Archive for Training

American Society for Training and Development Leader’s Conference

December 8, 2012 at 3:57 pm · Filed under Career, Professional Development, Training ·Tagged ,

I’m running late on this post.  I attended the ASTD Leader’s Conference in the middle of October.  I have to say that it is one of the best conferences I’ve attended.  It a small conference for leader’s of ASTD chapters.  I served as President for 3 years of our local Hattiesburg GIG (Geographical Interest Group) which is part of the Mississippi Chapter of ASTD.  I am currently the Past-President, but this was my first opportunity to attend this conference.  A friend and fellow ASTD officer and I co-facilitated a session on “Communication Across a Geographically Disperse Chapter.”

This conference renewed my excitement and energy in the field of training and development and ASTD.  Training and development continues to be my passion, but my career has drifted away from this.  Having the opportunity to network and learn from other professionals in the field re sparked my passion and left me with my mind racing with ideas.  The conference had some awesome keynote speakers including Jim Smith, Jr., Lou Russell, and Heather Richetto-Rumley.  All three speakers gave interactive, amazing, and inspirational talks.  I also loved that the conference gave us so many opportunities to connect with others who share the same passion.

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Technology in Training…Where Do I Start?

August 14, 2011 at 3:07 am · Filed under Online Learning, Professional Development, Training

This a presentation I gave to the Jackson group of the Mississippi Chapter of American Society for Training and Development about using Technology in Training.  In the presentation, we discussed using Webinars to conduct virtual training, e-learning, and using clickers in training.
Technology in Training…Where Do I Start?

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Training & Development Certificate Program

July 14, 2009 at 7:47 pm · Filed under Professional Development, Training ·Tagged , , ,

I recently completed the Training & Development Certificate Program offered through the Workforce Learning & Performance Institute at The University of Southern Mississippi.  The program requires that you complete 84 hours of in-person hours and 4 extended learning activities outside of the in-person sessions.  Participants complete the program over a 4 month period where  they attend 3 full day sessions a month.  The program covers 35 competencies outlined by the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD).

This program was the best experience of my life.  I made some wonderful friends and professional contacts as well as learned a lot about the field of human resource development.  The all day sessions include a variety of activities working in groups to allow you to learn from the facilitator as well as the other professionals in the program.  I took so much away from this program and have implemented many of the things I learned in the program already.  I will never forget this experience and would recommend this program to anyone in the field of Human Resource Development or Training.

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Lessons Learned: Implementation of a Virtual Classroom

April 19, 2009 at 6:01 pm · Filed under Distance Learning Tools, Training ·Tagged ,

Recently, at the 2009 Creating Futures Through Technology Conference me and one of my colleagues gave a presentation entitled, “Lessons Learned: Implementation of a Virtual Classroom.”      

In this presentation we discussed the implementation of Wimba Classroom at The University Southern Mississippi.  Southern Miss implemented the virtual classroom in phases, choosing to do a pilot before full implementation.  We discussed the lessons we learned throughout the implementation process.  We also included a discussion on the policy and procedures that were developed to effectively deal with any issues.

As illustrated in the presentation slides we are using Wimba Classroom in different ways out our institution, including academic and non-academic uses.   We developed a set of best practices to assist instructors as they are preparing to incorporate a virtual classroom into their course which are also discussed.  As a result of what was learned during the pilot and implementation, we also found that the training we offered needed to evolve in different ways to be of the greatest benefit to our institution.  To learn more about what we discussed, view the slides from our presentation below…

Lessons Learned: Implementation of a Virtual Classroom
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Podcasting

June 25, 2008 at 2:09 pm · Filed under Distance Learning Tools, Mobile Learning Tools, Podcasting, Training, Web 2.0 ·Tagged , ,

We are getting ready to roll-out podcasting here at our university. It has been over a year in the making. We began with a pilot last summer, but it has taken this long to work out all of the kinks of technical and policy. We had intended on using iTunes U but that has been put on hold for reasons I won’t go in to. We ended up developing our own internal solution. We got the idea from Mississippi State University but ended up developing are own from scratch. We use LDAP authentication so that only our faculty, staff, and students will have access to the application. Only faculty and staff have access to create podcasts and students have access to view podcasts.

We hope to be able to implement iTunes U at a later date, but we have run into road blocks with that so we are not sure when that will come about.

Many discussions of policy about use, accessibility, and best practices went into this before we are arriving at this point. We are set to release our solution university wide July 1st and so now I am feeling the pressure to finish all of the documentation as we will be offering our first training in just a few weeks.

In training, I plan to not only talk about the technical side of podcasting, but also include information about the pedagogy as well. I think it is is important to emphasize certain best practices and using the technology appropriately for their courses.

As we get materials up on our Web site, I will post links to those.

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Technology Showcase

June 22, 2008 at 4:00 pm · Filed under Distance Learning Tools, Training ·Tagged ,

Last week we put on a technology showcase for our faculty. We called it the Tools for Transformation Showcase. We designed the event to be fun by using different types of technologies to play different types of games. We opened up registration for the event to 60 and much to our surprise it was completely full within 2 days. Due to the great feedback from the faculty we now plan to do a technology showcase twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring. We plan to incorporate different types of technologies each time.

This time we showcased our Course Management System (Blackboard), our video conferencing tool (Wimba Classroom), social networking using Facebook and collaborative workspace using GoogleDocs.

In our CMS we played “Name that Tune” using the assessment tool. We created a quiz that had 5 questions with each question playing a different piece of music. The faculty were in groups of 3 and took the quiz together. They had to listen to the music that was played and name the artist and title of the song. The faculty had a lot of fun doing this. We had the music randomized so no 2 groups were listening to the same song at the same time.

In our video conferencing tool, we used the content area to display baby pictures of famous musicians and they had to guess who the musician was. Then, at the end they had to figure out what all of the musicians had in common (they were all musicians from Mississippi). Then we used the Break-out room feature to break them out into 5 groups and they had to work together using the whiteboard and text chat to come up with as many more Mississippian musicians as they could. The winning group won a prize.

We introduced social networking and collaborative workspace to them by having a faculty member who uses these tools show how they use them for their classes.

Throughout the event we gave them prizes and treats and served them lunch at the end. The event was an overwhelming success. One of the things that we do stress when doing things like this for our faculty is that it is not all about just using technology but using it in an appropriate manner. We also stress good instructional design techniques.

Our local news did a TV spot on the event: http://www.usm.edu/lec/tfts/t4t.mp4

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Do our students know more than we do about technology?

April 27, 2008 at 2:06 pm · Filed under Mobile Learning Tools, Pedagogy, Training ·Tagged , ,

A faculty member came to me last week who wanted to incorporate podcasting into his course and one of the questions he asked me was, should I assume that my students will already know how to use this technology (or something to that effect)? I told him that I try never to assume anything. Although we like to believe that our students are more technology savvy than the faculty, it is not always true. When speaking of traditional students, yes, they probably know how to use Facebook and download music, but do they even know what a podcast is? There are probably a lot who don’t. First of all, they don’t use the same terminology as we do, so that is something that needs to be addressed first. It is important to make sure everyone is on the same page at the beginning of the course, so that all of the students have the opportunity to be successful.

What if your student population is made up of “non-traditional” students, maybe students who are working full-time already in their field, or who just waited a little longer to go to college, choosing to have a family first…this population of students have a whole different list of concerns than your “traditional” students. Many of these students are already scared to come back to school because they feel out of place and in addition to that are intimidated by the new technology they feel they know nothing about.

Well, what did I tell this faculty member? I told him to get to know his student population, ask questions, create an environment where the students feel they can ask questions (that there are no stupid questions), and tell them up front what to expect in the class. I told him to include on his syllabus the technology requirements so they know up front what is expected to be successful. For example, he is going to require that they use iTunes to view his podcasts because he is creating enhanced podcasts with a Mac. I created an iTunes Cheat Sheet for him to put in his course and told him he should provide the link to download iTunes (which is free) in his syllabus the same as he would his required textbook.

I don’t think we can assume that our students know more about technology than we do. I think they know different things about technology, like how to use youTube and text message on their cell phone, but the types of technologies we use for education could be completely new to them.

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Let the Podcasting begin

February 18, 2008 at 5:23 pm · Filed under Distance Learning Tools, Mobile Learning Tools, Training ·Tagged ,

Well, I did my first podcasting training last week. With all of the information about podcasting and different avenues that you could go down…image trying to fit all of that into a 2 hour session. Its impossible! I made it clear at the beginning to the participants that they would not be learning how to use any specific types of software in this workshop. I could have spent 2 hours alone on how to use each software. As a department we have decided to support Audacity, Camtasia, and GarageBand. So, we will do separate workshops for each of those.

Instead, I started off the workshop with a little discussion, asking them about their experience so far with podcasting and if they even knew what it was or had subscribed to a podcast. I always like to have a “get-to-know” the participants and what their prior knowledge is (this goes for any workshop I conduct).

I began with a discussion about terminology…what exactly is a podcast, podcasting, RSS feed, etc? I found that many of the participants where new to these terms. Since I work for a university I approached the workshop from and educational stand-point talking about how podcasting can be used in education and showed them some examples from our podcasting pilot faculty, how they are using them in their courses.

The first hands-on activity…I had them go out to a podcast directory (I gave them a list to choose from) and find a podcast they were interested in subscribing to and I showed them how to use iTunes to subscribe to their chosen podcast. I gave them an orientation of iTunes and talked to them about the iTunes store and finding podcasts through there.

Before jumping into the recording and publishing a podcast part, I felt it was necessary to discuss the planning process. Although there are many podcasts out there, I’m sure, that took no planning at all, when using podcasting for educational purposes, I think it is important to do at least a little planning before hand, especially if you want it to be beneficial to your students. You should decide on a consistent format for your podcast and ask yourself questions like:

  • What do I want my students to get out of it?
  • Is this required or optional for my students?
  • Should I use video or audio?
  • What software will I use to record?

Recording, of course, is an important part of the process, but due to the time constraints of this 2-hour workshop, was not able to cover much in regards to this. I covered, location, location, location….

We developed our own internal solution for publishing. We developed a podcasting application that allows our faculty and staff to login with their user id and password and upload their files and the application will create the RSS feed for them. We use a single sign-on using LDAP, so they don’t have to remember another username and password, they use the same one they use for everything else. Faculty and staff have the ability to create and manage podcasts and students only have the ability to view podcasts.

We also discussed issues of accessibility (captioning videos and providing transcripts for audio), copyright and permissions. As with any other technology, I believe it is so important to stress the appropriate use of it.

Overall, I think the first session went well. I was able to get a idea of what their expectations where and now am planning to do an Advanced Podcasting workshop, to hopefully get to the other material I didn’t have time to cover in the first one….there never seems to be enough time to cover it all.

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