The Writers Gateway

Are You a Fresher Looking for a Job in Instructional Design?

By ruparajgo | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

Times are changing. Getting a job as a fresher is no longer so easy, I guess. At least that’s what the popular job portals in India tell me. I was checking some popular job portals and found that most employers require candidates with atleast 1 year of experience in Instructional Design. This does say a lot about the current job market.

This does not mean getting a job as a stark fresher is impossible. This means as a fresher with 0 experience in Instructional Design, YOU need to work hard to make it happen.

I have been training people in Instructional Design myself and I understand how important it is for them to get a job. This is when I thought of some ways in which freshers might be able to fight their way through this tough market.

So here are some tips for freshers looking for jobs in Instructional Design:

Decide what you want to do

The first step is to spend some time reading through job descriptions and decide what you want to do. Never go for brand names. Always go by job descriptions and your interests. For example, if you like working with technology, you can consider trying for a curriculum developer role in a software company. On the other hand if you like working on various subjects, you can join a company that is into custom e-learning. At the outset, be very clear about the kind of work you want to do. Remember Instructional Design is very vast!

Gain some basic Instructional Design skills

If you do not have time to take up a 3 month certification course in Instructional Design, try finding a mentor who can help you out or try a short duration course to gain some basic Instructional Design skills.

Understand Instructional Design and what Instructional Designers do

It is not important to remember instructional theories. It is more important for you to understand what instructional design is all about in simple terms and have a good understanding of the activities involved in creating training material (online and classroom). Most importantly, try to find out what freshers are expected to do when they join organizations.

Get your portfolio ready

As a fresher,having a portfolio might be not so easy. However remember times have changed. Employers want to hire people who can deliver and bring out results. Your portfolio can have sample storyboards. Carry some sample storyboards while you go for an interview.

If you know how to work with rapid e-learning tools, create a 2 minute learning video and add it to your portfolio. If you do not know how to work with a rapid e-learning tool, spend some time learning the tool on your own. Tools like Captivate are easy to use and easy to learn too.

Your CV must highlight your interest/knowledge/skills

When you write your CV, highlight your interest/knowledge/skills in Instructional Design. You might have been a lecturer in a college or a technical writer. While you write about your achievements, make sure you also communicate why someone must hire you.

Do not expect HR personnels to call you

Be proactive. Keep your eyes open for all kinds of opportunities. Submit your CV in all job portals. Contact some HR consultant and inform him/her that you are on the lookout.

Do not lose heart

If you fail in one or two job interview, remember that is not the end. Keep trying. Be patient. Things will work out if you work towards your goal persistently.

Do not stop learning

Let job interviews not distract you. Let failures not discourage you. During your free time, read about Instructional Design, practice writing and take up visualization exercises. Remember the more you practice, you will get better and better.

Learn from failures

Make a note of the questions asked in the interview. Reflect and think how you could have done better. If you attend 2 or 3 interviews, you will get an idea about the kind of questions people ask and what they expect. Prepare accordingly.

Network with Other Learning Professionals

Join a community for learning professionals such as Instructional Designers Community of India. Network with learning professionals and try finding opportunity through people.

Hope these tips help you.

If you want to add on to this, please do it in the Comments section.

Instructional Designers Meetup Jan 30, 2010 Across Cities in India

January 30, 2010 is going to be an eventful day. Instructional Designers across cities in India are going to meet in groups in their own city. This is going to be the first meeting organized by the Instructional Designers Community of India this year.

More than 50 Instructional Designers have RSVPd for the meetup. This is a great number to start with.

If you are in India, make sure you show up in the location specified in each of the cities below:

events

Update: Chennai meetup is happening at 11 AM in : Element K India Pvt. Ltd. RR Tower II, 4th Floor (you will need to sign in on 4th floor), Thiru-Vi-Ka Industrial Estate Guindy, Chennai 600 032 INDIA

It is not too late yet. RSVP for the meetup here. If your city is in the list, please feel free to gang up with your fellow Instructional Designers in a coffee shop or park.

Do not forget to:

Take pics
Take the minutes of the meeting

Let us have a great time on 30th Jan

Ribbon Hero – A Cool Game to Hone Your MS Office Skills

Microsoft has launched the prototype of a game called Ribbon Hero which will help people boost MS Office knowledge and skills. You just have to download and install Ribbon Hero. It acts as an add-in in MS Word, MS PowerPoint etc.

How does it work?

Every time you use a feature in MS Word or MS Powerpoint, you gain points for it. If you use advanced features, you gain more points. This cool add-in allows you to connect with friends in Facebook, compete and compare scores with them.

Here is a video that gives an overview of Ribbon Hero.

Here is a snapshot of my scores and progress:

Microsoft has also designed a lot of mini games which you will find if you click the Play Challenge button.

My View

I like the way Web 2.0 has been used to design this simple learning game. Since this is a multiplayer game, it will attract lot of attention and the best thing is you learn and gain points while you do your regular work.

I would give 4/5 for Ribbon Hero for just the idea and concept. I still have to figure out how effective this is going to be.

What do you think?

Learning in 3D is Fascinating!

BlogTourStop

I get surprised when I hear people buying virtual stuff. I always wonder why they do it and what kind of satisfaction they must be getting in buying things that they cannot touch and feel. Well, I realize I am not quite different from those people. I get so involved in playing Farmville and get so immersed in the activity that everytime I harvest and make money I feel so happy. When I bought my cottage, I felt as if I had bought it in real life. This is the kind of impact the immersive internet can create.

I have always found virtual worlds fascinating and I have always wanted to explore more into immersive learning. I was completely excited when Professor Karl Kapp invited me to be a part of his blog book tour. I was thrilled to read his book: Learning in 3D: Adding a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning and Collaboration. The book talks about the relevance of immersive learning today and gives ample guidelines to create a 3DLE (3D Learning Experience).

In this post I would love to pick up some interesting points from the book authored by Prof Karl Kapp and Tony O’Driscoll.

To begin with here is a good definition of 3DLE from the book:

A 3DLE is a highly immersive virtual environment in which the learners act and interact in real – time with each other and with the instructor to accomplish a challenge or task.

is a highly immersive virtual environ-

ment in which the learners act and interact in real – time with each other and

with the instructor to accomplish a challenge or task.

The authors nicely distinguish between 2D and 3D learning environments. In a 2D learning environment, web conferencing tools , chat facilities, whiteboard, application sharing etc. are used to drive interactivity. Whereas in a 3D learning environment is a highly immersive virtual environment where learners interact real time with one another and with the instructor and are emotionally involved to complete a challenge or task.

I like the way it is said in the book that in a 3DLE, content is king, but context is kingdom.

This book has lots of tips for Instructional Designers to design a 3DLE and has a lot of case studies too. I particularly liked the 7th chapter that talks about designing and developing a 3DLE. I loved the use of stories to illustrate what it takes to design a 2D learning environment and a 3D learning experience.

Some interesting points in this chapter are:

An Instructional Designer should be a Context Designer while designing 3DLE and consider things like building architecture, peer – to – peer interactions, informal learning spaces, and learner – to – object interactions.
When you design virtual learning experience, you need to focus on context, objectives and give lot of scope for collaboration. You must provide opportunity for demonstrating learning.

This chapter discusses how you can use ADDIE process to design a 3DLE.

To learn more, please read the book. Its worth it. Check out the Learning in 3D webiste and the buy the book here.

You can get a discount of 20% by using the code L3D1 at the Pfieffer/Wiley web site

Enjoy the book

Is it Skill or Will?

Consider this story:

A girl who works in a call center wants to become an Instructional Designer. Her writing skills are average. However she has this strong urge to learn. She gets motivated by creative work. She is willing to put in lot of hard work.

She finds Instructional Design interesting. She has gained some basic Instructional Design skills and is enthused to apply her skills and is excited about securing a job.

Now such a girl goes for a test in a company that is into e-learning development. She goes there sharp at 2 pm. She is made to wait for an hour. She is then given a test. The girl attempts the test and completes it on time. The interviewer tells her she can leave and she will be called for,if she clears the test. By the time the girl leaves the company it is 7 pm.

What happened next?

The girl got completely disheartened. She assumed that she has not done well in the test because the interviewer did not tell her anything. She got frustrated that after such a long wait, she got no feedback.

What might happen?

She might now lack confidence and might hesitate to become an Instructional Designer.

My Point

A person with poor language skills wants to become a writer. You know it is difficult. You think that person must not try to become a writer and do something else. Have you ever thought it will be great if that person becomes a writer because it is not IMPOSSIBLE?

There are so many ways in which we can thwart budding talent and discourage people. There are equally umpteen ways in which we can motivate and instill confidence in people. You can hire the best minds, the best people for your company. You might also be able to retain the best talent. Every other company is looking for “Great Instructional Designers, Great Programmers, Great Writers…. etc. etc.” What about the average crowd? What about the so called non-performers?

The real challenge is in turning a non-performer into a performer. The real success is in motivating an average mind to turn into a brilliant mind.

Are companies ready for this challenge?

A few days back Archana had written a post that had some really good guidelines to understand learners. She had written those guidelines in the context of kids and schools. I would apply those guidelines to freshers trying to enter companies.

With your permission Archana, I am rephrasing some of those guidelines here for all those who are hiring freshers.

You do not judge the capacity of a fresher by their performance in a test or by their behaviour the first time you meet.
Never underestimate someone’s capacity to perform.
Give people a chance to demonstrate. That’s why you have something called “Probation Period”.
Do not try to hire the best minds always. The so called best minds might fail to perform.
Do not expect people to know everything. Create an environment where people in your organization continuously learn and improve.
Do not try to fit people to your requirements. Rather hire people and train them so that they fit your requirements.
Do not throw questions at freshers. Try to enter into a discussion and understand how much they know, how much they are interested.

The bottom line is “It is not just SKILL/KNOWLEDGE but the WILL to perform and to put in hard work that makes for a good performer.

What say?

Got 2 Minutes for Learning?

I just read a blog post by Upside Learning and got inspired to write this post.

What I learnt?

Upside Learning has partenered with Skill-Pill of UK and are working on developing 2 minute learning videos that you can access on your mobile. You can access these videos anytime, anywhere. Skill-Pills can cover topics such as leadership. business english, management, personal skills and so on.

Here is an awesome video on 2 minute learning videos:

Here are some demos of 2 minute videos here.

I find this idea of 2 minute videos fascinating. These 2 minute videos can work very well like cheatsheets, or job aids. I think learner analysis and requirements gathering has to be done really extensively because you have to teach someone what they need most in just 2 minutes.

I would love to explore more into the design of these 2 minutes videos. Hopefully Upside Learning will post some

Meanwhile, please let me know if any of you have created such 2 minute videos. Would love to hear from you.

Instructional Design Basics for Stark Beginners

Hello All,

I am pleased to announce a training program on Instructional Design for beginners. You should consider this training program, if you are someone who has no clue about Instructional Design and wants to gain basic Instructional Design skills to get productive at work. This training will adopt a fast-paced approach with emphasis on learning by doing.

After the training, you will be able to :

Effectively gather requirements for an online training program
Conduct gap analysis
Conduct target audience analysis
Study and analyze raw content
Create instructional objectives
Derive the course outline
Design course flow
Design Instructional Strategies
Design Assessments
Create a Storyboard

Who should take this training: Aspiring Instructional Designers/Fresh Instructional Designers/Technical Writers/Teachers

Total training duration: 10 days ( 6 hours per day), Flexi timings.

Mode : Classroom Training

Location: Bangalore

This training is open to individuals and corporates.

If you wish to get more details on this training, please fill this form here or leave your query in the Comments section here.

2009 Top Posts – The Writers Gateway

Xmas-lights-no-drawer-orang

This post is in response to the Big Question December 2009 – What did you learn about learning in 2009?

I guess this year I learnt much more than last year. Let me quickly list some highlights here:

I have written better quality articles.
I have gained good instructional designing and technical writing skills.
I learnt microblogging through Twitter.
The Instructional Designers Community of India was formed this year and I got the opportunity to organize learning sessions . I must say I was able to network with a lot of learning professionals through the community. I also gained a lot from these learning sessions.

This year has also been very special because The Writers Gateway got featured in eLearning Learning and my post got listed in the Top 125 Workplace Elearning Posts .

Also people have come to this blog and left Thank you messages for the kind of help they found here. This is really exciting and encouraging

Well, 2009 is also now very special because this year I decided to become an independent professional.

This being said, presenting top posts from The Writers Gateway.

Here are the top 10 posts of 2009, first from elearning Learning.

Check the complete list here.

Posts that invited lot of discussions in The Writers Gateway are:

According to The Writers Gateway Stats, the following posts have also got a lot of attention:

Thank you all for making The Writers Gateway so special for me.

Hope you continue to read posts @ The Writers Gateway.

regards

Rupa

How Humour and Fun Work Wonders in Learning

Sometime back I had written a post on character driven stories for e-learning. This post talks about including emotions in e-learning that make a great impact on the audience. While strong emotions can make an impact, something light hearted can also make a great impact.

I have always felt amazed at how some creative people come up with amazing ideas to include humour and fun in learning.

I have also seen that when humour and fun is included in learning, it is always creativity at its best. When you want to use humour and fun in learning, you must think out of the box and you must not be restricted by traditional teaching/learning formats.

Here are two amazing videos that illustrate humour and fun in learning.

Facebook Manners

This video is about dos and don’ts in the social networking site – Facebook.

I love the way the dos and don’ts have been presented through a scenario. It is not just the scenario that appeals but the way the element of humour has been used. The video uses style parody of the 1950s to bring out the element of humour. I also like the way the rules are displayed from time to time on the screen. I really can remember every facebook rules taught in this video. This is because every scene is fresh in my mind only because of the humorous interaction between Alice and Timmy

The next video is called Creative Staircase. This is one other video that illustrates how the fun element makes learning happen so well. This video also illustrates well how an idea can be made to put to practice by creating a fun activity. Well coming up with such ideas does require a lot of creativity and imagination.

Creative Staircase

Hope you enjoy these two videos.

Have you ever used the element of humour or fun while designing your e-learning or any training for that matter?

I would love to hear from you

Why Enhanced Reading Comprehension Skills Are a Must for Instructional Designers?

By ruparajgo | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

In school I am sure all of us have go through reading comprehension exercises. I am not sure how many of us enjoyed it though All of us understand what Reading Comprehension means. The web definition of Reading Comprehension is the level of understanding of a writing.

Most of us have grown up reading a lot. We are used to reading novels, stories and magazines. We have honed our reading skills over a period of time. Yet there are times when we do not understand something or we might not be able to focus. If you are reading a novel or a story and it does not make sense, you can afford to keep the novel aside.

What if you are an Instructional Designer dealing with content/information?

If you are an Instructional Designer, I am sure you read content/information all the time. Content is King in any training material and Instructional Designer have to read/understand/evaluate the content before proceeding any further.

Instructional Designers cannot afford to skip any subject matter. Instructional Designers cannot be choosy about what they want to read or work on. Instructional Designers have to deal with any subject. It could be algebra, biology, personality development, leadership, software, technology and any thing and everything.

Imagine how much Instructional Designers have to read and grasp!

Here are some questions with relevance to what an Instructional Designer do with content/information and what are the challenges he/she might face:

What do Instructional Designers do with content/information?

Read volumes of content/information and glean what is most important to learners.
Read every bit of information and identify which bit of information will make sense to learners.
Read information from different sources and present it in a logical and engaging fashion.

What’s the challenge?

Instructional Designers might have to read volumes of content within a short span of time. For example, if you have to convert a book to an online training material, you might have to read about 150 pages of content/information in 6 hours or so and come up with the content outline.The challenge is not just reading the content but internalizing the information and looking at the content in terms of creating value for learners.

What does this indicate?

Instructional Designers must have Enhanced Reading Comprehension Skills. By enhanced, I mean not just superficial reading and understanding but getting to the essence of the subject matter.

As an Instructional Designer, you must be able to go through volumes of content and glean the essence of the content in a short span of time. This is because project deadlines are always tight and you will not have the time you actually require to read up all the content.

Well, gaining this enhanced reading comprehension skill is not so impossible as it appears. You can master any skill through a systematic approach and through a lot of practice.

Here are some tips for budding Instructional Designers to gain enhanced reading comprehension skills:

Before you start reading the content/information:

Keep the objective of the training material/e-learning course in mind.
Keep the target audience in mind.

When you read the content/information from different sources:

Scan through the content the first time. This way you will get comfortable with the content.
Do not attempt to read line by line or word by word. You will waste a lot of time by doing this.
Make sure you read all the content atleast twice. This will help you get a good grip of the content.
When you read the content/information the second time, read closely.
If you do not understand something and you have no external help, quickly google for the keyword. Again do not spend too much time researching if not required. If there is something you have no clue about, raise the alarm and get your superiors to attend to the problem.
When you go through every page, make notes of interesting/important information. Make sure you note down the page numbers.
Go back to the notes, examine the notes carefully and try to arrange the information in a logical order. By the end of this exercise, you will be able to visualize what the course outline must contain.

As you work on the training material, keep going back to the source content every now and then. With this I end my post here and leave it open for discussion.

What do you think?

Do you think Instructional Designers must have excellent reading comprehension skills?
As an Instructional Designer do you find any challenges reading content/information?
What tips would you give for budding instructional designers to read/understand content/information well

The Writers Gateway

Are You a Fresher Looking for a Job in Instructional Design?

Instructional Designers Meetup Jan 30, 2010 Across Cities in India

Ribbon Hero – A Cool Game to Hone Your MS Office Skills

Learning in 3D is Fascinating!

Is it Skill or Will?

Got 2 Minutes for Learning?

Instructional Design Basics for Stark Beginners

2009 Top Posts – The Writers Gateway

How Humour and Fun Work Wonders in Learning

Why Enhanced Reading Comprehension Skills Are a Must for Instructional Designers?

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