So, I’m sure you’ve seen one of these charts hanging out in a science classroom before—especially when you were a chemistry student… But the real question is… Have you ever seen an interactive version of the periodic table? If not, then put this resource on your must-see list because this recently released edtech gem, created by the Periodic Videos team using the TED-Ed platform, contains a video lesson about every single element on the periodic table. Yeah, it’s all that! Check out a sample video lesson on Hydrogen below. Besides the video lessons, teachers also have access to additional information that accompanies each element, which includes multiple choice, open-ended and discussion questions as well as other online resources. And as an added bonus, each original video can be customized to suit individual classroom needs. Check out the full lesson page on Hydrogen here! Classroom Connection: Use the interactive TED-Ed periodic table resource as an engaging and informative way for students to learn facts about the chemical elements and their properties.

I’ve been watching a lot of YouTubers lately. It’s one of my favourite ways to take time out and get my head out of work mode. One of my favourite video styles to watch are vlogs, because they give you a glimpse into the lives of others. Now, I know that sounds creepy, but sometimes it’s just refreshing to get out of your own head. What is a Vlog? A vlog is a video-blog. Instead of blogging traditionally, as I’m doing now, the user video-blogs or vlogs. These videos are often done in a day-in-the-life style, but can also be optimized for training and development, akin to webinars or screencasts. Vlogging has a huge presence in the YouTube content creator community for obvious reasons, but there are many Instructional Designers and IDs who are creating similar content. One cool way that I can see a day-in-the-life style working might be to set up your camera behind you while you work to create some cool time-lapse demos. Another approach could be similar to the beauty gurus you see on YouTube - these content creators often explain how to achieve different beauty looks. You can use this approach as an opportunity to create brief tidbits of instructor-led training. When thinking about this post, I really just wanted to emphasize the importance of thinking outside of the box with regard to your training, and leveraging approaches that are working well in other contexts!

As Quincy Jones once remarked, "I’ve always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, "Ain’t that the truth." That said, Edu-fun Friday is a series devoted to adding some humor to the lives of teachers who visit this blog. After all, there’s nothing better than ending the week on a positive note! Plus, do we have the best topics to provide us with some comic relief or what? The moral of this story? The next time you request tech support, be careful what you wish for!

  This post is one in a four-part series for How to Build Your E-learning Portfolio. You can read Part 1 here. Common Challenges I understand that building your portfolio can be challenging. As are most things in life. Maybe you aren’t legally allowed to share your work samples because they’re controlled goods or you’ve signed an air-tight Non-Disclosure Agreement; Maybe you don’t have time…we’re not all Beyonce; or Maybe you don’t know where to begin. My goal here is to become your portfolio-building sensei and hold your hand through this entire process. There are times when you will feel overwhelmed (maybe even by looking at those three challenges), but you don’t need to feel that way. It’s okay. Everything will be okay. You just need to have a real conversation with yourself about when you want to stop hunting down every work opportunity (that costs time that no one is paying you for!) and let your portfolio do the work for you. Challenging Yourself Now, you may already feel challenged by those challenges impacting your lack of portfolio, but I’m asking you to challenge yourself even more! Before taking the leap into full-time independent contractor-ship, I knew that I needed some sort of portfolio. I had been freelancing part-time for several years and was losing out on a lot of opportunities because I had nothing to show when asked "can we see your portfolio?" At the time, I had a full-time job with clients predominantly in the Defence sector, and all of my coolest work samples were classified as controlled goods; I wasn’t able to share any of my professional work, and I felt defeated. At first I wallowed, but then I had some real-talk with myself, got serious, and created my first two portfolio pieces. The first was a tabbed interaction with hotspot pups designed to teach you how to bathe a cat. When in doubt, go with what you know. I’m a crazy cat lady who didn’t really know how to bathe a cat, but wikihow came to the rescue with some hilarious illustrations, and that simple tabbed interaction is still a hit with clients. Portfolio Piece # 1 Click to view interaction. The second portfolio piece was inspired by many of the small business books I had read. I wanted to share brief reviews of these books, so I created a hotspot-based interaction that linked to book reviews contained within scrolling panels. Portfolio Piece #2 Click to view interaction. Both of these portfolio pieces were very basic in terms of technological prowess, they were developed in Articulate Storyline before I had become more experienced within Storyline, and were the launching pad for my portfolio. The moral of this story: When feeling defeated, challenge yourself to be creative!

Problems with your contacts, battery or text messages? Well, as it turns out, these creepy instances may not be random! Um, yeah… Just so you know—your device just may be haunted. Find out what the strange ringing and phantom vibrations might really mean by checking out the fun Halloween-themed infograhic below. Thanks to Joy of Tech for sharing this comical image!

I saw some tweets awhile back about showing your work or working aloud, and the concept ties in nicely with my discussions on portfolio building, so I figured it was a good opportunity to create a greater awareness! Show Your Work Showing your work and working aloud are really about sharing how you got from point A to point B with an audience. Such sharing serves to enlighten your audience, and while some examples they may have previously encountered, if you continue sharing your work, your audience will undoubtedly learn something and some point. When I started this blog, I went at it from an Instructional Design professional looking for work perspective. Blog posts were focused on clients, and had less of focus on imparting knowledge to my actual audience. Once I realized that my audience was coming primarily for the instructional design and freelance wisdom, I switched focus to cater to that audience. Initially I thought that I would see a decline in the amount of prospective clients I had, but that wasn’t the case. And, I get to share the small wealth of information I have with a group of individuals who can genuinely benefit from such information. Ways of Showing Your Work Now, there are so many ways for you to show your work: participating in forum discussions, creating and sharing infographics, recording screencasts, creating demos, sharing walkthroughs of how you got from point A to point B, creating day-in-the-life posts. My explanatory posts that accompany my E-Learning Heroes Challenge entries are always very popular, and I like to think that it’s because I provide an explanation of the concept, the method I took in achieving the concept, and finally I show the result, which is typically a full demo of the interaction or free download. Free downloads are a great way of sharing your work, because they allow users to reverse-engineer your interactions to suit their needs OR use the interaction ‘off-the-shelf’/as-is. Screencast demos are another crowd-pleaser. These videos get a lot of views from folks looking to solve problems, so when you share your solution, it makes a small pocket of the world that much less problematic! Of course these are just a small sampling of ways that you can show your work, so get creative!

Over the past few weeks, I have been getting some fantastic questions from readers, and I’ll slowly be trickling through and responding to each. The first question comes from Tristan (by the way, I love your WordPress theme - start blogging!): Would you consider doing a follow up article on cold emailing techniques? Cold emailing is certainly not the most fun activity, but it has landed me quite a few opportunities, especially in my early days as a freelancing Instructional Designer. First off - You need to get over yourself if you aren’t already. Take all of the fear and shame out of the idea of cold contacting prospective clients. Ain’t no shame in that! Back in the old days, businesses did this all the time, and businesses still do door-to-door, which is similar, but a lot more difficult. A cold email is how I landed my role at a university, which had I waited for a posting and applied traditionally, would have been looked over for one of the 100+ over-qualified applicants with more experience. I had a great conversation with a friend a few months back. He was looking to break into the Technical Writing scene and wasn’t sure how to do it. I encouraged him to do some cold emailing, but he was nervous about what he would say. This happens when we’re anxious about whether we’re capable of doing the job. So my second piece of advice is to exude confidence from every fibre of your being. You enjoy what you do and you know (or are pretty darn sure) you can do what you’re saying you can, so just own it! Now, when it comes to specific techniques, I took several approaches: I created a canned, but modifiable, email that could broadly address any individual or organization. Once developed, I modified it based on who it was being sent to. Key elements included: introduction of me and my background, explanation of how my expertise might work for the individual/organization, link to my portfolio, attachment of my resume, and a thank you for taking the time to read the email. I researched the heck out of the people I was cold emailing. This is important because it sets your email apart from anyone else who may be cold emailing, which in my experience, few people do this nowadays, so you really want to show off your best self because you’re already putting yourself out there. After researching, I modified my email appropriately. I followed up! In most cases I followed up 2-4 weeks following the email. One great thing about cold emailing is that often times, prospective clients don’t realize that they need their services, so when they’re offered (and explained clearly and without jargon), some folks will have an "Aha!" moment and realize that you’re just what they’ve been looking for to resolve a problem that has been plaguing them and/or their organization. I will say that cold emailing may not be as fast as other means in terms of securing gigs; the university didn’t contact me until a year and a half after I emailed - how they still had my email, I don’t know, but they did, and I’ve been here ever since! However, those are the techniques that I used, and I hope that this information can help you.

  This post is one in a four-part series for How to Build Your E-learning Portfolio. You can read Part 1 Here and Part 2 Here. Part 3 is meant to address two of the most common challenges: what do I do if all of my work is proprietary or I’ve signed an air-tight non-disclosure agreement?, and I’m not creative, where can I find inspiration? Sanitize That Sample! Folks are always asking me what to do in situations where they are legally not allowed to share their work samples, and for those individuals, I recommend sanitizing that sample! Check out the two versions below: Original The original is part of a client project that I used as an example for how easily you can sanitize a work sample. Now, I will say that the conversion is not the most visually appealing, but it serves the purpose of illustrating that sanitation doesn’t need to be a huge undertaking. Sanitized As you can see in the example provided, sanitizing a work sample doesn’t need to be a huge undertaking. In this case, I removed the logo, changed the background, and changed the colour palette. The content for this organization is readily available online, so it’s not considered controlled goods; therefore, I was able to keep all of the existing textual content. For those of you who are restricted by branding AND textual content, I would suggest removing all branding and replace textual content with dummy text, and tada! You’ve sanitized your work sample! Check this site out for a list of fun dummy text generators! I came from the wonderful world of military contracts, and there is not a whole heck of a lot (aka nothing) you can share because everything is considered controlled goods. But don’t get hung up on not being able to include the super cool 3D render of an aircraft, and instead just focus on pulling apart the elements of the e-learning project (e.g. the menu structure, the iconography, the visual elements used in various screen styles). So, another suggestion for dealing with proprietary content would be to pull elements from existing work and create your own customized version of it. This is great because if you’ve been working on a project for awhile, there might be things about it that you hate (but which have been approved by a higher power), so you can change those things and really make it yours! Finding Inspiration Inspiration comes in many forms, and you just need to make something your muse and run with it! There are so many websites and cool apps out there now, so you can easily fall in love with a beautiful design - you might find inspiration in websites, digital magazines, video games, or templates built by others. Whatever inspires you, put your own stamp on it, build it out, and don’t forget to toss it into your portfolio! For example, one of the E-learning Heroes Challenges (more on that in a moment), was to create our own digital magazine template. These creations were inspired by existing digital magazines and they elements they consist of, and with a little imagination, I was able to bring together my own digital magazine, The Meadows. Click to view the full interaction. The E-Learning Heroes Challenges For me, the Articulate E-Learning Heroes Challenges were huge when it came to kickstarting my motivation. Half the battle is your own imagination, so the challenges were great. Each week, there would be a new challenge and a prompt for entry submissions, and each week, I would be blown away by the entries. The E-Learning Heroes Community is a supportive environment, and comments tend to be positive or constructive in nature - I’ve made some of my closest friends here! The weekly challenges are a great way to see what your peers are capable of doing and get ideas for how you can apply similar approaches in your future projects. My portfolio has grown considerably since I began participating in the weekly e-learning challenges, and the greatest praise I have for the weekly challenge is just that; it challenges me to think outside of the box and create interactions I may not have previously considered creating!

Whether you choose to focus on Veterans Day and its history for one class period, or maybe you’re planning to incorporate a special project in honor of our American heroes… Either way, utilize the resources located within the interactive image shown below to connect classroom curriculum to the day set aside to honor those who fought for our freedoms. Be sure to hover over the image to reveal a variety of "hotspots" containing Veterans Day lesson plans and activities. Click here to access a full-screen version of this image.

I’ve been working on a lot of content scripts lately, and was surprised that I haven’t yet addressed the concept of scripting in one of my Terminology Tuesday posts, so today is the day! Scripts in E-Learning When it comes to writing scripts for e-learning, I’m familiar with two main approaches: content scripts, and audio/narration scripts. Content scripts are essentially content dumps of all client-furnished materials related to the module, course, or topic you’re working on. When I write a content script, it typically includes the learning objectives, any lessons contained within the course and/or module, and any knowledge checks or assessment items located within those lessons. The goal is to have all of this content handy so that it can just be copied/pasted into the authoring tool or storyboard (depending on what milestones exist within your project). Scripting content also familiarizes you with the content, so when you get further down the wormhole of development, you have some ideas when it comes to factors such as interactivity and/or media treatment. Audio/narration scripts are developed for the voice talent, and include elements such as screen identifier, pronunciation guide, the text requiring narration, and an audio filename. In my process, I tend not to script the audio narration until the client has signed off 100% on the textual content. Revisions to audio are often timely and expensive, so having the client review the textual content ahead of the audio scripting phase is a best practice. Sure. Scripting is an additional step (or two) in the development process, but it really does help in the long run. It makes all of the subsequent development tasks a lot more smoother, and there is often less revision involved…or the revisions are caught in the scripting phase, leading to fewer revisions in the storyboarding and/or authoring phases. Time is money, so efficiency is always at a premium. How do you use scripts? Are you using them primarily for content or audio scripting? What elements do you include in your scripts? Let me know in the comments!

As Quincy Jones once remarked, "I’ve always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, "Ain’t that the truth." That said, Edu-fun Friday is a series devoted to adding some humor to the lives of teachers who visit this blog. After all, there’s nothing better than ending the week on a positive note! Plus, do we have the best topics to provide us with some comic relief or what? This must explain why I don’t like apples so much! A shout out to artist Mark Anderson for the TGIF humor!

Thanks ttcInnovations for the opportunity to linkup with other bloggers and share a sneak peek into my daily routine! Everyone who’s participating is sharing their own stories so check them out: ttcInnovations, Jackie Van Nice, Rachel Barnum, Melissa Milloway. 5:45am The Wake-Up Light has been gradually getting brighter for the past 15 minutes, but I’m not ready to get out of bed! By 6am, my husband is reminding me that the shower is free (aka ‘get your butt out of bed already!’). 6:30am-7:45am Breakfast consists of multi-grain cheerios and a green smoothie, and I flip through my emails, check Twitter, and download a source file while I eat. Joe takes Oliver out to play frisbee and tire him out, so I feed the cats, dry my hair, do my face, and throw on some clothes. We’re out the door by 7:10am, and as with most things in my life, nothing productive really begins until coffee has made its way to my mouth, so we stop for coffee. By 7:30am I drop Joe off at work, and I’m at the university by 7:45am. 7:45am-6pm I’m at the university until 3:30pm. First and foremost, I tackle coffee and write out my to-do list, and then I do several development plan and course reviews. I brew and drink a tea while quickly uploading some revisions for a client. This brings me to 10:45am, so I take a walk around campus before heading to the gym around 11am. At the gym, I run a quick 2.51 km - I’m running a half-marathon on Sunday, and I’m trying to squeeze some very short runs and cross-training in ahead of the race. Dodgeball starts tomorrow and softball practices is on Thursday and Friday, so I don’t want to do too much more than that. After the gym, I grab a slice of pizza from my favourite pizza place because…life’s all about balance, right? I make my way back to the university, and populate another faculty member’s course, answer some faculty questions, and record some audio narration, taking me to 3:30pm. Life at the university is definitely a lot busier than it sounds! Having written this, it seems like I do nothing, but there never seems to be enough hours in the day. While at the university, I monitor three different email accounts to ensure nothing pressing comes up with my clients outside of the university. Nothing major is going on today, so I feel good about being productive this evening. At 3:30pm I pack up and leave the university and head back to pick Joe up from work. By 5pm, we’re home. I toss supper on (hummus-crusted baked chicken and roasted sweet potato) and begin to plug away at client work. I catch up on some YouTube videos and blog-reading while I wait for supper to finish. 6pm-7pm I deliver revisions for two courses (for one client), and plug away at another course for this client - the one I recorded audio for earlier. The course is pretty much finished, but I need to edit and synchronize the audio, which is tedious…but I love what I do, so it ain’t no biggie. I read a low-rated review of Articulate Storyline Essentials and get discouraged for a little while. I’m really proud of having written that book, but it was really tough to pare down content to just the basics. The screenshot walkthrough style isn’t for everyone; different strokes for different folks I guess. I’m trying to focus on the positive reviews I’ve received, and not let it hold me back from working on the book I’m currently writing. 7pm-9pm I continue working on the course and toss a load of in the dryer. I’m doing my work over a beer and the glow of the TV as I use the Blue Jays/Orioles game as background noise. I deliver the course for review, get in bed, and read to wind down. I’ll be out like a light by 10pm.

FINALLY, David! Something I can squeeze into my regular procrastination! THANK YOU! The Concept This week’s challenge is to share a collection of reaction gifs for any e-learning topic we wish to discuss. Very simple concept that I feel most folks, also keen on procrastinating, can stand behind. The Method Staying on topic, I chose to select reaction gifs related to some of the 83 e-learning challenges we’ve had. I also chose to stick with pop culture references, in terms of television/YouTube/Internet…I guess all of these gifs (that exist) are pop culture references to some extent, so I think my point is moot. I then curated a bunch of gifs to express various reactions I’ve had to the challenges over the years, and then I sifted through the previous challenges to see which previous challenge elicited which reaction. The Result 1. Just when you thought a terrible challenge was over. (via Gifrific) That’s how I felt when I saw that E-Learning Challenge #32 - Death, Taxes, and E-Learning Mistakes was coming back to haunt me in E-Learning Challenge # 33 - Fix Your E-Learning Mistakes…and how I feel each time I see one of those challenges retweeted. 2. When you see that the world will finally understand the importance of font choice. (via OffColorTV) This is how I felt when E-Learning Challenge #51 - Font Games and Interactions for E-Learning Designers announced. 3. When you know exactly what tool you’ll use to complete a challenge. (via Tumblr) When E-Learning Challenge #53 - Create Your Own E-Learning Characters with Pictograms was announced, I knew immediately that I would be using PowerPoint for this challenge (which I have yet to complete…shhh). 4. When David finally posts an ‘easy’ (re: less time-consuming) challenge. (via Tumblr) Much like my feeling for this challenge, and for E-Learning Challenge #39 - Education Podcasts for Online Training and E-Learning Challenge #67 - Podcast: How Do Instructional Designers Get Things Done?, I see this challenges and do a happy dance. I don’t have as many hours in the day as Beyonce, but I got this, boo! 5. When you hear about some new technology. (via pandawhale) When reviewing the entries for E-Learning Challenge #45 - Audio Recording Tips for E-Learning Designers, I decided to purchase a better mic for my audio setup. 6. When David posts a challenge that I know will require my brain. (via reactiongifs) This is how I feel the majority of the time David posts a challenge, because time is one thing in my life that is lacking. Math is not my strong suit, so I definitely felt like this when I saw E-Learning Challenge #71 - Teaching Math Concepts with E-Learning. Pythagorean, whaaaat?! 7. How some challenge titles make me feel. (via wifflegif) E-Learning Challenge #80 - Can You Pass an Eight-Grade Science Test? Uh…no. I can’t, and I do not wish to return to age 14…I’ll have flashbacks. 8. Whenever I see my first E-Learning Heroes Challenge entry retweeted (via Tumblr) Whenever David retweets my first E-Learning Heroes Challenge entry - E-Learning Challenge #25 - Instructional Design Tips that Really Pop, I get a little sentimental. 9. When I can finally participate in a challenge! (via imgur) Whenever I locate the elusive creature called ‘time’ and can actually participate in a challenge, I feel like doing a happy dance, like Ron Swanson. That’s how I felt when I participated, most recently, in E-Learning Challenge #78 - E-Learning Icons: Show and Share Your Favourite Styles. 10. When I realize my entry is the first submission for a challenge. (via Tumblr) This is how I feel today, posting my entry for E-Learning Challenge #83 - 10 Reaction Gifs for Every E-Learning Challenge.

In the words of Cicero, "Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others." Two thumbs up for this guy because in my opinion, there’s almost nothing more important than teaching our students about the importance of showing gratitude for and toward others. That said, a few of my Multimedia students, one of my colleagues and I teamed up to write and produce a Veterans Day video tribute that was shared during assembly and morning announcement programs throughout my district yesterday and today. Our goal was to develop a visual powerful enough to create understanding about the countless sacrifices the men and women who serve(d) in our nation’s armed forces have made to ensure we have the opportunity to live in a democracy. Most importantly, we wanted to encourage and/or remind our student body to be appreciative of those who have provided the liberties and freedoms we enjoy on a daily basis. Again, my opinion, but I think we accomplished our goal—or at least that is the feedback we have received since sharing our video. Check it out for yourself below. A shout out to Kermit, Jack, Meghan and Ms. Trostle for working with me on a very worthwhile project! Classroom Connection: I realize Veterans Day is officially over for this year, but it’s never too late to teach students the importance of honoring and remembering past and present members of our armed forces. At the very least, I hope this video will become a resource you can bank for future references.

As Quincy Jones once remarked, "I’ve always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, "Ain’t that the truth." That said, Edu-fun Friday is a series devoted to adding some humor to the lives of teachers who visit this blog. After all, there’s nothing better than ending the week on a positive note! Plus, do we have the best topics to provide us with some comic relief or what? I pretty much have that same "What the what?" reaction when I am constantly reminded to update my Java—ha, ha! A shout out to Daily Funny Stuff for the TGIF laugh!

If you’re looking for a fun way to spark student creativity while encouraging them to take unique pictures, then consider developing your very own Ultimate Photo Challenge similar to the one I recently completed with my Multimedia I students. It went down something like this: Students were challenged to complete various photo tasks using a mobile device or digital camera. For example… Objects arranged to look like a smiley face A shadow/silhouette shot of one or more group members A group selfie.  The more creative, the better! A hand-made heart photo (because they just ♥ this class!) Dress up an object and place it in a unique setting A human pyramid A sidewalk chalk drawing Holy Batman!  Got superhero t-shirts? A photo bomb (Yeah, I know it’s not spontaneous, but it’s still funny!) Once students staged the necessary photos for the project, they were required to compile a digital presentation capturing their most excellent pics utilizing a tool, app or program of their choice. Then they shared their best stuff with the rest of us—and the world via their wikispace. This project—it was like a good ol’ fashioned scavenger hunt with a funky tech-based twist! Check out the example I created using the Pic Collage app. Classroom Connection: So, why did I create this project? Besides working with classmates on a super cool team building activity, I wanted students to use a variety of tech skills in an innovative way. Yep, this was me checking out the digital side of my multimedia peops, and it turned out to be a pretty awesome experience! Use this project idea to spark an idea that will unleash the digital creativity within your students. Trust me, there’s nothing like seeing them work together to develop a finished product they are really proud of—especially one they really enjoyed completing.

Alrighty folks! Today is the final edition of the How to Build Your E-Learning Portfolio blog series. I’m sad to see it finish, but I’ve been happy to have helped so many of you! This post is one in a four-part series for How to Build Your E-learning Portfolio. You can read Part 1 Here, Part 2 Here, and Part 3 Here. Part 4 is all about actually building out your portfolio and promoting yourself! Building Out Your Portfolio For many, building out your portfolio may seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t need to be difficult! You can post samples to dribbble, dropbox, or google drive (if you’re wondering how to share your Storyline samples using Google Drive or Dropbox, I recorded a screencast showing you how to do just that - Click Here). I love sharing knowledge with others, so I incorporated my portfolio into my blog using WordPress (self-hosted); occasionally I do show my work posts, and I have a portfolio section of my website that uses a simple WordPress plugin. It’s also important to invest in yourself, so if you don’t have the time or expertise to easily add portfolio pieces to your website, pay someone who does have the expertise. For example, I spent about 5 hours of my time trying to figure out how to get the ‘simple WordPress plugin’ to work properly and finally conceeded to paying someone to do it for me…it took them half an hour, and only cost 30 dollars. WORTH IT. One important thing to note is that you should always ask your clients during the course of the project (or at the end), if you can use a sample from the project in your portfolio. Sometimes they’ll say "sure!", and you can do what you want. Sometimes they’ll say "sure, but not everything", and you’ll need to pare things down and have the client review ahead of posting. Sometimes they’ll say "You can’t share the actual project, but you can share a screencast of you walking through the project," and you can do just that - these situations may crop up if you develop a project that will be resold, and screencast demos are neat because they show the world a behind the scenes peak into your process. Sometimes the client will allow you to include a screenshot or two and specify that a video screencast demo of the project can be made available on request (this occurred with my samples for the YMCA). Whatever your client’s preference, there is usually some way of working a portion of the project into your samples; you just need to think outside of the box. My current portfolio isn’t fancy, but it does exactly what I need it to do. Clients don’t want to view 500 full courses before deciding they like your work, but they do need to see some representation of your capabilities within the world of e-learning. Every client is different, so it’s important to consider a varied approach to your portfolio. What I mean by this is to include a representative sample of portfolio pieces - several work samples, several personal samples, perhaps some design samples if that’s something you’re good at. Your prospective clients need to believe, from your portfolio or discussions with you, that you are the right person for the job! Self-Promotion Once you have your portfolio built, promote yourself! I’m active in several communities (Freelance to Freedom, Articulate E-Learning Heroes, ATD, and LinkedIn), so I promote myself by participating in those communities; this participation is meant to spread knowledge, and be less overt. Ensure you have completed your profiles for any site you participate in, and include links to your website and social media accounts. Twitter and LinkedIn are the only social media platforms that I really use for business, and most of my promotion comes from retweets, views, or from colleagues sharing my content. I share my content on social media, but it’s also important to share relevant posts from your colleagues because self-promotion shouldn’t be selfish. You should want to support others who are trying to share information and enhance the knowledge exchange. So promote yourself, but don’t be selfish! If you can afford or have the opportunity to attend or present at industry conferences, this is a fantastic way to promote yourself and to support others. I love presenting at the Articulate Community Roadshows (I’m presenting at another this June!) and I thoroughly enjoyed presenting at and attending Learning Solutions 2015. Not only can you share your wealth of knowledge with a greater audience, but you can support your colleagues as they do the same. You can network the heck of the events, if you’re into that, but I’m a bit more introverted, so I tend to let folks come to me or reach out to individuals I already know. Ensure you have business cards - I don’t hand out a ton, but they’re available if someone asks. Be ready! Final Note I hope that this series has provided more clarity as to why an e-learning portfolio is so important and how you can easily create one - remember, your portfolio can provide you with the freedom to choose work you’re most passionate about, so make some time, and show yourself off! Please let me know, in the comments or through the Contact page, if you have any outstanding questions, and I will do my very best to answer expediently.

The nominations for the 11th Annual Edublog Awards are officially open, and that can only mean one thing: It’s time for this Geeky Girl to send some love to a few of her most favorite edtech peops! To kick things off, I’d like to give a special shout out to my Tech Club student Aubs (a.k.a. the one and the only Geeky Girl Jr.) for continuing to rock out her super cool blog, Simply Aubree. You’ve accomplished many goals since entering the blogosphere, but here’s to you obtaining that badge you’ve been dreaming about for-like-ever! Keep up the fantastic work as well as your always positive attitude and great things will continue to happen! The remainder of my 2014 nominations shake out something like this: » Best Individual Blog — TechChef4u » Best Group Blog — Two Guys and Some iPads » Best New Blog — Shake Up Learning » Best Edtech/Resource Sharing Blog — Cool Tools for 21st Century Learners » Best Teacher Blog — Mathy Cathy » Best Library/Librarian blog — The Daring Librarian » Best Individual Tweeter — Donna Baumbach/Aunty Tech » Best Twitter Hashtag — #edtech » Best Free Web Tool — ThingLink » Best Educational Wiki — ICTmagic » Best Educational Use of a Social Network — TechChef4u on Facebook » Best Mobile App — Dropbox » Lifetime Achievement — Richard Byrne Learn more about how you can nominate your favorite edtech people, places and things for a 2014 Edublog Award here!

I know. I know. I skipped a week, but I promise that I have something special in store for all of you Terminology Tuesday fans, so pipe down! This week I sifted through my archives and was surprised that I had yet to discuss Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), so it seemed like no better time than the present to table that term for explanation and discussion. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) SMEs are just that - ‘experts’ within a given subject matter. These individuals are often the authority for content accuracy within your e-learning projects. SMEs come from all walks of life, but generally have a wealth of academic and/or on-the-job experience to be considered proficient in their domain. Typically, Instructional Designers will work closely with SMEs to determine learning objectives, define training plans and outlines, and ensure accuracy of content within the storyboarding and/or prototyping phases. Occasionally, SMEs may write assessment items, or the Instructional Designer may work in liaison with the SME to determine appropriate assessment items and distractors. The relationship between the Instructional Designer and the SME can be an intricate one…The Instructional Designer often needs to navigate how to effectively communicate with the SME in order to acquire necessary information for the project. SMEs sometimes have a hard time separating the nice to know from the need to know, and this is really where the Instructional Designer needs to learn how to effectively question the SME to ensure they are developing instructionally sound content, and not overloading learners with extraneous information. In further considering the relationship between Instructional Designer and SME, it is very important to define roles and responsibilities at the beginning of each project. Without doing so, or without being able to assert dominance within a given area (e.g. design versus content accuracy), a SME can easily run away with the project, negatively impacting the overall design. It has been my experience (not always), that some SMEs believe they could better design the e-learning, which is why it’s important for both individuals to understand their roles and to respect one another’s role in the project. Above all else, communication is the magic ingredient when it comes to working with a SME. If you can nail down an effective communication strategy, you should be golden! What have been your experiences working with SMEs?  How do you navigate your working relationship with SMEs to ensure utmost respectability and fair treatment? Resources SMEs are from Mars, Instructional Designers are from Venus - Tara D. Holwegner, Life Cycle Engineering 3 Tips You Must Know When Working With SMEs - Sister Mandi, Elearning Brothers Working With SMEs: An Instructional Designer’s Guide to Collecting and Organizing Content From Subject Matter Experts - Peggy Salvatore and Jonena Relth

The Geeky Girl is back… This time with another interactive image focusing on an updated round of super cool Thanksgiving lesson plans, activities and games that can be utilized in your classroom prior to the upcoming break. So, if you’re in search of some tech-based Thanksgiving games to keep your students engaged before vacation, Edutech for Teachers has got you covered! Just hover over the interactive image to find tons of Thanksgiving-themed games and interactive learning activities for students and/or skip past the graphic to find additional materials for teaching and learning about this popular American holiday. Check out the full screen version of this image here. Additional Teaching & Learning Resources: » Scholastic News - Learn about how the pilgrims reached America and celebrated the first Thanksgiving via videos, slideshows and a virtual field trip. » TIME Magazine - An interesting article regarding "The Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Thanksgiving". » Teachers Love SMART Boards - A list of Thanksgiving-related activities that can be utilized with an interactive whiteboard. » abcteach - Games, puzzles and coloring pages designed for elementary students. » The Best Websites To Learn About Thanksgiving - From audio and video to engaging reading activities, Larry Ferlazzo’s comprehensive list of Thanksgiving web sites includes something for everyone! » The History Channel - Tons of videos related to the origins, history and traditions related to Thanksgiving. A few noteworthy videos include The History of Thanksgiving and the Mayflower Deconstructed. » National Geographic for Kids - Contains a funny fill-in turkey story/Mad Lib that can be used as for a writing activity. » Thanksgiving Web Quest - Visit Web sites about the Pilgrims, the Wampanoag and the famous harvest feast and learn new facts along the way! » 10 Thanksgiving Myths Dispelled - A cool infographic created by Misconception Junction. » The Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving - A web adventure in which students have to answer questions along the way. » Thanksgiving Trivia - The Huffington Post challenges you to take the ultimate quiz about Turkey Day. » Thanksgiving Quiz - Another fun holiday quiz created by Funnel Brain. » How Thanksgiving Works - A variety of Thanksgiving related articles and videos about the History of Thanksgiving as well as related customs, traditions and more from the creators of How Stuff Works. » What Really Happened? Comparing Stories of the First Thanksgiving - A great feature from the New York Times Learning Network that also contains links to other useful resources. » Thanksgiving Teacher Resources - Cross-curricular lesson plans, projects and ideas as well as videos, slideshows, art activities and more! » Thanksgiving Ideas for the Classroom - Interdisciplinary lesson plans, activity ideas and other curriculum resources from NEA. Classroom Connection: Use the resources and materials listed above to teach students about the Thanksgiving holiday.

I was reading through Rachel’s post related to activities for your e-book, and was reflecting on my own experiences developing e-learning courses in various industries, and I thought some of you folks might be interested to hear my perspective on working across industries and about which type of activities worked best for which industry. For many years I worked in the private sector developing military courseware. Most of these courses were related to aircraft familiarization, component removal/installation, and common core training. Within these programs, the most effective activities, by a landslide, were Electronic Performance Support Systems (EPSS’) as they provided the learner with both just-in-time and practical training for the task to be completed. These EPSS’ worked best for practical training (e.g. component removal/installation procedures), and were very effective at creating concrete learning experiences. Assessment was most often scenario-based or multiple choice, and of the two, scenario-based assessment activities seemed to be the most effective at ensuring the achievement of learning outcomes. After spending so much time in the private sector, I switched to post-secondary education. There was a steep learning curve in terms of determining effective communication strategies with faculty (who are very different than military SMEs) and navigating collective agreements, but I’m finally in a good groove and my pedagogical recommendations are more often implemented than not (woohoo!). Within the academic sector, there is a much broader range of learning activities, and it’s really neat to see what faculty members are doing in their classrooms. There are no EPSS or job aids, but there is group work and forum discussions, and synchronous sessions - oh my! With some courses, there are still instances of ‘read this, do that multiple choice’ styles, but this is few and far between, as faculty members are revising their learning activities to favour more active learning components (e.g. forum discussions, case studies, and presentations). It’s been really neat to see faculty members guiding their discussions (and sometimes complimenting this guidance with technologies, such as Actively Learn!) instead of lecturing students for 2 hours. Similar to military training, there is a predominance of self-directed learning as with most online courses, but all online courses have a synchronous requirement, where students must participate in a live session once or twice a week; to accommodate many learners (e.g. those who have scheduling conflicts), these sessions are recorded and can be watched asynchronously at a later time. Additionally, the faculty members are engaging their learners more actively (e.g. guiding forum discussions) than military instructors ever were. Where military training tended to be moving away from instructor-led training in favour of online learning, post-secondary it merely looking to enhance accessibility by creating an equitable learning experience for both on-campus and online students. What differences have you seen in learning activities, if you’ve had the opportunity of working across industries? Which type of learning activities seem to be working best, and which industry are you seeing these activities implemented?

Want to bedazzle your classroom web site, wiki or blog with some digital bling? Then check out SparkLee.com—a free glitter graphics generator and sparkling text creator. Here’s how simple it is: Just enter the desired text, select your favorite font, size, colors and angle—all within the site’s interface. Then with one click of a button, you now have some glittery goodness that can be downloaded for later use. Just right-click on your creation and use the "Save image as…" option. And that’s all, folks! SparkLee.com requires no registration, no downloads and no software installation. But it does provide you with a shimmering headline that will pimp out your site in no time at all. Check out an example shown below. Classroom Connection: Allow students to experiment with the SparkLee.com resource to generate titles, messages and/or names to bring some pizzazz to their web sites, wikis, blogs and/or e-portfolios.

Alright, folks! This is my very first joint e-learning challenge, and amen! Because…time is a hot commodity. This entry satisfies the requirements for both E-Learning Challenge #74 - Using Toys for Storytelling in E-Learning and E-Learning Challenge #84 - Using Image Sliders and Photo Galleries in E-learning. The Concept For e-learning challenge #74, the concept was to design a short interaction using toys as your primary characters, and for e-learning challenge #84, the concept was to show and share an image slider for e-learning. The Method Back in March of this year, I purchased a Lego Creator set for the express purposes of completing e-learning challenge #74 in March. It’s now the end of May. I had my husband set up his camera on a tripod set to record, and first filmed myself building the lego. Then, I disassembled my water plane and used a remote for the camera so that I could capture images of each step in the water plan development. Once all of the images and video were compiled, I tossed the video into Camtasia, removed the audio, and sped things up a whole bunch. Now, on the day of recap for e-learning challenge #84, I felt motivated to get something together for submission…at the last minute. I thought this might be a great way of using the image slider to display the steps for building out my water plane, so I audible-d all of my other ideas for this challenge and merged #74 and 84 into one! I chose a theme, tossed in the shapes for the steps, grouped them, added some animations, added layers for each step, and tada! The Result To view the full interaction Click Here.

As Quincy Jones once remarked, "I’ve always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, "Ain’t that the truth." That said, Edu-fun Friday is a series devoted to adding some humor to the lives of teachers who visit this blog. After all, there’s nothing better than ending the week on a positive note! Plus, do we have the best topics to provide us with some comic relief or what? This just cracks me up—probably because it’s so me in terms of stalking my students with text messages. Yep, there’s nothing like that Remind app! You should definitely check it out here.