What Would You Do?

This is a call to everyone that has ever designed, taught, or participated in a training course. I would like your advice on a design problem I ran into as an instructional designer.

Scenario
You have a full day workshop and a half day workshop. They both have the same content and use discussion and questioning learning approaches. There is one difference between them; the longer course has small group and individual activities that help the group apply the content to the real world. The shorter class still has interaction between the instructor and group, and between participants, just no application activities.

The $64k Question
Since all the content and course goals are the same, is it correct for both workshops to have the same learning objectives?

I can really use your feedback!

You Will Remember, You Will Remember...

I recently guest blogged (glogged) for a friend of mine from the world of hypnosis, Ellie Blunt. I don't have any plans to become a hypnotist, but I am impressed with the communication and learning applications of their approaches. I met Ellie through another hypnotist, my sister, L.S. King. No trance formations required, but maybe one of these days I can get one of them over here for another cross-field type of conversation. Tom, don't worry, I'll give equal time to the theorists, too. I can guarantee this will not be a lecture that will put you to sleep!

We're in the Book!

We are now a published author (kinda). I was very excited to see that our short (but valuable) contribution to the eLearning Guild's new book on Flash techniques is now available. We suggested the simple technique of using Flash components for eLearning to control screen space when there is a lot of reference content to include. For example, if you are using PowerPoint as your platform and want to include a lot of information on a slide, but do not want to open another window or link-away from the slide, a scrollpane is a perfect solution. I've found that this is a great solution for classroom trainers that want to point out some content that is a long piece in participant workbooks, so eveyrone can see exactly what you are referencing.


eLearning guild says that "...these tips will be useful to any designer or developer looking for best practices to incorporate into their own production process." The book can be downloaded from the Guild.