Illumen is very happy to hear that the Technology Innovation Center has been selected by Forbes to be on their list of Top 10 Technology Incubators That Are Changing The World.
Illumen has worked with the Technology Innovation Center for many years on brand, marketing, and the full development of their website.
There are libraries of books defining the many types of learners. We can usually drill down to three categories which are: Auditory, Visual, Tactile.
Listening, Verbal or Auditory Learners connect more dots through listening. Audio descriptions, storytelling, sound effects, and audio cues are better comprehended. If you want to connect better with this type of learner, try using voice over or record a podcast. When using a spacial based learning environment, sound effects and environmental noises that relate to your topic can often help your user focus as it will immerse them in the content.
If you want to teach someone how to change a bicycle tire, record audio that gives a very detailed description of what they are in store for. Make sure you pace the audio appropriately and be specific between one step and the next. Using just audio to explain to someone how to change a bike tire may not sound like the best approach, but what if you created a phone number for people to call into if they are stranded on the road and can’t recall the steps. They might not have a device that can show images and in an emergency situation it might be the best option.
Seeing or Visual Learners learn through imagery. They make better connections between information and themselves through seeing. Examples include videos, animations, infographics, photos, charts, graphs, and even visually laid out text. There are many ways to better connect with your user such as making a video that shows a process or shows motion graphics that represent the information being presented. Draw out what is being explained or use images that represent each step or the details of a product or theory.
If you want to teach someone how to change a bicycle tire, play a video showing all the steps. Show close up images of the tools and display text for key steps along the way.
Touching, Tactile and Kinesthetic Learners learn through interaction or by doing. The hands-on style of learning often allows for mistakes and changes to variables which express the cause and effect of the subject at hand. To connect with a tactile learner, create an interactive experience. Let the user make choices or interactively explore.
If you want to teach someone how to change a bicycle tire, give them a virtual tire to change and allow them to click the proper tools, click and drag the tire and flat tube off the rim in the proper order. You can even make a learning game by timing them and scoring them.
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Illumen recently completed three augmented reality (AR) projects for a leading orthopaedic company. These augmented reality projects were a marketing and education tool focused on giving a virtual hands-on showcase of their medical implants at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) 2010 conference. Augmented reality creates a live real-time view of a virtual object overlaid upon a real environment. By simply holding a card with a specific pattern, a product can be placed on top of it. Product animations and video can add to the experience by providing additional detailed information. This gives anyone a feeling of having a product placed in their hands, without it actually being there. They can move it around and explore it.
To use augmented reality, all you need is a web cam and a card that can be printed on any paper from any printer. Hold the printed card up to the cam and wherever the small pattern on the card is seen, a 3D product can be placed. Rotate the pattern or move closer the cam and you will see your product rotate and zoom in real-time 3D.
Based on the angle of the card, for example, the product could animate into an exploded view or video can be played. Move the card towards your cam and see product details.
We will have samples available soon.
If we want to find the best direction for our eLearning course we must first know who is going to use it. We will call these people, or users, our audience. A single subject may be presented very differently depending on the audience that will use it. Once we know who the audience is, we can develop a course that relates information to their general interests and learning styles. By relating information, we can make a course more engaging, present content based on likely past experiences an audience has, and can look, feel, navigate, and deliver to a platform an audience enjoys using.
Your audiences may:
So who needs to know how to change a bike tire? Let’s see… we have people who have a flat tire and we have people who may have just bought a bike and want to be prepared for a future flat tire. We can break the people with a flat tire into two groups: those who have an emergency situation (a flat tire on the road) and those that don’t (a flat tire in, say the garage). We may have managers of bike stores who want new employees to use this course for training. Finally let’s not forget that we are an audience. We could be site administrators, people who need to edit content, or people who need analytical information.
Let’s dig deeper. Through research (website analytics, survey, and discussions with potential users) we find that most the potential users will not be very familiar with the parts of the bike or tools used. Most will want to change their tire while following along with the course, and most would rather watch a video. There are some that actually need to learn from their phones or a print-out, as they are stuck on the road with a flat tire and in a bit of an emergency. Without going into the details of what the project might be, it is safe to say we have a great starting point that is tailored towards the audience.
For learning to take place with any kind of efficiency students must be motivated. To be motivated, they must become interested. And they become interested when they are actively working on projects which they can relate to their values and goals in life. - Gus Tuberville, President, William Penn College
Oh, That’s Interesting:
Personas are fictitious characters who represent unique groups of users. Once personas are defined, we can define better usability and learning methods based on how we believe a given group will use a given course. We test the personas against our ideas and strategies to have a better understanding of the end user interaction. More info: Personas
Illumen is excited to once again sponsor the Chicago eLearning & Technology Showcase this year. It was a wonderful event last year full of great speakers covering such topics as the theories within eLearning, real world examples, and development processes. Registration will open in June.
Date: August 11, 2010, 8:30 am - 6:30 pm
Location: University Center, 525 S. State Street, Chicago, IL
From the Chicago eLearning & Technology Showcase website:
Celebrate the emergence of Chicago as a world-class center for elearning. Join hosts CISPI, CCASTD, and STC Chicago at the Chicago eLearning & Technology Showcase on August 11 for a cutting-edge exploration of new media and interactive elearning tools.
In 2008 and 2009, the Chicago eLearning & Technology Showcase earned the enthusiastic praise of attendees and presenters alike. This year, we are generating excitement again, as we celebrate the evolution of adult learning and performance.
The Showcase provides a full day of presentations with an emphasis on the role of new media and interactive methods in business and institutional training. Our speakers will explore all aspects of elearning—instructional design, development tools, media resources, virtual classrooms, social and interactive applications, mobile learning, rapid elearning, and more.
1. Be Your Student
Try viewing your course as your student would. Look at the user interface (design and navigation). Do you know what section you are in? Do you know how many sections there are? Do you know how to review previous content? Here is a big one — Does your student know their goals and objectives for the course or the section they are in? Do they know why they are even there? Look at the content. Is it too high level? Where are the basics? What questions does the content raise? Let the questions flow and try and answer them all.
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Tom Kuhlmann of The Rapid eLearning Blog had a great article on bringing a little life into an eLearning template. Check out the article (and the many other great articles) here.
Illumen had the pleasure of meeting with the famous usability and cognitive psychology expert, Don Norman. Very nice of him to stop by and chat with us. We talked about the user experience, discussed business a bit, and did a little brainstorming about a friend’s product and how to make a specific audience more receptive.
Don was a VP at Apple and started the Nielsen Norman Group with Jakob Nielsen (You designers know who that is). Brilliant guy. If you need some good holiday reading check out his many books. It was great of him to visit with us. Thanks Don.
What makes someone a professional? We could say time and experience but neither equates to the development of ability. We need to focus specifically on the skills someone needs to do a task or series of tasks well. Let’s break down the skills of a professional into their ability to manage situations, think critically, problem solve, and make decisions. How do they develop these skills in real life? Usually through trial and error and over a very long period of time. The more time, the more questions, issues, and interactions that occur. The more experience that is developed and the faster answers and solutions can be found to these questions and issues. We are always lucky when we find a good teacher or mentor along the way, but we live in a world that moves fast and with careers with high turn-over and new products that need constant training, we need ways to expedite the process and build rapid experience.
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