Learn. Show. Repeat.

Tag: Jane Bozarth

  • 5 Books Every eLearning Professional Should Read

    Even though we live in a digital world I still love reading paper books. This post has been floating around with me for a while and the idea for it came from a post by Ryan Tracey called ‘5 papers every learning professional should read’.

    This post is pretty much the same but with books instead of papers. I’ve chosen each book because they’re easy to read (over a period of time rather than one sitting), they provide useful strategies that you can implement and they provide a great reference that I go back to.

    I’ve listed them here in no particular order:

    eLearning and the Science of Instruction by Ruth Colvin Clark and Richard E. Mayer

    One of the first books I read when I started in eLearning and over time I’ve discovered that anything written by Ruth Colvin Clark is well worth a look. What I like about this book is the theory (working memory, cognitive load and related principles) is explained in a straightforward way and there’s practical examples based on research of what can be done to improve eLearning design.

     

    Design for How People Learn by Julie Dirksen

    This one also has a good mix of evidenced-based theory and ideas that can be implemented into your own designs. It looks at learning from a wide perspective – how we process and store information, how to design for skills and for knowledge as well as motivation and the learning environment. I’ve got the first edition but there’s a second edition now available.

     

    The Accidental Instructional Designer by Cammy Bean

    This book written by someone who started out much like I did – transitioning into the role of instructional designer. There were many times throughout the book that I related to Cammy’s experiences. She covers a lot of ground – different skills of an ID, working with SME’s, ideas for gaining attention, writing, visual design and meaningful interactivity – that includes avoiding what she calls ‘clicky-clicky bling-bling’.

     

    Visual Design Solutions by Connie Malamed

    Graphic design is a skill that I’ve had to work on (and continue to work on). This book is chock full of ideas to improve the visual element of your modules and looks at how to organise screen objects, working with images, typography and using imagery to enhance explanation and as part of storytelling.

     

    Show Your Work by Jane Bozarth

    The practice of showing your work is about making the stuff in your head, the ‘how-to’, visible for others to see and use. Find out more about what it means to show your work and see the many, many real examples shared by folks from all walks of life.

     

    What do you think? What books would you add?

    5 books

  • A New Beginning

    Welcome to my new site! It’s been quite a few weeks in the making and I’m happy to finally launch it.

    I started writing on the Learning Snippets blog about 18 months ago and over that time I’ve changed and evolved (actually, I still am) and as a result I wanted to update my site to reflect this. I wanted to do more with my blogging and sharing, so I decided that I needed a new space to achieve this goal. Getting to this point will be a post in itself in the not too distant future.

    About the same time as I started writing my blog I also started reading other blogs written by people in the learning field to see what they were talking about and to get a sense of what blog writing was about. As I read, it seemed to me that everyone seemed to know everything about everything! But over time, I found that the writers tended to have a ‘speciality’. Yes, they are across a range of aspects related to learning but they tend to have one area they are particularly passionate about that comes through. This was somewhat a relief because at first, I struggled with trying to know and be everything. I felt pulled in all directions and it wasn’t until I genuinely thought about what is it that I’m passionate about?

    It’s eLearning.

    There are a lot of opinions around about eLearning both for and against. There’s a place for all forms of learning whether it’s in the classroom, on a computer or mobile device, informal, social or whatever. The key is to use the approach that is fit for purpose and will achieve the best outcome. There’s also a bit of talk around about how we should drop the ‘e’ from eLearning or debating how to spell eLearning (e-Learning, E-Learning or E-learning) and my view is that if these were the biggest challenges facing eLearning as it is today, we would be in a pretty good place. However, these types of discussions are nothing more than a distraction from the real issue which is to develop courses that enable people to perform better.

    What we need to focus on is constantly improving the standard of eLearning courses and the experience of people who take them and to improve their performance. Many people complain that they don’t have time to complete eLearning courses and they view it as something that they have to do but why not make them so engaging, so useful and so good that people will want to take them? Why don’t we aim to raise the standard and skills of those who develop these courses? This is what we should be focusing on. It’s no easy task but is something that I will be doing more of. This will be my thing.

    As well as wanting a more modern and customisable site, the name: Learn. Show. Repeat. represents my new way of thinking. One of the strongest influences for me to date has been the practice of ‘Show Your Work’ which I first heard about via Jane Bozarth. It’s basically showing what you did and how you did it. I tried it a few times in the past which you can see here: Showing My Work #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5. It’s a terrific way to open up and pass knowledge to others who may need it.

    A few months ago, I started participating in David Anderson’s eLearning challenges as a way to develop my own eLearning skills and to interact with other designers. David has generously been helping me out with the showing part by storing my published Storyline demos on his server (thanks David!) and giving me a link which I can then share with others. But I wanted to be able to do this for myself so, along with registering a new domain name; I set up my own account with an external hosting provider and changed from a WordPress.com site to a WordPress.org site. Special mention to Helen Blunden and Jackie Van Nice who helped me out and provided some very handy advice with switching over to a self-hosted site. I also wanted to keep all of my demos in one place and accompany each entry with a blog post about how I created it. This was another reason to update the site.

    You’ll notice that there are more pages now – a Portfolio page that shows my eLearning challenge entries created with Articulate Storyline and a PLN page that lists some of the people, communities, blogs, websites and books that have helped me in my journey in the learning field. Like me the site will continue to evolve and change over time. You can also make contact with me directly if you need to.

    When I started writing on Learning Snippets, the tagline was: A diary of sorts about what I’m learning about learning and that’s still a big part of what I want to do. But I also want to do more showing and reflecting and sharing experiences with the aim of improving my skills and those of others too.

    I’m looking forward to the next phase of my learning journey; you’re most welcome to come along for the ride.