I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I love my new job. A continual, free-flowing, bucketful of shared ideas, theories, and excitement over the latest and greatest (what’s your SecondLife avatar wearing?) is something I never really had before and am very much enjoying. While there still may be crazy deadlines, there’s a lot less stress overall.

The downside of the new job is the pay scale. It’s hard enough re-adjusting all your budgets and spending when you’ve accepted a significant pay cut, then I had to go and through heading back to university into the mix.

After finishing paying off my horrific student loan and relegating the entire experience to a locked box in the recesses of my mind, I’d forgotten how expensive university was. The last time I attended (post student loan), I was fortunate enough to have a tuition reimbursement program to rely on for some of the costs. If nothing else, it helped pay for tuition and books for half of the year. The new job doesn’t have a tuition reimbursement program for support staff weenies such as myself. To make it into a faculty position here, I need to – at minimum – complete a Master’s *sigh*

Mom’s advice was, as always, to cut back some more. Of course, she provides this advice AFTER her birthday has rolled around and her present is firmly in hand. Guess my sister will be the first to feel the cutbacks happening in this household. Her birthday’s tomorrow and she’ll get an e-card and phone call instead of something in the mail. I’ll tell her the cut backs were mom’s suggestion.

Someone out there – well, someone at my current job – loves me though. One, who shall remain nameless, wrote a reference letter for my university application. This would be the same gentleman who let it be known around campus that I’d be willing to do development work on my own time (weekends and evenings) for a fee. A few hours later I was being solicited for estimates and project bids. Which then meant I had to register a trade name with the gov’t (done) and have to open a business bank account (on my to do list this week).

On Friday, I won my very first contract. It’s small, but it’ll pay for a course over the winter semester and will help pay for the new roof that were having installed on the house next weekend. Drew’s sweat equity can only take us so far on the roof installation – eventually we have to pay for materials…

Now that the first blush of excitement is off being the winning contract bid, I do have to be careful not to get carried away. After all, I want a work/life balance and I’ll need to save some time to attend classes and work on papers, projects, etc.

In the meantime, I’m glad the hubby loves me because we may be subsisting on Ramen noodles and Kraft dinner soon. Actually, it’s not THAT bad, but it does mean that the rickety 1990 car we’re driving has to stay on the road at least another 1-2 years (if it doesn’t fall apart in the meantime).

Gin, if you’re out there – your son arrived yesterday safe and sound and Drew hasn’t yet put him to work. Lucky boy!

Technorati Tags: student, budget, work

Have I told you lately how much I love my job?

For the next few days, I’ll be attending the 5th annual Canadian E-Learning Conference. Sure, I have to take copious notes and share what I’m learning with co-workers, but I also get to learn more about what others are doing in the realm of e-Learning.

The timing couldn’t be better. We’ll be working Elluminate into our courses soon and wouldn’t you know it, it’s one of the conference topics this year.

I haven’t been to an industry conference in years – not since the days of the Novell and Microsoft traveling road shows – and am really looking forward to the next few days.

Technorati Tags: eLearning, WebCT, Elluminate

Anyone who’s been to university or college knows that textbooks don’t come cheap. To help mitigate the costs, the hubby and I trade in our areoplan miles for chapters.ca gift certificates. Today, some of the books we recently ordered arrived in the mail *yippee*.

• The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil – Philip Zimbardo
• Telling Ain’t Training – Harold D. Stolovich
• Training Ain’t Performance – Harold D. Stolovich
• Transferring Learning to Behavior: Using the Four Levels to Improve Performance – Donald L. Kirkpatrick, James D. Kirkpatrick
• The First-Time Trainer: A Step-by-step Quick Guide For Managers, Supervisors, And New Training Professionals – Tom W. Goad
• Crossing The Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers – Geoffrey A. Moore
• Inside The Tornado: Strategies For Developing, Leveraging, And Surviving Hypergrowth Markets – Geoffrey A. Moore
• Born In Death – JD Robb
• You Suck Lp – Christopher Moore

I also had an Amazon.com gift certificate burning a hole in my online account that was given to me by Susan and Erica as part of their Debut a Debut contest prizes. I had the best intentions when I went shopping on Amazon – intending to either pick-up a book by new debut author or put it towards a textbook – but in the end I ended up picking up a new series of books by a “new to me” author.

So, from Amazon I ordered the following and am now anxiously awaiting their arrival:

• Undead and Unreturnable – MaryJanice Davidson
• Undead and Unappreciated – MaryJanice Davidson
• Undead and Unemployed – MaryJanice Davidson
• Undead and Unwed – MaryJanice Davidson

Thanks to Laughing Muse I now have a list of recommended books to read once I chug through these ones.

Technorati Tags: books, reading, gift certificates

Recently, I’ve had a few comments on my blog asking what an Instructional Designer does.

You can read the definition of ID via Google (quick and snappy) or Wikipedia (technical and confusing, so I’m told) and you’ll probably end up in the same position I’ve been for years. I’ve always found it a difficult field to describe to people – mostly because I’ve found that what an ID does changes based on the type of environment they are working in (academic, non-profit, corporate, etc.).

According to Intelera.com, Instructional Design is

“A system of developing well-structured instructional materials using objectives, related teaching strategies, systematic feedback, and evaluation.”

Since many people look at me like I’m growing a horn out of the middle of my forehead when I say I’m an Instructional Designer, I’ve found it a bit easier to use the term Curriculum Developer to explain what I do. I do, however, believe there’s a lot more to ID than curriculum development.

NOTE: Below is a general description of my experiences with Instructional Design. They may not hold true for all environments or companies.

How ID’s go about building a program depends on which ISD methodology they choose to follow. Usually I tend to follow a modified (looped) ADDIE model. ADDIE is an acronym for Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation.

Analysis is, in my opinion, one of the most important parts of Instructional Design. During this phase, the ID determines whether or not a training intervention is required by determining what the performance need is (optimal situation), what the actual performance is (gap) and how to go about bringing the actual performance in line with the desired results. Once a business need and performance gap is identified, the ID would determine the best method for addressing the need/gap.

If the ID determines that there is a need for training, they’d move on to completing an audience analysis (who are the learners?), task analysis (what do they do, how do they do it?), content analysis (what do they need to know in order to do it?), context analysis (where and when do they do it?, what are the constraints?), etc.

In the Design phase, ID’s determine how they’ll go about imparting knowledge or a specific skill to the learner. Goals will be set, course and module objectives established and sequenced, content reviewed and selected for inclusion, course descriptions will be written, evaluation criteria determined, training setting will be defined, and design documents (project plans, development blueprints) will be drafted. In addition, they’ll determine the method of delivery (job aids, self-study, face-to-face sessions, e-Learning, etc.) and the materials or tools required to complete the job.

In the Development phase, the actual training program is written. This could include the development of lesson plans, story boards, written manuals (participant and faciliatator guides), job aids, online e-Learning modules, scripts, performance based activities, evaluation assessments, etc.

After the program is developed, it moves into the Implementation phase. Implementation includes the plan for delivery and timeline for training both facilitators (if required) and learners. The program is piloted to a target audience and then evaluated for it’s effectiveness. The program may then be revised based on the feedback and observations from the pilot classes.

In a perfect world, the ID would be able to run a series of test courses before rolling it out into full production. It’s been my experience that this doesn’t always happen in the corporate sector.

In the Evaluation phase, ID’s determine whether or not the training was successful. They measure knowledge transfer, learner outcomes, cost factors, and learner attitude. They’ll determine if the program accomplished the goals as outlined in the objectives (did it do what it was supposed to?) If not, ID’s need to determine what went wrong. Was the material written or delivered at too high or low a level? Was the learning analysis incorrect (ie: Did you create techincal or theoretical e-Learning based courses for a group of learners who’d never seen a computer before).

As you can imagine, once completed, the model easily loops back on itself. Taking information from the Implementation and Evaluation phases, ID’s can go back and revisit the design and development stages, reworking the program until it meets the established goals.

It’s been my experience that Instructional Design often includes bits and pieces of other fields such as Technical Writing, Program Planning, Project Management, Performance Consulting, and Change Management.

Now, aren’t you sorry you asked 😉

Technorati Tags: Instructional Design, ID, ISD, ADDIE, Training, Performance, Development, Learning

In an effort to expand my minuscule Learning & Development library at home, I’ve been culling through lists of recommended books, checking out chapters and purchasing those I find on sale. The problem is, it’s not often that a decent educational title hits the sale racks at amazon.ca or chapters.ca. I’ve added cheaper ones to my Christmas wish lists and cashed in my airmiles for Chapters gift certificates.

Now I remember the most costly part of university education – the texts. Sure, tuition and residence cost thousands of dollars, but so did a lot of the textbooks I purchased over the years. To fill a single shelf on my bookcase with the seminal volumes in Adult Education, Instructional Design, and Cognition, it would likely cost more than $1500. The cost of the books is staggering which probably explains why this new section of my library has been mostly ignored.

The more I think about it, the more disheartened I am by modern education. I’m set to start classes (once again) for the next piece of paperwork I’m pursuing in a few months and am having a hard time developing any real motivation to do any pre-reading. The degree has a number of required courses which hold no interest for me. You’d think that after three times through the hoops I’d have more transferred credits to fall back on. It seems to me that too little consideration is given to prior learning and too much emphasis is placed on pre-determined formal curriculum.

In my perfect world, I’d be able to pick and choose the courses I want from a variety of universities and be able to slap them together to create a degree that meets my needs and interests. I’d be able to skip the required advanced math course and parlay my previous life as a web designer and programmer into transfer credits for the mandatory computer courses.

It’s disheartening. Quick, someone motivate me 😉

Can anyone say catch-22? In order to continue developing and expanding my understanding of the field I work in, I need some contact with others in the field in a formal learning environment. In order to move forward in my career, I need the additional pretty pieces of paper that indicate I know what I’m doing (despite the fact I’ve been doing it for years).

Have I mentioned that I have to juggle work and school? This expands a four year degree program into six years as a part time student – assuming I complete classes all three semesters. I work full-time in the field so I’m not about to quit my job to speed up the process. Ah, the traditional adult learner – no motivation to learn without a WIIFM statement and motivated by a current need to expand my knowledge and skills for work purposes…

Technorati Tags: textbooks, cost of education, adult learning, prior learning, instructional design, ID, ISD, informal learning, motivation