader.

Personal Learning 40

Personal Learning ILT Moodle Network 40

eLearning Blender

AUGUST 6, 2009

A new book just arrived on my doorstep that I am excited about reading. Much of the reading I do about Moodle has to do with administration tasks I am struggling with so I am looking forward to learning some content development tricks from " Moodle 1.9 Multimedia " by João Pedro Soares Fernandes. As a Moodle administrator and eLearning content developer, I am always juggling the behind the scenes Moodle tasks while looking for more effective ways to present content.

Moodle 40

Moodle Adobe Captivate eLearning Tools eLearning 40

eLearning Blender

JULY 27, 2009

I have a confession to make. I was making a stupid mistake in Adobe Captivate 3 that was seriously affecting the performance of my eLearning tutorials. When I first started using Captivate I was under a tough deadline for my first project and did not have the time to take any classes or tutorials. I bought a book and dove right in. I was confident in my skills with Powerpoint and Captivate's not that much different, right?

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Adobe Captivate Captivate Adobe Slides 56

eLearning Blender

JULY 24, 2009

Being a Google Reader junkie it never crossed my mind to set up an email subscription option for this blog. A couple of day's ago I received an email from a follower of this blog wishing to subscribe by email. That email made the light bulb go on! Classic case of not putting myself in the audiences shoes. Although feed readers are more popular than ever, there are still a lot of people who subscribe to blogs by email.

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RSS Web Google Tagging 40

eLearning Blender

JULY 21, 2009

An assignment for my "Tech for Teaching" class at SDSU requires us to follow Ed Tech related blogs on our reader than write up a summary of what we learned from reading these posts and how these lessons apply to our professional goals. This is the second of 4 Personal Learning Network reports on some lessons I have learned lately through blogs I follow in Google Reader.

Personal Learning 45

Personal Learning Network Personal Personalization 45

eLearning Blender

JULY 15, 2009

Oops, where are the scores! I recently learned a valuable lesson after implementing an eLearning course on Moodle where quiz scores did not save. It's not a great feeling when someone put's out the effort to complete a course but you have no record of their completion. Here is the situation and solution, hopefully it will help another frantic Moodler with missing quiz scores.

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Moodle Quiz Score SCORM 40

eLearning Blender

JULY 6, 2009

Dr. Tony Karrer strikes again with more improvements to the eLearning Learning site. I've mentioned in previous posts how useful the eLearning Learning site is as a research tool and it just got better with a few nice upgrades. Best of - I used to subscribe to the "Full" RSS feed for eLearning Learning but that can be difficult to keep up with. Now there is an RSS option for the " Best Of " feeds which according to to Tony, "consists of feeds that are limited in number and point to the content t

eLearning 44

eLearning Upgrade Learning eLearning Tools 44

eLearning Blender

JULY 1, 2009

An assignment for my "Tech for Teaching" class at SDSU requires us to follow Ed Tech related blogs on our reader than write up a summary of what we learned from reading these posts and how these lessons apply to our professional goals. This is the first of 4 Personal Learning Network reports on some lessons I have learned lately through blogs I follow in Google Reader.

Personal Learning 40

Personal Learning Personal Personalization Network 40

eLearning Blender

JUNE 21, 2009

I reluctantly jumped on the Twitter bandwagon about 3 weeks ago and while I am experiencing a little information overload, it has been fantastic. I was reluctant to start using Twitter because of the amount of information I am already consuming through Google Reader and on LinkedIn. Although I am already taking in a lot of information I was looking for a better format for discussing this information with other corporate training professionals.

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Social Networks Scanning Twitter Information Overload 40

eLearning Blender

JUNE 9, 2009

We all love multiple choice, true/false, matching or any kind of quiz questions that can be graded automatically by an LMS. We also know that these types of questions are not very effective but we keep on using them because they are easy to come up with and don't require manual grading. This leaves us with the dilemma of cutting corners and using auto graded questions or sucking it up and putting in the hard work to manually grade essay questions and assignments submitted to the LMS.

eLearning 40

eLearning Moodle LMS Quiz 40

eLearning Blender

JUNE 1, 2009

Okay fine, I'll check out Twitter and see what everyone is talking about! Until now I have held out from jumping on the Twitter bandwagon because of the overwhelming amount of information I am already taking in through Facebook , LinkedIn , Blogging and my RSS feeds in Google Reader. However, it is all of these resources that are encouraging me to start using Twitter.

Social Networks 47

Social Networks Social Network Corporate eLearning Twitter 47

eLearning Blender

MAY 23, 2009

You've got the cool new informal or social learning tool up and ready to go now you're ready for the masses to arrive and start using it. Then comes the harsh reality that it is hard work promoting the use of informal or social media tools within an organization. Not everyone is as quick to jump on the bandwagon as many tech savvy instructional designers are.

Social Learning 40

Social Learning Wiki Social Social Networks 40

eLearning Blender

MAY 14, 2009

I ran into a strange problem using an html file produced in Camtasia by TechSmith and delivered through Moodle that must be common amongst Camtasia and Moodle users. Hopefully this post will prevent others from making the same easy mistake. I uploaded all of the necessary files produced by Camtasia to Moodle then created a link on the course site to the html file but received a strange error when opening the link.

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Moodle Dreamweaver HTML TechSmith 40