Here’s a list of free software downloads I’ve collected that I wanted to share with readers—some I’ve used and others have been recommended. Leave a comment if you try one and like or dislike it … and why.

AUDIO RECORDING AND EDITING
Audacity
Audacity is an audio recording and editing application with a lot of the features you find in commercial products. It works on all platforms and is probably the most popular free audio program around.

BURNING CDs and DVDs
ImgBurn
This is supposed to work more smoothly than the software that comes with Windows for burning CDs and DVDs. It creates data backups, video DVDs and music CDs. The publisher provides a list of sites where you can download the application. They’d like a donation, so oblige if you can.

DOCUMENT CREATION
Open Office
I keep hearing good things about Open Office. It’s the free alternative to the Microsoft Office Suite. You can create text documents, spreadsheets, presentations and databases. And it comes in many languages.

PrimoPDF
Primo PDF has a free and paid version. The free version is all you need to quickly convert most file types to the .pdf format. To create a .pdf, just use the print command from the source program that the file was created in.

EMAIL
Thunderbird
Some say this email program from Mozilla is better than Outlook Express. It’s supposed to have great features and is easy to use. I’m thinking of using it on my Mac.

FILE TRANSFER
FileZilla
I like this for uploading and downloading files to and from FTP sites. It’s open source software, yet actually has some Help documentation. It’s plain and simple and does the job through a drag-and-drop interface. Works on all platforms.

GRAPHICS
GIMP
GIMP is one of the better, if not the best, downloadable image editing and manipulation applications around. It can do some of your Photoshop tasks and works on all platforms. For more on free editing tools, see Image and Optimization Editors in the Resources section.

Picasa
Picasa is the other popular image editor and its from Google. You can import photos from a digital camera, edit them, and make and share Picasa Web Albums online.

ONLINE CHAT
AIM
Most everyone has their favorite online chatting tool. Just in case you haven’t found yours, check out AOL’s Instant Messenger, as it has lots of capabilities. In addition to text chats, I’ll often use it as the tool of choice for video chatting. You can download AIM for all platforms. By the way, their Lifestream product looks interesting too. It’s a way to broadcast and get updates with AIM buddies from all your social media.

Pidgin
This chat program gets rave reviews. It lets you connect to most of the other chat services, like AIM, Google Talk, IRS, MSN and Yahoo, so you don’t need to install different programs to chat with different people. It doesn’t have video or audio chat, though. But it does runs on all platforms.

SCREENCASTS
Jing
Jing works on both Mac and PC, to capture single pictures or to record video of screen activity. You can also paste the video into an IM chat, email or Twitter. Now that could save time.

CamStudio
CamStudio can record all the screen actions on your computer, as well as an audio narrative, and create AVI files which can converted to a streaming Flash (SWF) format. This app only works on PCs.

SECURITY
AVG Anti-Virus
This is a well-known and loved anti-virus software for home use only. The software is free, but registration is required.

SYNCRONIZING FILES
Dropbox
Dropbox seems to be the file synchronization software of choice. It will automatically synchronize files between all of your computers, regardless of whether they run the Mac, Windows or Linux OS. You get 2Gb for free, after that you have to pay.

VIDEO PLAYERS AND CONVERTERS
FLV Player
If your a multimedia maven, then you need to play FLV files. I like this better than the one that comes with Articulate for the PC. You can download the free FLV player at CNET. It’s got a simple install and works well. I had it downloaded, installed and running very quickly. Then I fainted.

Handbrake
Have you ever been stuck trying to get DVD video into another format? Well, Handbrake can save the day. It’s a cross-platform media converter that can pull DVD video and convert it to MPEG-4. It may not give you ultimate control over all settings, but it has a nice interface and gets the job done.

VLC Media Player
VLC might be the media player you’re looking for. It’s cross-platform, open source and plays most video and audio formats as well as converts files from one format to another.

VOICE OVER INTERNET (VOIP)
Skype
Skype is the software of choice for talking to people over the Internet, using a headset and mic. It installs easily and the sound quality is good. I have some clients that prefer Skype rather than the phone, so I use it regularly and can vouch for its quality.

ZIP FILES
7-Zip
This is an archiving application with a very high compression rate. Free, open source and all that good stuff.

Post from: The eLearning Coach

Great FREE Software Downloads

This is the third article in the series on emotions and learning. If you’d like some background on this topic, read Emotions And Learning: Part I and Part II. Now let’s jump into some practical approaches to designing for the emotions. Please add your suggestions for emotional design in the Comments section below.

1. Acknowledge emotions

This most straightforward and direct approach is underutilized in online learning. The idea is simple: to speak to the emotions, speak to the emotions. Acknowledge how learners might feel about the subject matter or the learning experience itself. Try framing the purpose of a course in emotional terms. This might mean telling the audience how a program will help them become more effective, more competent, or enable them to help others.

You might ask learners to think about how a scenario made them feel, or how a character might have felt. Allow learners to respond to questions about emotions in an end-of-course survey. The bottom line is this: adult learners have a wide range of life experiences, much of which is associated with emotions. They bring this emotional dimension to the learning environment so it deserves acknowledgment.

2. Respect the audience

People appreciate being valued and respected. This is one way to generate positive emotions during a learning event. How can we do this when all we have is electrons? Avoid a tone of condescension or superiority in scripts and in live webinars. Ensure feedback provides solid information and is phrased in an encouraging way. And make sure the instructional level is appropriate for the audience. If the content is too basic for an experienced audience, it implies we don’t care about their time. If it’s too challenging, it implies we don’t know them well enough.

3. Design for social interaction

Humans evolved to read signals from each other, often through emotional channels. Using collaborative tools and social media can help learners build relationships, cooperate on tasks, and provide support and feedback to each other.

If you design for social interaction, consider providing guidelines to make the experience more meaningful. For example, if group members are reviewing each others work, encourage them to offer detailed  explanations rather than superficial comments like, “Nice work.” See 10 Social Media Tools for Learning and Social Media and Learning for more on the social approach to learning.

4. Use principles of aesthetic design

The visual design of an online learning environment can impact the learner’s emotional response to it. You  can leverage the human capacity for aesthetic appreciation by ensuring your courses are well-designed. In one study that examined emotions and multimedia learning, the authors concluded,

“There is significant effect of emotions on … [the participants'] transfer test, mental effort investment, as well as level of satisfaction. It also indicates that positive emotions can be generated by the instructional design that may be able to affect learners’ experience and performance. The study implies that positive emotions should be considered as important factors in instructional design.”  — Eunjoon Um et. al.

Even if you are not the graphic designer, you can provide ideas and feedback on the layout, colors and type for a look and feel that will induce positive emotions.

5. Make it easy to use

Don’t let the technology or user interface get in the way of learning. The tools of learning should be as transparent as possible to the whole experience. When technology is easy to use, it can have a positive impact on the learner’s affect. Research shows that people notice the dynamics of their own mental processing and are sensitive to the resulting feelings of ease or difficulty in usability.

Some things you can do are: avoid slow downloads, write clear user interface instructions, let learners know what to do on every screen and adhere to common user interface conventions, when possible. Most users have a mental model of how an online program should work and may get frustrated if your course breaks the mold. If you’re interested in user interface design, see User Interface Design For Learning and Writing Microcopy.

6. Generate emotion through surprise

You can evoke emotional responses by adding unexpected elements to your courses. When things move along at a steady pace, brain activation also remains steady; but when a surprising event occurs, the brain registers a jump in activity.

What about letting learners fail at their first try in solving a problem, if it can be framed as a learning experience? For some, the frustration of moderate failure can increase motivation for success.

What if an action resulted in an unexpected consequence? Why not avoid the linear mindset and allow exploration and discovery? You can provide humor in an unexpected moment or add an unusual twist to generic scenarios. When a learner encodes and stores information, an emotional reaction can serve as a mental index for locating the stored memory and corresponding information at a later date.

7. Immerse the learner in 3-D challenges

For an all-encompassing emotional experience, consider designing a learning event in an immersive 3-D environment.  The realism and authenticity of games, virtual events and problem-solving challenges in an exploratory learning environment may simulate emotions one would experience in the non-virtual world. In addition, the ability to role-play and problem-solve through avatars is the ideal environment for emotional arousal while learning. For more on this topic, see Your Brain On 3D Learning.

8. Tell stories

Humans seem to be hard-wired for telling and listening to stories. They’re an age-old device for transferring knowledge and sharing information and values. Stories have a way of touching the emotions, because people perceive their own and others’ lives in a narrative form.

The narrative device is effective in case studies, interviews, simulations and role-playing scenarios. Stories make content more memorable because their authenticity adds detail and emotion to content.

9. Use emotionally charged visuals

Both pleasant and disturbing pictures elicit a physical response in the body and speak directly to emotional centers in the brain compared to neutral pictures. Images of facial expressions and dramatic gestures are known to arouse emotional reactions and have similar interpretations across many cultures.

When instructionally appropriate, emotional pictures are an effective way to pique curiosity, gain attention and engage the audience because they evoke emotion. Does this photo on the left evoke an emotional response in you?

10. Evoke Memories

In the book, Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things, Donald Norman points out that people build attachments to objects that have a significant meaning. This is typically because the object is associated with emotional memories. You can allude to significant personal memories of your audience through common significant objects or by using analogies and metaphor in an effort to help learners connect with the content.Memories from childhood, times of fear or frustration, family celebrations and romantic love are all possible avenues for reaching out.

The take away point is that it’s important for us to remember that learners have a rich emotional history and they’re not simply containers for depositing information.

Your comments, additions and feelings are welcome. Use the comment form below.

Related Articles:
Emotions And Learning: Part I
Emotions And Learning Part II

Relevant Research:
Aesthetics and Human-Computer Interaction (Research by Noam Tractinsky)
Um, Eunjoon et. al., The Effect of Positive Emotions on Multimedia Learning
If it’s easy to read, it’s easy to do, pretty, good, and true

Post from: The eLearning Coach

10 Ways To Design For Emotions (Part III)

Over the past few decades, research has shown that emotions have an effect on many of the processes involved in learning. It’s safe to say that emotions are an influence on perception, attention, motivation, and the encoding and retrieval of information.

What follows is a synopsis of some of the many ways emotions affect these various processes. You may want to read Emotions and Learning: Part I of this series first. But it’s not a requirement and you won’t get tested.

Perception

There is little doubt that emotions color perception. They influence and bias the way we see the world. Not surprisingly, research shows that people who are in a positive emotional state will be open to a learning experience, make more positive judgments and give more favorable feedback than someone in a negative state. The challenge for designers is to create learning experiences that are sufficiently meaningful and engaging that they elicit positive reactions from learners.

In terms of attitudinal training and soft skills, it’s important to know that a person with an emotional bias may be unwilling to accept facts that cause unpleasant feelings or to believe facts that cause positive feelings, even when there is clear evidence to the contrary.

Motivation

Emotions are at least partly responsible for our motivation to pursue goal-directed behaviors and activities. They serve to energize people, providing intensity and direction. For example, motivation increases when a goal is neither too difficult nor too easy to succeed. A moderate challenge is optimally motivating.

Also, studies show that a person’s affect influences the cognitive processes associated with motivation. For example, people who feel positive emotions, such as fulfillment and satisfaction, are willing to exert more mental effort to a task than those experiencing negative emotions. In addition, emotion often underlies curiosity and creativity, all of which can be motivational factors in the learning process.

Attention

Through attention, we select the object of our concentration and focus on it, ignoring the noise in the environment. Research indicates that attention and motivation are highly correlated. People tend to pay attention to those things with a higher motivational significance. Paying attention to a task implies the person expects to find or is currently finding an intrinsic or extrinsic reward.

During a learning experience, participants continually appraise the experience. This may elicit an emotional response that affects the learning process. For example, a learner who is bored might experience dissatisfaction and irritation, which can interfere with paying attention. A positive reaction to the experience should help the learner sustain attention.

Memory

Many studies show that positive emotions can facilitate the processes of working memory as well as help long-term memory and retrieval. When emotions are central to a learning experience, they can enhance a person’s ability to remember the experience. For example, when a group collaborates and successfully solves a difficult challenge, the achievement and social nature of the experience can arouse positive emotions. The emotions enhance the encoding process and make the learning experience meaningful and memorable.

When powerful visuals or emotional scenarios are part of a learning experience, these can also enhance memory. The explicit conscious memory of an emotional situation will be more powerful than a non-emotional situation.

Emotional Distractions

What’s the down side of appealing to emotions during learning? Emotions can be disruptive when they are irrelevant or unrelated to learning. Irrelevant emotions seem to use up a person’s capacity to attend to a task and to remember it.

Although the dominant belief is that positive emotions facilitate the learning process, be aware that they can both enhance and detract from learning. We designers have a two-pronged challenge: to design for the emotions using instructionally appropriate and meaningful strategies and to create positive experiences that enhance learning.

The final article in this series will present practical ways to design for the emotions. Check back soon or sign up for updates through the form at the top.

Have you had success with emotional design? Share your stories.

Related Articles:
Emotions And Learning: Part I
10 Ways To Design For Emotion (Part III)

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Post from: The eLearning Coach

Emotions and Learning: Part II