As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links about once a month here on my blog. This post includes links related to elearning authoring tools, interactivity, AI images, the environmental impact of AI, and a curated collection of fonts.
Elearning authoring tools
eLearning Authoring Tools Comparison: Interactive Data & Rankings | Articulate Alternatives
Mike Stein (ID Atlas) completed an immensely valuable project to compare ID authoring tools by building the same course in multiple tools. Their site compares and ranks tools based on a rubric that includes development time, usability, responsiveness, and accessibility.
The Monopoly Tax
Mike Stein’s behind-the-scenes explanation of the process and results of the authoring tools comparison linked above.
Interactivity
Interactive Activities Done Properly: What the Science Actually Allows Us to Do | Learning Development Accelerator
(Free membership in the LDA community required to access the article)
Matt Richter dives deep into the science of how to align activities with the goals for learning and what people need to practice or accomplish.
When a metaphorical game succeeds, it succeeds because it creates structurally similar cognitive demands—not because it is fun, novel, or symbolic.
In other words, the brain doesn’t care about your metaphor. It cares about what it has to think about during the activity.
From a cognitive architecture viewpoint, activities are not designed to “create engagement,” “break up the session,” or “get people talking.” Those may be side benefits, but they are never the goal.
The purpose of an activity is to create conditions where the learner must activate, retrieve, apply, or integrate the target schema.
When aligned to cognitive architecture, interactive activities can beautifully satisfy SDT’s psychological needs:
Autonomy: choosing strategies, making decisionsCompetence: clear and informational feedback, achievable challengeRelatedness: coordinating, negotiating, helping But motivation is a multiplier, not a substitute —Matt Richter
AI images
Nano Banana can be prompt engineered for extremely nuanced AI image generation | Max Woolf’s Blog
While I’ve had reasonably good results from using a similar image prompt structure with Gemini (Nano Banana) that I use with Midjourney and other tools, this article describes more complex prompting strategies like structuring prompts with JSON. There are also some easier tips like adding MUST in all caps to signal importance.
The reason is that information asymmetry between what generative image AI can and can’t do has only grown in recent months: many still think that ChatGPT is the only way to generate images and that all AI-generated images are wavy AI slop with a piss yellow filter.
—Max Woolf
Whisk AI – Free AI Image Generator
Whisk is more about enhancing your image prompts than about the image generation itself. If you give it even a basic, vague prompt, it will suggest enhancements so you get better results faster. This is an experimental tool from Google Labs, so expect that the performance may be uneven and that the tool may disappear in the future without warning.
AI Storyboard Tool for Visual Consistency | Higgsfield Popcorn
While Higgsfield Popcorn is designed for storyboarding scenes for videos, it might work for stills for training scenarios too. You upload reference image(s) and then describe what happens in each scene. I’m putting this on my list of tools to test out.
The environmental impact of AI
Artificial intelligence and the environment: Putting the numbers into perspective – Artificial intelligence
Using AI does use energy, water, and other resources. But when you consider it as part of your decision-making, it’s important to put it in perspective. Being on a Zoom call or watching Netflix for an hour uses more electricity and water than prompting ChatGPT numerous times.
Fonts
brabadu/awesome-fonts: Curated list of fonts and everything
This curated collection includes a number of free fonts and sources for free fonts.
Additional curated resources
Check out my complete library of links or my previous bookmarks posts.
