We’ve had some new instructional designers join Upside Learning recently. They come from varied backgrounds, with varying levels of experience and expertise in eLearning development. We don’t offer much in terms of training other than a bit of induction niceness. While they’ve been assigned to work on projects on one hand, they’re also required to hit the ground running when it comes to media design.
Yes, I’ve not been blogging as regularly as I might have liked to. I’ve been busy with projects – bread and butter.
We’ve always focused on instructional design being essential to the design of courseware. That’s certainly true, it’s the first step to make a learning solution instructionally sound. The next in line is to make it interesting, engaging, interactive. Too many solutions fail at that crucial stage. I’ve seen too many hours of what is commonly termed ‘shovelware’ that result from this failure.
“How To” is a procedure which is defined by someone in number of steps. The web is full of sites that share information and tutorials about “How To” design and develop characters. However it is also important to know the “Why” to designing a character. Knowing the answers to “Why” helps one take decisions about the design process.
The Tuts+ (pronounced tutsplus) education network which has tons of “How To” tutorials is now focusing on “Why” tutorials as well.
I’ve been continuing my research into user experience and interaction design. I stumbled on this really great presentation on SlideShare by Whitney Hess – 10 Most Common Misconceptions about User Experience Design. She makes points about user experience design that instructional designers could learn from. I’m taking the liberty to reproduce and rehash the points she raises from an eLearning perspective.
Over so often I get asked what fundamentals of game design apply to the design of learning games – a very difficult question to answer that. In my opinion, every sort of principle ever used in the design of commercial video games applies to the creation of digital learning games as well. My opinion is that game design can’t really be reduced to a set of guidelines that instructional designers can follow to design games that teach. I’d even go so far as to say that game design is more of a philosophy than anything else, once you imbibe that philosophy the gaminess starts to permeate all your design, it fundamentally changes the way you think about user interface and experience design.
We often create scenario based courses for the engineering industry. Because they are for engineers; we consider the best way to represent graphics and animations is to use 3D isometric views with orthographic projections.
Trained engineers and technicians find it easy to read this type of graphic [if rendered properly] as it has clear projections on all three axes. All the lines in this type of drawings are parallel to their respective axis; so there is no distortion in the drawing no matter what the size of surface it’s drawn on.
Interaction design is almost always a synthesis of traditional methods and approaches from varied established disciplines. When I write about interaction, most people reading it view it in the context of software or some form of digital technology.
“Interaction” isn’t only about technology or software. Industrial designers are taught to design ‘things’ that engage people and facilitate their relationships with those things.
Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, the chief guest at the CLO Summit India earlier this month, spoke that mistakes should be part of a learning organization’s culture. That resonated strongly with me. I have written about how we all learn more from mistakes. At Upside Learning do ask all our employees to not be afraid of making mistakes.
Yes, we believe it can.
Having fun is an experience that stays with you longer than any form of instruction. We advocate inclusion of games & fun interactions to achieve long term learning, and change of behaviors. Learning Games that pull learners to have fun (and learn while they have fun).
This video below from the fun theory , an initiative of Volkswagen, shows just how fun could be effective in getting people to consider changing their habits
Let’s use more fun activities in our learning courses as well.
As responses to a recent post where I listed five things not to do while selecting an LMS I received a couple of queries about using an Open Source LMS, customizing it to suit the requirements and if it is advisable to do so. There were also questions around the best approach to use an open source LMS and on how to estimate the amount of maintenance such might require on an ongoing basis. This post is for people exploring an open source LMS as an option either for a new LMS setup or for a switch-over.
More companies are looking to challenge Amazon Kindle’s hegemony in the eBook market. Sony has been in the fray for quite some time. Barnes and Noble made it clear several months ago that it too had designs on this market. Yesterday it released its dedicated eBook reader called the ‘Nook’ in New York city. The device has many features that distinguish it from the Kindle, including a color touch screen for control, and the use of the Google Android operating system.
Our HR team is getting really busy since a last few weeks. After being slow (well almost non-existent) for a couple of quarters, hiring is back on the agenda. And with a bang! New project wins have been quite impressive in the last couple of months and all indications are towards a stronger demand in coming quarters (hopefully years!). No wonder some of these requirements are URGENT! You know how it is after clients sign on the dotted line. They want everything as on yesterday. No worries – that’s anyways – what I call – “a good problem to deal with”.
