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ashley chiasson, m. ed

Ashley Chiasson, M.Ed

Instructional Designer & Consultant

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E-Learning Heroes Community Event: Toronto

July 10, 2014

Poster2

Today I’ll be presenting at the E-Learning Heroes Community Event in Toronto, alongside some amazing folks, and I’m terrified! If you’re here, please be gentle!

I plan to share a bunch of anecdotes, but most importantly, I’ll be sharing some work done by several other E-Learning Heroes.

[Update: The presentation went well; I had a lot of fun!]

Basically, I wanted to discuss portfolio building, why an e-learning portfolio is so important, why creating a portfolio can be a challenge, and why it really doesn’t need to be! You can check out the slides below!

How to Build Your E-Learning Portfolio from Ashley_Chiasson

Here is a link to the relevant Resource Sheet – Please download this PDF and check out the links at your leisure:

RESOURCE SHEET

3 Comments Filed Under: Instructional Design

Terminology Tuesday: Pedagogy Vs. Andragogy

July 8, 2014

Pedagogy and andragogy may be mysterious terms to you; I know they sure were when I first became an Instructional Designer, without a background in Education. I would often see these terms crop up in Statements of Work or High-Level Design Documentation to the effect of “following principles of andragogy…” or “adhering to proven pedagogical approaches…”. I had heard of pedagogy before this time, but andragogy? That was a new one. It wasn’t until I began my Masters of Education (Post-Secondary Studies) that I fully understood those two terms.

Pedagogy and Andragogy

Pedagogy can be considered the practice of teaching, and when folks refer to ‘pedagogical approaches’, they’re talking about the methods of teaching used to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes.The term pedagogy is Greek, meaning ‘child’ and ‘lead’ – lead the child – and, in the 21st century, is referenced when specifically discussing the practice of teaching in relation to individuals who have not yet reached adulthood. While the term pedagogy is still used in reference to adults, a newer term has been delegated to the adult learner population – andragogy.

Andragogy focuses on the practice of teaching as it relates to adult learners and uses prior learning and life experiences as a basis for relating information. While perhaps not as well-used as the former term, andragogy emphasizes self-directed learning, and the adults tendency toward this approach to learning. Andragogy is a term you may often hear tossed around with greater frequency due to the growth and emphasis of the lifelong learner.

Still confused? Check these resources out:

MERLOT Pedagogy Portal

Introduction to Andragogy + Pedagogy

Learning in Adulthood: A Comprehensive Guide

Andragogy (Malcolm Knowles)

Leave a Comment Filed Under: Instructional Design Tagged: Terminology Tuesday

3 Tips for Saving Resources on Your E-Learning Projects

July 7, 2014

I would consider it a best practice to ensure that when you cost out an e-learning project you follow your own costing strategy. Otherwise, you risk losing monetary and human resources, which leads to inefficiencies in the flow of your project, and stands to impact future projects/schedules. Here are some tips for saving resources on your e-learning projects:

1. Be specific with your contracts.

If you don’t allow room for client’s to find loopholes in your contracts, you save yourself a lot of headache in the long run. When creating your contracts, be very specific when it comes to deliverables and project requirements. If you aren’t sure of what you should include in your contracts, consult the communities you’re active in…or The Google.

2. Beware of scope creep!

Scope creep…-shudder-…all too often I’ve seen contractors fall victim to scope creep. Heck! I’ve even been guilting of allowing some of it on my own projects. Scope creep occurs when your client asks for things here or there, and being a doting contractor, you aim to please, so you give them things here and there. However, these are things not outlined in your contract (e.g. things you are not being paid for). Now, there’s nothing wrong with a little bit of scope creep – that’s why we have profit margins! But if you give an inch, sometimes you’ll have to go a mile, and that’s where you really run into problems.

Too much scope creep can be expensive! Once you agree on a contract, you should work very hard to stay within the terms of that contract. If you veer, I would recommend that you communicate to your client that X is typically something you charge for, but that you’re willing to waive the fee this once as a courtesy.

Often times scope creep can come in the form of additional review cycles; this lengthens the duration of your project and can be costly. Word to the wise – when being specific with your contracts, include a cap on review cycles and revisions to maintain efficiency.

3. Don’t be an over-achiever.

This one may seem obvious, but before drafting up a contract, be confident with your abilities to meet the contract. There’s nothing wrong with over-delivering on a client’s expectation, but there is something wrong with being unable to deliver because you’ve over-estimated your abilities.

What am I saying? Well – if you’ve just started learning to code, don’t offer to develop a client’s WooCommerce site from scratch with a two-week delivery time. It just ain’t gonna happen. You’ll be disappointed in yourself and your clients will be too. We want to nurture the relationships we have with our clients, not agitate them!

Leave a Comment Filed Under: Instructional Design Tagged: Freelance Advice

Terminology Tuesday: Gamification

July 1, 2014

There’s really no rhyme or reason for my term selection this week; Gamification is just a term being kicked around within the e-learning community, and if you were ever wondering what it meant, look no further! I will say that I feel the term has been used a bit less in recent years, but maybe that’s just within the circles I follow.

Gamification? What the heck is that?!

Gamification is a process in which you turn your course into an interactive learning experience for your users…creating a game of sorts. Often times, Gamification is intended to appeal to the competitive nature of humans by offering a fun experience in exchange for rewards, badges, level ups, or the like. Just think about Candy Crush – How awesome did you feel once you finally beat level 125? While you certainly didn’t learn much, it definitely felt like an accomplishment.

A great (and simple-ish) example of Gamification is Lumosity; here is a series of games, based on neuroscience, that leverages rewards (based on your intellectual improvements) to improve your memory, speed, attention, and problem solving abilities. You’re motivated to continue visiting the site and playing the games under the rouse that you will increase your overall performance index.

But why is Gamification good for learning?

As I said before on this page, and I’ll say it again, Gamification appeals to the competitive nature of humans. Even if you’re not innately competitive, you may find yourself motivated to compete with yourself. In a society where younger students have come from a generation of video gaming, Gamification also has the ability to make learning ‘cool’ and relatable. I once worked with an organization that developed a gesture-based learning experience to teach pilots aircraft marshalling signals – it utilized Xbox Kinect technology, and almost everyone who ‘played the game’ found themselves impressed, and because they were completing the signals in a practical simulation, they retained what was being taught in a meaningful way.

Another positive to Gamification is that it offers variety. Instead of having to endure traditional chalk-and-talk style face-to-face lectures, students can glean the information in a more engaging format, and teachers can focus their efforts on squeezing more into their curriculums (as politics often dictate) or finding meaningful ways of supporting the information learned within the games to support information retention.

Leave a Comment Filed Under: Instructional Design Tagged: Terminology Tuesday

Terminology Tuesday: Podcasts

June 24, 2014

This week I thought I would chat a bit about podcasts, because 1 – the weekly e-learning challenge (you can read about it in my previous post – scroll down) inspired me, 2 – I looooove listening to podcasts, and 3 – they’re commonly used within distance higher education courses (albeit, they’re rapidly being replaced for video).

What is a podcast and why are they popular?

Podcasts can be considered anything requiring a subscription to a digital media download; however, within recent years the subscription part of things is becoming less and less of a necessity. I’ve been seeing more and more folks use podcasts for their opt-in email lists as a way of giving subscribers something extra (and building their lists), but typically, the subscription part is optional nowadays.

Podcasting seems to have come into its own within our new information society and with the emergence of smartphones and other portable devices (e.g. iPods) – people want information and they want it now! Or, they want to numb the commute to work with a little bit of education or entertainment.

Podcasting in Education

One of my contracts is with a local university who was quite the pioneer (at least provincially) with their broadcast distance courses. I remember watching channel 33 when nothing else was on and ‘sitting through’ Psychology lectures as a 10 year old. With the evolution of technology, costly television broadcasts have been replaced by a number of solutions; however, many faculty members I’ve encountered seem to lean in to podcasting as a means for disseminating their lectures; primarily those who were used to the former television broadcast format.

Now, there’s good things and bad things about podcasting in education (in my honest opinion). Some good things are being able to reach audiences and simulate a traditional lecture style. Some bad things are that folks often replace their 1 hour video-based lecture with a 1 hour podcast based lecture, and that can be BAD NEWS…especially for individuals who aren’t audio learners. Personally, I have a hard time learning from audio, so I appreciate visuals with complementary audio. Podcasts for education really aren’t my thing…but, I have seen them done well, and those are usually podcasts that are broken down into palatable chunks of information which support the weekly readings in a meaningful way.

You seem to support the idea of podcasts, yet you don’t enjoy educational podcasts? What podcasts do you enjoy?

I tend to save my learning for more practical and/or visual approaches (supported by audio – sure, but not predominantly audio), but I do really enjoy listening to podcasts. I find myself favouring those podcasts that are interview-based and with hosts who can captivate my attention and make my laugh. Therefore, I listen to a lot of comedian-based podcasts. Some of my favourites include:

Totally Laime, Totally Married, and Totally Mommy – Elizabeth Laime and her husband, Dr. Rosen Rosen (er Andy) really take my week to the next level; I find myself listening to all three of their podcasts each week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday) while I muddle through my work. They make me laugh, dish out tons of unqualified advice, and allow me to effectively multi-task.

Alison Rosen is Your New Best Friend – I enjoy listening to Alison and her gang; they have two streams per week and the interview style is engaging and relatable. I especially appreciate the tangents she tends to go on and her segment Just Me or Everyone.

This Feels Terrible – I don’t tune in on a regular basis, but when I do, I find myself in a McGathy marathon, listening to everything I missed since the last time I tuned in. Erin interviews folks about their experiences with love and relationships, and the stories are often relatable and hilarious (and sometimes sad).

So while not quite educational, these podcasts provide a great background noise solution to my work week and seem to amp up (or at least support) my productivity!

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Leave a Comment Filed Under: Instructional Design Tagged: Terminology Tuesday

3 Easy Ways to Increase Your Productivity!

June 23, 2014

First off – I have to admit that as I type this, I’m pushing out a couple of responsibilities…or procrastinating…or not being productive. I’m justifying it by keeping an eye on the lasagna I have in the oven (supper made – productive, no?!) and throwing the frisbee for our dog.

The topic of productivity came up today, so I felt like I should probably chime in and offer my two cents; hopefully someone finds these tips useful!

1. Find productive background noise.

Typically, I will listen to podcasts while I work. However, I have a fairly strict rotation of podcasts I listen to (because change is hard!) and when those run out, I find myself consulting some background noise that allows me to be productive while I work. Here are some examples:

Consult Songza Concierge and choose something that doesn’t overwhelm you! For me, I tend to veer towards the Mellow Indie playlists because I know I’ll get carried away singing along to anything from the 90s (not productive). Alternatively, they have several stations that just play background noise.

Coffitivity claims to increase your creativity, keeping you at your best, by providing some background coffee shop noises. A lot of people find this helps boost their productivity; however, after five years of managing a busy Starbucks, this type of background noise stresses me out as I’m constantly waiting for the ‘rush’.

Stereomood was one of my favourite things to stream in my last cube farm job. 1 – we didn’t have a lot of options for things we were able to stream and this one was obscure enough that it hadn’t been blocked, and 2 – it lets you base your selections based on mood  (Songza concierge does this too – but Stereomood came preceded Songza for me).

2. Let technology help you with your productivity.

There are tons of applications out there to help you with your productivity, and a few things I’ve heard good things about include:

Todoist is a to do list and task manager application; it allows you to enter in tasks (and group them under projects), and you can check things off the list as you complete each task (and we all know how fulfilling that can be)!

Inbox Pause – I don’t use this yet because I haven’t reached that level of popularity (either that or my clients have been very considerate), but I have friends and colleagues who use this and swear by it. Inbox Pause lets you set an ‘away message’ of sorts, letting folks know that you’ll respond when you’re available. Your email inbox is then paused and you are no longer distracted by all of the emails coming in (until of course you’re ready for such distraction).

Unroll.me has been the answer to all of my prayers! I cannot even explain to you how life altering this very simple procedure is. It’s free and it lets you select which subscriptions (I know they’re piling up in your inbox) you want to free yourself from (unsubscribe from) and which ones you want to receive in a daily ‘roll up’. This has been AH-MAY-ZING for me! Everyday I get my little digest and scroll through – if there’s been any action in the communities I’m apart of, I’ll take the opportunity to respond at this time instead of distracting myself throughout the day.

3. Group like items.

I’m not the most organized person on the planet, but one thing I find enhances my productivity is to group like items. Initially, I’ll group items based on delivery deadlines. Once that’s done, I’ll try and do all of my Microsoft Word together, all of my Microsoft PowerPoint work together, and all of my Articulate work together (and so on and so on). This has really helped me boost productivity because I’m not jumping around as often as I once was.

I’ve mentioned several times before, but using Parallels for Mac has also helped me out in the productivity department because it’s allowed me to ‘group like items’ in terms of my Operating Systems, and allows me to not jump back and forth between Windows and Mac OS to use some of the programs I use which are only native to one OS or the other.

5 Comments Filed Under: Freelance, Small Business Tagged: Freelance Advice

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Meet Ashley

Ashley ChiassonI’m a Instructional Designer with over 15 years of professional experience, and have developed e-learning solutions for clients within the Defence, Post-Secondary Education, Health, and Sales sectors. For more about me, click here!

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