We had a great conversation with new Member Suzanne Shilton! Based out of New Zealand, Suzanne is a self-described "four year L&D newbie". However, our conversation revealed that Suzanne is definitely not a newbie, but a highly experienced Instructional Designer with a variety of L&D skills --- and a heck of a sense of humor to boot.
It might be that for the last nine months, the last thing on your mind has been Play. And that may be a problem. Because Play is vital to who we are as educators and ... human beings. And in this timely episode, Jeff Harry from Rediscover Your Play joined us to talk about Play, why it's important, and how to get more of it in your life. It was a high energy discussion that flew by fast. Lots of takeaways, and excellent food for thought for considering strategies to deal with this pandemic and ge...
In this Member Showcase episode, we talked with Miguel "Miggy" Baranda, whose mission for the last ten years has been to "Design Learning That Works". And in this conversation with this New Zealand based Instructional Designer, you'll understand why his perspective is so specific. If there's one thing that I got out of talking with Miggy, is that he's thoughtful, and answers questions with great intention. He's someone you'll definitely want to connect with. Give this showcase a listen and you'l...
In this episode, we had a Community Discussion to talk Professional Learning Communities, what they are, how you use them, and how to get the most out of them. There was lots of discussion in chat, including some interesting insights, which you'll hear. And quite frankly, discussing Community feels right at this time. We're living through a period of disconnect and disruption, and my personal honest take is that Community is something helping me get through it all. And although we are specifical...
In this episode, Rubina Halwani and Heidi Kirby discuss and answer questions about job descriptions and job seeking in L&D. This topic has been especially relevant over the last eight months, and this discussion was informative and helpful. The chat was busy with lots of engagement and if you're currently an L&D job seeker, you'll find this useful. Also, check out the new playlist I put together that features all of the job seeker broadcasts we've had over the last year. Nearly a dozen v...
In this episode, we talked with Cara North, Crystal Rose, Jonathan Hill, Bryan Smith, and Joseph Suarez about their experience attending the DevLearn Digital Experience or DDX. DevLearn is one of the most popular conferences in L&D, and like every other face-to-face event out there, went all digital for this year's version. Everyone in our panel, except Crystal, were speakers at the event, and Crystal was one of the support staff at DDX. This would be a good episode for you if you were an at...
Have you ever used Reddit to get your L&D questions answered? If not, check out this Community Discussion episode where we talk about the self-proclaimed front page of the internet, reddit.com. Reddit has discussion groups for pretty much anything you can think of, so it's not surprise there's one for instructional design, for elearning, and one for training. Give this episode a listen and decide for yourself if reddit is a resource you should add to your L&D toolbox.
In this Community Discussion, we talked about Productivity and Focus - two things many of us are short on right now. There were some great comments in this one with lots of audience chat and participation. We covered some GTD topics (Getting Things Done), managing to do lists, and general task completion. Check it out, hopefully it provides you with some inspiration to keep focused and knock some of those to do items off your list.
In this episode, I got to meet Darcy Goshorn. Darcy is currently an Instructional Designer at Bloomin' Brands, Inc which is the restaurant holdings company that owns the Outback Steakhouse chain. But prior that, Darcy spent over a decade as a teacher and educator in higher ed, including a stint as a learning technology director in Oslo, Norway. Darcy has a varied skillset and is definitely an experienced educator and instructional designer. Check out this member showcase and get to know Darcy. A...
One of the funner experiences doing Member Showcases is talking to new Instructional Designers. And we've been seeing more and more newbies to the field since the pandemic began, as educators are discovering the field of Instructional Design. And our Member Showcase guest, Chris Syracuse, is one of those new Instructional Designers. Like many others, he has already established a fascinating set of skills he brings to the field, in this instance for Chris: graphic design and UX. So give this epis...
In this episode, we talked with Randy Rebman about LMSes from the higher ed side of things - specifically Blackboard and Canvas LMS. It was just a couple of years ago that Canvas LMS stormed onto the scene and toppled Blackboard's ownership of the Higher Ed LMS space and we talked about why, the differences between the two types of systems, and what migrating from Blackboard to Canvas is like. Ultimately, I think this conversation left me with more questions than answers. I'm curious why Higher ...
This episode's guest, Sami Chan, did a really interesting thing on Linkedin. Sami put together a series of ten slide decks, all with 9 - 15 slides in each, and posted them every week or so in her timeline to share with her connections. The topic of the decks was "Skills I Learned By Playing Dungeons and Dragons". And for any of you that aren't familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, it's a role-playing game developed in the 1970's that takes place in a fantasy world. To play, participants take on di...
It almost felt a little awkward doing a Member Showcase with Cara North --- she's been a big part of TLDC for so long and I wasn't sure my questions would be engaging enough. But it just goes to show, all of our stories are so layered and interesting, that even the simplest of questions can still reveal much. There is a good portion of TLDC that only exists because of Cara's support, and many of you know about her generosity and how she leads. For those of you that don't, give this episode a lis...
We had a lot of fun geeking out in this episode with Mike Peacock from Aristocrat. Mike was here to share his eLearning workflow and digital file organization strategies. Managing multiple platforms, video, audio, storyboarding - as you probably know - can be a huge challenge. But it was great to hear a variety of tips from a legit pro audio professional and former music teacher. This kind of insight isn't common in L&D. So take some notes - the conversation was quick and we covered a lot of...
We started out the week at TLDC getting to know Cheryl Oberlin. It's been a few months since Cheryl signed up as a Member, and what I've noticed about her is that she's consistently positive, always supportive, and comes across as someone you can count on --- and that's not a typical feeling you get from someone you've only met through email and linkedin messages. So I was glad to finally talk with Cheryl -- and have those qualities solidified through our live conversation. Cheryl has an incredi...
In this Community Discussion episode, I was truly curious about 2020 twitter's actual value as a resource for L&D professionals. I recall being skeptical about it when I created my profile in 2007. But my guest, Kristen Hayden Safdie, as well as quite a few chat participants in this community discussion, showed me that with the right tools and some discipline, twitter offers insights, connection, and even support for challenges you may be facing in your job and career. Also, here is a link t...
In this episode, Lee LeFever returned to TLDCast to talk about his new book, Big Enough. You may know Lee from the CommonCraft Explainer videos that were viral hits on YouTube a few years back. We talked about those videos, how he's evolved as a media creator, and also discussed the topic of his new book, Big Enough: Building a Business that Scales with Your Lifestyle. What was particularly interesting was Lee emphasized that much of his success can be attributed to being able to write well - a ...
So here's a couple of interesting stats about Linkedin: They have 706 million users 45% of internet users who make more than $75,000 annually use LinkedIn while only 25% of those in the $50,000 to $74,999 range use the platform. So I guess that's part of the reason why you should be using Linkedin. But there's a whole lot more to it than just signing up. And I brought together a superb group of power users to discuss the why's and how's of Linkedin, and getting the most out of it. Tameka Harris,...
"Meet the learners where they are". That was a great point our guest Bejanae Kareem made to this episode's host, Toddi Norum. Bejanae is the Executive Director of the BK International Education Consultancy. And she and Toddi had an excellent, wide-ranging conversation about education, especially in STEAM programming, the science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics education initiatives for children. This episode was a change of pace for TLDC, but it was a joy to listen to two educator...
We had a great episode in this LMS Playlist featuring Leslie Marquez of Inspired Learning Design. A Senior Instructional Designer and Consultant, Leslie let us in on what she really likes about TalentLMS, a cloud-based LMS that Leslie recommends for small to medium-sized businesses. We discussed a variety of things: ease of use, flexibility, reporting, and much more. We also spent a good amount of time discussing the multi-tenancy capabilities of TalentLMS - a new concept for most of our audienc...
In this fourth episode of The LMS "Real Talk" Playlist, we had guests Christiana Houck and Mike Peacock from Aristocrat.com talk about the LMSs they use, Axonify and Oracle Taleo Learn. Christiana was really generous about sharing her screen on this one, so if you're researching LMSs or wanting to see an example of a leading edge LMS like Axonify, check out the episode on YouTube or Crowdcast to catch the visuals. They'll be linked below. There's no affiliate or sponsorship relationship here, so...
In this episode, Luis Malbas was joined by Cara North, Kristen Hayden Safdie, and Mike Sloat to talk about getting comfortable in front of a camera, especially if you're a guest on a video podcast or doing a presentation. The rules have changed since the pandemic began and we're not as critical about our on-screen personas as we used to be. With Zoom meetings being the norm, we're all getting PRACTICE talking via webcam - and that's the key: practice. We also talked about chat etiquette in forma...
In this episode we had guest Craig Sybert, an Adobe Connect and Adobe Captivate Prime expert over at Envolvemedia. We wanted to get some real talk from Craig, and hear what he liked and didn't like about Adobe Captivate Prime. It was a great conversation that covered why Prime may or may not be right for you. What stood out most to me was the integrative capabilities of the LMS, especially with Connect and Captivate. But give it a listen. It's well worth hearing some honest conversation about th...
Tom McDowall says "Everything the user sees is through the lens of your LMS." So in this episode of the LMS Playlist, Tom focuses on how to choose the right LMS, but with the perspective of making it a design decision. Also, we had lots of talk about the importance of the IT piece in this equation. It's critical you have a good working relationship with your IT Team when it comes to getting the most out of your LMS, and Tom goes into some great detail why. There were definitely more nuggets of w...
Confessions of an Instructional Design Hiring Manager. Cara North was an excellent guest in this conversation where she shared some of her more recent experiences reviewing candidates and hiring as a Training Manager. Nearly half of the live attendees in this episode were unemployed and a third of them were currently interviewing for ID jobs. So if you're in a similar situation, and even if you're not, this is a great episode to listen to and gain some insight into what someone like Cara is look...
In this episode, we were privileged to have Alan Natachu, Learning Experience Designer. Alan has been a long time supporter and Member of The Training, Learning, and Development Community and so many of us have learned from his expertise in media technology, software, and virtual reality. You'll want to be sure to connect with Alan - when it comes to learning technology, his knowledge is vast --- and he's an incredible person too. Enjoy!
Recently in our Slack group at tldchat.us, Rubina Halwani suggested bringing on some guests willing to talk about the LMSs they use or support, and what their experiences are like. Excellent idea! So in this episode, we talk with Quetzalcoatl Cortes about his experience as an LMS Admin. Quetzal is an instructional designer with a penchant for being resourceful --- pretty an ideal combination for being an LMS Admin. And in this talk, I learned much more than I expected about the role of an LMS Ad...
Call centers, food service, retail sales, catering - all places our community has picked up skills that have helped lead them to instructional design, skills that are sometimes called upon to do their jobs in L&D. Quite a few guests with host Kristen Hayden Safdie in this one - including a live chicken. So give this episode a listen and you'll surely reflect on your own helpful "non instructional design" skills. Featuring guests Cara North, Simon Blair, Kim Lindsey, Sam Rogers, Craig Sybert,...
It was a great pleasure to talk with Vanessa Alzate in our latest Member Showcase! As the President and CEO of Anchored Training, this showcase shows you why Vanessa and her company are heading for great things. The passion and enthusiasm for what she does is evident throughout the conversation and she's only just getting started. Check out her YouTube channel and be sure to connect with Vanessa! youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC6KXT8kU1uUzj23n76kpzQ linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com...
n this Member Showcase episode, we feature Tom McDowall, Chief Learning Geek at Evolve Learning Design, based in the UK. Passionate about his craft, it's easy to see why he hosts The iDeas podcast and is constantly working to improve professionally and continue to help others reach their potential. Tom is someone you'll want to get to know. If you're interested in instructional design, elearning, open-source tools, video and audio editing, and just effective training, Tom is an excellent connect...
