Adobe Photoshop Touch App

Combine images and apply professional photoshop effects to your images using the new Adobe Photoshop Touch App. Use most of the tools and effects offered just like the desktop version of Photoshop on your Android tablet. And when you are finished, share them with friends and family on Facebook.

Some great features include: Layers, interactive tutorials, selection tools, Photoshop effects and filters, and much more.

Visit the link below for more information:
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-touch.html

• Operating system: Android™ 3.1 or higher
• Display size: 8.9-inch or larger
• Display resolution: 1280 x 800 minimum
• Camera: Recommended

Web Acessibility for Instructional Designers

There are issues encountered by Instructional Designers that can be key parts of the challenge when making course materials as accessible as possible. In general, putting up content in html format allows for a great deal of flexibility. As on the rest of the web, it allows the use of css techniques, graphics, javascript, flash, etc. It also eliminates the need for extra software applications on student computers to read course content. However, there are some complex challenges encountered when putting certain subject materials into html format.

This presentation may be of help to those facing such challenges. In it, I go through a handful of key issues we’ve faced, and techniques we’ve used in our office while designing online classes. These include the problems of making information in graphical, video, and audio formats accessible, color coding, and planning for screen-reader users. The full text transcript of each slide is available on the Notes tab that goes with it.

Problem Solving-Accessibility in Online Classes Presentation.

Enjoy!

New Studying Rules

“With many students, it’s not like they can’t remember the material” when they move to a more advanced class, said Henry L. Roediger III, a psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis. “It’s like they’ve never seen it before.”

Seems all the advice I got about studying when I was growing up was wrong. I guessed that way back then, but now someone else—with more credibility than I—has uncovered why. The cognitive scientists cited in a recent New York Times article ("Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits," by Benedict Carey)  that for motivated students (ah, there's a caveat!) these findings will help children, traditional college students, and adult learners. In a nutshell, they say…

• Studying the same thing in different locations helps people remember the subject better.
• Moving from one aspect of a subject to another in a study session is a good thing. It appears that mixing it up makes it all stick better.
• Self-tests, or quizzes, make things stick better, too.
• Spacing study sessions, a little here, a little there, is more effective than one long session in the same place.

(Interesting side note: Tests may not be the best measurement tools, but they're terrific learning tools.)

Some of what these researchers have to say helps to explain why I never could remember anything I ever tried to study while sitting at a library table. The article is worth checking out. Neal Conan, host of the radio program "Talk of the Nation" held a great conversation with Carey, a colleague who went back to school mid-career, and some call-in listeners about all this. It's at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130728588&sc=nl&cc=es-20101031 if you'd like to listen. The whole program segment is about 30 minutes long. Good listening while you clean your desk next time.

The article also addresses the recently disparaged idea of "learning styles" which will no doubt be controversial in some circles. But that's a subject for another day.