In fact we’ve probably all done the activity where only the first and last letter of each word are correct and the ones in the middle are mixed up and we can still read it just fine. Try it out:

“Arocdnicg to rsceearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm. Tihs is buseace the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.” (source)

Dr Ken Smith believes that the most common variant spellings should just be accepted. Words such as:

• arguement for argument
• twelth for twelfth
• judgement for judgment
• truely for truly

Mr Smith also suggested adding the word “misspelt” to the list and all those that break the “i before e” rule – weird, seize, neighbour and foreign. Overall his suggestion is too simply add the most commonly “misspelt” words to the English language as accepted variants.

So, why do we care so much about spelling, grammar, and punctuation? Some programs now-a-days actually try and get us to abbreviate everything (Twitter and text messages for example). If a few misspellings don’t prevent the transfer of knowledge then maybe we shouldn’t worry about it so much. I love some of the emails and comments I get when I accidentally misspell a word in one of these blog posts. Most of the time the email tries to infer that if you misspell a word then you must be a rotten person

So what do you think…are a few typos ok? What about 10 years from now…will anyone care about spelling? Do younger generations care as much as their parents and grandparents? Is correct spelling really directly related to a person’s IQ?

More spelling articles:
Children and spelling
Common Mistakes
English Spelling is “truely atrosious”

Their free tool is called Forio Simulate and it lets you quickly build web-based business simulations. What is really neat is that you can build Excel spreadsheets with various equations and then use that in their tool. Add an interface to it and use the calculations in your simulation. They also have a bunch of pre-build actions that you can drag and drop. (Or just use another simulation that someone else built and then modify it.)

He showed me a simulation where a user owns a car rental store and can adjust their weekly and weekend pricing for multiple locations. It then automatically shows what that did to sales and how their market share changed in comparison to the competition.  It also built a balance sheet and income statement.

If you need to build any simulations where users need to crunch numbers, I’d take a look at Forio Simulate.

(They also have pre-built business simulations for operations, product launching, supply chain monitoring, business valuation, and more.)

Take a look at these Universal Symbols. (They are free to download and use.)

Have you ever wanted to have a library of pre-made Flash interactions and activities? Templates that look great and could be easily integrated with your eLearning authoring software? (i.e. Articulate, Captivate, Unison, Lectora, etc.) Do you also want the source files so you can edit anything that you’d like? Now you can! The eLearning Flash templates are easy to edit, look amazing, and provide the source files.

How to use the templates:
1. Purchase and download the Flash source files.
2. Open the Flash file and copy/paste your text into the movie clips. (or change anything…you have the source file and can edit every part of the interaction).
3. Publish the .swf file.
4. Insert the .swf file into your authoring tool.

When creating a course that will be in multiple languages you must plan upfront for the “room” that each language will need. Here is a great chart that gives some guidelines for text expansion/contraction.

(Thanks Globalization Group!)

Colors have different meanings across the world. Here is a great charts that helps us know what various colors mean in different cultures.
(Thanks Globalization Group!)

All too often we forget that eLearning can also have audio. Not just narration but also sound effects that emphasize and support the text/images/animations.

I met Sound80 for the first time the other day at a conference. They provided a great paper on “Best Practices in eLearning Audio“.

1. Keep it in focus
2. Sometimes silence really is golden
3. Make it real
4. Not all recordings are created equal
5. A picture is worth 1000 words.
6. Author!
7. Moving beyond narration
8. Money, Money, Money, MONEY!
9. Effective effects
10. Work with the best

Thanks to Sound80 for the information!

It’s typically not the tool that makes good eLearning, it’s the creativity and instructional design.

Here is a list of free software/tools:

• Audio/Video Capture and Editing
• Developing Tutorials
• Quizzes and Surveys
• LMS
• Image Capture and Editing

The other day I was on an airplane and watched the person next to me “read” a magazine. He basically flipped quickly through the pages and stopped occasionally on a pretty picture and usually started flipping again. At one point he stopped and seemed to read a bit.

When we create eLearning we should remember that people don’t read…they scan!  We all do it. We quickly scan a page to see if there is any information that interests us. Then if that passes our “interest” test we might actually read a sentence and possibly the entire paragraph. Do we develop our eLearning with this in mind? Do we think that people will read all of our text? (Here’s the secret…they won’t.)

Our training must look good and capture the attention of our “shallow” learners. If we do that they may start to pay attention and read.

Here some things to think about when making your eLearning look good:
1. Color – Choose colors that work together. Your marketing department may have some swatches you can use. Focus on branding.
2. Skin – Make your course skin look fresh and up-to-date.
3. Pictures – Create images that tell a story. They could even replace some of your text. Don’t just use image placeholders.
4. Less text – Users aren’t reading it anyway so thin out the text.
5. Consistency – Make everything look like it belongs together. (Standards)
5. Interactions – Break up your content and make it engaging.
6. Fonts – They can add some style to your course just don’t go crazy.

Additional Resources:
Articulate (Tom) did an article on why looks matter.
e Learning Templates that look great and are branded.
Fresh Articulate Skins.

DevCon has been a great conference in the past. It’s not the largest eLearning conference but it is very focused on development. It is small enough that you actually feel like you get to know people. (Plus it’s in our backyard and we can sleep at home every night.)

Visit us on the DevCon Community site.

Hope to see you there!