The “sample” course I am using in my DevLearn presentation has morphed into more than originally planned. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I did not want to just make a lesson on baking cookies (any sample will work, but my day job’s courses are all proprietary). Don’t get me wrong, I love cookies.
So with the help of my lovely subject matter expert (I am biased as she is my spouse), we hammered out a course that will hopefully add to the corporate enterprise goals of Second Life in a very small way. Making Meetings Matter is the name of a series of seven courses on meetings tools.
So what is the morphing bit? Well, I was “encouraged” to submit the final course for DevLearn08’s DemoFest. This is a competition for eLearning material and is intended to show off new and novel approaches to delivering eLearning. Our course was selected as one of the entrants!
That is a nice accolade and the material in the DemoFest is different than in my presentation (Session 708, Friday at 10). The presentation focuses on how to use Second Life as a film studio for those of us on a limited budget (read: $0) and shows how video clips can easily be inserted into your existing training in a rapid and inexpensive manner.
The DemoFest submission goes beyond this by taking a complex (and dry) topic and serving it up as a short podcast. Think a bit of a blend of CommonCraft simplicity (in the way that the complex concepts he teaches are so easily digestible) with Second Life video as the medium. A very user centered approach explaining what is often made to be a dry topic.
My day job is with a company that creates software for the hospitality industry that deals directly with meetings. Thus, I am aware of the dire lack of real meeting skills in Second Life.
I hope that our Making Meetings Matter series also adds to the meetings community in Second Life (they will be available free inworld).