New class

It's been a couple of weeks since I've posted. I began a new course, EDU 652: Instructional Design and Development.  So far, it's been interesting.  We have learned that there is a whole lot more involved in creating valuable online classes, than just having information to share and putting it together.  In the last course, I learned that using a content template helped to organize the course content.  This has been a good resource.  Now, we are learning to conduct a needs assessment prior to creating content.  This is also a valuable prep tool.

In our first week of class, we discussed e-learning and the value of using wikis as a learning tool.  We also discussed the various ways to create and use PDF's.  I used to use Adobe Pro at work to create pdf's for our website.  It's become much easier to create pdf's now that the option to "save as a pdf" is included with Microsoft Word.

This week, we have been working with Winzip to create a zipped file.  There is a bit of a learning curve with Winzip, but it's fairly straightforward.  Once you understand the terminology, such as "extracting" content, you can create compressed files that are easier to send through email.   Here are a couple of Youtube videos that explain how to download and use Winzip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOikZyC0V5k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U6DSH6wE1w

I think a good use for this would be to zip all portions of an assignment - PowerPoint presentation, assessment tool, documents, etc. - and send out to students on a weekly basis.  You would need to include a "readme" file with instructional guidance and any necessary explanations.

The assignment for this week is to create an absorb-type training.  I am going to use the new features of Windows 7 as my topic since this is the training that I am currently conducting at work.  I am knowledgeable of the topic and that makes it a lot easier to put it all together.  Our instructor has given us a template for submitting our assignments that includes writing an abstract and embedding a link to the training materials.  I decided that I would open a Slideshare account to post my PowerPoint presentation.  Hopefully, this will make the hyperlink able to be followed.  Trying to embed a link to the file on my computer didn't work last week.  My instructor asked me to contact Tech Support to find out how to embed the file.  UAfter waiting almost 20 minutes to get someone, I was basically told that he didn't know how to do this and couldn't help me.  That's why I decided to try using Slideshare as an option.  Hope it works!

Until next week...happy learning!