Instructional Development Personalized

Apple announcement makes Flash for mobile dead and HTML5 will lead the way

2011-12-01T17:40:00.003-05:00

Apple announces that Flash 11.1 for mobile will be the last one. Big changes in elearning are headed our way so you better start learning about HTML 5.
http://mashable.com/2011/11/11/flash-mobile-dead-adobe/

how to lead virtual teams

2011-04-26T12:58:00.002-04:00

Just finished an interesting webcast by Lee Johnson on eleading: maximizing the power of global virtual teams. While I'm not currently leading a virtual team myself I have spent the last 10 months developing training for a virtual workforce. A big take home point is that all management whether face to face or virtual begins with good management skills. Amen to that!
Lee has targeted the most difficult obstacles as building trust and positive relationships with the team and the complications that come from the use of electronic communication. The good news is that these can be overcome and when they are, there is a big reward in terms of productivity.
So if you set and clarify goals of the team and the inviduals while fostering a sense of trust by building relationships your team members one-on-one you can be successful.

Linked In Groups

2011-04-05T10:53:00.001-04:00

Currently I'm the only instructional designer on my training team at Ascend One. I am not not new to this. In fact I've spent most of my career on teams where I was the only one with my knowledge set. So I have begun the search for networking opportunities with other instructional designers again. In the past I've reviewed blogs via my RSS reader and posted questions but that usually didn't have a fast enough response time to be helpful at the very moment that I needed. I recently experimented with the groups in Linked In and have been extremely happy with the results. I joined the Adobe Connect User Group as well as several other user groups and find that I normally get a response within a few hours of posting a question. It truely has been a great experience. If you haven't tried them out, you should!

New Horizon 2011 Report

2011-03-17T10:38:00.001-04:00

A great report but here's a good summary.

Inspirations from Martha

2011-02-17T11:27:00.002-05:00

I find myself being caught by surprise at least once or twice a week with the way that technology is pushing the limits of my imaginations. As a child I watched the Jetsons cartoon with amazement and wonder. It wasn't just Astro the funny dog or Penny the cool teenage girl but all the things they could do in their home. All the technology. The instant meals at the press of a few buttons, the video phones, the flying spaceships for every day travel, etc. When I look at the way a magazine can actually come to life using all the great tech tools of today, yes it takes my breath away. Things that I could have only imagined back in the 80's in film/video art school are coming to the masses. Well you may be surprised by my Martha Stewart inspiration but her digital issue of Living is just simply amazing. It inspires me to go back to my roots and to figure out how to apply this in my instructional design. Thoughts flood through faster than I can take note. So thank you Martha!

Online New Hire Training

2011-01-16T22:35:00.002-05:00

I've been working on a 13 day New Hire online training course for about 4 months. We are finally nearing the end of this exciting project. Coordinating the gazillon final details is challenging. Currently I'm researching the best approach to the train the trainer course and how to inform our stake holders on the final state of the material as there have been many updates. As I find some material, I'll be posting them here.

University of Maryland, Baltimore County Training Forum, October 20, 2010

2010-08-25T15:16:00.000-04:00

University of Maryland, Baltimore County Training Forum, October 20, 2010

Getting Maximum Business Impact from a Comprehensive Approach to Enterprise Learning

Check out the details.

Wikis, Wikis, Wikis

2010-08-13T16:02:00.001-04:00

Great resources from Tony Karrer about using Wikis in learning. It's something I've been talking about all week so glad I came across this blog post!

Continuing Education | Training Moves With the Times | Chemical Processing

2010-08-04T12:11:00.000-04:00

Continuing Education Training Moves With the Times Chemical Processing

Intersting article on the trend toward blended learning enviornments that use short targeted online sessions to augment traditional classroom training.

Intersting tech tool discoverd on BW Tech Meeting

2010-08-04T10:29:00.002-04:00

As an instructional designer who used to be an instructional technologist I still yearn to hear about the latest and greatest tech toys. As a mom of two kids with a full time job I find it hard to keep up. Finally Todd Marks of Mindgrub has moved his BW Tech Meetings to an online format and is archiving it. I just finished listening to the July 29th meeting.
Coolest item: the Flipboard for the ipad!http://www.flipboard.com/
It allows you to create a personalized magazine from all the different social medial that is important to you. You can have facebook, linked in, twitter and RSS feeds. What a great way to pull all this technology together.
Now how can we apply this to workplace learning. Just imagine your employees being able to create a magazine that contained only the information that was important to them. How much more targeted would their learning be. Can't wait to see how this plays out in the market.
Another interesting topic was how Hollywood perceives technology in their movies. How will the predications play out from shows like Star Trek, Back to the Future, The Jetsons. I found this discussion entertaining and interesting.
Great job Todd!

Orientations for SMEs

2010-07-01T12:01:00.004-04:00

At ASHA we have a great relationship with our online conference vendor iCohere. It has been enlightening to work with a talented group of professionals who listen to your concerns and respond in ways that you didn't even imagine. Robyn and Jim at icohere put together a wonderful orientation for our presenters/SME's which covers what to expect during their recording sessions. The program provides information in a short, concise manner, allows presenters to become familiar with the icohere staff (all the work is done remotely so this personalizes it a bit) and clearly states goals and procedures.
Great job Robyn and Jim!
http://icohere-presentations.com/presentations/HowTo2010/RecordingYourASHAPresentation/player.html

Joint effort pays off!

2010-06-11T08:25:00.003-04:00

In 2007 I had an idea. Why don't we include a short snipet of our programs on their product description page in the ASHA online store.
Three years later after working with the marketing and the web teams, we finally have about 8 products with short 2-3 minute samples.

Here's what we did:
1) I reviewed each program and picked out 2-3 minutes worth of the most relevant and representative portions of the program (showing video clips, interactive exercises, graphics, animations, etc.)
2) We hired our regular video vendor, Vision Creative, to capture the clips, add music, use a standard template that we created and provide us with the finished clips
3) Our web team than added to Utube and marketing added the link to the store page

We're still working through some technical issues but currently they are up even if they aren't perfect. The clips have a dual purpose as well. They are put onto a DVD in a running loop so that marketing can show them at conventions and conferences in the ASHA store.

One email blast has already been sent to members with a link to the clip and it generated more sales than ever before!

Here's an example:
http://www.asha.org/eweb/OLSDynamicPage.aspx?Webcode=olsdetails&title=Instrumental+Examination+of+Adults+With+Dysphagia%3a+Anatomy+and+Physiology+Series

Communities of Practice Webcast

2010-05-27T11:08:00.002-04:00

We are currently hosting our online conferences with a wonderful vendor whose platform is just perfect for social learning enviornments and networking or what most of us call Communities of Practice. This link goes to a recent webcast about the topic.

Communities of Practice (CoP): Case Studies in Program and Technical AssistanceAn Executive Panel Discussion and Community of Practice (CoP)
DemonstrationMay 25, 2010
A Complimentary Educational Webcast from iCohere

New web programs rolling out for sale!

2010-05-23T22:44:00.002-04:00

Work on four self-study web workshops has beeen going on for about a year. A few weeks ago two of the four went "live" in our online store (www.asha.org/shop).
The Anatomy and Physiology web workshops involved the creation of 3D animations with a great vendor, Vision Creative. The animations enhanced the learning experience for participants along with some learning checks to make sure they understood what they were learning. Working with our subject matter expert, a 3D animator and our normal team made this an exciting project!

Most successful online conference in ASHA history!

2010-03-26T14:55:00.002-04:00

Our online conference for SLP's was a huge success due to the joint efforts of my wonderful collegues and our partnership with icohere.
Overall participant satisfaction with the conference was 4.71 on a 5-point scale—extraordinary!

Looking forward to keeping the momentum going by learning more about great elearning!
The New Generation of e-Learning Delivery webinar next week should provide more insight into our future conferences.
http://www.trainingindustry.com/webinars/3-30-10webinar.aspx

Have a great day!

A Year Worth of Work

2010-02-26T10:45:00.002-05:00

On Monday, March 1 a year worth of work comes to fruition. It started with a brainstorming session and has turned into the biggest live online event in ASHA history! I am fortunate to work with a wonderful team of writers, technologists, project managers, graphic artists, content consultants, subject matter experts and vendors. This was a large joint effort.
I'll post updates during the conference so you know how it goes!

Thoughts on Predications for elearning in 2010

2010-01-22T14:07:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I listened to Dr. Tony Karrer talk about his top ten predications for elearning in 2010 for a SIG online meeting for the Washington DC chapter of ASTD. Tony also has his predications on his blog at http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2010/01/top-10-elearning-predictions-for-2010.html
Two of his predications really stood out to me based on my experiences this past year.
I can't tell you how many times I've tried to describe a delivery method (i.e. technology) for an elearning program and said the word "convergenece." It just seems like I begin explaining a feature and realize you can accomplish this in so many different formats. Scenario based learning with interactive feedback can be accomplished online, live or self-study, and on a DVD as well. And you can get that learning experience on your computer, on your set top DVD player and even on your cell phone. It's all merging together. And I agree with Tony it's just going to keep happening.
Social learning is hard to describe to those outside the learning role causing a need to explain it and be very specific in the potential uses you see for your organization. It's not so hard to sell the idea that Social networking is here to stay or that it is a viable avenue to explore. But if you don't specify exactly how you want to use it for learning than you loose the the non-learning professional you are trying to sell the idea to. So I agree with Tony's predication that Social Learning grows but is more specfic.

Thanks for the great seminar Tony!

E-Learning Expectations - Associations Now Magazine - Publications and Resources - ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership

2010-01-13T14:20:00.000-05:00

E-Learning Expectations - Associations Now Magazine - Publications and Resources - ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership

Challenging 2009!

2009-12-23T20:42:00.003-05:00

It is the time year when year end accomplishments are on our mind. This was a challenging year of heavy workloads, watching pennies and closely monitoring sales at ASHA. Being part of the recession in an association environment has been a interesting endeavor. We antcipated a defeciet budget and planned on making it using our reserves. But we actually are almost to the break even level and the last ten days of the year are actually usually very high in terms of sales. So we could actually end the year in the black! Strategies involved watching every penny you spend even on things post-its and pencils. If it could wait till 2010 then wait. If you think you could do it yourself and not use a vendor then try it. This worked for almost everything this year and it paid off!

Cool Introduction to the ISD process

2009-11-18T12:39:00.002-05:00

Edutainment Media has a really interesting intro that explains their company's purpose and the ISD process at the same time.

Twitter, Facebook, Yammer, LinkedIn Oh My

2009-09-09T12:17:00.002-04:00

I've been experiementing with all these social networking tools over the past few months.
I'm still not sure if they have actually helped in my personal and professional development but they sure are fun and time consuming. I created a twitter account so I could tweat during several training sessions I've been taking on iCohere platform. I found it intriguing to type my ideas and read those of others while taking the online sessions. But I haven't really gone back to the ideas for any real purpose yet. Will I? I don't know. I do check the account to see what others are posting and have found some interesting information and somewhat relevant to my profession but again time consuming.
Yammer is the platform we are using at work for internal social networking and again I find out it intriguing yet distracting at the same time and having messages sent to my email box was a big mistake as I get way too many already. This became something I rarely use fairly quickly.
LinkedIn groups are great. Lots of relevant discussion to follow and a great networking tool.
Facebook has been a purely personal investigation. I'm not using this for professional purposes at all and yet it fullfills a missing part of my life--socialization friends and family that I hardly ever find time to see. It has been a great way to connect and stay connected and believe it or not it makes our face to face meetings more enjoyable because we already know the basics of everyones day to day lives.
Finding a balance for the right amount of time to spend reviewing and contributing to these social networking tools is challenging. Finding value in the tools is easy. Finding an effective way to use the tools is not so easy.
More to come......

Color Theory

2009-07-22T10:18:00.001-04:00

Investigating color theory to help inspire new color palette for elearning course I'm working on.

Best Practices in Certification Training

2009-07-01T12:59:00.001-04:00

Great article in Training Industry Quarterly

ISD principles for a dry technical topic

2009-05-13T12:01:00.003-04:00

I am working on a web program which discusses the anatomy of swallowing and how it applies to a clinical or instrumental exam. It has been a challenge not to make the program feel like the reading of a text book. Weaving pratical information throughout has been critical. But I'm thinking that some sort of interesting cartoon narrative throughout might make this dry topic a little more entertaining.

Computer Musuem

2009-05-13T09:41:00.002-04:00

If you are interested in the history of computers you should check out the Computer Musuem that System Source has started. The company is located in Hunt Valley, Maryland and provides great AV Presentation services as well.
Enjoy!

Twitter as a Learning Tool Article

2009-04-22T14:04:00.001-04:00

Intersting article

ASTD Learning Circuits---
Savvy trainers are using micro-blogging to foster informal learning and meet likeminded peers.

Association Webinars Abound

2009-04-22T11:29:00.002-04:00

Working in an association for almost three years has helped me realize that the non profit sector really is broken down into many subsectors. I'm trying to gain a better understanding of the association sector and somehow have made it onto the email list for webinars about business strategies specific to associations. I'll list them below and keep updating as I receive.

The Nondues Revenue Expert
http://www.nonduesrevenueexperts.com/
latest offering: 6 Ways to Laugh in the Face of Recession and Build Member Loyalty At the Same Time

Boston Conferencing
Association Innovation Webinar Series
http://www.bostonconferencing.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=709&Itemid=144&mid=0

Non-Profits and Web 2.0

2009-04-22T11:24:00.003-04:00

Good Webinar!
How non-profit organizations are using Web 2.0 to attract, inform, engage and serve online communities
Description: Panelists discussed how you can use Web 2.0 to achieve benefits like building communities that mobilize volunteers and doors, maintaining control of your message while enhancing overall brand reputation, and using Web Content Management (WCM) to aggregate and deliver highly personalized content.

project development and life

2009-03-31T13:02:00.003-04:00

Sometimes your personal life provides insight into your professional life. Here's the inspiration for my post today.
"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward."
I'm working on a web program that has been plagued with issues from the very beginning. It begin with heated discussions in the narrowing of the scope and evolved into securing an SME and then investigation into format delivery type. Recordings went badly as there were ground issues in the electrical plug in the room and video clips were never secured. After solving many many many issues and many many many months later and we are on the verge of completion. At this point I'm already looking back at the project for lessons learned. And I thought wow that quote really applies to this project.
It took so long to complete because life had to continue forward-- by this I mean that projects on the current project plan had to be completed and this one had to fit in whenever there was down time (which where I work doesn't happen often). And this project couldn't be understood without looking back at it. It's easy to see the pitfalls in reverse.
Just a thought.

US Stimulus Package and Training

2009-03-11T14:25:00.003-04:00

Well it seems like there is a lot of talk about the amount of money that is going to be devoted to training in the US Stimulus Package. ASTD has posted a document summarizing the information and a new linked in group FEDERAL BIZ Network-American Government Stimulus Teaming Jobs Contracts Funding Sales Opportunities and one of my friends is asking me if I want to write a grant to get some of the "training" money.
Despite all the buzz I'm wondering how long it will actually take for this training money to actually produce a better workforce and the potential for more jobs. It should be a slow yet interesting ride!

Webinars Everywhere!

2009-02-03T09:31:00.018-05:00

I receive lots of emails about Free Webinars. I'm going to start a list to keep track of all of them. This post will be the first of many that I probably will then pull out into it's own list. I'd love feedback on the quality of these Free Webinars.

KRM Information Services
On Demand Recording: "Pitfalls Marketing Non-Dues Revenue Webinars in This Economy"

Netspeed Learning Solutions
One every month: Live and very limited attendance, usually only 50 so logon early!
March 19, 2009 The New Blend: Effective Virtual Learning In and Out of the Classroom

February 10, 2009 The Virtual Facilitator: Creating Collaborative Learning Experiences Online
Two collegues reported to me that they could not logon even though they registered. Let me know if others had a problem.

iCohere Free Webinars
Live
Various Topics and Dates in February and March 2009
Online Conferences —Moving Beyond Webinars
Communities of Practice & Online Events — Tips for Success
Collaborative eLearning — Student Interactions Increase Learning
Web 2.0 for Beginners – An Introduction to the New Internet

Brandon Hall
2/25/09 Multi-Generational Learning in the Workforce: Overview and Instructional Design Considerations

Avenue Z Writing Solutions
Provides information about Free and Low Cost Tools for your Organization
Contains a list of seminars and maintains two great blogs
2/10/09 Seminar was good! A little clunky to join the meeting but the content was helpful.

iLinc
Various events and webinars both live and on-demand recordings available
2/17/2009 Marketing Sideways to Succeed at Social Media

GeoLearning
Various events and webinars as well as archives of all their webinars
To get to the archives go to events page and choose Free Tools, in the drop down you'll find Webinar Archives which will pull up a menu with all the names.
I receive a newsletter each month from them listing the live events.

Conferences, Conferences, Conferences!

2009-02-02T17:07:00.008-05:00

Is it me or is there an overwhelming amount of information about upcoming conferences. I guess they know we are thinking about our education plans for 2009.

I have to say I'm sorry I missed the first virtual ASTD TechKnowledge Conference but time just slipped away before I knew it. Here's my list of upcoming conferences that sound great!

Training 2009 Conference & Expo February 9-11, Atlanta Georgia

Using Social Brain Research To Enhance Learning February 19-21, San Francisco California

Articulate Live '09 March 9, Orlando Florida

eLearning Guild Annual Gathering 2009 March 10-13, Orlando Florida

IMPACT 2009: The Business of Talent April 14-16, St. Petersburg Florida

ASTD International Conference & Exposition May 31 - June 3, Washington D.C.

Tony Karrer has a great blog post for those interested in conference geared toward eLearning techonology http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2009/01/elearning-conferences.html

Let me know if you know of others.

Welcome!

2009-01-15T09:27:00.001-05:00

I am excited about creating my first post on my new blog. I have been blogging since 2005 to follow trends involved in instructional technology. It began as a project for my graduate work in Instructional System Development and continuted as I transistioned from a job focusing on training technology into one that focused on instructional design and elearning.
This blog will explore training theories, practices, technology and trends as my journey continues in instructional design.
I look forward to sharing my experiences and hope you that it will spark ideas and conversations for others in the field!

Just in case you want to see the archives from my Instructional Technology blog from 2005 through 2008, you can find it at http://mtlinstructionaltech.blogspot.com/

Michele