April Hayman

SALT 2010 New Learning Technologies Day 1

Mar 04

April HaymanUncategorized e-Learning, Evernote, New Learning Technologies, Open Source, SALT 2010, slideshare No Comments

The first day of the New Learning Technologies conference went off without a hitch. I found the presentations that I attended interesting and informative. As always, I took copious notes but, because of some issues with Internet access at the conference center, I am unable to live blog or tweet. Instead, you may access my notes one my public Evernote notebook: SALT 2010.

Additionally, my friend and colleage, Natalie Laderas, and I had the great honor to present at this conference. You may access our presentation, Leveraging Open Source to Develop e-Learning, on Slideshare.net.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to post! I look forward to hearing from you about what I have learned and shared with you.

~April

Goodbye…and Hello!

Jan 22

April HaymanFeatured, ISTE, Opinion, Uncategorized Higher education, ISTE, Professional development, Technology No Comments

Image by janusz l via Flickr

For the past three years I have worked as an instructional designer at Performance Learning Systems. It was a great experience and I learned quite a bit about design, teamwork, and myself. I have made some great friends while developing online higher education for teachers. But, like all great things, my time with PLS has come to an end. And, with a heavy heart, I must say goodbye to the friends and colleagues I have come to know so well.

And say hello to my new colleagues at ISTE. As of January 25, I will be working for this terrific organization as an instructional designer. I look forward to creating professional development that is informative, timely, and innovative. I find this opportunity exciting as I hope to continue my personal mission to help teachers prepare our kids for a world increasingly dependent on technology and the increasing amounts of available information.

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2009 in Review

Dec 20

April HaymanOpinion, Reviews, Uncategorized, e-Learning 2009, human brain, instructional designers, learning circuits, learning community, learning styles, networking tools, social learing, social networking, year in review 2 Comments

The Learning Circuits’ Big Question for December 2009 is “what did you learn about learning in 2009?”

Wow, what a tough question. Overall, I realized that learning is not what I thought it was. I think that the following five “aha moments” show what I learned about learning this year:

1. I’ll never know all the information I want in a tangible and applicable way even if I stay up 72 hours in a row going through tutorials, using software, asking questions, or reading. I learned that I have limits (nooooo! said the SuperMom) and am better for it. Now I can focus on the stuff that matters.

2. I have doubts about the learning styles veracity. There. I said it. The whole concept of visual, auditory, kinesthetic learning is too pat, too neat to explain the myriad wonders of the human brain, nervous system and how we process information. If you agree/disagree with that statement, feel free to post a comment and let the discussion begin!

3. The attention that my posts on developing an e-portfolio for instructional designers humbled me. It was a topic that, apparently, needed exploration and I am glad that I was able to offer a springboard for others in my field.

4. Social networking is not just for saying “hi” to long-lost college buddies. It is a means to learn in any byte size needed (Twitter, blogging, Digg, Delicious, etc). I learned more about instructional design within the past few months watching tweets come through Twhirl than I had in the previous six months before using Twitter. Social learning is the next step in e-learning (if it isn’t already).

5. Open source, open learning, open everything is something that resonates with me. I have learned more about open source in this past year than I realized after conversing with a colleague. This will most likely be the focus of my dissertation (yes, I began my PhD this year).

Now for my top posts, as determined by number of hits. Since I moved my blog recently to a hosted solution, some of the following links will point back to my original blog (aprilhayman.wordpress.com).

• How To Develop an Instructional Design Portfolio
• TCC 2009: Using Social Networking Tools to Build Learning Communities: A Case Study of the Punahou Technology Lab School Ning
• How to Develop an Instructional Design ePortfolio – Part 2
• How to Develop an Instructional Design ePortfolio – Part 3
• How to Develop an Instructional Design ePortfolio – Part 4
• Chicken and the Egg: Skill or Quality
• Food for Thought: Timothy Ferriss, learning and instructional design
• Open Source and Design Challenges

What I learned most, though, was that the community created, supported, and participated in by educators is second to none. You are a fabulous group of people who have given me food for thought and made me excited to learn from you about what you do, how you do it, and why you do it. I want to thank each you for the selfless giving of your time and energy.

I can’t wait for 2010!