TCS Instructional Design

Alright team, let's break some new ground with this blog post. I am sure you guys know by now that I am all about using the tools and software that we have to be the best designers ever. One of the richest resources that we have at our disposal is also perhaps the most under-utilized: Photoshop CS4. This is the most elite image editing software on the market right now and costs somewhere around a thousand dollars per license (of course we get it through the eLearners Suite—lucky us!!) Anyway, I thought that I would throw together a demonstration so that you guys can at least get some exposure the world that is Photoshop. In a past life, I was something of a Photoshop guru of sorts. I have forgotten a great deal, but still know a little. In this video I will demonstrate how to create reflections of images. Reflections are a big deal right now in print advertising and web design, and much of it is done very poorly. But in reality good reflections can actually be pretty simpl

This one will be short and sweet. I write this post intentionally on the eve of our unveiling of the new TCS websites (next week, yea!). First of all, I want to credit Mark for passing along some javascript code about three months ago. <BR COMMENT="Required Element"><BR COMMENT="Required Element"> <SCRIPT language=JavaScript> document.location.href="http://www.YOURURL.html"; </SCRIPT> If this page does not change within a few seconds, please click <A href="http://www.YOURURL.html" target="_self">here</A> Of course, you would change YOURURL.html with the link to the page where you want the student directed. That code as written will show your url within the window in eCollege. Quick note, if you want the target page to open up in a new window (instead of within the eCollege frame), change target="_self" to target="_blank". If you want it to open in the same browser wi

For those of you who are interested in exporting Captivate 5 SWFs for use in Articulate Presenter, there is an interesting dilemma preventing us from importing Flash Movies. We will address a workaround for the dilemma in this blog post. My hope is that this issue will become irrelevant as Articulate upgrades their standards, but for the moment it seems as though Articulate only recognizes Flash Movies written in ActionScript 2. The current design standard is ActionScript 3. ActionScript is essentially the code used to define the various flash components in the SWF. It was originally developed by Macromedia, but now Adobe owns it. For those of you who are still using Captivate 4, the solution is actually fairly simple. When you publish your SWF file in Captivate, make sure that the settings are set to publish using AS2 (ActionScript 2). To import it, simply click on Flash Movie (in the Insert group of the Articulate ribbon) and locate your SWF file. The Captivate 5 users wil

Okay team, by now you should have an idea of the functionality of html. Html is code that allows you to write in a language that web browsers can read. You use the html tags to define certain elements on the page such as: <h1>This is a heading</h1> <p>This is a paragraph.</p> But there is a main problem with using html. It is not useful for defining large quantities of elements on a page. A very relevant example is that some designer prefer the font in eCollege to be size 3. In order to do this, you highlight everything and select "3" from the font dropdox in the visual editor. The result is a whole lot of <font> tags throughout the page. But what if you could say once and for all "I want all the font to be size 3 unless I specify otherwise (and quit making my code all cluttery!!!)". Come to think of it, who is it that decided the "default font size anyway?? The font, it turns out, is defined either by 1. the browse

Hey -- check out this article from from Inside Higher Ed called The Thinking LMS (this is the same site Gia pointed us to for the Blackboard/eCollege comparison ). Basically, the University of Phoenix wants to build an LMS that will automatically present course content in the modality that best suits each learner... kind of like how Amazon, Netflix and iTunes can predict what we like to read, watch and listen to. That's a pretty provocative idea, given our current model of "the course is the course" which basically hopes that one size does fit all. How many of us have had a conversation with a TCS SME about building in some flexibility for different students' learning preferences? While the idea of "learning style" has become pretty cliché in our field by now, there's of course a lot of truth to it, and I'd encourage us to bring up the idea with our more engaged SMEs... even if it's just to gauge their understanding of the concept and h

I honestly thought that I had written a blog already that covered html lists, but apparently not. I know that I have shown a couple of you some tips and tricks, but now I will formally get this written for you guys. Essentially there are two types of lists that a web browser reads. They are: ordered <ol> and unordered <ul>. You would use an ordered list if the items are sequential (1,2,3, ... A,B,C ... i, ii, iii). Unordered lists are bullet points. Here are some examples of ordered and unordered lists: How to make toast: Why online learning is good: Put bread in toaster Turn toaster on Wait for bread to toast Remove toast when done butter toast and put junk on it Allows for asynchronous discussion Prevents academic loafing Utilized interactivity and technology Provides scheduling flexibility

Hey all, I figure that I would expose you guys to the basics of creating tables in html. There are many ways to do this. The wysiwyg way of constructing a table would be to use the built-in eCollege table wizard, or to build a table in in MS Office or Dreamweaver. These methods offer limited customization, as is the nature of visual editors. In order to really customize every aspect of the table, you must have a working knowledge of the html used to create the table. The basic elements of a table are as follows: <table border="1"> <tr> <td>row 1, cell 1</td> <td>row 1, cell 2</td> </tr> <tr> <td>row 2, cell 1</td> <td>row 2, cell 2</td> </tr> </table> This is what the code for a basic table with a border looks like. And this is what that table would look like: row 1, cell 1 row 1, cell 2 row 2, cell 1 row 2, cell 2 The elements include table rows <tr> and table

A couple of things came to mind during some recent SME conversations that I want to share. You may be already doing these things, but I think it helps to put them down here for all of us to think about and discuss... Given our mandate from Nancy Davis to consult to our SMEs on pedagogical issues related to learning outcomes, FOs, etc., it's likely that we'll run into SMEs who are not used to spelling out their instructional rationales and strategies as specifically as we're asking them to, even if they are at some level "good teachers." I try to motivate them by noting that the coursemap is now viewed as much of a ‘document of record’ as the Prospectus and Syllabus are – so it needs to show the rigor and clarity of outcomes of a 'premier' e-learning experience. And if a SME's LO/FO/assignment connections aren't as Bloom-worthy as they need to be, let's communicate to him or her that "my job is to help your expertise shine through"

So I'm sure you've seen the recent emails about the upcoming CAE "Storytelling in Psychology" event given by Dr. Sandy Siegel. Sandy is one of our best SMEs (she’s in the MACC program) and she is a force in the classroom because of her storytelling skills. I think instructors’ personal/professional stories and vignettes have a lot of power to give a course relevance and heart, especially in a blended or online format with limited or no F2F interaction, and so I’ve been thinking about getting Sandy to audiorecord some brief stories for the courses she SMEs, either as an introductory “tone-setter” or as a springboard for a ‘what would you do?’-type assignment. Thing is, SMEs are rarely the sole instructors on their courses, and I’m thinking that whoever the other section instructors are may not want someone else’s voice (or video) built in, as for that term it is “their” course, not the SME’s. (In a past corporate job of mine we created situation-specific ‘Expert Vi

I just figured out how to do a neat thing in eCollege. First of all, the setting is that my SME was referring students to an external page (via a simple hyperlink) in order for them to listen to a podcast so as to complete the assignment. One problem (of many) was that the actual podcast was at the bottom of a very cluttered and disorganized page. So I downloaded the podcast and cleaned it up in Audacity (there was an ad at the very beginning), then I uploaded the mp3 in the course. I could have just linked students to the content within the course, which would have allowed them to download it, but I wanted to find a way for students to actually listen to it on the spot. This audio was actually in a discussion forum, so students listen to the podcast, respond, and then post replies to classmates. Now I will walk you through how I managed to embed the player. First of all, I assume that you know how to upload content into the course. Create a hyperlink to the content (Author >

Hey team, First things first, I am transforming that dummy course that we used during my demo into an instructional design showcase. I am going to go in and edit the course metadata, but for now you can find it at: CID400 Dummy course (4562905)(Admin Access) - .NExT Course I deleted our demo projects and uploaded some showcase interactions. What I am trying to build is a resource center that we can use to nudge our SMEs into the realm of interactivity. Of course content is always king, but what we used to call "bells and whistles" are very quickly going to become standard procedure. The millennium generation is going to introduce a new wave of matriculates that are going to pretty much demand a hands-on, flash laden, almost visceral experience from tomorrow's elearning courses. And we have the tools to deliver. I want to point you guys toward the Articulate Engage community board. This is where creative developers from the online community can post home-grown i

A very interesting article about trends in Online Media. I think this is important as we look to add video to our courses. http://mashable.com/2010/09/28/gawker-video/

I wanted to introduce the team to some online software that might help you with your SME meetings. It a web-based Adobe program called acrobat.com. It is not associated with Adobe acrobat, the PDFviewing software. But the website is literally: https://acrobat.com/ There are two functions to this program. One is a file sharing service where you can edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations online and in real time. I tend to prefer google docs for this function. The second function is incredibly valuable. It is a virtual meeting space. If you sign up with a free adobe account, then they give you your own meeting space and custom url . The great thing is that SMEs do not need to sign up for an adobe account in order to enter the meeting. You email them your custom url and they enter from their browser and have the option of logging on as a guest. Here are some screen shots to show you the meeting space. This is the file sharing portion of acrobat.com. Again, it h

Hi again, So the first thing that I am sharing here is a button set that Mark uses in his courses. These buttons are currently found on the shared drive, but additionally I uploaded them onto a photo sharing site (picasa). I created a document with the image code and will walk you through inserting the buttons/icons into the course and week headers. The google doc with the code is found on the shared drive: Z:\Icons & Logos\buttons\img style.doc. Click on the images below to enlarge them Here is the main screen. What we would like to do is put an icon by Week 1. Make sure you are in the Author window and in the HTML editor. Find the icon that you would like to include and copy the code associated with it (underneath the icon) Paste the code into the html where you would like the icon. Normally this will be in the header. Put the img code between the brackets (it could also be depending on the header style). If done right, The image will appear beside the header.

Hey all, I thought that I would set something up for us in the way of a platform where we can collaborate and share ideas. Kassel told us before he left that the worst thing that could happen to us is that we lose our value by becoming merely data entry people. There is more to this job than merely cutting and pasting, and we should be creating value for ourselves and for the team by searching out new ways to make the curriculum interesting to the students and effective while flexing our creative muscles. My thought for this blog is that we can form a community among the CID department that will allow us to share ideas and processes with our teammates. As many of us work fully remotely, collaboration is difficult. This blog will allow us to share best practices and give/receive useful suggestions. So feel free to post on this blog. I invited each of you to be authors (via your work emails). Whenever you post, make sure to use the labels. Put your name as a label, as well as