Brain Based Learning

I read an interesting article titled "Behavioral, Cognitive, or Brain Based Learning" by Paul G. Whitmore and it gave me a whole new perspective in analyzing performance problems. The article discusses how when you are conducting an analysis, not only do you want to look at how the task is completed, but you also want to analyze what the audience is thinking while they are completing the task. What is going through their head while they are getting the job done? What mental cues help them complete the task without error? How does the audience mentally process how the task needs to be completed?

This opened my eyes to some things that I may be missing in performance analysis. I always conduct a thorough task analysis but I have never taken the audiences thoughts into consideration. By taking "Brain Based Learning" into consideration during the performance analysis, it is likely there may be unexpected outcomes discovered.

This "Brain Based Learning" approach highlights the importance of experiencing the performance first hand. Without completing the performance yourself it can be very difficult to understand what mental cues assist in executing the task at hand. I look forward to applying this lesson in my next performance analysis.

Behavioral, Cognitive, or Brain Based Training?

Hello Captivate!

My Adobe creative suite and Captivate arrived and I have already dove into a project in Captivate. While I was waiting for the software to arrive, I designed and storyboarded a soft skill scenario simulation for management training courses that I am working on. Now I am knee deep in developing it in Captivate and I am kicking myself for not pushing harder for this purchase a year ago. Now I would love to go back and re do several of the eLearning courses I developed using Power Point and a Flash converter. Unfortunately I have too many projects on my to do list to spend the time going back and re developing courses. Some day.

I have also been improving my skills in Photoshop with this project. I am using employees of the company as characters in the eLearning module which is requiring quite a bit of work extracting images from their background in Photoshop.

I've been stoked about work now that I have all of these cool tools to play with. I'm looking forward to learning more.

Custom Reports in Moodle

This week I had some time to moodle around in Moodle. I really haven't dug too deep until now so this was definitely an eye opener. I didn't realize how easy it was to set up. One thing that did trip me up though is customizing reports.

Moodle has some great standard reports but it doesn't appear to be too easy to customize them. I'm looking to make the simple modification of adding a column of information and from my small amount of research, it looks like you have to get into the root folders and edit the PHP. Is this true? Is there an easier way? I have a work around for what I need to do now but I will definitely need to do more research on this as I am sure we will have a need for customized reports in the future.

joedeegan.com

I took a big step in my web development skills by moving my portfolio web site to a new web host and domain name that I purchased. Last semesters web design class held my hand through FTP'ing the files to the university web server so I was a little nervous to go out into the big scary Internet all on my own.

Everity was recommended to me as a web host and everything went well minus a small password problem. Everity handled the problem brilliantly and actually responded to my support ticket within minutes. Support like that will keep me with them.

Now that joedeegan.com is up and running I am eager to put some more work into it. At this point it is very rough and needs a lot of work which I hope will bring future opportunities. Suggestions are very welcome.

Software Shopping

Jackpot! Finally got the buy in from the boss to spend some money on Adobe software, mainly for developing eLearning and printed training materials. Thanks to the good ol' educational discount I can really make the most out of a $1000 budget.

Obviously, I need the Creative Suite 3 but that's where things get sticky. I am looking at 2 different packages and the only difference between the 2 packages is that one includes InDesign and the other includes Fireworks. I have never used either of these products and I'm not sure which I could use more.

Fireworks appears to be very similar to Photoshop with some extra features that will come in handy for web development. InDesign looks like a great tool for developing printed materials which I do often. I am tempted to go with InDesign because it is far more robust than the program I currently use (MS Publisher) for printed materials and it seems like all of Fireworks perks can be had in other programs if not Photoshop.

So, I am off to do more research on Fireworks and InDesign. I would just go with the Master suite because with the educational discount it comes in under $1000 but does not include Captivate which I consider a must have. It sure would make my life easier if Adobe would come out with an Instructional Design Creative Suite!

To Moodle or not to Moodle

To Moodle or not to Moodle, that is the question. I have come to a crossroads with a project that I have written about before. I am currently in the process of developing a series of eLearning courses that are part of a blended management training program. At this point, I have 3 of the 6 courses complete.

Here is where it get's interesting, an associate installed Moodle to start playing around. It's up and running, just needs to be used. So here's the decision, do I migrate from simply uploading these courses to MS Sharepoint like usual, or do we get crazy and try to implement these new courses on Moodle.

I am struggling with the decision of whether I want to make the leap to Moodle because I can't think of a good reason other than to try out Moodle. Here are some factors to consider; the majority of the courses require the learner to submit a project for completion. Only one course has a quiz. I have no experience with LMS's, but from what I understand the biggest benefit is tracking the results of quizzes etc. Is that a benefit to me if I only have one quiz? But then again, there are probably a lot of features that will help with logistical tasks.

I am going to have to invest some time in playing around with Moodle to see if it is worth changing what we are doing now. But will I really know until I try it out??

Portfolio Web Site

I put together a portfolio website with my newly learned Dreamweaver skills. My intentions of the portfolio website is to share some of my work and tell you a little more about who I am. At this point, it doesn't contain much but ultimately it will contain a collection of my work in instructional design. This is definitely a rough draft, as it is going to be an ongoing project throughout the ed tech program at San Diego State. Please take a look at it and let me know if you have any suggestions.

My Portfolio Site