Curated Industry Content for the Week of 12/14/15

Every Monday we curate a number of articles and blog posts that have relevance to members of the eLearning Guild Community, and to the learning and performance field as a whole. Each piece of content that we share includes a brief introduction from the member of the Guild Community sharing why they think the content is important.

Here’s the content for this week:

Laptop Ergonomics – Basic Tips – Adult or Child Laptop Use at Home, Work or School Youtube video from Stephen Watkins
Most elearning professionals spend a large amount of time in front of a computer, so this brief video offers some valuable tips for healthier living through how you position yourself and your computer. However, that’s actually the secondary reason I share this video. I encourage you to watch this more than once. First, absorb the tips because they are valuable. After that, watch the video as a desgner. Look at how the information is conveyed, and how the video teaches you about the subject. Notice that there are no word – visually or spoken – and yet the messaging is completely clear. -David Kelly

Cheap and easy virtual reality via CNET News
Virtual Reality is fast approaching the mainstream, and is close to realizing some of the potential that has been seen for decades. There are a number of great opportunities to experience what a virtual reality environment is like without spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on equipment. This brief video explores a few cheap options, and even shares details of a free app to dabble in creating your own virtual reality environment to explore. – David Kelly

Star Wars: The Force Accountedby Jeremy Scott Diamond, Mark Glassman, Chandra Illick, and Chloe Whiteaker
This week the eagerly anticipated new Star Wars film is finally released. As such, most social media feeds have blown up with Star Wars-themed content, including this post from Bloomberg. The statistics are interesting to the Star Wars fan, but I share the link not for the data, but as another interesting example of data being shared. This interactive infographic takes very generic information and presents it in a compelling way. Lots of design inspiration here. -David Kelly

Angry Plants vs. Zombies: 4 Things a Game Engine Can Do For You by Zsolt Olah
There are lots of posts talking about the value of games for learning. There are considerably less that explore the “how to” conversations of making a technology-based game happen. This post is in that latter group, and explores the value of using a game engine to drive your gamin-based learning efforts. -David Kelly

Every Lesson Worth Learning is Worth Revisiting by Gregory Ciotti
The value of reflection is huge in learning. It’s also one of the things most people struggle allocating time for. This post shares some great lessons in its message. I also share it as a great example of the value that can be generated by pausing to reflect on what you have learned, -David Kelly

What are you reading?

If you have an article, blog post, or other resource that you think we should consider sharing in a future Curated Industry Content post, please feel free to send a link to the resource to David Kelly along with a few sentences describing why you think the resource is valuable.