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3 More Tasks to Teach Yourself to Teach with Technology

Người đăng: TuyenCvie Nhãn: , , ,

At the end of 2010 I published the first 5 tasks in a series to help teacher learn how to use technology with their students. Now I would like to add 3 more tasks to that collection. The first few tasks are all quite simple to lay the ground work and get teachers started. As the series progresses I hope to get on to more adventurous tasks. Please feel free to use these tasks yourself or to share or use them for teacher training.

Task 6: Creating a video review activity
In this task you’ll learn how to create a film trailer review activity using film trailers from YouTube and an online notice board called Wallwisher. Here’s an example to look at before you start: http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/nikstrailers

Wallwisher is a really useful tool for giving students a semi restricted choice of online videos or links to other resources from around the Internet.


Task 7: Creating screenshots using Jing
Jing is a really useful free tool that allows you to create and annotate images grabbed from the screen of your computer.
This can be really useful for creating instruction sheets like the ones used in this series and helps you to grab images to add into websites or other documents.

Task 8: Create your own YouTube channel
Video has become one of the most useful resources on the Internet for language teachers. There are a great many video sharing websites on the Internet, but YouTube is by far the biggest.
In this task you will create your own YouTube channel. It’s very useful to have your own channel even if you never create your own videos. It enable you to subscribe to other channels, share videos with groups of your students and even annotate and add subtitles to videos. We’ll be doing all those things in future tasks, but in this task you will create your channel and subscribe to some other useful channels.
I hope you find these tasks useful and I hope that you'll soon find some more here.

Related links:
Best

Nik Peachey



21:14 | 0 Comments

Examples of eLearning–Ten Great Resources

Người đăng: TuyenCvie

I was just asked for some examples of eLearning.  I had collected up eLearning Examples a couple years ago, but thought it was worth going back to look for more.  The following are some very good lists of widely varying examples of eLearning.

  1. Elearning samples
  2. eLearning Examples
  3. Examples of E-Learning
  4. Where are Examples of eLearning? Lots Right Here!
  5. Two examples of elearning
  6. Elearning example: Branching scenario
  7. eLearning Examples
  8. 100+ Free Websites to Find out About Anything & Everything
  9. 100+ places to learn a language online
  10. 100+ free sites for learning about business

The last three provide a glimpse into the great variation that exists to learn and get help on particular topics.  While a lot of people think of eLearning as being a course, notice how few of the resources in those last three are actual online courses.  Instead, most examples of eLearning actually fall outside of that realm.





22:57 | 0 Comments

5 Tasks to Teach Yourself to Teach with Technology

Người đăng: TuyenCvie Nhãn: , , , ,

Some months ago I had a plan to write a book of tasks to get teachers using technology. As with so many of my plans and ideas, time and circumstances over took me and I never got further than the first 15 tasks. When I went back to do some more I noticed that I was taking so long doing these that some had gone out of date, so to try to get some use from the tasks I've decided to revise them and start publishing them here so anyone can download them and use them either to do teacher training or to develop their own ability to use technology.

So here are the first five. If they are popular I'll publish the next 5 for new year, so they can be my new years resolution and yours.

Task 1: Create your learning journal
So here goes. The first task is based around Penzu and you can download the task or read it on Scribd. In this task you'll create an online journal that you can use to reflect on the other tasks you'll be doing, so you should do this one first.


Task 2: Create online storage for your teaching images
In this task you will create a Flickr photo sharing channel. You'll need to do this to enable you to best do some of the later tasks as they come up, but having your own store of images online that you can use for various teaching purposes is always really handy.
Task 3: Create an online speaking activity
In this task you'll learn how to create an online speaking activity using VoiceThread. So if you have never done that before try the task and see how your students like the activity you create.
Task 4: Create a blog with a video activity for your students
In this task you'll create a simple blog and use it to make a video based activity for your students. Many of you may already have your own blog, but it's a good idea to have a separate one that you can use to experiment with and create activities for students. Once you have created the blog you'll be using it for other tasks as you work through them.
Task 5: Create digital books with illustrations
In this task you will create a digital image book based around a short text. Once you have created the book you will embed it into the blog you created in the previous task.
If you manage to do any of the tasks please do leave a comment and tell me how they went and if the response is good I'll try to put 5 more tasks on the site early in the new year.

So, if you celebrate Xmas please take these as my gift and if you don't celebrate it, you will have more time to do the tasks.

Best wishes for 2011.

Related links:
Best

Nik Peachey



02:40 | 0 Comments

Seven Things I Learned This Year

Người đăng: TuyenCvie

Over the past few years, I spend part of December going back through my blog to recap a bit of what some of the key things I’ve learned over the course of the year.  I’ve been doing this the past few years, for example: Learned about Learning in 2009.  And every year I use this as a Big Question – see: Learning 2010.  A lot of it is thinking through where my thinking has changed over the course of the year.  So here are a few of the things that are a bit different for me.

1. Twitter is Much Better than I Thought for Learning

I used to say during presentations that I wasn’t quite sure about twitter as a learning tool.  During 2010, I’ve been ramping up my use of twitter as a learning tool.  I’ve had to find ways to filter the flow and figure out when/how to reach out.  It was definitely helpful to spend time going through Twitter for Learning – 55 Great Articles.

2. Learning Coach Model Very Powerful

In 2010, I had a great experience where Dr. Joel Harband wrote a series of articles for my blog on Text-to-Speech in eLearning.   Here’s the series:

But what I learned from this was that it was a fantastic way to learn about a topic where I was interested but didn’t have the time to spend researching it.  Instead, Joel would write it up.  I’d ask questions and edit it.

It provided high value for me and hopefully value for people reading it.

I’m looking forward to doing more of this going forward.  Please let me know if you want to be a Learning Coach for me on another topic.

3. iPad (and iPhone) are Much More Useful Than I Expected

I didn’t actually think that I would care about the iPad except as a tool for training and performance support in environments like retail and restaurants where it’s always been an issue having access to machines.  However, now that I have an iPad myself, I’ve found myself sitting on the couch with it a LOT.  And slowly it’s got me to try more applications and then those applications expand off to my iPhone.

It’s an amazing device and no surprise it was one of the breakout topics on eLearning Learning this year.

4. LMS and Learning Tracking Still Struggling

While LMS solutions continue to get better, more powerful, more diverse, I continue to find myself searching for just the right solution for particular needs.  For example my search for an LMS Solution for Simple Partner Compliance Training didn’t really arrive at just the right solution.  I was also struggling for clients who needed very simple learning tracking but with some customizations.  Marketplace LMS solutions don’t quite fit.  Neither do more complex solutions.

And a big part of the problem is just how many there are and how fast they change.

5. Aggregation and Social Filtering Provide High Value

eLearning Learning has somewhat become my singular source of great eLearning content.  I use it to filter and find all the best content on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.  And it’s going to become much better in the new year as it moves over to the next generation platform.  I was really glad to see it grow to become one of the Top eLearning Sites.  And the system itself is growing with sites like Social Media Informer. 

6. Open Content Potential But There are Challenges

This year I spent quite a bit of time looking at where and how open content could get leveraged in different ways.  I’m still struggling a little bit with it, but I know there’s going to be a lot going on around it.  See Failure of Creative Commons Licenses and Creative Commons Use in For-Profit Company eLearning? for more on this.

7. Flash may Die and HTML 5 is Going to be Big

2010 opened my eyes are Flash and HTML 5.  I really think that 2010 marks the Beginning of Long Slow Death of Flash.  This, of course, means some really big changes for authoring tools in the industry.

Top Topics and Posts

As part of this exercise, I went back to look at my top posts and hottest topics for the year via eLearning Learning.  What I wrote more about in 2010 than past years:

And here were my top posts based on social signals.

  1. Twitter for Learning – 55 Great Articles
  2. Wikis and Learning – 60 Resources
  3. Teaching Online Courses – 60 Great Resources
  4. Top 10 eLearning Predictions for 2010
  5. Top 35 Articles on eLearning Strategy
  6. Open Source eLearning Tools
  7. 19 Tips for Effective Online Conferences
  8. Effective Web Conferences – 41 Resources
  9. Augmented Reality for Learning
  10. eLearning Conferences 2011
  11. Creative Commons Use in For-Profit Company eLearning?
  12. Top eLearning Sites?
  13. Social Learning Tools Should Not be Separate from Enterprise 2.0
  14. Social Media for Knowledge Workers
  15. Low-Cost Test and Quiz Tool Comparison
  16. Using Text-to-Speech in an eLearning Course
  17. Text-to-Speech Overview and NLP Quality
  18. SharePoint Social Learning Experience
  19. Beginning of Long Slow Death of Flash
  20. Text-to-Speech vs Human Narration for eLearning
  21. eLearning Innovation 2010 – Top 30
  22. Future of Virtual 3D Environments for Learning
  23. Failure of Creative Commons Licenses
  24. Text-to-Speech eLearning Tools - Integrated Products
  25. Success Formula for Discussion Forums in Financial Services
  26. Ning Alternatives that Require Little to No Work?
  27. Performance Support in 2015
  28. What Makes an LMS Easy to Use?
  29. Selling Social Learning – Be a Jack
  30. Evaluating Knowledge Workers
  31. Learning Flash
  32. LMS Solution for Simple Partner Compliance Training
  33. Filtering, Crowdsourcing and Information Overload
  34. Best Lecture
  35. Text-to-Speech Examples
  36. Sales eLearning – 21 Great Resources
  37. Simulations Games Social and Trends
  38. SharePoint Templates for Academic Departments
  39. Virtual Presentation – Ten eLearning Predictions for 2010
  40. Information Filtering




01:21 | 0 Comments

Best Lecture

Người đăng: TuyenCvie

I just read George Siemens post Will online lectures destroy universities?  He makes the point that despite articles like Why free online lectures will destroy universities – unless they get their act together fast:

Statements like “universities are obsolete” or “universities are dying” are comical. And untrue. Universities are continuing to grow in enrolment and general influence in society. Calling universities obsolete while we are early on in the so-called knowledge economy is like declaring factories obsolete in the 18th century just as the industrial revolution was taking hold. Utter nonsense.

While George does talk about challenges in education, I think he misses part of the point of the article.  And this is something that I’ve been thinking (and writing – see Physics Lectures) about for a long time.  Here’s the point:

  • It’s incredibly easy to capture and distribute lectures.
  • Rather than getting a lecture from whoever is teaching your course locally, wouldn’t it be better to get a world-class lecture.

As the article points out:

At the same time, millions of learners around the world are watching world-class lectures online about every subject imaginable, from fractional reserve banking to moral philosophy to pharmacology, supplied by Harvard, MIT, and The Open University.

Have you seen Planet Earth or watched a Professor Lewin physics presentation?  There’s basically no way to compete with those sources.  And wouldn’t it be better to get the best available lecture with local discussion, studying, testing, etc.?

I’m not quite sure that I buy the article’s contention that:

The simple fact is that university lectures never worked that well in the first place – it’s just that for centuries, we didn’t have any better option for transmitting information. In fact, the success of top universities, both now and historically, is in spite of lectures, not because of it.

Maybe that’s because I’ve learned a lot in schools that way.  But even if you keep lectures, but you open up everyone to the Best Lecture available on a given topic … The implications here for education are profound. 

Best Lectures in Corporate Training

I also believe the implications here are profound for corporate training.  We can continue to hide behind the myth that our content is special and different.  Some of the time, that’s quite true.  But there’s a lot of content (leadership, management, safety, etc.) that really should not be replicated by every organization.

Instead, we should be looking for the Best Lecture and work our specifics around that.  Of course, that’s sometimes made harder because despite the Open Content movement in education, there’s less of a movement in corporate learning (and some barriers: Open Content in Workplace Learning?, Creative Commons Use in For-Profit Company eLearning?).

What’s also interesting about this situation is that there are similar barriers from the content creators standpoint.  In the Business of Learning, I talk about the challenges as a content creator and how the business models might work.  And every day, I’m talking with people who have great content and could be creating the Best Lecture on a topic.  And while they can easily capture it, getting it distributed in a way that pays is difficult.  Instead, they need to package it into a unit that is self-contained.  They need something similar to an LMS or a course that runs in a corporate LMS.  But it certainly won’t look like a Best Lecture model with corporate eLearning professionals being able to act like local discussion, studying, testing.

I’m not sure what any of this will look like in education or in corporate training – but I am sure it will be quite different in 20 years from how we do it today.





23:29 | 0 Comments

So Ask Me a Question

Người đăng: TuyenCvie Nhãn: , , , , ,

I recently spotted this very interesting site called Vyou.com which exploits video to create asynchronous conversations. I find it interesting because of the simple way it creates presence. As you can see below, it looks like the person (me in this case) is waiting ready for your question.

All visitors need to do is type a question into the text line below the video and the creator will get a message with the question and post a reply. You can try it if you wish by posting a question to me. I'm not sure yet how long it will take for me to answer though.



This is very quick and easy to set up. You just go to the site and register for free, then once your registration is validated you record two short video clips. One is the one you can see above and another for unanswered questions. As questions are answered they appear below the 'waiting' video.

It's also a bit like Twitter in that you can 'follow' people and build up a group of followers. These people all receive notification of any video responses posted.

I'm trying this out because I think it's a great way of getting students to speak to each other and ask you or each other questions. All you need is a webcam and a microphone.

How to use this with students

  • You could set up your own grammar or vocabulary answers site and students could send you questions.
  • You could get students to ask each other questions about a story.
  • You could play animal, mineral or vegetable and each students has to ask question to see what you are thinking about.
  • You could just get students asking and answering questions about their likes and dislikes etc.
  • I think this would work particularly well for class exchanges with students from other classes or countries.

What I like about it
  • It's free and very quick and simple to set up.
  • There's a real feeling of presence and that someone is there waiting for your question.
  • I can generate some real spoken interaction.
  • It's a very simple idea made very effective.
  • You can embed the video chat into your blog or site.

What I'm not so sure about
  • Of course something like this is very much open to abuse, especially as it allows anonymous questions to be posted.
  • The widget which I've embedded into my post is a bit big and it would be nice to have smaller sizes.
  • A lot of the example conversations that have been created on the site are a bit adult in nature and certainly inappropriate for younger learners, so if you use it, be sure to use it with adults and embed it into a blog or site so that your students don't wander round the site.
  • WebCams aren't generally very flattering, especially in a bad light, but you can always wear a big hat or dark glasses.
If you do give this a try, please do follow me and I'll reciprocate, as I'd like to find out a bit more about how this will work in practice. You can visit my profile on the site at: http://vyou.com/nikpeachey . There you will be able to see a better view of the full size widget.

I hope you find this interesting.

Related links:
Best

Nik Peachey



01:52 | 0 Comments

Text-to-Speech Costs – Licensing and Pricing

Người đăng: TuyenCvie

This post is part of the series on Text-to-Speech (TTS) for eLearning written by Dr. Joel Harband and edited by me. The other posts are:

In this post, we will look more closely at costs of Text-to-Speech and issues around TTS Voice Licensing and Pricing.  The subject of TTS voice licensing and pricing is important because it helps e-learning practitioners understand which TTS tools they are legally allowed to use for their specific applications as well as letting them estimate the costs and pricing models of using these TTS tools.

Voice Talent Rates and Implications on TTS Licensing and Pricing

When the TTS voice manufacturers looked for a pricing model for their product, they naturally looked at the model used by real voice talents, including the rates and the types of usage.

Here are some examples of rates of voice talents suited for e-learning (voice talents for advertising can be a lot more). The rates are given in $ per hour of recorded sound.

Site

Rate per hour

www.e-learningvoices.com/price-per-minute.php

$1200

www.voices.com

$800-$1200

www.voice123.com

$1800 (median)

www.narratorfiles.com

$650

The average for this type of voice talent is about $1200/hour.

In addition, voice talents and voice producers tend to charge depending on the purpose of the recording and size of the intended audience of the recording. If the recording is going to be heard by many people and helps the customer make a lot of money, the voice talents expect to get more money than if the recording has a very limited use. The rates will be different for local, regional or national broadcasts. For example: a 30 second recording for a TV commercial broadcast all over the US may cost several times more than a five minute recording for a local documentary (voice123.com).

The TTS vendors learned two things from the voice-talent pricing model:

  • The price level – Because of their perceived lower voice quality, TTS voices need to be priced much lower than their real counterparts to be an attractive alternative
  • The TTS voice price need to be fixed according to the value of its use to the customer.

Based on the second criterion, the TTS vendors work with the following two general usage categories:

  • Personal Use - reading books, making sound files for personal use, etc. This is a low value usage.
  • Audio Distribution – a sound file that was created with the voice is distributed and played to an audience. This usage has a higher value.

Audio Distribution

Audio distribution, which is similar to broadcasting a voice talent recording, is considered to be a usage that is more valuable to the customer. Within audio distribution the following categories exist. They are listed according to increasing value to the customer:

  • Internal audio distribution - a company puts an audio training presentation with the TTS sound file on an internal server – intended for company employees only
  • Public audio distribution - a company puts an audio product presentation they made with the TTS sound file on a public web site – intended for a more general audience. Includes call centers.
  • Selling a TTS sound file for profit - a company sells an audio training presentation they made with the TTS sound file for profit

E-learning courses created by corporations are typically in the category of internal audio distribution – the course is put on the company server to be accessed by company employees.

TTS Voice Licenses

The TTS voice vendors enforce the intended usage of a voice by a voice license, which precisely describes the restrictions on the use of the voice. Strictly speaking, the vendors sell a license to use the voice software rather than selling the voice itself.

The following licenses are used:

Personal Use License – this license covers personal use of the TTS voice by the customer and expressly prohibits audio distribution - thus cannot be used for e-learning. Examples of products that use voices with personal license are: Natural Reader, TextAloud, Read the Words, and Spoken Text.

Personal licenses are sold for a low fixed price. In general, a price less than $50 indicates a personal license.

Audio Distribution License (ADL) – This is the license that permits audio distribution and is the type of license required for e-learning in business and education. The voice vendors have fixed the rate for an ADL license to be around 1/3 – 2/3 of the price of the equivalent voice talent ($1200/hour), depending on the TTS voice quality. The basic TTS voices cost $360/hour of recorded time and for the best TTS voices the rate can go up to $720/hour of recorded time.

The TTS voices with ADL are sold in three ways:

  • Fixed Price – this model allows a company to purchase any TTS voice with full audio distribution rights from a vendor without being tied to the specific authoring tools (e.g., Captivate) and its bundled voices. In talking to vendors (Neospeech), I was told that this model had been selected by some companies. Acapela also offers a model like this for unrestricted ADL.  The fixed price depends on the exact usage. A typical price for internal training courses is $2500, which represents about 7 hours of recorded time.
  • On-Demand - Voices can be purchased via on-demand web services or desktop products that accept text and generate sound files. They charge according to elapsed time of the generated file, at a rate of about $6/min ($360/hour).
  • From a Reseller – A company purchases voices from a reseller at a reduced price. The price is lower because the reseller has bought voices in volume. This is the case for Adobe Captivate and Tuval Software’s Speech-Over Professional where those companies resell the voices bundled with their products and the voice license terms are specified with the product. At present, the purchase price for these tools includes a fixed price for the voice license that does not depend on the elapsed time of the generated file.

Course developers generally are going to use bundled products, i.e., from a reseller.  In some cases, there will be use of other models.  





22:28 | 0 Comments

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