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It has been an incredible week in the weather department for us around here. I’m trying to be outside as much as possible while the window is open before the summer heat and humidity get here. I hope this finds you well and able to be outside enjoying your surroundings no matter what the weather is doing.

As always, thanks for reading.

📰 News & Notes

The Ultimate Guide to Curation for L&D

Najmah Salam & Nandini Bhudia from Filtered have just published this sweet guide so L&D professionals have a place to start and build a content curation strategy that will truly make an impact for their learners. It’s all in there starting with why to curate in the first place all the way through to creating and distributing your pathways.

🥡 Take away: Whether you’re a curation newbie or grizzled veteran, there is something in here for everyone that can up your curation game.

Improving Training Videos Using Neuroscience with Patti Shank

Just because you have the skills to shoot and edit a video doesn't mean it's instructionally sound. This is why some videos are easier to learn from than others. And why that learning sticks. Watching video is a passive experience and therefore you might think there isn't much more to it than just making it more entertaining. Yea, you'd be wrong.

Take away: Dr. Patti Shank shares some of the mental processing models you can use to your advantage to improve learning when producing videos.

Guide To Creating Successful Community Strategies

Feverbee’s Community Strategy Guide offers valuable insights on building and managing online communities. It emphasizes understanding community goals, engaging the target audience, and fostering inclusivity. Key points include defining objectives, researching the audience, establishing guidelines, managing conflicts, and measuring success.

🥡 Take away: If you’re considering starting up a community or already working with one this is a comprehensive resource for developing successful communities.

Effective educational videos

This study from Vanderbilt University finds that effective educational videos are strategic, engaging, and cognitively optimized. They should be goal-oriented, concise, and stimulating. Incorporating storytelling and pacing can enhance learner engagement. Interactive elements and practice opportunities help to consolidate learning. Videos should also be created with consideration for diverse learning needs. Lastly, it's crucial to assess the effectiveness of the video, taking into account both the learners' understanding and their experience.

🥡 Take away: Effective educational videos should be goal-oriented, engaging, inclusive, interactive, and their effectiveness should be regularly assessed.

7taps AI Transformer

I wanted to share some key takeaways from a recent talk via 7taps which is a quick and easy way to do that but it was even quicker and easier than I thought it would be. They have a new AI transformation feature that will build your micro-course from existing content. You can toss in a file like a PowerPoint deck or a PDF or give it a URL—from YouTube or Google Docs, etc. —and watch as it whips up a microlearning course in less time than it takes you to make a cup of coffee. Add your personal touches, tweak or add your interactions, and voilà! No more of the awful copy-paste monotony or even worse - recreating stuff from scratch. Watch just how fast and easy it is here and check out the final results here.

🥡 Take away: Give 7taps new AI transformation feature a try and see how good it does converting your existing content into a micro-course format.

🎧 Podcasts

These are the conversations that caught my ear this week.

🧰 Tech Tools & Tips

If tools are your jam, check out my new Work Smarter newsletter

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The 10 Most Frequent Mistakes in Writing a Course Script

Attention all course developers, methodologists, and lecturers!

Struggling with online course engagement and adaptation? Join this upcoming webinar: "The 10 Most Frequent Mistakes in an Online Course Script." Learn how to avoid common script-writing mistakes and get tips from our expert panel. Register now for your certificate of attendance and presentation gift. Don't miss out on enhancing your online course development skills!

🧳 Where’s Mike?

• Learning & Marketing Conference, June 7-8 Online

If you or your event needs a speaker or workshop that is highly interactive and super practical we should talk.

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