Dr. Chris Show

Below is my list of audio sources. Enjoy.

1 – https://www.freesound.org/

Freesound has an excellent collection of audio artifacts. Easy to search with many recorded by volunteers who contribute to the site.

2 – http://soundbible.com/

Sound Bible is another excellent source of free audio effects with a quality search function.

3 – http://www.audiomicro.com/free-sound-effects

Audio Micro has a free sound effects section. However, make sure they don’t wander into the paid section and find the perfect sound that may come with an invoice.

4 – http://www.freesoundeffects.com/

Free Sound Effects is one of my favorite sound effects sites. Easy to navigate with a large collection of sound effects.

5 – https://www.partnersinrhyme.com/

Partners in Rhyme has an excellent free audio section including background music. It also offers an opportunity to discuss with students the differences between Royalty-Free and Free Royalty-Free. Since royalty free music means you pay once and don’t have to pay royalties for continued use whereas “Free Royalty Free” takes it to the next level and is free to use.

6 – http://freemusicarchive.org/

The Free Music Archive is less for sound effects and more for actual music. This is a useful resource when you need background music.

7 – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Again Wikimedia is one of my favorite sources for media in general. The site offers a large collection and is useful to find free to use copies of older pieces.

8 – https://archive.org/

The Internet Archive has a massive collection of audio artifacts and is well organized. When I know what I am looking for I will check WikiMedia and the Archive first.

9 – http://www.freeplaymusic.com/index.aspx

Free Play Music is a massive collection of music that can be used in a variety of ways. They offer some paid services but allow for all of their music free of charge for classroom use.

10 - https://www.shockwave-sound.com/

I tend to use Shockwave Sound whenever I have a budget. I just love their interface and the site is so very easy to use. They have a massive collection and I can almost always find what I am looking for.

In this video, I share my personal post-production checklist.

Post Production Checklist

✓ Copy and Organize All Assets

✓ Rename all Files (shotlist ID, Storyboard ID, AND description)

✓ Backup All Files

✓ Setup Project in Captivate and Premier for Export Settings

✓ Import Primary Assets

✓ Rough Layout

✓ Visual Effects

✓ Sound Effects

✓ Clean Sound

✓ Color Corrections?

✓ Final Cuts

✓ Finalize Transitions

✓ Intro

✓ Out-ro

✓ Normalize Audio

✓ Background Music

✓ Ducking as needed

✓ Export Final Project

✓ Archive and BACKUP!

This is my video production checklist, and it's important to point out that this is a daily list. So if you're shooting video every day then you should go through these steps every day. Now there are also some things missing such as ensuring everyone else is ready. This is typically just for the video. The person that you are filming should also be ready and prepared which is often also part of the Instructional Designer's responsibilities but fall outside of strictly the "video production checklist"

Video Production Checklist

✓ Check all equipment

✓ Check all batteries

✓ Verify any electricity

✓ Setup/Check Lighting

✓ Setup/Check Sound

✓ Calibrate Microphones

✓ Record “RoomSound”

✓ Verify Shotlist Order

✓ Shoot Shotlist

This is my video pre-production checklist. I’ve used this for a variety of educational video projects and it can be adapted for a variety of eLearning projects.

Video Pre-Production Checklist:

✓ Budget Approved

✓ Deposit Made

✓ Script Written

✓ Script Approved

✓ Storyboard Written

✓ Storyboard Approved

✓ Generate Art List (images photography list)

✓ Scout Locations

✓ Create a Shot List including B-Roll

✓ Permission and Permits for Locations

✓ Equipment list

✓ Voice & on Screen Actors List

✓ Schedule Location

✓ Schedule Talent

✓ Rent (or borrow) equipment (verify dates)

✓ Last Chance Budget Review

One of my favorite mediums for instructional design is video. Which I suppose isn't a huge surprise. And when working on instructional video there are some familiar steps to ensuring there is a quality product. These steps fall into Pre-Production, Production, Post-Production, and Distribution phases.

Pre-Production is typically everything that happens between project approval and when the cameras come out. This includes scripting, storyboarding, any location scouting, and generating a few lists such as the talent list, the image/graphic list, shot list (which includes any B-Roll), the prop list, and the equipment list.

Production is the phase where you are recording and all that goes into that process such as ensuring your sound and lighting is correct and that you are systematically going through the shot lists to get everything you need.

Post-Production is what happens back in the office, editing the video, adding any soundtracks, images, graphics, special effects, as well as any needed corrections such as color corrections or audio corrections.

Then finally there is Distribution or Delivery. This may be anything from driving over a physical copy, uploading to youtube, or ensuring the video is properly loaded on a client LMS system or integrated into a larger eLearning project.

The Checklist Manifesto is more than a quick reminder that we should be using checklists to streamline our work and work on continual improvement. The book includes some practical tips on what makes a good checklist and how they can be incorporated into work.

I have become a huge fan of checklists and use them in several forms. My favorite form is as a project template in whatever project management tool I'm using. These days I'm finding I use OmniFocus for the Mac most often but most project management tools allow for the use of templates. What I like best is the opportunity for continuous improvement so that when the process is improved or new ways are found to do things better the template can be easily changed and these learnings are not lost.

The other way I have been enjoying making checklists started as an excuse to use my Apple Pencil. Forms and checklists can be saved as PDFs and then loaded into the iPad software Noteshelf where they can be used as templates. I've found it quite useful and fun.

In this quick video, I share my thoughts on procrastination and writers' block and how I deal with them.

Specifically, I view procrastination as my impulsiveness or curiosity or ADHD running down a rabbit hole. To combat procrastination I use two tools on my laptop. An app called SelfControl and app called Time Out (I'm quite sure they are both Mac only sorry) together with other techniques that are a bit specific to ADHD.

For writers' block, I find it pretends to be procrastination more often than not but tends to hide a secret. This creative block is usually a sign my subconscious is stopping my work because something is wrong or I'm missing something that will likely cause me to need to redo work or otherwise waste time. I tend to consider this form of "procrastination" a friend and try to ask it questions. What am I missing? What should I do instead? There is usually an answer that can be found with a quiet walk. Especially by the water.

So I wanted to ask. Do you suffer from either of these two ailments and how do you handle them?

One of the things that can ruin your day is having a project return from the dead. In this video, I use the example of a building having its name changed. A simple update, just swap out the slide, hire Jack for the easiest 3-second voice over, and republish.

Right but without all of the source files, this simple update can leave you needing to recreate everything from scratch. So proper project archiving is critical.

I store my archive on a large Network Attached Storage which is backed up using Carbonite. I have a folder for each year then a folder for each month and then a project folder with the name of the project and the date the project ended.

And then inside of the project folder, I have subfolders for all of the original materials, any notes, export files, etc. Everything I would need to go back to work if the need arrives.

How do you keep your archives organized?

One of the interesting challenges instructional designers face is talking to friends and family about instructional design. And the inevitable "What's That?" response. And it's even further complicated by the lack of job title consistency within the field. A funny story is that my mom's cousin is also an instructional designer and I could have used her help throughout school and while working on many projects but never knew because my mother could only describe what she did as "Fancy and Important".

I adjust my description of instructional design depending on the audience, sometimes I say I make instructional media, sometimes I say I make sure people who go through training get something out of it, sometimes I try to make training not suck.

It can be tough when the world isn't familiar with your entire field, and also tough when your own mother doesn't understand. But I think I'm doing well on that last front because at least my mother has been primed by her cousin into knowing that instructional design is "fancy and important"

When it comes to Course Evaluation I find that Rubrics Make the Evaluation Easier:

For the most part, I find the Quality Matters Rubrics to be the most useful and their professional development is not only a fantastic resource for developing and evaluating online courses and workshops they are also fantastic examples of well planned out online learning products.

The annotated Rubrics are worth the effort of the workshops, however, there are un-annotated copies of the quality matters rubrics available for free:

• Higher Ed. Standards

• Higher Ed. Publisher Standards

• K-12 Secondary Standards

• K-12 Publisher Standards

• Continuing or Professional Standards

The rubrics are also useful tools to use during the design process since they can be used as a checklist of key best practices.

The annotated rubrics are available for members, currently, the fee for an individual membership is approximately $175 a year per rubric.

https://www.qualitymatters.org/qm-membership/benefits-fees

There are other rubrics available as well that I use often.

The University of Illinois has a useful rubric that they have released under a Creative Commons License which makes it free to use.

Their web-based rubric provides an excellent overview of best practices that can help with the design of online courses and they offer downloadable copies with room for comments and a checklist which can help when giving feedback on an already developed course.

http://www.ion.uillinois.edu/initiatives/qoci/rubric.asp

The University of Southern Mississippi Learning Enhancement Center has an “Online Course Development Guide and Rubric” It is essentially a rubric that I also like, while it doesn’t have as many specifics as the others it is an excellent way to quickly communicate a course evaluation.

http://ablendedmaricopa.pbworks.com/f/LEC_Online_course+rubric.pdf

Michigan Community College Association has another rubric. One of the items I like about this rubric is that it covers the importance of support for the faculty as well as the importance of “course maintenance” which is not common in other rubrics. http://www.mccvlc.org/~staff/content.cfm?ID=108

Clayton Wright from Grant MacEwan College has a detailed outline that works as an excellent checklist for evaluating courses. It is quite comprehensive with over 100 points to check and can be used for a detailed review of courses.

http://elearning.typepad.com/thelearnedman/ID/evaluatingcourses.pdf