Our brain – the Illusionist and the Laws of Gestalt.

Our brain is forever engaged in the act of simplification…it’s always trying to cut a long story short – and in doing so, it creates illusions.

So, what do you see?

In this podcast, I talk about Gestalt and its five laws.

• The Law of Figure & Ground
• The Law of Proximity
• The Law of Pragnanz
• The Law of Good Continuation
• The Law of Closure

If you don’t know of Gestalt, I promise that you are in for a cognitive treat.

Check out my Gestalt Laws Podcast here.

 

Register for Creative Agni’s Free Online Instructional Design Primer workshop

Hi Friends,

If you are a content professional, this workshop could be of interest to you.

I’ll be conducting a 3-hour Free Online Instructional Design Workshop on September 06, 2020, which is a Sunday. It shall start at 10 AM IST and conclude around 1 PM IST. The workshop shall be conducted through Zoom, and all you’ll need to join is a free Zoom account.

So, if you’d like to attend an interaction and fun session on Instructional Design, please visit the IDP Page here, and register for it.

Here’s a bit about the workshop. For more details, please visit the link above:

Workshop Brief:

As we move into an era where our laptops and mobile devices have become a necessary extension of ourselves, the methods of learning and the psychology of learners both undergo a change. Along with these changes, the challenges that a content creator faces today, are different from the ones she faced before the century turned. The thread that strings together all these mediums of learning – traditional as well as modern – is Instructional Design.

From being an exotic, somewhat obscure discipline that was more misunderstood than understood, Instructional Design has emerged to be an important weapon in a content developer’s arsenal. The primary reason behind this evolution has been the growth of the IT and the ITES sector in India in the early 2000s. We have now reached a point in our journey where Instructional Design has transformed into an essential skill for almost every content development/training job in our industry.

All learning professionals, starting from the fresh content developers/trainers to the senior content/L&D managers, are expected to have a strong grip on the principles and methods of Instructional Design.

This workshop shall attempt to demystify Instructional Design and illustrate its connection with eLearning and mLearning, explain how being proficient in ID and related disciplines could put your career on a fast track, and of course; it shall also illustrate how much fun it could be to learn and apply Instructional Design.

Important Note:

This workshop shall require your video and audio presence. The workshop shall simulate the contact version of the workshop conducted in Noida, and will be different only in that the 3-hour session will be conducted through Zoom. The invites will be sent out to 12-16 prospective participants on first-come-first-served basis.

Workshop Objectives:

• Provide exposure about the different roles and corresponding responsibilities that exist in the eLearning and Content Development industry.
• Enable fresh instructional designers, content writers, and trainers to get a panoramic view of what ID practice and theory entails.

I look forward to meeting you this Sunday,

Shafali

 

Free Online Workshop on Instructional Design – Sunday, September 06, 2020.

Hello Friends,

Hope you are doing well and staying safe.

Creative Agni has just announced my free online workshop on Instructional Design. It shall be a 3-hour program that will start at 10 AM (Indian Time.) The program will be conducted through Zoom.

If you are interested in attending, please visit the IDP workshop webpage, read the details, and register for the workshop. The invites with the Zoom meeting link shall be going out on Friday, September 4th.

The next session of the IDCD session shall be conducted online, and you are welcome to explore it at the IDCD Course web-page.

Thank you,

Shafali

 

What is Rapid eLearning Development or Rapid Authoring?

Rapid eLearning Development has been around for almost a decade now. As I see it, Rapid Authoring Tools such as Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, and others, would be the development tools of choice for large and even mid-sized organizations. In about ten years from now, nearly all the employees of every corporation would have held a smart-device since they were in their diapers, and they would naturally prefer to learn using their mobile devices. The makers of the Rapid Authoring Tools are already ensuring that the content that’s published using their software is not only cross-platform (with HTML5 output becoming a norm,) but also responsive (responds to the device on which it is displayed and displays without breaking.)

In “Demystifying Rapid Authoring or Rapid eLearning Development,” I’ve differentiated traditional elearning development from Rapid elearning development, discussed the pros and cons of rapid authoring, and attempted to project the future of rapid elearning development. I believe that for higher Bloom Level courses traditional eLearning development will still rule the roost. While the Rapid Authoring Tools are becoming better with each new version, automation always constrains creativity.

I’d also like to introduce Creative Agni’s “Rapid eLearning Development with Adobe Captivate (REDAC) Certificate Course.”

This course is designed to ensure that the content professionals who take this program become independently capable of developing and delivering content to their audience.They would become at home with the Adobe Captivate interface and would know exactly how to use the capabilities of the software to deliver impactful content. For those who already are working as Instructional Designers, Content Developers, or Trainers, this course would lead them toward developmental freedom and enable them to explore such opportunities that require rapid authoring capabilities.

I hope you like the article 🙂

 

Cognitive Dissonance and its impact on Learning.

“Let us say you ordered a watch online. The picture of the watch looked good (it looked like it had a curved glass and the dial had a silvery sheen) and it was available at a very affordable price. A few days later, the watch was delivered, and you opened the box with great expectations. You were hoping to find a watch that looked as classy as the one you had seen in the pictures. But when you unwrapped the box and opened it, you realized that the real watch didn’t look as good as its pictures. The dial was off-white and glass was plain. You realize that the pictures must have been touched up as the watch was the same model that you had ordered. Fortunately despite its not-as-good-as-expected looks, it still was a deal at the price you bought it.

So you tell yourself, that the watch is from a good brand, and that you anyway wanted a robust watch and not a flimsy wrist-candy.

When you engage in this behavior, you are trying to curb the cognitive dissonance that has arisen out of two conflicting ideas in your mind.”

Understanding cognitive dissonance and its impact on learning can prepare us to handle it in our classrooms and online courses. The following links will take you to a series of three posts:

1. Understanding Cognitive Dissonance – Explanation and Illustration
2. Cognitive Dissonance in Classrooms and Other Learning Environments
3. Cognitive Dissonance and Other Instructional Design Principles

BTW, this Easter, Froth bought a pair of Easter Bunny ears for Coffeebeans…

 

 

About my Whereabouts…

Dear Readers of this Dear Blog-o-mine,

In the recent times, you haven’t seen many new posts on this blog (fine…I stand corrected. You haven’t seen ANY new post in a while!) I am sorry for my inordinately long absence. However, I’d like to present my excuse for your assessment. I’ve been kept busy by Creative Agni – the eZine for Instructional Design and eLearning and Creative Agni’s two Instructional Design Courses.

I invite you to click the following links to see what I’ve been busy with.

• The Instructional Design for Content Development (IDCD) Certificate Course
• The Instructional Design for Senior-Professionals and Trainers (IDST) Certificate Course

You can visit the Creative Agni Home page here.

I am organizing a Free Instructional Design Workshop on January 29, 2012. Click the following link to read about the workshop.

• the Instructional Design Primer for Senior-professionals and Trainers (IDP-ST)

I will write more regularly now because if I don’t, my mind will explode with all the Cognitive Psychology stuff I’ve been reading. The only way to save my sanity would be to share what I learn, and so I’d be back soon:)

Best Wishes,

Shafali