Social Media Galore!

Facebook is popular social Media with many of my professional peers and clients.  I am very casual on my personal page so I don’t mind friending clients.  I feel this allows us to connect both personally and professionally through our various posts.  From a business perspective, Facebook is an excellent tool for advertising my learning modules. Since quite a few of my Facebook “Friends” are clients, I can see adding links to my website and adding a tease on Facebook with a link.

In order to keep “Friends” engaged, there would be several things I could do.  I think a daily posting geared toward learning.  Whether it be an inspirational quote, quick tips and tricks on various products, the latest in learning and technology trends and of course links to eLearning modules. I am a member of several pages that are self-maintained.  I’m all about control when trying to get something off the ground but think that over time, the page could be self-maintaining as folks feel more comfortable sharing or posting learning related items.  Anything is possible on social media, with enough resources, I can envision a Facebook community where folks share their learning content as well.  Perhaps a “Share It” day on a particular product, topic or resource.  I could start a Lisa’s Learning Emporium Stamp of Approval.  If done right, the stamp of approval would be incentive for folks to share fabulous and innovative content. 

I know that in order for most of the things I do with my organization to be successful, social media will play a role. There is so much potential out there.  As I said before, anything is possible.  If we create it, they will come post right?  

Videos and eLearning

Video has several meanings to me. I see video in my learning environment as software simulations for the demonstrations that need to occur. As a trainer, folks will get more through a software simulation than a traditional video of me training.

Even with software simulations, I like as a narrator to be me. I try to keep my tone conversational, I try to incorporate humor as much as I can, where I can, as though I were still standing in front of a group.  As long as the humor (considered cute or not) is appropriate and can help engage the learner to continue learning I see no harm. That being said, I firmly believe the humor needs to stay “cute” and should never include three big no no’s: Politics, religion and death. It’s bad when you are standing in front of a class and you say something that falls flat, However, you have time to redeem yourself. It’s even worse when they can turn you off.

In order to include Closed Captioning in Captivate, I needed to script the entire module. This is certainly time consuming as a 5-8 minute video took about 6 hours to complete. In all fairness that includes the 4 recordings, the stripping of what would be the final then the editing and finalizing. The good news in all of that is that your slide notes can serve two purposes. One, if you have to re-record, you have a script in front of you and two, the closed captioning can be created from the script. There is still to be done regarding the timing of the closed captioning but all the content is there.

Our class did a great job engaging multiple intelligences. There were not only narrations but some had video in video, others used graphics to display content. For me, I think I will certainly need to use a blend of graphics, highlights, maybe text to display a review would be best. The last two Captivate projects I created were more tutorial based where my learning environment would be a lecture, demonstration and practice environment so there should be plenty to keep my learners engaged. A blended learning environment is the best way to go when recording a video.  Although I didn’t use it here, my final learning environment will have an avatar to guide them around.  Similar to the Programming Basics eLearning module on my site.

Third times a charm, Right? Not for me.  Every time I create one of these, I realize that I still have so much to learn. This is my third time using Captivate 9. Although it is a great tool, I still have other things to worry about when I use it. For this exercise, I learned that my computer is loud. If you listen to the Learning tutorial, the background you hear is my computer. I have a great microphone but it wasn't accessible to me for this assignment, so this is what I get. My headset, although it recorded great narration wasn’t enough to hide the background noise. I won’t make that mistake again. The narration kills me every time. I still can’t believe how much time and energy it takes to use a product such as Captivate. Honestly, I recorded another segment to my software simulation using a pie chart but I cut out 60 slides because I knew I wouldn’t have time to edit the sound, timing and closed captioning for this assignment. I struggle with whether or not it is cost effective for me to do something like this for our clients. I’m hoping the value add is something they really appreciate.

I posted the following list of highlights on my website

 Here are the highlights: 

·         I created data for my tutorial in Excel 2016

·         I used the Software Simulation feature of Captivate 9 

·         I narrated the simulation

·         I then went into Captivate to edit the narration, even redo some of the narration. This is a fairly detailed process since it entails listening to each slide in the project then editing by highlighting and cutting out the parts of the narration that I don't want, such as the mouse clicks. In some cases, I highlighted narration and re-recorded it.

·         I added elements such as highlights to the words or Excel components that you see. Captivate does some of that during the software simulation but I didn't keep those.

·         I then typed my entire script into the module so if you choose, you can see the Closed Captioning. I did not match the closed captioning to activities but that is a possibility. 

e-Learning, It Doesn't Have to be Boring

I know, e-Learning modules, boring right? If done correctly, they don’t have to be. In my world, e-Learning modules as a learning environment fit nicely. Just following the standards of designing e-Learning, I will have encapsulated all the important aspects of creating a highly engaging and effective learning module. Add in accessibility, usability, and assessments I will have created a superior learning tool. Based on the timeframe in which I have my clients, sometimes a day, maybe two, I need to have something for them that will either supplement our learning or continue to test their skills. With that, understanding the features to create an Excel Dashboard it is. A large number of organizations use e-Learning modules either as a sole resource for training or as a supplement to organizational learning. Even educational organizations, such as, SUNY Empire State College have given each student access to Lynda.com as a resource for e-Learning.

As a computer training firm, my organization typically teaches instructor-led courses. Training that occurs in a classroom environment where each learner is following the course with a series of hands-on activities. Certainly an effective way to learn for those who can take the time of their work day.  However, these days most of our clients want hands-on training but only have time to learn the things they know they need, which may not translate into the features of a tool they really need to be more productive. Using a tool such as e-Learning will help our clients understand not only what they have a good handle on but where they might have a skills gap.  This will allow them to create a training plan to best fit their needs. For my company, being able to access skills is something we have not done and can hope to achieve through this module. 

Although the concept of my learning environment is similar to Lynda.com, it is not my intent to replace Lynda.com. It’s my intent to create a value add for my clients and an assessment of their learning either after a course or before. To help them understand what they know and what they still have to work through to create dashboards in Excel. I have dabbled in designing e-Learning through one course and the need to create something quickly for my organization’s 30^th year celebration. I hope to hone my skill through my coursework in the MALET program so I can create the perfect tool for my clients.

The new, the old, what I liked, what I didn’t

My first module in Learning and Emerging Technologies was certainly a learning experience.  As a technology trainer, I am always learning new software and other technologies. It is a state of being for my work.  That being said, I usually have a process or at least I like to think that I do.  I start out high-level, because I should have a general understanding of where I am and the purpose of the product or technology.  Annnddd, that only last a few minutes when I find myself thinking, “How do I?” or “Where can I?” and then off I go, clicking, pointing, trying away using google and other resources as necessary.

I find navigating software or other technology comes quite easily to me.  I admit I may not be an expert in everything I have used, but I learn enough to get by, then add to my knowledge as I need to use the technology further.  For me, as an adult learner, I learn better when I need to learn.  I’m not one for grazing if it isn’t necessary.  The virtual environment was new to me, (well as long as you don’t count that one time in Minecraft when my son made me a house and gave me, my Minecraft me, a tour.  I wish he had given me more closet space). I certainly have some more learning to do. My avatar looks nothing like me, I need to find more suitable clothing and I want fun hair!  Oh and I think I want fairy wings (I know, but sometimes we just all wish we could fly)!  So I will find these things and have an avatar that represents the virtual me proudly.  I still have to find a way to integrate this into our business.  Perhaps If I tell our staff that IBM has virtual meetings this way, maybe there will be a Keeping up with the Jones moment and they’ll gladly hop on board.

I am not new to PowerPoint although it has been a while since I had to create a presentation.  I discovered that I had to remind myself repeatedly how to incorporate some of the animation components.  I’ll be honest with you, I hated Prezi!  I couldn’t wrap my mind around why on earth would you want something so limiting. Especially if you have PowerPoint. I wanted to control the animation and I wanted to control the font.  With each Google search, where I often turn to gather information, I did, I found the results disappointing in that I couldn’t do what I needed to do. I created a few presentations before I settled on the one I posted. I don’t think I will go out of my way to use the product anytime soon and I respect that if there are no other presentation options, then the free version of Prezi would certainly be an option. Free or not, I did expect Prezi to do what I could easily do in PowerPoint. Some products aren’t for everyone, Prezi (the free version) isn’t for me.  

I need to keep in mind that everything is not for everyone.  My goal for my learning environment is to create a learning module on a few features for Dashboards using Excel.  There are some fantastic features available to create great visuals that could potentially be dynamic as well. Perhaps because of their complexity, some of the features will fit within a person’s purview, some will not.  Regardless of how appropriate I might feel the feature is for the client’s need.  So I always need to open my mind to other possibilities.  Will it work this way instead?  Should I teach or suggest all the possibilities and let the learner choose or will that be overwhelming?  It’s different when I am face to face with a client.  I can read their cues, the scrunched up face or dazed look says it all.  In eLearning, I have to make some tough decisions.  I will explore this further in the program as well.  I am looking forward to the exploration and understanding how to make those decisions.

It was fun looking at the presentation samples and at the time I submitted my presentations for discussion the only one other set of presentations in the group.  Even without personally meeting the folks who created the presentations, I thought the presentations mimicked the personalities of the person who created them.  I’m not sure this will always true, however, in the case where personal information was shared and the passion for the learning environment came through, I saw it.  With that bit of information in mind, I reviewed my presentations as though I didn’t create them and learned that I am all business with a twist.  A bit of fun, but not too much fun.  In reality, it’s the way I need to teach a course.  I need to create an environment where my clients look forward to the course and feel comfortable sharing ideas and asking questions.  Humor helps with that.  But not too much to take us off course!  It’s a balance (Hint: My Prezi presentation was selected because of this).