With over 8,000 attendees expected, the expo should be hopping.
Stop by booth #1103 and check out what we’re up to at Kineo in terms of custom and rapid eLearning, tools and capability building and Moodle LMS.
Be sure to let me know if you’ll be on the prowl at the show. I love meeting people face to face.
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
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!
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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:
Kineo has just deployed a Moodle/Joomla learning portal for Tesco, the world’s third largest retailer. For those of us in the US who haven’t heard of Tesco it’s like the Wal-Mart of the UK.
The initial rollout will go to 15,000 with plans to roll out to the global staff over two years -- that's potentially 400,000 users! The eventual scale of the project will make it one of the largest ever implementations of the Moodle platform in the corporate learning space. Now that’s an enterprise Moodle!
“The average salary of a person who lives in the United States and works in e-Learning is $79,252.”
Having a Masters Degree does help, giving you a +3.2% boost.
Instructional Designers come in at –4.6% from the industry average. Apparently, if you want to make the really big bucks you need to be on the “executive management” side of the business.
According to research results, men on average make $10k more than woman. Yes – even in the eLearning biz:
There continues to be a consistent gender gap in pay between men and women. On average, men are paid 14.5% more than women. This gap is most notable in part-time employee pay, where women receive an average hourly rate that is 49.4% lower than the rate men receive, while working a comparable number of hours. (p. 25)
Well then. Needless to say, that really ticks me off…
I like the Examples – How to Use This Data section with scenarios for new hires, contractors and employees seeking a raise.
Check out the data and do a few calculations of your own. Then ask yourself if you’re on track…
Great stuff for employers looking to hire, eLearning professionals looking to be hired, and all the rest of us in between.
Read more about the report and download it from the Guild’s website.
Photo credit: Money 2 by borman818 on Flickr
This weeks’ discussion on EdTechTalk Instructional Design Live was with John Graves, Montana State University-Bozeman on Engaging Learners
(These are my live blogged notes…apologies for gaps and incoherencies :) )
John: When you don’t have f2f contact with a learner, it’s important to establish yourself (the instructor) as a person – with a family and a life.
How do you foster that initial connection?
Front-load the course – make sure all the pieces are in place even before the student comes online. “Organization, organization, organization” should be your mantra. Organized and visually pleasing. Students have an idea what they need to do. There needs to be a sense of direction.
The instructor needs to be front and center – a picture. Share some personal info about you. Include an introductory podcast so students can hear and see the teacher.
Then students are encouraged to share their own stories – an assignment in the first week is to introduce yourself as a student.
To engage students online – create an online scavenger hunt to expose students to components of the course that are available to them. (find things in the help system, the syllabus, etc.) 10 questions -- (He uses Desire2Learn) – Why does instructor not go by Carl Graves? Students then need to go to introduction area and find his profile and find out why. Students then sent to various arenas in the course – introduces them to the places like Help, etc. This really seems to help students figure out where things are.
Other ideas for icebreakers:
http://www.southalabama.edu/oll/jobaidsfall03/Icebreakers%20Online/icebreakerjobaid.htm
Ongoing ways to connect with students:
John basically keeps 24/7 office hours to set up times online (via Skype, etc.) to meet with students.
Feedback of assignments.
Rubrics?
Building in peer review into assignments where students give each other feedback on work.
Students do self assessment of their performance as an evaluator for their classmate.
Focused on being the guide on the side rather than the expert – force students move beyond lower levels and into higher levels of questioning skills.
The recording of this session will be available at Instruction Design Commons.
About Instructional Design Live:
A weekly online talk show, Instructional Design Live is based around Instructional Design related topics and is opportunity for Instructional Designers and professionals engaged in similar work to discuss effective online teaching and learning practices.
