Category Archives: Blogging

What I learned at WordCamp 2011: Messages for eLearning

4 Replies

Last weekend I attended WordCamp Miami. This was my second year at this event and I highly recommend it if you use WordPress or are interested in blogging. WordCamp is…

“…a conference that focuses on everything WordPress. WordCamps are informal, community-organized events that are put together by WordPress users…. Everyone from casual users to core developers participate, share ideas, and get to know each other.” – WordCamp Central

This one-day event featured three tracks – beginner/blogger, marketing/design, and development/coding. I felt like I fell a little in between the tracks – not a beginning blogger, but also not a skilled programmer. That being said, I really enjoyed the sessions I attended and left with a list of ideas that will keep me busy for some time to come.

Getting started with WordPress:

If you aren’t familiar but want to find out more, take a look at this Introduction to WordPress presentation from Adam Warner. It’s a nice place to start.

Take-aways for eLearning:

I found that many of the presentations spoke not only to bloggers and WordPress users, but also to designers and developers of online education experiences. We’re concerned about a lot of the same things. The ideas and tips described below could be adapted for use in instructional design and development.

  • Keep mobile development in mind – “The mobile web is growing”, says Steven Mautone. Check out this presentation: WordPress for Mobile. Kevin Zurawel’s presentation on Responsive Web Design recommends developers plan for mobile delivery first, then look at the rest.
  • Let data drive your decisions – In a session on analytics, the stress was on gathering data about blog members and visitors. What data do we collect about online students? How can we better leverage the existing information to improve learning and the online experience? For WordPress users, several presenters mentioned WP SEO by Yost.
  • Improve user experience – We know we don’t ask our students and faculty enough about their experiences with our online courses. How can we get better at this? A user experience checklist might help. Jeremy Harrington presented a User Experience Flight Checklist for a WordPress site that could be adapted for use in eLearning.
  • Prepare to hand-off to your client – In this case I think we could consider both instructor and student “clients”. Too often we complete course development, upload the course pages, then more or less walk away. What can we do to make the transition easier? Tammy Hart discussed future proofing and tips for simplification.
  • WordPress as an LMS – I have friends at the University of Hawaii who are using WordPress to develop and deliver online courses. They are not alone in taking WordPress beyond the blog. Take a look at this presentation by Josh Guffey about using WordPress as a CMS to create a portfolio site. How could students do this for study and/or career portfolios? This plug-in was lauded for making the admin side a lot easier – CMS Tree Page View.
  • Take a long-term approach – It takes time to develop a quality product of any kind. Multiple presenters, especially those talking about the art and science of blogging, stressed this point. It takes time…and practice. And you get better.

Thanks to all:

Thanks to the organizers and speakers for a great event! Lost of positive energy and ideas, all at an affordable price. Visit the WordCamp Miami website for more information about the event and additional links to presentations. If you are at all interested in blogging, social media, or the WordPress platform, find a WordCamp in your area and go!

See you in 2012, WordCamp Miami!

Year 3 – Blogging in 2011

4 Replies

First off, thank you for stopping by and for contributing your comments and replies throughout 2010! Your time here is always appreciated and I look forward to more conversations in 2011. As of this month, the Design Doc blog is two years old! As we enter year three, I just wanted to use one post to revisit past goals and look forward to this coming year.

Goals for 2010 included:

  • Blogging more frequently and
  • Learning more about blogging and WordPress.

While I didn’t blog every week, as hoped, I did manage to add 40 new posts over the course of the year. I also was fortunate enough to attend both WordCamp Miami and BlogWorld and New Media Expo. Two very different but equally fantastic events! (Find a WordCamp near you and look for BlogWorld in the fall.)

I also presented at three conferences in 2010 on blog-related, social networking topics – in each of these presentations I encouraged my colleagues in instructional design to think about blogging in two ways: 1) as a way to share their work, lessons learned, tips and tools of the trade, and 2) as a resource for information from other instructional designers using the blog format to share their experiences.

These are the posts that got the most views in 2010.

  1. Figuring Out Facebook
  2. Instructional Design Documents
  3. Course Design – Start with an Outline

So, looking ahead to 2011 there are a few new targets to hit:

  • Refine topic areas. – You’ll be seeing more about career development and professional opportunities for instructional designers this year, as well as more in terms of practical tips and resources.
  • Make the move to WordPress.org. – I have been ready to do this for a while, just need to make the leap and get everything set up. More to follow on this.

Working on this blog opened up a number of opportunities this past year – including being a part of the South Florida Public Media Camp and working with two local artists on a grant writing project. I hope to continue participating in local events and joining more blogging and social media groups.

Here are a couple of resources I’ll be referring to throughout the year. You might also be interested:

So here we go… Please let me know what might be helpful to you as we move forward. And please continue to join in the conversations!

Photo credit: Stock.xchng

Searching for E-Learning Project Management Blogs

1 Reply

Last week I presented a brief session at E-Learn that described an online search for blogs that address the instructional design of e-learning and project management. I worked on this project with Amy Hilbelink. We work at the intersection of instructional design and project management, coordinating the development of e-learning products and managing large-scale initiatives. This presentation was a look at our attempt to organize a search for leaders who are blogging about these topics.

My primary goal was to find out more about blogs that might inspire Design Doc. Amy, considering a blog of her own, wanted to find a niche. We also hoped to create a list of blogs and authors we could follow for current information in our field. Managing the available information is daunting to say the least.

The result was a list of 36 unique blogs: 50% were sponsored/written by individuals, another 33% by businesses and organizations, and the remaining 17% by educational institutions. This list still requires some level of curation. Not all of the blogs, found in March 2010, are still live. Many haven’t been updated in a while. Others have changed names or just don’t hit the mark, even though there is some coverage of either instructional design or project management. We thought there were gaps, too. Why didn’t some of the blogs we were already aware of make the list? Perhaps our favorite bloggers aren’t writing with SEO in mind. Should they?

Here are a few blogs you may be interested in that did come up in our search:

Who are you reading? Please reply and add to the list.

For more information about our search process, keywords used, and information collected take a look at the presentation.