Learn. Show. Repeat.

Author: Matt Guyan

  • Continuing with Content Curation

    Since my last post on curating content, I’ve been keeping an eye out for articles and posts that discuss this topic especially for L&D folks. Generally speaking I find that lots of people are saying that curation will be a required skill for L&D but these same people are either not practicing curators or getting into the detail of how to curate content.

    One of the challenges I can see regarding content curation is finding ‘quality’ content in a sea of information. With such a huge volume you can’t be across everything but maybe that’s ok? Then what about sub-categories of content? As an example, in eLearning there’s content about authoring tools, learning theory, accessibility, graphic design, writing and many more.

    So some questions I’ve been thinking about are:

    Can the curated content be a mixed bag that falls under a common theme or is it better to sort by a category? For example eLearning or something more specific such as learning theory?

    How do you keep track of content you find from different sources?

    What tools are there to help with curating?

    How do you build skills in curation? (I’m taking the jump in and give it a go approach).

    Here’s my attempt at curating some content about content curation. The reason for selecting these particular posts was that they provide some diverse perspectives into content curation as well as a couple of examples of curated content (click the title to view).

    A Framework for Content Curation by Ryan Tracey

    In this post, Ryan proposes a practical framework for curating content. Built upon Tell me, Show me, Let me, Test me and focusing on quality being more important than quantity. The comments section is also a good read.

    We are the Curators of the Learning Revolution by Ruth McElhone

    As learning and development professionals move towards being curators in a world where there’s ample information, this post provides three good starting points for content curation.

    Seven Approaches to Content Curation by Marc Rosenberg

    I hadn’t thought of different approaches to curation until I read this post where Marc describes seven different approaches to curating content. Keep an eye out for Marc’s other articles on the topic.

    Content Curation for Learning by Anders Pink

    This is a FREE eBook from the folks at Anders Pink all about curation – why curation matters, the role of learning professionals in curation, examples and more.

    Content Curation, How can it be used? by Lorraine Minister

    Lorraine commented below and left a link to a post that describes a model she developed about different levels of content curation.

    eLearning Guild Twist

    A carefully selected list of articles on a variety of L&D topics for the Guild’s community that comes out every week. In my opinion a good example of content curation.

    A Week in Review by David Anderson

    Another example of curation, each week David gathers links to demos, discussions, articles and more that all come from the E-Learning Heroes Community.

    Pick of the Posts by Jane Hart

    Jane does a monthly curated post but hers is focused around a particular topic area. For the month of August it was posts about social learning.

    deathtostock_wired6

  • Learning About Screencasting

    A few months ago David Anderson started a new type of E-Learning Hero Challenge – creating screencasts (which are short ‘how-to’ video clips). I mentioned in an earlier blog post that one of the areas I wanted to build knowledge and skills in was screencasting so these new challenges would be a great opportunity to get started.

    Another reason why these challenges appealed to me is that most of my role at B Online Learning is about teaching others – how to use Storyline 2 and the process of creating an eLearning module – so the challenges also seemed like a good fit in that regard just a different way of teaching and sharing what I know and a way to help develop my communication skills.

    Creating these short how-to videos is something new for me so these early ones were a bit rough but I figure they’ll get better over time. Anyway, here’s a few of things I’ve learned so far when creating my screencasts:

    Planning

    I’ve found that the recording works better if you plan what you’re going to record and have a run through to make sure that things work the way you want them to and you know where you want to click. I don’t have a word for word script but I like to think through what I’m going to say as I do the practice. I tried off-the-cuff but it didn’t work for me.

    Sound quality

    I record my screencasts in my office at home and I shut the door and window to reduce any background noise. Initially I found the audio still wasn’t that great but I was using an old headset with a mic. I do have a USB microphone (Audio Technica) but when I tried it, it seemed to pick up ambient noise. So, I went to JB Hi-Fi and I found a Skype Headset (it has a USB connection and a noise cancelling microphone) and I’m much happier with the quality.

    Recording Window Size

    I use Articulate Replay to record my screencasts as it came with my SL2 licence and meant that I didn’t have to buy another program. It’s easy to use and I’m happy with the output. When you open up Replay you can set the size of the recording window to whatever size you need and initially I was recording at about 1000 x 700 but I found that when I looked at the recording on a larger monitor that it became a bit blurry and I think it was because the recording was being enlarged to fit on a bigger screen? Anyway, I asked my friend Veronica (another regular screencaster) what size she used and she said was using around 1430 x 860. Hers looked cleaner so I increased the recording size and it seems to have helped in the latest recording – ‘Using Master Slides’. So I’ll keep experimenting.

    Click on the image below to see my most recent screencast and you can see all the recording that I’ve created in the Videos section of this site. Let me know what you think.

    Screencasting

    If you’re wondering about the circle animation that you see in my recordings, it’s a setting on your computer. Go to the Control Panel > Mouse > Pointer Options tab > select Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key > Ok. That’s it!

    To see all of the screencast challenge topics, click here.

    If you’ve done any screen recording before please share any tips you have in the comments below.

  • Building Your Personal Brand

    A few months ago I was invited to be part of a panel discussion on personal branding at the Australian Institute of Training and Development (AITD) national conference. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend so I asked Michelle Ockers (who lead the discussion) if it would be ok if I wrote a blog post on the topic, using some of her discussion questions as a basis of the post. She kindly agreed and so here are my thoughts…

    Michelle defines a personal brand as:

    “While we associate brands with large corporations and products, the idea of having a personal brand is relatively recent. It would be easy to dismiss the idea of building a personal brand as hype or inauthentic. Perhaps it helps to view your personal brand as another term for your professional reputation. It is about who others think you are, what your purpose is, and what you stand for.”

    This sums it up nicely and I would also add that it’s your actions both online and in person that both define and support your brand.

    Describe your personal brand.

    I started being active online about three years ago and I never intentionally set out to build my personal brand, its evolved over time. My driver came from seeing a lot of negativity towards eLearning and rather than just being a critic, I thought why not flip it around and do something about improving my own practice and helping others in the field do the same.

    This is why my website contains mostly practical (and hopefully helpful) content designed to give others some ideas that they can use in their projects straight away. I also use my website to reflect and show that I’m still learning as I go too.

    I’ve never been motivated by numbers of followers or connections and while it’s nice to see them grow (because hopefully it means that I’m reaching more people) I don’t set targets in terms of numbers.

    Why is a personal brand important?

    A lot of people (and I was no different) wait until something happens with their career – maybe they’ve become unhappy in their job, things change in their workplace or they lose their job altogether – before they take action and think about who they are and where they want to be.

    Most people have a resume and/or an online profile and often they are just lots of descriptors about what someone says they can do. They all start to look the same after a while but a personal brand can bring those words to life and show who you are, what you can do, what you’re good at and most importantly help you to stand out from the crowd.

    I’ve also found that having a personal brand can open up other opportunities career wise such as invitations to speak at conferences which in turn helps you to reinforce your message.

    What are some of the most valuable things you’ve done to build your personal brand?

    I’ve done a few things to build my brand – starting this blog, using Twitter and LinkedIn in a targeted way and being active in the Articulate E-Learning Heroes community. But with all of them the one thing I did was participate. While you might start off watching from the sidelines, you need to get involved and if you want to build a strong brand you’ll need to move from just consuming the work of others to also being a creator and putting your own work/thoughts/ideas ‘out there’.

    How do you find time to build your personal brand?

    It’s not always easy to find the time but if you learn to use your time more effectively you can fit things in, for example use the time you spend commuting to work on the bus or train (I wrote the first draft of this post on a plane trip home), get up a little earlier or set aside a couple of hours on the weekend. If you’re serious about building a personal brand, you either need to find the time or make the time. It takes effort to build and maintain your personal brand but the investment is definitely worth it.

    I’m also fortunate that my employer – B Online Learning – is supportive of myself and my colleagues having our own identities in the wider learning community.

    Any advice for those new/wanting to build a personal brand?

    Firstly, ask yourself: What am I passionate about? Building a personal brand is a bit like gardening, there’s a bit of work in the beginning to get things in place but then you need to maintain and keep working on it otherwise it will wither away. If you’re not passionate, you won’t be able to sustain the effort needed to grow your brand.

    I’d also suggest starting out small and building from there as there’s no need to do everything at once. Also keep in mind that you may not get much response to your actions initially but don’t give up as people need to get to know you and what it is you’re about.

    My main tool for building my personal brand is my website that started out as a blog and has grown to include samples of work, suggested folks to connect with, downloadable templates and more recently ‘how-to’ video clips. I also use Twitter and LinkedIn to promote myself (be careful not to overdo the self-promotion) but I also like to promote others via these same channels. You need to find tools that you’re comfortable using.

    When you decide on the tools you’ll use you need to be consistent in posting and sharing. Try to do something at least every day so that others will see your passion.

    In terms of an online profile a couple of tips would be have a good picture of yourself (not a cropped picture from a holiday or function) and also have a description of yourself that summarises who you are and what you want to be known for.

    Remember, your personal brand is up to you.

    Matt's profile picture

  • Getting Started with Curating Content

    Art Gallery

    Curation. Whenever I hear the term I always think of a person working in an art gallery carefully selecting pieces of work for an upcoming exhibition. But I’m also seeing it as a skill needed for modern L&D folks…

    “We need curators and community managers, rather than course designers” Charles Jennings

    …and certainly it’s an area (along with community management) that I want to explore more and build my own capability in. But how can I do this?

    What is curation?

    The starting point in wanting to learn more about how to do something is to know what it means. So here’s a couple definitions that I found online:

    “Curation isn’t just about collecting or filtering…it’s about adding value through context and analysis” David Kelly

    “A Content Curator is someone who continually finds, groups, organizes and shares the best and most relevant content on a specific issue online” Rohit Bhargava

    I thought that I was curating already by selecting some of the articles/videos/blog posts that I come across and sharing them via social media e.g. Twitter, LinkedIn but the comments above suggest that it’s more than this. Ok, I’ll give this a go by adding some curated resources at the end of my blog posts that ties in with the topic of the post.

    I feel comfortable in attempting to curate content within the eLearning space as it’s an area that I have experience in and being active in SoMe means that I’m exposed to lots of information in the field plus people who I interact with online.

    But if curation is a skill needed by L&D professionals, a big question for me is:

    How do I curate content outside of my area of expertise?

    As an example, if right now I was working in an L&D department within an organisation, I might need to curate some resources for managers to develop their capability for managing people. How can I do this effectively when 1) I haven’t managed staff myself for a long time and 2) I’m not actively across what’s available out there. How can I tell the ‘wheat from the chaff’ in terms of curating resources for them when (from my point of view) I’m not in a position of credibility?

    One of my pet peeves is that in a number of posts/articles etc. that I read about the ‘future of L&D’ is that they often just focus on what L&D should be doing but provide little to no guidance on the how. It’s easy to say “L&D need to be content curators” but it seems like there’s more to it than pulling a few resources together.

    Generally speaking, for the L&D people I come into contact with, the field is very much entrenched in the course mindset which are one-off learning events that are expected to bring about change. I see content curation as being more ongoing but will require a huge mindset shift from developing courses.

    I’m keen to learn more about the practical, the doing, the how of curation as well as how do we get there. Do you curate? If so, how do you do it? Please let me know your thoughts/ideas/advice in the comments below and if you have any examples of curated content, let me know too.

    I did come across this example of curated content about curation by David Kelly which I thought was a good one because there’s lots of articles on the subject:

    Curation: Beyond the Buzzword

  • Sliding Along with the Force

    A few weeks ago I was delivering a Storyline 2 session in Brisbane and we were looking at the slider interaction and how you can use a slider to change the state of an object and also use it to show layers. In the change of state example we were looking at, you slide the thumb along the track and the colour of an image changes. One of the participants asked if it were possible to change the colour of the thumb to match the colour of the image and my response was “I’m not sure, I haven’t tried that before but let’s check it out and see if it can be done”.

    So, I clicked on the slider and went to the states area and I was pleasantly surprised to see that sliders have ‘states’. As it turns out, you can add new slider states and then format the slider for your new states (in our class example, I could change the thumb colour to match the image colour). Cool! I was also happy that person asked this question or I may never have known about slider states!

    Flashback to late 2015, and David Anderson created an ELH Challenge to coincide with the release of the new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens. E-Learning Heroes Challenge #110 – Awaken Your E-Learning Force. The brief was to build a Star Wars-themed interaction, this week your challenge is.

    Sometimes ideas for challenge demos come to me quickly but sometimes I need to percolate ideas in my subconscious for a while and this was one of those challenges. I did have some illustrated Star Wars characters that I wanted to use for the demo and an idea of a trivia type interaction, just no solid idea for bringing them together in a different way.

    Jumping back to the present and after I discovered that sliders have states, I thought that’s it! I could create a slider state for each character (six in total) and I could also have a question for each character to correspond with the change in image.

    So this is what I did:

    I inserted a slider and in the Thumb Fill area, filled it with a picture of my first character. I had to play around with the sizing of the thumb so that it wasn’t too small. For the track, I chose no fill and no outline which made it transparent. Then I created a new state for each character and named each state to correspond with the character:

    Slider states

    The thumb picture changes using a change of state trigger (one for each character):

    Slider change state

    Each of the questions is built on a layer:

    Star Wars layers
    I used shapes for my questions and feedback with 40% transparency and shapes for my answers choices too. As there was only one correct answer, I grouped the choices in a button set which only allows one answer to be selected at a time. The correct/incorrect feedback boxes are on this layer too and they both start as ‘hidden’ and change state to normal depending on which answer is chosen. This is what it looks like for the Stormtrooper layer:

    layer triggers
    To save some time, once I had the first layer working the way I wanted, I duplicated it and then changed the information and adjusted the triggers. A show layer trigger based on the slider position makes each layer show. So as you slide the thumb along, the picture changes to a different character and a question for that character is also shown along with some feedback (and where possible, I used a quote from that character from one of the movies).

    You can try the demo yourself by clicking on the image below:

    Star Wars demo

    Let me know what you think and you can see all of my ELH Challenge entries on My Portfolio page.