Getting to Good Enough

"Don't let good enough get in the way of perfect."

This adage works for me most of the time as I'm designing eLearning courses.

Right now, I'm feeling like just getting to good would be an achievement.

Client demands, project schedules -- sometimes all you can do is churn it out.  Right now, I'm proofing a storyboard that's full of endless text bullets and boring software demos with no interactivity -- and there's really nothing I can do about it.

What would you do if you were me? 

A.  Cry.

B.  Just do it.  The client's paying the bill after all and this is what they've asked for.

C.  Hope next time will be better.

D. Other.

Guesstimating Seat Time

Many eLearning projects are priced out based on expected "seat time" -- that is, how long the learner has to sit on his or her butt to learn (watch!) what needs to be presented/taught.

I've never been that good at estimating seat time and often end up with projects that are longer than they're supposed to be. This is not good from either the learner's point of view or the development team's.

I have a lot of issues with the whole "seat time" model (and I'm thinking about sit and click style eLearning here of the self-paced variety):

• My seat time may be different than yours
• Is there supplemental material, like reading, that is optional -- or that might vary per user?
• How interactive is the course going to be?
• Is the user being forced to watch every single page or do they have freedom to jump around.
  
• ETC.
• ETC.
  

What would you add to this list?

There's some metrics floating around: such as 4 hours of classroom time = 1 hour of eLearning time. But that varies wildly if you're talking software training vs. something more complex and soft.

How do you estimate seat time?

Or, better yet, what's the alternative to seat time as the basis for a pricing model?

Photo credit: Shock and sorrow: chair mass grave by emdot

27 Inspiring Women Edubloggers

27 Inspiring Women Edubloggers

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: education women)

I'm humbled (in that "feeling like a fraud" sort of way) and also inspired to be included with some really great bloggers -- some known to me, and some brand new.

Thanks, Zaid!

Janet Clarey and Michele Martin helped start the conversation that led to Zaid's new list.

For more conversations on women in blogging check out these posts:

• Blogging the Personal
• An older post, Where Are All the Women Part II

All The World's A-Twitter

I've succumbed to Twitter.

After reading Jane Hart's article Understanding Today's Learner, I realized I'd better be walking the talk and trying out all the hot new "learning" tools.

So Wednesday, I signed up. Within minutes, I was greeted by a number of people. That sort of freaked me out and I momentarily panicked -- how do I reply back and just how did they find me so fast? (oh, yeah, I decided to "follow them" and they got an email from Twitter).

Sue Waters sent me off to a great post she'd written on getting started with Twitter.

Within 34 minutes, I was a pro. Sort of. Not a bad start-up time, if I do say so myself.

Like Tracy Hamilton, I'm enjoying the endless thought streams. I know that Karyn Romeis has a cold. That Janet Clarey and Clark Quinn were watching the vice-presidential debate last night.

I'm having fun hearing the stream of people's activities and thoughts ("ambient intimacy"), but is that all there is to it?

SoulSoup sent me a link to a post he'd worked up on Twitter for business.

It feels endless now -- all the places I need to go to keep in touch with my peeps: my phone, my email account (Outlook for work, gmail for life); Facebook; Google Reader; Twitter. I know people consolidate and slim down (Brent, for instance), but I'm not sure I'm ready for that challenge.

I'll let you know what I decide.

How 'bout you? Do you Twitter? Why? Why not?

I'm cammybean on Twitter.

Testing Twitter Feed

Just testing folks. Move along. There's nothing to see here.