In the midst of this overwhelming task, I try to find some time for professional development. I know that sounds kooky, but I want to stay hip to my profession. (Besides, I *do* have a lot of free time on my hands...)
One of my interests these days is e-learning. I have minimal personal experience, but I am lucky enough to have a colleague (see his blog here) who I consider to be an e-learning guru. Nearly everything I know about e-learning I have learned through him. 
Last week, he sent me an e-mail about a webinar hosted by Enspire Learning, D2D, and Skillpoint Alliance. I attended that webinar on Thursday and I was infinitely impressed. Not only did I learn about casual games, I also gained insight on the process of developing a game for public use. The case study that the presenters shared was for a game called Celebrity Calamity. The premise is very simple and fun, two essential elements when creating casual games.
Besides the cool game and wonderful information, I just plain enjoyed the presentation. Earlier this week, I attended a workshop on how to use Power Point. I've been using this software for nearly ten years, so I wasn't expecting to learn much. How wrong I was!
I learned all kinds of tricks and shortcuts and cool formatting strategies. Additionally, the facilitator (another colleague) gave us some tips on how to do a presentation - short sentences, large font, testing projectors, etc. The webinar that I attended seemed to follow all of her directions.Next week, I will be attending another workshop (also facilitated by a colleague) that will teach me how to host a webinar. I'm so excited. I created a special Power Point presentation just for this occasion.
So this post is dedicated to
- My boss - for giving me time and opportunity to stay engaged in my "job" and encouraging and supporting me in my fruitless job search.
- My e-learning guru - for providing me with knowledge, anecdotes, and resources for my new found interest.
- My Power Point facilitator - for reminding me that years of experience does not correlate to mastery.
- My webinar facilitator - for sharing expertise and giving me something to look forward to.
** Lesson learned: On May 22, I will miss the people more than I will miss the job
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Nikol,
ReplyDeleteYou far over estimate my abilities, but thank you. Guru? Sage maybe, but guru?
I have see your technical abilities and your ease with learning new software and you could pick up the ability to develop e-learning with relative ease. The difficult end of e-learning is the instructional design, which you already have an exceptional talent for. In my opinion, you could easily make the jump from designing ILT to e-learning. And you would make an excellent addition to the e-learning world.