AJB CREATIVE LEARNING

This is Week 2 of Blogging. I am stumbling around in this new arena of social media and I am happy about the progress that I’m making. What seemed so frightening before is becoming less so. I set up my Twitter account earlier in the week, but admittedly didn’t post any tweets until today. And, then I had to switch my blogging platforms. I had grand visions for it... after seeing so many colorful and creative blogs. I, also, wanted to link it to my portfolio site.  But,  things did not go as planned. I was spending way too much time trying to get the formatting right, and not enough time writing. So, I switched from Squarespace to Blogger and I’m glad I did. Blogger is a lot easier to work with and I was still able to select a colorful template.    I  have to  keep reminding myself that I am still at the beginner stage and baby steps are alright. After reading about digital natives and digital immigrants, my learning curve makes sense. I fall into th...

Last week, I saw a post on Twitter that introduced a new term to me -- Learning Engineer. The graphic had several former job titles, including Courseware Developer, Instructional Designer, and Learning Experience Designer crossed out and Learning Engineer was left untouched. I thought to myself, not another name change. I am not sure that I am ready for this.   But, then a few days later, I noticed the eLearning Guild published a primer about Learning Engineering and I decided to pay more attention. The primer accurately contends that  “the advent of so many new technologies and the accompanying demands open a new world to those interested in moving from a traditional ID role to one including broader learning science and in-depth work with educational technologies, research, evaluation and data, and connecting people and information across systems.”   So, this means that one can  still remain  a traditional ID, but then there will be a higher-l...

A few years ago, I worked at a company that was undergoing a massive technological transformation. During my first week, I had to set up a meeting room using their homegrown application. I was shocked that I couldn’t just use the calendar functionality in Microsoft Outlook to book a room. It was as if I had walked back into 1996.   The company that I worked for had a mixture of what Marc Prensky in his article “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” terms digital natives (those who grew up in the digital age) and digital immigrants (those who transitioned to the digital age in their adult years). At the time, the company leaders primarily consisted of digital immigrants, who had arrived at the company in the 80s and 90s and most had never worked anywhere else. As a result, most of the company processes and the technology used originated in the 90s.  But,  the company had to shift to remain technologically competitive and they had to recruit a younger gener...

I should have started blogging along time ago. As an elearning designer, I have been writing digital content for my profession for over a decade. But, only the eyes inside of my company have been privy to my words. I have written technical manuals, job aids, and content for elearning and instructor-led courses. It’s funny that I’m not afraid to write company jargon but it’s a different story when I have to share my own thoughts with the world. Who wants to listen to me? I was a member of the camp that thought social media was a waste of time. But, over the past few years, I have been drawn to Youtube and Instagram and I have watched first hand as influencers have created their own community. While watching these influencers, I started to become inspired and I started learning things such as how to apply makeup and how to cook jerk chicken and my point of view towards social media started shifting. Now, I am particularly intrigued with online learning communities and how individual...