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Wow. We've had quite a week so far! It seems the word is out about Instructional Spice. I've been using the "join" information to figure out where all the press is coming from. I found a few and I want to give a nice thanks so......Thanks!

To Shaunda Paden: Thanks for the nice article in the PerformanceXpress:  http://www.performancexpress.org/#3

To Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day: Thanks for adding us to your blog and your tools for learning list:  http://janeknight.typepad.com/pick/2008/05/activity-spice.html 

To Training Tech Talk: Thanks for featuring an answer from me in your weekly email: http://www.elabs2.com/functions/message_view.html?mid=60800&mlid=73&siteid=15988&uid=37147ead0c

To Kineo and Jane Hart (again): Thanks for mentioning us in your "Survey Results and Free Tools":  http://www.kineo.com/elearning-trends/survey-results-and-free-tools.html 

To Tim Drewitt: Love the racy blog about us: http://timdrewitt.typepad.com/tech4learning/2008/04/hot-and-spicy-e.html 

If I've missed anyone, please let me know. All these articles appearing about us just shows me that Instructional Spice is definitely providing a service that eLearning developers want.

Thanks!

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have a hard time keeping up with all the conferences that are coming up. ASTD 2008 is going on right now. Here are a few that I know about in the next few months. I'd appreciate any notice on others I can add to the list:

Games, Learning, Society +Academic Fest
July 8-11, 2008
Academic Co-Lab, Madison, WI
http://glsconference.org/

Apply Serious games
July 10, 2008
http://www.applyseriousgames.com/

12th International Conference on Computer Games: AI, Animation, Mobile, Educational & Serious Games
July 30-Aug 2, 2008http://www.cgamesusa.com

SIGGRAPH Sandbox
Aug 9, 2008
Emerging Serious Games from the Graphics
Aug 12, 2008
http://sandbox.siggraph.org/about.html
http://www.web3d.org/events/details/2008-web3d-symposium-on-3d-web-technology/

Flashforward2008
Aug 20-22, 2008
San Francisco
http://www.flashforwardconference.com

Joint ADL Co-Lab Implementation Fest 2008
Aug 25-28, 2008
Orlando, FL

Virtual Worlds Expo
September 3-4, 2008
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.virtualworldsexpo.com/

Austin Game Developers Conference
Sep 15-17, 2008
Austin, TX
http://www.austingdc.net

MODSIM 2008
Sep 16-19, 2008
Virginia Beach, VA
http://www.modsimworld2008.com

The Millennials Conference
Sep 25-26, 2008
New York, NY
http://www.millennialsconference.com

Learning 2008
Oct 26-29, 2008
Orlando, FL
http://www.learning2008.com/

DevLearn 2008 Conference & Expo
Nov 11-14, 2008
San Jose, CA
http://www.elearningguild.com/content.cfm?selection=doc.24

IITSEC
Dec 1-4, 2008
Orlando, FL

Living Game Worlds
Dec 1, 2008 
Atlanta, GA
http://gameworlds.gatech.edu/

e-Learning Guild Annual Gathering 2009 Conference & Expo
March 9-12, 2009
Orlando, FL
http://www.elearningguild.com/content.cfm?selection=doc.24

DevLearn 2009 Conference & Expo
Nov 9-13, 2009
San Jose, CA
http://www.elearningguild.com/content.cfm?selection=doc.24

To play a Flash file in your presentation, follow these steps:

1.     Install the Macromedia Flash Player on your computer.

2.     In normal view in PowerPoint, display the slide on which you want to play the animation.

3.     On the View menu, point to Toolbars, and then click Control Toolbox.

4.     In the Control Toolbox, click More Controls (the button with the hammer and wrench icon).

5.     In the list, scroll down and click Shockwave Flash Object,

6.     Click and drag on the slide to draw the control. You can resize the control after the activity is added by dragging the sizing handles if you need to adjust it to the size of the animation.   

7.     Right-click the Shockwave Flash Object, and then click Properties.

8.     On the Alphabetic tab, click the Movie property.

9.     In the value column (the blank cell next to Movie), type the full drive path including the file name (for example, C\:My Documents\MyFile.swf) or Uniform Resource Locator (URL) to the Flash file that you want to play.

10.   To set specific options for how the animation plays, do the following, and when you're done, close the Properties dialog box:

§  Make sure the Playing property is set to False.

11.   To run the animation: With the slide displayed in normal view, click the Slide Show button in the lower left of the PowerPoint window (or press F5, or, on the Slide Show menu, click View Show).

12.   To exit the slide show and return to normal view, press ESC.

13.   You can now size the flash object to fit the activity.  

I was forwarded a very nice blog entry on the value of mentoring. This article highlights how the mentor gained as much from the experience as the mentee. I haven't worked in a corporate HRD role since 2000, but I remember encouraging mentor relationships often.

Now, why was I forwarded this blog entry? Because it was written by a software developer that worked on the Instructional Spice team mentoring our lead developer. Pretty cool!

http://www.dgrigg.com/post.cfm/05/16/2008/Instructional-design-gets-spiced-up 

How many of you try to keep up with 2, 3, or 4 blogs all the time? I've tried the RSS Feeds but I end up treating them like junk mail.

I've just found a great website called Bloglines. It's a place to keep all your blogs organized. I just put in all the blogs I like, and check in once per week. The blogline site show me which blogs have had updates since I opened them last.

It's free to sign up and simple to add my blogs. It will make it much easier to keep up with people's thoughts on learning.

http://www.bloglines.com

Here is a course built by Tom Kuhlmann at Articulate on how to use web objects in Articulate. Activity Spice activities work perfectly as web objects and the hosting feature for Premium members makes it even easier:

http://www.articulate.com/community/blogdemo/webobject/player.html  

Adding Spice activities to Captivate can be achieved one of two ways:

My favorite: Use a button:

1. From the Insert menu, click Button.

2. Next, set the On Success option to Open URL or file. Paste the url for the hosted activity in the Open URL or file field.

3. Finally, set it to open in a new window by clicking on the arrow next to the url and selecting New.

Your activity will now launch from captivate.

 You can also do this using a click box.