-
Tools for Freelance Instructional Designers « Design Doc
Collected tools from a LinkedIn eLearning Guild discussion on must-have tools for freelancing
Archive for January, 2011
Weekly Bookmarks (1/30/2011)
January 30, 2011Weekly Bookmarks (1/23/11)
January 23, 2011-
Adobe tutorials on creating e-learning, including a collection on advanced functions in Captivate
-
Research: The Educational BS Repellent | Connected Principals
Highlights of what one principal has learned from Visible learning:
a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Some of the ideas in education reform that we hear the most about (such as class size) maybe aren’t as important or have as much impact as other strategies.-
1. Class Size
My initial thought: Decreasing Class Size from 25 to 15 could significantly improve student achievement.
The bold, loud claim I hear: “Decreasing class sizes is a key to student success!”
What the research says: Of the 138 factors of the meta-analyses done, this was ranked as number 106, and had a impact factor of 0.21, well below the hinge point of showing notable change. This is based on studies of more than 40000 classes, and nearly 950000 students worldwide. Perhaps not surprisingly, “quality teaching” has nearly double the impact on student achievement than this factor.
My new thought: Not the high-yield strategy that I believed.
-
6. Formative Evaluation of programs
My initial thought: Extremely important for teachers to adapt and change their methodologies in response to student learning. Using student data to guide instruction and reflection through collaboration with their peers is something that we have been focussing on in our school through our change in structures.
Loud, bold claim I hear: “I know what works in my class!”
What the research says: This ranks as #3 of 138, with an effect of 0.9 over nearly 4000 students and 38 studies. Teachers being purposeful to innovations in that they are looking to see “what works” and “why it works” as well as looking for reasons why students do not do well lead to improvement in instruction and student achievement.
My new thought: This is the high-yield strategy that can really make a difference at our school, and through the Professional Learning Community Model of providing time for teachers to collaborate and reflect on teaching practices, we have seen a marked increase in the success of our students.
-
-
eFront: Top 10 Open Source e-Learning Projects to Watch for 2011
Great collection of open source e-learning projects and tools, including multimedia development, screen recording, Android app development, an LMS, and more. (Technically, some of these are Free, not Open Source, but still a valuable list.)
Freelance Company Name: Ideas Needed
January 17, 2011
Idea by annais
For some time, I’ve been meaning to set up an official business for my freelance side projects. However, I’m stumped on the name. Tucker is a common last name, and there are several other Christy Tuckers in the online space (including one in education even). That excludes anything generic like “Tucker Consulting.”
I don’t have a name that lends itself to something clever like Clark Quinn’s Quinnovation, and I haven’t even been able to come up with something unique like Karyn Romeis’ (now sadly defunct) Learning Anorak or Lav Chintapalli’s Human Dynamix.
The best idea I have right now is to steal from Robert Kennedy and call my business CT Learning Solutions. That would work, of course, but I’m wondering if there’s something better.
I’m hoping someone out there has a more interesting idea. Any suggestions? I’m up for any brainstorming ideas you have, even if they are a little wild; they might spark some inspiration. Of course, if you like “CT Learning Solutions,” let me know that too.
Instructional Design Experience Before Your First Job
January 11, 2011One of the recurring questions I hear from those trying to start their instructional design careers is “How do you get experience in the field so you can get your first ID job?”
It feels like a catch-22 for many people trying to get that first ID job: you can’t get any experience until you get a job, and you can’t get a job without experience. For people with a masters degree or certificate, it’s less challenging, especially for those who built portfolios as part of their educational programs. But what about teachers, trainers, or technical writers who are learning on their own and want to demonstrate how their existing skills can transfer to ID? If you’re someone looking to transition from another field into instructional design, what do you create for your portfolio to prove your skills?
One common recommendation is look for volunteer work to get some experience before getting your first job. That’s general advice that would apply to pretty much any field, but it’s especially helpful if you’re looking for an authentic project to create. If you can find a nonprofit organization with a cause you care about it would be a win-win for everyone. You get some experience and a project for your portfolio; a nonprofit gets some free content to further their cause. Local historical societies, museums, or unemployment services offices may be interested in your volunteer work, as might an open source project looking to educate people about their application. Sites like OER Commons and e-learningforkids.org accept content, so you could create something and have it used by real people.
The LINGOs Global Giveback Competition has been another option I’ve often recommended in the past. The deadline for entries for 2010 has passed, but hopefully they will offer another competition again this year. Update: Global Giveback 3 is open for entries until December 16, 2011.
If you have recently started as an instructional designer, especially if you switched from teaching/training/another field, how did you prove your skills? If you hire instructional designers, what kind of work from candidates has impressed you? Do you know of any organizations looking for volunteers?
Synchronous Software Scavenger Hunts
January 3, 2011If I’m doing software application training, doing it as a webinar isn’t really my first choice. I’d rather create a bunch of Captivate tutorials and job aids to let people learn at their own pace, when they need to use the skills. Just-in-time, interactive training that supports or simulates actual tasks is my first choice. Application training via a synchronous tool like WebEx, Adobe Connect, or Elluminate too often ends up with passive learners. I’m guilty of this myself too; I’ve done some boring synchronous training that didn’t offer any opportunity to practice skills. Sometimes synchronous training is what we need to do though, so I’ve been trying to find ways to make it more effective.
In my current contract, I’ve been working on creating a Moodle site for a year-long training program. As part of that, I delivered several training sessions for learners and our team. One technique I experimented with during this training was a scavenger hunt, which worked really well for getting everyone actively learning.
The Questions
I had two groups of people who needed to learn how to access and read the reports available in Moodle, which was a perfect topic for the scavenger hunt as a way of finding information in the assessment reports. I set up a practice course with a quiz and multiple demo student accounts. I logged in as each of the demo students and took the quiz to create sample report data. I also added a few other grades in the gradebook.
The questions were based on the quiz results and gradebook, such as
- Which student had the highest score?
- Which question did the most students get wrong?
- Which student is missing a grade for Assignment A?
I built these questions as a poll with multiple choice options. This meant I could show the scavenger hunt questions in a side panel at the same time as learners were viewing the content in the main window of the webinar.
Small Group Scavenger Hunt
In WebEx, you have two choices for sharing online content:
- Share Web Browser: lets the presenter control everything for demonstration purposes
- Share Web Content: lets participants interact with a website at their own pace
For my small group of learners (6–8), I used the WebEx “Share Web Content” tool. With this small group, I could let everyone access a live practice course and find their way around themselves. This meant I could ask questions that required my learners to jump around to different parts of the course to view reports both in the gradebook and in the quiz itself. This required a bit more troubleshooting live and some prep to let people practice before the scavenger hunt, but it was feasible with this small group.
I followed this general progression:
- Demonstrate using Share Web Browser
- Practice using Share Web Content to let learners try it on their own, doing a lot of troubleshooting to get people comfortable
- Scavenger Hunt to assess and provide a challenge
- Review the scavenger hunt questions to debrief
Larger Group Scavenger Hunt
When I did similar training for another group of over 20 people, some of whom were less technically adept, I didn’t want to let everyone go off on their own in the live site. Therefore, I used screenshots of the reports and shared my browser so everyone stayed together.
I used a compressed process for this larger group, skipping the practice.
Lessons Learned
The learners in both groups loved this. I got a lot of positive feedback. Even in the first group where learners had individual practice, the scavenger hunt pointed out places where they didn’t know the tool as well as they thought.
I set a timer for the scavenger hunt to provide a little extra incentive and get people competing a bit. The total time was based on how long it took me to do the tasks, which was a mistake. I should have doubled that time; it wasn’t anywhere near enough for learners doing these tasks for their first or second time. The idea of a time limit was good, but the timing itself was way off.
This technique worked effectively because I was teaching a skill focused on finding information. This wouldn’t have worked as well for every training, but I think I could adapt it for other situations. However, when I have the “Share Web Content” tool available, I’ve found I can simply do a lot of practice with smaller groups that way and skip the scavenger hunt. I wonder if I should revisit this as an instant assessment tool more often though.
Further Reading
Last spring, I had a great discussion with Ellen Behrens on what kind of training works effectively in webinars. The discussion started with her statement that webinars should be used to “provide information rather than teach someone how to DO something.” I disagreed; I think you can teach skills with webinars if you plan the interactions correctly. These scavenger hunts were a personal test for myself to see if I could put into practice what I’d argued. Here’s the discussion and Ellen’s detailed response to my questions:
More information on creating interactive synchronous training:
Weekly Bookmarks (1-2-2011)
January 2, 2011-
3 Web-Based Tools that Generate Awesome Tag Clouds
Better than your average tag cloud–interactive, colorful, shaped like clouds, etc.
-
Four Steps to Effective Virtual Classroom Training by Ruth Clark : Learning Solutions Magazine
Four-step model by Ruth Clark on designing for synchronous online training via Elluminate etc. The article is from 2005 and has nothing earth shattering if you’ve been doing this a while, but it’s a solid introduction to how to use the tools effectively and blend synchronous learning with other forms.
- Joining The eLearning Tribe: The eLearning CoachTips on how to enter the field of e-learning or instructional design, with ideas for networking, job searching, and improving your skills
- Using Moodle: Importing dates in a csv file into date fields – how? (Moodle 1.9.2+)Solution to convert dates from an export of Moodle’s database activity to Excel (Unix dates are encoded differently than Excel)
tags: moodle troubleshooting
- How Long Does it Take to Create Learning?Bryan Chapman’s updated research survey results on how long it takes to develop ILT and e-learning
tags: e-learning learning training research ilt projectmanagement
Welcome to my blog! If this is your first time here, check out the 
