A wholly unqualified book review (WIP)

It took a while (no thanks to Lulu's dreadful low-cost shipping options), but I finally got my copy of Clive Shepherd's The New Learning Architect.  Sadly, it's taken me until now to be able to read more than one page of the damn thing (sick child, workloads, yadda, yadda).

So I'm going to keep this blog entry (started Feb 20) as my own mechanism for reviewing the book and making my own observations and comments along the way.  I also learned today, after setting up my new personal Twitter identity, that there's an online "book club" chat happening as of March 7.  If I'm lucky, I'll be more than 20 pages through the book by then (although at this rate, I wouldn't put money on it).  Mark Britz is acting as the facilitator/guide for the chat and I'm really looking forward to it.

I had some initial thoughts as I forge into the first chapter. 

New Tweet Space Done

...well, sort of.

I realized after my last post that I should probably separate my business and personal tweets and other activities.  So I've set up a new identity that will point followers here, but it will take me a while to replicate my list of those I follow to the new ID, and I can but hope that a good many business followers will make the trek over to this side of the house.

Also, thanks to my PLN, I learned how to establish Pages/Tabs at the top of the blog.  So I can have my lengthier profile attached as a page, rather than chewing up too much real estate on the sidebar.

Still much reading of posts to do for my College learners.  My Adult Learning group is a gregarious bunch and the activity has been astounding.  My Assessment & Eval learners are quieter, although I suspect the traffic will pick up today and tomorrow.

Design a Planet, or just my little piece of it?

"The chances of finding out what's really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied... Look at me: I design coastlines... I'd far rather be happy than right any day."
"And are you?"
"No, that's where it all falls down, of course."
"Pity, it sounded like quite a good lifestyle otherwise."

Slartibartfast to Arthur Dent.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Book 1

As a small foreward to this (probably) disjointed post, congratulations to Harold Jarche for his 7 years of independent and thought-provoking blogging.  He gives me hope that maybe another ex-soldier can make good in the learning world.


As I was participating in the most recent #lrnchat, I commented to Jay Cross that I wanted to be able to participate in more things like MOOCs and other readings, etc. (for example, Clive Shepherd's most recent book is still mostly unread) but scheduling was a challenge.  While he agreed he suggested prioritization, although I said to him that negotiating that kind of regular effort would likely require some coordination with those who sign my cheques.  He does, as he says, have the benefit of being his own paymaster and secretary.  Of course, as I pondered that exchange, I imagined Peter Block telling me that I just wasn't committed enough. ;-)

Shameless self-promotion

I just had my blog commentary on the excellent video-based rapid e-learning approach article posted by the good folks at OpenSesame!

Nothing like a little additional exposure to motivate you!

(I'll offer a small w00t!)

N00b Management 101

While I kept telling myself that my new online courses were College-level and not Graduate level, I realize now that I had confined my assumptions to the level of language used in assignment instructions and forum introductions. I hadn't really counted on people entirely new to e-learning or even people who were not very familiar with computers at all.

LRNCHAT Reflections from Feb 10.

Tonight's #lrnchat posed an interesting and completly hypothetical 'what if' scenario: What if you could wipe the slate clean for corporate learning and do it all over again?

Well, I can say that this one definitely sparked some serious interest among the participants, especially those who decided to join #lrnchat for the first time.  The transcript of the chat doesn't really show what a number of us were likely thinking: something a long the lines of, "ooh, so many ideas, and so little time", but then some of the neat ideas really came through....of course these are all the ideas that we L&D professionals keep in our personal wish lists, but it's nice to let them our for some fresh air once in a while.

Thoughts on a "controversial" approach to rapid e-learning development.

One of the things that popped up in the Thursday #lrnchat was a note from the folks at @OpenSesame about a blog post talking about using video as a rapid content development method.  I chimed in because I've had some success creating some quick & dirty assets to support our own rapid ID/Dev ecosystem.  So with their permission and encouragement I am recording a few thoughts on the post and what it could mean to organizations and individuals.

The author, Tom Carter, is a senior Insructional Designer in the UK and - like my own employer - his has a genuine interest in rapid e-learning, so as I read through the post, I actually wasn't surprised by what I read, in spite of the caveat that his opinions might be "controversial".  In fact, I didn't find it controversial at all.  Of course, that makes me wonder whether or not I'm as much of a "disruptive" innovator and experimenter as Tom is, or perhaps his ideas really aren't as controversial on this side of the pond.

Power to the PLN!

"When it comes down to it, there are really only two fundamental human activities. Learning is the other one."

PLN, you ask?  What the heck is a PLN?

Well, according to those in the know, it is a "Personal Learning Network".  Yeah, it's a nice term and all, but let's put this into perspective.

For those of you of a similar generation as me, think back to the people in high school that you might study with, or lean on for help in Calculus, Chemistry, or Physics.  Or maybe you were one of the bright ones who had people coming to you to explain things that made no sense when coming from your so close to retirement they could taste it teacher?  Well, that's a simple Personal Learning Network.

Taking (Online) College Instruction by Storm!

Well, I admit that I never thought it might happen, but as of today I am officially a College-level instructor because my two courses started today.

I found myself in this position by the purest of chance.  The backstory is that I live in a relatively major center with a nearby Community College.  As a product of the College system I have a certain amount of affection of the methods and approaches used therein.  This College runs a number of continuing education courses, including a certificate in adult learning (similar to the one I did years ago).  So, I figured I'd send out a general inquiry to say, "ya know, if you ever want/need part-time instructors for this gig I'd be, you know, interested.".  Based on my history with unsolicited resume submissions and the like, I didn't hold out a lot of hope for what I usually consider to be a pretty closed system.

Fate decided to keep me on my toes and I actually got a response to my query and eventually got an offer to teach not one, but two of the online editions of said certificate program.  That was back in October and I wasn't slated to teach until Feb., so it didn't seem quite real.

But, that was then, and this is now.  I've completed the edits to my course, and when I checked in last night I was pleasantly surprised to see that I even had learners enrolled!  So, things kicked off today. In my Adult Learning course I have 32 (!) learners, and in the Assessment & Evaluation course I have 12.  Of course, these numbers are likely to change as the course goes on, but I'm thrilled.  Lots of eager (and maybe not-so-eager) learners to mould, mentor, and guide.

I dug back through my online communities course from grad school and re-read Gilly Salmon's fine book, e-Moderating.  I tapped into some of my recent expertise and inspiration and I filled in what I thought were some of the gaps in one course, and worked with another new instructor to re-purpose and re-format another one because neither one of us could make head-nor-tail of the original approach (we also had learner feedback from a previous iteration to support our efforts).

So, I gave them a video introduction and I plan to do some of Salmon's "weaving and summarizing" as the content discussions progress.  I may even tap into some other activities through the 14 week run of the course, just to give the learners some other kinds of engagement.

While I find the thought of having to mark that many assignments a little daunting, I'm still excited about this new side activity.  I'll blog more as the courses progress.

The Unexpected leads to Energy

I probably should have written this post last night but sleep and prep took priority.

One occasional part of my job is that I get to go on-site with our clients and work with them.  In the recent past this has manifested itself as a mentoring/coaching session for our Rapid ID/Development platform because I'm ex-officio the resident platform expert and arguably the senior Instructional Design resource in-house.

Yesterday was a case in point.  I was tasked to do an on-site session for a client (something they were actually paying for as a professional service within one of their projects).  The original plan was to do some coaching on some specifics for managing updates to the courses we built for them, but through some fortunate happenstance, it didn't work out that way.

So instead of playing trainer/coach, I got to play Learning Consulant for the first half of the day.  The L&D Manager at the client decided that we should take a look at a Harassment & Discrimination document instead to see what we could or should do with it. 

I felt like an old war-horse pricking up his ears when hearing the sound of bugles or distant musket fire.  Excited, and chomping at the bit to get going!

So....as a small group we took the time to dissect the source content they were planning to put online, and I got the participants to mentally free themselves of constraints and put out different ideas.  (What I said to them, was this, "make your ideas so far out of the box you can't see the box with a telescope.")

And, wow...did we get some great ideas.

What did I get from it, you may ask?

Energy.  HUGE amounts of energy.  I revel in this creative process and stepping past the basics of content development and moving up a level to examine things as a program or continuous process.  We stopped thinking of this e-learning content as an event and they started seeing all the contributing pieces that support the learning (formal and informal).  I'm also encouraged when L&D professionals don't get all freaked out when the concepts of internal discussions or polling, or Social Media get raised as possibilities.  I'm equally encouraged when they see that there are other players in the learning process, like Internal Communications to promote and generate awareness/interest.

Yesterday reminded me that sometimes we do need to get away from event-based thinking and get way, way outside of the box.  Sometimes the "impossible" is really just "difficult, but do-able if we really work at it because it's worth it."

As Peter Block says, "change the conversation."

I felt inspired...and it was a day when I really needed it. Thanks to my clients and a little un-planning, we turned a predictable day into an energizing morning with lots of momentum for a focused, practical afternoon.

Dr. Fastbuild, or, How I Learned to stop ADDIE-ing and Love the RID

I admit, a cheesy and arguably weak take-off on the Stanley Kubric doomsday classic, but the sentiment is there.

There's an almost tragic community (including those who should know better) who espouse the beliefs and all the wonders of ADDIE.  I see it time and again in job postings where an "understanding of the ADDIE model" is an essential job requirement.

For an instructional designer planning e-learning solutions.

From organizations claiming to be on the leading edge of innovative solutions and technologies.

Really, guys?

CSTD Reflections - Mentoring/Coaching and Appreciative Inquiry

If anyone asks me what one thing I took away from this session, I'm almost embarassed to admit that I'd say, "Damn, it was hot in that room."

Fortunately, that wasn't the only thing I took away, but it wasn't the most comfortable setting, nor was it really conducive to the kinds of learning that Ann Naymie & Maureen Hannah were trying to get across.  (According to them, Peter Block was in the room before them and wreaked a little havoc on the dreadful theatre style seating that the MTCC seems to think is a good idea for conferences.

CSTD Reflections - Saul Carliner and "Staying Relevant"

One of my laments about things like CSTD is that when you get a speaker whose content hits you right *there* you're so engrossed that you find yourself not taking notes and having to reflect on the experience from memory.  That's not to imply that if you're taking notes then the speaker must be bad.  I enjoyed other sessions and still managed to take notes. For whatever reason, I was listening to Saul Carliner and didn't want to divide my attention/distribute my intelligence.

CSTD Afterglow

I know I still need to compile the remainder of the Day 2 summary and the entirety of the Day 3 Summary, but I just wanted to have this moment to reflect on the concept of the conference and that wonderful Afterglow.

It's been so long since I was at an event like this that I'd forgotten what kind of a mental rush and high I get from this sort of thing.  I revel in the exchange of ideas and the challenging of assumptions and the bringing together of peers, colleagues, and gurus.

CSTD Scheduling Thoughts

Apart from my previously discussed crying jag comments about lack of WiFi, today I really felt like a prisoner of the schedule overlaps.

I know it's tough to try and cram everything into a short duration, but I'm struggling to grasp why we had to deal with the overlap between the core sessions and the Thought Leader tracks?  For example, @robsof and I were both in the A7 Session on Design Thinking (Valerie Hickey & David Brown), but the session with Karl Kapp started 15 mins before the end of that session AND ran through a significant portion of the lunch hour.

CSTD Day 2 Keynote Summary

I'll beg your indulgence now because I'm doing this largely from memory.  Fortunately, this is a good thing because I was pretty well engaged in my sessions and only had time for quick tweets and not for a lot of reflective notetaking.

Opening Keynote - Peter Block

Wow.  Wow.  Wow.

CSTD Conference - My Day 1 Summary

CSTD Day 1 Impressions and Thoughts

(Warning:  This is a long post...feel free to grab what you wish from it)

After years of not being able to attend the Annual Conference I finally got the chance to go, but I will admit that I entered Day 1 with a little trepidation.

With a lot of conferences, there;s usually an opening keynote, then participants head off to their various sessions afterward, but CSTD took a different approach; the first day was dedicated to a large audience setting with a number of speakers all focused on helping us understand the various ways in which academic research can eventually find its way into real practice.  As I looked around the room and thought of spending all day in a conference seat there was a little twinge of angst.  However, full kudos go to Saul Carliner for setting the stage for the day and for putting things in perspective.  I also took the opportunity to change seating locations a couple of times and that had some unexpected benefits, but more on those later.

One critical disappointment - shared by others I spoke to - was the lack of WiFi availability for participants.  The organizers were trying to promote and encourage the conference backchannel through Twitter, but for those folks who a) brought laptops in hopes of WiFi, or b) don't know how to use their smartphones to tweet, or c) don't have smartphones or phones with data plans, or d) don't know how to use SMS to Tweet, it left them with no outlet to share observations and comments or to connect easily with other participants (or non-participants).  Some of us managed to "get the word out" but if we were stuck in somewhere like the South Hall or somewhere with lousy cell service, this conference would have been held in a relative vacuum.

To their considerable credit, CSTD acknowledged the issue and promised a better solution for 2011.  So, End rant. ;-)

The speakers for the day were all recognized experts in their field and - as expected - brought stong academic credentials to the table, but they also had their feet pretty squarely planted in - what many of us refer to as - the real world.

I'll take the opportunity here to put my own OpEd spin on the various speakers and the messages that resonated most with me.  The big disclaimer here, of course, is that this is what I observed and grasped from the sessions...your actual experience may vary. ;-)

Saul Carliner - Research Journals

Saul was up first with his initial thoughts about the value of research and who really publishes research results.  it served as a good reminder that research is generally shared only with other researchers through the medium of peer-reviewed journals.  Access barriers to the majority of journals aside, I note that some of this research is easier to digest than others - something not specifically mentioned, but something I know I experienced in the early days of grad school.  The important take-away for me is the concept of research as proof.  In general terms, research published in these journals really serves as evidence, rather than inescapable proof. 

He also points out that researching journals on their own won't necessarily lead to a transfer of knowledge to workplace situations, but...what it can do is to provide some avenues for experimentation in design and also to help you understand what other people already know.  I think that's important because we shouldn't be so completely convinced that what we're doing is "new".  Besides, there's no small value in researching (even informally) the lessons learned from any situation, particularly if it helps you avoid a particular - and previously unforeseen - pitfall.

He also talked about the value of research for its potential to unlock different avenues for evaluation, although he does point out that very few of us in the industry get past the smiley sheet stage (sidebar thought:  what can we do to change that?  Is it just a predisposition to following Kirkpatrick or do we really need a new model that will let evaluations become more organic to the learning throughout the cycle?)

The final big take-away from Saul's comments was that research tends to be looking more in the long-term (e.g. new models, new strategies) and isn't as adept at providing short-term solutions.  I think I can see why.  the submission and review cycles for peer journals can be somewhat lengthy, so a shorter-term solution might wind up being obsolete by the time it hits the presses...if it gets approved at all.  Longer-term solutions are - by definition - more strategic, and thus probably have a longer shelf-life for adoption, assimilation, and discussion.  At least, that;s what my gut is telling me.  I'll be interested to hear what others think.

Graham Lowe - Healthy Workplaces.

Graham started by getting us thinking about the elements of a "truly excellent workplace".  In a quick audience survey there was lots of focus on the human factors in workplace "happiness".  I find it interesting that there are fewer comments about appreciating the benefits of a viable business. That leads me to the question, "Could you still have a workplace that offers trust/respect/ownership that ultimately proves to be unviable as a business?  Is that still considered "healthy"?"

He also offered a really simple yet effective matrix on Low/High decision latitude and Low/High Psychological demands. 

Low Strain           Active

Passive                 High Strain

But I did find it interesting that he acknowledges that "Not all roles can fit in the upper quadrant".  So that kind of begs the question for me about the differences between psyhcological demands and cognitive demans and the links to employee engagement in their tasks.  Can you have a low-cognitive job but still be in a healthy workplace?

 

His High Performance practices aren't necesarily new - at least for me, thanks to my involvement with the Employee Engagement survey work at SSHA - but if there;s no culture of innovation (internally as well as externally), it's tough for most orgs to make these workplaces a reality. T&D is, of course, critical, but I think we need to make the distinction between formal and informal learning, and educate learners about the relative merits.

Culture becomes a strategic advantage (I'd say, imperative) in supporting these initiatives.  He spoke briefly about healthy vs unhealth organizations and I wonder, "What's the ratio of healthy-to-unhealthy?" 

I wonder if this concept is a long-term transformation similar to that of e-health, where it will take the generation of physicians raised with technology to be teaching student physicians for the transformation/adoption to be complete?  Will it take the generation of new workers - raised with an expectation of healthy workplaces - where these workers are now leading organizations - to drive the change and make them the rule rather than the exception.  Are we already on that path?  If so, how far do we still have to go.

He did make a point that I agreed with in principle: he suggests that we can research our organizations, because they should be treasure troves (my word) of information.  This is true.  But as I noted in a surprisingly popular tweet, "sure, you can mine for data, but sometimes you really need a pickaxe."  As my friend Victor is fond of saying, "those that talk about Silos in the workplace deserve to be buried in one."

Carolin Rekar Munro - RRU
Transformational Learning Experiences across Multigenerational Workplaces

(really wish she had used better quality graphics at the beginning of her presentation, but they got better)

Carolin offered us a really good recap of the various generational descriptors and attributes and a good reminder of things like attention spans for GenY for engagement and also employee retention.  She also reminded us to be cautious of stereotyping.  Probably a good practice for educators to understand some of these general guidelines but also to understand what makes each individual tick.

I really liked her excellent reminder of the polarities among learner/participant opinions and how you can often receive conflicting feedback which makes you question your whole plan.  (Sidebar note: I can see how things like "Unconference" can appeal to the right group of learners/participants but you really have to know your audience)

There was an -interesting and inspirational group dicussion about how we prime and prep participants to work and learn together in spite of divergent expectations and polarity of preference.  I don't know that there was consensus among the ad-hoc group I was in, but there were some good points being raised by all.  One gentleman surprised my by offering the observation that (coincidental with some recent readings at my end) that Learning Styles - as absolutes - are really a crock.  More politely put, while they make instinctive sense, a) they don't always apply to different situations, and b) they definitely don't have a lot of rigorous research showing their efficacy in practice.

I love serendipity.

David Livingstone - Relationship between Worker Practical Knowledge and Job Requirements

Tough to have the spot just before lunch when stomach rumbles tend to diminish participant engagement, and it's unfortunate that a lot of really awesome information and research from David's work didn't really make the leap to the audience.  I don't want to appear to be too harsh and I'm certainly not critiquing his data because he gave us some interesting statistics, but I think some of the key messages got lost in the sheer volume of text he opened with and the slew of charts.  Sadly, it didn't help matters that his data labels got bitten by the font monster.  In conversations with some participants at lunch, we seemed to agree that there was some really good stuff in his research findings and anecdotal comments, but they came so late in the presentation.  However, these comments and findings did leave a significant impression with me where we saw workers yearning for more autonomy in their roles and really desiring input into the various processes around them.  He also alluded to some of the challenges faced by Stelco and Dofasco and their lost generation of workers. 

What resonated with me in his presentation was teh fact that a lot of people feel like they have more education/skills than their jobs require.

My lingering questions are:  What does that say about our workplace when some employers complain that higher ed isn't preparing people for the workforce? Also, what do we need to do to harness all the "unused" education so that we're not stuck in "use it or lose it" mode?

Karl Kapp - Games and Learning

Q: what role can game splay in the learning cycle and what does the research say?  (Google "Kapp Notes" for more details)

Powerful statement for me that goes beyond gaming environments, "[an] extended commitment to self is (required for) the long haul."  In his discussion on avatars and immersive simulations, he notes that human social models influence behaviour, beliefs & attitudes (Bandura, 1986)

So, if Bandura knew this 25 years ago, why have we been subjecting people to 'death by [insert name of Presentation Graphics App here]' for years?

I was interested to learn about the research finding of a strong influence from avatars on learners even when their functionality is limited.  So, an avatar doesn't have to be CGI movie quality for it to resonate with the learner in a simulation.  

Even more interesting was this:  more than one avatar can work better than a single avatar.  e.g. multiple channels for providing the same information.  So how could we plan those channels within a simulation.  Are they concurrent?  Dependent on content or outcomes?  Lots of fodder for the research mill, there.

I was struck by my own experiences using Wii Fit:  avatars and their influence on exercise. He showed an example of avatars in a gym/fitness setting.  The research showed that if it looks like you, you're more apt to engage and exercise in the real world.  Might have to get back at it, I think. 

His research also showed, and I'm not really surprised, that there's no requirement for entertainment in a simulation.  Helpful, yes, but not required and certainly not applicable for ann learning situations.  I mean, if you're an airline pilot you don't want a Don Rickles voiceover if you're doing your Emergency Procedures refresher in the A340 simlulator, but you could probably inject some fun and humour into customer service simulations and scenarios because, let's face it, we've all been there.

Another solid point made was that "simulations aren't good just because they are simulations" - e.g. simulations with no interactivity.  Design elements  be(presumably instructional design?) can't leave the simulation and the sims need to be embedded into the instructional content to be truly effective.  We also have to consider how learners can be embedded in the context of the story.  (does this lead back to the concept of "digital storytelling"?)

Simulations have a strong influence on types of knowledge (Declarative 11%, Procedural 14%, Retention 9%)  There wasn't a lot of content on this so I think it's worth exploring more.

He quoted a figure of $100K to develop a game-type simulation.  (my take: only if you use the wrong tools!)

My take-away thought: "If you become the avatar, you can realize some real changes to life perceptions."  Neat!


Thomas Michael Power - Implementing Technology-based Learning


Given that this is more or less what I do on a regular basis (and what I did in grad school), I was tempted to this one a miss, but I'm really glad I didn't because I think this was the hidden gem for the day.


This talk was a lot less about just the basics of implementation but really about a transformative experience getting Educators to understand and leverage the power of technology as a means to support their learning efforts. So, yes, you could say "it's just about implementing it" but the title really undersold the value of the content included and if we get access to the slide decks, you can see why.


He opened by sharing some of his training experiences in some exotic parts of the world and talked about the challenges of trying to front-load a lot of the design process.  What really surprised me was the result of the quick poll on the relative effectiveness of ADDIE as a model for developing technology-based learning.  A shocking majority of people think it is!  Could it be because they haven't been exposed to other models and frameworks?  Personally, I couldn't go back to ADDIE for the work that I do simply because I'm now so spoiled by being able to move from concept to production that much faster.  ADDIE is so ideally suited to ISD and instructor-led settings, but that methodical, gated process just doesn't scale up for e-learning development...unless you really want to wait 4 months to develop 20 minutes of Level 2 e-learning.


What I liked about his presentation was that his research coincided with my own experiences in changing processes, tools, and approaches to dealing with our customers.  Sure, we've still got some learning to do at my place of work, but that's really half the fun when you think about it.  If nothing else, I felt a little validation for what we discovered largely by accident.


The day ended with a panel discussion with all presenters.  I won't get into the details of that because I was busy tweeting and chatting with some clients suffice it to say there were some good, relevant questions raised by the participants and we got to see a little more of the panelist expertise in action.


So...a good day.  One that realized more promise than its superficial description might have warranted.  I'm hopeful for similar inspirations and happy findings on Day 2.

A flood of #backchannel, but in a good way.

I'm a relatively recent presence on Twitter and I admit that I only got onto it for work purposes, but I now cheerfully admit I should have been on it for more selfish educational reasons long ago.

Case in point...

Given the nature of what I do, I gravitated to (and actively follow) the #elearning hashtag on my TweetDeck.  The connected nature of things in the interwebz, I soon found this thing called the #lrnchat - a regular chat among L&D professionals and Educators, where 5 questions get posted for participants to ponder and respond to.

Conference Bound!

Ok, so it's a local conference, but it's a milestone of sorts.

I'm headed to the CSTD Conference and Tradeshow next week.  It's been a shocking 5 yrs since I've been able to attend a big conference like this, my last one being E-LEARN 2005 in Vancouver.  No, it hasn't been 5 years since I've done any kind of professional development...I did have that whole grad school thing in there, too...but at long last the magical trifecta of availability, workload and all-important employer approval managed to present itself and I'm off, as they say, to see the Wizard.

Having watched - with no small envy - the backchannel from DevLearn, I'll be interested to see what kind of Twitter/Blog backchannel will come from CSTD '10  I had a quick (re)glance at the conference sessions to get some basic picks in (because time was running out to get registered) and there seems to be some interesting stuff on the go.  Granted, not as much on the leading edge side of things as DevLearn, but the audience is somewhat different..because it's a bit more of a generalist training & development constituency.  However, given that not all in the world is based on rapid e-learning (sadly), I'll be looking at the sessions that help keep my horizons broad and keep me reminded of all the other things out there in the corporate training & development world.

A small toot of the personal horn

I learned on Friday that a course I designed and developed took first place in the New Employee Orientation category at DevLearn2010.  I think I can honestly say that this is the first education package I put together that ever won an award for anything.

Can't believe I'm gonna say this, but, "W00T!!"