Learn. Show. Repeat.

Tag: LearnShowRepeat

  • Looking Back at 2015

    Well another year has just about come and gone and at this time of year like many folks who write blogs I like to look back and reflect on the posts I’ve written. Blog writing is a personal thing and everyone has their own style and approach which makes the diversity between writers and topics both interesting and thought-provoking. If I had to sum up where I’m at with my blogging and the style of posts I write in one word, it would be Practicality.

    I read a lot of posts and tweets that are critical of eLearning modules (some for good reasons) and I often tell people that an eLearning module is a learning solution it’s not always the learning solution. But it does have a purpose, so instead of constantly bagging it out, my approach is: Why don’t we do something about improving the standard of eLearning?

    So that’s why I like to share posts that explain how to do something and allow the reader to take something away and maybe use in their own course development. Sure, at the moment there’s a focus on using the tool which is important but I intend to expand this next year because eLearning is much more than knowing how to use an authoring tool.

    I’m learning stuff all the time so why not share the knowledge and put it back into the community so here’s my posts from the year that was, grouped by topic area. Click on a title to view the post.

    Storyline 2

    These posts are about things I’ve learned about or discovered in Storyline 2:

    More than One Way with Storyline 2 – How I updated a slider-based interaction to a button and number variable interaction.

    Template Facelift – How I redesigned my ‘Meet the Team’ interaction.

    Spinning Around with Storyline 2 – How I created a carousel-style interaction using a slider and layers.

    3 Things I’ve Just Discovered in Storyline 2 – I’d just started a new job and my colleagues made me aware of these three handy features.

    E-Learning Heroes Challenges

    These posts take a behind-the-scenes look at how I created some of my challenge demos. I used to call them ‘Showing My Work #x’ but I didn’t think it was helpful to the reader plus it sounded a bit wanky so I started to give them a catchy name:

    Pushing My Buttons – ELH Challenge #89: Creative Button Styles.

    100 Not Out – Celebrating 100 ELH Challenges.

    Bingo Time! – ELH Challenge #98: E-Learning Bingo Games.

    Making Videos Interactive – ELH Challenge #94: Interactive Video.

    Showing My Work #11 – ELH Challenge #18: Using Characters in E-Learning.

    Showing My Work #10 – ELH Challenge #52: Using Interactive Sliders in E-Learning.

    Showing My Work #9 – ELH Challenge #71: Teaching Math Concepts with E-Learning.

    Theoretical

    These posts delve into the area of information processing and cognitive load which are important areas to know about when creating eLearning:

    Designing Effective Multimedia Lessons for Learning – a university essay I wrote about the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning and research-based principles that will improve eLearning design.

    The Human Memory System – a university essay I wrote about human cognitive architecture.

    Reflective

    Sometimes I just reflected and put down my thoughts and ideas. I’d like to do more of this next year:

    Half-baked Ideas – a few random thoughts that may become posts of their own in the future.

    Looking Behind the Façade – my thoughts on showing your work and working out loud.

    Evolution – about how my career has changed for the better.

    Practice and Sharing: The Keys to Success – an older post with my two takeaways from LearnX.

    Flipped Networking – about how it’s becoming more common meet people online via social media before in person at a conference.

     

    Thanks to everyone who has read or commented or liked or shared something from this site, I really appreciate it. I’d like to wish you all the best for the festive season and for the new year ahead.

    Who knows what 2016 will hold…

    Ideas for 2016

  • 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.