Blogs and Vacation

Taking a vacation while maintaining a blog is a challenge. Time changes, air transport and heavy bags are enough. To add to this I visited family who has lie bandwidth Internet. I used my small, 4-year old Android to create blog entries, final papers for a graduate course, and blog entries. There were snags but the challenge was invaluable. Do you have similar stories to share?

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Smartsheet: an alternative to Microsoft Project

For years Microsoft Project dominated the market for project management software. It has a steep learning curve and is an expensive per seat cost. I was a technical writer for a small software company that used MS Project for the three project managers and myself. While I enjoyed learning about the science of project management from them in our meetings, I discovered that using the software was not that intuitive. I plugged in the tasks and timelines for several projects only to discover how challenging it was to have to refactor dates. It seemed to mess up the entire project such that I just stopped using it. It was more time consuming setting it up and refactoring it than just inputting status to show our progress. It looks like a better option is SmartSheet which is used by many major companies. You can sign up for a free trial to get familiar with it. The more you can learn about tools to manage instructional design projects, the more likely you are to be considered for the team. T

Easygenerator content authoring app

Here's another newer app that I just discovered. Maybe you already know about this one? Easygenerator sounds like its name. Like many apps it can convert PowerPoint slide decks to e-learning. https://www.easygenerator.com/en/features/powerpoint-import/ The thing with these content authoring apps is always the price. If you work on a team it's more likely your manager would approve of subscribing to some sort of app. It's not cheap, though. Take a look at the pricing below. Also, if you work independently either for a small business or as a contractor, the $1000 annual fee needs to be factored into the ROI of your projects. Do you think these prices are reasonable or a bit out of reach?

How much do apps matter in Instructional Design?

https://www.aura.com/learn/social-media-privacy-risks This week in my graduate course we discussed social media tools - Web 2.0 - that are useful in learning environments. My disclosure is that I typically don't use social media for personal use, and this makes it a bigger jump to think about using it for learning purposes. The irony is that I enrolled in this elective class because I am intrigued about using social media for learning environments. The points I vacillate on are data security and time commitment. With data security I would need to ensure that learners' data, user profiles, etc. are protected. This isn't the same thing if it's higher education and the university is using an LMS. FERPA and a contract protect student data and how it's used. With free social media apps there's more risk to a learner's content. I'm still exploring these tools to determine if there are settings to protects our learner's identities and content. One thing th

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