Don’t Let Your Class End Up on the “Front Page of the Internet”.

The website known as Reddit bills itself as the "Front Page of the Internet". Warning: take all content warnings seriously when browsing Reddit. Any and all content types are there. One "subreddit" or section of the site is named "mildlyinfuriating". This section allows people to rant about various annoyances in their day. Today, an image entitled "How my professor organizes her lectures for our class" has 2047 "upvotes" as of this writing:

Click the image above, to visit the original Reddit post.

Don't let this be you! Always review your class in Student View, and think about what it would be like to come into the course for the first time. Even better, ask a person who is entirely unfamiliar with the class to find something, starting from the main page of the course, and watch them for possible confusion.

Random Scenario and Story Generators

Scenarios and the use of Scenario-Based Learning (SBL) in courses allows learners to apply knowledge and experiment with skills in relevant situations by working through structured decision-making that resembles real-world challenges. Students are able to analyze issues, solve problems, and strategize to move forward in the story or sequence of events. Sometimes dreaming up the premise of a scenario can be a challenge in itself. There are a large number of free scenario generators available that may help you to get started writing:

• Big Huge Thesaurus’ Story Plot Generator - Presents six story-starting sentences with each button click.
• Plot Generator - Generates entire short stories after entering in a wide variety of nouns, adjectives, and character names.
• RanGen Plot Generator - Provides an outline for a scenario that includes beginning, middle and ending elements.
• RP Mini Scenario Generator - Creates a two-person scenario premise after the user provides character names. 
• Seventh Sanctum Story Generator - Offers three to five-sentence story ideas.
• Writer’s Exercise Generator - Generates random plot ideas, first lines, character names, exercises, and more.
• Writing Exercises’ Random Scenario Generator - Creates random “What if?” scenario premises. Also has generators for plots, dialogue, character names, and more.

Although the output from the above websites may not result in the greatest scenarios or stories ever made, using the generators may help you to start to formulate some ideas on how to begin your own scenario that aligns with your objectives and is relevant to your learners’ needs.

CameraSim - Demystify the DLSR

CameraSim is a DSLR simulator that visually explains how camera settings affect a photo. It is a tool for photography newbies and the instructors who teach them. 


Use the web app for free: http://camerasim.com/apps/camera-simulator/

The free online app lets you:

• Play with ISO, aperture and shutter speed with the original DSLR camera simulator.

• See what goes on inside a DSLR camera when you snap that photo.

• Work on composition technique and play with exposure

Want more? Go to http://camerasim.com