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Free Online Conference LearnTrends2009

October 19, 2009 By

From the LearnTrends Web site:


LearnTrends 2009 – The Corporate Learning Trends and Innovations Conference

November 17-19, 2009 | Online | Free


The theme/focus this year is on Convergence in Workplace Learning. We will bring together people who look at different aspects of learning and knowledge work to understand better what’s going on in those areas and how we should be thinking about this holistically.


As always, this conference is about getting together interesting people who bring a slightly different perspective and have meaningful conversation around innovation in workplace learning. We typically get more than a thousand people signed up and at least a hundred in each session.


To register, you must first register on the LearnTrends community and then register on the Conference Event Page.


Conference Hashtag: #learntrends

Lori Reed

Lori Reed, Managing Editor of ALA Learning, has more than 15 years experience in training and is the Learning & Development Coordinator for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library where she oversees the learning & development of a diverse group of staff at twenty libraries. Lori’s passions are performance consulting, learning strategies, and e-learning. Lori is coauthor, with Paul Signorelli, of Workplace Learning and Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers. Lori also blogs at LoriReed.com and can be reached at lori[at]lorireed.com.

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Online training: not as easy as it looks

September 4, 2008 By

(Here I go again—blogging about another WebJunction event. Can I help it if there’s some cool stuff shakin’ at WJ?)

If you’ve presented, facilitated, or produced a live, online training session or webinar, you have a sense of how many variables are involved. It’s a juggling act with virtual balls. The really successful trainers make it look easy and seamless.

WebJunction has partnered with InSync Training to offer the Synchronous Learning Expert certificate series to help you master seamless and smooth online facilitation, as well as design of online training and the opportunity to create your own capstone e-design project. The great advantage of taking this course through WebJunction is being in a cohort with other library staff with similar interests AND having the new WJ collaborative learning space to maximize your online learning experience.

As a prerequisite to the SLE courses, WJ is offering a FREE one hour introductory course, Learn How to Learn Online. There are two offerings of this course currently scheduled:

  • Tuesday, September 9, 2008 at 10:00 AM Pacific/1:00 PM Eastern
  • Wednesday, September 24, 2008 at 2:00 PM Pacific/5:00 PM Eastern

To enroll in either offering, visit http://tinyurl.com/5896z8.

Questions? Email courses@webjunction.org

Betha Gutsche

Betha Gutsche has been a virtual librarian ever since receiving her MLIS from the University of Washington Information School. Immersed in the online community of WebJunction, she has cultivated community connections through forums, live online events, and writing stories about the library community. She has delved into e-learning design, curriculum development, needs assessment, and all things connected to social learning in the online world. Betha is the editor-in-chief of the Competency Index for the Library Field. She is now the manager of Project Compass, a program working with public libraries to augment their service to communities impacted by tough times. Underneath it all, Betha is an artist and loves to raise awareness of visual literacy and introduce people to the power of image.

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Filed Under: E-Learning, Free Stuff, Presentation Tips, Synchronous Learning Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Talking Avatars

December 5, 2007 By

Everyone is on the podcast bandwagon and it’s easy to see why.  These small knowledge objects are accessible, portable, and even entertaining.  Their uses are varied, and organizations are finding neat ways to leverage podcasting. I’ve recently built some e-learning modules for Gwinnett County Public Library (our first foray into e-learning, by the way) and I’m hosting them on MOSS 2007.  While I was constructing our Virtual Classroom, I discovered how to directly embed video and podcast players into the site.  Now it was time to bring the Virtual Classroom to life. 

Enter TVnima.  Ever heard of it?  TVnima.com allows users to upload a podcast into an online TV studio and then have the user construct a news broadcast, complete with a semi-customizable avatar lip-synching your podcast.  I fell in love with this tool instantly.  It’s flexible, easy to use, and your learners will enjoy having a face to go with the audio.  You can even put your avatar into a Power Point.  Check out the news broadcast I made just for this post.   Sorry for having to link to Youtube, but I couldn’t figure out how to embed the player into this blog!   

Here’s a quick guide for making your own broadcast with completely free tools: 

n      Record a short podcast with a free mp3 encoder, such as Audacity, and export the mp3.

n      Enter TVnima.com and start a new project using their documentation.

n      Coordinate your avatar’s appearance, gestures, and camera angles.

n      Record your finished broadcast using a free screen capture tool like CamStudio, which is enabled for full-motion recording.

n      Save the file as an AVI and upload to Youtube.

n      Retrieve the HTML code from Youtube for the embeddable version of your broadcast.  If you want to embed video directly into Sharepoint without using Youtube’s player, I can share the code later.

n      Past the code into the HTML of your webpage and enjoy. 

I currently have a TVnima avatar embedded into my Sharepoint site at work advertising the upcoming training opportunities at the library.  Has anyone else out there used TVnima for training purposes?  If so, for what?  

Jay Turner

Jay Turner, Training Manager at Gwinnett County Public Library in Georgia, is responsible for all aspects of learning and development for a staff of 300+ employees. He considers himself a lifelong student, and delights in sharing his passion for learning with anyone willing to listen (much to their chagrin!) He is a library lifer, who began working in libraries as a teen and has worn almost every conceivable public services hat since. Jay’s diversity of experience helps him develop and deliver solutions that are creative, practical, and effective. He is a self-proclaimed information and tech junkie, who gets his fix by playing in his “digital sandbox” with new tools and neat ideas to make learning more accessible, more flexible, and more fun across any medium. He can be reached at jayturner[at]comcast.net.

Filed Under: Cool Tools, Free Stuff Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Applying Show Biz Techniques to Training

September 6, 2007 By

If you are looking for some different types of tricks and tips to liven up your training sessions, take a look at what Lenn Millbower offers. I first found out about him when I was looking for ways to use music at key times during training sessions. I found his book, Training With a Beat: The Teaching Power of Music to be very helpful.

Lenn also has a website, Offbeat Training and blog, Offbeat Online.

offbeat1.jpg.

You can sign up for his free monthly newsletter “dedicated to furthering Learnertainment® techniques.”

The newsletter articles focus on his eight Learnertainment® principles and their associated action steps.

The eight are:
• Emotion creates memory – Evoke Emotion
• Laughter produces positive energy – Harness Humor
• Visuals aid retention – Present with Props
• Suggestions guide outcomes – Make it Magical
• Auditory signals trump visuals – Mix in Music
• Multiple perspectives deepen meaning – Layer Learning
• The performance sends a message – Stage the Surroundings
• The performer sends a message – Perfect the Performance

Gail McGovern

Filed Under: Free Stuff, Presentation Tips Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Communicating at the Speed of Free Within Virtual Teams

August 3, 2007 By

The universe may be constantly expanding, but our world continues to shrink with each passing technological innovation.  It’s hard to believe that many of us were born into the arms of the waning Industrial Age, set out on the road of adult life during the Age of Information, and then looked up one day to find that we’d taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque, and ended up somewhere in the middle of the Global Village!  With so much changing so fast in our profession, we must be more agile in everything, from keeping up with the latest trends in learning to communicating with teams across our organizations. 

Virtual teams allow us to have many hands working on the same project in different locations.  The benefits are incredible: increased perspective from diverse team members, shorter turnaround time for projects, and more flexibility in scheduling (which affects how we serve our customers).  For all the benefits, the performance of virtual teams is largely influenced by communication.  And communication, as we all know, can be facilitated or hampered by technology. 

Communicating within a virtual team isn’t difficult with the right tools in place, and you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars for the latest iteration of Sharepoint to be effective.  There are several free tools available to get your virtual team moving at full speed.  Try Mind 42, a dynamic, free, web-based tool for collaborative brainstorming.  Manage your team’s projects with BackPack.  For collaborative writing, check out Writeboard, which keeps a version history of documents and it integrates with BackPack.  There are several other tools like Basecamp and ZohoPlanner that virtual teams can also leverage.       

Take advantage of these free tools and begin to explore the virtues of virtual teams. 

Jay Turner

Jay Turner, Training Manager at Gwinnett County Public Library in Georgia, is responsible for all aspects of learning and development for a staff of 300+ employees. He considers himself a lifelong student, and delights in sharing his passion for learning with anyone willing to listen (much to their chagrin!) He is a library lifer, who began working in libraries as a teen and has worn almost every conceivable public services hat since. Jay’s diversity of experience helps him develop and deliver solutions that are creative, practical, and effective. He is a self-proclaimed information and tech junkie, who gets his fix by playing in his “digital sandbox” with new tools and neat ideas to make learning more accessible, more flexible, and more fun across any medium. He can be reached at jayturner[at]comcast.net.

Filed Under: Cool Tools, Free Stuff Tagged With: , , , , ,
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