My life…in elearning

20 years ago I was a recent college graduate who had moved to Boston in the middle of a recession. I worked as the Assistant Aquatics Director at a JCC, teaching and coaching swimming. I had never heard of elearning and did not own a computer. I had never sent an email; I had never made a call on a mobile phone.

15 years ago I got a job as an instructional designer/multimedia producer at a company that created training programs delivered on CD ROMS. It sounded really glamorous to me. I learned my first ID model: instruct, demo, practice, assess. I had never heard of the term "instructional designer" before. We had our own proprietary development system that allowed us to use VIDEO.

10 years ago that same company was struggling to stay relevant as the world moved onto the Internet and the dot.coms were busting. We flirted with creating early knowledge management systems and went out of business the next year. We should have stuck with what we were good at. We had moved away from proprietary and were now using Macromedia Director. Meanwhile, I started going to massage school because I was getting bored with it all.

 5 years ago I had two small children and had gone back to work full-time in the biz after a few years of freelancing and doing massage work/teaching massage. I was working for a elearning company in MA and wrote my first blog post after admiring Brent Schlenker's blog. We created custom elearning programs in Flash. We also created our own proprietary Learning Portal. I had a cell phone and talked to people on it.

Today I am the VP of Learning Design at Kineo, a global elearning company. We do a lot of work in Flash and Articulate, but see ourselves as tool agnostic. We see the industry changing quickly as the marketplace matures and program requirements become more sophisticated. We are adapting as we speak. In my house, we have multiple devices including laptops, iPhones, iPads and iTouches. We don’t have cable TV, but download or stream most of our media content over the Internet. My children are adept at using these technologies. My son has math homework on the computer and thinks iMessage is the coolest app in the world. I regularly use Facebook and Twitter and now Google +. I check in on FourSquare and play Words With Friends with people all over the world on my iPhone.

So. You there.  What’s your story?

One Year on at Kineo #yam

Today marks my one year anniversary with Kineo!  It’s been quite an amazing year and I felt this  milestone required a momentary pause in the madness to stop and reflect on all I’ve done and learned in the past year. 

Last May, I told you all that starting at Kineo was like having a corporate crush realized.  Well, the honeymoon is still on and I’m delighted to be a part of the Kineo team.

Some highlights of the year, in no particular order:

Instructional Design

As a personal mission, I’ve been reading lots of book this past year in my never-ending quest to get an informal Master’s Degree in Instructional Design.  Maybe one day I’ll get an honorary degree…

Range of Projects and Amazing Clients

I think it’s possible that I’ve worked on more different projects in the past year than combined for the previous ten.  OK – maybe that’s an overstatement.  But I’ve gotten to work on some exceptionally cool stuff for some really great clients– from educator sexual misconduct to behavior in the workplace for financial institutions to the structure of hair and how hair color products work.  (Have a question about getting your hair colored.  Ask away!)

Speaking Gigs & Online Webinars

This stuff really floats my boat.  I’ve presented at the eLearning Guild’s DevLearn and Learning Solutions Conference, presented an ELearning Guild Online Forum, and hosted numerous Kineo Insight and Design Hour website.  I’m honing my presentation skills every day and now aspire to be an eLearning Talk Show Host.  Connecting with people and sharing knowledge is the bomb.  Ask Ellen Wagner, who can tell you that I like to incorporate interpretive dance numbers in my sessions whenever possible.

Audio Interviews

I like chatting people up and feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to chat up some great people:  Tom Kulhman, Brent Schlenker, Karl Kapp, Will  Thalheimer and Ellen Wagner.  Who else should I be talking to? 

Writing

Although my blogging efforts have been a bit sporadic, I have continued to do a lot of writing – not just project work – but also articles and eLearning Top Tips for the Kineo website. 

Rapid eLearning!

Creating quality eLearning in a matter of weeks is indeed possible.  And I have lived to tell the tale!

New Tools

I now speak Articulate and Moodle (neither fluently, I must admit). 

Telecommuting

Working from a home office is da bomb.  I work in a detached shed, so I have a bit of separation from the madness of the small children who have free range – but then I get the frequent drop in to bring a smile to my face.  Not too long ago I saw a family of HUGE raccoons lumbering by.

Can’t beat the commute and I love that I can pick my kids up at the bus most days.

There are challenges, for sure, and I’m learning how to set better boundaries – including locking the door while on client calls or webinars. 

Fortunately, there are lots of great tools to support the virtual worker including Skype and Yammer.  And of course, where would I be without my Twitter community?

 People 

I feel so fortunate to work with such a great group of talented and creative eLearning professionals.  Not only have I started incorporating words like “mate” (as in, “Thanks, mate!”) and “keen” and “brilliant” – but I’ve also learned a lot about good  instructional design, tools, working with clients and managing large scale projects.

Many thinks to all of you at Kineo – US and UK colleagues included!

***********************

I’m sure I’ve missed a few things of note.  I know I have loads of room for improvement, many areas about which I want to know more, and unknown challenges to come.  Bring it on!

Photo credits:

• One year on… by Mrs. Logic from Flickr
• The other one’s by me…

Talking ‘bout Instructional Design Live

I like to talk.  I often talk to myself while working in my office shed.  But don’t tell anyone that or they’ll think I’m some kind of weirdo.

Friday, February 19th, I’ll be talking it up with Robert Squires and the rest of the ID Live crew on this week’s edition of Instructional Design Live on the EdTechTalk channel.

Robert and I did a dry run yesterday.  I could fill up hours with my blather.  Why not listen in? 

We’ll be talking about my background, my work, and some of the differences in ID as practiced in the corporate vs. academic worlds. 

I love being a part of the ID Live show every week.  Opens my mind and eyes even more to the many shades of ID that we practice out in this big wide world. 

Good design is good design, but more and more I see how we each practice it differently.  Robert, for instance, works with faculty members at his university.  He doesn’t write a speck of content for those courses.  That’s a LOT of what I do.

Stop in on Friday at noon eastern.  Should be fun.

http://edtechtalk.com/

About Instructional Design Live:

Instructional Design Live is an opportunity for instructional designers and professionals engaged in similar work to discuss effective online teaching and learning practices. Each week features guest interviews and participant question and answer sessions.

The Scrambled Egg Mind of a Beginner

Apparently, when Tom Kuhlman links to your blog, crazy things happen. So hi to all of my new readers and thanks for joining.

Thought I'd check-in and give you all a quick status update on what I've been up to:

As you may know, I recently started with Kineo as the VP of Learning Design.

As with any new job, there are a lot of transitions to navigate. I'm in that beginner-mind zone. Although I've been doing this work for 15ish years, the ground beneath me is shaky and I feel like I'm in new waters, navigating new people, new processes, new tools.

Traveling. The past two weeks have been a whirlwind: ASTD, client visits, seminars on Moodle/Articulate in Boston and Chicago. I'm suddenly racking up lots of frequent flyer points. Next week I'll be heading to Kineo World Headquarters in the UK for 5 days. The kids may not take it so well...

Adjusting to life as a virtual office worker. When I'm actually in town, I work from the shed.

There are a lot of great things about this arrangement: lunch breaks with the kids, secret visitors who spy on me through the window, the occasional drum jam.

Has its downsides: the occasional drum jam while I'm trying to talk on the phone, my work is my home is my work is my home, and there's no one but me to bake cookies for the office.

My blogging and tweeting has been a bit sporadic with all of this mania. I'm in scrambled egg mind mode most of the time. Will hope for a few opportunities for reflection as things unfold.

Hope you're all doing well and please take the time to comment on the blog. I enjoy the conversations immensely. I do post a lot of learning tidbits to Twitter that never make it to the blog, so join me there if you're so inclined. I'm @cammybean.

Corporate Crush, Realized

Have you ever had a corporate crush? A company or organization that you've admired from afar?

Maybe you think Apple is awesome, or fantasize about giving up your day job to work at Chipotle because you think they're forward thinking and kind of cool.

It's not a romantic thing. It's admiration for a company's style and approach. A sense that maybe you'd fit in with them.

For the past three years I've had a crush on Kineo.

When I first started blogging, I stumbled on the Kineo site and their great free eLearning resources: instructional design tips, audio interviews, book reviews. Their stuff is smart, funny and useful.

My eighth blog post ever was about Kineo. (June 14, 2006)

In the past three years, Kineo has grown from a seed in a few guys' heads to an award-winning company with over 45 employees. In 2008, Kineo was named the e-learning company of the year in the UK by E-learning Age and has won awards for their work in the US, including an Articulate Guru Award.

I met Steve Rayson and Matthew Fox at the eLearning Guild Annual Gathering in Boston in 2007. We've stayed in touch. And, well, one thing has led to another...

Corporate crush, realized.

You got it. I've got a new gig. With Kineo.

Call me a blushing bride. Call me a happy honeymooner. Call me the new VP of Learning Design for Kineo US. Read the press release here.

We've got lots of exciting stuff planned. Stay tuned!

Photo Credit: Sparking a Crush by designbyfront

Learning to Work, Working to Learn

This post is my contribution to this month's Work/Learning Blog Carnival hosted by the venerable Dave Ferguson.

The last time I posted for this carnival (almost a year ago!) I wrote about trying to build learning into work when you're just too busy doing work.

This go-round, I'm at the other end of things: in a much-needed lull between projects, taking a breather. Opening my eyes, looking around, and seeing what I can see. A great time to brush up on skills, seek inspiration, and learn learn learn.

Here's what I've been doing lately on the job:

Tinkering

I've been tinkering around with new and old tools, expanding my skill set.

Audio:

I've been learning the basics of using Adobe Audition for sound recording and have been creating narration for a course we're currently building. This reminds me how much I like to make stuff.

PowerPoint:

Tom Kuhlman's got some great demos and exercises on his Rapid eLearning Blog, like this one on building an eLearning Template in PowerPoint.

Getting Inspired

Looking at what other, more creative people are building for eLearning seems like a no brainer.

Here's some of what I've been tapping into lately for instructional design inspiration:

• Tom Kuhlman's Resource List for the eLearning Guild's ID Zone at the recent Annual Gathering.
• Articulate Guru Awards 2009
• Clive Shepherd's 60-Minute Masters

What else should I be looking at? What are you looking at?

Reading

I'm still in the midst of The Adult Learner by Malcolm Knowles et al. My attention has admittedly wandered to shinier, more gripping things.

I've got a long wish list going in Amazon of books I'd like to read. Just need to make some decisions and add them to the cart. At the moment, my book wish list includes:

• Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® 2007 to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire (Cliff Atkinson)
• Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School (Book & DVD) (John Medina)
• From Training to Performance Improvement
• (Jeanne Farrington) via Harold Jarche
• Non-Designer's Design Book, The (3rd Edition) (Non Designer's Design Book) (Robin Williams)
• Principles of Instructional Design (Robert Gagne)

Be sure to check out Essential Reading for Instructional Designers for more great book ideas. Have any to add?

Revisiting

Things don't seem to stick in my brain the way they used to.

Now's a good time to go back and thumb through some of my old favorites be they books, blog posts, articles, whatever. I pull something off my shelf (Essential Reading for Instructional Designers ) or head over to delicious and browse my bookmarks.

Sharing & Digesting

Since 2006/7, my blog had been my main vehicle for chewing things over and spitting them back up. The past year has seen a reduction in my posting. Some of that gap because I feel like I've said it all already. Some of the gap has been sheer laziness.

Since September, I've been blogging less because I've been twittering more. I wasn't at the eLearning Guild's Annual Gathering this year, but I felt close thanks to Twitter. So many resources to share.

Follow me @cammybean if you want to see what all the fuss is about.

Documenting

I've just discovered Evernote and I heart it. It's my new brain and it arrived just in time (my old one was getting kind of worn).

My iPod Touch synchs up with my desktop synchs up with the web version. Amazing. I anticipate this tool quickly becoming a best friend.

Check out eQuixotic's award winning Articulate piece for a nice view of Evernote's capabilities.

How do you learn at work? What are your favorite tools? Where do you go for inspiration?

Photo credits:

• Oh boy tinker toys! by Brianfit
• New Baby Bird Rehabbers by audreyjim529

Currently Working On...

A momentary pause in the madness.  This is the kind of work pace I like.  Plenty to do, but not in a frantic way.  Right on. 

Here's a taste of what's on my plate right now:

Lots of Software Trai ning

Finishing up a big project update for a large financial institution.  Updating 19 courses (which I wrote last year).  Little design work.  Much juggling.

Wrapping up software training for another client.  Built six courses.  Many lessons learned.  Courses way too big, but some cool features that I really like.

Starting a new project for another company.  Small scale, help demos.  More just-in-time performance support tools; "hey, how do I do that?"

Most Awesome Project Ever

This project kicks ass, if I do say so myself.  It's fun to work on AND the client really likes our work.  We're creating an orientation program for a national sorority.  Multi-generational learning experience.   Game-like program.  You take a tour of the house to learn about the organization.  Click on objects to learn more.  Mini-games (sometimes a multiple choice question disguised as a game through clever graphics) embedded throughout.   Earn charms for a charm bracelet by successfully completing a little quiz in each room of the house.  My graphic designer is completely outdoing herself. 

 

Professional Development

Reading The Adult Learner by Malcolm Knowles, et al.  Boning up on Behaviorism and Cognitivism, etc.  It's a definitive classic, so why not.  Unfortunately, it's slow reading.  My brain has a hard time these days parsing dense theory.

Twitter.  I'm a convert.  @cammybean

Pleasure Reading

Easter Parade by Richard Yates.  I've been told it's not as devastating as Revolutionary Road.  Thankfully.  Don't think I could handle that right now.

[Sidebar:  This, Tony Karrer, is why schools still need to teach good writing.  Kids shouldn't be taught to skim read, until they can really read.  Likewise with writing.  Bulleted lists have their place, but please, give us more Shakespeare and Yates or the world will be a sadder place. 

(Yes, I'm an English major who writes mostly text bullets instead of novels.  But still. )]

What are you working on?  Care to share?

My Blog's Personality Type

Well, it isn't very glamorous or creative sounding. But I suppose this is an appropriate description of my blog's personality?

ISTJ - The Duty Fulfillers

The responsible and hardworking type. They are especially attuned to the details of life and are careful about getting the facts right. Conservative by nature they are often reluctant to take any risks whatsoever.

The Duty Fulfillers are happy to be let alone and to be able to work in their own pace. They know what they have to do and how to do it.

I don't think, however, that this is indicative of my personality. Well, maybe the responsible and hardworking part. ;)

(It's been a long time since I've taken a Myers-Brigg sort of test. I usually come out somewhere on the E scale.)

Check out your own blog's writing style at Typealyzer.

And please, don't leave my blog alone. It likes company. And comments. And conversation.

Update: Ken Allan (Blogger in Middle-earth) has written up Typealyzer in great detail and got some comments from the tool's founder, Mattias Östmar, who writes:

Typealyzer is a way for us to test our hypotheses that it is possible to analyze the persona of a person by teaching a classifier to identify word usage among different personality types. An individual can (and normally DO) make use of different personas, i.e. social roles in different situations.

Be sure to read Ken's posts on Typealyzer and watch the video of Mattias.

Interviews on Instructional Design

Last night, Dr. John Curry interviewed me for his Introduction to Instructional Design class.

I was one of four instructional designers that John interviewed and the only non-degreed one in the bunch.

John asked each of us a series of questions: how we came to the instructional design field, what our current day-to-day jobs as instructional designers are like, what skills we feel are important for instructional designers, and what we feels the future of the field will be.

• Alan Young, Director of Curriculum Development at Brigham Young University-Idaho
• Jennifer Summerville, Ph.D, Associate Dean for the Distance and Weekend College for Collin College
• Andrew Teasdale, Ph.D, an instructional designer in the Clinical Guidance Organization for Humana Health Care

Each interview is about 30 minutes long.

7 More Things You Don't Need to Know About Me...

I did the 8 Random Facts About Me Meme a ways back. Check it out. It's all still true.

Does this cover me for the 7 Things You Don't Need to Know About Me Meme that Sue Hickton just tagged me to do?

If not, here's 7 more tidbits:

1. I think I'm an inherently lazy person. To put a positive spin on this, I call it being extremely efficient. I try to get the best work done with the least amount of effort. I could also say that it's exhaustion -- a by-product of motherhood -- three kids ages 5 1/2 - 7 months will do that to a person.

2. My father always referred to me as his "eldest unmarried daughter" until I got married. Then I became his "eldest married daughter." My Dad had a few standard lines. I miss them.

3. I have two older brothers.

4. As a kid, I wanted to grow up to be a writer.

5. We just captured six mice in our house within the span of a few days. Unfortunately, there are still more of the little poopers running around.

6. I have been told that my 3 1/2 year old daughter looks exactly like I did at that age. I think she must be WAY cuter than I was.

7. I live at the end of dead-end road with a little stream running through the backyard and a forest of trees to look upon.

I'm supposed to tag seven other people, which I'm feeling really lazy about. So I'm just doing six.

Janet Clarey
Christy Tucker
Wendy Wickham
Michele Martin
Dave Ferguson
Rupa

Meeting Face to Face

Yesterday I had the pleasure of working on-site with a client for the day.

This is a group I've been working very closely with for the past year. Although I talk to many of these people on an almost daily basis, I had never met most of them in person before. Nevertheless, their voices are deeply etched in my brain, and I could have picked any of them out of a lineup if we were going by voice and not visual.

When you don't meet someone in person, you still paint a picture of them in your mind.

So yesterday, I got to meet these people and see their real faces -- not my made up ones. The universe has shifted slightly as I've adjusted my images. It was a bit disconcerting at first. I had to keep staring at each of them hard as I replaced my old pictures. More hair. Younger. Older. Unexpected beards.

The bonus of so many of the social media tools we use is that our pictures are attached. It's nice to know who you're really talking to.

This is me, in case you were wondering:

I still haven't bothered trying to figure out how to change my blogger image from that damn apple!

Blogging the Personal

Janet Clarey's recent post On Growing Facial Hair is right up my alley of interest. But frankly, I have nothing interesting to add to the conversation.

In fact, I've had very little of interest to add to any conversation of late, mostly because I'm much more focused on my personal life and the many transitions I'm handling there. If I were to blog it all, we'd be WAY off the topic of instructional design.

If the women bloggers who make Zaid's next list are the ones who don't interject their personal lives into their blogs (ala Cathy Moore as reported to Michelle Martin), then I don't think I'll make that list. Which is fine. Really. Blogging's not a contest...

But personally, I like the personal. And yet, I also like my boundaries.

Of course, I do see some connections that bridge the gap between my personal and professional lives:

• My 3 and 5 year old kids are at the end of their first month of Montessori school. I'd love to apply Montessori principals to eLearning instructional design.
• My son is really into his Wii. We've had to find some more age-appropriate games than Super Smash Brothers and the like. Recently discovered Endless Ocean. You're a scuba diver exploring different dive spots in a fictional spot in the South Pacific. Awesome experiential game. Kind of like Second Life in how open the environment is, but there are challenges and a bit of a story woven into that keep it a game. Plus, swimming around with whales is really cool.

So. This is me trying to get my blogging energy back.

In Loving Memory of My Father

Captain Robert M. Morrison (USN Ret.)

January 20, 1933 - August 18, 2008

Back to Work

Monday was my first day back to work after almost three months. I put in a nice five hour effort, appearing on site at our new office space. Citrus colored walls, big windows that let the sun pour in. Not too bad.

So. What have I been doing all that time? Enjoying the best summer vacation/maternity leave of my life. My husband is a stay-at-home-dad, so we had the benefit of two parents home all summer with the kids. And a completely mellow baby, who appears to be a good sleeper. The way it should be!

I did this:










A lot of this:










Some pleasure reading, which included 50% of the complete works of Jane Austen (that's three novels...but no, I'm no Janeite), Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Michael Pollan's The Ominivore's Dilemma (which only took me about four months to read, but was well worth it), Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, and Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father (still in progress, but summer ain't over).

A bit of gardening. Tomatoes every night this week!

Finished up some lingering sewing projects (and yes, I did finish that baby blanket I started knitting last winter).

Baked a lot of cookies.

I have thought surprisingly little about things eLearning and instructional design, although probably more than you would think.

I've got a fresh and open mind. Committed to enjoying my work -- 'cuz if I don't enjoy the time that I have to be away from my family, then it would just be hell, wouldn't it?

Expect to start hearing from me again, although probably in spurts and dribbles.

Best Project Ever

A baby girl. Born on Sunday. Yes, ahead of schedule by a few days! No name yet. People find this very disconcerting -- an unlabled person -- but we're waiting for the right name to appear stamped on her forehead.

No News

That is to say, I have not yet had this baby.

My official "due date" is not until May 21, but I've been hoping (as all expectant mothers do), that this is one project that would be delivered a bit early.

Can't project manage these things...

In the meantime, I've taken the last week off from work to do things like: hang out with my kids and husband, garden, cook, fold laundry, hang out with my parents, get my teeth cleaned, nap, knit, and various nesting projects.

My instructional design postings will be sporadic, at best, over the next few months. Unless I decide to post about the absolute lack of instructional design manuals that come with new babies!

Blog of the Week

Ego boost alert for this Bean: Donald Taylor has cited Learning Visions as Blog of the Week 13.

I'm blushing.

Thanks!

Top Posts in 2007

Snow is falling general over Massachusetts. It's the kind of day here in New England when you turn inward and take stock of the past year. Me, I'd mostly like to take a nap.

Instead, I cracked open Google Analytics and pulled up my top 5 posts for the year (well, my top posts since September 1 when I started using Google Analytics):

The Real World, Second Life, and Facebook/MySpace: Over the summer, I conducted a series of interviews with over 20 current college students and recent graduates. All female. I noticed some interesting trends in real-world usage of all these applications. #1: No one had even heard of Second Life.

Getting Started in Instructional Design: in which I point to some useful resources for those just getting started in the field.

Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning: my review of Karl Kapp's recent book contribution to the training community.

Instructional Designers -- Do You Have a Degree in ID?: An ongoing survey of instructional designers.

Emerging Technologies in eLearning: Notes from a live blogged session with Gary Woodill of Brandon Hall Research.


Photo credit: IM Birchall from stock.xchng

Blog Readability Test: What a Joke!

Get a Cash Advance

My blog came in at the genius level on the readability test.

I take it to mean that it must take a genius to figure out what I'm really trying to say, since I must not be saying it all that clearly.

C'mon. Genius? I don't use big words or anything.

I suspect that Christy's muppet translation will put her blog into the genius level for its illegibility. Anyone support my theory? Brent -- you're a genius, too. What thinks you?

Instructional Design Stress

I have to confess that although I call myself an instructional designer, it's been quite awhile since I've done anything like that.

If you've read my current job description, you know that I do a lot of other things for this small company. Over the past year, I've been focused on sales and marketing activities, project management, and content conversions -- "No ID needed, thank you." I've thought about instructional design as we've been building eLearning Templates and certainly made a lot of recommendations.

But I haven't "done" a course in ages. I haven't worked with a SME and thought about appropriate learning activities and chunked out the content. In fact, it's been almost two years since I've written a storyboard and gone through the whole process.

And now I've got a two-hour custom course on my plate. With a whole bunch of other custom projects cued up right behind it.

I'm excited. I'm eager. I'm nervous.

I've spent a lot of time in the past year thinking about ID, connecting with other training and eLearning professionals, reading books, learning about better ways of doing eLearning. I've blogged about much of what I've learned, right here.

And now I've actually got to do some better eLearning myself.

I feel some procrastination coming on. I feel the need to review a lot of books. I was delighted to see Cathy Moore's post with examples of good eLearning -- much needed inspiration.

It's time to put the pedal to the metal. Wish me luck!