My first audio

I'm so excited! I have FINALLY learned how to create and upload a podcast. Woo hoo! Click here to have a listen. Be warned, there were 15 other people in the room doing the same thing at the same time, so the background noise is easier to hear than me for most of it.

Collaboration is everywhere, if you look for it.

I was in a Microsoft Access Database design class at work for the last two mornings. The instructor asked if anyone had a database in mind that she could use as an example for the class to practice on. I actually do have one, so I shared the details and the class asked questions and brainstormed on fields that I would need to include. It struck me that this exactly the kind of collaborative learning that is the focus of our class.

YouTube

How cool is this - I was on YouTube to show my mom a couple videos (Mom's Overture and Pachelbel Bedtime), when I happened onto a great video of laughing babies one of my favorite Christian Comediennes, Chonda Pierce. The cool part is that I found my niece on YouTube! Her husband Jonathan is very talented with AV stuff, and he made a video of her for a class election. Technology is amazing!

SecondLife

Ok, so I got invited to SecondLife, so I signed up for an account. I had a really funny experience my first time in. I'm standing in the virtual street and other people pop up. I am standing with my back to the screen and there is another person in front of me. One of us moves a little and I see that the other person is wearing a tee shirt and undies. I ask him a question, which I think is how he realized that I was there. As soon as I typed my question in the chat box, he took off as fast as he could off-screen. I'm sure it was his first time too; he either hadn't figured out how to put clothes on or hadn't gotten there yet.
The thing I found interesting, though, is that he was embarrassed about his Avatar's lack of clothing. He was shy, as if I could tell who he was. It was an interesting revelation for me, and I'm not quite done processing it. Clearly he was projecting his own feeling of exposure to his Avatar. I'm sure that is not uncommon and I wonder; is SecondLife just about creating a new identity, or seeing your current identity played out in front of you?

Interesting Facebook blog posting

Ok, I was going to take a break tonight from this class and just work on CPCU and CPLP, but I decided to check out my google reader and found this article that I wanted to share with all of you. It's an interesting read on using Facebook as a learning platform. Basically, the author's premise is that we should go where the people are. What a concept! Here's the link:

http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2007/10/facebook-as-learning-platform.html

This is the first blog posting of his I have read, so I don't know what else his site has to say. Happy reading!

By the way, I have some toys for you. I found them on Microsoft.com. I highly recommend spending some time out there with keyword searches for templates. It's addictive!

15-Minute PowerPoint Timer

10-Minute PowerPoint Timer

1-Minute PowerPoint Timer

5-Minute PowerPoint Timer

Boca Raton, FL

Last week I was blessed with the opportunity to attend a training session to learn about a new online learning development tool, Lectora 2007. The class was held in their Boca Raton office, which is a couple miles from the ocean and miles of beaches. I say blessed because not only did I get to learn a lot about using the tool and I was in a beautiful place, but my husband got to join me. I am going to see if I can add the photos to my actual site, but if I can't, I will add a new post so you can see them.

One particular photo I wanted to comment on is the picture of the choppy waves. My husband and I, on the first full day, spent the day at the beach, playing in the ocean. I had a teachable moment for both of us. We hadn't been in the water very long, and I had already lost my sunglasses (thankfully not the prescription ones!) and almost drowned more than once. I do well enough balancing on land, but an ocean with constant wave motion is another. My husband taught me how to stand and lean into the water and let it carry me a little bit instead of fighting to maintain my balance. Once I figured it out, I decided I no longer needed to cling to his hand for survival.

He made a comment about me letting go of his hand, and I had to remind him that standing in the water was a learning process for me. Once I had observed and practiced the technique, I was able to do it on my own, just like anything else that has to be learned. I wish I had learned that lesson BEFORE I lost my brand new sunglasses. However, I got them for $1 instead of the $10 on the pricetag, so I feel that was an inexpensive lesson.

It turned out to be one of those perfect days, and I have a very funky tan pattern by which to remember it.

Free tip: If you are going to be standing on an extroardinarily windy beach to apply sunscreen, make sure it's not the spray-on kind.

Resources to share

I have just learned a valuable lesson: don't pull up a favorites list in the middle of writing a blog and click on a saved link in order to copy it into your blog. When you go back to your blog entry, you will get to start over! You will never see exactly what I said the first time, as I'm sure I won't remember it perfectly. It went something like this.

I have spent a lot of time researching podcasting lately, among other things, and I have run across some resources that I thought I would share with you.

http://www.alice.org/
I haven't tried this out yet, but it is a free 3d environment created by Carnegie Mellon University.

showme.physics.drexel.edu/bradley/BradleyTeachingACSMarch07/BradleyTeachingACSMarch07.ppt
I ran across this PowerPoint presentation today while looking for podcasting resources. The subject matter isn't important; he is sharing his eLearning methodology and some definitions of different eLearning terms. For some reason the link isn't working here, but if you copy and paste it into your web browser, it should bring up a dialog box asking if you want to open the file.
http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm
Also, another great web site but not training related, per se, is University of Michigan's American Sign Language Browser. It's an online dictionary that shows streaming video of someone signing the word you click on. It's awesome!

I have more but will need to share them later.

More tools

I just returned from a two-day beginner and intermediate training session on a new CBT design tool. I made an interesting discovery. I had taken their five-part on-line CBT to learn the tool, but finished the CBT without knowing how to create anything. The CBT's major shortcoming is that it didn't allow for any practice, and the parts weren't consistent. I didn't have a completed title to show for it. Going to the class and building a title myself gave me the confidence to begin a new title myself. Which I tried to do today, but couldn't access the tool because of some funky computer settings. I need to have my people talk to their people to make it work, but I am looking forward to being able to put my newfound knowledge to work.

On a deeper level, it gave me a very real-world example of how important interaction and practice are in any learning. CBTs are fine, but opportunities for practice need to be included or it's just fact regurgitation. I need to remember this experience as I continue building training interventions for others.

Blogging and Collaboration

It occurred to me this week as I was involved in a five-way email trail over the design of a web site, that it would be great if we could all log in to a blog and see everyone else's comments once. So, I created a restricted blog for the five of us and it is a thing of beauty. Not the blog template, so much, but the ability to track changes and share ideas without having to go to email archives to see the whole idea trail.

We are getting ready to add other people into the blog, and it is nice to know that we can have collaboration on the project without making it available to the world. That will come soon enough when the web site is finished and unveiled.