Flash Celebrates 10 Years!

Check out the presentation at Adobe, celebrating 10 years of Flash. Includes video clips from Jonathan Gay and a detailed product timeline.

Flash 10th Anniversary

Flash: Embedding Video in the Experience

I really like how they did this. The acting is lame, but the interface is tres cool. Talk about "embedding video in the experience".

http://www.adobe.com/products/studio/experience/

Cool E-Learning Info From Kineo

These guys have some interesting things to say. And Kevin Kruse (the e-Learning guru) loves them.

Check out the reports and guides.

Titles include: Learning Strategy Alignment and 50 Ideas for Free e-Learning.

Web Usability

A recent study by usability expert Jakob Nielsen about how people read (or rather scan) websites:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html

E-Learning Guild Content Authoring Research Report

Research report by the e-Learning Guild. Results of a survey from 2005. Provides interesting statistics about authoring tools and use within corporate training depts.

http://www.elearningguild.com/pdf/1/Oct05-contentauthor.pdf

e-Learning Success in Manufacturing

This article is kind of old (from 2002), but provides insight into the successes achieved by one manufacturing organization. It made me think of a proposed project we have with a major auto manufacturing firm.

http://www.elearningmag.com/ltimagazine/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=35287

TIPP Learning Styles

Last week, all of the instructors at the school where I teach had to take an online test to assess our learning styles. This was a new model for me, called TIPP (Traditional, Ideational, Playful, Personal). The idea is that as learners, all of us have elements of these styles when we learn, although some will be stronger than others.

I scored as Traditional Personal, with a visual preference.

Traditional = values safety and rules. This learner needs to be told what to do and how. "What are the instructions?" They ask and observe first, and then act.

Personal = values relationships. For this type of learner, it's all about personal connections. Personal learners relate first, and then act.

Playful = values experimentation. This learner creates his or her own rules. They act first, and then reflect.

Ideational = values theory and concepts. This learner creates his or her rules. This person thinks and then observes, but may never act.

These qualities are then balanced by the VKA -- visual, kinesthetic or auditory. Do you learn best by seeing, doing/touching, hearing?

The difficulty with taking any of these types of tests, is that if you have any idea where it's going, it can be very easy to skew the results.

The Daily Sucker

Learning how to design good web pages by looking at web pages that suck:

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/dailysucker/

A General Theory of Love

An article in National Geographic about the chemistry of love sparked a conversation with my friend Bob. He sent me a book, "A General Theory of Love." It's keeping me up late at night. Not because I'm trying to figure out the mysteries of love (although that would be nice, too) -- but because it turns out I'm extremely fascinated by the brain and how it works. The three authors, all practicing psychiatrists, blend a review of current neuroscience with poetry and anecdotes.

Tardy to the Party

I am extremely late to this party, but I am fascinated by the sociological implications of blogging: extreme community; loss of anonymity; anonymity; rampant voyeurism and exhibitionism; collaboration.There are a lot of much cooler people than me out there who have been blogging for a long time. They write in that casual, yet sardonically intellectual style that I can only hope to aspire to by writing such lines as "sardonically intellectual." I feel like a loser trying to infiltrate into the cool kids club.