Long before AI, it was my teaching philosophy that a teacher’s goal is not only to implant knowledge into learners’ brains, but to help them develop their own second brain – AKA a digital database of their learning journey that they can take with them beyond the walls of my classroom and the limit...
I was lucky enough to grow up during the 1980s heyday of Choose Your Own Adventure stories, a low‐tech precursor to the electronic branching scenarios that are now common in modern eLearning, as well as the interactive fiction craze made possible by branching text editor Twine in the Int...
I tried to get into Apple's iPhone after years as a happy Android user, but even in 2022 there are significant areas where the Android UX is just better than the best that Apple can offer on iOS. This post outlines some of the observations I've made since switching from my iPhone 12 Pro to this year...
In my role as an instructional designer/ Learning Content Developer, a big part of the job is taking instructional materials that my subject matter experts (SMEs) have already created and transforming them into something that’s more attractive, instructionally effective, and optimized for online lea...
I’ve long been a believer that teachers should explore open source edtech tools as an alternative to all the free, freemium, ad‐supported, and privacy‐invading web applications that are marketed to us. In addition to all the great open source desktop applications, there are a lot of open alternati...
One of the most valuable tools for an instructional designer is a great screencasting app. Being able to record your desktop with voice narration frees us to share techniques on our computers in live motion video.
Many of us IDs have learned to depend on tools like Jing, Screenflow, Screenc...
Instructure Canvas is the new hotness in the LMS market, but for many it remains out of reach. For many schools who need an LMS on a shoestring budget, their best option is to contract for an open source Moodle install from a 3rd party hosting company. This is a common service available from many...
I have been researching open source user feedback tools, and I stumbled upon a very nice app called AllOurIdeas.org. The app takes a novel approach to user feedback, allowing your audience to choose between two suggested answers that you “pre‐seed” into the survey. This is great if you have alre...
You can think of BitTorrent Sync as “Dropbox without the Cloud”. Not to be confused with the underlying technology of BitTorrent, this is a way of keeping a folder and files sync’d across mul...
This video shows you how you can quickly convert a Markdown formatted presentation outline into an HTML5 presentation using Reveal.js. I think this method is a great way to familiarize yourself with web technologies while producing attractive and powerful presentations that work gr...