did you know?

DID YOU KNOW?

• Training expenditure per employee has consistently gone up despite the tough business climate. in 2001, the expenditure per employee was $734 on training. By 2012, this number climbed to $1,195 per employee (ASTD stats).
• Surveys in 2000 and 2012 suggests that there has been no major shift in employee engagement attitude, 70% of all employees continue to be disengaged from their employer interest (Gallup Study).
• Allocating more money doesn't appear to be the answer. 
• Your thoughts? 

Regards,
Ravinder Tulsiani

http://www.ravindertulsiani.com

See http://www.yourleadershipedge.ca for my solution.

The Three C’s of Metabolic Strength Training

What Is Metabolic Strength Training?

The basis of this book is metabolic strength training, which means using innovative strength training concepts to accelerate metabolism in order to help you lose body fat while building and keeping muscle. In addition, the programs are designed to give you a great workout that you actually enjoy. Let’s check out what the concepts of metabolic strength training are, how they work, and why they may be safer and more effective than other fat-loss training methods.

This book uses three metabolic strength training concepts, which I call the three Cs of strength training for fat loss:

Strength training circuits

Strength training complexes

Strength training combinations

Chapters 4 through 6 are each dedicated to one of the three Cs. In these chapters you’ll learn what each of these metabolic protocols is and how to perform a multitude of practical exercise applications from basic to advanced levels using everything from barbells to dumbbells, kettlebells, medicine balls, stability balls, resistance bands, and cables. Additionally, chapter 7 covers body-weight training techniques using the three Cs, and chapter 9 explains the Fat-Loss Five circuit training formula. With all of the metabolic strength training concepts available in this book, you’ll be able to immediately apply a large variety of techniques to help you incinerate body fat and dramatically improve your fitness and conditioning without losing muscle mass, regardless of your fitness level, space, or equipment limitations.

How the Three Cs Work

There are three reasons why the three Cs of metabolic strength training are extremely effective at burning fat.

1. They’re high intensity.

These workouts use challenging loads or lighter loads moved fast, both of which force you to work hard each time you move the weight. The higher the intensity, the greater the metabolic impact!

2. They involve the entire body.

Each of the three Cs of metabolic strength training uses the entire body, involving your upper body, lower body, and core muscles. And, as stated before, muscle is metabolically active tissue, so the more muscles you work, the more calories you burn. The more calories you burn, the more productive your workouts will be—and the faster you will lose body fat.

3. They demand extended repetitive effort.

Research consistently reports that a direct relationship exists between the duration of exercise and excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), which is the number of calories expended (above resting values) after an exercise bout.3 The metabolic strength training protocols in this book take more time to complete than a traditional strength training set. So, not only do they require you to perform high-intensity, total-body efforts, but you’ll be performing them for extended bursts.

It’s great to use scientifically proven workouts that have been evaluated in a study, but it’s unrealistic to ask that of every workout, especially when we’re changing workouts every few weeks to keep things fresh and interesting. Specific workout strategies don’t have to be scientifically proven as long as they are scientifically founded, meaning they are founded on the general principles that have been repeatedly shown to elicit the results you’re after. In this case, the three principles described in this chapter not only make scientific sense but also common sense. In other words, you don’t have to be an exercise scientist to see how the combination of these three factors will burn a ton of calories and be super effective for losing fat and building metabolic muscle, something that a morning stroll on the treadmill simply can’t match.

Furthermore, you’ll find that the workout programs provided in chapter 9 don’t just use one of three Cs for the entire workout. Instead, each program provides a comprehensive blend of the three to ensure each workout is more diverse and more effective. This is because, although founded on the same metabolic training principles, each of the three Cs offers unique benefits, and using all three more likely yields better results than exclusively using one.

Three Cs Versus Traditional Exercise Methods

We can’t talk about new methods of fat loss like the three Cs without addressing traditional methods like cardio training, which is commonly thought of as the go-to exercise option for losing body fat. The first thing we’re going to do in this section is give you the naked truth about cardio training by debunking some all-too-common, uninformed training myths. Then I’m going to provide a solid, commonsense rationale for why the metabolic strength training concepts in this book are a safer, more enjoyable, and much more effective training option for building the lean and muscular body you want.

Although any type of physical activity can have positive health benefits, the benefits of steady-state cardio training from a fat-loss (without muscle loss) perspective are often misunderstood and overstated. Especially because research has shown aerobic activity (cardio) to be the optimal mode of exercise—over resistance training—for reducing body fat in a timely fashion.4 Now, these results are only half of the training puzzle because you don’t just want a “lean” physique; you want a lean, strong and athletic-looking physique. And, in order to achieve the “strong and muscular” part, you’ve got to do resistance training, which is why the researchers of these types of studies also commonly state that a program including resistance training is needed for increasing lean muscle.

To understand why common statements such as “If you want to burn fat, do cardio” aren’t very accurate, you must first have a clear understanding of what steady-state cardio training is and what it isn’t. Once you understand what it is, you can better understand what it does and doesn’t do for you.

You’ve probably heard the terms aerobic training, which means “with oxygen,” and anaerobic training, which means “without oxygen.”

Cardio = aerobic training

Metabolic strength training = anaerobic training

The main thing that separates aerobic from anaerobic training is intensity. Here’s a real-world example to help illustrate this concept: Let’s say you and a friend are jogging together. While you are jogging, you are carrying on a conversation. If you’re able to speak in normal sentences without any huffing and puffing between words, you’re in an aerobic state. However, if you both decide to pick up the pace and speed up to a fast run or sprint, you’ll still be able to talk to one another, but you’ll be unable to get out full sentences without taking a breath, which means you’re now in an anaerobic state. This example is called the talk test. It’s a simple but legitimate method of telling whether you’re in an aerobic or anaerobic state.

When you’re in an anaerobic state, your body exclusively burns glycogen, which is what your body turns carbohydrate into after consumption. Glycogen is synthesized and stored mainly in the liver and the muscles. And, it’s your body’s preferred energy source. However, when you’re in an aerobic state, your body has many options available to use as energy, including energy from glycogen, fat, and muscle tissue.

All of this information brings us back to the question, does aerobic training (i.e., steady-state cardio) exclusively use energy from fat? The answer is, no! Sure, steady-state cardio training can burn fat, but it’ll likely use its preferred energy source: glycogen. And, it can burn from muscle tissue as well, which is why few endurance athletes have much muscle mass. Now, with physiology in mind, it’s easy to see how cardio training sessions burn more overall calories than resistance training sessions. But, that fact is: it still doesn’t mean that cardio is the long-term fat loss answer.

Sure, if you’re looking for quick fat loss, I’d certainly say doing a few 20- to 30-minute cardio sessions per week is a good idea to get you quick gratification. And, it’s unrealistic to think that doing some cardio for 4-6 weeks will turn you into a skinny endurance athlete with low muscle mass, especially if you’re using them to complement a workout program that emphasizes strength-training exercise concepts such as the ones provided in this book. However, it does mean there’s no need to go nuts and fall into the false belief that more cardio exercise means more fat loss—especially on a regular, long-term exercise basis. In fact, more cardio (with less or no strength training) will most likely lead to less muscle, which is not a good place to be in terms of strength, performance, or physical appearance.

Strength training is considered anaerobic training because it’s high in intensity and burns energy exclusively from glycogen. That said, remember the previous illustration about talking while running together, and the faster you run, the more anaerobic you become? Well, the cool thing about anaerobic training is that it also gives you the benefits of aerobic training.

Think of a ladder: The higher you climb, the more intense the exercise becomes. In other words, the bottom rungs of the ladder represent aerobic activity, whereas the higher rungs of the ladder represent more intense, anaerobic activity.

When climbing up the ladder, you can’t get to the higher rungs (i.e., anaerobic activity) until you’ve first climbed the lower ones (i.e., gone through aerobic activity). Additionally, when you climb down (i.e., recover) from the higher steps of the ladder, you return to an aerobic state. So, on both ends of anaerobic training intervals (i.e., sets of metabolic strength training) you also get an aerobic training effect. But, if you only do aerobic training (i.e., stay at the bottom of the ladder), you’ll never get the unique metabolic and health benefits offered by anaerobic training.

The time between anaerobic bursts such as sprints or heavy lifting creates an aerobic effect while you allow your body to come down (i.e., rest) between sets. Again, high-intensity activities such as the three Cs of metabolic strength training have been shown to accelerate metabolism for up to 72 hours after the workout due to the effects of excess postexercise oxygen consumption (EPOC).5 Steady-state cardio training, on the other hand, has not been shown to create nearly the same EPOC (exercise after-burn) effect.

Each of the three Cs of the metabolic strength training featured in this book take anywhere from 60 seconds to several minutes of constant strength-based activity to complete. That’s several minutes of high-intensity, total-body effort. Essentially, based on the scientifically-founded principles of fat loss, the metabolic strength training workouts get you better fat-loss results for your training time compared with traditional training methods.

Workout Intensity Is More Important Than Workout Duration
As I stated previously, workout duration is heavily linked to increased metabolic effects. However, doing longer workouts doesn’t always mean that you’re getting better results; in fact, it’s likely that if you’re just going longer, you’re only able to do so because your overall workout intensity is less, therefore giving you the ability to last longer. Even in endurance sports such as triathlons and marathons, it’s not about who goes the longest, it’s about who finishes the fastest. In other words, it’s about who has the most power endurance. With this reality in mind, you should progress in your training by continually trying to perform your workouts better, not just longer for the sake of going longer.

When you add sets or reps to your workouts, they will become longer, and that’s okay. However, you can’t always keep adding on. You can also progress (make your workouts more challenging) by try to complete the same workout in less time than before, which boosts your working intensity. Or, you can try to get more work done (sets and reps or weight lifted in a given workout) in the same time frame that you did in the previous workout, which also increases intensity. As stated, there’s nothing wrong with increasing your reps and working a little longer than you did previously, but solely relying on that method to progress is unrealistic and could lead to overuse injury.

Remember, you only have so much time in the day to work out. The goal is to get as much quality work done in that amount of time in order to maximize your results.

View the original article here

EMEA Reporter: Reaching Difficult Places—Colombia by Nic Laycock

“Online learning has brought opportunities for rural development that ensure students unable to reach a campus are not disadvantaged. Education, even in the difficult places, is not just a privilege of the urban population—and will be willingly embraced by people anxious to learn and to succeed, whatever their background.”

This month my story comes from beyond EMEA. My excuse is that I heard it while at an outreach conference in Guatemala City run by the GUIDE Association based in UniMarconi in Rome!

The story is all about online learning reaching places that others cannot get to—providing learning to young farmers in the poverty stricken and drug-lord ravaged central western region of Colombia. More about that in a moment.

The outreach in itself calls for comment. How did GUIDE come to be in Guatemala City? Simply because GUIDE’s conference co-sponsors, Universidad Panamericana, believed that the huge momentum for eLearning developing in Central and South America would benefit from global exposure and review. This is another part of the world where the benefits of education and training are rapidly becoming more accessible through the Internet and technology.

Colombia is well known for its 50-year history of drug-related violence, corruption, and anarchy that has made it an impoverished and incredibly dangerous country. It was unable to provide even basic services to most areas and to a large proportion of its people.

Fourteen million people live in the 94 percent of Colombia that is rural. The department of Caldas in the central west is part of the Colombian Coffee Triangle, producing some of the world’s best—including for Starbucks! Now there is an energetic process of re-construction underway that is bringing boom times to the Triangle.

With the boom comes a danger. The beautiful countryside, so ideal for coffee production, is composed of steep sided and remote valleys (Figure 1). It is remote and inaccessible—certainly for young people looking for the technical and business skills to compete sustainably in the growing market.

Figure 1: The coffee-growing region of Colombia is beautiful but challenging

In cities such as Manizales, which is the capital of the department of Caldas, and the better known (notorious) Medellín, there is good penetration of tertiary education, but a differential was in danger of developing in the countryside areas. Young people were leaving the very farms that were bringing prosperity in order to gain an education in the cities.

In 2009, Universidad de Caldas created Universidad en el Campo (University in the Countryside) in an alliance with the Committee of Coffee Growers to implement academic programs at technical and technological levels to address the needs of young farmers across the region. A program of online courses focusing on basic professional skills and the technical skills required for success in the agriculture industry was launched and has now reached nearly 800 participating young farmers.

Carlos Alberto Parra, one of the leaders of the project presented the case study. He told us the outcomes are focused on business competitiveness, productivity, and sustainability, “The aim is to create entrepreneurship based on a set of sound business skills but contextualized within the local environment.” By providing a self-study program attached to the University assessment and mentoring programs, the young participants were able to learn right in the context of their jobs—working on their own farms. As well as an emphasis on the immediate coffee crop, the program embraces a width of curriculum that provides skills in, for example, animal husbandry.

I asked Carlos what problems he encountered. “The biggest issue was professional resistance from more traditionally minded colleagues in the University! But the results speak for themselves! We achieved a greater quality of outcome than that achieved through traditional methods—and that was with a participant group that did not have a particularly high level of education before they enrolled.”

The Universidad en el Campo results compare favorably with campus-based tertiary centers in the area, and as the program progresses, student attainment is steadily improving. Carlos laughs as he tells us that a major outcome of the project has been a massive challenge to the existing paradigms of the university. Proudly he says, “It has proven to be a successful model that is replicated in Mexico, Bolivia, and Nicaragua and is now sponsored by the European Union.”

So what do we learn? Online learning has brought opportunities for rural development that ensures students unable to reach a campus are not disadvantaged. Education, even in the difficult places, is not just a privilege of the urban population—and will be willingly embraced by people anxious to learn and to succeed, whatever their background.

What I also learned is that online resources are more restricted when English is not the language of learning. Hopefully technology will ease that problem and provide even greater access for populations in the hard-to-reach places.

View the original article here

Swimming Posture & the Phases of Freestyle

How we walk, sit, stand, and carry our posture during daily activities affects how we move in our sport. It is especially important to learn how to move from the inside to outside of the body. Primarily, this means presenting a posture that permits the most efficient use of the muscles of the hips, legs, and torso (the core). Learning to engage these muscles during flexion, extension, and rotation is central to performing better movements in all sports and begins with proper posture.

Standing with anatomically correct posture begins the process for establishing and enhancing all body lines in swimming. Learning to take this position into the water and maintaining the centerlines of movement will take you further toward improved swimming than just about any technique. In assessing flexibility, mobility, and stability, movement tendencies become evident - you can tell to what extent you use your core muscles in your basic movements. For coaches, assessment can provide teaching moments in which to educate your triathletes how to be more aware of using the core muscles. Practicing functional movements teaches the body to use core muscles deep inside the body to affect movement of the limbs and achieve more efficient technique.

The muscles in the hip region are frequently unstable in triathletes. Notably, the gluteus medius (a muscle that prevents tilting or sagging of the pelvis) is an important pelvic primary stabilizer. When the gluteus medius is weak, other muscles or movements must compensate for the weakness in everyday activities, such as standing up from a chair. This compensation results in less efficient, less functional movements. Over time, the muscular, nervous, and skeletal systems become affected by these repeated less functional movements and sustained faulty postures.

Swimmers who move functionally on land transfer their skills remarkably well into the water, improving in symmetry of swimming motions and performance and reducing the risk of overuse injury. Balanced and symmetrical swimming movement begins in the proximal muscles at the body’s core (below the chest to above the knees), which support the outward, or distal, muscles near the head, arms, hands, legs, and feet. An excellent technique to engage the deep core muscles is to draw in when exhaling to activate these muscles and help stabilize the pelvis, which result in better streamlining and better movements.

Proximal and distal - swimming from inside to out.

Thus optimal posture on land transfers directly to swimming and eases motor learning in the water. By learning to control your body during flexion (sitting) and extension (standing) through the use of your core muscles, you begin the process of establishing more functional movements. Movements controlled by active engagement and stability from the proximal muscles affect the functionality of the distal muscles during swimming (figure 6.4).

There are variations in mechanics unique to each individual, but the phases of the freestyle stroke can always be recognized. In this section we progress through these phases, presenting principles for you to build on. First we’ll explain the phases and primary terms related to the freestyle swimming stroke. Then we’ll describe how to develop better movement through lower-intensity training that enhances motor learning by breaking down complex movements into what we call body lines.

The front quadrant is defined as the front half of the freestyle stroke underwater (figure 6.5).

Front quadrant.

In front-quadrant swimming, at least one hand is in the front quadrant during the entire stroke cycle. This requires a shift in stroke timing. Traditional teaching dictates finishing hard with one arm past the hips and entering the water with the other arm. In front-quadrant swimming, the right arm’s entry into the water occurs during the insweep phase of the left arm (along with an exit at midtorso). When done correctly, there should be no gliding - that is, no point at which propulsion is not being applied.

One advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it keeps the body long, with one arm always out in front or above the head. Having one arm above the head raises the body’s center of mass and helps reduce torque from the buoyancy force that causes the legs to sink. Also, as is well known in ship building, a longer hull is more streamlined than a shorter hull. In front-quadrant swimming, you lengthen the hull of your body. Another advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it changes the timing of your breathing. In traditional stroke timing, as one hand enters the water and stretches out in front, the other arm is finishing the stroke. This has been taught as the best opportunity to breathe, using momentum of the finishing arm to help rotate hips out of the water. Unfortunately, this timing of the breath leaves the hips vulnerable to sinking as the head turns and lifts to breathe (figure 6.6).

Posture is affected when the head is lifted or extended when breathing.

Using front-quadrant swimming forces the breath to begin earlier in the stroke, when one arm is more underneath the body (figure 6.7; breathing occurs between the two images). The position of the arm in the water out in front serves as an anchor, creating forces that support the hips and keep them from sinking.

Breathe early when the front arm is beginning the catch posture.


Subscribe to feed

Get the latest news, special offers, and updates on authors and products. SIGN UP NOW!

View the original article here

Linebacker Technique

A linebacker or coach should be able to recognize styles of play similar to his own. To accomplish this task we need a common language to describe the techniques. We use numbers for techniques in which linebackers play unprotected over blockers at the line of scrimmage. We use names for techniques in which a linebacker is protected by a fellow defender from the potential blocker directly over him.

Numbered techniques have two digits when the linebacker plays off the line of scrimmage. The first digit refers to his frontside responsibility (see figure 10.1).

Gaps are numbered for frontside responsibilities.

A linebacker off the line of scrimmage has a double-digit technique beginning with a 3 if he is responsible for the frontside guard-tackle gap or a 5 if accountable for the tackle-end gap.

His second digit has to do with his backside movement. When the linebacker is required to "fast flow," or run, on action away from him, he is given the second digit of 1. Usually a fast-flow linebacker must fill an unattended backside gap as in figure 10.2.

Linebacker B2 with 31 technique in a two-gap responsibility.

The 31 technique linebacker has the 3 gap with flow to him and the away 1 gap with flow away.

When the linebacker’s backside obligation is to shuffle with no particular gap responsibility away from him, he is a single-gap player. His backside digit, in our system, is a 2. Figure 10.3 shows a 32 technique player. Other defenders are responsible for all backside gaps.

Linebacker B2 with 32 technique in a single-gap responsibility.

Numbered techniques with single digits refer to outside linebackers on the line of scrimmage who are liable for that gap only, on flow to or flow away (see figure 10.4).

Outside linebacker technique numbers with single digits.

An outside linebacker could be responsible on the line of scrimmage for the 5 gap (tackle - tight end gap), the 7 gap (referred to as the alley), or contain (referred to as a 9 technique).

We use names for linebacker techniques that provide some protection for the linebacker. Figure 10.5 shows a nest technique. We call it a nest because the linebacker sits in a protected cradle that can be designed for weaker or younger players (see figure 10.5).

Nest technique protects B1 from the guard and tackle initially.

View the original article here

Nuts and Bolts: Lean Solutions by Jane Bozarth

by Jane Bozarth

June 3, 2014

“So consider: What brings the most value? What gets you the performance you need in the least amount of time at the lowest cost, without taking people away from work for longer than necessary, and without piles of paper manuals printed, shipped, and never used?”

This month I delivered a special workshop on lean eLearning. The preparation brought to mind my first epiphany about lean eLearning back in the early 2000s, when I was working on the first draft of my first book, eLearning Solutions on a Shoestring. Even then I had already seen way too many “over-solutions”—usually in the form of far more content than the problem required—and solutions intended to be a one-size-fits-all training answer for employees who were in vastly different jobs for which one size of training most decidedly didn’t fit all.

The example I was working with involved the terminal performance objective, “learner will differentiate heart sounds.” The answer: a screen with clickable links to different, labeled audio clips of heart sounds available free online. Could learners perform after reviewing the sounds? Yes, provided we didn’t ask them to deal with too many at once, and we gave them ample opportunities to review. Were stakeholders happy with the solution? Of course not.

Apart from what seemed to be a general distrust of anything so simple, things quickly fell into the common sins of waste: over-production, over-processing, and waiting.

Although listening to heart sounds is a purely auditory task, for heaven’s sake, we needed visuals. We needed graphics. We needed an accompanying printed workbook. We needed more interactivity. We needed a cartoon avatar, or animated hearts, or whatever else would delay the project four months and add $50k to what otherwise was a free solution. Again: the learner could achieve the performance with what was essentially a zero-cost, 10-minute-to-build solution.

I’d used “heartbeats” as an example in workshops for a couple of years, and found immense satisfaction in 2006 when Time.com ran a piece about growing concerns that doctors, losing the ability to listen to heart sounds, were ordering expensive diagnostic tests when good stethoscope skills would do. The solution? Having physicians learn by listening to heart sounds on iPods. So there!

That first book on inexpensive eLearning is now nearly 10 years old and woefully out of date. The first couple of years after publication the industry evolved as new eLearning-course tools and simple communication technologies came into popular use: this new authoring tool, that new discussion board format, etc. Then things began to evolve in other ways. Social tools offered vast new opportunities for student collaboration. Web 2.0 technologies like YouTube and blogging products put creating content and publishing to the web into the hands of Everyman, not just IT and programmers and people with access to servers and expensive photo-editing software.

Lately I’ve seen examples of lean solutions that were the perfect answer to a performance problem. There are things like Snapguide-created job aids, collaborative Pinterest boards, and six-second Vine videos. I’ve seen skilful repurposing of the YouTube comments section go from endless empty responses to lengthy meaningful conversation about a video scenario. A participant at an eLearning Guild DevLearn DemoFest showcased a great example of using voiceover with still images to create an online simulation quickly, without the cost of video production. And just yesterday I went looking through the library of Articulate-member-created videos in search of a solution for a colleague.

So consider: What brings the most value? What gets you the performance you need in the least amount of time at the lowest cost, without taking people away from work for longer than necessary, and without piles of paper manuals printed, shipped, and never used?

So what are some lean solutions in 2014?

Classics, like the Mecklenburg County Public Library-designed 23 Things, that used a blog to deliver a whole, fun course based on the premise: If they need to learn to use tech, how can we have them use the tech while learning about the tech?Snapguide, a delightfully straightforward tool, tutorial built-in, for creating concise job aids with user-generated images.Pinterest, a visual-bookmarking tool allowing quick aggregation from web and user images. Better: items allow for comment, and boards can be collaborative. Think: board offering a virtual tour of an employee’s first day at work.Screenr videos for the Articulate community, with end users sharing their quick solutions of use to others.Apps, not courses: “Apps for the Army.” This one is decidedly not “cheap,” but consider how many other, wasteful, solutions, they could have developed. Embedding. Using still images and voiceover instead of video.A six-second Vine video showing how to tie a knot. Using the YouTube comments section for actual conversation, not mindless commentary.My favorite lean solution: Go Google, “Soldier reading book to child via Skype.”

Still interested in resources for low-cost eLearning design? Tracy Parish is building a wonderfully complete mindmap of tools, grouped by uses. Go contribute.

And go Google! That, folks, is a solution.

So what are your suggestions for or examples of lean solutions?

Topics Covered

Design & Development Tools, Emerging Topics, Getting Started, Instructional Design, Training Strategies

View the original article here

How to slap hit using the drag bunt

Drag Bunt

The drag bunt is an essential tool for a complete slapper. The threat of the drag bunt forces the infield corner players to move closer to the plate, thereby opening up more infield gaps to slap through. The footwork described earlier for the crossover step should be used for the drag bunt.

Technique

During the crossover step, the slapper should slide her top (left) hand up the bat as far as possible while remaining comfortable (see figure 2.8a). The bottom (right) hand should remain near the knob of the bat on the grip. Separating the two hands allows for greater bat control. The slapper wants to bring her bottom hand to her right side and keep it close to her body. A common mistake made in bunting is to extend the bottom hand away from the body too much (see figure 2.8b). This causes the barrel to angle toward foul territory, and the batter will bunt the ball foul.

Slappers should have the barrel at the top of the strike zone when they bring it into the contact area. This gives them a guideline for identifying the strike zone. If the barrel is at the top of the zone, the slapper knows that any pitch above the barrel is a ball and that she should let it go. If a pitch is below the barrel but above the knees, the pitch is a strike, and the slapper may want to bunt it. For a low pitch, the slapper will bend her knees to bring the barrel down to the height of the pitch. She does not want to drop the bat head because that will increase her chances of popping up the ball.

At contact, the bat should be level in the zone; the barrel should be even with the handle or slightly out in front. Keeping the barrel out in front of the handle will help ensure that the ball is bunted fair. The slapper needs to “catch” the ball on the bat and should not try to push, drop, or pull back the barrel of the bat. A common mistake that batters make on a drag bunt is to move the barrel at contact in an attempt to direct the ball or deaden it so that it doesn’t go too far. Movement creates the opportunity for a foul ball or pop-up. To help avoid this, batters can pretend that there is a fielder’s glove on the end of the bat and simply catch the ball.

Slappers can do two things to help deaden a drag bunt: slide their top hand farther up the barrel (see figure 2.9a), and bunt the ball on the top 5 inches of the bat (away from the sweet spot). An easy way to practice bunting the ball on the top 5 inches (12.7 cm) is to place a piece of tape around the barrel 5 inches from the top (figure 2.9b). The slapper must make contact in the area between the end of the bat and the tape. Another trick that some players use to help deaden bunts is to point their index finger up the barrel of the bat. (figure 2.9c).

Placement and Strategy

Unless the slapper is trying to bunt to a specific infielder, the ideal placement for a drag bunt is approximately 6 to 10 feet (1.8 to 3.0 m) directly in front of home plate. A drag bunt placed an equal distance from the catcher, pitcher, and third- and first-base players will require communication between all four players about who is going to field the bunt. Whenever a batter can create communication issues for the defense, she has also created the potential for miscommunication and mistakes.

The Cones for Placement Targets drill on page 22 is a great way to work on placement for the drag bunt too. Create a circle with either cones or field chalk around the area where you want the ball to be bunted; the slappers then work on placing drag bunts in that area. We like to have contests to see who can place the most bunts in the target zone. There is nothing like competition between players to increase the intensity level and performance.

Subscribe to feed

Get the latest news, special offers, and updates on authors and products. SIGN UP NOW!

View the original article here

Throwing and Catching Drills

The skill of throwing and catching a baseball is difficult for young players to accomplish. Many players have a fear of the ball, which is a natural thought process, and after they get hit by the ball, the fear may become even more real. One thing that coaches can say to ruin their credibility with young players is, "Come on. That ball doesn’t hurt." If I were a young player, I would ask the coach whether I could throw the ball at him to see whether it hurts. At the same time, to have confidence in their ability to throw and catch a baseball, players have to become confident in their technique first.

As for receiving the baseball, we need to make sure that players do a few things technique wise to build their confidence. First, the player’s glove is extremely important. It is not about how much a glove costs; it’s about how it is broken in and maintained throughout the year. Many of us, including me, were taught to break in a glove by putting a baseball in it, tying a string around it, and keeping it like that in the off-season. The problem is that the glove forms into a closed position, and a young player may not be able to open it up with his hand. So instead of breaking in the glove the old way, players should try a new way. They should turn the glove inside out and leave it like that when they do not use it. Players should not use a big glove because then they just reach out and hope that the ball lands in it. You want young players to have a small glove that forces them to use two hands. They can get the ball out easier, and they have to move to the baseball with their feet rather than reach out with an oversized glove.

Many young players have to grip the ball with three fingers across the seam or even four because their hands are too small to hold the ball properly. The Japanese have gone to a smaller baseball for young players so that they can grip it and throw it correctly. Later they build up to throwing a regulation-size baseball. This approach is a good way to teach young players to throw the ball correctly. In the United States, people are against it because they believe that using a small ball is not real baseball. We need more coaches who think outside the box when it comes to developing young players. Most of us tend to teach the way that we were taught, and most of the time that is the same old way of traditional teaching.

Players who set up in proper receiving position will gain the confidence to stay in the right position or get out of the way if for some reason someone throws the ball to them and the sun gets in their eyes. We used to teach players not to throw the ball unless the receiver was looking at them and his hands were out in front. We still do this, but we now teach different hand positioning. The old way was to have the thumbs of the glove and the bare hand together and the fingertips facing up to the sky. Because of this teaching and because players often used big gloves, many players, as the ball got closer to them, had to flip the palm of the glove to the sky to see the ball. The ball would sometimes hit the heel of the glove and then hit them in the head. To make sure that they can see the ball as it is on the way, which will allow them to use their depth perception, we now start the hands and the glove with the thumbs up to the sky and the hands out in front. The player is in a good balanced position. The feet are about shoulder-width apart, and the right foot is slightly behind the left (opposite for left-handed throwers). The toes of the rear foot should be about even with the instep of the other foot.

The second phase of the throwing motion is important because it begins to work with balance and velocity. In this drill players use the wrist, arm, and chest to throw.

Baseball colored in half for each group playing catch

Place players farther apart than they were in the previous drill. Players with the baseball have the stride foot forward and grip the ball correctly, placing the throwing arm in a 90-degree angle, elbow even with the shoulder. Throw the baseball by taking the head, eyes, chest, arm, and wrist forward.

On your whistle, the players with the ball throw it to their partners.A soon as the ball hits the receiving player’s glove, he takes it out quickly and gets to the 90-degree angle, with the stride foot forward.Throwing continues back and forth on your whistle for 5 to 10 throws.When you yell, "Ready," make sure that players are in proper position.The player throwing the ball should have the hand behind the baseball, not to the side. Make sure that players use the whole upper body to go forward to release the baseball so that the back leg comes up and forward. When players throw the ball, the wrist should go forward, not to one side.

Players can practice this grip by tossing the ball up, catching it, and getting the proper grip as they simulate a throw. Getting the proper grip in a game will become second nature after performing this drill consistently. The important thing is to have the thumb underneath the baseball to keep it firm and balanced in the hand.

Give each player a baseball and put them in a circle with about 20 feet between each player.

When you blow the whistle, the players toss the ball up and catch it.As they catch it, they transfer the baseball from the glove to the hand and try to come up with a good grip. When you blow the whistle again, the process continues.At the start of this drill, have the players toss the ball up and slowly take the ball out of the glove. They work on the feel of how to get a good grip.As they improve, have them pick up the speed and see whether they can still get the proper grip.When they get good at this, have them take the ball out and get the correct grip as they get into a throwing position.

What happens if a player does everything well but does not have a good grip? Or what happens when the target player is not looking or not ready? What should the player do? The answer is that the player should shuffle the feet, keep or get the proper grip, and then throw the ball with rhythm. For example, when a ball is hit right back to the pitcher, he usually has plenty of time to throw the ball to first, but the first baseman may not be at the base yet. The pitcher should shuffle his feet until the first baseman gets to the base and then throw the ball in rhythm.

Have six players on one side and six on the other. Each has a partner. Players on one side have baseballs.

On your whistle, the players toss the ball up to themselves.As soon as they catch the baseball, they throw it to their partner. This drill works on the entire process of catching, transferring, turning the body in a good position, and throwing.When you blow the whistle, the partners throw the ball back.After each line does it once, the players catch the baseball and shuffle one or two times before throwing. Then the players in the other line do the same.Players must not throw the ball until their partner is looking. They shuffle their feet until he is ready.As they shuffle, they gain momentum. When they throw the ball, they keep their rhythm.They shuffle their feet because if their feet are moving as they throw the ball, the body will be in rhythm with the arms.Make sure that the players look before they throw.

After the players improve, you can yell for them to shuffle or throw as they are catching the baseball. If you yell, "Shuffle," they have to catch the ball, shuffle a couple of times, and then throw. If you yell, "Throw," they catch it, turn, and throw.

Subscribe to feed

Get the latest news, special offers, and updates on authors and products. SIGN UP NOW!

View the original article here

Preview the NSCA CPT Online Study Course

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

Brain Science: The Forgetting Curve–the Dirty Secret of Corporate Training by Art Kohn

“Your brain needs to forget things that are no longer useful. And this forgetting is inevitable, it is useful, and it is adaptive because it clears your memory for things that are more relevant. The problem, however, is that in the process of all of this memory purging, our brain often forgets important information.”

Imagine you’re put in charge of your company’s biggest leadership training program. You do everything right: you conduct extensive discovery with your subject-matter experts, you spend weeks authoring the storyboard, your executive team signs off, and you deliver a stellar training experience. Everything goes beautifully and everyone agrees the training was a huge success. Your work is done.

But back in your office, while you bask in the glory of your success, a dreadful thing is happening inside the brains of your students. The neural networks that your training inspired are beginning to dissolve, and as a result, your employees are quietly forgetting almost everything you presented.

How bad is the problem? How much do people forget? Research on the forgetting curve (Figure 1) shows that within one hour, people will have forgotten an average of 50 percent of the information you presented. Within 24 hours, they have forgotten an average of 70 percent of new information, and within a week, forgetting claims an average of 90 percent of it. Some people remember more or less, but in general, the situation is appalling, and it is the dirty secret of corporate training: no matter how much you invest into training and development, nearly everything you teach to your employees will be forgotten. Indeed, although corporations spend 60 billion dollars a year on training, this investment is like pumping gas into a car that has a hole in the tank. All of your hard work simply drains away.

Figure 1: The forgetting curve

And it gets worse. Given that our employees forget most of what they learn, we should have no hope that our training will transfer back to the workplace. After all, memory is a necessary condition for behavior change, and if your employees have forgotten the lessons of your leadership seminar, there is no reason to expect them to become more effective leaders back in the workplace.

As a learning professional, it is essential that you understand why we forget, and so I will address the issue this month. Next month, I begin discussing ways to overcome the forgetting curve.

Everyone is always bragging about the power of the human brain. So if it is so darned powerful, why does it fail so often? Why do we forget 90 percent of what we learn within one week? From the perspective of a neuroscientist, this question speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding about the brain and about forgetting. Whereas most people think of forgetting as a failure of memory, “I forgot because my memory failed,” in professional neuroscience, forgetting is not thought of as a failure at all. Instead forgetting is thought of as a natural, adaptive, and even desirable activity.

Let me explain. At this moment, thousands of sensory inputs are inundating your brain and your brain is busy ... ignoring them. For example, sensory impulses are racing from your left ankle telling your brain about its position in space. However you were not aware of this sensory information until I brought it to your attention because your brain was actively suppressing that input. Simultaneously, other inputs are arriving and your brain is ignoring them too. For example, your brain is ignoring the background noise in the room, the feel of clothing against your shoulder, and perhaps a faint odor of coffee in the room. 

You get the idea ... at every moment sensory information is flooding your brain, and your brain actively suppresses most of it using center-surround neural networks (see the end of the article for more information). This suppression is highly adaptive because, by suppressing most information, you are now free to focus on what you think are the one or two more essential pieces of information.

You need to experience this for yourself. Please watch this 90-second YouTube video and discover how our selective attention makes us oblivious to most information in the environment.

If our brain suppresses active sensory inputs, it also needs to suppress active memories so that it can focus only on essential information. When you think about it, every minute of the day we receive a river of information that is relevant only for a short period of time. For example, you may have remembered the phone number of a restaurant for a couple of minutes, but then it was no longer useful, and your brain managed to quickly forget it. Likewise, you parked your car last Thursday and you remembered where it was for the rest of the day, but now that the information is no longer useful, your brain has forgotten it. 

The point here is that your brain needs to forget things that are no longer useful. And this forgetting is inevitable, it is useful, and it is adaptive because it clears your memory for things that are more relevant. The problem, however, is that in the process of all of this memory purging, our brain often forgets important information.

Your leadership training did indeed go well and you deserve credit for it. But when you go back to your office, you can’t afford to bask in your success because, although the training went well, the ideas are quickly and quietly leaking out of the gas tank. But here is good news and there is hope. 

Although the brain will inevitably purge most of what it learns, it does retain some information, and contemporary neuroscience has discovered the signals that teach your brain which signals to remember and which information to purge and which information to retain. Next month, we will teach you ways to talk to the brain, and tell it to retain the important information.

If you want to dig deeper, here are some great resources:

This two-minute YouTube video provides a great introduction to neural networks

Learn about Center-Surround neural networks (advanced)

Explore selective attention and the invisible gorilla

View the original article here

The Biggest Lie in the World?

By Robin Sharma
#1 bestselling author of The Leader Who Had No Title

Your greatest fear is the biggest liar in the world…

That fear that keeps you small, blocks your progress, limits your achievement and blinds your dreaming is nothing but a huge LIE.

You picked it up along the way. Someone taught it to you. It’s not who you truly are. But now you believe it.

(Karl Menninger said: “Fears are educated into us and can, if we wish, be educated out.”)

So let’s “educate them out”. Beginning today…

In my ongoing obsession to help you create epic results and a life that wows, I wanted to share a video I recorded a while ago that went COMPLETELY viral.

DEFINITELY take a few minutes to watch it now:

4 Big Secrets of The Top 5% Achievers

As always, I hope the video inspires you and delivers many hard-hitting tactics to help you create a life you adore.

Your fan always,

P.S. We’re 93% SOLD OUT… For the first time in a year, I’m doing a personal mastery weekend where I take you through my most advanced strategies for living a legendary life and unleashing your personal power.

It’s called The 48 Hour Transformation and it’ll completely change the way you think, perform and live.

Seating is now very limited, so my encouragement is to snap one up right now if you’re ready to breakthrough to your best life. If you wait, it’ll be too late.

Here are the details. I’d love to have you join us. It’ll be awesome to work with you over this extraordinary weekend to create a real and lasting transformation in the most important areas of your life.

When you claim your seat today, you can still take advantage of the special early bird price.

This entry is filed under Ideas and Inspiration, Learning, Personal Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

View the original article here

Quantum 7 to Showcase New DMS Technology at Learning Solutions 2014 by News Editor

by News Editor

March 19, 2014

“Quantum 7 has introduced a new technology to the learning and development industry: the Development Management System, or DMS. The DMS is a business and workflow management system designed specifically for the learning industry. In other professions this is often referred to as an ERP. The role of the DMS is to provide all the tools that L&D leaders and development teams, including outsource providers, need to efficiently run their businesses and produce consistent quality in their solutions.”

Quantum 7, a featured exhibitor at The eLearning Guild’s Learning Solutions 2014 Conference and Expo, has introduced a new technology to the learning and development industry: the Development Management System, or DMS. The DMS is a business and workflow management system designed specifically for the learning industry. In other professions this is often referred to as an ERP. The role of the DMS is to provide all the tools that L&D leaders and development teams, including outsource providers, need to efficiently run their businesses and produce consistent quality in their solutions. Functionality includes production management, portfolio management, project management, financial management, staff resource optimization, deliverable review management with version control, user testing and online SME reviews, standards and methodology facilitation, performance benchmarking, and other functionality vital to the development process.

The Quantum 7 DMS, called QuantumConnect, will be available at the Learning Solutions 2014 Expo among the latest tools, technologies, and services from more than 60 exhibitors. Conference attendees will have the opportunity to see the new DMS technology and the utility that it provides. Additionally, Quantum 7 founder, Bill West, will be presenting a concurrent conference session, The Emergence of the Development Management System, on Thursday, March 20 at 1:00 PM.

Quantum 7 provides the most comprehensive solution for building a highly effective learning and development organization. Quantum 7’s professional services, technology, and training programs enable the increased performance and alignment of L&D teams. Quantum 7’s cornerstone is the industry’s first Development Management System (DMS). Specifically designed for training development, this integrated platform gives teams the tools they need to produce high quality solutions while automating project management and business processes for increased productivity. Quantum 7’s mission is to empower their customers to establish a new standard across their enterprise, reach optimum organizational efficiency, and achieve higher return on investment. For more information, visit www.quantum7.com. Topics Covered

Design & Development Tools, Learning Systems, Management, Project Management

View the original article here

Get Small: Reframe eLearning Design by Michael Boyette

“Reframe your view of soft-skills eLearning. Create modules that allow learners to build upon their small wins. Get small.”

It’s easy to view soft-skills eLearning through a wide lens—e.g., “We need to teach our salespeople how to sell better.” From this perspective, eLearning design can look daunting. How can we design eLearning that teaches complex soft skills?

It’s tempting to try to cram as much information as possible into the training. “This stuff is complicated, so we’d better cover it all. And since there’s so much to learn, we’d better approach it in a logical, linear manner, so our learners don’t get lost.” That’s how we end up creating eLearning modules that are 30, 60, or 90 minutes long that nobody wants to watch.

Yes, these modules contain loads of valuable information for learners. But, like the instructional designers who create them, learners are overwhelmed by the content. So is it any surprise that long-form eLearning routinely suffers from incredibly poor utilization rates?

How do we create eLearning that reduces the burden on designers and learners alike?

Two approaches—inspired by classic studies in behavioral psychology—show us how to shrink workplace eLearning to a manageable size.

A series of studies by psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman illustrate the power of framing. They found that how we perceive an issue is affected by how we define it. Changes in our approach to a problem can significantly influence our choices and shape our mental outlook.

Framing teaches us that we can overcome challenges by looking at them another way. What if, instead of looking at eLearning design through a wide lens, we shift our perspective?

So let’s look at eLearning through a narrow lens. Instead of framing the goal broadly—“teach our salespeople to sell better”—let’s narrow our view to the individual skills and concepts that build sales competency. We can then design eLearning modules that focus on each of those specific skills.

Several years ago, for example, we created a 90-minute two-part eLearning program on cold calling. It was chock full of great ideas. But nobody wanted to watch it. We also created a nine-minute module called “How to Win the First 20 Seconds of a Cold Call.” We posted it on YouTube. It’s had more than 215,000 views.

Short-form, single-concept modules are the future of eLearning. Quick, intensive, and centered on a single concept, they reduce cognitive load and increase learner retention. People will invest a few minutes of their time to get better at one thing.

But there’s another reason why short is better.

When the task of learning is reframed and scaled-down, we begin to accrue small wins. In his influential research, experimental psychologist Karl Weick described how organizations broke down massive problems by focusing on small victories.

When eLearning designers break down a big goal like “better sales skills” into individual components, learners are able to celebrate more wins along the way and feel motivated to continue on the path. They leave each module with a single, actionable outcome—a small behavior change that will improve their performance. Quickly the insurmountable goal of training feels achievable.

Short-form eLearning is an ideal vehicle for generating small wins. Learners are more likely to invest in a training process framed as a quick, narrowly-defined learning journey, and the incremental victories encourage them to continue. Managers also benefit, as follow-up seems feasible and doesn’t require a burdensome time commitment. Learning happens. When learning happens, eLearning designers have succeeded.

When approaching your next eLearning module, here are some questions you should ask:

Is your module short and digestible for today’s busy learners? Is your module focused on a single skill or concept to reduce the risk of cognitive load?Does your module result in a “small win” for learners—a concrete, actionable outcome?

Reframe your view of soft-skills eLearning. Create modules that allow learners to build upon their small wins. Get small.

Tversky, Amos, and Daniel Kahneman. “The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice.” Science, 211(4481). 1981.

Weick, Karl E. “Small Wins: Redefining the Scale of Social Problems.” American Psychologist, 39(1). 1984.

View the original article here

Toolkit: Five Lesser-known eLearning Tools by Joe Ganci

“The tool itself uses a metaphor of folders and screens. Each folder is a group which is flexible in nature. You can call it a topic, module, chapter, or anything else you like. The folders can be expanded and collapsed and form a tree view on the left. A screen can be one of several basic layouts, such as text and image combinations, a more-info slide, or a short PDF document.”

A word of thanks to those of you who have responded to my survey for those lesser-known eLearning tools that you either use or you would like me to review. This month, I’ll review the top five vote getters.

There were a good number of responses but there is still time to vote because Part 2 will be next month. Vote before March 31 at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/W57Y8HP.

The Serious eLearning Manifesto was announced on March 13. The brainchild of Clark Quinn, Michael Allen, Julie Dirksen, and Will Thalheimer, it is a real attempt to change the eLearning world for the better. I am one of the trustees of the manifesto and hope to see many of you sign up and contribute to improving our industry. Go to http://elearningmanifesto.org/.

Raptivity, the cool interaction builder, got a sporting new interface recently. Even more interesting, a public beta version of Raptivity Linker opened on March 19. Up until now, Raptivity interactions were built individually and then typically inserted into a tool like Captivate or Storyline or placed on websites by themselves. With Linker, you can string together Raptivity interactions into sequences or learning arcs. Check out the beta at www.raptivity.com.

easyGenerator has introduced a Starter edition for $19 a month and the first month is free. A cloud-based tool, easyGenerator is worth checking out. It uses a 1-2-3 process: 1. Define your objectives, 2. Create your questions, and 3. Add your learning content. Sign up at http://live.easygenerator.com/try.

You’ve probably heard of the Oppia beta by now. This is a free tool for creating “bite-sized learning journeys” and so it might be considered an authoring tool, though one unlike any other you’ve seen. It was written as an open-source project by a group of Google engineers in their 20 percent time, but it’s not an official Google product. Be aware that anything you create on the site becomes open source for all, so it’s not a tool you’ll want to use for proprietary content. It is mainly meant for teachers and students. See more at https://www.oppia.org/. 

Here is the list of the Top Five that you said you wanted to know more about. Note that these have now been removed from the Survey. For four of these tools, I’ve provided a short review of the features and a bar graph showing my rating of the tool’s power and ease of use. (Since Articulate Online is an LMS and fundamentally not the same kind of tool as the other four, rating it for power and ease of use wasn’t appropriate.)

Articulate Online by Articulatee-Learning Authoring Tool by e-Learning ConsultingnimbleAuthor (was eLearning Course Builder) by eLearning247FlexAuthoring by FlexTrainingUdutu Online Course Authoring by Udutu Online Learning Solutions

Articulate Online complements both Articulate Storyline and Articulate Studio; Studio includes Presenter, Quizmaker, and Engage. It takes the place of a learning management system and works only with Articulate tools to gather the data from learner sessions, data that you can then use to generate reports within Articulate Online.

The data you can view range from an individual’s response to a specific question up to discovering group trends for specific questions. You can give learners access to their personal histories so they can generate their own reports. You can organize learners into different groups (create your own if you like) and assign different permission levels to each group.

I find all the interfaces easy to understand and to use. All that data your learners generate need not stay trapped within Articulate Online because there are options to export to CSV (comma delimited files, easy to import into Microsoft Excel) or to XML files, and finally to PDF files as well.

Most learning management systems are very expensive, but Articulate Online ranges from $199 a month for up to 50 users, up to $499 a month for 500 users. You can cancel at any time. Learn more at http://www.articulate.com/products/ao-plans.php.

This tool’s name couldn’t be more generic, and the tool itself is easy to use. It does not have a ton of features. The interface uses a tree view menu to create pages and uses mostly dialog boxes for you to lay out Pages, Quizzes, and Tests. Figure 1 shows the types of pages you can create.

Figure 1: eLearning Authoring Tool’s page choices

You can choose to have learners freely navigate to the next page or be forced to visit, complete, or pass the current page (assuming it’s a question). The learner can use the tree view to jump to any page and you can have standard Previous and Next buttons, along with options for Glossary, Resources, Help, and Close or Open Menu. You can also provide a Progress button that will let learners pop up a window at any time to see what they have accomplished and what they have left to do.

The editor uses ribbons along the top, now familiar to anyone who has used Office applications in the last few years. It contains an HTML editor and you can create cascading style sheets as well.

The tool is installed on your hard drive and the courses you create with it will work with SCORM. It publishes to HTML/DHTML.

The regular retail price for e-Learning Authoring Tool is $799. See more at http://www.e-learningconsulting.com/products/authoring/authoring.html.

This tool was originally called eLearning Course Builder but now has the less generic (and niftier) name nimbleAuthor, probably to avoid confusion with Adobe Dreamweaver Course Builder extensions and with Google Course Builder (now called Open edX).

nimbleAuthor also uses the page metaphor—when you add a new page you are given a choice of 10 page templates, as seen in Figure 2. They include presentation, interaction, question pages, and a blank page so that you can construct your own.

Figure 2: nimbleAuthor provides 10 page templates

When you edit a template page or start with a blank one, you have the flexibility of adding different content types by clicking an Add button and moving objects around after clicking a Drag button. There are also branding options that let you change more global aspects of your lesson. You can also add an Assessment at the end of your lesson.

The tool is cloud-based and publishes to SCORM 1.2. However it does appear that you are highly encouraged to couple nimbleAuthor with nimbleLMS. As a cloud-based tool, nimbleAuthor fits right into nimbleLMS. A library of royalty-free images is included and all courses work across desktops and mobile devices.

eLearning247 is an English vendor, so its pricing is in pounds sterling. If you wish to use nimbleAuthor separately and deploy resulting courses into your own SCORM 1.2 LMS, the cost is £850.00 a year. If you use nimbleLMS along with nimbleAuthor, the cost is a per-learner registration. Check out the tool and the payment options at www.elearning247.com.

FlexAuthoring is a cloud-based tool (part of the “Total e-Learning Solution”) that lets you build lessons that contain what are called Learning Screens. Each Learning Screen is based on a template, and you can add text, audio, video, etc. In any case, you are not working in a WYSWIG environment here. Rather, you fill in dialogs to load each screen element. Tests are set up the same way. You add questions and answers to tests through wizard-like dialogs. It works directly with the FlexTraining LMS, therefore everything is integrated and you do not use your own LMS. (People usually call this combination an LCMS.)  

You can sign up for a trial, but it will cost you $500 to do so, though it is reimbursed if you sign up for a full license. A full license starts at $495 per month using the self-service kit provided, which will let you deliver an unlimited number of courses to a maximum of 100 students. You will have to contact the company to obtain license pricing for 250, 1000, 5000, or unlimited students. See more at http://www.flextraining.com/.

Udutu Online Course Authoring is a completely free online authoring tool that uses a WYSIWYG environment. Udutu is a services company and so also has its own LMS (called Udutu Guru) and other services to which you can purchase licenses. The tool itself, though, is not limited to the Udutu LMS. You can export your courses and host them on your own server or in your LMS, publish to Udutu’s Facebook page at no cost, and more.

The tool itself uses a metaphor of folders and screens. Each folder is a group that is flexible in nature. You can call it a topic, module, chapter, or anything else you like. The folders can be expanded and collapsed and form a tree view on the left. A screen can be one of several basic layouts, such as text and/or image combinations, a more-info slide, or a short PDF document.

You can also create assessment screens, and these include several types: multiple choice, match labels to images, order the steps, drag and drop, what’s wrong with the picture, phrase matching, order images, and more.

There are also advanced screen types, which include slide shows, rollovers, animated lists, and others.

Most of the screen types are compatible with mobile devices, though some won’t work on iPads (you’ll be told which).

Media can include most types you need, including different image, audio, animation, and video formats.

Several scenario templates are provided, which I think is pretty cool, especially for a free tool. (Figure 3)

Figure 3: Course template categories in Udutu

In short, Udutu offers a pretty impressive cloud-based tool that is free to use. See more at http://www.udutu.com/solutions_udutu.html.

Next month I’ll cover the top five tools that you choose now. Note that the above five tools have been removed from the survey so that we can focus on others. Let me know your thoughts on the above tools, especially if you use them. Finally, be sure to go vote in the survey!

View the original article here