Cognitive Overload

Donald Clark on his Plan B Blog has a nice piece on cognitive overload entitled: "10 Ways to Keep Courses Short".  Clark's opinion is that most training is too long and contains more information than can possibly be absorbed by the learner.

Here's the link:  Donald Clark Plan B

One Stop Login for Google Apps

If you regularly use more than one or two Google Apps this site might be incredibly useful.  Basically it provides one-stop login to all of them. Google Docs, Blogger, GMail, Picassa, Google Reader, Tasks, Adsense, Maps, Sky...everything, they're all here.  Nice clean interface.

The site is called GPanion.  Here's the link:  http://gpanion.com/

Free Screencasting Tools

Screencasting software allows you to record what you do on your computer screen, including the pages you open, follows you mouse across the screen...anything.  For example, rather than place a static image of my organization's website in a self-paced training and adding arrows and numbers to highlight a series of sequential steps, I recorded in real time the steps it took to navigate from the Homepage through to the hard-to-find page I wanted to show the audience how to find.   

There are a number of tools available to accomplish this.  Two I've been using are Camstudio (I run the portable version off my jump drive), and Jing.  Both are free and fairly simple to use.  

Let me know how well they work for you, or if you are using another screencasting tool that you'd like to recommend.

Very Useful App

If you are designing presentations or anything else for that matter Pixie is a great little color picker app for PCs. If you see a color that you'd like to use in your design anywhere on your screen, simply scroll your mouse over it and Pixie will tell you the hex, RGB, HTML, CMYK and HSV values of that color.

Here Pixie is detailing the color values of my desktop color:

Pretty cool no?
Pixie

Cognitive Load and PowerPoint

A couple of articles that have really got me thinking about cognitive load theory and how it relates to using PowerPoint as a teaching tool.

The first article "Cognitive Load Theory" by David Lewis, provides an overview of cognitive load theory, of which he writes:

"[C]ognitive load theory proposes that since working memory is limited, learners may be bombarded by information and, if the complexity of their instructional materials is not properly managed, this will result in cognitive overload...later resulting in lower performance."

The second is an interview with educational psychology guru Richard E. Mayer titled: "The Cognitive Load of PowerPoint: Q&A with Richard E. Mayer". This is the best article on the use of PowerPoint in a training context that I've encountered.

Typefaces Give Us Signals

A fun, engaging, and informative video about typefaces.

Typefaces Give Us Signals

28 Web Conference Training Tips

Another excellent and informative offering from the eLearning Weekly. Here is the link: 28 Tips

Here are a couple as a teaser:

2. When developing PowerPoint slides to use in web conference training follow these guidelines:

a. Simplify content.
b. Use a large, bold, simple font like Arial.
c. Have no more than 6 to 8 lines of text per page (fewer are better).
d. Make no more than 4 to 5 training points per page (fewer are better).
e. Use plain backgrounds that contrast well with the text without clashing.
f. If possible, avoid complex animations (i.e. no spinning text, etc.).

15. If appropriate, check time zones before scheduling the web conference. You’d be amazed how often even experienced trainers forget to do this.and end up opening a conference at the wrong time.

16. Related to item 15, check in advance to make sure that dates and times appear correctly in all meeting listings and notification messages. Confirm that the dates and times you define are communicated consistently to all participants.

Here is the link again: 28 Tips
Here is the general link to eLearning Weekly