People need to:

proud of, connected with, and excited about their work.

be valued, acknowledged, and included.

climate with of something "bigger than themselves".

feel what they do matters;

be rewarded for good work;

feel that what they do is a contribution to others.

believe that they are operating at their pre-eminent.

have reliance in and assign their leaders.

If you aide them about these objectives, they will return with their loyalty support; their devoted ideas, their upfront feedback; and their hard ahead.

These same principles work for both team leaders and work together members to assemble loyalty to one another; to have their boss be trusty to them!

The 15 Can Creaate Loyalty & A Desire To Follow You are:

You build their trust in you, and you manifest your empower in them.

You articulate, inspirit, and exist freshness into a vision and mission the team can align with and be proud of. The team members feel they influence of something bigger than themselves. This helpps then to conceive of their own potential greatness

You articulate values and objectives that achieviing the vision and mission will fulfill.

You articulate the values and behaviors that they and you will utilization when implementing the work.

live nigh the values, vision and mission. You don't need to be perfect; you do deceive to demonstrate commitment and determination to the values, mission, and vision.

You demonstrate cconfidence in yourself and them.

You actively encouraage and are responsive to feedback; acknowledges muff; and do "course corrections" when you are supplied track or conditiions change.

You are perceived as ""; that is your demonstrate credibility and character.

hold you deceive competencies needed to do your job:
Skills and Expertise

Drive and Commitment

Intelligence

Courage

You listen to your people, and actively invite their input. You include and consider their input in any decision that affects them.

You trust in and believe your people. You proud of ; even before they partake of earned it.

Consistently create a sense of "we can do this if everyone does their part" and that everyone is important to achieving suuccess.

You appropriately defend your people and represent their needs.

You inhibit them theirr greatness. You 't let them be less who they are.

Exceptional leaders who inspire loyalty really do make the needs their employees a higher priority then their own needs. If your employees believe is faithful of you, they will offer their own stability in return.

The executive is the one who has sense enough to pick opportune men to do what he wants done, and self-control to keep from meddling with them while they do it. ~TTheodore Roosevelt

Loyalty is an essential ingredient in being an exceptional leader and in developing other leaders and high performing teeams. Do these 15 behaviors integrity and you and your team will immediately and increase in loyalty and effectiveness.

� Copyright � 2004, Art Giser (415)-282-2221 All rights reserved. Feel free to copy it, and forward it on to others, as long as you include copyright and embody a link to http://www.elteams.com Giser
(415) 282-2221
If you are highly motivated to be the best leader you can be, want to bring into the world a intellectual sense of satisfaction with your work, and are compelled to bring discernible the outwit in others; vissit http://www.ELTeams.com For resources including articles, audio programs, consulting, and workshops. Or email me at art@elteams.com

The students have already selected one of 5 broad topics we give them - education, food, human rights, music, or sports. For the assignment and discussion posting, they have to come up with 2-3 research questions that are appropriate for writing a hypothetical 8-12 page research paper.

Here are the techniques we're teaching them:

1) Brainstorming. We have them complete a worksheet where they can talk about what they already know about a topic, what interests them about it, and what they would like to know more about.

2) Concept Mapping. I found this really cool YouTube video demonstrating how to do this:

3) Reviewing What's Out There. We have them select an article from a list on various aspects of their broad topics. All the articles are from CQ Researcher, which is great for topic overviews and includes nice bibliographies. I created a Camtasia video on how to use CQ Researcher, and directions are presented in an Articulate template.

4) Defining Certain Aspects. A tutorial created using Articulate demonstrates how they can narrow a broad topic by looking at thing such as certain time frames, geographical locations, types of people, and/or aspects (sociological, economical, legal, etc.).

Since it's only a one-credit class, and this module only lasts one week, we can't teach much more than this. Another technique that I would like to teach (possibly if we create a "Skillful Researcher 2") is how to review what's out there by looking in library catalogs and databases. This gets a little more complicated but is a great skill for students to learn.

If anyone has other methods they teach students, I'd be interested to hear what they are! I'm hoping these 4 will be a good foundation for them, but any feedback would be appreciated as well.

I'm not one to walk around thinking that I'm better than those around me. OK, I know I'm better than some people around me, and I usually have an understanding of why they are in the life predicaments they are in. Everyone isn't blessed with the opportunity to attend a good school. Everyone isn't blessed with the ability to find employment within weeks of a search. Everyone isn't blessed with a perfect home situation. I'm certainly not blessed with all of these things. But sometimes, I find myself becoming irritated.

It's beyond frustrating when I go somewhere that requires customer service and I receive an attitude from the individuals working there for whatever reason. I understand people have bad days, but there comes a point when that is no longer an excuse. I recently went for an oil change and tire rotation at the local Jiffy Lube. I've been there plenty of times in casual clothes ranging from basketball shorts to sweats. The staff hasn't changed over my last 4-5 visits, but I noticed a change in their attitudes today. I'd like to blame it on the hot weather, but it was actually pretty cool in the facility and they weren't that busy. So more than likely, that's not a legitimate excuse. Maybe they were upset that the Seattle Supersonics were relocating to Oklahoma City. I doubt that as well seeing I live in Boston. Maybe they were upset about the gas prices. Then again, the gas prices have been high for a while, like a dedicated weed smoker. So that can't be it neither.

Once I figured out what was going on, I was kinda shocked but not really. I was put together in my regular attire as described earlier. I got the feeling that I was being looked at as bourgeois (Pronounced boosh-z). There were no smiles today. There was no small talk or "what up man? what's been poppin?" Even on the way out when I said thanks for a job well done (though not in those words), the people kinda just looked at me.

It's amazing how one's appearance can affect the thought process of others. I've seen this type of behavior before. Usually, it's because somebody around has their nose in the air. My nose was parallel to the ground, perhaps heading toward perpendicular since I spent most of my time on my blackberry. Does my clothing really make me look elitist? Does my ability to speak properly make me upper-echelon? Is being an articulate black guy secretly a curse? Perhaps this is the social disconnect. This is what differentiates me from so many others. I'm not flashy enough to be cool in certain circles of ignorance. In other circles, I'm not down because I speak too well. Even with me being a simple person, I still find myself pondering the complexities of human interaction. Kinda makes me wonder what people thought of Barack Obama before he became the Democratic Presidential Nominee...

我要逃離。心理上或者生理上，或者實體位置上。在這一切只能是一場桎梏的時候。

因為我尚未體驗完美的生命，或者生命的完美。如果體驗到了的話我就不會想要死掉了：假說。

Time to put rapid e-learning to the test. I recently got an assignment to create an e-learning course and it needs to be done fairly quickly. I need to get it done in a few weeks and I don't want to spend more than 6 hours a day on it. On the downside, the course goals are a little fuzzy, there isn't much existing content, and I am writing the content and developing the course on my own. On the positive side, I have a lot of autonomy to design what I want.

Here's the plan:

I will use the Articulate suite to build the course (a tool I have used for one previous course). Because of the tight timeline, I will rely mostly on relatively simple approaches but (hopefully) engaging instructional strategies that a single, non-programmer/action scripter can do alone. To that end, I'm drawing a lot of inspiration lately from blogs like Cathy Moore (e.g. how to add emotional impact ; dump the drone), Tom Kuhmlan's Rapid E-Learning Blog, and Jane Bozart (especially her Better Than PPT book).

Goal: A fully functioning course in 21 days (and no more than 48 hours). By "fully functioning" I mean ready for beta testing, not necessarily final release.

• Days 1-5: content outline, design/strategy, storyboard in PPT, document my processes.
• Days 6-10: finalize storyboard, write screen content and script, identify graphic/media
• Days 11 - 15: Build all course screens and interactions
• Days 16 - 20: Record audio, test, release beta for review
• Day 21: Kaizen (improvement) - Review process for what worked, what didn't. Look for areas of waste and inefficiencies, Improve and document process for next project.

Along the way:

In addition to developing the course, there are a few other things I will do:

• Document lessons learned and best practices.
• Track metrics and track data to help with future improvement projects.
• Develop project management and process documents that can be replicated.
• Update this blog minimum three days per week: include discoveries, general experience, review of software, etc.
• Search out other blogs, product support site for help, and post questions as needed.

That's it....ready, set.....

Do you have any ideas for getting set up and started on a WBT rapidly? War stories, best practices or things to avoid....any comments are appreciated. Comment here or e-mail me.

I know I won't be able to articulate this in a way that makes sense but... i can't get over this "Brain Freeze". 

There is way too much going on and I am completely overwhelmed. I don't like to speak or write unless I feel free to say or write exactly what it is I want to say.  I just can't do that right now.

By Ras Idonii Don Rico

Is Hillary Clinton’s ‘RFK assassination’ comment merely a bizarre mis-statement, harmlessly wishful thinking? Or, is it an example of skillful subliminal suggestion; hoping to be able to take advantage of a something that was merely possible by moving it in the direction of something that becomes more likely?

It is fairly easy for some people to pretend – especially Whites and those others who still don’t get want to face the reality of American life, historically and presently – that Mrs. Clinton made a simple ‘mis-statement’ regarding the Bobby Kennedy assassination. What are some of the contextual issues?

To begin with, for a long time now (in terms of her campaign strategy) Hillary Clinton has been playing the ‘fear’ card as well as the ‘race card.’ Putting the two cards together in the minds of Americans is certainly very easily done, openly or subliminally.

Secondly, to claim that the statement was in reference to the time-frame of Bobby Kennedy’s campaign, rather than to draw attention to the word assassination, is a clumsy stretch.

 “She could have said simply “Bobby Kennedy was in the primaries, up until June.” Period.

End of statement. Point made. ”

Thirdly, Mrs. Clinton, in that now-infamous pre-arranged interview, had the opportunity to think; before carefully stating exactly what she meant. And since the general atmosphere of the contest between her and Obama has already been very hostile; with everyone caught up in the seemingly crucial nature of every statement by the main (Democratic) contenders, to attempt to claim that she didn’t think is supremely disingenuous.

 A Mere Mis-Spoke-Meant Moment?

Her ‘effected’ confusion – after taking advantage of the opportunity to inject the ‘a’ word – about not understanding what was/is happening seems to be a clumsy attempt to do some ass-covering.

She could have said simply “Bobby Kennedy was in the primaries, up until June.” Period. End of statement. Point made – if the point was the time-frame. I suspect that Ted Kennedy might be feeling a double, nay triple, pain about now.

To add another terrible twist to the screw, the media (certainly some on the left) have started to spin the utterance as being, ultimately, the fault of African-Americans, because, the spin goes, ‘Blacks have been thinking assassination all along.’

But Hillary Clinton’s statement clearly highlights the difference between ‘could’ and ‘should.’

Blacks saying that Obama could be harmed, is quite different from someone, especially Hillary Clinton (a skillful lawyer) suggesting (even though subliminally) that it ‘might’ or probably ‘should.’

As in the unstated suggestion: ‘should he get killed, I will still be in the race, able to carry on the fight…’ Or, ‘like RFK, he might get killed.’

Her phrasing (coming from a lawyer; one whose stock-in-trade is the careful parsing of words, and how they are delivered) has a clear difference of emphasis from a phrase aimed at focusing on the time-frame. And all this from a candidate who claims she would be ready on Day One. Ready to answer the red telephone at 3:00 am, with the right response, we hope.

To dismiss her statement as a ‘poor choice of words’, as some in the media are trying to spin it, betrays a much more sickeningly strategic mind-set.

A More Troubling, But Not Surprising Phenomenon

The other, more troubling (though by no means new) phenomenon is coming into clearer view; the role of the corporate and white-oriented media in helping many Americans to deny the reality of what America has meant, and still means for too many other Americans – especially Blacks in America.

The spinning of this whole assassination vibe has begun; one objective seems to be to make ‘the African-Americans’ responsible for whatever may result from all this murderous mentality and talk. As if that mentality is something surprising or new to America.

 “As in the unstated suggestion: ‘should he get killed, I will still be in the race,

able to carry on the fight…’ 

Or, ‘like RFK, he might get killed.’ “

Presently we are witnessing the beginnings (led by the white-oriented and corporate media) of a horrible attempt to try to suggest that because many Blacks have expressed fear of a possible action (as many did regarding the possibility Colin Powell’s running for president and being faced with the same threat) that it is merely a matter of others –meaning non-Blacks?- openly saying, via the media, what Blacks have been saying quietly anyway.

The fact that many African-Americans have genuinely and fearfully expressed concern over the possibility of Obama being assassinated, is very different from the Hillary-type of statement; delivered while carefully adopting a pose of an seemingly disinterested, even neutral and innocent bystander. 

Aborting the Product of the Union Between Words, Logic, and Bad Intentions

Before the corporate media gets carried away, and many along with them, by their power and influence, there are some questions to ask ourselves, regardless of what the media might answer:

Has Hillary Clinton, or her staff, said this kind of thing before?

What about similar comments from Terry McCulloch on “Meet the Press”?

And what about Mike Huckabee’s statement?

And what about similar statements from the right, amplified by right-wing media?

By making the Black population, by inference, ‘guilty’ of supposedly starting the whole assassination ‘vibe’ going, the media (including many liberal types) allows old-style, racist, hate-peddling America to wash their hands, in advance, of something that, through their complicity, ‘could’ ((Heaven Forbid!) happen.

Should the world therefore (based on that terrible logic that blames Blacks for everthing that happens to Blacks)) expect that a Black person – maybe a ‘muslim’; to tie a lot of  ‘negative types’ together, one bullet killing many birds – would then end up being accused of actually, physically, pulling the trigger, if the almost unthinkable should occur?

Are we beginning to learn the Clinton-esque meaning what “is” really is…?

The Clinton Campaign’s use of the various code words to promote fear has been clear. So much for the love affair that many Blacks and The Clintons share.

What We Must Do and Not Do

Let us not sit silently by, watching the pieces of a potential horror being put into place. Let them know that we see, that we know. Do not be silently complicit. Do not be an Accomplice through Silence. Whatever we think of our leaders, or each other, let us not cross this Rubicon.

In conclusion: As a skillful, and very articulate, very experienced, opinion-leader of her caliber, one who is on record as a very deliberate word-smith, and world-shaper, Hillary Clinton has made one very tasteless, offensive, and very dangerous ‘mis’-statement.

Is this what “is” really is; that whatever is to be, must be?

If that is the case, it lessens and endangers all of us; not only Barak Obama, not only Blacks in America, and not only Americans. The whole planet understands that, I think.

Guidance and Protection.

"Over the last 15 months we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been in 57 states, I think, one left to go."

Watch below:

Afterwards, Obama said, "I understand I said there were 57 states today. It's a sign that my numeracy is getting a little, uh." At that point, an aide cut him off and ushered journalists out. Before he could mis-speak again? Numeracy?! That is not going to help him shake off the elitist label.

I'm sure he was just tired, but if John McCain had made this gaffe, the media would be all over him, accusing him of a senior moment. Just saying....

Interestingly, there are 57 Islamic states....

Read more here from the LA Times.

Two prominent black gay men are in the news.

John Amaechi is a former NBA player who came out of the closet in February 2007 and became a media sensation — as well as the target for ugly homophobic rants and jokes.

“You’ve got the black people stereotype,” says Amaechi, “that black people are strong, can jump high, are really quick and very masculine. Then because you’ve got this one stereotype of black people, that automatically means they can’t be gay, because you’ve got a different stereotype about what gay people are, both of which are absurd."

Miles away, in Falls Church, Virginia, voters elected the state’s first black and openly gay person to take public office. City Councilman Lawrence Webb said "I hope my election opens the door for others to get involved in public service. It doesn't matter if you're gay or black or both. What matters is your dedication to building a better community and your willingness to work hard at it."

What makes our country great is our Constitution that allows great people to rise to the level of their ability with a blind eye towards their gender, race, age and sexual orientation.

Unless, of course, they want to make the commitment of marriage. In that case, you step in and stop that playing field from being level, based on absurd stereotypes and arguments from those opposed to building a better community. And that’s just not nice.

Yours,

Memory and Centering

“If only I could remember my words then I would be composed” is a complaint that many of us could identify with.

My friend and mentor, Robin Prior, has suggested that the following is a more constructive approach “If only I could be more composed then I would remember my words.”

Have you had the experience of struggling to convey your thoughts on a subject that you know thoroughly? This could range from a total blanking of your mind to finding that you are simply not articulating your thoughts with the accustomed ease.

Adrenaline, the fight/flight hormone, tends to dampen our usual thinking and memory processes. Its job, after all, is to drive us to take physical action. Have you noticed how fast you can move when a speeding car is accelerating toward you? Logical, serial thinking is too slow in this context. It could, literally, be the death of you.

So the most important factor is to moderate your adrenaline flow and turns fear into a buzz, into a pleasant excitement. How? Please see the previous posts, Confidence Tricks 1 – 4.

You do, of course, need to practise what you want to say. It’s important to remember that memory isn’t just psychological – it’s physiological also. So, if you are going to be addressing an audience of 200 it won’t help you if you practice your speech slumped in an easy chair with your feet up in the mantelpiece! At the very least you’ll need to practice your speech whilst standing upright. Preferably standing upright centred, with your weight nicely distributed and a good wide sense of space.

It’s nice, but not essential, if you can practice in the actual venue. If you can’t get into the venue you can always visualise, pretend, that you are practising in it.*

In summary - you link your words and thoughts with a balanced and centred physiology. You link your words and thoughts with the appropriate presentation environment – either physically or in your imagination.

This simple approach can really quieten down your cognitive processes and clear your mind for action. Not only will you be able to articulate your thoughts fluidly you may also find that you are thinking more creatively. You might… surprise yourself… and find that… you know more… than you even suspected… you knew.

* I’ll say more about visualisation and mental rehearsal in a future post.

The interesting part lies in where they want these trees: cemeteries.

Another page on the site explains three reasons why cemeteries are the ideal spot:

1. Cemetery land is only profitable when it's undeveloped.
2. Cemeteries are safest from eminent domain laws.
3. Cemeteries have large trust funds for the care of their grounds, including the trees.

I must admit, it's a fascinating idea. Cemetery trees will likely last much longer than trees on other prime land. And regardless of one's views of global warming, more trees = good.

**

For more information, see the Articulate article or TreesForOurChildren.org

We based the course on the ACRL standards, and the development of the content has been a collaboration between a number of us within the library's Undergraduate Services Team and one of the academic advisors & instructors in University College.  It will introduce students to library resources and how to define a research topic, and teach them about searching strategies, evaluation methods, and the ethics of information use. Initially this summer, we will probably have 50-100 students in 2 different sections of the course.  The goal is to end up with about 500 students per semester - and ideally to make this course required for all undecided university freshman (or perhaps all freshman, period).

Experienced instructional design librarian, Leslie, will be teaching this summer, along with Keith from University College.  In the fall I will probably teach a section or two, and we're hoping down the line that we can have SIRLS grad students teaching the course as part of a graduate assistantship.  We're designing the course in such a way that it will require minimal amounts of time & grading on the part of the instructor, and we are using interactive tutorials and quizzes, videos & virtual lectures, etc. to keep the course engaging while making it scalable for use across a variety of library instruction initiatives.  We've been using Articulate a lot recently to develop the modules and it's been working very well.

It was very exciting to get the approval this week, and by the end of the month we hope to have the course completely developed and ready to go!

....Ovvero, utilizzando ottimi strumenti come Adobe Captivate o Articulate Engage o Articulate Presenter, potrei integrare tutto in una unica interfaccia? La risposta è si!...

La metafora è azzeccata e l'esempio calzante: in realtà, si possono integrare in Presenter un sacco di altre cose (come detto sia da Fabio che da noi in altri post).

Interazioni eXe, quiz creati con HotPot, pagine web statiche o dinamiche...

Nei prossimi post, mostreremo qualche esempio in tal senso.

talent causes me
to question my own fearing
some failure i lurk

library windows
open wide to downtown streets
showcasing homeless

spring days fool the kind
of people wearing flip flops
it's going to rain

That's why I'm becoming more and more disenchanted. I can see why people on the Left are hating on her. Obama's not much better with it as proven in the link you sent to me yesterday but her lies are getting more exposed. Bosnia, her "foreign policy" experience, her "extensive" work on NAFTA.... You know things are pretty bad when Sinbad has to call you out on a lie. Sinbad?!?! Really now. I don't know how Clinton supporters are able to turn a blind eye to this stuff. I sure can't. She talks about how Bush lied to the American people. What about her? It's okay for her to get away with it?

O.K., there was just one thing. The nurse who prepped me noticed I was reading Anna Karenina (yes, I'm still reading it, I've read 800 pages and Tolstoy ain't finished yet). The nurse mentioned she had read Anna too, as well as War and Peace. ... I asked her what W & P was about. She said war, relationships, the economy. I said that sounds like what we're going through today, with a friendly apolitical chortle.

Somehow, we got on the subject of Hitler (she was pumping me full of sedatives, I don't remember the segue). She said, "He was such a good speaker, he was so charismatic. He fooled the people into doing what they did with words." I drowsily responded, "Yes, but without centuries of anti-Semitism in Germany, he never would have been able to." "But that's what's dangerous about being so articulate, "she said, "his rhetoric was just so persuasive to crowds of people."

Oh, Lord, please, don't let this lady be talking about what I think she's talking about. I fought to keep my droopy eyelids open, "But Germany had been humiliated after the First World War, inflation was ridiculous, the German people were ready to accept his message."

"Still," she said, perforating a vein in my right hand, "he was such a good speaker." Just then Mr. Belle came in and we got back to the matter at hand.

Mr. Belle, who embraces all conspiracy theories as if they were truth incarnate, said I was being overly sensitive because I'm an Obamaholic. But didn't it sound a little like she was comparing Barack to Hitler?

I'm hopped up on painkillers and probably way off base here, but don't most people usually point out that Hitler was an evil sociopath more so than a great orator? I'm just sayin'...

Doesn't matter how eloquent anyone is - nobody wants to be compared to Hitler. Especially his "good" qualities.

worms making their way
across sidewalks and through feet
risking lives for rain

the pitter-patter
of water between your toes
teeth smiles and deep breaths

Today is a special day. It is our twentieth wedding anniversary. It is a milestone, and worth taking time out to honor. The years have gone quickly, sprinkled with child-raising, dogs, sick parents, near-death experiences, heart-ache, joy, aging. A good mix for life I'd say. As I've noted, we are both geeks in our own ways, and as such, we understand each other. I just wanted to take a moment today to honor my best friend, and I figured he would enjoy and understand the movie reference below. He and I speak in movie references - lines from movies that capture the emotion of a moment for us. Over the years we have accumulated a collection of lines from hundreds of movies. They have become a kind of coded communication between us.

This particular movie is called 84 Charing Cross Road. Anne Bancroft stars. Her husband, Mel Brooks, purchased the rights to produce it - his gift of love to her, knowing how much she loved the story.

It's the true story of a New York City writer, Helene Hanff - a person kind of like me - no bullsh--, doesn't mince words, very "unglamorous." She has a sharp, but kind sense of humor and a great heart. Helene LOVED English literature, but in late 1940s New York City where the movie begins, she could not find any English literature books except at the library. Then she discovered Marks & Co. and began a decades-long correspondence with them. The story is told through her letters. From the opening of the movie:

"October 5, 1949, to Marks and Co., 84 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2, England. Gentlemen, Your ad in the Saturday Review of Literature says that you specialize in out-of-print books. The phrase "antiquarian bookseller" scares me somewhat as I equate antique with expensive. I am a poor writer with an antiquarian taste in books and all the things I want are impossible to get over here except in very expensive rare editions. I enclose a list of my most pressing problems. If you have any clean second-hand copies of any of the books on the list for no more than $5 each, would you consider this a purchase order and send them to me?"

Thus begins her relationship with the very proper bookseller at Marks & Co., "FPD." FPD, over letters and time becomes Frank Doel, then simply, "Frank." It's a love story, but not the usual kind. They live an ocean apart, have different lives, and he is married with daughters. Happily married. So no, there are no hot sex scenes, the crutch of most modern movies. Yet it is a love story, anyway, because true love at its deepest is about caring, generosity, and the connection of souls. It is not limited by the relationship but can be felt for spouses, friends, relatives, neighbors. Their friendship enlarges their lives, expanding to include his wife, neighbors, daughters, other workers at the bookshop, her friends. Their love is about adding something to each of their lives, not taking things away or destroying things. It is about understanding each other, and that is the quality of love that sustains it, whether in marriage or friendship, well into old age. And frankly, a marriage that lasts well into old age is as much about friendship, as anything else.

Throughout the movie, she revels in the old books she buys, books better for having been owned by someone else first. Again, it is a love of connection to others, even those she never met. She says: "I love inscriptions on fly-leafs and notes in margins. I like the camaraderie-sense of turning pages someone else turned and reading passages someone long gone has called my attention to." She can't get enough of the books. Frank finds them for her.

By the end of the movie, he is "Frankie" to her, and she tells him, "You're the only soul alive who understands me." It's a sentiment that reflects a bond where you are known deeply, valued, and most importantly, accepted. Your truth is safe in the hands of another. Whether two people are the same or very different matters not if there is acceptance. When someone knows our deepest places, our vulnerabilities, and accepts us, they give us the best of gifts. The wish to be understood and accepted is one of the bonds that links us all. These are things I have felt for and from my husband.

At one point a friend of Helene's made it to England and visited the book store. She wrote Helene with a description:

"It's the loveliest old shop straight out of Dickens. You would go absolutely out of your mind over it....It's dim inside. You can smell the shop before you see it. It's a lovely smell. I can't articulate it easily but it combines must and dust and age and walls of wood and floors of wood...The shelves go on forever. They go up to the ceiling and they're very old and kind of gray, like old oak that absorbed so much dust over the years they no longer are their true color."

Such a visceral, sensual description. It was a description both my husband and I fell in love with immediately when we heard it. It is a place we hope yet, to be.

At one point in the movie Helene writes to Frank:

"I require a book of love poems with Spring coming on. No Keats or Shelley. Send me poets who can make love without slobbering. Wyatt or Johnson or somebody. Use your own judgment. Just a nice book, preferably small enough to stick in a slacks pocket and take to Central Park."

Late in the movie, Frank is shown, reflecting on her as a Yeats love poem runs through his mind. The moment, and the poem, are my gifts to my husband, my best friend. Thank you for these last 20 years. They've gone so fast. I'd like 20 times 20 more, and if time allows, I'd like yet to walk into 84 Charing Cross Road with you.

So to "Eddie," all my love, and to you and all romantics out there, a poet who can make love without slobbering:

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths,
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W.B. Yeats (1865-1939). The Wind Among the Reeds. 1899.

Non impazzite cercando di creare un corso da Oscar

Iniziate con semplicità: l'obiettivo è dare informazioni che aiuteranno a fare - meglio - qualcosa. Ad esempio, potete guardare i template della Microsoft che hanno anche dei modelli di analisi dei bisogni.

Clicca qui per vedere i template Microsoft

Dopo qualche progetto, vi sentirete più pronti ad applicare il vostro approccio personale.

Imparate dagli esperti

Per essere un bravo designer e-learning, dovreste sapere qualcosa di multimedia, grafica, design, psicologia e forse anche qualcosa sulle tecnologie web e flash. Ma non troppo, un po' di ciascuno di questi temi. Ecco qualche link (sono in inglese).

• E-Learning by Design: Tutte le informazioni di base.
• The Non-Designer’s Design Book: Alcuni principi base di design e suggerimenti pratici su come organizzare meglio il contenuto.
  E-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Le basi teoriche del perché dovreste organizzare il contenuto in un certo modo
• Presentation Zen: lo zen e.... l'arte delle presentazioni power point (e non solo).

Ne conoscete altri?

Sperimentate gli strumenti

Rispetto a creare corsi con Flash, gli strumenti di rapid e-learning sono facili. Non c'è nessun danno che possiate fare. Ad esempio, come usare Articulate Presenter? Provate a creare un file di 10 slide e provate tutte le caratteristiche che trovate nel menu "Articulate", poi vedete che succede. Infine, date un'occhiata al forum di Articulate o alla vetrina dei prodotti.

Non abbiate paura di sperimentare

Date un'occhiata al lavoro degli altri (ad esempio, nella vetrina di Articulate) e provate anche voi.
Ad esempio, provate a guardare questa immagine: è stata realizzata da uno sviluppatore Flash. Lo studente muove il mouse per avere informazioni su uno specifico pezzo:

Con Articulate Engage si può creare qualcosa di simile in circa 15 minuti.

Provate a guardare questa demo.

Usate le risorse gratuite

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Questi consigli sono solo l'inizio. Il trucco è solo iniziare a fare degli esperimenti e non avere paura di chiedere. Buon lavoro!

Ok. Here's the next scary thing on the horizon for parents. This Elmo robot is going to be available for the 2008 holidays...

(Check out this video on YouTube...)

This thing scares the heck out of me. Anything that can dance and talk and act this articulately would seem to be something out of a Stephen King novel. :)

That said... I think this will be the next big thing in demand by little ones. It's supposed to go for $60 when it hits the market sometime in October. So rev up your shopping engines. The Elmo Terminator is coming for you! :)

Good luck!
--Fitz