Week 13: Digital Story Telling

The Sun Rises and The Sun Sets

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Week 10: Job Description for 21st Century Teacher

Immediate Need for 21st Century Teacher

Title: 21st Century Teacher
Start: ASAP
Location: Everywhere

Boeckman Consulting Associates is looking for a 21st Century Teacher/Learning Specialist. This individual will be responsible for supporting end users/learners with the internal learning management system, ensuring that learning activities are accurately maintained at all times, and providing support via phone, chat/instant messenger and email.

Responsibilities Include

• Quickly, effectively, thoroughly assess, research, and resolve learning management system problems in a timely and effective manner.
• Collaborate and communicate with various team members to coordinate timely and accurate training assignments.
  
• Enter, file and maintain training/learning documentation for easy retrieval.
• Enroll learners and record learning events with the highest levels of accuracy.
  
• Understand, describe and apply a blended learning approach when creating training/learning materials
• Understand, describe and make use of blogs, wikis and twitter feeds where applicable and interesting for learners
  
• Assign and remove components and qualifications from individual learning plans in accordance with department procedures and monitor completion.
• Collect training records, review records and assessments for completion and accuracy.
• Produce regular and ad hoc training/learning reporting.
• Excellent attention to detail when performing data entry, and ability to verify own work for accuracy.

Skills Required

• Expert level internet research skills
  
• Expert level use of finding new resources and creative channels for structuring learning (ie: wiki, blogs, twitter, google docs, use of mobile learning technology, etc)
  
• Understand and utilize current learning technologies & mobile learning technologies
  
• Demonstrated success working with learning technologies, trouble-shooting problems, and conducting effective follow-through with end users.
• Understanding of LMS, eLearning, web-based content development, database management and/or content management systems.
• Superb skills in Microsoft Office Suite.

Boeckman Consulting is always seeking the highest quality candidates, please pass along this posting to friends and colleagues who you feel could be the right fit for this role.

Week 9

:::Removed for sake of Google Privacy/Non-Disclosure Agreement:::

Week 6 - Presentations

Talk about how you might apply the technologies, concepts, ideas, etc. in either the work you do or would like to be doing.

Aaron Chen, Mobile Technology

Benefits: What's nice about mobile technology, is that it allows learners to learn from a variety of locations, using a plethora of tools. It's lighter than carrying multiple textbooks, and content can be uploaded instantly, answers to questions, comments on thoughts, and feedback can all happen immediately.

Applications: could hold virtual training courses online - I mean basically anything you can do online, can be done through mobile technology. You could use games to keep learners engaged, flash cards, discussion boards, etc.

Maria Varela, Social Bookmarking

Benefits: Social bookmarking allows universal online access to find personal bookmarks and bookmarks from others interested in your field

Applications: Could have students find and bookmark valuable sites about chosen topic. Right now I'm working on building a new manager training program, and as part of the pre-workshop homework, I could have new managers seek out 3 "new manager" online resources, socially bookmark the resources, and then tag the resource with at least 3 challenges that new managers face.

Sohee Kim, Voicethread

Benefits: Voicethreads are virtual, can be instantly uploaded, and are valuable to walk through lessons or presentations.

Applications: trainers could walk through virtual exercises for learners, learners could provide explanations of their posted projects or presentations.

Scott Contini, HTML 5-

Benefits: Promises to be the new standard, (w3c) that will bring all design elements of versions of HTML into 1.

Anyone can put anything they want into a webpage without worrying its going to change things on a different system

Applications: I'm not sure how I could use this IN a training course, however, I could use HTML while designing an online course - it would help making web based training easier, cleaner, quicker to build.

Catherine Mone, Creative Commons

Benefits: The benefits of creative commons is that you can use and share amazing work and resources with more people, without having to contact the owner for permission. It enables licensing of sharable information. “This is how I want to share my stuff without you having to contact me to do so”

Applications: I'm not sure how I would use creative commons liscensing in a training course, per say, but like HTML 5, I could use it while designing and developing course content and materials

Ray Saray- Screencasting

Benefits: Screencasting is a a digital recording of computer screen output – AKA video screen capture. Programs that could be used Captivate/ Camtasia/ ScreenToaster (free) – find comparison on wikipedia. If I want to teach/show you something, I don’t have to be present to do so – I can present it, speak through it, and post. It also keeps original resolution

Applications: From a design and development perspective, I could obviously use programs like captivate/camtasia to create rapid e-learning materials for technical training. From a learner perspective, I could use this technology as a way of assessing if the learners have learned the material by asking them to record their screen when completing a technical task.

Johanna Wee, 2^nd Life

Benefits: Could be used as virtual classroom. You could have more “realistic” meetings in offices/conference rooms – more fun than seeing someone’s face, can get “dressed”. Virtual classrooms, live presenting, video, real time chat & voice are available features.

Application: Second Life would be GREAT for role play or practice conversation for language - its perfect for immersion exercises. I could imagine conducting management training scenarios, as well as customer facing scenarios where the learners could practice how they might approach a situation, given the opportunity. This might seem more realistic than in a classroom, because the avatars can be "anyone." It seems 2nd life would be great for soft skills training, situation training, as well as technical skills training.

Tria Vang – Blogging

Benefits: Can be used interally to enhance communication, externally for marketing & branding

Applications: I could have students share ideas on their projects or resources via blogs, encourage communication and feedback on given topics, and it would give me a way of knowing what they think on a topic informally - outside of having them write a paper.

Tremaine Lott- Search Engine Optimization, SEO

Benefits: Companies can manipulate key words of their website to improve site rankings

Applications: I am not sure how this relates to training and development...

Christine El Corm- Facebook

Benefits: Nearly everyone is already on facebook. Learners dont need to set up an account somewhere else/visit another website during the day. Learners may be encouraged to visit facebook page and engage in discussions because it's somewhere they already are. It's a matter of convenience.

Applications: I could use FB as a private consultant for my own business, or as a trainer, I could have a page for the given topic, like New Manager Training or New Employee training where learners could interact, participate in topic relative discussions, post pictures about their work experience, or maybe I could post videos of scenarios they could face. Using a facebook page as a way of managing content and users could be fun and exciting, however, users are likely to get distracted with chat, other personal interests, etc. Plus, making content private would be difficult if it is proprietary company information that the company would not want shared on a public site, even if it's "locked" or "password protected."

Week 5

In your journal, provide ideas on how you can incorporate some of the ideas from today's presentations in your job.

Clint Boswell - Cloud Computing

I enjoyed Clints presenting on Cloud Computing, and it made me think of having training platforms or learning management systems in the cloud. Similar to Salesforce - but instead of CRM, it'd be an LMS. Like Salesforce.com, it could be customizeable to the client.... ::::thinking with my entrepreneurial hat now:::::

Victor Fagundes - Digital storytelling

I could use digital storytelling in corporate classrooms, maybe like this:
Instead of having learners talk about their experience with a poor customer service or management experience, I could have them develop a story or scenario via digital story. They'd create one experience of what did happen that was poor, and then an "alternate ending" of what could have been done differently.

Serena Arge -copyright and intellectual property

I'm not sure how I would directly utilize this in a corporate setting with learners in particular, unless I were a. doing it myself and citing my references properly, or b. when asking learners to make presentations, having them cite material and references properly as well.

Kelly Reed -Online Group Work Tools for Higher Ed. Science

Kelly presented such a wide variety of ideas and materials. The one that stuck in my head the most was the small round tables where groups each had a laptop and a presentation board where they collaborated ideas/etc. Maybe in the future and given the right budget, corporate training could look like this - with round tables, access to computers, or maybe the table itself could be a large screen where instant collaboration and idea building could happen...

Michael Agnoletti -Privacy Issues

Logging out of my gmail/facebook/sfsu account/etc and clearing the history/cache/cookies...check!

Jay Dold -Microblogging

I've been wondering how microblogging fits into corporate culture, outside of socially using twitter to post what one person is doing/thinking/etc. Maybe in the case of training and development, the trainer could pose questions to the class and learners could tweet their answers - OR - what if learners tweeted their questions to trainers publicly, and then the trainer (or managers, even) could provide a tweeted public response so that all people get answers to the same question. For example, lets say a new employee had a question about policy - instead of just asking the person next to them, they could tweet their question, and a SME could respond - giving the questioner the answer, as well as other employees...

Joseph Trinh -Marketing via social media

Using Facebook and the like as a marketing tool are fantastic. I've been able to keep up with my favorite local artists, where they are working and new art they have thanks to social media marketing. I could use this to market myself as a training specialist too... I've thought about doing so, actually- but I'm not sure how relevant that would be, as I already have a webpage, linkedin page, and my job title is on my facebook page...I dont know if I would need ot build a "business page" on facebook for myself just yet.

Josh Sheridan -Photosharing like Flickr

I'm still wondering how I might use this in a corporate learning setting...

Caya Consunji - Vlogging

I think vlogging/blogging/microblogging are all great ways for learners to have an opportunity to express themselves creatively- in a corporate or traditional educational setting.... We are creative beings, and I think that allowing a learner to present their thoughts via any of these channels is helpful.

Richard Kim- Globalization internet

It was really neat to see how we are all connected globally - my favorite image from his presentation was the flattened earth showing all of our connections to one another.

I enjoyed all of the presentations last week, and am looking forward to learning more from my peers this coming week as well. It's fun to see what is happening in our world, and how people are creatively using the technologies that are present.

Week 4: Interaction Design v. Instructional Design

• Compare and contrast instructional design process and interaction design process. How are they similar? How are they different?

It seems that with instructional design, the focus falls more on structuring and communicating content in a way that makes sense.

It seems that with interaction design, it feels spacial and tactile- like how a user would interact in a 3d world or with a website or with a room...

One seems to deal more with making the content and its structure make sense, and the other seems to deal more with making sure the look and feel of the structure makes sense...

Interaction design makes me think interface/userface design... I think that as instructional designers, we could really use interactive designers to help to achieve a super feng shui'd training program, website, or instructional game. We could communicate the content clearly and structurally in the back end, and they would communicate the way the learners get TO the material... I'm wondering if that makes any sense.

• What qualities do instructional designers and interaction designers have in common? How are they different?

According to this website that describes an interaction designer, I feel like we both:

• "Learn new domains quickly
• Solve problems both analytically and creatively
• Be able to visualize and simplify complex systems
• Empathize with users, their needs, and their aspirations
• Understand the strengths and limitations of both humans and technology
• Share a passion for making the world a better place through ethical, purposeful, pragmatic, and elegant design solutions"

Except for the last one... maybe not all people or instructional designers want to make the world a better place. :-) Though the ones I know seem to :-)

We are both concerned with the structure of the material, but I think interaction designers are more concerned with the look and feel of the material, the artistic beauty of the product and it's meaning to the users. As an instructional designer, I want to be sure content is clean, clear and understandable to the user. The more I think of it the more I want to be sure my material is actually appealing to draw the user in to begin with.

It seems interaction designers pull the learners and users IN and direct traffic, while instructional designers make sure that learners understand the purpose and meaning of the journey itself.

Week 3

• Define interface and describe criteria that defines a good interface.

An interface is what the user sees to navigate a system, such as a website, an elearning program, an ATM, the cable menu on TV, the playstation men

u... A good interface is intuitive in the way that, the user does not need to struggle to find what they are looking for, know how to advance pages, and comfortably navigate the system structure without first reading a manual on how it all works.

• Critique two web sites: one that you think is poorly designed, one that you think is well-designed. Provide rationale for your choice. Both sites you critique should serve the same functional purpose. Diagnose the problems on the bad site and offer improvements.

Worst website of all time: http://yvettesbridalformal.com/index.htm

This website is horribly designed in that, it is difficult to read, has a million contrasting colors, "dancing babies", flashing lights, and overall it's just so hard to look at. I cant imagine what a screen reader would pick up on this website. And I just realized while looking at it and writing it's description in my blog, that it has music, which slowly

snuck up on me, and then all of a sudden I started to wonder "where is that music coming from?! Oh...it's this abomination of a website." I thought it couldnt get worse, but it did. I think what's w

orst about this website, is that it is not laid out in a systematic format, so the user has to spend a LONG time finding what they want in the way of formal gowns, all the while sifting through country cooking recipes, mary kay cosmetics, and sugar cookie offers.

A not as horrible formal gown shop website with a little more clarity: http://www.tjformal.com/

After reviewing Yvette's webpage, and then clicking on TJ's, I'm having a hard time figuring out whats so bad about it. It has a clearly laid out structure with standard framing. The one thing I dont like is picture on the "wall" that keeps chang

ing images. Otherwise, it has categories of styles of dresses people may be looking for, contact information, FAQ section. measurement, etc. I like that they post what forms of payment they accept, and they have a "live help" chat window if you need assistance finding something on their site. It's hard for TJ's to look bad, at this point...after seeing Yvettes...man.

• From what you learned in this week's reading, are the sites accessible?

Yvettes? No. No and helllllllllll no. As a matter of fact, I think it's giving me a handicap, the longer I look at it.

TJ's? Yes, mostly. I think there is a lot of text on the pages, and that in some of the sections, ie: the "in stock" section, all of the categories under "in stock" have "in stock" following their name.If it's in the "in stock" section, we KNOW it's IN STOCK. It doesnt need to be said after nearly every thing.

• If the sites have accessibility issues, what are the accessibility issues? Include a representative image for each site as well as a link to each site. Include evidence that supports your choices.

Yvettes:

First, they need to use a standard frame work - a top navigation bar, a side navigation bar, and a search box. All of their subpages need to be set up consistently with the first, because they are all different, they are hard to navigate.

Second, Yvette's needs to organize their material into chunks of topics.

• Bridal gowns
• Bridesmaid & Party Gowns
• Mother of the Bride Gowns
• Shoes
• Veils and Accessories
• Jewelry
• Men's Wear
• Other junk that doesnt make sense but we're going to add it anyway.

Third, they need to take out the following:

• Flashing objects
• Screen tracing objects
• Supercolormania
• Music (or at least make it an option to shut it off)

Gosh this site makes me nervous just to look at it. I had to close it. Those are some ideas for their improvement.

TJ's:

TJ's is pretty clear to navigate, but a bit wordy. If I were using a screen reader, I'd be annoyed at the overused words. Get to the point already!