Upcoming Events Spring 2020

I have several upcoming events scheduled where I will present on scenario-based learning, certifications, and lessons learned in freelancing.

I will be presenting at several upcoming events in the next few months. Here’s where you can hear me present.

  • 2/5/20: ID Certificates and Master’s Degrees
  • 2/20/20: Go Beyond Boring: Creating Scenario-Based Learning that Engages Participants
  • 3/31/20: Streamlining Branching Scenario Planning and Design
  • Early April (Dates TBA): Freelancing Lessons Learned

ID Certificates and Master’s Degrees 2/5

This week, I’ll be speaking with Luis Malbas of the Training, Learning, and Development Community (TLDC) on Wednesday, February 5 at 11:00 EST. We’re going to talk about the differences between graduate certificates and master’s degrees, including which are most valuable, to whom, and why. Register so you can join live or watch the site for the recording (members only) and podcast.

The Certificates and Certifications Playlist featuring Christy Tucker of Syniad Learning
Wednesday, February 5
8 am PT/11 am ET/4 pm UKT

Go Beyond Boring: Creating Scenario-Based Learning that Engages Participants 2/20

This is one of the sessions in the eLearning Guild’s Making Learning Stick Online Conference. My session is on Thursday, February 20 at 2:30 EST. This event requires advance registration. This event is included in the Guild’s Online Conferences subscription. I’m one of 8 speakers for this online conference.

Making Learning Stick Online Conference February 19 & 20

Session description

Workplace training can be dry and boring, leaving participants disengaged. If participants can’t immediately see the connection between their training and their jobs, they won’t be motivated to complete training or to apply new skills to their jobs. Elearning can also be shallow and too focused on remembering content, without opportunities to practice new skills. Elearning often emphasizes behavioral engagement (clicking), at the expense of affective engagement (emotions and values) or cognitive engagement (effort and deep learning strategies).

Using scenarios can make your elearning more engaging and relevant. You can use scenarios to “hook” your learners and draw them into the story right from the start. Scenario-based learning can affect emotions to make participants care about the content and keep them engaged. You can use scenarios to practice relevant decision-making skills in situations similar to real life. Decision-making scenarios increase engagement, improve skill transfer, and accelerate expertise. While branching scenarios are one effective strategy, a range of options beyond branching are available for incorporating storytelling and scenarios in elearning. Many of these strategies can be used regardless of what development tool you use.

Streamlining Branching Scenario Planning and Design 3/31

I will be attending the Learning Solutions Conference in Orlando for my fourth time. This time, I’m presenting a collection of tips for making branching scenarios easier to create. I’ll start with initial analysis and planning and proceed through creating a functional prototype in Twine.

Use the discount code SPEAKERSHARE50 to save $50 when you register for the conference. If you register by Friday, February 7, you can save an additional $150.

I’ll also be giving an online version of this presentation to the Online Network of Learning Professionals. That version will be recorded, and I’ll post the video in early April.

Learning Solutions Conference & Expo
Streamlining Branching Scenario Planning and Design
March 31 2:30 -3:30 PM

Session description

Branching scenarios can be a great solution for giving people an opportunity to practice making relevant decisions. While they can be a valuable experience for learners, building branching scenarios can be time-consuming and challenging. If the first decision point has three choices, and those three each have three choices, and then those three have three choices, suddenly you have 40 slides after only 3 decisions for the learner. The complexity of that structure grows exponentially and can be hard to manage as an instructional designer. Additionally, SMEs who are accustomed to working on traditional elearning may be uncomfortable with branching, and you may be unsure how to get good stories and examples from them. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed in the process of planning and designing branching scenarios. What you need is a better process for creating branching scenarios.

In this session, you’ll learn how to streamline your processes for branching scenarios, from initial planning through writing and creating a functional prototype.

  • Start from the beginning, by analyzing the problem you’re trying to solve and identifying your objectives.
  • Learn what questions to ask SMEs and other sources to get stories and examples to incorporate in your branching scenario.
  • Learn tactics for eliciting responses from SMEs if you’re “stuck.”
  • Get tips for planning the flow of your scenario, including comparing different branching structures of varied complexity.
  • See how the free, open-source tool Twine can streamline the process of planning, writing, and prototyping branching scenarios.
  • Learn the advantages of writing one complete path in the branching scenario from start to finish before fleshing out the alternative paths.
  • Learn how to give learners opportunities to correct their mistakes in ways that both deepen learning and simplify your design.

By the end of this session, you’ll have a streamlined process for planning, designing, writing, and prototyping branching scenarios that can then be built in any authoring tool you want. This streamlined process will help you save time and make the complexity of branching scenarios more manageable.

Freelancing Lessons Learned in April

I’ll be giving a free webinar in early April with Robin Sargent and Nicole Papaioannou on some of the lessons we’ve learned working independently. We’ll announce the details soon (we have some big plans!). I’ll post about this later. If you’d like to be notified directly so you don’t miss anything, sign up here.

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