A few weeks ago, we looked at Pinterest boards that are worth following for learning and development. After that post, we received several requests for a curated board by our team. Since that post, we have been collecting some of our favorite pins and curating a board we think is helpful for people in the L&D world. Continue reading
Have something to contribute to the L&D field? Write it down… then publish it!
In April I took my son to Washington, DC for spring break. I took advantage of being in DC to meet up with some old colleagues and professional contacts.
On my last day in the city, I reached out to an editor at TD magazine and asked if we could grab lunch; I had an idea to pitch. Continue reading
eLearning Interactions: Exploring Content
Throughout high school and college, I was a DJ at the college radio station. As technology improved around the turn of this century, our little radio station became much more automated, and the massive compact disk library moved to digital files. One thing that didn’t change before I left college was the soundboard that we used to fade music and microphones and do some light mixing. Continue reading
What kind of training participant are you?
No, this isn’t some sort of personality quiz (although that’s an interesting idea for an upcoming blog post). It’s a real question.
When you attend a training session, what kind of participant (or non-participant) are you? Continue reading
eLearning Interactions: Comic Strip Panels
Comic strips tell a story in a linear timeline that read from left to right. Anyone who opened a newspaper as a kid, read comic books or graphic novels, or has ever seen a panel meme is familiar with the style of storytelling.
One obstacle in eLearning is that our participants cannot tell us a story. Continue reading
Do you have a second head? You should.
They say two heads are better than one. In the world of training design, I’d say this is very, very true. Continue reading
eLearning Interactions: Puzzles!
Last week, we began looking at some of the limitations of eLearning interactions, and how to work within those constraints. Your comments and feedback indicated that this is a topic of interest to many of you. Over the coming weeks, we will continue to discuss effective ways to design eLearning interactions on the Thursday posts to this blog. Continue reading
A more effective role play
I was sitting with a client last week, trying to finalize a training program, and the client said: “With all of these case studies and vignettes already in here, it seems like having people do role plays would be redundant.”
I explained that while it was true that we had a lot of case studies and shorter vignettes in the curriculum as discussion tools, but adding role plays was not redundant at all. You can talk about case studies with others. You can point out how things should be. Role plays, on the other hand, challenge participants to show they know how things should be, and challenge them to actually demonstrate how things should be.
With that, the client seemed satisfied and was ready to proceed. Putting together an effective role play, however, can be complicated. I believe there are four parts to an effective role play. Continue reading
Quiz Style eLearning Interactions
eLearning instructional design has different challenges and advantages than instructor-led training. Interactions are limited to the learner interacting with keyboard and mouse functions, and you have to shift your thinking of how an interaction is executed. eLearning design can be a challenge for those of us who spend most of our time designing instructor-led training. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be covering various eLearning interactions and how to incorporate them into your eLearning courses. Continue reading
Asked to speak about a topic? You may actually be an imposter… just not for the reason(s) you think.
I’ve seen a lot written about “imposter syndrome” on LinkedIn recently. In short, imposter syndrome is when you doubt your own abilities, especially when you’re asked to publicly show them off.
My colleague, Heather, wrote about this phenomenon among L&D professionals last year in this blog post.
I’ve worked with a number of people – from early career professionals to senior staff – who express doubts about what kind of wisdom they could possibly have to offer others. It’s quite a natural sentiment.
The truth is, however, that I’ve seen more actual imposters among those who have been asked to share their expertise with an audience and who feel confident in their wisdom and their experience. I’ve seen imposters among doctors, lawyers, tech executives and learned academics (among others). They’re smart people, to be sure, but where they come across as true fakes is Continue reading