Life-saving eLearning now online

The folks at Thare Machi Education, a non-profit that makes life-saving eLearning available in dozens of the world's languages to bring health information to those who need it most, has just begun to transfer their DVD content online.
Check it out:  http://www.tme.org.uk

TME is a case in extreme accessibility since their users are illiterate, speak multiple languages, and have no computer

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Visual Storytelling

In Chapter 5 of my book, Interface Design for Learning, I look at the art of communicating visually and allude to the glorious cartoon - an art form that can convey worlds of meaning and emotion in the simplest of lines.  I have recently come across a number of web tools for creating visual narratives that I wanted to share - all of which can be used for free (some completely, some up to a point)

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Students' expectations of technology at university

According to research, 80% of students expect lectures to be recorded but only 50% actually access the recordings.  User expectations are important, but so are the stats on actual use.  Aside from expectations about anywhere/anytime access, a recent University of Sydney student focus group revealed that student painpoints to do with learning technology came back to basics:

ensuring the

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Big History

From the moving teasers to the gorgeous multimedia content within the course, the Big History Project has truly done something big for the learning of history.  It's not only massively open and free (as in MOOC) but for anyone who thought history was boring, Big History puts you in the big picture, drawing on the essence of what it is to be human, to be earthling, and to be life in the

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Learning Technology Research Fest

Who's up for a free and fun day of posters, roundtables, and silly prizes - all centered on cutting edge EdTech research? I know I am.  If you're in Sydney, don't miss out on the 2013 Sydney Learning Technology Research Fest, hosted annually by the Centre for Research on Computer Supported Learning and Cognition.  You can catch up with me at the poster session where I'll be answering questions

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Holograms - the future of Learning?

Why skip class for a 3D game when you could be missing out on holograms back in the lecture hall? Doctors Kapil Sugand and Pedro Campos of St. George's Hospital and Imperial College in London, developed a technique to project 4 meter tall holographic urinary tract systems, skulls and other biological artifacts direct into the classroom.  Their goal is to improve medical education through

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Sharon Oviatt Seminar: Future Educational Interfaces

Photo Credit: Anoto AB, Flickr 

Can we learn and perform better if we use a digital pen instead of a tablet, or a tablet instead of a keyboard?  Sharon Oviatt, leading researcher in educational interfaces will share her insights on how the unique affordances of various physical interfaces (digital pen, paper, multimodal, keyboard/mouse, etc.) impact how well people think, solve problems and

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The world of eLearning Interface Research

Are you following eLearning Interface Design at Mendeley yet?


If not, here's a taste of the of books and new research findings people have posted to the group:

Spatial representations and imagery in learning
Designing Effective Visualizations for Elementary School Science
100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People
E-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for

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Crafting a Stellar Portfolio

Whether you're in the middle of a job hunt, day-dreaming, or just the consientious type who wants to be fired up when the time comes, check out these expert tips on creating a stellar portfolio...


Maintain a Portfolio Scrapbook
We tend to leave portfolio-making for job hunt time, but you'll save a whole lot of stress (and enjoy the self-love) if you document your achievements as you go.  Your

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Europe's treasures at your fingertips

Europeana is an astounding mega-library of cultural artefacts from VanGogh paintings, and Newton's laws of motion to sheet music, letters and historical photographs.  What's really impressive is that these artifacts are nested in the knowledge and inspiring stories that surround them.

All in the public domain!


"Explore millions of items from a range of Europe's leading galleries, libraries,

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Gaming for science

Supporting cancer research is undoubtedly important, but playing computer puzzle games is undoubtedly more fun.  The makers of Foldit have literally managed to combine the two by building a game around the problem of deciphering protein structures, and then letting this scientific challenge loose on the world.

Fold-It takes crowdsourcing and educational gaming up a serious notch. Not only do

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Modern Art for Interface Designers

How can visual perspective be innovated to tell different stories?  When does a coin make a bad icon?  When does a bolt of lightening make a great artist?  Alan Blackwell of Cambridge University takes us on an insightful tour of some of the suprising lessons that link computer interface design and modern art...


Check out the 14 min. video: Alan Blackwell's Introduction to Visual

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UX London - 6 highlights

UX London saw the convergence of inspiring veterans and fresh new designers.  Concepts as diverse as Big Data, humility, abundance and the "Internet of Things" were ever-present, and  experience was described as an ecosystem of multiple events and touchpoints running across many devices, places and moments in time.

Here are just a few highlights from some of the UX leaders at companies like

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The PBS Kids Lab

Best part of the job?  Playing educational games.
Take an online field trip to the the PBS Kids Lab on your lunch break today.   It's a great place to check out new developments in educational online games and mobile apps created by the long-time leaders in children's educational entertainment.

Get physical, situated and embodied with some of their delightfully web and mobile camera enabled

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Visual Smarts - Science via Typography

Mumbai-based graphic designer, Kapil Bhagat has created a slew of divinely inspired posters in honor of Science Day in India.  They are a perfect demonstration of how much can be said with typography alone and with the simplist of lines.

Each poster is a visual puzzle based on a scientist and/or scientific concept and each is an absolute delight to unravel.

See all 8 clever posters

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Elegant activism - Infographics at Bashir Watch

BashirWatch.org is an impeccably crafted site that succeeds in allowing users to explore difficult but important information in ways that add clarity and interest.  Bashir Watch is an organization promoting the prompt arrest of Omar Bashir, the Sudanese leader behind the genocide in Darfur.  There is a warrant for his arrest issued by the International Criminal Court for multiple counts of human

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Extreme Accessibility - How to save lives with eLearning

Far from the typical audience of corporate or university eLearning, Thare Machi Education designs lessons on topics like human trafficking and cholera for learners who are extremely poor, mostly illiterate, totally unfamiliar with technology and speak hundreds of different languages.  How's that for a brief?



Thare Machi Education makes very simple life-changing and life-saving messages  

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Graceful interface scaffolding - Learning from Letter School

Letter School, an app by Dutch game maker, Boreaal, is one of the several apps on the market created to leverage touch-screen advantages for supporting preschoolers in learning to make letter shapes.  Like the others, kids use their finger to trace and write letters of the alphabet.  



The animations and sounds in Letter School are delightful, but what I found especially notable was the

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On Memory and the Life of Maps

There are so many childhood objects that leave indelible marks as one grows up, from the microscope that gives you a secret window into invisible worlds, to the medical kit which made you a superhero with the power to fix people.  In his articles, The gears from my childhood, renowned MIT professor and educational technologist, Seymour Papert, explains how playing with and loving gears gave him a

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Paper still the cutting edge

Amid the carnival of EdTech excitement you'd be forgiven for forgetting that our digital technologies are still just tools, added to a bag of tricks that has accumulated over millenia.  Sure, there are some tools we'll probably never go back to (punch cards? slide rules?) but then there are the work horses that have survived for a reason, like pencil and paper.

Educational interface design

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10-year Survey of Online Education

A new report by the Babson Group and the College Board has tracked ten years of online education in the United States revealing that over a third of higher education students now take at least one of their courses online.  Most staff view MOOCs as more of a way to learn about online pedagogy than as a sustainable long-term mode of operation, and although online education is growing, higher

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ELearning for Healthy Minds

A growing number of learning programs dedicated to psychological wellbeing are finding their way into schools and workplaces across the globe.  This is probably due, in part, to the concern over technology-induced stress and mounting scientific support for the value of practices like mindfulness and meditation.

This new type of education has begun to manifest digitally in the form of mobile

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Caution: Color, culture and convention

As designers of learning experiences, we know that color can have a powerful impact on learning. It can improve recall, understanding and appeal when used well. But it's easy to forget how culturally embedded color meanings are.  Americans, for example, can forget green is only the color of money in the US. While red indicates debt and downturns in the financial world, it's prosperity in

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