Archives

How do users behave when reading your website or online “help” page?

May 19, 2009 | e-Learning, Reviews & Opinions

When we design a website (essentially for providing information) or a so-called “Help” page” you should always keep the following user habits in mind. It might just help you provide a better learning experience and make your content more “intuitive” and manageable: When visitors to your website process the information on a computer screen, their focus and flow of eye movement (so-called “browsing”) will be the same way they process information on a printed page. For example, in English and most European languages reading is done from the upper left to the lower right, scanning text left to right,...

8 common mistakes of public speakers and lecturers

May 15, 2009 | e-Learning, Editorial, Reviews & Opinions

I attended a intensive course on presentation skills last year and during the course I picked up common mistakes that we all make when engaged in public speaking and giving lectures. I failed on every one of them, but I am learning. There are plenty of ways in which you can lose your audience and ruin the impression you leave on audience, albeit a group of health science students. You will want to avoid these eight common mistakes that lecturers and public speakers make: Too much seriousness. Public speakers don’t need to be serious to be taken seriously. If...

Keep your computer safe and secure on the Internet – Part 3

May 11, 2009 | Editorial, Tips

This week, in the final part of this blog article I look at updating Windows, firewalls and some other useful tools to keep your computer safe and secure on the Internet… Visit Microsoft’s Windows Update Site Frequently – If you are a Windows users you must visit http://www.windowsupdate.com regularly. This site is a Microsoft site that will scan your computer for any patches or updates that are missing from your computer. It will then provide a list of items that it can download and install for you. When visiting the site, if it asks if you would like to...

10 things that you should ensure every new user knows…

May 9, 2009 | Tips

Personnel at the Faculty of Health Sciences come and go, there are new faces almost every day, and often we as an organisation tend to forget these new folk and they often are thrown in at the deep end and have to learn the hard way when if comes to the computer technology that they have to use. (and often have inherited from their predecessors) Getting new users off on the right foot is good for them and for the organization — and it will certainly make IT support more manageable and less frustrating in the future. These 10...

What is virtualisation and how can it benefit us?

May 2, 2009 | e-Learning, Tips

Most of us sit with a computer on our desks with an operating system like Windows XP or Vista installed. The CPU (Central Processing Unit or “brain”) of the computer handles most of the tasks you throw at it without any problem. If your computer is 2 years old or younger then most likely you have enough computing power at your disposal to do more than just send e-mail and type out a document or two. A lot of the processing power is going to waste! Virtualisation a relatively new “buzz-word” that is surfacing today and most people –...