The Apple Vision Pro is designed to blend the digital and physical worlds seamlessly. Imagine having virtual screens, interactive 3D objects, and immersive environments right in your living room. Whether you’re watching a movie, playing a game, or collaborating on a project, the Vision Pro promises an experience that feels incredibly real and engaging.
Screenshot
One of the coolest aspects of the Vision Pro is its versatility. It’s not just a device for entertainment; it has the potential to revolutionize how we work, learn, and interact with the world. Imagine virtual meetings where you feel like you’re in the same room as your colleagues, or educational experiences where historical events come to life in your living room.
Apple has put a lot of thought into making the Vision Pro user-friendly. The intuitive interface and easy setup mean that you don’t need to be a tech genius to get started. Plus, it integrates seamlessly with other Apple products, so you can easily access your apps, photos, and more.
It’s exciting to think about how this device will evolve and what new possibilities it will unlock. Whether you’re a tech enthusiast, a gamer, or someone curious about the future of digital experiences, the Vision Pro is definitely something to keep an eye on.
Favorite Features:
Great for expanding your laptop with a big virtual screen
Check out Luis Malbas’s video presentation on how he uses AI for his workflow. My takeaways:
Using ChatGPT free for generating, summarizing and accelerating the creation of content for the TLDC community
Importance of adapting to technological advancements and demonstrates how they use AI in their workflow, including subscribing to an AI newsletter and using ChatGPT for 80% of their tasks
Critical everyone learns, experiment and start to build skills to be more productive
Using SnackPrompt to help generate and learn about new prompts to improve ChatGPT results
AI is an essential part of our digital world and we need to stay on top of it.
Did you know you can select text from any image on your iOS or MacOS device? It’s as easy as double-clicking or touching the word and selecting copy. Check out the example below.
I remember in the 90s when OCR started to become a big trend, costing hundreds of dollars and taking several minutes to convert the scan to text.
RealityScan, a free 3D scanning app, developed in collaboration with Quixel, that turns your smartphone photos into high-fidelity 3D models—in the most accessible way possible.
Capturing real-world assets for digital experiences has traditionally been complicated, technical, and labor-intensive. Now in limited beta, RealityScan takes what people love about RealityCapture—fast and easy 3D scanning—and puts it into the hands of anyone with a smartphone, turning their cameras into an endless source of creativity.
Example of 3D Chair created from a smartphone camera
Presentify is a Mac App I discovered last month and I’m loving it. Presentify allows you to quickly annotate, highlight or spotlight your cursor. Whether you are creating a screencast, presenting in Teams, or just chatting over slack, Presentify provides a way to quickly highlight and communicate an idea without having to switch or juggle tools, apps, or settings.
Why is this important? Unlike Zoom which has the ability for everyone to annotate on a shared screen, Teams, Webex, and Slack Huddles do not have the ability. When walking thru a concept, sharing a story, or reviewing prototypes, Presentify allows you to quickly annotate in the context of the conversation and save time, making it easier to share an idea or communicate feedback.
Highlighting your cursor – you can control the color
After activating the app, you have a simple tool bar where you can quickly select 1 of 3 colors, which you can customize, select freehand tool, arrow, shapes, text or erase what’s on screen.
Hitting the / key allows you to display Shortcuts and see the current keyboard setting or you can customize the keys within your preferences.
If you haven’t checked out the #IDIODC podcast, Brent and Chris interview and dive into topics around learning and technology. Great way to keep up and connect with peers.
You can listen to my chat about technology and expanding your toolbox.
Check out the weekly episodes, every Wednesday and you can listen to the library at: https://www.dominknow.com/idiodc.
Great, free mac app allows you to quickly configure your menu bar, moving apps/icons you don’t need, and reduce the clutter on your menu bar. You can quickly access elements by clicking the icon. It just works and is optimized for M1 macs as well as intel.
Over the past several weeks The Learning Guild has been alternating between their Friday 2 pm Twitter Chat and a Zoom based event where a guest explains, dives deeper and answers chat questions on topics that were presented during online events this year. I was a guest and this is a summary of several of the topics we covered and wanted to provide a summary along with links. A video will be shared on YouTube later this month so keep an eye out if you missed the session today.
providing feedback – be sure to allow the user to fail and learn from their mistakes.
don’t just say that’s incorrect.
look for ways to provide users a way to dive deeper, explore and share what they learn
provide tools for managers and leaders to utilize content to connect, blend and refresh on key elements they want to utilize in their toolbox
Keeping Up to Date
Growing up in a household of a teaching sparked a interest to always ask why, how, can I do it? So always be thinking about and breaking down what you do, why, how it works and what can you apply to your next learning experience? Tools that I use to keep up to date:
Feedly.com is my favorite tool to stay up to date with topics, I try to check in 1-3 times a day on my phone in-between meetings, tasks and typically will review on a tablet in the evening. You can organize contents, tags, keywords, you can even remove words that you do not want to be included which is handy when you want to focus on a particular top or area. With the paid version you unlock more functionality with team sharing, annotation. Check it out, free to download or try via the web site.
Sidebar.io is the second resource I use daily to keep inspired for creative ideas and to keep learning. You can sign up for a free email that delivers the 5 latest stories to your inbox which I love and will review weekly what I missed.
TechSmith Tools
We got a question about using Snagit and Camtasia for creating, capturing, and building media. We use Snagit just about every day and Camtasia as needed, one thing I wanted to make sure you check out is their community support, blog, education (for registered users) via TechSmith Academy and resources. Make sure to follow Matt Pierce @piercemr on Twitter.
During the last part of the session, we invited 30+ attendees to experiment and add their thoughts around what they learned, what they wanted to share, and access to the resources. You can view the board and a gif below which shows the magic of 30+ people adding what they learned.
Please reach out to twitter.com/learningguild or @learningguild on Twitter to share your thoughts if they should continue the series. I VOTE YES and would love to see more interactions to continue and dive deeper into the latest community challenges, sharing ideas, and looking at how we can continue to grow.
Miro is one of those tools that gets me so excited about the possibilities and how it can help teams get stuff done because it works transparently, for the most part, and allows you to create, brainstorm, gather feedback or quickly collaborate on the next steps. The tool works via your browser or you can download an app for your desktop or mobile device. If you have an Apple Pencil, Surface Pen, or similar you can draw, annotate more naturally on screengrabs, elements, or just write some notes.
In the past 90 days Miro has launched several new features:
It allows you to invite additional non-registered users for collaborating, gathering data, and participation without having to add them to a paid plan. This is a game-changer that opens up the possibilities of how you utilize the platform outside your primary team.
Visual tables which allow you to use rows and columns to organize text, graphics, icons, and screengrabs
Attention management which allows the board owner to gather all collaborators to a particular part fo the board to focus their attention
More integrations including Jira, Confluence, Trello, Airtable, Notion
Use your mobile device to convert handwritten stickies to virtual sticky notes that are editable
How I Use Miro:
Team brainstorming where we review concepts, gather ideas, organize concepts
Tracking stakeholder meetings, notes, and export as PDFs to share post meetings
Brainstorming: voting via collaborators
Quick wireframing using the PEN tool and lo-fi using the add-on
Creating tables to organize ideas
Moodboards to capture concepts, research, and feedback
Webinars to involve participants in sharing, brainstorming and collaborating
Working with journey mapping and mind maps for projects
Capturing stickies from my wall to share with remote team
This week launched a new MIROVERSE where you can share your templates with the community so that they can learn, get new ideas and personalize for your team.
Why are you still reading this? Jump over to Miro.com, sign up for a free account, and start to plan your team’s next collaboration session.
If you haven’t heard of theTLDC community online, you should strongly consider joining them. They offer daily chats using CrowdCast where you can listen in, share, and contribute as well as a Slack channel to stay connected within the L+D community.
Once you join, you have access to all the live broadcasts or can access via podcast or video replay post-event if you could not join in live. It’s $150 per year or $15 per month. https://www.thetldc.com
Last week, Jo Cook of Lighbulb Moment was a featured guest (she was amazing + dynamic) and I summarized some of her key points shared:
wired connection to your router will provide a faster connection for improved bandwidth
investing in a faster computer
audio quality is the most critical
adding a microphone or headset, based on the number and how often you use Logitech headsets recommended (I love them)
giant monitor or multiple monitors to be able to see all the feedback
minimize size and optimize assets to work with audience members who may have slower connections
can link to tools – adding surveys, feedback based on your tool
cameras = webcams – adding a external device leads to higher quality
what do I love best about the virtual classroom – “what drives me is helping people “Love when I can see people get that lightbulb moment”
what do I like least about the virtual classroom – “when the tech goes wrong” “this can happen in live classrooms, so learn around and how to work around these challenges
love hearing and seeing different perspectives, all sorts of different options and styles
Design interactions to avoid crickets, get the interaction from the start to help take advantage of the tools you have
Crowdcast. Adobe Connect, Zoom, GoToTraining, Webex, plus a whole lot more
What do you want to achieve?
Who are you working with?
Ease of use of the tool for the facilitator and the audience
Interactive: role plays (breakout rooms Zoom and Adobe Connect),
Need to let participants know what they need to do, prep and if they are using their webcam
Jo prefers 10 people in a virtual classroom so that she can get to know them and have the interactions she thinks is most helpful to adapt to their needs
More people, the fewer connections you can have with individuals which can prevent you from knowing the learning transfer
During your session, always think about how to get your audience involved, ask a question, feedback and the outcome you want
Think about “What can they be saying or doing instead of me?”
Download Jo’s Facilitation Guide via Jo’s blog can help and plan your session.
Adding a producer to assist, support, and provide quick feedback during a session.
Deliver with energy to help break thru the technology barrier
Get familiar with the technology ahead of time and get comfortable.
Call out, acknowledge, and connect with your audience chatting with you to build a bond. This is where a producer can assist while you are speaking to help provide feedback and support participants.
It’s ok to have silence for a moment.
Asking participants, what is your lightbulb moment for today?
Are you looking for amazing ways to use your mobile device to create content? In this session, you will learn how to use your phone or tablet to brainstorm, sketch, take notes, collaborate, create audio- and video-based media, and animate using several mind-blowing apps. You’ll leave the session feeling inspired and have the practical information to apply one or more apps when you get back on the job.
– Explore several apps to enhance creativity on your mobile device. – Discover several free and inexpensive apps to improve brainstorming, productivity, and collaboration. – Apply these apps immediately on your next project.
Whether you are experimenting with an idea, developing a new interactive experience you can now utilize Google’s Poly in your app or while using TiltBrush to pull together an idea quickly, storyboard a concept or just play around. Learn more at Google’s developer site or watch the quick video for a quick overview of how developers are using it.
We moved to Zoom last month and loving it. I work with several teams every day brainstorming, reviewing, and focusing on creating new experiences for our audiences. We had been a Webex house for several years and during a recent visit to San Francisco last month saw a billboard with Zoom.US on it and decided to check it out. Wow, it is powerful, what I love in the first couple weeks:
Using an iPad Pro in a meeting with an Apple Pencil to quickly communicate, highlight, sketch or visualize a concept while someone is sharing their screen. Great for quick feedback and communication. Previously, would have to switch presenters, files or take a picture we can now focus on the creative side. (Quick video highlight below demonstrates remote view, while I am drawing on an iPad, viewers can see the highlights, and we can brainstorm the user experience.)
Recording can be automatically saved to your desktop or the cloud and shared immediately.
Quick visual feedback with icons or via chat.
No problem sharing an invite and having first-time users view in their browser or quickly install and video chat with no roadblocks to date (using with several users around the world.)
This new app from Microsoft is to help with disabilities by describing what it sees, identifying people who have been tagged (as well as their emotions) and reading words to the user.
