“We find what we are looking for in life—if you look for happiness, you will see it; if you look for distrust and envy and hatred—all those things—you will find those too.”
Alexander McCall Smith
Happy Friday! We’ve made it to Montana and are taking in the 3B’s of Glacier National Park – bears, big horn sheep and beautiful vistas. (I’d share pictures but they can not even come close to doing it justice.) Today we are on our way towards Big Sky, then onwards from there to Yellowstone and the Tetons. (Tonight’s Ted Lasso Season Two debut is also on the agenda!) Hope you get a chance for adventure even if it is just outside your front door.
Thanks for reading!
What I’m Listening to: This playlist by Mother Mother is courtesy of my daughter, who keeps me up-to-date with the “good” music as she tells me.
Last week’s most clicked item:
The Biggest Myth in Education-Learning Styles
Zoom Apps
This week Zoom announced Zoom Apps – 50 options for combining your favorite apps with Zoom. There are over 50 apps to start with on the way.
https://zoom.us/docs/en-us/zoom-apps.html
Accessible and Inclusive Design Conference 2021
Check out all the recordings and resources from this recent conference. Lots of great insights on accessiblity and inclusiveness.
https://www.thetldc.com/aidc21-recordings
What does it mean to be ‘evidence-informed’ in teaching?
Tom Sherrington takes a look at this question and a recent report from the Education Endowment Foundation on “Cognitive Science Approaches in the Classroom”. Even approaches with indicative evidence of promise like retrieval practice, spaced practice, and the use of worked examples are, as yet, only supported by a few studies that examine their impact in everyday classroom conditions—delivered by teachers over long periods of time.
https://teacherhead.com/2021/07/19/what-does-it-mean-to-be-evidence-informed-in-teaching/
Asynchronous Design Critique: Getting Feedback
Almost everyone faces this challenge: how to get valuable feedback. “Any comment?” is probably one of the worst ways to ask for feedback. It’s vague and open ended, and it doesn’t provide any indication of what we’re looking for. Getting good feedback starts earlier than we might expect: it starts with the request. Dig in to this article from A List Apart to learn more about how to get good feedback.
https://alistapart.com/article/asynchronous-design-critique-giving-feedback-part2/
Instructional Design & Self-Directed Learning
The Learning Science Weekly crew breaks down this study from last year that aimed to assess how instructional design factors related to independent online learning.. The key findings include: For independent online learning environments, instructional designers should consider incorporating inquiry questions, instructional guidance, and detailed feedback as effective ways to mitigate the need for immediate instructor support. Sign up for their newsletter while you’re there.
https://mailchi.mp/learningscienceweekly/driving-learner-engagement?e=d65a6ef5bf
Podcasts
- Deciem’s Wholistic Learning Strategy with Kristina Tsiriotakis on the Learning Uncut podcast
- Jobs to be done with Tony Ulwick on the Learning & Development podcast
- Social by Design with Mark Britz and James Tyer on the Mind Tools podcast
Tools & Tips
- Awesome Spreadsheet is “the best way to embed spreadsheet data in websites”.
- 10015 Toolbox is a collection of online tools from different categories such as text tools, image tools, coding tools, css tools and so on.
- PitchPages allows you to instantly build a beautiful and mobile-friendly investor pitch deck without any code or design expertise.
- Copy Pallette – Create your SVG palette and use it in Figma/Sketch by just using COPY and PASTE
- Happy Hues – Curated colors in context give you real world color inspiration.
Where You Can Find Me
- Kansas City ATD – August 17
- Nashville ATD – Using Technology for Training – September 16
- DevLearn October 20-22
- New Jersey ATD – Future of Work – November 10
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Mike Taylor 