Author: Dave Zokvic, Assistant Instructional Designer

Dave helps Model eLearning forge narrative and gamified eLearning and side-hustles as a writer and designer for Northward Compass. Off the clock, he’s likely eating sushi, wandering around a bookstore, playing tabletop games, or picking up his next ‘digital native’ skill.

Moneyball Learning

The Oakland Athletics were always a budget-minded franchise.

In 2001, they finished 16 games behind the winner of their division and lost to the New York Yankees in the first round of the postseason. Then lost three All-Star caliber players in the offseason. 

In 2002, they won their division, went on a 20-game winning streak in the regular season (breaking the American League record), and won as many games (and went as far in the playoffs) as the Yankees—who spent almost three times what the A’s did in player salaries.

How?

By playing Moneyball. 

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3 Core Learning Skills for the 21st Century

How do we prepare our learners to succeed in the 21st century? More to the point, how do we equip *adult* learners for ever changing careers, skills and needs when the traditional education system is behind them?

First, I want to outline three critical skills—then I’ll talk about an organization that I think does well in this area and how they are helping to promote that particular skill for any worker in their organization. There are more skills than these that are required, but these ones top my list.

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Why (and How) I Guard my Instructional Design Time

In Ann’s recent post, she outlined some of her workflow processes and how she gets through the variety of tasks she has in any given day. As I was reading through and editing it, I really only had one thought cross my brain.

“I could never work like this…”

Continue reading “Why (and How) I Guard my Instructional Design Time”

Back to School: The Next Step to Becoming an eLearning Expert

It’s that time of year again (if you work in education anyway). Students are returning. Classes are starting. Here in the Midwest, we’ve got crisp fall mornings and dew on the ground. Syllabi are being doled out like (unwanted) candy, and expressions of eagerness and anticipation will soon be replaced by glazed eyes and existential dread.

And for the first time in about a decade, I’m joining the crowd.

Continue reading “Back to School: The Next Step to Becoming an eLearning Expert”

Reading Wide: Learning from Beyond Instructional Design

We’ve talked before about how eLearning is a broad field that involves many disciplines. So, if you want to learn something specific to further your design skill, or just for your own personal development, it’s pretty easy to find a book that will help you on your way. In fact, Jessica wrote a pretty good list of books related to eLearning just last week.

But I want to approach that list from a slightly different angle: what not-at-all eLearning related books can we draw eLearning lessons from? 

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Choosing Meaningful Names for your eLearning

Ever save a file with a random name, only to not be able to find it later? If only you’d named it something meaningful! The same can be said for naming your eLearning materials.

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Managing your Digital Toolbox

In the past I’ve talked about how it’s important to not let efficiency get in the way of trying to master a new skill or tool. Today, I want to expand on that a little bit and argue that sometimes, leaning too much into monetary efficiency is bad.

Yeah. Sometimes you just gotta spend money.

I’m not saying be frivolous. But rather try not to get locked into design patters solely by financial concerns. Let me explain.

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The eLearning Communication Loop

So, over the holiday break, in-between stuffing my face with food and watching holiday movies (yes, Die Hard counts), I took some time to catch up on my podcast backlog. Particularly, Limetown.

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Happy Holidays, from our eLearning Ecosystem to Yours!

Congratulations! You survived and got your final courses reviewed and published for 2018! Now’s the time for a well-earned break—at least that’s what we’ll be doing. Take some time to relax, and reflect on all the good you’ve done this year, and how you can improve in 2019. We can all be better.

Whatever your plans for the holidays, we hope you have a wonderful and relaxing time spent with family and friends, or just sitting by the fire reading a good novel. If you’re looking for some good choices, Jessica or Gary can probably toss some recommendations your way.

We’ll be back in January with our regularly scheduling programing—along with some fun new formats too!

Abandoning Dead End Ideas

A few members of our team (myself included) are preparing to present at the Symposium on Universal Design for Instruction and Learning. We’ve also got course starts, a project list as long as my arm, and new assessment tools we’re implementing in our LMS. And with the holidays fast approaching, needless to say, it’s just a teeny bit busy around here.

Then I discovered I had to write a blog post. Continue reading “Abandoning Dead End Ideas”