Staying Up to Date with Instructional Design Skills

I recently came across a question posted on the eCube LinkedIn forum that I responded to. While the question was how a person in between jobs could keep their instructional design skills up to date, I think it is important even for those with the jobs to keep their skills up to date. How can an experienced Instructional Designer with very limited experience in current instructional design software tools update their skills in order to be recognized and considered as a candidate for e-Learning positions? How does a person in…

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My Top 10 Learning Tools, Apr 2009

It’s time to update my top 10 learning tools and techniques list. This time I’ll try to focus more on tools and services. You can view my previous lists of Aug 08 and Jan 08. My top 10 learning tools in April 2009: Google Reader – I read blogs via RSS feeds. I have tried Google Reader, NetVibes, Bloglines and Feedly, and I have stuck to Google Reader. It also allows me to share interesting articles from my feeds. In case you are interested, you can view my shared items…

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Top 10 Blogs by Learning Professionals in India

Jul 2009 Update: You can find an updates list of blogs by Learning professionals and companies in India here.Time magazine came out with an issue of ‘Lists’, publishing various top 10 lists for 2008. RWW has many posts on various top 10s of the year. Inspired I started working on top 10 blogs by learning/training professionals in India, about learning/training. I found it hard to find 10 blogs that are updated regularly (at least 1 post a month)!!! Obviously I am not reading enough. So where are the learning/training professionals…

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Announcing eCube Community Site

Announcing the launch of eCube Community Social Networking site. Connect with other like minded professionals in the field of learning, education and training. Create your own social networking friend circle, write your blog, form groups to discuss specific topics, and share bookmarks, photos and files.Register now and join the community. Set up your profile to share your interest and skills.

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New Look at eCube

eCube now has a new look and feel. I wanted something bright and refreshing. I used the WP-Polaroid for Blogger template that I downloaded from eblog templates. It took more time than I expected but in the process I created a blog template upgrade checklist. I realized that there is too much code (analytics, tracking, label customization etc.) that is embedded that needs to be ported to the new template code. And the widgets got all messed up in the new template so I had to create many widgets all…

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Working/Learning Blog Carnival – April 2008

Dave Ferguson kicked off the first Working/Learning blog carnival (a collection of posts around one topic) on his blog. Blog carnivals are a kind of anthology-on-the-fly, a collection of posts from several blogs. For each issue of a carnival, participants post on their own blogs, and a host posts links to all the participating posts.The theme of the blog carnival is "Work at Learning/Learning at Work" primarily aimed at people who work in the training/learning area (that is, non-academics) e.g., how training/learning professionals go about their own learning, or how…

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Tips for Running a Team Blog

Cross posted on Michele Martin's The Bamboo Project blog.Michele asked if I was willing to share some tips for keeping my team engaged or things I am learning from starting up a team blog. She thought these would be helpful for people to get a feel of what things are like in the trenches. I have been sharing some of the progress in my own blog, but I felt this will be a good opportunity to consolidate learning from my experience.To start with, let me share that it isn’t easy.…

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eCube – Progress So Far

We have made a modest beginning to the eCube experiment. In the first month, we have had 26 posts from 10 authors besides me. Additionally, there have been 24 comments posted. So the team is participating.As I mentioned in my previous post, eCube is an experiment in reflective learning using Web 2.0 tools. This is also an experiment to bring in a learning culture in the organization, and an attempt to solve the business need of enhancing skills of a large diverse and divergent team of instructional designers and content…

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eCube – An Experiment to Create a Collaborative Learning Environment

Ray Sims recent blog post about motivation for technology adoption by end-users came in at an opportune time for me. Having blogged on my own for a while, I am now embarking on the journey of experiments. Inspired by the Bamboo Project, and challenged by the job of enhancing skills of a diverse and divergent (in more ways than one) large team of instructional designers and content developers, I have decided to experiment using Web 2.0 tools to bring in some convergence. And I need suggestions to make this succeed.We’ve…

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